The Project Gutenberg eBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 93, No. 569, March, 1863
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Title: Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 93, No. 569, March, 1863
Author: Various
Release date: January 21, 2025 [eBook #75167]
Language: English
Credits: Richard Tonsing, Jon Ingram, Brendan OConnor, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE, VOL. 93, NO. 569, MARCH, 1863 ***
BLACKWOOD’S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
NO. DLXIX. MARCH 1863. VOL. XCIII.
CONTENTS.
CAXTONIANA.—PART XIV., 267
NO. XIX.—MOTIVE POWER (_concluded_)
MRS CLIFFORD’S MARRIAGE.—PART I., 284
AN ENGLISH VILLAGE—IN FRENCH, 301
LORD MACKENZIE’S ROMAN LAW, 314
THE PERIPATETIC POLITICIAN—IN FLORENCE, 321
THE FRANK IN SCOTLAND, 330
KINGLAKE’S INVASION OF THE CRIMEA, 355
THE OPENING OF THE SESSION, 384
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. DLXIX. MARCH 1863. VOL. XCIII
CAXTONIANA:
A SERIES OF ESSAYS ON LIFE, LITERATURE, AND MANNERS.
By the Author of ‘The Caxton Family.’
PART XIV.
NO. XIX.—MOTIVE POWER (_concluded_).
The next day the atmosphere was much cooler, refreshed by a heavy shower
that had fallen at dawn; and when, not long after noon, Percival and I,
mounted on ponies bred in the neighbouring forests, were riding through
the narrow lanes towards the house we had agreed to visit, we did not
feel the heat oppressive. It was a long excursion; we rode slowly, and
the distance was about sixteen miles.
We arrived at last at a little hamlet remote from the highroads. The
cottages, though old-fashioned, were singularly neat and
trim—flower-plots before them, and small gardens for kitchen use behind.
A very ancient church, with its parsonage, backed the broad
village-green; and opposite the green stood one of those small quaint
manor-houses which satisfied the pride of our squires two hundred years
ago. On a wide garden-lawn in front were old yew-trees cut into
fantastic figures of pyramids and obelisks and birds and animals; beyond
the lawn, on a levelled platform immediately before the house, was a
small garden, with a sundial, and a summer-house or pavilion of the date
of William III., when buildings of that kind, for a short time, became
the fashionable appendage to country-houses, frequently decorated inside
with musical trophies, as if built for a music-room; but, I suspect,
more generally devoted to wine and pipes by the host and his male
friends. At the rear of the house stretched an ample range of
farm-buildings in very good repair and order, the whole situated on the
side of a hill, sufficiently high to command an extensive prospect,
bounded at the farthest distance by the sea, yet not so high as to lose
the screen of hills, crested by young plantations of fir and larch;
while their midmost slopes were, in part, still abandoned to
sheep-walks; in part, brought (evidently of late) into cultivation; and
farther down, amid the richer pastures that dipped into the valley,
goodly herds of cattle indolently grazed or drowsily reposed.
We dismounted at the white garden-gate. A man ran out from the farmyard
and took our ponies; evidently a familiar acquaintance of Tracey’s, for
he said heartily, “that he was glad to see his honour looking so well,”
and volunteered a promise that the ponies should be well rubbed down,
and fed. “Master was at home; we should find him in the orchard swinging
Miss Lucy.”
So, instead of entering the house, Tracey, who knew all its ways, took
me round to the other side, and we came into one of those venerable
orchards which carry the thought back to the early day when the orchard
was, in truth, the garden.
A child’s musical laugh guided us through the lines of heavy-laden
apple-trees to the spot where the once famous prizeman—the once
brilliant political thinker—was now content to gratify the instinctive
desire _tentare aërias vias_—in the pastime of an infant.
He was so absorbed in his occupation that he did not hear or observe us
till we were close at his side. Then, after carefully arresting the
swing, and tenderly taking out the little girl, he shook hands with
Percival; and when the ceremony of mutual introduction was briefly
concluded, extended the same courtesy to myself.
Gray was a man in the full force of middle life, with a complexion that
seemed to have been originally fair and delicate, but had become bronzed
and hardened by habitual exposure to morning breezes and noonday suns.
He had a clear bright blue eye, and a countenance that only failed of
being handsome by that length and straightness of line between nostril
and upper lip, which is said by physiognomists to be significant of
firmness and decision. The whole expression of his face, though frank
and manly, was, however, rather sweet than harsh; and he had one of
those rare voices which almost in themselves secure success to a public
speaker—distinct and clear, even in its lowest tone, as a silvery bell.
I think much of a man’s nature is shown by the way in which he shakes
hands. I doubt if any worldly student of Chesterfieldian manners can
ever acquire the art of that everyday salutation, if it be not inborn in
the kindness, loyalty, and warmth of his native disposition. I have
known many a great man who lays himself out to be popular, who can
school his smile to fascinating sweetness, his voice to persuasive
melody, but who chills or steels your heart against him the moment he
shakes hands with you.
But there is a cordial clasp which shows warmth of impulse, unhesitating
truth, and even power of character—a clasp which recalls the classic
trust in the “faith of the right hand.”
And the clasp of Hastings Gray’s hand at once propitiated me in his
favour. While he and I exchanged the few words with which acquaintance
commences, Percival had replaced Miss Lucy in the swing, and had taken
the father’s post. Lucy, before disappointed at the cessation of her
amusement, felt now that she was receiving a compliment, which she must
not abuse too far; so she very soon, of her own accord, unselfishly
asked to be let down, and we all walked back towards the house.
“You will dine with us, I hope,” said Gray. “I know when you come at
this hour, Sir Percival, that you always meditate giving us that
pleasure.” (Turning to me,) “It is now half-past three, we dine at four
o’clock, and that early hour gives you time to rest, and ride back in
the cool of the evening.”
“My dear Gray,” answered Percival, “I accept your invitation for myself
and my friend. I foresaw you would ask us, and left word at home that we
were not to be waited for. Where is Mrs Gray?”
“I suspect that she is about some of those household matters which
interest a farmer’s wife. Lucy, run and tell your mamma that these
gentlemen will dine with us.”
Lucy scampered off.
“The fact is,” said Tracey, “that we have a problem to submit to you.
You know how frequently I come to you for a hint when something puzzles
me. But we can defer that knotty subject till we adjourn, as usual, to
wine and fruit in your summer-house. Your eldest boy is at home for the
holidays?”
“Not at home, though it is his holidays. He is now fifteen, and he and a
school friend of his are travelling on foot into Cornwall. Nothing, I
think, fits boys better for life than those hardy excursions in which
they must depend on themselves, shift for themselves, think for
themselves.”
“I daresay you are right,” said Tracey; “the earlier each of us human
beings forms himself into an individual God’s creature, distinct from
the _servum pecus_, the better chance he has of acquiring originality of
mind and dignity of character. And your other children?”
“Oh, my two younger boys I teach at home, and one little girl—I play
with.” Here addressing me, Gray asked “If I farmed?”
“Yes,” said I, “but very much as _les Rois Fainéants_ reigned. My
bailiff is my _Maire du Palais_. I hope, therefore, that our friend Sir
Percival will not wound my feelings as a lover of Nature by accusing me
of wooing her for the sake of her turnips.”
“Ah!” said Gray, smiling, “Sir Percival, I know, holds to the doctrine
that the only pure love of Nature is the æsthetic; and looks upon the
intimate connection which the husbandman forms with her as a
cold-blooded _mariage de convenance_.”
“I confess,” answered Percival, “that I agree with the great German
philosopher, that the love of Nature is pure in proportion as the
delight in her companionship is unmixed with any idea of the gain she
can give us. But a pure love may be a very sterile affection; and a
_mariage de convenance_ may be prolific in very fine offspring. I
concede to you, therefore, that the world is bettered by the practical
uses to which Nature has been put by those who wooed her for the sake of
her dower: and I no more commend to the imitation of others my abstract
æsthetic affection for her abstract æsthetic beauty, than I would
commend Petrarch’s poetical passion for Laura to the general adoption of
lovers. I give you, then, gentlemen farmers, full permission to woo
Nature for the sake of her turnips. Our mutton is all the better for
it.”
“And that is no small consideration,” said Gray. “If I had gazed on my
sheep-walks with the divine æsthetic eye, and without one forethought of
the profit they might bring me, I should not already have converted 200
out of the 1000 acres I possess into land that would let at 30s. per
acre, where formerly it let at 5s. But, with all submission to the great
German philosopher, I don’t think I love Nature the less because of the
benefits with which she repays the pains I have taken to conciliate her
favour. If, thanks to her, I can give a better education to my boys, and
secure a modest provision for my girl, is it the property of gratitude
to destroy or to increase affection? But you see, sir, there is this
difference between Sir Percival and myself:—He has had no motive in
improving Nature for her positive uses, and therefore he has been
contented with giving her a prettier robe. He loves her as a _grand
seigneur_ loves his mistress. I love her as a man loves the helpmate who
assists his toils. According as in rural life my mind could find not
repose, but occupation—according as that occupation was compatible with
such prudent regard to fortune as a man owes to the children he brings
into the world—my choice of life would be a right or a wrong one. In
short, I find in the cultivation of Nature my business as well as my
pleasure. I have a motive for the business which does not diminish my
taste for the pleasure.”
Tracey and I exchanged looks. So, then, here was a motive for activity.
But why was the motive towards activity in pursuits requiring so little
of the intellect for which Gray had been characterised, and so little of
the knowledge which his youth had acquired, so much stronger than the
motive towards a career which proffered an incalculably larger scope for
his powers? Here, there was no want of energy—here, there had been no
philosophical disdain of ambition—here, no great wealth leaving no
stimulant to desires—no niggard poverty paralysing the sinews of hope.
The choice of retirement had been made in the full vigour of a life
trained from boyhood to the exercises that discipline the wrestlers for
renown.
While I was thus musing, Gray led the way towards the farmyard, and on
reaching it said to me,—
“Since you do farm, if only by deputy, I must show you the sheep with
which I hope to win the first prize at our agricultural show in
September.”
“So you still care for prizes?” said I: “the love of fame is not dead
within your breast.”
“Certainly not; ‘Pride attends us still.’ I am very proud of the prizes
I have already won; last year for my wurzel—the year before, for the cow
I bred on my own pastures.”
We crossed the farmyard, and arrived at the covered sheep-pens. I
thought I had never seen finer sheep than those which Gray showed me
with visible triumph. Then we two conversed with much animation upon the
pros and cons in favour of stall-feeding _versus_ free grazing, while
Tracey amused himself, first in trying to conciliate a great dog,
luckily for him chained up in the adjoining yard, and next, in favouring
the escape of a mouse who had incautiously quitted the barn, and
ventured within reach of a motherly hen, who seemed to regard it as a
monster intent on her chicks.
Reaching the house, Gray conducted us up a flight of oak
stairs—picturesque in its homely old-fashioned way—with wide
landing-place, adorned by a blue china jar, filled with _pot-pourri_,
and by a tall clock (one of Tompion’s, now rare), in walnut-wood case;
consigning us each to a separate chamber, to refresh ourselves by those
simple ablutions, with which, even in rustic retirements, civilised
Englishmen preface the hospitable rites of Ceres and Bacchus.
The room in which I found myself was one of those never seen out of
England, and only there in unpretending country-houses which have
escaped the innovating tastes of fashion. A bedstead of the time of
George I., with mahogany fluted columns and panels at the bedhead,
dark and polished, decorated by huge watch-pockets of some
great-grandmother’s embroidery, white spotless curtains, the walls in
panel, also painted white, and covered in part with framed engravings
a century old. A large high screen, separating the washstand from the
rest of the room, made lively by old caricatures and prints, doubtless
the handiwork of female hands long stilled. A sweet, not strong, odour
of dried lavender escaped from a chest of drawers, polished as bright
as the bedstead. The small lattice-paned window opened to the fresh
air; the woodbine framing it all round from without; amongst the
woodbine the low hum of bees. A room for early sleep and cheerful
rising with the eastern sun, which the window faced.
Tracey came into my room while I was still looking out of the casement,
gazing on the little gardenplot without, bright with stocks and pinks
and heartsease, and said, “Well, you see £600 a-year can suffice to
arrest a clever man’s ambition.”
“I suspect,” answered I, “that the ambition is not arrested but turned
aside to the object of doubling the £600 a-year. Neither ambition nor
the desire of gain is dead in that farmyard.”
“We shall cross-question our host after dinner,” answered Tracey;
“meanwhile let me conduct you to the dining-room. A pretty place this,
in its way, is it not?”
“Very,” said I, with enthusiasm. “Could you not live as happily here as
in your own brilliant villa?”
“No, not quite, but still happily.”
“Why not quite?”
“First, because there is nothing within or without the house which one
could attempt to improve, unless by destroying the whole character of
what is so good in its way; secondly, where could I put my Claudes and
Turners? where my statues? where, oh where, my books? where, in short,
the furniture of Man’s mind?”
I made no answer, for the dinner-bell rang loud, and we went down at
once into the dining-room—a quaint room, scarcely touched since the date
of William III. A high and heavy dado of dark oak, the rest of the walls
in Dutch stamped leather, still bright and fresh; a high mantelpiece,
also of oak, with a very indifferent picture of still life let into the
upper panel; arched recesses on either side, receptacles for china and
tall drinking-glasses; heavy chairs, with crests inlaid on their
ponderous backs, and faded needlework on their ample seats;—all,
however, speaking of comfort and home, and solid though unassuming
prosperity. Gray had changed his rude morning dress, and introduced me
to his wife with an evident husbandlike pride. Mrs Gray was still very
pretty; in her youth she must have been prettier even than Clara
Thornhill, and though very plainly dressed, still it was the dress of a
gentlewoman. There was intelligence, but soft timid intelligence, in her
dark hazel eyes and broad candid forehead. I soon saw, however, that she
was painfully shy, and not at all willing to take her share in the
expense of conversation. But with Tracey she was more at her ease than
with a stranger, and I thanked him inwardly for coming to my relief, as
I was vainly endeavouring to extract from her lips more than a murmured
monosyllable.
The dinner, however, passed off very pleasantly. Simple old English
fare—plenty of it—excellent of its kind. Tracey was the chief talker,
and made himself so entertaining, that at last even Mrs Gray’s shyness
wore away, and I discovered that she had a well-informed graceful mind,
constitutionally cheerful, as was evidenced by the blithe music of her
low but happy laugh.
The dinner over, we adjourned, as Percival had proposed, to the
summer-house. There we found the table spread with fruits and wine, of
which last the port was superb; no better could be dragged from the bins
of a college, or blush on the board of a prelate. Mrs Gray, however,
deserted us, but we now and then caught sight of her in the garden
without, playing gaily with her children—two fine little boys, and Lucy,
who seemed to have her own way with them all, as she ought—the youngest
child, the only girl—justifiably papa’s pet, for she was the one most
like her mother.
“Gray,” said Tracey, “my friend and I have had some philosophical
disputes, which we cannot decide to our own satisfaction, on the reasons
why some men do so much more in life than other men, without having any
apparent intellectual advantage over those who are contented to be
obscure. We have both hit on a clue to the cause, in what we call motive
power. But what this motive power really is, and why it should fail in
some men and be so strong in others, is matter of perplexity, at least
to me, and I fancy my friend himself is not much more enlightened
therein than I am. So we have both come here to hear what you have to
say—you, who certainly had motive enough for ambitious purposes when you
swept away so many academical prizes—when you rushed into speech and
into print, and cast your bold eye on St Stephen’s. And now, what has
become of that motive power? Is it all put into prizes for root-crops
and sheep?”
“As to myself,” answered Gray, passing the wine, “I can give very clear
explanations. I am of a gentleman’s family, but the son of a very poor
curate. Luckily for me, we lived close by an excellent grammar-school,
at which I obtained a free admission. From the first day I entered, I
knew that my poor father, bent on making me a scholar, counted on my
exertions not only for my own livelihood, but for a provision for my
mother should she survive him. Here was motive enough to supply motive
power. I succeeded in competition with rivals at school, and success
added to the strength of the motive power. Our county member, on whose
estate I was born, took a kindly interest in me, and gave me leave, when
I quitted school, as head boy, to come daily to his house and share the
studies of his son, who was being prepared for the university by a
private tutor, eminent as a scholar and admirable as a teacher. Thus I
went up to college not only full of hope (in itself a motive power,
though, of itself, an unsafe one), but of a hope so sustained that it
became resolution, by the knowledge that to maintain me at the
university my parents were almost literally starving themselves. This
suffices to explain whatever energy and application I devoted to my
academical career. At last I obtained my fellowship; the income of that
I shared with my parents; but if I died before them the income would die
also—a fresh motive power towards a struggle for fortune in the Great
World. I took up politics, I confess it very frankly, as a profession
rather than a creed; it was the shortest road to fame, and, with
prudence, perhaps to pecuniary competence. If I succeeded in Parliament
I might obtain a living for my father, or some public situation for
myself not dependent on the fluctuations of party. A very high political
ambition was denied me by the penury of circumstance. A man must have
good means of his own who aspires to rank among party chiefs. I knew I
was but a political adventurer, that I could only be so considered; and
had it not been for my private motive power, I should have been ashamed
of my public one. As it was, my scholarly pride was secretly chafed at
the thought that I was carrying into the affairs of state the greed of
trade. Suddenly, most unexpectedly, this estate was bequeathed to me.
You large proprietors will smile when I say that we had always regarded
the Grays of Oakden Hall with venerating pride; they were the head of
our branch of the clan. My father had seen this place in his boyhood;
the remembrance of it dwelt on his mind as the unequivocal witness of
his dignity as a gentleman born. He came from the same stock as the
Grays of Oakden, who had lived on the land for more than three
centuries, entitled to call themselves squires. The relationship was
very distant, still it existed. But a dream that so great a place as
Oakden Hall, with its 1000 acres, should ever pass to his son—no, my
father thought it much more likely that his son might be prime minister!
John Gray of Oakden had never taken the least notice of us, except that,
when I won the Pitt scholarship, he sent me a fine turkey, labelled
‘From John Gray, Esq. of Oakden.’ This present I acknowledged, but John
Gray never answered my letter. Just at that time, however, as appears by
the date, he re-made his will, and placed me as remainder-man in case of
the deaths, without issue, of two nearer relations, both nephews. These
young men died unmarried—the one of rheumatic fever, a few months before
old Gray’s decease; the other, two weeks after it; poor fellow, he was
thrown from his horse and killed on the spot. So, unexpectedly, I came
into this property. Soon afterwards I married. The possession of land is
a great tranquilliser to a restless spirit, and a happy marriage is as
sedative as potent. Poverty is a spur to action. Great wealth, on the
other hand, not unnaturally tends to the desire of display, and in free
countries often to the rivalry for political power. The golden mean is
proverbially the condition most favourable to content, and content is
the antidote to ambition. Mine was the golden mean! Other influences of
pride and affection contributed to keep me still. Of pride; for was I
not really a greater man here, upon my ancestral acres and my few yearly
hundreds, than as a political aspirant, who must commence his career by
being a political dependant? How rich I felt here! how poor I should be
in London! How inevitably, in the daily expenses of a metropolitan life,
and in the costs of elections (should I rise beyond being a mere
nominee), I must become needy and involved! So much for the influence of
pride. Now for the influence of affection; my dear wife had never been
out of these rural shades among which she was born. She is of a nature
singularly timid, sensitive, and retiring. The idea of that society to
which a political career would have led me terrified her. I loved her
the better for desiring no companionship but mine. In fine, my desires
halted at once on these turfs; the Attraction of the Earth, of which I
had a share, prevailed; the motive power stopped here.”
“You have never regretted your choice?” said Tracey.
“Certainly not; I congratulate myself on it more and more every year.
For, after all, here I have ample occupation and a creditable career. I
have improved my fortune, instead of wasting it. I have a fixed,
acknowledged, instead of an unsettled, equivocal position. I am an
authority on many rural subjects of interest besides those of husbandry.
I am an active magistrate; and, as I know a little of the law, I am the
habitual arbiter upon all the disputes in the neighbourhood. I employ
here with satisfaction, and not without some dignity, the energies
which, in the great world, would have bought any reputation I might have
gained at the price of habitual pain and frequent mortification.”
“Then,” said I, “you do not think that a saying of Dr Arnold’s, which I
quoted to Tracey as no less applicable to men than to boys, is
altogether a true one—viz., that the difference between boys, as regards
the power of acquiring distinction, is not so much in talent as in
energy; you retain the energies that once raised you to public
distinction, but you no longer apply them to the same object.”
“I believe that Dr Arnold, if he be quoted correctly, spoke only half
the truth. One difference between boy and boy or man and man, no doubt,
is energy; but for great achievements or fame there must be also
application—viz., every energy concentred on one definite point, and
disciplined to strain towards it by patient habit. My energy, such as it
is, would not have brought my sheep-walks into profitable cultivation if
the energy had not been accompanied with devoted application to the
business. And it is astonishing how, when the energy is constantly
applied towards one settled aim—astonishing, I say—how invention is
kindled out of it. Thus, in many a quiet solitary morning’s walk round
my farm, some new idea, some hint of improvement or contrivance, occurs
to me; this I ponder and meditate upon till it takes the shape of
experiment. I presume that it is so with poet, artist, orator, or
statesman. His mind is habituated to apply itself to definite subjects
of observation and reflection, and out of this habitual musing thereon,
involuntarily spring the happy originalities of thinking which are
called his ‘inspirations.’”
“One word more,” said I. “Do you consider, then, that which makes a man
devote himself to fame or ambition is a motive power of which he himself
is conscious?”
“No; not always. I imagine that most men entering on some career are
originally impelled towards it by a motive which, at the time, they
seldom take the trouble to analyse or even to detect. They would at once
see what that motive was if early in the career it was withdrawn. In a
majority of cases it is the _res angusta_, yet not poverty in itself,
but a poverty disproportioned to the birth, or station, or tastes, or
intellectual culture of the aspirant. Thus, the peasant or operative
rarely feels in his poverty a motive power towards distinction out of
his craft; but the younger son of a gentleman does feel that motive
power. And hence a very large proportion of those who in various ways
have gained fame, have been the cadets of a gentleman’s family, or the
sons of poor clergymen, sometimes of farmers and tradesmen, who have
given them an education beyond the average of their class. Other motive
powers towards fame have been sometimes in ambition, sometimes in love;
sometimes in a great sorrow, from which a strong mind sought to wrest
itself; sometimes even in things that would appear frivolous to a
philosopher. I knew a young man, of no great talents, but of keen vanity
and great resolution and force of character, who, as a child, had been
impressed with envy of the red ribbon which his uncle wore as Knight of
the Bath. From his infancy he determined some day or other to win a red
ribbon for himself. He did so at last, and in trying to do so became
famous.
“In great commercial communities a distinction is given to successful
trade, so that the motive power of youthful talent nourished in such
societies is mostly concentred on gain, not through avarice, but through
the love of approbation or esteem. Thus, it is noticeable that our great
manufacturing towns, where energy and application abound, have not
contributed their proportionate quota of men distinguished in arts or
sciences (except the mechanical), or polite letters, or the learned
professions. In rural districts, on the contrary, the desire of gain is
not associated with the desire of honour and distinction, and therefore,
in them, the youth early coveting fame strives for it in other channels
than those of gain. But whatever the original motive power, if it has
led to a continuous habit of the mind, and is not withdrawn before that
habit becomes a second nature, the habit will continue after the motive
power has either wholly ceased or become very faint, as the famous
scribbling Spanish cardinal is said, in popular legends, to have
continued to write on after he himself was dead. Thus, a man who has
acquired the obstinate habit of labouring for the public originally from
an enthusiastic estimate of the value of public applause, may, later,
conceive a great contempt for the public, and, in sincere cynicism,
become wholly indifferent to its praise or its censure, and yet, like
Swift, go on as long as the brain can retain faithful impressions and
perform its normal functions, writing for the public he so disdains.
Thus many a statesman, wearied and worn, satisfied of the hollowness of
political ambition, and no longer enjoying its rewards, sighing for
retirement and repose, nevertheless continues to wear his harness. Habit
has tyrannised over all his actions; break the habit, and the thread of
his life snaps with it!
“Lastly, however, I am by no means sure that there is not in some few
natures an inborn irresistible activity, a constitutional attraction
between the one mind and the human species, which requires no special,
separate motive power from without to set it into those movements
which, perforce, lead to fame. I mean those men to whom we at once
accord the faculty which escapes all satisfactory metaphysical
definition—INGENIUM;—viz., the inborn spirit which we call genius.
“And in _these_ natures, whatever the motive power that in the first
instance urged them on, if at any stage, however early, that motive
power be withdrawn, some other one will speedily replace it. Through
them Providence mysteriously acts on the whole world, and their genius
while on earth is one of Its most visible ministrants. But genius is the
exceptional phenomenon in human nature; and in examining the ordinary
laws that influence human minds we have no measurement and no scales for
portents.”
“There is, however,” said Tracey, “one motive power towards careers of
public utility which you have not mentioned, but the thought of which
often haunts me in rebuke of my own inertness,—I mean, quite apart from
any object of vanity or ambition, the sense of our own duty to mankind;
and hence the devotion to public uses of whatever talents have been
given to us—not to hide under a bushel.”
“I do not think,” answered Gray, “that when a man feels he is doing good
in his own way he need reproach himself that he is not doing good in
some other way to which he is not urged by special duty, and from which
he is repelled by constitutional temperament. I do not, for instance,
see that because you have a very large fortune you are morally obliged
to keep correspondent establishments, and adopt a mode of life hostile
to your tastes; you sufficiently discharge the duties of wealth if the
fair proportion of your income go to objects of well-considered
benevolence and purposes not unproductive to the community. Nor can I
think that I, who possess but a very moderate fortune, am morally called
upon to strive for its increase in the many good speculations which life
in a capital may offer to an eager mind, provided always that I do
nevertheless remember that I have children, to whose future provision
and wellbeing some modest augmentations of my fortune would be
desirable. In improving my land for their benefit, I may say also that I
add, however trivially, to the wealth of the country. Let me hope that
the trite saying is true, that ‘he who makes two blades of corn grow
where one grew before,’ is a benefactor to his race. So with mental
wealth: surely it is permitted to us to invest and expend it within that
sphere most suited to those idiosyncrasies, the adherence to which
constitutes our moral health. I do not, with the philosopher, condemn
the man who, irresistibly impelled towards the pursuit of honours and
power, persuades himself that he is toiling for the public good when he
is but gratifying his personal ambition;—probably he is a better man
thus acting in conformity with his own nature, than he would be if
placed beyond all temptation in Plato’s cave. Nor, on the other hand,
can I think that a man of the highest faculties and the largest
attainments, who has arrived at a sincere disdain of power or honours,
would be a better man if he were tyrannically forced to pursue the
objects from which his temperament recoils, upon the plea that he was
thus promoting the public welfare. No doubt, in every city, town,
street, and lane, there are bustling, officious, restless persons, who
thrust themselves into public concerns, with a loud declaration that
they are animated only by the desire of public good; they mistake their
fidgetiness for philanthropy. Not a bubble company can be started, but
what it is with a programme that its direct object is the public
benefit, and the ten per cent promised to the shareholders is but a
secondary consideration. Who believes in the sincerity of that
announcement? In fine, according both to religion and to philosophy,
virtue is the highest end of man’s endeavour; but virtue is wholly
independent of the popular shout or the lictor’s fasces. Virtue is the
same, whether with or without the laurel crown or the curule chair.
Honours do not sully it, but obscurity does not degrade. He who is
truthful, just, merciful, and kindly, does his duty to his race, and
fulfils his great end in creation, no matter whether the rays of his
life are not visibly beheld beyond the walls of his household, or
whether they strike the ends of the earth; for every human soul is a
world complete and integral, storing its own ultimate uses and destinies
within itself; viewed only for a brief while, in its rising on the gaze
of earth; pressing onward in its orbit amidst the infinite, when,
snatched from our eyes, we say, ‘It has passed away!’ And as every star,
however small it seem to us from the distance at which it shines,
contributes to the health of our atmosphere, so every soul, pure and
bright in itself, however far from our dwelling, however unremarked by
our vision, contributes to the wellbeing of the social system in which
it moves, and, in its privacy, is part and parcel of the public weal.”
Shading my face with my hand, I remained some moments musing after
Gray’s voice had ceased. Then looking up, I saw so pleased and grateful
a smile upon Percival Tracey’s countenance, that I checked the reply by
which I had intended to submit a view of the subject in discussion
somewhat different from that which Gray had taken from the Portico of
the Stoics. Why should I attempt to mar whatever satisfaction Percival’s
reason or conscience had found in our host’s argument? His tree of life
was too firmly set for the bias of its stem to swerve in any new
direction towards light and air. Let it continue to rejoice in such
light and such air as was vouchsafed to the site on which it had taken
root. Evening, too, now drew in, and we had a long ride before us. A
little while after, we had bid adieu to Oakden Hall, and were once more
threading our way through the green and solitary lanes.
We conversed but little for the first five or six miles. I was revolving
what I had heard, and considering how each man’s reasoning moulds itself
into excuse or applause for the course of life which he adopts.
Percival’s mind was employed in other thoughts, as became clear when he
thus spoke:—
“Do you think, my dear friend, that you could spare me a week or two
longer? It would be a charity to me if you could, for I expect, after
to-morrow, to lose my young artist, and, alas! also the Thornhills.”
“How! The Thornhills? So soon!”
“I count on receiving to-morrow the formal announcement of Henry’s
promotion and exchange into the regiment he so desires to enter, with
the orders to join it abroad at once. Clara, I know, will not stay here;
she will be with her husband till he sails, and after his departure will
take her abode with his widowed mother. I shall miss them much. But
Thornhill feels that he is wasting his life here; and so—well—I have
acted for the best. With respect to the artist, this morning I received
a letter from my old friend Lord ——. He is going into Italy next week;
he wishes for some views of Italian scenery for a villa he has lately
bought, and will take Bourke with him, on my recommendation, leaving him
ultimately at Rome. Lord ——‘s friendship and countenance will be of
immense advantage to the young painter, and obtain him many orders. I
have to break it to Bourke this evening, and he will, no doubt, quit me
to-morrow to take leave of his family. For myself, as I always feel
somewhat melancholy in remaining on the same spot after friends depart
from it, I propose going to Bellevue, where I have a small yacht. It is
glorious weather for sea excursions. Come with me, my dear friend! The
fresh breezes will do you good; and we shall have leisure for talk on
all the subjects which both of us love to explore and guess at.”
No proposition could be more alluring to me. My recent intercourse with
Tracey had renewed all the affection and interest with which he had
inspired my youth. My health and spirits had been already sensibly
improved by my brief holiday, and an excursion at sea had been the
special advice of my medical attendant. I hesitated a moment. Nothing
called me back to London except public business, and, in that, I foresaw
but the bare chance of a motion in Parliament which stood on the papers
for the next day; but my letters had assured me that this motion was
generally expected to be withdrawn or postponed.
So I accepted the invitation gladly, provided nothing unforeseen should
interfere with it.
Pleased by my cordial assent, Tracey’s talk now flowed forth with genial
animation. He described his villa overhanging the sea, with its covered
walks to the solitary beach—the many objects of interest and landscapes
of picturesque beauty within reach of easy rides, on days in which the
yacht might not tempt us. I listened with the delight of a schoolboy, to
whom some good-natured kinsman paints the luxuries of a home at which he
invites the schoolboy to spend the vacation.
By little and little our conversation glided back to our young past, and
thence to those dreams, nourished ever by the young;—love and romance,
and home brightened by warmer beams than glow in the smile of sober
friendship. How the talk took this direction I know not; perhaps by
unconscious association, as the moon rose above the forest-hills, with
the love-star by her side. And, thus conversing, Tracey for the first
time alluded to that single passion which had vexed the smooth river of
his life—and which, thanks to Lady Gertrude, was already, though
vaguely, known to me.
“It was,” said he, “just such a summer night as this, and, though in a
foreign country, amidst scenes of which these woodland hills remind me,
that the world seemed to me to have changed into a Fairyland; and,
looking into my heart, I said to myself, ‘This, then, is—love.’ And a
little while after, on such a night, and under such a moon, and amidst
such hills and groves, the world seemed blighted into a desert—life to
be evermore without hope or object; and, looking again into my heart, I
said, ‘This, then, is love denied!’”
“Alas!” answered I, “there are few men in whose lives there is not some
secret memoir of an affection thwarted; but rarely indeed does an
affection thwarted leave a permanent influence on the after-destinies of
a man’s life. On that question I meditate an essay, which, if ever
printed, I will send to you.”
I said this, wishing to draw him on, and expecting him to contradict my
assertion as to the enduring influence of a disappointed love. He mused
a moment or so in silence, and then said, “Well, perhaps so; an unhappy
love may not permanently affect our after-destinies, still it colours
our after-thoughts. It is strange that I should have only seen,
throughout my long and various existence, one woman whom I could have
wooed as my wife—one woman in whose presence I felt as if I were born
for her and she for me.”
“May I ask you what was her peculiar charm in your eyes; or, if you
permit me to ask, can you explain it?”
“No doubt,” answered Tracey, “much must be ascribed to the character of
her beauty, which realised the type I had formed to myself from boyhood
of womanly loveliness in form and face, and much also to a mind with
which a man, however cultivated, could hold equal commune. But to me her
predominating attraction was in a simple, unassuming nobleness of
sentiment—a truthful, loyal, devoted, self-sacrificing nature. In her
society I felt myself purified, exalted, as if in the presence of an
angel. But enough of this. I am resigned to my loss, and have long since
hung my votive tablet in the shrine of ‘Time the Consoler.’”
“Forgive me if I am intrusive; but did she know that you loved her?”
“I cannot say; probably most women discover if they are loved; but I
rejoice to think that I never told her so.”
“Would she have rejected you if you had?”
“Yes, unhesitatingly; her word was plighted to another. And though she
would not, for the man to whom she had betrothed herself, have left her
father alone in poverty and exile, she would never have married any one
else.”
“You believe, then, that she loved your rival with a heart that could
not change?”
Tracey did not immediately reply. At last he said, “I believe this—that
when scarcely out of girlhood, she considered herself engaged to be one
man’s wife, or for ever single. And if, in the course of time, and in
length of absence, she could have detected in her heart the growth of a
single thought unfaithful to her troth, she would have plucked it forth
and cast it from her as firmly as if already a wedded wife, with her
husband’s honour in her charge. She was one of those women with whom
man’s trust is for ever safe, and to whom a love at variance with
plighted troth is an impossibility. So, she lives in my thoughts still,
as I saw her last, five-and-twenty years ago, unalterable in her youth
and beauty. And I have been as true to her hallowed remembrance as she
was true to her maiden vows. May I never see her again on earth! Her or
her likeness I may find amidst the stars.” “No,” he added, in a lighter
and cheerier tone—“No; I do not think that my actual destinies, my ways
of life here below, have been affected by her loss. Had I won her, I can
scarcely conceive that I should have become more tempted to ambition or
less enamoured of home. Still, whatever leaves so deep a furrow in a
man’s heart cannot be meant in vain. Where the ploughshare cuts, there
the seed is sown, and there later the corn will spring. In a word, I
believe that everything of moment which befalls us in this life—which
occasions us some great sorrow—for which, in this life, we see not the
uses—has, nevertheless, its definite object, and that that object will
be visible on the other side of the grave. It may seem but a barren
grief in the history of a life—it may prove a fruitful joy in the
history of a soul. For if nothing in this world is accident, surely all
that which affects the only creature upon earth to whom immortality is
announced, must have a distinct and definite purpose, often not
developed till immortality begins.”
Here we had entered on the wide spaces of the park. The deer and the
kine were asleep on the silvered grass, or under the shade of the quiet
trees. Now, as we cleared a beech-grove, we saw the lights gleaming from
the windows of the house, and the moon, at her full, resting still over
the peaceful housetop! Truly had Percival said, “That there are trains
of thought set in motion by the stars which are dormant in the glare of
the sun”—truly had he said, too, “That without such thoughts man’s
thinking is incomplete.”
We gained the house, and, entering the library, it was pleasant to see
how instinctively all rose to gather round the master. They had missed
Percival’s bright presence the whole day.
Some little time afterwards, when, seated next to Lady Gertrude, I was
talking to her of the Grays, I observed Tracey take aside the Painter,
and retire with him into the adjoining colonnade. They were not long
absent. When they returned, Bourke’s face, usually serious, was joyous
and elated. In a few moments, with all his Irish warmth of heart, he
burst forth with the announcement of the new obligations he owed to Sir
Percival Tracey. “I have always said,” exclaimed he, “that, give me an
opening and I will find or make my way. I have the opening now; you
shall see!” We all poured our congratulations upon the young enthusiast,
except Henry Thornhill, and his brow was shaded and his lip quivered.
Clara, watching him, curbed her own friendly words to the artist, and,
drawing to her husband’s side, placed her hand tenderly on his shoulder.
“Pish! do leave me alone,” muttered the ungracious churl.
“See,” whispered Percival to me, “what a brute that fine young fellow
would become if we insisted on making him happy our own way, and saving
him from the chance of being shot!”
Therewith rising, he gently led away Clara, to whose soft eyes tears had
rushed; and looking back to Henry, whose head was bended over a volume
of ‘The Wellington Despatches,’ said in his ear, half-fondly,
half-reproachfully, “Poor young fool! how bitterly you will repent every
word, every look of unkindness to her, when—when she is no more at your
side to pardon you!”
That night it was long before I slept. I pleased myself with what is now
grown to me a rare amusement—viz., the laying out plans for the morrow.
This holiday, with Tracey all to myself; this summer sail on the seas;
this interval of golden idlesse, refined by intercourse with so serene
an intelligence, and on subjects so little broached in the world of
cities, fascinated my imagination; and I revolved a hundred questions it
would be delightful to raise, a hundred problems it would be impossible
to solve. Though my life has been a busy one, I believe that
constitutionally I am one of the most indolent men alive. To lie on the
grass in summer noons under breathless trees, to glide over smooth
waters, and watch the still shadows on tranquil shores, is happiness to
me. I need then no books—then, no companion. But if to that happiness in
the mere luxury of repose, I may add another happiness of a higher
nature, it is in converse with some one friend, upon subjects remote
from the practical work-day world,—subjects akin less to our active
thoughts than to our dreamlike reveries,—subjects conjectural,
speculative, fantastic, embracing not positive opinions—for opinions are
things combative and disputatious—but rather those queries and guesses
which start up from the farthest border-land of our reason, and lose
themselves in air as we attempt to chase and seize them.
And perhaps this sort of talk, which leads to no conclusions clear
enough for the uses of wisdom, is the more alluring to me, because it is
very seldom to be indulged. I carefully separate from the business of
life all which belong to the visionary realm of speculative conjecture.
From the world of action I hold it imperatively safe to banish the ideas
which exhibit the cloud-land of metaphysical doubts and mystical
beliefs. In the actual world let me see by the same broad sun that gives
light to all men; it is only in the world of reverie that I amuse myself
with the sport of the dark lantern, letting its ray shoot before me into
the gloom, and caring not if, in its illusive light, the thorn-tree in
my path take the aspect of a ghost. I shall notice the thorn-tree all
the better, distinguish more clearly its shape, when I pass by it the
next day under the sun, for the impression it made on my fancy seen
first by the gleam of the dark lantern. Now, Tracey is one of the very
few highly-educated men it has been my lot to know, with whom one can
safely mount in rudderless balloons, drifting wind-tossed after those
ideas which are the phantoms of Reverie, and wander, ghost-like, out of
castles in the air. And my mind found a playfellow in his, where, in
other men’s minds, as richly cultured, it found only companions or
competitors in task-work.
Towards dawn, I fell asleep, and dreamt that I was a child once more,
gathering bluebells and chasing dragonflies amidst murmuring
water-reeds. The next day I came down late; all had done breakfast. The
Painter was already gone; the Librarian had retired into his den. Henry
Thornhill was walking by himself to and fro, in front of the window,
with folded arms and downcast brow. Percival was seated apart, writing
letters. Clara was at work, stealing every now and then a mournful
glance towards Henry. Lady Gertrude, punctiliously keeping her place by
the tea-urn, filled my cup, and pointed to a heap of letters formidably
ranged before my plate. I glanced anxiously and rapidly over these
unwelcomed epistles. Thank heaven, nothing to take me back to London! My
political correspondent informed me, by a hasty line, that the dreaded
motion which stood first on the parliamentary paper for that day would
in all probability be postponed, agreeably to the request of the
Government. The mover of it had not, however, given a positive answer;
no doubt he would do so in the course of the night (last night); and
there was little doubt that, as a professed supporter of the Government,
he would yield to the request that had been made to him.
So, after I had finished my abstemious breakfast, I took Percival aside
and told him that I considered myself free to prolong my stay, and asked
him, in a whisper, if he had yet received the official letter he
expected, announcing young Thornhill’s exchange and promotion.
“Yes,” said he, “and I only waited for you to announce its contents to
poor Henry; for I wish you to tell me whether you think the news will
make him as happy as yesterday he thought it would.”
Tracey and I then went out, and joined Henry in his walk. The young man
turned round on us an impatient countenance.
“So we have lost Bourke,” said Tracey. “I hope he will return to England
with the reputation he goes forth to seek.”
“Ay,” said Henry, “Bourke is a lucky dog to have found, in one who is
not related to him, so warm and so true a friend.”
“Every dog, lucky or unlucky, has his day,” said Percival, gravely.
“Every dog except a house-dog,” returned Henry. “A house-dog is thought
only fit for a chain and a kennel.”
“Ah, happy if his happiness he knew!” replied Tracey. “But I own that
liberty compensates for the loss of a warm litter and a good dinner.
Away from the kennel and off with the chain! Read this letter, and
accept my congratulations—_Major_ Thornhill!”
The young man started; the colour rushed to his cheeks; he glanced
hastily over the letter held out to him; dropped it; caught his
kinsman’s hand, and pressing it to his heart, exclaimed, “Oh, sir,
thanks, thanks! So then, all the while I was accusing you of obstructing
my career you were quietly promoting it! How can you forgive me my
petulance, my ingratitude?”
“Tut,” said Percival, kindly, “the best-tempered man is sometimes cross
in his cups; and nothing, perhaps, more irritates a young brain than to
get drunk on the love of glory.”
At the word glory the soldier’s crest rose, his eye flashed fire, his
whole aspect changed, it became lofty and noble. Suddenly his eye caught
sight of Clara, who had stepped out of the window, and stood gazing on
him. His head drooped, tears rushed to his eyes, and with a quivering,
broken voice, he muttered, “Poor Clara—my wife, my darling! Oh, Sir
Percival, truly you said how bitterly I should repent every unkind word
and look. Ah, they will haunt me!”
“Put aside regrets now. Go and break the news to your wife: support,
comfort her; you alone can. I have not dared to tell her.”
Henry sighed and went, no longer joyous, but with slow step and paling
cheek, to the place where Clara stood. We saw him bend over the hand she
held out to him, kiss it humbly, and then passing his arm round her
waist, he drew her away into the farther recesses of the garden, and
both disappeared from our eyes.
“No,” said I, “he is not happy; like us all, he finds that things
coveted have no longer the same charm when they are things possessed.
Clara is avenged already. But you have done wisely. Let him succeed or
let him fail, you have removed from Clara her only rival. If you had
debarred him from honour you would have estranged him from love. Now you
have bound him to Clara for life. She has ceased to be an obstacle to
his dreams, and henceforth she herself will be the dream which his
waking life will sigh to regain.”
“Heaven grant he may come back, with both his legs and both his arms;
and, perhaps, with a bit of ribbon, or five shillings’ worth of silver
on his breast,” said Percival, trying hard to be lively. “Of all my
kinsmen, I think I like him the best. He is rough as the east wind, but
honest as the day. Heigho! they will both leave us in an hour or two.
Clara’s voice is so sweet; I wonder when she will sing again! What a
blank the place will seem without those two young faces! As soon as they
are gone, we two will be off. Aunt Gertrude does not like Bellevue, and
will pay a visit for a few days to a cousin of hers on the other side of
the county. I must send on before to let the housekeeper at Bellevue
prepare for our coming. Meanwhile, pardon me if I leave you—perhaps you
have letters to write; if so, despatch them.”
I was in no humour for writing letters, but when Percival left me I
strolled from the house into the garden, and, reclining there on a bench
opposite one of the fountains, enjoyed the calm beauty of the summer
morning. Time slipped by. Every now and then I caught sight of Henry and
Clara among the lilacs in one of the distant walks, his arm still round
her waist, her head leaning on his shoulder. At length they went into
the house, doubtless to prepare for their departure.
I thought of the wild folly with which youth casts away the substance of
happiness to seize at the shadow which breaks on the wave that mirrors
it; wiser and happier surely the tranquil choice of Gray, though with
gifts and faculties far beyond those of the young man who mistook the
desire of fame for the power to win it. And then my thoughts settling
back on myself, I became conscious of a certain melancholy. How poor and
niggard compared with my early hopes had been my ultimate results! How
questioned, grudged, and litigated, my right of title to every inch of
ground that my thought had discovered or my toils had cultivated! What
motive power in me had, from boyhood to the verge of age, urged me on
“to scorn delight and love laborious days?” Whatever the motive power
once had been, I could no longer trace it. If vanity—of which,
doubtless, in youth I had my human share—I had long since grown rather
too callous than too sensitive to that love of approbation in which
vanity consists. I was stung by no penury of fortune, influenced by no
feverish thirst for a name that should outlive my grave, fooled by no
hope of the rewards which goad on ambition. I had reached the age when
Hope weighs her anchor and steers forth so far that her amplest sail
seems but a silvery speck on the last line of the horizon. Certainly I
flattered myself that my purposes linked my toils to some slight service
to mankind; that in graver efforts I was asserting opinions in the value
of which to human interests I sincerely believed, and in lighter aims
venting thoughts and releasing fancies which might add to the culture of
the world—not, indeed, fruitful harvests, but at least some lowly
flowers. But though such intent might be within my mind, could I tell
how far I unconsciously exaggerated its earnestness—still less could I
tell how far the intent was dignified by success? “Have I done aught for
which mankind would be the worse were it swept into nothingness
to-morrow?”—is a question which many a grand and fertile genius may, in
its true humility, address mournfully to itself. It is but a negative
praise, though it has been recorded as a high one, to leave
“No line which, dying, we would wish to blot.”
If that be all, as well leave no line at all. He has written in vain who
does not bequeath lines that, if blotted, would be a loss to that
treasure-house of mind which is the everlasting possession of the world.
Who, yet living, can even presume to guess if he shall do this? Not till
at least a century after his brain and his hand are dust can even
critics begin to form a rational conjecture of an author’s or a
statesman’s uses to his kind. Was it, then, as Gray had implied, merely
the force of habit which kept me in movement? if so, was it a habit
worth all the sacrifice it cost? Thus meditating, I forgot that if all
men reasoned thus and acted according to such reasoning, the earth would
have no intermediate human dwellers between the hewers and diggers, and
the idlers, born to consume the fruits which they do not plant.
Farewell, then, to all the embellishments and splendours by which
civilised man breathes his mind and his soul into nature. For it is not
only the genius of rarest intellects which adorns and aggrandises social
states, but the aspirations and the efforts of thousands and millions,
all towards the advance and uplifting and beautifying of the integral,
universal state, by the energies native to each. Where would be the
world fit for Traceys and Grays to dwell in, if all men philosophised
like the Traceys and the Grays? Where all the gracious arts, all the
generous rivalries of mind, that deck and animate the bright calm of
peace? Where all the devotion, heroism, self-sacrifice in a common
cause, that exalt humanity even amidst the rage and deformities of war,
if, throughout well-ordered, close-welded states, there ran not
electrically, from breast to breast, that love of honour which is a part
of man’s sense of beauty, or that instinct towards utility which, even
more than the genius too exceptional to be classed amongst the normal
regulations of social law, creates the marvels of mortal progress? Not,
however, I say, did I then address to myself these healthful and manly
questions. I felt only that I repined, and looked with mournful and
wearied eyes along an agitated, painful, laborious past. Rousing myself
with an effort from these embittered contemplations, the charm of the
external nature insensibly refreshed and gladdened me. I inhaled the
balm of an air sweet with flowers, felt the joy of the summer sun, from
which all life around seemed drawing visible happiness, and said to
myself gaily, “At least to-day is mine—this blissful sunlit day—
‘Nimium breves
Flores amænæ ferre jube rosæ,
Dum res et ætas et sororum,
Fila trium patiuntur atra!’”
So murmuring, I rose as from a dream, and saw before me a strange
figure—a figure, uncouth, sinister, ominous as the evil genius that
startled Brutus on the eve of Philippi. I knew by an unmistakable
instinct that that figure _was_ an evil genius.
“Do you want me? Who and what are you?” I asked, falteringly.
“Please your honour, I come express from the N—— Station. A telegram.”
I opened the scrap of paper extended to me, and read these words,—
“O—— positively brings on his motion. Announced it last night too late
for post. Division certain—probably before dinner. Every vote wanted.
Come directly.”
Said the Express with a cruel glee, as I dropped the paper, “Sir, the
station-master also received a telegram to send over a fly. I have
brought one; only just in time to catch the half-past twelve o’clock; no
other train till six. You had best be quick, sir.”
No help for it. I hurried back to the house, bade my servant follow by
the next train with my portmanteau—no moments left to wait for packing;
found Tracey in his quiet study—put the telegram into his hands. “You
see my excuse—adieu.”
“Does this motion, then, interest you so much? Do you mean to speak on
it?”
“No, but it must not be carried. Every vote against it is of
consequence. Besides, I have promised to vote, and cannot stay away with
honour.”
“Honour! That settles it. I must go to Bellevue alone; or shall I take
Caleb and make him teach me Hebrew? But surely you will join me
to-morrow, or the next day?”
“Yes, if I can. But heavens!” (glancing at the clock)—“not half an hour
to reach the station—six miles off. Kindest regards to Lady
Gertrude—poor Clara—Henry—and all. Heaven bless you!”
I am in the fly—I am off. I gain the station just in time for the
train—arrive at the House of Commons in more than time as to a vote, for
the debate not only lasted all that night, but was adjourned till the
next week, and lasted the greater part of that, when it was withdrawn,
and—no vote at all!
But I could not then return to Tracey. Every man accustomed to business
in London knows how, once there, hour after hour, arises a something
that will not allow him to depart. When at length freed, I knew Tracey
would no longer need my companionship—his Swedish philosopher was then
with him. They were deep in scientific mysteries, on which, as I could
throw no light, I should be but a profane intruder. Besides, I was then
summoned to my own country place, and had there to receive my own
guests, long pre-engaged. So passed the rest of the summer; in the
autumn I went abroad, and have never visited the Castle of Indolence
since those golden days. In truth I resisted a frequent and a haunting
desire to do so. I felt that a second and a longer sojourn in that
serene but relaxing atmosphere might unnerve me for the work which I had
imposed on myself, and sought to persuade my tempted conscience was an
inexorable duty. Experience had taught me that in the sight of that
intellectual repose, so calm and so dreamily happy, my mind became
unsettled, and nourished seeds that might ripen to discontent of the lot
I had chosen for myself. So then, _sicut meus est mos_, I seize a
consolation for the loss of enjoyments that I may not act anew by living
them over again, in fancy and remembrance: I give to my record the title
of “Motive Power,” though it contains much episodical to that thesis,
and though it rather sports around the subject so indicated than
subjects it to strict analysis. But I here take for myself the excuse I
have elsewhere made for Montaigne, in his loose observance of the
connection between the matter and the titles of his essays.
I must leave it to the reader to blame or acquit me for having admitted
so many lengthy descriptions, so many digressive turns and shifts of
thought and sentiment, through which, as through a labyrinth, he winds
his way, with steps often checked and often retrogressive, still, sooner
or later, creeping on to the heart of the maze. There I leave him to
find the way out. Labyrinths have no interest if we give the clue to
them.
MRS CLIFFORD’S MARRIAGE.
PART I.
CHAPTER I.—THE LADIES’ OPINION.
“You don’t mean to say she’s going to be married—not Mary? I don’t
believe a word of it. She was too fond of her poor husband who put such
trust in her. No, no, child—don’t tell such nonsense to me.”
So said old Miss Harwood when the dreadful intelligence was first
communicated to her. The two old sisters, who were both charitable old
souls, and liked to think the best of everybody, were equally distressed
about this piece of village scandal. “I don’t say anything about her
poor husband—he was a fool to trust so much to a woman of her age,” said
Miss Amelia; “but in my opinion Mary Clifford has sense to know when
she’s well off.” The very idea made the sisters angry: a woman with five
thousand a-year, with five fine children, with the handsomest house and
most perfect little establishment within twenty miles of Summerhayes; a
widow, with nobody to cross or contradict her, with her own way and will
to her heart’s content—young enough to be still admired and paid
attention to, and old enough to indulge in those female pleasures
without any harm coming of it; to think of a woman in such exceptionally
blessed circumstances stooping her head under the yoke, and yielding a
second time to the subjection of marriage, was more than either of the
Miss Harwoods could believe.
“But I believe it’s quite true—indeed, I _know_ it’s quite true,” said
the curate’s little wife. “Mr Spencer heard it first from the Miss
Summerhayes, who did not know what to think—their own brother, you know;
and yet they couldn’t forget that poor dear Mr Clifford was their
cousin; and then they are neither of them married themselves, poor
dears, which makes them harder upon her.”
“We have never been married,” said Miss Amelia; “I don’t see what
difference that makes. It is amusing to see the airs you little
creatures give yourselves on the strength of being married. I suppose
_you_ think it’s all right—it’s a compliment to her first husband, eh?
and shows she was happy with him?—that’s what the men say when they take
a second wife; that’s how you would do I suppose, if——”
“Oh, Miss Amelia, don’t be so cruel,” cried the little wife. “I should
die. Do you think I could ever endure to live without Julius? I don’t
understand what people’s hearts are made of that can do such things: but
then,” added the little woman, wiping her bright eyes, “Mr Clifford was
not like my husband. He was very good, I daresay, and all that—but he
wasn’t ——. Well, I don’t think he was a taking man. He used to sit such
a long time after dinner. He used to——it’s very wicked to be unkind to
the dead—but he wasn’t the sort of man a woman could break her heart
for, you know.”
“I should like to know who is,” said Miss Amelia. “He left her
everything, without making provision for one of the children. He gave
her the entire power, like a fool, at her age. He did not deserve
anything better; but it appears to me that Mary Clifford has the sense
to know when she’s well off.”
“Well, well!” said old Miss Harwood, “I couldn’t have believed it, but
now as you go on discussing, I daresay it’ll turn out true. When a thing
comes so far as to be discussed, it’s going to happen. I’ve always found
it so. Well, well! love has gone out of fashion nowadays. When I was a
girl things were different. We did not talk about it half so much, nor
read novels. But we had the right feelings. I daresay she will just be
as affectionate to Tom Summerhayes as she was to her poor dear husband.
Oh, my dear, it’s very sad—I think it’s very sad—five fine children, and
she can’t be content with that. It’ll turn out badly, dear, and that
you’ll see.”
“He’ll swindle her out of all her money,” said Miss Amelia.
“Oh, don’t say such dreadful things,” cried the curate’s little wife,
getting up hastily. “I am sure I hope they’ll be happy—that is, as happy
as they _can_ be,” she added, with a touch of candid disapproval. “I
must run away to baby now; the poor dear children!—I must say I am sorry
for them—to have another man brought in in their poor papa’s place; but
oh, I must run away, else I shall be saying cruel things too.”
The two Miss Harwoods discussed this interesting subject largely after
Mrs Spencer had gone. The Summerhayes people had been, on the whole,
wonderfully merciful to Mrs Clifford during her five years’ solitary
reign at Fontanel. She had been an affectionate wife—she was a good
mother—she had worn the weeds of her widowhood seriously, and had not
plunged into any indiscreet gaieties when she took them off; while, at
the same time, she had emerged sufficiently from her seclusion to
restore Fontanel to its old position as one of the pleasantest houses in
the county. What could woman do more? Tom Summerhayes was her husband’s
cousin; he had been brought up to the law, and naturally understood
affairs in general better than she did. Everybody knew that he was an
idle fellow. After old Mr Summerhayes died, everybody quite expected
that Tom would settle down in the old manor, and live an agreeable
useless life, instead of toiling himself to death in hopes of one day
being Lord Chancellor—a very unlikely chance at the best; and events
came about exactly as everybody had predicted. At the same time, the
entire neighbourhood allowed that Tom had exerted himself quite beyond
all precedent on behalf of his cousin’s widow. Poor Mary Clifford had a
great deal too much on her hands, he was always saying. It was a selfish
sort of kindness to crush down a poor little woman under all that weight
of wealth and responsibility; and so, at last, here was what had come of
it. The Miss Harwoods sat and talked it all over that cold day in the
drawing-room of Woodbine Cottage, which had one window looking to the
village-green, and another, a large, round, bright bow-window, opening
to the garden. The fire was more agreeable than the garden that day.
Miss Harwood sat knitting in her easy-chair, while Miss Amelia occupied
herself in ticketing all that miscellaneous basket of articles destined
for the bazaar of ladies’ work to be held in Summerhayes in February;
but work advanced slowly under the influence of such an inducement to
talk. The old ladies, as may be supposed, came to a sudden pause and
looked confused and guilty when the door opened and the Miss Summerhayes
were announced. Perhaps the new visitors might even have heard something
of the conversation which was going on with so much animation. Certainly
it came to a most abrupt conclusion, and the Miss Harwoods looked
consciously into each other’s faces when the ladies of the manor-house
came to the door.
These ladies were no longer young, but they were far from having reached
the venerable certainty of old-maidenhood which possessed the atmosphere
of Woodbine Cottage. They were still in the fidgety unsettled stage of
unweddedness—women who had fallen out of their occupation, and were
subject to little tempers and vapours, not from real ill-humour or
sourness, but simply by reason of the vacancy and unsatisfaction of
their lives. The Miss Summerhayes often enough did not know what to do
with themselves; and being unphilosophical, as women naturally are, they
set down this restless condition of mind, not to the account of human
nature generally, and of female impatience in particular, but to their
own single and unwedded condition—a matter which still seemed capable of
remedy; so that the fact must be admitted, that Miss Laura and Miss
Lydia were sometimes a little flighty and uncertain in their temper;
sometimes a little harsh in their judgments; and, in short, in most
matters, betrayed a certain unsettledness and impatience in their minds,
as people generally do, in every condition of existence, when they are
discontented with their lot. The chances are that nothing would have
pleased them better than to have plunged into an immediate discussion of
all the circumstances of this strange piece of news with which
Summerhayes was ringing; but the position was complicated by the fact
that they were accompanied by little Louisa Clifford, who was old enough
to understand all that was said, and quick enough to guess at any
allusion which might be made to her mother, however skilfully veiled; so
that, on the whole, the situation was as difficult a one for the four
ladies, burning to speak but yet incapable of utterance, as can well be
conceived.
“Oh, how far on _you_ are,” cried Miss Laura; “I have not got in half
the work that has been promised to me; but you always are first with
everything—first in gardening, first in working, first in——”
“All the news, I am sure,” said Miss Lydia; “we, of course, never hear
anything till it has happened. Provoking! Loo, shouldn’t you like to go
to Miss Harwood’s maid, and ask her to show you the chickens? She has a
perfect genius for poultry, though she is such a little thing; and Miss
Amelia has such loves of dorkings. We shan’t be leaving for half an
hour; now go, there’s a dear!”
“Thank you, cousin Lydia, I’d rather look at the things for the bazaar,”
returned Loo, lifting a pair of acute suspicious eyes; a pale-faced
little creature, sharp-witted and vigilant, instinctively conscious why
her amusement was thus carefully provided for—Loo did not choose to go.
“Such a nuisance!” said Miss Laura; “I say we are just far enough off at
the manor to be out of reach of everything except the bores and the
troubles. You always think of us when you have stupid visitors, but you
keep all that’s exciting to yourselves. Loo, darling! the Miss Harwoods’
violets are always out earlier than any one else’s. I have such a
passion for violets! Do run out, dear, and see if you can find one for
me yonder under the hedge.”
“I will ask mamma to send you some to-morrow, cousin Laura,” said the
determined little Loo.
“Did you ever hear anything like it?” said Miss Lydia, in a half
whisper. “Loo!”
“Loo will carry this basket up-stairs for me to my room,” said Miss
Harwood, “and ask Harriet to show you the things in my cupboard, dear.
All the prettiest things are there, and such a very grand cushion that I
mean to make your mamma buy. Tell Harriet to show you everything;
there’s a darling! That is a very bright little girl, my dears,” said
the old lady, when Loo withdrew, reluctant but dutiful. “I hope nothing
will ever be done to crush her spirit. I suppose you must have both come
to tell us it’s not true.”
“Oh, you mean about my brother and Mary Clifford,” cried out both
sisters in a breath. “Oh, Miss Harwood, did you ever hear of such a
thing! Did you ever know anything so dreadful! Tom, that might have
married anybody!” cried Miss Lydia; “and Mary Clifford, that was so
inconsolable, and pretended to have broken her heart!” cried the younger
sister. They were both in a flutter of eagerness, neither permitting the
other to speak.
“Oh dear, dear, it does come so hard upon us,” said Miss Laura, “we that
have always had such a prejudice against second marriages; and a
cousin’s widow—it’s almost like a brother; and if poor Harry could rise
from his grave, what would he say!” concluded Miss Lydia, who took up
the strain without any intervals of punctuation. “I begin to think it’s
all true the gentlemen say about women’s inconstancy; that is, your
common style of women,” ran on the elder without any pause; “and poor
dear Tom, who might have married any one,” cried the younger, out of
breath.
“Then I perceive,” said Miss Amelia Harwood, “it’s true? Well, I don’t
see much harm, for my part, if they have everything properly settled
first. Poor Harry was all very well, I daresay, but he was a great fool
not to provide for his children. Your brother said so at the time; but I
did think, for my part, that Mary Clifford had the sense to know when
she was well off.”
“Oh, she shows that,” cried Lydia Summerhayes, with a little toss of her
head; “widows are so designing; they know the ways of men, and how to
manage them, very differently from any of us—if _we_ could stoop to such
a thing, which of course, we wouldn’t. Oh yes, Mary Clifford knows
_very_ well what she’s about. I am sure I have told Tom he was her
honorary secretary for many a day. I thought she was just making use of
him to serve her own purpose; I never thought how far her wiles went. If
it had been her lawyer, or the curate, or any humble person; but Tom! He
might have done so much better,” said Laura, chiming in at some
imperceptible point, so that it was impossible to tell where one voice
ended and the other began.
“Well, I must say I am disappointed in Mary Clifford,” said Miss
Harwood, “she was always such an affectionate creature. That’s why it
is, I daresay. These affectionate people can’t do without an object; but
her five children——”
“Ah! yes, her five children,” exclaimed the Miss Summerhayes; “only
imagine dear Tom making such a marriage! Why, Charley Clifford has been
at Eton ever so long; he is fifteen. And dear Tom is quite a young man,
and might have married anybody,” said the last of the two, taking up the
chorus: “it is too dreadful to think of it—such a cutting blow to us.”
“I can’t see how it is so very bad for you,” said Miss Amelia Harwood;
“of course they will live at Fontanel, and you will still keep the
manor-house. I think it’s rather a good thing for you for my part. Hush!
there’s the child again—clever little thing—she knows quite well what
we’ve been talking of. My dear, I hope Harriet showed you all the
things—and isn’t that a pretty cushion? Tell your mamma I mean to make
her buy it, as she is the richest lady I know.”
“Are you going, my dears?” said the elder old lady. “I am sorry you have
so little time to stay—I hope you will find things arrange themselves
comfortably, and that everybody will be happy. Don’t get excited—it’s
astonishing how everything settles down. You want to speak to me, Loo,”
said Miss Harwood, starting a little when she had just reseated herself
in her easy-chair after dismissing her visitors. “Certainly, dear; I
suppose you have set your little heart on one of the pretty pincushions
up-stairs.”
“No, indeed, nothing of the sort—I hope I know better than to care for
such trumpery,” said Loo, with an angry glow on her little pale face. “I
stopped behind to say, that whatever mamma pleases to do, we mean to
stand by her,” cried poor Mary Clifford’s only champion. “I’m not sure
whether I shall like it or not for myself—but we have made up our minds
to stand by mamma, and so we will, as long as we live; and she shall do
what she likes!” cried the little heroine. Two big tears were in those
brown eyes, which looked twice as bright and as big through those great
dew-drops which Loo would not for the world have allowed to fall. She
opened her eyelids wider and wider to re-absorb the untimely tears, and
looked full, with childish defiance, in Miss Harwood’s face.
“Loo, you are a dear!” said prompt Miss Amelia, kissing the child; “you
shall have the prettiest pincushion in all my basket.” The little girl
vanished suddenly after this speech, half in indignation at the promise,
half because the tears would not be disposed of otherwise, and it was
necessary to rush outside to conceal their dropping. “Ah! Amelia,” said
kind old Miss Harwood, “I’m sorry for poor Mary in my heart—but I’d
rather have that child’s love than Tom Summerhayes.”
“_Poor_ Mary! for my part, I have no patience with her,” said the
practical Miss Amelia; “a woman come to her time of life ought to have
the sense to know when she’s well off.”
Such was the character of the comments made upon Mrs Clifford’s marriage
when it was first talked of, in Woodbine Cottage, and generally among
all the female portion of society as it existed in Summerhayes.
CHAPTER II.—WHAT THE GENTLEMEN SAID.
The Rector of Summerhayes was the Miss Harwoods’ brother, much younger
however, unmarried, and rather a fine man in his way. He had a little
dinner, as it happened, the same evening. His table only held six, Mr
Harwood said. The rectory was an old-fashioned house, and the
dining-room would have quite admitted a table which could dine
twenty—but such were not the Rector’s inclinations. There are enough men
in the neighbourhood of Summerhayes to make it very possible to vary
your parties pleasantly when you have a table that only holds six,
whereas with a large number you can only have the same people over and
over again; and Mr Harwood did not like to be bored. He had a friend
with him from town, as he always had on such occasions. He had his
curate, and young Chesterfield from Dalton, and Major Aldborough, and Dr
Gossett; rather a village party—as he explained to Mr Temple, the
stranger—but not bad company. The dinner was a very good one, like all
the Rector’s little dinners, and was consumed with that judicious
reticence in the way of talk, and wise suspension of wit, which is only
practicable in a party composed of men. By means of this sensible
quietness, the dinner was done full justice to, and the company expanded
into full force over their wine. Then the conversation became animated.
The Rector, it is true, indulged in ten minutes’ parish talk with the
Doctor, while Mr Temple and Major Aldborough opened the first parallel
of a political duel, and young Chesterfield discoursed on the last Meet
to poor Mr Spencer, who, reduced into curate-hood and economy, still
felt his mouth water over such forbidden pleasures. Then Mr Harwood
himself introduced the subject which at that time reigned paramount over
all other subjects at Summerhayes.
“So Tom Summerhayes is going to marry little Mrs Clifford,” said the
Rector; “hadn’t you heard of it? Yes, these grapes are from Fontanel.
She has a capital gardener, and her conservatories are the finest in the
county. A very pleasant little house altogether, though there are some
particulars about her table which one feels to be feeble. Her dinners
are always a little defective since poor Clifford’s death—too mild, you
know—too sweet—want the severer taste of a man.”
“Mrs Clifford—a pretty little woman with brown eyes?” said Mr Temple.
“I’ve met her somewhere. So she gives dinners, does she? When I saw her
she was in the recluse line. I suppose that didn’t last.”
“It lasted quite long enough,” said Dr Gossett; “nothing could be more
proper, or more ladylike, or more satisfactory in every way. If I had a
wife and were unluckily to die, I should wish her just to wear her weeds
and so forth like Mrs Clifford—a charming woman; what should we do
without her in the parish? but as for Tom Summerhayes——”
“He’s an ass,” growled the Major. “What’s he got to do burdening himself
with other people’s children. Why, there’s five of ’em, sir! They’ll
hate him like poison—they’ll think he’s in no end of conspiracies to
shut them out of their fortune. By Jove! if he knew as much about other
people’s children as I do. I’ve had two families consigned to me from
India—as if I were a reformatory, or a schoolmaster, by Jove! _She’s_
all very well, as women go; but I wouldn’t marry that family—no, not for
_twenty_-five thousand a-year.”
“I confess I think it’s a pity,” said Mr Spencer, playing with the
Fontanel grapes. The Curate perhaps was thinking in his heart that such
delicate little souvenirs might have gone quite as appropriately to his
own little _ménage_ as to the Rector’s, who lacked for nothing. “It’s
like going into life at second hand, you know. I shouldn’t like it, for
my part. The children are a drawback, to be sure; but that’s not the
greatest, to my mind; they are nice enough children.”
“Delightful children!” cried the Doctor, “little bricks! plucky little
things! I don’t care for babies, though they’re partly my business. A
family ready made would just suit me.”
“Well, it ain’t much in my line to say what a fellow ought or oughtn’t
to do,” said young Chesterfield. “I’m not a marrying man myself. I don’t
pretend to understand that sort of thing, you know. But Summerhayes
ain’t a spoon, as everybody will allow. He knows what he’s doing. Last
time I was at Fontanel, I couldn’t make out for the life of me what Mrs
Clifford wanted with that new set of stables. She said they were
preparing against Charley’s growing up. I thought somehow Summerhayes
must have a hand in it, and it’s plain enough now.”
“Well, he has done a great deal for her,” said the Rector; “he’s been a
sort of unpaid steward at Fontanel. I daresay she didn’t know how to
reward him otherwise. I believe that’s the handiest way of making it up
to a man in a lady’s fancy. It’s a dangerous kind of business to go on
long; but I don’t know that there’s anything to find fault with. She’s
pretty and he’s not young;—well, not exactly a young fellow, I mean,”
said the Rector, with a half apology. “I daresay they’ll do very well
together. If poor Clifford had only made a sensible will—but for that
nobody would have had any right to talk.”
“And what was poor Clifford’s will?” asked the stranger, with a polite
yawn; “men don’t generally study their wife’s convenience in a second
marriage, in that document; has the defunct been harder upon this lively
lady than most husbands, or what’s wrong about his will?”
“Deuced fool, sir,” cried the Major; “left her every farthing he had in
the world, without settling a penny on those deuced children, or binding
her up anyhow; left her at thirty or so, I suppose, with every penny he
had in her hands. Never heard of such an ass. Of course that’s what
Summerhayes means, but I can tell him it won’t be a bed of roses.
They’ll hate him like poison, these brats will—they’ll make parties
against him—they’ll serve him so that he’ll be sick of his life. I know
the whole business. He’s well enough off now, with his old father’s
savings, and the manor-house, and nothing to do; but he’ll be a wretched
man, mark my words, if he marries Fontanel with five children in it.
It’s the maddest thing he ever did in his life.”
“The poor lady doesn’t seem to count for much,” said Mr Temple. “She’s a
pretty nobody, I suppose.”
Upon which vehement disclaimers rose from all the _convives_. “No, she
was a charming woman,” Gossett said. “A dear, kind-hearted, good little
soul,” said the Rector. “Very well as women go,” the Major admitted;
while the two young men added warmer, but equally vague commendations.
“Yet none of you imagine she is being married for herself,” said the
solitary individual who did not belong to Summerhayes, with a little
laugh at the perturbation he had caused. But nobody saw the fun of it:
they went on with the discussion, ignoring Mr Temple.
“When a woman is in Mrs Clifford’s position,” said the Doctor, “it is
nonsense to talk of her _being_ married. She is active, she is no longer
passive in such a business. She’s richer, she’s _gooder_, she’s
handsomer, she’s better off every way than Tom Summerhayes. How she ever
came to fancy him is the wonder to me.”
“Deuced nonsense,” said the Major; “why didn’t he marry off his sisters
and set up snug for himself? He’s old enough to know better, that fellow
is. There’s young Chesterfield there, he’s at the time of life to make a
fool of himself; but Summerhayes must be, let me see——”
“Don’t let us go into chronology,” said the Rector. “Poor little Mary, I
hope she’ll be happy all the same. I married her to poor Clifford, and I
daresay I’ll have this little business to do as well. I wish she had a
brother, or an uncle, or some one to take that piece of duty off my
hands. I think I will have one of my attacks, and go off to Malvern, and
leave it, Spencer, to you.”
“I wish she had an uncle or a brother for more than that,” said the
Doctor; “it ought to be seen to—the settlement and all that should be
looked well into. I hope she’ll have her wits about her. Not that I mean
to ascribe any mean motives to Tom Summerhayes; but still when there’s
five children to be considered——”
“They’ll kill him, sir,” said the Major, with energy. “He’ll not enjoy
her money for long, mark my words; they’ll kill him in a year. I have
only got this to say, sir,” continued the warrior, turning round upon Mr
Temple, who had ventured a remark not bearing on the present subject to
the Curate, “if this income-tax is going to be kept up without any
compensation, I’ll emigrate—it’s the only thing that remains for honest
Englishmen. After a life spent in the service of my country, I’ll be
driven to a colony, sir, in my old age. It’s more than the country can
bear, and what’s better, it’s more than the country _will_ bear. We’ll
have a revolution, by Jove! that’s what will come of all this taxing and
paying; it’s not to be borne, sir, in a land that calls itself free.”
Whereupon politics came into possession of the elders of the party, and
young Chesterfield resumed that tantalising account of the Meet which
made the poor Curate sigh.
Poor Mrs Clifford! she had but scant sympathy in those innumerable
discussions, male and female, of which she was at present the subject,
all in and about Summerhayes.
CHAPTER III.—WHAT THE CHILDREN HAD TO SAY.
Meanwhile little Loo, with another pair of big tears in her brown eyes,
had been driven home in the wintry twilight over the frosty road, which
rang to every stamp of her ponies’ heels in a way which would have
excited the little thing into positive enjoyment of the exhilarating
sounds and sensations of rapid motion, had things been as usual. As it
was, she sat wrapped up in a fur cloak, with her little veil over her
face, watching the great trees glide past in the darkening, and turning
her wistful looks now and then to the young winterly moon, which had
strayed like a lost child into the midst of a whole covey of clouds,
still crimsoned with reflections from the sunset. Loo’s little heart
ached so, and she was so steadfastly determined not to admit that it was
aching, that she was almost glad to feel how chill her little feet were
getting, and how benumbed the hand which was outside of the fur cloak.
She kept her little stiff fingers exposed to the frosty breeze all the
same, and was rather glad of that sensation of misery which gave her a
little excuse to herself for feeling unhappy. As the tinges of crimson
stole out of the clouds, and the sky grew so wistfully, coldly clear
around the moon, Fontanel came in sight, with lights in all its windows,
twinkling through the trees in the long avenue, now one gleam, now
another, as the little carriage drove on. There first of all was the
great nursery window blazing with firelight, where Loo meant to hold a
little committee as soon as she got in, and where she could so well
picture “all of them” in all their different occupations, populating all
the corners of the familiar room. A little further on it was the window
of mamma’s room, which lightened brightly out behind the bare branches
of the great chestnut tree. What would the house be without mamma? the
little girl asked herself, and the great blobs of hot dew in her eyes
fell upon her cold fingers. “Aren’t you well, Miss Loo?” asked the old
groom who drove her, and Loo made him a very sharp answer in the
irritation of her troubled little heart. She ran into the light and
comfort of the house with a perverse, childish misery which she did not
understand. She would not let old William take her cloak from her, but
threw it down, and stumbled over it, and stamped her little foot, and
could have cried. Poor little Loo! she was sick at heart, and did not
know what it meant. Instead of going to her mother, as she usually did,
she hastened up to the nursery where “all of them” were in a highly
riotous condition at the moment, and where the darkness of her little
face was unnoted by all but nurse, who took off her boots and warmed her
feet, and did away with the only physical reason Loo dared to pretend to
as an excuse for looking wretched. It was not very easy to look wretched
in that room. By the side of the fire where a great log blazed was
Harry, aged ten, with a great book clasped in his arms, and his cheeks
and hair equally scorched and crimsoned with near vicinity to the flame.
Little Mary, and Alf, the baby, were playing at the other end of the
room. Alf was six, though he was the baby; but Mrs Clifford was the kind
of woman to love a pet, and the little fellow’s indignant manhood was
still smothered in long curls and lace tuckers. He avenged himself by
exercising the most odious tyranny over his next little sister, who was
Baby’s slave. All this little company Loo looked round upon with
mysterious looks. She herself was twelve, little and pale, with nothing
particular about her but her eyes, and her temper, which had already
made itself, unfortunately, felt through the house. She sat maturing her
plans till she heard the clock strike, and saw that it would shortly be
time to go to her mother in her dressing-room, as the Fontanel children
always did before dinner. She immediately bestirred herself to her task.
“Nurse,” said Loo, “will you take these things down to mamma’s
dressing-room, please, and tell her we will all come presently; and if
you wish to go down-stairs, you may. I will take care of the children,
and take them down to mamma.”
“Thank you, Miss Loo; but there’s nobody to be at dinner but Mr
Summerhayes and Mademoiselle, and you’re all to go down,” said Nurse;
“you’re too little to have the charge of Master Alf, and you’ve all got
to be dressed, dears, for dessert.”
“Then you can come up when I ring. I want the children by themselves,”
said little Loo, with her imperious air. “You can go away.”
“You’re a deal too forward for such a little thing. I’ll speak to your
ma, Miss, I will,” said the offended nurse. “At least I would if it was
any good; but as long as Missis encourages her like this;—oh children
dear, there’s changed times coming! You won’t have the upper hand
always; it’s a comfort to a poor servant anyhow, whatever it may be to
other folks. I’m going, Miss Loo; and you’ll come up directly the very
minute you leave your ma to be dressed.”
Loo watched her to the door, and, skipping off her chair, closed it
behind the dethroned guardian of the nursery. “Now, children, come here,
I want to speak to you all,” said the little princess. “Mary, don’t be
as great a baby as Alf; you are eight—you are almost a woman. Alf, come
here and stand by me like a gentleman. Harry——”
But Harry was not so easily roused. He had been lectured so long about
scorching his face that he was now proof to all appeals. He had to be
hunted up out of his corner, and the book skilfully tilted up and thrown
out of his arms, which operation surprised Loo into a momentary laugh,
of which she was much ashamed. “Harry!” she cried, with redoubled
severity, “it is no nonsense I am going to talk of—it is something very
serious. Oh, children!” exclaimed the elder sister, as Alf jumped upon
Harry’s back, and the two had a harmless scuffle in continuation of that
assault which had roused Harry. “Oh, children!” cried Loo, who had
laughed in spite of herself, now bursting into quick tears of impatience
and vexation. “You play and play and think of nothing else—and you won’t
let me talk to you of what’s going to happen to mamma.”
“What is it?” cried Harry, opening a pair of great bright eyes, and
coming hastily to his sister’s side. Alf asked “What is it?” too, and
placed himself on the other hand. As for Mary, she was frightened and
stood a little apart, ready to rush off to her mother, or to ring for
Nurse, or to do anything else that the exigency might demand.
“Do you remember what mamma said to us when we were in the dining-room
on Sunday after dinner, when Tom—I mean when Mr Summerhayes was
there—when he kissed us all?” said Loo, with a little red spot suddenly
glowing out upon one indignant little cheek.
“She said he was going to be a father to us,” said Harry, rather
stolidly.
“And we didn’t know what it meant,” said little Mary, breaking in
eagerly, “but Nurse told me afterwards. It means that mamma is going to
be married to cousin Tom. Oh, won’t it be queer? Shall we have to call
him papa, Loo? I shall never recollect, I am sure.”
Loo gazed with eyes growing larger and larger in the face of her
insensible sister. Then seeing Mary’s arm on the top of the great
nursery fender, Loo, we are sorry to say, was so far betrayed by her
resentment as to thrust little Mary violently away with a sob of
passion. They all looked at her with wondering eyes.
“Oh, you stupid, stupid children!” cried the poor little heroine, “don’t
you know mamma, though she is so pretty, is not a young lady like other
people that are going to be married; don’t you know people talk about
it, and laugh at her, and say she is foolish? I have heard them do it!”
cried Loo. “I heard them in Summerhayes to-day talking and scolding
about our mamma. She knows best what to do—better than all of them. She
will never be unkind to us, or stop loving us. Oh, only think if she
knew that people said such things—it would kill her! I heard them, and I
thought I should have died. And now, children,” said Loo, solemnly,
“what we’ve got to do is to go down to mamma, not jumping or making a
noise like great babies, but quiet and serious; and to tell her that she
is to do what she thinks best, and never mind what people say; and that
we—we,” sobbed the little girl, vainly trying to preserve her composure,
as she brought out word after word with a gush of tears—“we’ll stand by
her and trust in her, and never believe anything. That is what we must
go and say.”
After she had finished her speech Loo fell into a little passion of
crying, in which she partly lost the slight murmurs and remonstrances of
her calmer and wondering audience; but passion as usual carried the day.
When Mrs Clifford’s bell rang the children went down-stairs, looking
rather scared, in a kind of procession, Loo coming last with Alf, who
had to be held tightly by the hand lest he should break out into
gambols, and destroy all the solemnity of the proceeding. Mrs Clifford
was sitting by the fire when they went in, in an attitude of thought.
The candles were not lighted, and it was very easy to suppose that mamma
herself looked sad, and was quite in a state of mind to be thus
addressed. Harry and Mary, rather ashamed of themselves, were already
carrying on a quiet scuffle at the door when Loo came up to them. “You
go first, Harry”—“No, you,” they were saying to each other. “Oh, you
stupid, stupid children, you have no feeling!” cried Loo, bitterly, as
she swept past them. Mrs Clifford looked up with a smile, and held out
her hand, which she expected to be grasped immediately by a crowd of
little fingers, but the mother’s looks were dreamy to-night, and some
one else was before her children in her thoughts. She was startled when
she felt Loo’s little cold hand put into hers, and woke up and pushed
her chair back from the fire to look at the little things who stood
huddled together before her. “What is the matter?” said Mrs Clifford.
“Oh, mamma, mamma,” cried Loo; her poor little voice grew shrill,
notwithstanding all her efforts. She had to make a pause, and to
preserve her dignity had to let Alf go, who immediately went off to ride
on the arm of the sofa, and compromise the seriousness of the scene.
“Oh, mamma, dear,” said Loo, feeling that no time was to be lost, “we
have come to say that we will never believe anything; that we know you
love us, and will always love us—and—and—we believe in _you_; oh, mamma,
we believe in you, and we will always stand by you, if everybody in the
world were on the other side.”
Here Loo fell, choking with tears and passion, on her mother’s
footstool, and laid her poor little head, which ached with cold and
crying, on Mrs Clifford’s lap. The mother’s eyes had woke up out of all
their dreaming. Perhaps it was as well the candles were not lighted.
That cheek which the widow screened with her hand was as crimson and as
hot as Harry’s had been reading over the fire. She was glad Loo’s keen
eyes were hidden upon her lap; she blushed, poor tender woman as she
was, before her children. The little woman-daughter was dreadful to her
mother at the moment—a little female judge, endued with all the
awfulness of nature, shaming the new love in her mature heart.
“What does this all mean, children?” said Mrs Clifford, trying to be a
little angry, to conceal the shock she had received.
“Oh, please mamma, it’s Loo,” cried Mary, frightened. “She made us come;
it was one of her passions.”
“No, it was not one of her passions,” said Harry, who was Loo’s
champion; “it was to tell mamma we would always stand by her; and so I
will,” cried the boy on his own account, kindling up, “if there were any
robbers or anything—for I’m the eldest son when Charley’s at school.”
Loo heard this where she lay, with her head on her mother’s lap; she was
incapable of speech or motion almost, but she could not but groan with
impatience over the stupidity of the children; and Alf was riding loudly
on the arm of the sofa, shouting to his imaginary horse. Loo gathered
herself up with a blush upon her cheeks; it did not enter into her head
to imagine that her mother blushed much more hotly and violently when
the little face unfolded itself slowly out of her lap.
“Hush! Loo, don’t say any more,” said Mrs Clifford; then with a little
effort the mother put her arm round the child and drew her close. “I
understand what you mean—but you must not say any more,” she said; then
she stooped down her hot cheek upon that wet one of poor Loo’s. “We
shall all be very happy, I hope,” said Mrs Clifford in the dark, in her
little daughter’s ear. “I am doing it—for—for all your sakes, dear. He
will stand by you and me, and all of us, Loo. I hope we shall be—very
happy—happier even than we are now,” said Mrs Clifford, with a faint
little tremble in her voice and quiver at her heart. When she had kissed
Loo, and the child had gone away to compose herself, poor Mary, the
mother, sat for a long time looking into the fire with a terrible
misgiving upon her—“happier even than we are now.” Ah! just then she had
been so happy—all well in the prosperous, plentiful house; not an ache
or a trouble that she knew of among all her children; not a single look
of love dimmed to her yet by her resolution; and the new love, sweet as
any girl’s dream, restoring to her firmament all the transitory
delicious lights of youth. Somehow that prospect darkened under a
strange cloud of alarm and shame when the mother felt her cheeks flush
at the look of her woman-child. “I am doing it for—all their sakes,” she
tried to say to herself; but her innocence grew like guilt as she felt
in her heart that this pretence was not true.
CHAPTER IV.—HER OWN THOUGHTS.
Mrs Clifford had not much time to think that night, and the impression
went off her when she was in her lover’s company—which was very nearly
always; for, long before this had been thought of, Tom Summerhayes had
been the soul of everything at Fontanel. She had come so gradually to
consult him about everything—to take his counsel upon small and great
that happened—that it seemed only natural now that he should belong to
her; but after Loo’s little scene a variety of annoyances came upon
Mary—indications of the world’s opinion—evidences that it did not seem
so natural to other people as to herself. Even Charley’s schoolboy
letter was rather dreadful to his mother. The boy bestowed his
approbation upon her match, and was to stand by her, too, in Loo’s very
vein; and the mother felt more humbled by thus obtaining the consent of
her children than she would have been by the sacrifice of all she had in
the world. Still it never came into her head to give up her
marriage—never, perhaps, till a day or two before, when things were much
too far advanced for any drawing back, and when she sat alone by her
fire, with her desk open before her, late at night when all the
household were asleep. In her desk were various little matters which had
been treasures to Mary Clifford. She took them out with trembling
hands—a withered flower, given to her, oh, so long ago, when she was
little more than a child, and preserved with girlish romance; a little
ring made of hair, which she had worn in her days of betrothal; a little
faded drawing, made by herself at the same period, of her early lover;
and last and most important of all, some letters—not many, but very
tender—the love-letters of her youth. How she had cried over them many a
sad day after her Harry died; how she had gradually forgotten them again
and left them in their safe concealment; how of late she had rather
avoided the place where they were, and shrank from touching the little
desk that contained them; and now, at last, upon the eve of her second
wedding, here they were all spread out before her, to be disposed of
somehow. Mary’s treasures! she had heard them called so—had called them
so herself. What were they now?
Poor, little, soft, tender-hearted woman! There was no passion in her.
She was in love with all her heart, but it was affectionately, not
passionately, or else she never could have opened that desk. She took
out the flower, and cried, and looked at it; then, with a hasty impulse,
put it softly on the fire, and watched it blaze into sudden ashes, and
cried again, and felt guilty to her heart. “I was such a child,” she
said to herself in her tears, and took a kind of melancholy comfort from
thinking how young she had been when she was first a bride. Then she
looked at her own drawing, which was not the least like him, and thought
with a compunction of her Harry. Poor Harry! All this bright house, all
these dear children, were his as well as hers; but he was put away in
the family vault, poor fellow, and nothing was henceforward to belong to
him in this living world—not even the name he had given her, not her
thoughts, not any of her heart. She cried over that too like the rest.
She put up the ring in a little parcel for Loo—she laid aside the
portrait for little Harry. She tried to indemnify him by making over all
those little mementoes, which it troubled her to look at, to his
children. Then she took up the bundle of yellow letters and timidly
opened one of them, and read a few sentences. There she read of the
young love that was never to die, never to know change. Poor Mary put
them away again with a sob almost of terror, and hastily locked up the
desk, and resolved to put it away somewhere out of sight. She could not
examine any further into those “treasures” which had become ghosts. She
drew her chair to the fire, and shivered in her thoughts. She was a
simple-minded woman, not wise, but moved by every wind of feeling. It
came to her mind just then to recollect how, in her first widowhood, she
had taken comfort from the thought that Harry was near and saw her tears
for him, and knew how faithful her poor heart was. Now that thought was
too much for Mary’s strength. She gave a cry of helpless terror when it
occurred to her. Alas, for that immortality of union which comforts the
heart of grief! What if Harry met her at the very gates of heaven when
she got there, and claimed her, she who was going to be another man’s
bride? Sitting alone in the night, with all the household asleep, and
such thoughts for companions, it was not wonderful if a panic seized
upon Mrs Clifford’s heart. Poor Harry, who had loved her so well,
appeared like a pursuing spectre to the soft little woman. If it was
true that she belonged to him for ever and ever, how could she dare to
love Tom Summerhayes? and if she did not belong to him for ever and
ever—he who had loved her to the end, and had never done anything to
forfeit her affection—what was the hereafter, the heaven where love, it
appeared, could not be immortal? These fancies wrung poor Mary’s heart.
She did not know any answer to make to them. The question put by the
Sadducees nohow answered her case. She who blushed before her children,
how could she ever look Harry in the face? She felt herself an infidel,
trembling and crying over that everlastingness which had once given her
such consolation. That Harry could ever cease to love her, nature
contradicted as impossible. He was in heaven, far off, unseen, fixed in
solemn unchangeableness in all the elevation of love and grief he died
in, never to alter; and she?—— Step by step unconsciously that elevation
of grief and love had died away from her in the changing human days, and
now here she sat weeping, trembling, thinking with awe of Harry,
wondering how he would claim her hereafter, how she could dare name his
name when she was another man’s wife. Poor little trembling soul! She
stole away to bed when she could bear it no longer, and sought refuge in
sleep with the tears still in her eyes, some grand and desperate
resolution of making a sacrifice of herself being in her mind, as was
natural. She had troubled dreams, and woke up quite unrefreshed in the
morning, which was very unlucky that day of all others, because the
lawyers were coming, and all her business affairs were to be settled
before her marriage. However, Mrs Clifford could not remember at her
first waking what it was which had thrown such a cloud upon her; and
when her thoughts of the previous night did return to her mind, they
were neither so intolerable nor so urgent as they had been. In the
daylight, somehow, those gates of heaven, at which Harry might be
standing to claim her, looked a very far way off to the bride of Tom
Summerhayes—there was no such immediate certainty of Harry’s existence
anyhow, or of the kind of interest he might take in her proceedings; and
the philosophy of the question did not recur to her mind with those
puzzling and hopeless speculations. She was a great deal more content to
accept the present and to postpone the future—to let hereafter take care
of itself—than she had been at night. She put away the desk with Harry’s
letters in a dark vacant upper shelf of a bookcase in her own
dressing-room; there, where she could not even see it, it would no
longer witness against her. It was a sunny morning, and the children
came in all fresh and rosy to say their prayers, and there was a note
from Mr Summerhayes on the breakfast-table, naming the hour at which the
law people were to arrive. Mrs Clifford had recovered her colour and her
spirits before they came; she was a little agitated, and looked very
pretty in the commotion of her heart. Hers was a position very peculiar
and interesting, as Mr Gateshead himself, the old family solicitor,
suggested, as he read over the deed she was to sign. He was perfectly
pleased with the arrangements altogether, and said that Mr Summerhayes
had behaved most honourably and in the most gentlemanly way. It was very
clear that _his_ motives were not mercenary. The deed Mrs Clifford had
to sign was one by which Fontanel and all its dependencies was settled
upon her eldest son, she retaining the life-interest in it which her
husband had meant her to have. Mr Summerhayes, who had been brought up
for the bar, had himself advised Mr Gateshead in the drawing up of this
important document. The new bridegroom was anxiously solicitous that the
children should be portioned and the property distributed exactly as the
family agent, who knew poor Clifford’s mind, would have advised him to
settle it; and the deed was irrevocable and framed in the most careful
manner, so that no ingenuity of the law could make it assailable
hereafter. It was so rigid in all its provisions that poor Mary wavered
a little over it. She thought it scarcely fair that _he_ should be shut
out entirely from every interest in all this wealth, which, at the
present moment, belonged absolutely to herself. It was Mr Summerhayes
himself who put, with a certain gentle force, the pen into her hands,
and pointed exactly to the spot where she was to sign. “I have _you_,
Mary,” he said in her ear, as he leant over her to keep the parchment
steady; and Mary Clifford signed away all her power and secured her
children’s rights, with “a smile on her lip and a tear in her eye,”
feeling to her heart the delicious flattery. What she possessed was
nothing to him—he had _her_, and a kingdom could not make him happier.
So said the tone of his whisper, the glance of his eye, and the echo of
her heart. This living Love which stood by her side, securing so
carefully that Harry Clifford’s wealth should go to Harry Clifford’s
heirs, and seeking only herself for its own, completely swallowed up
poor Clifford’s ghost, if that forlorn spirit might by chance be
cognisant of what was passing. Mary remembered no more her qualms and
misgivings; and the prospect before her—now that the very children had
got used to it, had ceased either to oppose or to stand by her, and had
fallen into natural excitement about the approaching festivities, the
guests who were to be at Fontanel, the new dresses, the great event
about to happen—looked as bright as the glowing day.
CHAPTER V.—THE MARRIAGE.
Fontanel received a considerable party of guests for the marriage. Miss
Laura and Miss Lydia, who were to be at the head of affairs while the
new Mrs Summerhayes was absent on her wedding tour, arrived two days
before, that they might get into the ways of the place, and know what
was required of them, which was not very much, for Mary was but a
languid housekeeper. Then there were two aunts, an uncle, and some
cousins of Mrs Clifford, none of whom in the least approved of the
match, though decorum and curiosity and kindness prompted them to
countenance poor Mary in her foolishness, notwithstanding their general
surprise, like Miss Harwood, that she had not the sense to know when she
was well off. Then there was Charley from Eton, who had grown so much
lately, that his mother blushed more than ever when he kissed her and
said something kind about her marriage. These were not pleasant days for
poor Mrs Clifford. She knew in her heart that nobody particularly
approved of her, not even Tom’s sisters—that people were saying it was
just what was to be expected, and that a woman left at her age with so
much property in her hands was sure to make a fool of herself. She knew
that the ladies when they got together had little conversations over
her—that one wondered why she could not make herself happy with these
dear children, and another with this fine place—and that a third mused
what poor Mr Clifford would have said could he have known. Poor Mary was
very thankful when the day dawned on her wedding-morning—she was glad,
as brides seldom are, of the arrival of the fated moment which was to
place things beyond the reach of censure or criticism, and relieve her
from her purgatory. The Rector of Summerhayes had not been called on to
do that piece of duty. The bridegroom luckily had a friend whose
privilege it was; and still more luckily there was a little old disused
church within the grounds of Fontanel in which the ceremony was to be
performed, without the necessity of encountering the gaze and remarks of
the village. It was not intended to be a pretty wedding or to put on
those colours of joy which become the espousals of youth. Mingled and
complicated, as are the thoughts of middle age, were the feelings of the
two who stood side by side before the bare rural altar. The bridegroom
was slight and tall in figure, with a careless languid air, through
which occasionally a little gleam of excitement sparkled. If you watched
him closely you could see that his mind was no way absorbed in the
ceremonial of his marriage. The quick sudden glance here and there under
his eyelids, of those cold but clear grey eyes, turned inquiringly to
everything within his range. He read in the looks of the clergyman, even
while he pronounced the nuptial blessing, what his opinion was of the
entire transaction. He penetrated the mask of propriety in which the
bride’s relations concealed their feelings—he investigated with
oft-repeated momentary glances the face of Charley, who stood in his
Etonian certainty of manhood, premature but not precocious, near his
mother’s side. Mr Summerhayes even scanned, when all was over, the
downcast countenance of Loo, who stood behind, watching with stout
endurance, and resolute not to cry during the entire ceremony. What was
the meaning which lay in those quick furtive darts of the bridegroom’s
eye it was impossible to say; his closest friend could not have
elucidated this strange secret by-play, of which nobody in the company
was conscious, except, perhaps, one child; but one thing it proved at
any rate, that his heart at this special moment was not engrossed, to
the exclusion of everything else, by his bride.
Mary was much less mistress of herself. She cried quietly under her veil
as she stood and listened to the familiar words. She repeated those that
fell to her with a little shiver. In her heart she could not but feel
what a terrible act she was completing as she vowed her love and
obedience over again, and separated her future from her past. But Mary,
with her downcast eyes, was insensible to everybody’s opinion at that
moment. Had she been standing in a wilderness she could not have felt
more isolated. She was conscious only of her new husband by her side—of
an indistinct figure before her—of God above and around, a kind of awful
shadow looking on. Mr Summerhayes was aware of her tears, and they moved
him so that his colour heightened involuntarily, and he pressed her hand
with a warning pressure when it came to that part of the ceremony. But
Mary herself was not aware that she was crying till she felt this touch
of remonstrance, which startled her back into consciousness. Such was
this marriage, at which, as at other marriages, people looked on with
various shades of sympathy and criticism, and which, with all its
concealed terrors and outward rejoicing, was the free act of hearts
uncoerced and acting only at their own pleasure—a free act, suggested by
no third party, unless, perhaps, it might happen to be a certain grim
inflexible Fate who, if the reins are but yielded to her for a moment,
pursues her victim through a throng of inevitable consequences. But
perhaps, when a woman is being married like Mary Clifford, it is a kind
of comfort to her to feel as if she could not help herself, rather than
to know that she is entering all these new dangers voluntarily, and in
obedience to nobody’s will but her own.
“Well, I am sure, I wish them every comfort in life,” said Miss Harwood,
as she stood leaning on her brother’s arm at the hall door of Fontanel,
watching the carriage drive off which contained the happy pair. “She
can’t feel much like a bride, poor thing, leaving all these children
behind her. I am sure I wish her every happiness. I hope she’ll never
live to repent it,” said Miss Harwood, with a sigh.
“Don’t be spiteful,” said the Rector. “This is not a time for such
ill-omened wishes. It’s a very suitable match, and I wish them joy.”
“Oh, Mr Harwood,” said Miss Laura, taking up her position at the
Rector’s other side, thus effecting a natural separation from Mary’s
relations, who were comparing sentiments a little apart from the
Summerhayes party—“a suitable match! when dear Tom is well known to
represent the oldest family in the county, and might have married
anybody—not to say a word against dear Mary, who is our sister now, and
such a sweet creature. But oh, Mr Harwood,” cried Miss Lydia, who had
interposed, as usual, “to talk of a suitable match!”
“There are no suitable matches nowadays. I don’t believe in ’em, by
Jove!” said Major Aldborough, who, with eyes slightly reddened by
champagne, was watching the carriage just then disappearing down the
avenue.
“But there might be, Major,” said Miss Lydia, so softly that her sister
could not take up the meek remark.
The Major only answered “By Jove!” under his breath. He was startled by
the close vicinity—the gentle look—the mild suggestion. He moved a
little away in a momentary panic. There was never any telling, as he
said to himself, what these women might mean.
“It is so strange to be left in charge of the house,” said Miss Laura,
“it gives one such a funny feeling. I don’t know how in the world we
shall do with all the responsibility; but dear Mary insisted upon it,
you know—though I am sure Mrs Tansey would have been much more suitable
for the head of the table than one of us, who are so inexperienced,”
cried Miss Lydia; “but dear Mary thought it best for the children’s
sake. I hope, dear Mrs Tansey, you don’t mind being our guest,”
proceeded the sisterly duet; “dear Mary thought it of such importance
that the children should get used to us—though they know us perfectly
well, still things are all so different; though otherwise, of course,
she would so much have preferred you.”
“Oh, pray, don’t think it necessary to apologise for my niece to me,
Miss Summerhayes,” said the offended aunt. “Mary has consulted her own
inclinations, and so long as she is happy, that is all _we_ can
_possibly_ want of her. I think she is _quite_ right to make friends, if
she can, in her new family. She knows she can always calculate upon _us_
if she ever wants any service,” added the bride’s relation, with a
slight heightening of colour and the ghost of a curtsy. The Miss
Summerhayes were not unequal to the emergency.
“We all know how much poor dear Mary is liked among her own friends,”
cried Miss Lydia. “Your dear girls were so fond of her last year when
they spent such a long time at Fontanel; and dear Mary has such a taste
in presents,” said Miss Laura, coming in so eagerly that she began out
of breath. “We have gone shopping with her often when she was buying her
little souvenirs. I hope you don’t think it will make any difference now
she is married again. She is _so_ affectionate; but as for wanting
services from anybody, that is very unlikely,” resumed the elder sister,
“now she has dear Tom. Dear Tom is so very devoted,” said Miss Laura,
breaking in headlong. “You would think she was only eighteen to see all
the attention he pays her. It is quite sweet to see them, like two
turtle-doves.”
Such being the conversation that succeeded immediately upon the
departure of the bridal pair, it is not to be supposed that the
dinner-table was spread with a very joyful feast, or that the evening
was spent in much happiness. Mary’s relations, who had up to this time
felt themselves much at ease at Fontanel, kept greatly by themselves
during the remainder of the wedding-day. Their occasional minglings with
the Summerhayes party called forth bursts of smart dialogue, more
exciting than amiable, and the opposing sides contended much for the
notice of Loo and the other children, when they came down-stairs in
their new dresses after dinner. It made little Loo’s heart sick to feel
herself enfolded in the embraces of Miss Lydia and Laura on one side,
and then to be talked to and admonished by Aunt Tansey on the other, who
hoped she would be a good girl, and a great comfort to her poor mother.
The children could not tell what to make of the aspect of affairs. Mamma
gone, who was the sun and centre of the domestic world, and already a
new rule and vague possibilities of change in the startled house.
Down-stairs among the servants, though the means of merry-making were
plentiful, this threatening cloud was even more apparent. A new master,
known to like “his own way,” was an alarming shadow impending over the
little community hitherto mildly and liberally governed by the mistress,
whom her servants could scarcely forgive for the step she had taken.
“With five lovely children and every blessin’ as this world could
afford,” as the housekeeper said, shaking her troubled head. The new
husband by no means ranked among the blessings of Providence to the
mistress of Fontanel in anybody’s judgment, and nowhere was Mary’s rash
act resented more warmly than in the servants’ hall.
“But, Loo,” said Etonian Charley, next morning, when Aunt Tansey and all
her belongings had left Fontanel, and everything had fallen under the
restless sway of the Miss Summerhayes, “I’m not going to put up with all
this. You said we were to stand up for mamma; you mean we are only to
pretend to stand up for mamma, you little humbug. Now that’s not my
meaning,” said the heir of Fontanel. “I’m not going to make-believe that
I think she’s done right, when I don’t. I am going to swallow cousin Tom
right out,” cried the boy, not without a little flush on his face. “It’s
a little awkward, to be sure, to know what to call him—but look here,
Loo—I mean to stand by my mother without any humbug. I mean to think
she’s done the very best for us all, and for herself too; and if she
don’t think the same when she comes back, I’ll try to make her; and if
you look black, as you’re looking, you are not the little brick I took
you for, and I won’t have anything more to do with you, Loo.”
“Oh, Charley, I am not half so good as you are,” cried the admiring
little sister, looking up to him with tearful eyes. Charley’s resolution
acted like a charm upon the house in general; and so, with a gradually
improving temper, though much pressed and fretted by Miss Laura and Miss
Lydia, the nursery and the servants’ hall, and all the dependencies of
Fontanel, waited for the advent of the new master and the return of Mrs
Summerhayes.
AN ENGLISH VILLAGE—IN FRENCH.[1]
The old pictures of village life in England will hardly suit for these
modern times. The pleasant little social circle which either existed, or
more often was imagined to exist, as in Miss Austen’s charming fictions,
in the large well-to-do country village, is to be found there no longer.
No one condescends in these days to live in the country, unless he can
either do so, or affect to do so, more or less _en grand seigneur_. A
change has passed over ‘Our Village,’ even since Mary Russell Mitford so
admirably sketched it. The half-pay naval lieutenant or army captain (if
any such survive) has retired into the back street of a cheap
watering-place, not to the improvement either of his position or his
happiness. The village surgeon is no longer an oracle; railways have
brought “the first advice” (at any rate, in the county town) within the
reach of almost all his patients; and he has either disappeared
altogether, or, if he still exists as the “Union Doctor,” badly paid and
little respected, he is seldom now a gentleman. Village lawyers—happily
or unhappily—are become things unknown: and as for any gentleman’s
family of independent but moderate means condescending to that kind of
rural seclusion, it is unheard of. If there is any educated resident in
any country village not fixed there by some local interest or
occupation, he is apt to have something suspicious about his character
or antecedents—to be a refugee from his lawful creditors, or his lawful
wife, or something of that sort.
So that English village life now resolves itself mainly into that of the
parson; for the squire, even if he be resident, scarcely forms part of
the same social circle. And as to the rest, between the university
graduate, of more or less refinement and education, and the opulent
farmer such as he is at present, there lies a gulf which no fancy can
exaggerate, and which the best intentions on both sides fail to bridge
over. Where village spires stand thick together, where the majority of
the rectors or vicars are men of the same way of thinking, and where it
is the fashion of the country to be social, there is a good deal of
pleasant intercourse, no doubt, between the parsons’ families, and as
much “society,” in the real if not in the conventional sense, as is
needful to keep the higher elements of humanity from stagnating; but
where parishes spread far and wide over a poor or thinly-populated
district, or, worse still, where religious sectarianism reckons its
clergy into “High” and “Low,” and the Rector of A. shakes his head and
lifts his eyebrows when any allusion is made to the Vicar of B.—there,
the man whose lot has been cast in a country parsonage had need have
abundant resources within himself, and be supremely indifferent to the
stir of human interests without. He will, in many cases, have almost as
far to ride in search of a congenial neighbour as though he were in the
bush of Australia; he will find something like the solitude of the old
monastery, without the chance of its peace and quietness.
Not that such a life is dull or uninteresting, by any means, unless in
the unfortunate case of the man finding no interest in his duties. One
of this world’s many compensations is, that the busy man, be he what
else he may, is never dull, and seldom discontented. So it is, almost
always, in the country parsonage; without claiming any high standard of
zeal or self-devotion for its occupants, there is probably at least as
much quiet enjoyment, and as little idle melancholy or fretful
discontent, to be found among them, as among any other class of educated
men.
Still, it is a life which it would be very difficult for a foreigner to
appreciate or understand. The relation of the English country rector to
his villagers is totally unlike that of the Lutheran or Roman Catholic
priest. Not claiming—or at least not being in a position to
maintain—anything like the amount of spiritual authority which is
exercised by the pastor under both these other systems, he wields, in
point of fact, an amount of influence superior to either. He cannot
command the servile and terrified obedience in externals which is often
paid by the Irish and Italian peasant to his spiritual guide; but he
holds a moral power over his parishioners—even over those who
professedly decline his ministrations—of the extent of which neither he
nor they are always conscious, but to the reality of which the enemies
of the Established Church in England are beginning to awake.
The reading world has perhaps been rather over-supplied, of late years,
with novelettes in which the village parson, with some of the very white
or very black sheep of his flock, have been made to walk and talk more
or less naturally for their amusement and edification; but the sight of
a little French book on the subject struck us as something new. It is
very desirable that our good friends across the Channel should know
something about our ways of going on at home; and that not only in the
public life of large towns, or on the highways of travel and commerce,
but in our country villages and rural districts. But French attempts at
English domestic sketches have not, on the whole, been successful. It
is, indeed, most difficult for a foreign visitor to draw pictures of
society in any country which would pass muster under the critical
examination of a native. We took up this ‘Vie de Village en Angleterre’
with some notion of being amused by so familiar a subject treated by a
Frenchman; but we soon found we were in very safe hands. The writer
knows us well, and describes us admirably, very much as we are; the
foreign element is just strong enough to be occasionally amusing, but
never in any way ridiculous; and we should be as much surprised at the
correctness of the writer’s observation as charmed with the candour and
good taste of the little volume, if we had not heard it credibly
whispered that, although written for French readers (and in undeniable
French), it may be claimed as the production of an English pen.
Whatever may be the secret of the authorship, the little book will repay
the reader of either nation. It is written in the person of a political
refugee, who, armed with one or two good introductions, comes to pass a
period of exile in England. While previously travelling in Switzerland,
he has made acquaintance with a Mr Norris, an energetic country parson
of the modern “muscular” type. He it is who persuades the wanderer to
study in detail, by personal observation, that “inner life” of England
which, he has already learnt to believe, and rightly, forms and shapes,
more than anything else, her national and political character. Hitherto,
as he confesses to his new acquaintance, the coldness and reserve of
such English as he has met with have rather frightened him; yet he has
always admired in them that _solidarité_—which we will not attempt to
translate. The hostility between the labouring classes in France and
those above them has always appeared to him the great knot of political
difficulties in that country—a source of more danger to real liberty and
security than any other national evil.
He determines, therefore, to see and study this domestic character of
England for himself—“not in her political institutions, which we
Frenchmen have been too much accused of wishing to copy, but in that
social life which may very possibly explain the secret of her strength
and her liberty.”—(P. 22.)
It was not his first visit to London; and, arriving in the month of
March, he finds the climate as bad, and the great city as dingy and
dirty, as ever. He does not appear to have noticed our painful efforts
to consume our own smoke, or our ambitious designs in modern street
architecture. On the other hand, he mercifully ignores—if he saw it—our
Great Exhibition. The crowded gin-palaces, and the state of the
Haymarket by night, disgust him, as well they might; and he escapes from
the murky Babylon, as soon as he has taken a few lessons to improve his
colloquial English, to pay the promised visit to his friend Mr Norris at
his parsonage at Kingsford; stopping on his way to deliver a letter of
introduction to an English countess, an old friend of his family, who
has a seat close to Lynmere, a sort of pet village, where the ornamented
cottages form a portion of the park scenery.
In his walk from the station, he makes the acquaintance of a “Madame
Jones,” whose cottage, with its wooden paling and scarlet geraniums,
abutting on the pleasant common, has its door invitingly open. He pauses
to admire the little English picture as he passes by. Good Mrs Jones
observes him, and begs him to walk in; partly, we must hope (and we
trust all foreign readers will believe), out of genuine English
hospitality—though we doubt if all village dames in Surrey would take
kindly to a Frenchman on the tramp—partly, it must be confessed, with
the British female’s natural eye to business. “Perhaps Monsieur was
looking out for a ‘_petit logement_?’” For Mrs Jones has two rooms to
let; and even a foreigner’s money, paid punctually, is not to be
despised. Monsieur was looking out for nothing of the kind, but he takes
the rooms forthwith; and indeed any modest-minded gentleman, French or
English, who wanted country board and lodging on a breezy common in
Surrey, could not have done better. Here is what our traveller gets for
twenty-two shillings a-week; we only hope it will stop the mouths of all
foreigners who rail at the dearness of English living, when they read
here the terms on which a _petit logement_ may be found in a pleasant
situation in the home counties—two rooms, “fresh and clean,” comfortably
furnished (with a picture of the Queen and a pot of musk into the
bargain), and board as follows:—
“For breakfast she gave me tea with good milk, excellent
bread-and-butter, accompanied either by a rasher of broiled bacon or
fresh eggs. For dinner there were often ‘_ragouts avec force oignons_’
(Irish stew?), boiled mutton, or sometimes a beef-steak ‘_très-dur_,’
potatoes and boiled cabbage, with a glass of good beer and a bit of
cheese. No dessert, but occasionally a pudding. On Sundays, roast-beef
and plum-pudding were apparently the rule without exception, for they
never failed to appear. The tea in the evening was much the same as
the breakfast. If I had wished for supper, I might have had cold meat,
bread, a lettuce, and a glass of beer.”
If Mrs Jones be not as entirely fictitious as Mrs Harris, and would
enclose us a few cards, we think we could undertake that her lodgings
(with a countess and a pet village, too, close by) should not be
untenanted for a week in summertime. We feel sure, however, that the
good lady is _not_ a creature of mere imagination: when we read the
description of her, we recall her as an old acquaintance, though we
cannot remember her address:—
“As for this good woman’s personal appearance, she had nothing
attractive about her except her scrupulous cleanliness. Her age
belonged to that mysterious epoch comprised between forty and sixty.
She had an intelligent countenance; but what was most marked about her
was a slightly military air, and a black silk bonnet which, planted on
the top of her head, tilted forward over her face, and usually
concealed half of it. The two strings were carefully pinned back over
the brim, and the ends fluttered on each side the bonnet, like the
plume of a _chasseur de Vincennes_. That bonnet, she never left it off
for a moment; and my indiscreet imagination went so far as to
speculate what could possibly become of it at night.... Though I had
begged her to consider herself absolute mistress in all domestic
matters—and though, moreover, I should have found considerable
difficulty in ordering my own dinner—she never failed to come in every
morning at breakfast-time ‘for orders,’ as she called it. It was a
little ruse of hers to secure a moment for the active exercise of her
somewhat gossiping tongue. I was enabled to endure the torrent of
words of which good Mrs Jones disburdened herself on such occasions
the more philosophically, inasmuch as she was nowise exacting in the
matter of an answer, and now and then gave me some interesting bits of
information.”
The contrast which follows is drawn from a shrewd observation of
national characteristics on both sides of the Channel:—
“This respectable dame possessed in a high degree the good qualities
and the defects of her class of Englishwomen. In France, the manners
of women of her order are full of expansion and sympathy; and a small
farmer’s wife, however ignorant she may be, will always find means to
interest you in her affairs, and to enter into yours. In England, on
the contrary, with all her gossiping upon trifling subjects, she will
maintain the strictest reserve, so far as you are concerned, upon
matters of any importance. She serves you much better than a
Frenchwoman would, because she looks upon you in the light of a
master—a guest whose rank and character she makes the most of, because
that rank and character raise her in her own estimation; but it is
only in some very exceptional case that she will talk to you about
anything which touches her personally, or that she will venture to
confess that she is thinking about your concerns—that would be, in her
eyes, a breach of proper respect.
“This is the peculiar feature in the relations between the different
classes of society in England. Society there is profoundly
aristocratic; there is no tradesman, be he ever so professed a
Radical, who does not become a greater man in his own eyes by
receiving the most commonplace act of courtesy from a lord; no servant
who does not feel an additional satisfaction in waiting on a master
whose manners have a touch of haughtiness, because such manners strike
him as a mark of superiority. It is just as Rousseau says: ‘Clara
consoles herself for being thought less of than Julia, from the
consideration that, without Julia, she would be thought even less of
than she is.’ The singular feature is, that this kind of humility,
which would seem revolting to us in France, is met with in England
amongst precisely those persons who are remarkable for their moral
qualities and for their self-respect. It is because in them this
deference becomes a sort of courtesy, a social tact, of which only a
gentleman can understand all the niceties—which, besides, implies in
their case nothing like servility—the respect paid to superiors in
rank is kept within the limits of the respect due to themselves. This
peculiarity in English manners struck me the more forcibly, because it
offers such a remarkable contrast to what goes on among ourselves.”
There follows, at some length, a truthful and well-written exposition of
the healthful influence exercised upon a nation by an aristocracy like
that of England—which we must not stop to quote. ‘_Revenons_‘—as the
author writes, asking pardon for so long a digression—‘_Revenons à
Madame Jones_.’
That excellent landlady is careful not only of the diet and other
creature-comforts of her new lodger, but of his moral and religious
wellbeing also. A week of wet weather—which the foreign visitor finds
sufficiently _triste_—is succeeded by a lovely Sunday morning. The
Frenchman sallies out after breakfast for a morning walk, with his book
under his arm—we are sorry to say it was a ‘Tacitus’—with the intention,
we are left to suppose, of worshipping nature on the common. But Mrs
Jones, though totally innocent as to her lodger’s heretical intentions,
takes care to lead him in the way that he should go.
“‘Church is at eleven,’ Mrs Jones called out to me, not doubting for
an instant that I should go there. I went out; she followed me close,
locked all the doors, and, stopping for a moment at the cottage next
door to call for a neighbour, continued her way. I was taking another
path, but was very soon arrested by the hurried approach of Mrs Jones,
who, fancying I had mistaken my way, came after me to show me the road
to church. Such perseverance on her part made it evident that I should
risk the loss of her good opinion if I did not profit by her
instructions; so I walked down the hill with her by a road which wound
between broad verges of green turf overshadowed by lofty trees.”
Thus fairly captured and led to church in triumph, his behaviour there
was on the whole very decorous. The impression likely to be made on the
mind of an intelligent and well-disposed foreigner by the simple and yet
impressive service in a well-ordered village church is very nicely
described. It is true that Mrs Jones’s prisoner, according to his own
account, mingles with the very proper reflections natural to such a
place “those inspired by the volume of Tacitus which he held open before
him for decency’s sake” (and which, we fear, must have imposed itself
upon the good lady as a French prayer-book); a little touch which,
whether written by a Frenchman or not, and whether meant for truth or
satire, is very French indeed. He finds time also to notice the features
of the building itself, and its arrangements. The “tribune” in the
gallery where the Countess performs her devotions, and the high
enclosure with drawn curtains—“a sort of _petit salon_”—which protects
the family of Mr Mason, the squire, from the more vulgar worshippers, do
not strike the visitor, we rejoice to say, as happy illustrations of the
aristocratic feeling in Englishmen; and it is evidently with a quiet
satisfaction that he learns subsequently that “_puséisme_” is trying to
do away with such distinctions.
An invitation to dinner from the Countess gives him at once the _entrée_
to the best society in Lynmere and its neighbourhood. He finds his first
English dinner-party a very dull affair; but he was surely peculiarly
unfortunate in his company, if we are to take his account of the
after-dinner conversation amongst the gentlemen: “At the end of a short
time, two of the guests were asleep, and I would willingly have followed
their example.” The remarks which follow, however, touch with more truth
upon one of the defects in our social intercourse:—
“These dinners of ceremony (and there are scarcely any other kind of
entertainments in the country amongst the higher classes) take place
between neighbours, usually about twice in the year: scarcely any one
except the clergyman enjoys the privilege of being received with less
of etiquette. It follows that it is very possible to pass one’s life
for ten years in the same spot, without having any really intimate
association with any one of one’s neighbours. There are very few
English people who do not regret it. Yet such is the despotism of
custom, that it is rare to find any family which dreams of freeing
itself from the trammels of this etiquette.”
Here and there, of late, the links of this social despotism, under which
we have groaned so long, show symptoms of giving way. The advance of
fashion has done good service in one respect, that the modern service _à
la Russe_, adopted in all good houses, has struck a decisive blow at the
old English heavy dinner; and just as the fashion has long died out of
pressing one’s guests to eat more than they wish, so the fashion is
coming in of not thinking it necessary to put upon the table three times
more than can by any possibility be eaten. When small dinners become
“the thing” even amongst the great people, there is hope that their
lesser imitators will follow the example. And whenever the mistresses of
small families will learn that good and careful cookery is quite as
cheap as bad, and much more wholesome, and will condescend to go back
not only to their great-grandmothers’ hoops, but to their household
receipt-books, they may venture to invite their personal friends without
compunction to a pleasant family-dinner, to the great furtherance of
real sociability, and get rid for ever of those annual or biennial
festivals which are a burden to the weary souls of guests and
entertainers.
The foreign visitor becomes, in a very short time, established on a
footing of intimacy with the family of Mr Mason, a magistrate and landed
proprietor residing in the parish, in whose household Mrs Jones has
formerly lived as nurse. The introduction through the Countess on the
one part, and on the other the warm eulogies of good Mrs Jones (who is
never tired of sounding the praises of her old master and the young
ladies whom she has brought up), may serve in some degree to explain the
somewhat rapid adoption of “Monsieur” as a family friend into the
thrice-guarded circle of an English household. On his part, indeed, we
soon discover quite a sufficient attraction. There is a pale pensive
sentimental “Miss Mary,” quite the sort of young lady, we should say, to
take the fancy of a romantic Frenchman in exile; but as she does not
happen to take ours especially, we confess to have found no particular
interest in this new version of ‘Love in a Village,’ and shall leave our
younger readers to enjoy the romance of the little book for themselves,
without forestalling, even by a single hint, its course or its
conclusion. So far as relates to Monsieur himself, we repeat, we can
quite understand how readily he responded to the warm adoption of his
new English friends.
“Mr Mason consulted me about his son’s studies, Mrs Mason confided to
me her anxieties as the mother of a family; and Mary—whose ardent and
poetic soul felt the need of an intellectual sympathy which failed her
in her own family—threw into her conversation with me an openness and
vivacity which surprised her relatives.”
Nothing of the sort surprises us. What we were rather surprised at was,
that Mr Mason _père_, a grave county dignitary and practical man of
business, should have taken to his bosom, in this ardent and gushing
fashion, the most agreeable, most intellectual, and most amiable
foreigner that ever lived. At first we thought it a mistake—a patent
defect and improbability in an otherwise sensible and natural book. The
author’s casual attempt to account for it by the fact that Mr Mason was
fond of billiards and of backgammon, and found in his new acquaintance
an idle man generally ready to play a game, does not in the least
harmonise with the usual character and habits of country gentlemen past
sixty, or of Mr Mason in particular. But when we read that this
excellent individual, like so many others of his class, has gone largely
into turnips—and that his French visitor, wishing to know all about
English country life, and knowing that such a life is nothing without
turnips, determined, amongst his other travelling studies, to study an
English model farm, and, when his host proposed a visit to that beloved
establishment, accepted the invitation with “_empressement_,” and
listened for hours to bucolic talk with “_un grand interest_,”—then we
no longer wonder for an instant at the eternal friendship which the
English member of the “Royal Agricultural” suddenly and silently vowed
to his guest. Long and painful experience of visits paid to these
excellent people in the country—reminiscences of the inevitable walk
over ploughed fields—the plunging into long dark galleries where
unfortunate beasts were immured for life to be turned into beef, a
process which should be mercifully hidden from the eyes of every good
Christian—the yawns unsuccessfully stifled—the remarks answered at
random—the senseless questions desperately volunteered out of politeness
on the visitor’s part, betraying the depth of his incapacity and
ignorance;—these must rise before many a reader’s mind as well as our
own, and make them feel what a treasure the scientific agriculturist had
found in the inquiring Frenchman, who walked and talked and listened,
not only without a complaint or a yawn, but positively because he liked
it. Enterprising foreigners have been said to have tried to make their
way into English country society, before now, through the introduction
of the hunting-field, not always with success; perhaps they may be
inclined to take a hint from this little book, and, in quiet family
cases, try the turnips.
The visits to Mr Mason’s farm-cottages give the traveller the
opportunity of drawing a contrast between the habits and aspirations of
agricultural labourers in the two countries:—
“That passion for becoming proprietors, so widely spread in our own
country districts, is unknown, and probably will long continue so,
amongst the agricultural classes in England. The example of Ireland
[it might have been added, of Wales], where the land has been very
much subdivided, and where the population which maintains itself on it
has become excessive, has strengthened the opinion amongst large
landed proprietors in England as to the evil effects of small
holdings. I think I scarcely exaggerate when I say that certainly, in
the southern counties of England, a peasant possessing an acre of land
would be a rarity. Probably it is to this impossibility of becoming
small proprietors that we must attribute the taste which the labouring
classes in England show for ornamenting their houses. If a working man
has saved any money, he will employ it in buying a set of furniture,
and making his cottage look gay; whereas, in France, he would have
laid it aside in the hope of acquiring a bit of land; so that nothing
can be more different than the wretched cabins of our own rural
districts and the cottage of an English labourer, with its many little
appliances of comfort and even luxury. In general the English peasant
lives much less sparingly, and spends upon his meal twice as much as
the French: it is true that the climate requires a more substantial
style of diet.”
These observations would have been more strictly true if they had been
made a few years ago. Within that time the passion for property has
sprung up not only amongst those who call themselves “operatives”
(journeymen weavers, shoemakers, &c.), but even, to a certain extent,
amongst farm-labourers. Recent alterations in the laws of partnership
have encouraged what are called “co-operative societies,” who not only
open “stores” for the sale of all the necessaries of life, on the
joint-stock principle of division of profits, but build cottages which,
by certain arrangements, may become the property of the tenant. A whole
village has just been built in Yorkshire, on this principle of the
tenants becoming eventually the landlords. Not only this, but the same
desire for independence—an excellent feeling in itself—is leading the
same class to purchase cottage property whenever it comes into the
market. If this ambition to become a purchaser were confined to a desire
upon every man’s part to feel himself absolute master of the home he
lived in, then, whatever large proprietors or able political economists
might have to say, it would be an object which would deserve the very
highest respect. But, unfortunately, the feeling is not altogether that
of desiring to live in peace under one’s own vine and fig-tree: it is
the wish to have a tenement to let out to others. It is comparatively
seldom that a small piece of land, suited to the sum at such a
purchaser’s command, is thrown into the market. Cottages, on the other
hand, are continually advertised for sale; the working-man, eager to
secure his bit of real property, gives for them a sum far beyond their
value—a sum which the capitalist or large proprietor will not give; and
in order to make his purchase pay, he either proceeds at once to divide
a comfortable dwelling into two, or raises the rent upon his more needy
tenant. The evil consequences are twofold; the neighbouring landowner,
who ought to have the cottages for his own labourers, who would keep
them in good repair, and let them at moderate rents, has been driven out
of the market; and either a lower class of tenant, continually changing
and being “sold up,” is introduced; or the honest labourer is compelled
to pay to this new landlord of his own class a rent out of all
proportion to the accommodation supplied him.
It is to be hoped that this growing evil (for evil it is) may be met by
the increased liberality of landed proprietors in building good and
sufficient cottages for the labourers on their own estates. In the case
of the humbler artisans, in towns especially, one does not see the
remedy except in the questionable shape of legislative restrictions.
But we have almost forgotten our foreign exile’s travelling
acquaintance, Mr Norris, the hearty and genial English clergyman at
whose invitation he first set himself to study English life. Before
finally taking up his quarters at Lynmere, he has paid the promised
visit to his friend in his parsonage at Kingsford; “a pretty Gothic
_chateau_,” furnished with the taste of a gentleman and a scholar; a
residence whose somewhat luxurious belongings, its ample library, and
the well-chosen prints which grace its walls, when contrasted in the
writer’s mind with the humble abode of the French village _curé_, give
rise to reflections “not wholly to the disadvantage of the latter.” We,
on the other hand, must warn any foreign reader who may draw the
contrast for himself, that Kingsford Parsonage is a very exceptional
case indeed. Mr Norris is discovered, somewhat to his French visitor’s
surprise, clad in “a strange costume of white flannel,” not altogether
sacerdotal; “_Je suis habillé en cricketer_,” is the parson’s
explanation. The fact is, he has just been playing cricket with his
pupils, half-a-dozen young men in preparation for the Universities. The
simple and orderly habits of the household, the breakfast at eight, the
dinner at one, the kindly intercourse between the tutor and his pupils,
and the prosperity of a well-ordered village under an energetic pastor,
are well described, and will give our French neighbours a very fair idea
of such a life. A little, a very little “_triste_,” our visitor finds
it, this English rural life, with its rich green meadows and grey sky,
and slowly-winding river, half hidden by its banks. One needs, he
considers, in order to find happiness in such scenes, a hearty love for
simple nature, and a heart “warmed with the sentiment of duty
fulfilled;” in short, he is of Dr Johnson’s opinion, though he puts it
into much more complimentary language—that “those who are fond of the
country are fit to live in the country.”
But if we cannot allow our French friends to imagine that all English
country clergymen have their lot cast in the pleasant places of
Kingsford and Lynmere, still less, we fear, must they consider them (or
their wives) such wonderful economists as, like Mr Norris, to maintain
all the quiet elegancies of a gentleman’s establishment in a handsome
Gothic chateau (and to travel in Switzerland besides), upon an
ecclesiastical income scarcely exceeding, after all necessary
deductions, two hundred pounds a-year. True, Mr Norris takes pupils and
writes for reviews—highly respectable vocations, and profitable enough
in some hands, but scarcely open to the majority of his brethren, and
not safe to be depended upon, as a supplementary income, by young
clergymen on small preferments who may feel no vocation for celibacy. Mr
Norris, indeed, is peculiarly favoured in many respects as regards money
matters; for he has been fortunate enough to have enjoyed an exhibition
at Oxford in days when the word “exhibition” (as we are informed in a
note) meant “a gratuitous admission to the University.” Here we are
certainly stepping out of the ground of real English life, where the
writer has so pleasantly guided us, into a highly imaginative state of
things. It would have been a noble boast, indeed, for us to have made to
foreigners, if it could have been made truly, that Oxford, out of her
splendid endowments, offered, even occasionally, “gratuitous admissions”
to poor and deserving scholars. It was what the best of her founders and
benefactors intended and desired—what they thought they had secured for
ever by the most stringent and solemn enactments; but what, unhappily,
the calm wisdom of the University itself has been as far from carrying
out as the busy sweeping of a Reform Commission.
The foreign visitor is naturally very much impressed by an English
cricket-match. The puzzled admiration which possesses him on the
occasion of his “assisting” at a “_fête du cricket_” is very amusingly
expressed. Throughout all his honest admiration of the English
character, there peeps out a confession that this one peculiar habit of
the animal is what he has failed to account for or comprehend. He tries
to philosophise on the thing; and, like other philosophical inquirers
when they get hold of facts which puzzle them, he feels bound to present
his readers with a theory of cause and effect which is evidently as
unsatisfactory to himself as to them. He falls back for an explanation
on that tendency to “solidarity” in the English temperament which he has
admired before.
“The explanation of the great popularity of the game of cricket is
that, being always a challenge between two rival bodies, it produces
emulation and excites that spirit of party which, say what we will, is
one of the essential stimulants of public life, since in order to
identify one’s self with one’s party one must make a sacrifice to a
certain extent of one’s individuality. The game of cricket requires
eleven persons on each side, and each of the players feels that he is
consolidated (_solidaire_) with his comrades, in defeat as well as in
victory.... That which makes the charm of the game is, above all, the
_solidarity_ which exists between the players.”
This is a very pretty theory, but scarcely the true one. In the
public-school matches, no doubt, and in some matches between
neighbouring villages, the _esprit de corps_ goes for much; but, as a
rule, we fear the cricketer is a much more selfish animal. His ambition
is above all things to make a good score, and to appear in ‘Bell’s Life’
with a double figure to his name. Just as the hunting man, so that he
himself can get “a good place,” cares exceedingly little for the general
result of the day’s sport; so the batsman at Lord’s, so long as he makes
a good innings, or the bowler so long as he “takes wickets” enough to
make a respectable figure on the score, thinks extremely little, we are
sorry to say, of “solidarity.” Whether the match is won or lost is of as
little comparative importance as whether the fox is killed or gets away.
We notice the difference, because it is a great pity it should be so.
The Frenchman’s principle is by far the finer one; and the gradual
increase of this intense self-interest in the cricket-field is going far
to nullify the other good effects of the game as a national amusement.
One reason why the matches between the public schools are watched with
such interest by all spectators is, that the boys do really feel and
show that identification of one’s self with one’s party which the author
so much respects; the Harrow captain is really much more anxious that
Harrow should beat Eton, than that he himself should get a higher score
than Jones or Thompson of his own eleven; and the enthusiastic chairing
of the hero of the day is not, as he knows, a personal ovation to the
player, as to a mere exhibition of personal skill, but to his having
maintained the honour of the school.
Our national ardour for this game seems always incomprehensible to a
Frenchman. There is a little trashy, conceited book now before us, in
which a French writer, professing to enlighten his countrymen upon
English life, dismisses this mysterious amusement in a definition, the
point and elegance of which it would be a pity to spoil by
translation—“_un exercice consistant à se fatiguer et à donner d’autant
plus de plaisir qu’il avait fait répandre d’autant plus de sueur_.”[2]
He is careful, at the same time, to suggest that even cricket is
probably borrowed from his own nation—the “_jeu de paume_” of the days
of the Grand Monarque. But the inability of so shrewd and intelligent an
observer, as the foreign spectator with whom we have to do at present,
to comprehend the real points of the game, is an additional testimony to
its entirely English character. The Etonian’s mamma, who, as he relates
with a sort of quiet wonder, sat for five hours on two days successively
on a bench under a hot sun, to watch the match between her son’s eleven
and Harrow, would have given a much better account of the game. The
admiring visitor does not pretend, as he observes, to go into the
details of a game which has thirty-eight rules; but he endeavours to
give his French readers some general idea of the thing, which may
suffice for unprofessional lookers-on. It is unnecessary to say that the
idea is very general indeed. The “consecrated” ground on which the
“_barrières_” are erected, and where the “_courses_” take place, are a
thoroughly French version of the affair. The “ten fieldsmen
precipitating themselves in pursuit of the ball when struck” would be
ludicrous enough to a cricketer’s imagination, if the thought of the
probable consequences were not too horrible. Even such headlong zeal on
the part of two fieldsmen only, with their eye on the same ball, has
resulted, before now, in a collision entailing the loss of half-a-dozen
front teeth and other disfigurements. It was unnecessary to exaggerate
the perils of a game which, as our author observes, has its dangers; and
if the fieldsmen at Lynmere conducted themselves after this headlong
fashion when he was watching them, we can quite understand his surprise
that, when the day concludes with the inevitable English dinner, men who
had spent the whole day “in running, striking, and receiving blows from
the ball to the bruising of their limbs” (and precipitating themselves
against each other) should still show themselves disposed to drink
toasts and make speeches for the rest of the evening. The conversation
which he has with the parish schoolmaster, an enthusiastic cricketer, is
good in its way:—
“‘I hope you have enjoyed the day?’ said he to me. ‘You have had an
opportunity of seeing what cricket is. It’s a noble game, is it not?’
“‘Yes,’ said I, ‘it is a fine exercise; and I think highly of those
amusements which bring all classes together under the influence of a
common feeling.’
“‘It is not only that,’ replied the excellent man: ‘but nothing
moralises men like cricket.’
“‘How?’ said I, rather astonished to hear him take such high ground.
“‘Look here,’ he replied; ‘a good cricketer is bound to be sober and
not frequent the public-house, to accustom himself to obey, to
exercise restraint upon himself; besides, he is obliged to have a
great deal of patience, a great deal of activity; and to receive those
blows of the ball without shrinking, requires, I assure you, some
degree of courage.’”
We suspect that these remarks belong of right at least as much to the
French philosopher as to the English national schoolmaster; but they
bring forward in an amusing way the tendency of one-ideaed
philanthropists, which the author elsewhere notices, to attribute to
their own favourite hobby the only possible moral regeneration of
society:
“Every Englishman who is enthusiastic in any particular cause never
fails to see in that the greatness and the glory of his country; and
in this he is quite serious. In this way I have heard the game of
cricket held up to admiration as one of the noblest institutions of
England, an institution which insures to the country not only an
athletic, but an orderly and moral population. I have seen the time
when the same honour was ascribed to horse-racing; but since this
sport has crossed the Channel, and it has been found by experience
that it does not always preserve a country from revolutions and _coups
d’état_, it has lost something of its prestige in England.”
There is always some moral panacea in the course of advertisement, like
a quack medicine, to cure all diseases: mechanics’ institutes, cheap
literature, itinerant lecturers, monster music-classes, have all had
their turn; and just at present the ‘Saturday Review’ seems to consider
that the salvation of England depends upon the revival of
prize-fighting.
We cannot follow the writer into all the details of village institutions
and village politics, which are sketched with excellent taste and great
correctness. It will be quite worth while for the foreigner who wants to
get a fair notion of what goes on here in the country—or indeed for the
English reader who likes to see what he knows already put into a
pleasant form, all the more amusing because the familiar terms look odd
in French—to go with our French friend to the annual dinner of “_Le Club
des Odd-Fellows_,” with its accompaniment “_de speechs, de hurrahs, et
de toasts_”—without which, he observes, no English festival can take
place; to accompany him in his “_Visite au Workhouse_,” subscribe with
him to the “_Club de Charbon_,” or, better still, sit with him in the
village Sunday-school, even if we cannot take the special interest which
he did (for his own private reasons) in “_le classe de Miss Mary_.” Very
pleasant is the picture—not overdrawn, though certainly taken in its
most sunshiny aspect—of the charitable intercourse in a well-ordered
country village between rich and poor. One form, indeed, there is of
modern educational philanthropy which the writer notices, of the success
of which we confess to have our doubts. The good ladies of Lynmere set
up an “_Ecole managère_”—a school of domestic management, we suppose we
may call it—where the village girls were to learn cooking and other good
works. Now a school of cookery, admirable as it is in theory—the amount
of ignorance on that subject throughout every county in England being
blacker than ever was figured in educational maps—presents considerable
difficulties in actual working. To learn to cook, it is necessary to
have food upon which to practise. Final success, in that art as in
others, can only be the result of a series of experimental failures. And
here was the grand stumbling-block which presented itself, in the case
of a cooking-school set up with the very best intentions, under
distinguished patronage, in a country village within our own knowledge.
Some half-dozen girls, who had left school and were candidates for
domestic service, were caught and committed to the care and instruction
of an experienced matron; not without some murmuring on the part of
village mothers, who considered such apprenticeship a waste of time,—all
girls, in their opinion, being born cooks. From this culinary college
the neighbouring families were to be in course of time supplied with
graduates. Great were the expectations formed by the managers, and by
the credulous portion of the public. There were to be no more tough
beef-steaks, no more grumbling masters and scolding mistresses, no more
indigestion. But this admirable undertaking split upon a rock which its
originators had not foreseen. It had been proposed that the village
families should in turn send dishes to be operated upon by the pupils;
but the English village mind is not given to experiments, culinary or
other, and preferred boiling its mutton one day and eating it cold the
next. Then the bachelor curate, who had a semi-official connection with
the new establishment, reading prayers there as “chaplain and visitor,”
who was presumed to have a healthy appetite, and was known to have
complained of the eternal mutton-chops provided by his landlady, was
requested to undergo a series of little dinners cooked for him gratis.
The bashful Oxonian found it impossible to resist the lady patronesses’
invitation, and consented—for the good of the institution. But it ended
in the loss to the parish of a very excellent working parson. For a few
weeks, the experimental ragouts and curries sent in to his lodgings had
at least the advantage of being a change: but as the presiding matron
gradually struck out a bolder line, and fed him with the more ambitious
efforts of her scholars, it became too much even for clerical patience,
and he resigned his cure. Out of delicacy to the ladies’ committee, he
gave out that it was “the Dissenters;” but all his intimate friends knew
that it was the cooking-school.
The Rector of Lynmere is a Mr Leslie—a clergyman of the refined and
intellectual type, intended, probably, as an artistic contrast to Mr
Norris in his cricket flannels. He is, we are expressly told, “an
aristocrat”—indeed, a nephew of the Countess aforesaid. He is reserved,
nervous, and diffident, although earnest and single-hearted. The vulgar
insolence of the Baptists at the vestry-meetings is gall and wormwood to
him; and he suffers scarcely less under the fussy interference of a
Madam Woodlands, one of the parish notables, of Low-Church views and
energetic benevolence, who patronises the church and the rector, and
holds him virtually responsible for all the petty offences and
indecorums which disturb the propriety of the village. This lady is very
slightly sketched, but the outline can be filled up from many a parish
clergyman’s mental notebook. We do not wonder that Mr Leslie, with his
shrinking sensibilities, had as great a horror of her as of Mr Say, the
Nonconformist agitator, who led the attack at the church-rate meetings.
Only we would remark, that if the author thinks that the unfitness of
the Rector of Lynmere to contend with a body of political Dissenters, or
his want of tact in dealing with so very excellent and troublesome a
parishioner as Mrs Woodlands, is at all explained by his being “an
aristocrat,” he is encouraging them in a very common and very
unfortunate mistake. It is true that it is not pleasant for a man of
cultivated mind and refined tastes, be he priest or layman, to be
brought into contact with opponents whose nature and feelings, and the
manner in which they express those feelings, are rude and vulgar; but if
he possess, in addition to his refinement and cultivation, good sound
sense, a moderate amount of tact, and, above all, good temper, he will
find, in the fact of his being “a gentleman,” an immense weight of
advantage over his antagonists. We remember to have seen protests, in
the writings of a modern school of English Churchmen, against what they
are pleased to term “the gentleman heresy;” representing it as dangerous
to the best interests of both priests and people, that the former should
attempt to combine with their sacred office the manners, the habits, and
the social position of the gentleman. Without entering here into the
serious question whether a special clerical caste, as it were, standing
between the lower ranks and the higher of the laity, distinct from both,
and having its separate habits and position, is a desirable institution
to recommend; without discussing the other equally important question,
whether the aristocracy of a Christian nation have not also _their_
religious needs, and whether these also have not a right to be
consulted, and whether they will bear to be handed over to a priesthood
which, if not plebeian itself, is to have at least no common interests
or feelings with the higher classes—a question, this latter, to which
history will give us a pretty decided answer;—it is quite enough to say
that the working-classes themselves would be the foremost to demand—if
the case were put before them fairly—that the ministers of religion
should be “gentlemen” in every sense of the word. They will listen, no
doubt, with gaping mouths and open ears, to a flow of rhodomontade
declamation from an uneducated preacher: an inspired tinker will fill a
chapel or a village-green, while the quiet rector goes through the
service to a half-empty church. But inspired tinkers are rare in any
age; and it is not excitement or declamation which go to form the really
religious life of England. This—which we must not be supposed to confine
within the limits of any Church establishment—depends for its support on
sources that lie deeper and quieter than these. In trouble, in sickness,
in temptation, these things miserably fail. And the dealing of “a
gentleman” with these cases—a gentleman in manners, in thoughts, in
feeling, in respect for the feelings of others—is as distinct in kind
and in effect, as the firm but delicate handling of the educated surgeon
(who goes to the bottom of the matter nevertheless) differs from the
well-meant but bungling axe-and-cautery system of our forefathers. The
poor understand this well. They know a gentleman, and respect him; and
they will excuse in their parish minister the absence of some other very
desirable qualities sooner than this. The structure of English society
must change—its gentry must forfeit their character as a body, as they
never have done yet—before this feeling can change. When you officer
your regiments from any other class than their natural superiors, then
you may begin to officer your national Church with a plebeian clergy.
There is another point connected with the legitimate influence of the
higher classes on which the writer speaks, we fear, either from a theory
of what ought to be, or from some very exceptional cases:—
“The offices of magistrate, of poor-law guardian, or even of
churchwarden, are so many modes of honourable employment offered to
those who feel in themselves some capacity for business and some wish
to be useful. It will be understood that a considerable number of
gentlemen of independent income, retired tradesmen, and officers not
employed on service, having thus before them the prospect of a useful
and active life, gather round an English village, instead of remaining
buried in the great towns, as too often is the case in our own
country.”
We fear the foreign reader will be mistaken if he understands anything
of the sort. The county magistracy offers, without doubt, a position
both honourable and useful; but it is seldom open to the classes
mentioned. We do not say that the offices of parish guardian and
churchwarden are highly attractive objects of ambition; but we do think
that in good hands they might become very different from what they are;
immense benefit would result in every way to many country parishes, if
men of the class whom the writer represents as filling them would more
often be induced to do so, instead of avoiding them as troublesome and
ungrateful offices, and leaving them to be claimed by the demagogues and
busybodies of the district. It may not be pleasant for a gentleman to
put himself in competition for an office of this kind; but it may be his
duty to do so. The reproach which the writer addresses to the higher
classes in France is only too applicable to those in England also:—
“If all those whose education, whose intelligence, whose habits of
more elevated life, give them that authority which constitutes a true
aristocracy, would but make use of their high position to exercise an
influence for good upon public matters—if only the honest and sensible
party in our country would shake off its apathy and fulfil all the
duties of citizens—our institutions would have a life and power which
at present are too often wanting.”
True words for the conservative spirit both in the English Church and in
the English nation to lay to heart; for, so long as education and
refinement are too nice to stain themselves with the public dust of the
arena, they have no right to complain if candidates, less able but less
scrupulous, parade themselves as victors.
If our neighbours over the water read (as we hope many of them will)
these little sketches of an English village, drawn in their own
language, if not by one of themselves, yet by one who is evidently no
stranger to their national sympathies, and who writes manifestly with
the kindest feelings towards both, it is well, perhaps, that they should
bear in mind that it is a picture purposely taken under a sunny aspect.
Rural England is not all Arcadia. All English landladies, even in the
country, are not Mrs Joneses, nor are all English families as hospitable
as the Masons. There are villages where there is no “Miss Mary” to teach
the children or to talk sentiment. There are less fascinating
“strangers’ guides” which could take him into the public-houses and the
dancing-rooms as well as to rural fêtes and lectures, and show him what
goes on there. But while we are far from claiming to be judged by our
bright side only, we are glad that foreigners should see our bright side
sometimes. It has not been too often painted in French colours; and we
trust they will give the present artist’s work a fair hanging in their
National Gallery.
LORD MACKENZIE’S ROMAN LAW.[3]
It has sometimes been suspected that, in the noble delineation of the
Roman character ascribed to Anchises in the sixth book of the ‘Æneid,’
Virgil was induced, by unworthy motives, to depreciate unduly the
oratory of his countrymen as compared with that of the Greeks; and
undoubtedly the inferiority of Cicero to Demosthenes, as a mere forensic
pleader, is not so clear or decided as to demand imperatively from a
Latin poet the admission there unreservedly made by the blunt and almost
prosaic expression, “Orabunt causas melius.” Possibly, however, it was
the poet’s true object, by yielding the most liberal concessions on
other points, to enforce the more strongly his emphatic assertion, not
merely of the superiority of the Romans in the arts of ordinary
government, but of their exclusive or peculiar possession of the powers
and faculties fitted for attaining and preserving a mighty empire. It is
certain that he has justly and vividly described the great
characteristic of that people, and the chief source and secret of their
influence in the history of the world, when he makes the patriarch
exclaim,—
“Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento;
Hæ tibi erunt artes.”
In aid of the high moral and intellectual qualities which led to their
success as the conquerors and rulers of the world, it is most material
to notice the structure and genius of the language in which the Roman
people expressed and embodied their political, legislative, and judicial
determinations. Every national language is more or less the reflex of
the national mind; and in no instance is this correspondence more
conspicuous than in the case we are now considering.
The Latin language is inferior to the Greek in subtlety and refinement
of expression, and is therefore far less adapted for metaphysical
speculation or poetical grace—for analysing the nicer diversities of
thought, or distinguishing the minuter shades of passion; but in the
enunciation of ethical truths and of judicial maxims, it possesses a
clearness, force, and majesty, to which no other form of speech can
approach. The great foundations of law are good morals and good sense,
and these, however simple and plain in their elements, are not mean or
common things. On the contrary, they are susceptible of the greatest
dignity of expression when embodied in words; and the language in which
their principles shall be clothed may be of the utmost importance in
rendering them both more portable in the memory and more impressive on
the heart. The Roman jurists of the later period of the Republic were
not careless students of the Greek philosophy; but they used it in their
juridical writings with a wise discretion, and in special reference to
the object of law, which is to lay down the broad rules of human conduct
and personal rights in a form easily understood, and capable of being
easily followed and faithfully observed by the mass of mankind.
The unequalled talent of the Roman people for political organisation is
evinced by the manner in which the imperial authority was maintained,
after the personal character of the nominal sovereigns had degenerated
to the very lowest point of profligacy and imbecility. Our Teutonic
ancestors had the wisdom to appreciate and adopt much of the machinery
which they thus found in operation; and the municipal governments, as
well as the judicial constitutions of Europe, are at this day influenced
by the models which were thus left. The Popedom itself, on whose
probable endurance for the future it would be hazardous to speculate,
but whose marvellous ascendancy in time past is beyond dispute, was
little else than an adaptation of the imperial organisation to
ecclesiastical objects. But the influence of the Roman law on other
nations was pre-eminently seen in the wide adoption of its general
scheme, as well as of its special rules and maxims. Even the law of
England—of all European systems perhaps the least indebted to the civil
law—is deeply imbued with the Roman spirit in some of the most important
departments of jurisprudence; and where the authority of the Roman law
cannot claim a submissive allegiance, it is yet listened to as the best
manifestation of the _Recta Ratio_ that can anywhere be found. The vast
experience of human transactions, and the endless complexities of social
relations, which the Roman empire presented, afforded the best materials
for maturing a science which was cultivated for noble objects by minds
of the highest order, and embodied in propositions of unrivalled power
and precision.
Independently of its influence on individual municipal systems, the
Roman law deserves to be carefully studied, as affording the easiest
transition, and the best introduction, from classical and philosophical
pursuits to the technical rules and scientific principles of general
jurisprudence. From Aristotle’s Ethics, or from Cicero De Officiis, the
passage is plain and the ascent gentle to the Institutes of Gaius and
Justinian; and these, again, are the best preparation for the perusal of
Blackstone or Erskine. It ought, indeed, to be considered as a great
privilege of the law-student that his path lies for so great a portion
of its early way through a region which has been rendered so pleasing
and attractive by the labours of the eminent men whom we have now named,
and who combine so much charm of style and correctness of taste with so
much practical wisdom and useful philosophy.
Hitherto, we think, there has been a great, or rather an utter, want in
this country of any good Institute of the civil law, that could safely
and efficiently guide the student in his early labours, or assist him in
his more advanced progress. The elegant and admirable summary given by
Gibbon in his History, cannot, without much comment and expansion, be
made a book of instruction; but we feel assured that this want which we
have noticed is supplied by the work now before us. Lord Mackenzie’s
book, though bearing the popular and modest title of ‘Studies in Roman
Law,’ is truly an Institute, or didactic Exposition, of that system,
where its elements and leading principles are laid down and illustrated
as fully as a student could require, while a reference is made at every
step to texts and authorities, which will enable him to extend and
confirm his views by a full examination of original sources. The
enunciation of the legal principles is everywhere given with great
brevity, but with remarkable clearness and precision, and in a manner
equally pleasing and unpretending. The comparison which is at the same
time presented between the Roman system and the laws of France, England,
and Scotland, add greatly to the attraction as well as to the usefulness
of the work.
At the risk of appearing to resemble the man in Hierocles who carried a
brick about with him as a sample of his house, we shall here offer a few
extracts in illustration of the character of the work and its style of
execution, premising that the passages we have selected have reference
to topics more of a popular than of a scientific kind.
The interest attaching at present to questions of international law, and
to the rights of belligerents, will recommend the passages on those
subjects which here follow:—
“If all the states of Europe were to concur in framing a general code
of international law, which should be binding on them all, and form
themselves into a confederacy to enforce it, this might be regarded as
a positive law of nations for Europe. But nothing of this sort has
ever been attempted. The nearest approach to such international
legislation is the general regulations introduced into treaties by the
great Powers of Europe, which are binding on the contracting parties,
but not on the states that decline to accede to them.
“To settle disputes between nations on the principles of justice,
rather than leave them to the blind arbitrament of war, is the primary
object of the European law of nations. When war has broken out, it
regulates the rights and duties of belligerents, and the conduct of
neutrals.
“As the weak side of the law of nations is the want of a supreme
executive power to enforce it, small states are exposed to great
disadvantages in disputes with their more powerful neighbours. But the
modern political system of Europe for the preservation of the balance
of power forms a strong barrier against unjust aggression. When the
power of one great state can be balanced, or kept in check, by that of
another, the independence of smaller states is in some degree secured
against both; for neither of the great Powers will allow its rival to
add to its strength by the conquest of the smaller states....
“By the declaration of 16th April 1856, the Congress of Paris, held
after the Crimean war, adopted four principles of international law.
1. Privateering is and remains abolished. 2. The neutral flag covers
the enemy’s merchandise, with the exception of contraband of war. 3.
Neutral merchandise, with the exception of contraband of war, is not
liable to seizure under an enemy’s flag. 4. Blockades, in order to be
binding, must be effective; that is to say, must be maintained by a
force really sufficient to prevent approach to an enemy’s coast. This
declaration was signed by the plenipotentiaries of the seven Powers
who attended the Congress, and it was accepted by nearly all the
states of the world. But the United States of America, Spain, and
Mexico, refused their assent, because they objected to the abolition
of privateering. So far as these Powers are concerned, therefore,
privateering—that is, the employment of private cruisers commissioned
by the state—still remains a perfectly legitimate mode of warfare.
Britain and the other Powers who acceded to the declaration, are bound
to discontinue the practice in hostilities with each other. But if we
should have the misfortune to go to war with the United States, we
should not be bound to abstain from privateering, unless the United
States should enter into a similar and corresponding engagement with
us....
“The freedom of commerce, to which neutral states are entitled, does
not extend to contraband of war; but, according to the principles laid
down in the declaration of Paris of April 1856, it may now be said
that ‘a ship at sea is part of the soil of the country to which it
belongs,’ with the single exception implied in the right of a
belligerent to search for contraband. What constitutes contraband is
not precisely settled; the limits are not absolutely the same for all
Powers, and variations occur in particular treaties; but, speaking
generally, belligerents have a right to treat as contraband, and to
capture, all munitions of war and other articles directly auxiliary to
warlike purposes. The neutral carrier engages in a contraband trade
when he conveys official despatches from a person in the service of
the enemy to the enemy’s possessions; but it has been decided that it
is not illegal for a neutral vessel to carry despatches from the enemy
to his Ambassador or his Consul in a neutral country. The penalty of
carrying contraband is confiscation of the illegal cargo, and
sometimes condemnation of the ship itself.
“The affair of the Trent, West Indian mail, gave rise to an important
question of maritime law deeply affecting the rights of neutrals. In
November 1861, Captain Wilkes, of the American war-steamer San
Jacinto, after firing a roundshot and a shell, boarded the English
mail-packet Trent, in Old Bahama Channel, on its passage from Havannah
to Southampton, and carried off by force Messrs Mason and Slidell, two
Commissioners from the Confederate States, who were taken on board as
passengers bound for England. The Commissioners were conveyed to
America, and committed to prison; but, after a formal requisition by
Britain, declaring the capture to be illegal, they were surrendered by
the Federal Government.
“The seizure of the Commissioners was attempted to be justified by
American writers on two grounds: 1st, That the Commissioners were
contraband of war, and that in carrying them the Trent was liable to
condemnation for having committed a breach of neutrality; 2d, That, at
all events, Captain Wilkes was entitled to seize the Commissioners
either as enemies or rebels. Both these propositions are plainly
untenable....
“In an able despatch by the French. Government to the Cabinet of
Washington, M. Thouvenel declared that the seizure of the
Commissioners in a neutral ship, trading from a neutral port to a
neutral port, was not only contrary to the law of nations, but a
direct contravention of the principles which the United States had up
to that time invariably avowed and acted upon. Russia, Austria, and
Prussia officially intimated their concurrence in that opinion.
“To argue the matter on the legal points in opposition to the
disinterested and well-reasoned despatch of the French Minister was a
hopeless task. In an elaborate state-paper, Mr Seward, the American
Secretary of State, professed to rest the surrender of the
Commissioners upon a mere technicality—that there had been no formal
condemnation of the Trent by a prize-court; but, apart from this point
of form, the seizure was indefensible on the merits as a flagrant
violation of the law of nations; and if the principle was not so
frankly acknowledged by Mr Seward as it ought to have been, some
allowance must be made for a statesman who was trammelled by the
report of his colleague, Mr Welles, the Secretary of the Navy,
approving of Captain Wilkes’s conduct, and still more by the necessity
of adopting a policy directly contrary to the whole current of popular
opinion in the Northern States.”
The law of marriage and of divorce is very fully treated by Lord
Mackenzie, and the peculiarities of the different European systems are
well pointed out. The subject, however, is too extensive and important
to admit of being incidentally noticed; and we shall confine our
extracts here to a single passage describing a Roman form of
cohabitation less honourable than matrimony, and such as we trust is
never likely, to be legalised among ourselves:—
“Under Augustus, concubinage—the permanent cohabitation of an
unmarried man with an unmarried woman—was authorised by law. The man
who had a lawful wife could not take a concubine; neither was any man
permitted to take as a concubine the wife of another man, or to have
more than one concubine at the same time. A breach of these
regulations was always condemned, and fell under the head of
_stuprum_. In later times the concubine was called _amica_. Between
persons of unequal rank concubinage was not uncommon; and sometimes it
was resorted to by widowers who had already lawful children and did
not wish to contract another legal marriage, as in the cases of
Vespasian, Antoninus Pius, and M. Aurelius.
“As regards the father, the children born in concubinage were not
under his power, and were not entitled to succeed as children by a
legal marriage; but they had an acknowledged father, and could demand
support from him, besides exercising other rights. As regards the
mother, their rights of succession were as extensive as those of her
lawful children.
“Under the Christian emperors concubinage was not favoured; but it
subsisted as a legal institution in the time of Justinian. At last Leo
the Philosopher, Emperor of the East, in a.d. 887, abrogated the laws
which permitted concubinage, as being contrary to religion and public
decency. ‘Why,’ said he, ‘should you prefer a muddy pool, when you can
drink at a purer fountain?’ The existence of this custom, however, was
long prolonged in the West among the Franks, Lombards, and Germans;
and it is notorious that the clergy for some time gave themselves up
to it without restraint.”
The practice of adoption prevailing in ancient Rome is well known, but
an account of it as it is retained in the French law may be thought
curious:—
“In France the usage of adoption was lost after the first race of
kings: it disappeared, not only in the customary provinces, but also
in the provinces governed by the written law. Re-established in 1792,
adoption is now sanctioned by the Civil Code. Adoption, however, is
only permitted to persons of either sex above the age of fifty, having
neither children nor other lawful descendants, and being at least
fifteen years older than the individual adopted. No married person can
adopt without the consent of the other spouse. The privilege can only
be exercised in favour of one who has been an object of the adopter’s
care for at least six years during minority, or of one who has saved
the life of the adopter in battle, from fire, or from drowning. In the
latter case the only restriction respecting the age of the parties is,
that the adopter shall be older than the adopted, and shall have
attained his majority. In no case can adoption take place before the
majority of the person proposed to be adopted.
“The form of adoption consists of a declaration of consent by the
parties before a justice of the peace for the place where the adopter
resides, after which the transaction requires to be approved of by the
tribunal of first instance. After adoption, the adopted person retains
all his rights as a member of his natural family. He acquires no right
of succession to the property of any relation of the adopter; but in
regard to the property of the adopter himself, he has precisely the
same rights as a child born in marriage, even although there should be
other children born in marriage after his adoption. The adopted takes
the name of the adopter in addition to his own. No marriage can take
place between the adopter and the adopted, or his descendants, and in
certain other cases specified.
“The practice of adoption, which is better suited to some states of
society than to others, still prevails among Eastern nations. It has
never been recognised as a legal institution in England or Scotland.”
In ancient Rome, as at one time in Modern Athens, there was a practice
of throwing or emptying things out of window not without danger or
damage to the passer-by. This was the law on that point:—
“If anything was thrown from the windows of a house near a public
thoroughfare, so as to injure any one by its fall, the inhabitant or
occupier was, by the Roman law, bound to repair the damage, though it
might be done without his knowledge by his family or servants, or even
by a stranger. This affords an illustration of liability arising
_quasi ex delicto_.
“In like manner, when damage was done to any person by a slave or an
animal, the owner might in certain circumstances be liable for the
loss, though the mischief was done without his knowledge and against
his will; but in such a case, if no fault was directly imputable to
the owner, he was entitled to free himself from all responsibility by
abandoning the offending slave or animal to the person injured, which
was called _noxæ dare_. Though these noxal actions are not classed by
Justinian under the title of obligations _quasi ex delicto_, yet, in
principle, they evidently fall within that category.
“All animals _feræ naturæ_, such as lions, tigers, bears, and the
like, must be kept in a secure place to prevent them from doing
mischief; but the same vigilance is not required in the case of
animals _mansuetæ naturæ_, the presumption being, that no harm will
arise in leaving them at large, unless they are known to be vicious or
dangerous. So, where a foxhound destroyed eighteen sheep belonging to
a farmer, it was decided by the House of Lords in an appeal from
Scotland, that the owner of the dog was not liable for the loss, there
being no evidence necessarily showing either knowledge of the vicious
propensities of the dog or want of due care in keeping him; and it was
observed that, both according to the English and the Scotch law, ‘the
_culpa_ or negligence of the owner is the foundation on which the
right of action against him rests.’”
The subject of succession is treated by Lord Mackenzie in a very ample
and satisfactory discussion. In particular, the chapter on ‘Intestate
Succession in France, England, and Scotland’ will be found highly useful
to the international jurist. Lord Mackenzie has not failed to observe
here the striking peculiarity of the Scotch law, by which, with some
qualifications very recently introduced, intestate succession, whether
in real or personal estate, goes entirely to the agnates or paternal
relations, and not at all to cognates or those on the mother’s side.
This was the law of the Twelve Tables, but it was wholly altered in
process of time, and, under Justinian’s enactments, paternal and
maternal relations were equally favoured. In retaining the old
distinction, the law of Scotland seems now to stand alone. The
peculiarity may perhaps be explained by the strong feelings of family
connection or clanship which so long prevailed in Scotland, and which
bound together the descendants of the same paternal ancestor by so many
common interests. But it is certainly singular that it should have
continued to the present day with such slender modifications; and it is
no small anomaly that, while a man may succeed to any of his maternal
relations, none of his maternal relations can in general succeed to him,
even in property which he may have inherited from the mother’s side.
The portion of the work devoted to actions and procedure introduces a
clear light into a subject extremely technical, and often made very
obscure by the mode in which it is treated. We have only room for a
short extract as to the _remedium miserabile_ of Cessio Bonorum:—
“The _cessio bonorum_ has been adopted in France as well as in
Scotland. By the ancient law of France, every debtor who sought the
benefit of _cessio_ was obliged by the sentence to wear in public a
green bonnet (_bonnet vert_) furnished by his creditors, under the
penalty of being imprisoned if he was found without it. According to
Pothier, this was intended as a warning to all citizens to conduct
their affairs with prudence, so as to avoid the risk of exposing
themselves to such ignominy; but he explains that in his time, though
the condition was inserted in the sentence, it was seldom acted on in
practice, except at Bordeaux, where it is said to have been rigidly
enforced.
“Formerly, a custom somewhat similar prevailed in Scotland. Every
debtor who obtained the benefit of _cessio_ was appointed to wear ‘the
dyvour’s habit,’ which was a coat or upper garment, half yellow and
half brown, with a cap of the same colours. In modern times this usage
was discontinued. ‘According to the state of public feeling, it would
be held a disgrace to the administration of justice. It would shock
the innocent; it would render the guilty miserably profligate.’ For a
considerable time it had become the practice in the judgment to
dispense with the dyvour’s habit, and by the statute of Will. IV. it
is utterly abolished.”
The work concludes with a very agreeable chapter on the Roman bar, from
which we shall borrow a couple of passages. A certain portion of time
was generally allowed to advocates for their speeches, but which varied
before different judges and at different periods.
“A clepsydra was used in the tribunals for measuring time by water,
similar in principle to the modern sand-glass. When the judge
consented to prolong the period assigned for discussion, he was said
to give water—_dare aquam_. ‘As for myself,’ says Pliny, ‘whenever I
sit upon the bench (which is much oftener than I appear at the bar), I
always give the advocates as much water as they require; for I look
upon it as the height of presumption to pretend to guess before a
cause is heard what time it will require, and to set limits to an
affair before one is acquainted with its extent, especially as the
first and most sacred duty of a judge is patience, which, indeed, is
itself a very considerable part of justice. But the advocate will say
many things that are useless. Granted. Yet is it not better to hear
too much than not to hear enough? Besides, how can you know that the
things are useless till you have heard them?’
“Marcus Aurelius, we are told, was in the habit of giving a large
measure of water to the advocates, and even permitting them to speak
as long as they pleased.
“By a constitution of Valentinian and Valens, A.D. 368, advocates were
authorised to speak as long as they wished, upon condition that they
should not abuse this liberty in order to swell the amount of their
fees.”
The history of Roman practice, and, in particular, of the Cincian Law on
the subject of advocates’ fees, is ably condensed; and the law of France
and Scotland on the subject is thus stated:—
“In France, ancient laws and decisions, as well as the opinions of the
doctors, allowed an action to advocates to recover their fees; but
according to the later jurisprudence of the Parliament of Paris, and
the actual discipline of the bar now in force, no advocate was or is
permitted to institute such an action. In like manner barristers in
England are held to exercise a profession of an honorary character,
‘and cannot, therefore, maintain an action for remuneration for what
they have done, unless the employer has expressly agreed to pay them.’
Upon this point the authorities in the law of Scotland are not very
precise. Lord Bankton says, ‘Though action be competent for such
gratification, advocates who regard their character abhor such
judicial claims, and keep in their mind the notable saying of Ulpian
upon the like occasion, _Quœdam enim tametsi honeste accipiantur,
inhoneste tamen petuntur_.’ But it is maintained by others, whose
opinion is entitled to great weight, that no action lies for such
fees—the presumption, in the absence of an express paction, being,
that the advocate has ‘either been satisfied, or agreed to serve
_gratis_.’”
What the law of England is on this most important question will probably
be definitively settled in a _cause célèbre_ now depending. We do not
conceal our earnest hope that the principles laid down in the recent
judgment of Chief-Justice Erle will never be departed from.
We close this notice by strongly recommending Lord Mackenzie’s book to
the notice both of the student and the practising jurist, to each of
whom we think it indispensable.
THE PERIPATETIC POLITICIAN—IN FLORENCE.
There is a mysterious power in this nineteenth century before which we
all bow down and worship. Emperors have grown powerful by its support,
and kings that know not how to please it become the laughing-stock of
Europe. The highest are not beyond its reach, the lowest are not beneath
its notice. The Secretary of State spreads lengthy despatches as
peace-offerings at its shrine, and the parish beadle is careful not to
put his hat on awry lest he fall beneath its censure. The idol has
innumerable votaries; but its high priests, the exponents of its law,
are the great authors and statesmen of the day. And they have a hard
taskmaster to serve: they must do the pleasure of their lord before he
has signified his wishes—they must anticipate his thoughts and be
beforehand with his commands; obsequiousness and obedience alone will
not suffice them; they may sacrifice every friend and every principle
for his sake, and nevertheless disgrace and proscription await them,
unless they can know their master’s mind before it is known to himself.
Public Opinion is the unknown master to whom all submit; listening
anxiously but vainly for his commands, not knowing how or where to study
his humour. There are Houses of Parliament, newspapers, clubs,
mechanic’s institutes, pot-houses, prayer meetings—but which of all
these speak public opinion? A weekly gathering of articles from daily
papers is not public opinion. Opinion after dinner is not public. It is
evidently necessary to apply some means specially adapted to the place
and the time in order to discover the mood of public opinion. In
Syracuse, Dionysius constructed an ear for the purpose; unfortunately
this invention has been lost.
In London, it is popularly said that the only means to ascertain public
opinion is to take a seat in the omnibus for the day and drive
continually up and down.
In Florence, public opinion walks,—it cannot afford to drive. The people
must be studied on foot. The reader will therefore have already
understood that the title of this paper was chosen from necessity and
not for the sake of the alliteration; that in order to catch a glimpse
of Italian affairs as seen through Tuscan spectacles—in order to enter
for the moment into the jealousies, the grievances, and the vanities of
the provincial town of Florence—there is no resource but that of
treating the question peripatetically—that is, of walking the streets.
This course is the more natural because in Florence the streets
are—thanks to the high price of manure—remarkably clean. Accordingly the
people live in the street; there they are to be met at an early hour
lounging along talking or smoking, wrapped in cloaks that take an extra
twist with every degree of cold. The street is their assembly-room; it
is frequented by men of all sorts, as will be at once seen by a moment’s
scrutiny of the stream of people creeping slowly along over the
pavement.
There is the commercial dandy who affects a felt hat with mandarin
button on the crown, a knobby stick, and a would-be English
shooting-jacket. Behind him is the sober professional man, in a French
great-coat which has wandered from Paris, making room for newer
fashions. There, too, is the priest of portly figure and wasted
garments, which show at once his devotion to the inner man, and his
neglect of the outer world, walking along with a blessing on his lips
and a green cotton umbrella under his arm. By his side is the peasant
come to town for the day, cart-whip in hand, and a long coarse cloak
trailing from his shoulders, embroidered behind with flowers in green
silk. Every stitch will show character in one way or another. Italians
wear green flowers where Spaniards would have crosses in black braid.
And who is there among all this crowd who would trouble his thoughts
about Victor Emmanuel and his Ministers? Look at yonder corner-wall
where there is a sheet of paper prominently pasted on a black board: one
solitary passenger gives it a passing glance: that is the telegram just
received, announcing the formation of the new Ministry. But farther on
there are collected a little company of people, whose animated and
intent looks show something really interesting to be going on: it is
that two or three young men are practising in chorus a snatch out of the
last street-ballad. Farther on the respective merits of different
ballet-dancers are under discussion, and some of the company are
pronouncing the stage-manager unfit for his post. In the whole crowd
there is not one word, nor even a passing thought, bestowed on the
Government which is going on at Turin. So universal is the carelessness
with regard to the current affairs of the day, that, as a general rule,
if a man be heard to speak about politics, or in any way show himself
conversant with public affairs, it may at once be concluded, more
especially if he speak in a disagreeable voice, that that man is a
Piedmontese.[4]
In vain do loud-voiced criers hawk prints representing the murder of the
Gignoli family by the Austrians in 1859; they offer them at half-price,
at quarter-price, but find no purchasers. Even the photograph of the
bullet extracted from Garibaldi’s foot has ceased to draw people to the
shop-window.
Leaving the street for the moment, and turning the corner of the great
Piazza, we find under the colonnade, opposite the picture gallery, an
anxious crowd of people, eager and pushing. That is the entrance to the
‘Monte di Pieta,’ or municipal pawnbroking establishment (for private
pawnbroking is illicit in Florence). There is a long table before the
door, and on it are spread silver watches, coral bracelets, and other
trinkets. Articles that have lain unredeemed are being sold at auction.
The sale is well attended, but purchasers will not compete. There is
much examination and very little bidding. This same scene has occurred
regularly at stated intervals for the last several centuries.
In the time of the Medicis, public policy and private benevolence became
copartners in founding a self-supporting pawnbroking shop on a large
scale, to be kept under the supervision of Government. To a people who,
whenever they begin to be pinched in circumstances, try to economise but
never attempt to work, and exert themselves rather to save than to make
money, it is no small object to have a public pawnbroking establishment
where money is allowed at a fixed scale. If a Florentine have a bracelet
too much, and bread too little, he has but to give the bracelet in pawn
to the Government. In the same way, if he be troubled with a child too
many, he proceeds to the infant asylum, rings the bell, and in the
cradle which forthwith opens, he deposits the child for the Government
to feed. Under the Governments which have prevailed in Tuscany for the
last three hundred years, this is precisely the kind of political
institution which the Florentines have learnt to value and appreciate.
The proper supervision of the pawnbroking shop, the maintenance of the
foundling asylums and the hospitals (with which Florence is, in
proportion, better provided than London), the grant made to the
opera—these and other such questions are the matters of government in
which a Florentine takes interest. To politics, in an Englishman’s sense
of the word, they pay little or no attention. In the election of
representatives to the Chambers at Turin the people appear to take
little or no part. For instance: M. Peruzzi, the present Minister for
the Interior, is one of the representatives of Florence. On accepting
office he was of course obliged to appeal to his constituents. The seat
was contested. On the day appointed for the election I had occasion to
ask my way to the place where it was being held: several respectable
citizens did not know that any election was to take place whatever. At
last one man, better informed than the rest, had heard something about
an election that week, but did not know where the elections were held.
The election proved invalid for want of the legal complement of
voters—namely, one-half the whole number. This is the general result of
elections in Tuscany on the first trial. The second election is valid,
provided only the same number of voters are present as attended the
first. This is fortunate, otherwise it might occur that there would be a
lack of representatives from Tuscany in the Parliament at Turin.
The fact is, and it needs repetition, the Florentines do not care about
politics. They have accepted the revolution that was made for them, and
on the whole are well contented with the change; at least we ought in
justice to ascribe their general listlessness in political affairs to
contentment and not to indifference.
To inquire, however, more exactly into the thoughts of those amongst the
Florentines who do think about politics, it will be as well to obtain at
once rest and information by sitting down for a few moments in the
tobacconist’s shop, which may be called the centre of the political
world. To begin with, the tobacconist is always himself by profession a
finished politician, and he, moreover, enjoys the confidence of several
distinguished friends, who keep him accurately informed of every word
that passes in the Cabinets of Europe. The general burden of his
conversation, which is a fair type of the talk at shops and second-rate
cafés, is as follows:—The Pope-king is the father of all mischief; and
how should it be otherwise? are not priests and kings always the
promoters of every evil? and this man is a combination of both. Then
follows a complaint against the Emperor Napoleon and his creatures, the
Ministers at Turin, who, like true Piedmontese, are in secret jealous of
the greatness of Italy, and treacherously keep in pay reactionary
employés in lieu of filling the offices, as they should, with
enterprising liberals. This sentiment meets with loud and general
applause, and the company, waxing warm on this topic, forthwith launch
into various prophecies as to the immediate future. French wars, Polish
revolutions, Austrian bankruptcies, are all considered, and it is
weighed what each might do for Italy. What the Italians themselves might
do is a less frequent theme.
The Government, however, is blamed for its neglect of Garibaldi, which
is only of a piece with its conduct in leaving the active and patriotic
liberals of the country without employment while they are pensioning the
reactionists—an opinion which usually serves as alpha and omega in the
discussions of the Florentine liberals on the conduct of the Government.
Having exhausted this topic, our friend the politico-tobacconist resumes
his seat, taking his scaldino (an earthenware vessel shaped like a
basket, and filled with hot ashes) on his lap for the comfort of his
fingers, and proceeds to draw the attention of visitors to various piles
of newspapers, the sale of which is part of his trade. And as Florence
produces, for a country town, a very respectable number of papers (some
dozen daily papers, not to count two tri-weekly papers and other
periodicals), which, moreover, have something of a national, or rather
of a provincial character, it will be worth while to look over them
before leaving the tobacconist’s shop. It is not every paper that will
be found: for instance, the three retrograde papers will not be
forthcoming. These have so extremely small a circulation that it is very
difficult to hunt them up. It is only by favour, for instance, that a
copy of the ‘Contemporaneo’ can be got, for, there being no public
demand, there is no sale; a limited number of copies only are
distributed among subscribers.
The newspapers to be found on the counter are all liberal, but of
various shades of “colour,” as the Italians name party opinions.
The ‘Gazzetta del Popolo,’ which is strictly constitutional, has still
the largest circulation of any (it prints about 3000 copies daily),
though not half what it had. Its decline has been owing partly to
general competition, partly to its having embraced the defence of the
late Ratazzi Ministry, which unpopular course is said to have cost it in
a few months nearly one-fourth of its circulation; partly, perhaps, to
its sustaining the Piedmontese, who have not of late been growing in the
favour of the Tuscans.
The other papers are all more “advanced,” that is, more opposed to
Government. Among these the ‘Censor’ ranks first. This is a thoroughly
Tuscan paper, and full of quaint, provincial expressions. In party
politics it is red—a colour which evidently finds most favour in the
eyes of the poorer citizens; for recently it lost no less than a fourth
of its circulation by raising its price from three to five cents, that
is, from about a farthing and a half to a halfpenny. In its columns,
though not there only, may be seen a catalogue of indictments against
the Piedmontese. The Tuscans voted annexation to Italy, it is said—not
to Piedmont. With Rome unity, without it none. Does the unity of Italy
mean the domination of Turin? Are we to accept from the most barbarous
portion of Italy laws which are sent down to us written in a jargon
which cannot even be called Italian? Tuscany is being fleeced by men so
greedy of every little gain, that they supply all the royal offices with
paper made only in Piedmont, in order that Piedmontese paper-mills may
reap the benefit.
It speaks well for the Piedmontese that, with so much desire to find
fault with them, these are the most serious charges brought forward.
In the Ratazzi Ministry the papers lost the most fruitful theme of
declamation. The caricatures against this Minister were endless,
representing him in every stage of official existence, from the time
when he climbs the high ministerial bench by the aid of a little finger
stretched out from Paris, to the moment when he is shown hiding his head
under the folds of the Emperor’s train.
What is said against the Italian Government, however, is not said in
praise of the Grand-duke’s rule. On the contrary, the Opposition
papers—those at least that have any circulation—all lean rather towards
the “party of action,” or the extreme Liberals. The most prominent paper
of this description in Florence is the ‘New Europe,’ which is
republican, and makes no mystery of its principles.
Indeed, the press is so outspoken, and is allowed such latitude, that it
is difficult to understand for what purpose the Government maintains a
censorship. Nevertheless, such is the case. It is not a very effective
one. Every paper is bound to be laid before the Reggio procurator
twenty-four hours before it is published; but that official is so little
able to peruse them all within the specified time, that it has
frequently happened that a paper has been sequestrated when it was a day
old, and had been already read and forgotten. The right of
sequestration, however, has been used pretty freely. The ‘Censor’ was
sequestrated more than sixty times in the course of last year, and the
‘New Europe’ has been treated even more severely: on one occasion it was
sequestrated for three days running.
It is, however, high time to turn from the ideal to the material world;
that is, to leave the tobacconist and his newspapers, and dive into the
recesses of some very dirty and narrow little lanes where the market is
being held, in order to see whether the prices given and the business
done prove any decline in the prosperity of Florence since the days of
the Grand-duke.
Passing by the mountains of vegetables piled up ornamentally against the
huge stones of the Strozzi Palace, the reader must pick his way
carefully amidst the accumulated masses of cabbage-stalks, children, and
other dirt beneath, avoiding at the same time the carcasses that hang
out from the butchers’ stalls on either side, from poles projecting far
into the passage, and stooping every now and then to avoid the festoons
of sausages which hang down from above, garland-fashion, just low enough
to come in contact with the nose of an average-sized mortal. If by
strictly observing the above precautions he can make his way despite all
these obstacles, he will on turning the next corner arrive safely in
front of an old woman and a boy presiding over sundry emblems of
purgatory in the shape of huge frying-pans fixed over charcoal fires.
The boy is ladling a mass of tiny dainties out of a seething black
liquid, which have an appearance as of whitebait being fished out of the
Thames. It is, however, only an appearance; for these are nothing more
than small cakes of chestnut-flour, by name “sommomoli,” fried in oil,
from which they emerge copper-coloured, sweet, nourishing, and
tasteless, costing half a centesimo, or the twentieth part of a penny,
a-piece. The old woman is in person superintending a still larger
frying-pan, in which are frizzling square cut cakes, resembling
Yorkshire pudding, sometimes interspersed with small slices of meat.
These, by name “ignochchi,” consist of nothing less than Indian corn
savoured with hogs-lard. A penny (ten centesimi) will purchase ten of
them—a larger quantity than most English, or any Italian stomach would
find it convenient to dispose of at one sitting. A step farther on
slices will be offered to the passer-by off a huge flat cake the colour
of gingerbread, also made of chestnut-flour, and so satisfying that it
would puzzle even an Eton lollypop-eater to consume a penny’s worth.
There are yet other delicacies, one especially tempting, a kind of
black-pudding or rather black wafer. It consists of a spoonful of hog’s
blood fried in oil, and then turned out of the pan on to a plate,
seasoned with scraped cheese, and devoured hot, at a halfpenny a-piece.
With street goodies at these rates, whatever rise there may have been in
prices, it is impossible to believe that they are of a nature to press
to any extent upon the people at large. But take the staples of the
market; look into the baker’s shop; weigh the loaves sold over the
counter, and the price of the best wheaten bread will prove to be
fifteen centesimi (a penny halfpenny a-pound)—not to mention the sacks
of maize-flour, of rice, and of millet on the threshold.
Nevertheless the Florentine market shows a general rise in prices,
probably attributable in part to the increased facility for sending the
products of Tuscany, this garden of Italy, into the adjacent provinces,
in part, although indirectly, to increased taxation, by which is meant
not merely Government taxation, but the municipal rates, which have
considerably increased in Florence; for the corporation of the town, in
common with many other municipalities and commonalties, are availing
themselves of their greater freedom of action under the new Government
to carry out numberless improvements, which it was difficult to execute
before on account of the lengthy representations which were required to
be laid before the Grand-ducal Government.
The increase of taxation consequently is very considerable. The “tassa
prediale,” or property-tax, for instance, has been increasing in
Florence since 1859 at the rate of about one per cent every year, and in
some commonalties it is even higher. There are men in Florence who are
now paying in taxes (local rates and all included) exactly four times
what they paid in the Grand-duke’s day. It is true that this increase is
not so oppressive as it would appear, because the taxation of Tuscany
used to be extremely light, being under fourteen shillings per head
compared with the population. Still the cheerfulness with which this
increase has been borne is a hopeful sign of the general willingness of
the people to support the Italian Government. No impatience even has
been shown at the rapidly augmenting taxes, and this single fact
deserves to be set against a multitude of complaints on smaller matters.
Taxation, however, probably enters for very little in the rise of market
prices. The reason of this increase is to be sought in local causes. For
instance, there have been several successive bad seasons for olives.
This year the yield is better, and the price is falling. Wine is still
very high, owing to the grape disease. Meat is nearly double what it was
some years since, owing, it is said, chiefly to a drought last summer.
The rise in prices, however, has been counterbalanced, so far as the
working population are concerned, by a rise in wages, which has been on
the average from a Tuscan lire to a Sardinian franc, or about 20 per
cent.
On the whole, comparing the rise in prices with that in wages, the real
pay of the labourer would seem to have slightly improved. So far,
therefore, as the people’s stomachs are concerned, the comparison is not
unfavourable to the new Government. To persons residing at Florence on
fixed incomes, however, the increase in both instances is unfavourable,
and they not unnaturally regard that which is inconvenient to themselves
as ruinous to the country.
The loss of the custom of the Court and its train, upon which so much
stress has been laid, so far from having affected Tuscany, has not even
really affected Florence. The amount taken on account of the “octroi” at
the gates of Florence shows the consumption to be on the increase.
We may therefore leave the market with the conviction that there is no
material pressure at work to cause discontent. Some tradesmen really
have suffered from the absence of the Court, as the jewellers and
milliners for instance; but trade generally has not felt the difference.
Continuing, however, our walk in search of public opinion, we come, in a
street not far distant, to a real cause of complaint; and in Tuscany,
where there is a cause, there will be no want of complaint. There are a
couple of soldiers standing sentry before a large door, and all around
knots of countrymen talking together in anxious expectation, or not
talking, but silently taking leave.
The conscription is a grievance. It is the only act of the new
Government which is generally felt to be a hardship, and sometimes
murmured against as an injustice. Rather more than one in every five of
the youths who this year attain the age of twenty-one are being drawn
for the army. This is the proportion of those taken from their homes and
sent to the depots of different regiments, for all are liable to
military service under one category or another. Being inscribed and left
at home, however, is no great hardship: it is the separation from home
which is dreaded, and therefore the numbers of the first category in the
conscription which have alone to be considered. This heavy conscription
is something new to the Tuscans. In the palmy days of Grand-ducal
Government, before 1848, exemption from military service could be
obtained for something less than £4 English; after the Austrian
occupation, the conscription having grown severer, the cost of exemption
was about doubled; but now it amounts to a sum which none but the
wealthy can possibly pay.
The young conscripts, however, become rapidly imbued with the
professional pride of their older comrades; and it often happens that
lads, who have parted from their home in tears, astonish their quiet
parents a few weeks after with letters full of enthusiasm for the
Italian army. Enthusiasm on any subject is a rare virtue in Tuscany; and
if a military life for six years could infuse into the rising generation
some energy and some habits of discipline, the army would prove a more
important means of education than all the new schools which are to be
introduced.
But how is it that throughout this perambulation of the town of Florence
we have not come across a single sign of that touching affection for the
late Grand-duke which has been so vividly and so often described in
England?
The truth is, that although there is a good deal of discontent with the
present Government, there is no regret for the last.
Of all the weak sentiments which exist in Tuscan breasts, loyalty
towards the late Grand-duke is certainly the very weakest.
In order, however, that the reader may catch a glimpse of the “Codini”
(or “party of the tail,” as the following of the late Grand-duke are
called) before they are all numbered among the antiquities of Italy, it
will be advisable to take one turn on the banks of the Arno in the
“Cascine,” the fashionable walk, or “the world,” of the Florentines.
It is sunset, and the evening chill is making itself felt—in fact, to
lay aside all romance about the Italian climate, it is very cold. The
upper five hundred come out at dew-fall, when everybody else goes in,
apparently for no better reason than because everybody else does go in.
There are Russians driving in handsome droschkes, and Americans in
livery-stable barouches of an unwieldy magnificence. But our business is
not with these; the native gentility of Florence is just arriving—ladies
in closely-shut broughams, and young gentlemen, some in open carriages,
half dog-carts half phaetons; others, less fortunate, in open fiacres.
They drive down to the end of the Cascine, where old beggar women attend
upon them with “scaldine” to warm their fingers over. There men and
women alight and promenade at a foot’s pace, despite the cold, after
which they all drive home again.
And what can they have been about all day before they came to the
Cascine? The masters and mistresses have been sitting in their
respective rooms, drawing such warmth as they might from a stove most
economically furnished with wood; the servants have been sitting in the
antechamber, holding their four extremities over the hot ashes in the
“brasero,” a metal vessel something like an English stewpan on a large
scale; for the Italian palaces are cold: the architect may have done
well, but the mason and the carpenter have been negligent. The walls are
joined at any angle except a right one; the windows do not close; the
floors are diversified by sundry undulations, so that a space is left
beneath the door, through which light zephyrs play over the ill-carpeted
floor. Perhaps the lady of the house has been sitting in state to
receive her friends; for every Florentine lady is solemnly announced as
“at home” to all her friends one day in the week, so as to keep them out
of the house all the other six.
This is the married life in the palace. The life of the young men, the
bachelor life of Florence, is not a bit more active. In a word, the life
of a Florentine in easy circumstances is a prolonged lounge. It is not
that they loiter away their time for a few weeks, or for a few
months—for “a season,” in short—that is done all the world over; but the
Florentines do nothing but loiter. The most active portion of their
lives is that now before us,—the life during the carnival. The carnival
over, the rest of the year is spent in recruiting finances and health
for the next winter.
Lest the reader should treat this description as exaggerated or unduly
severe, it will be best to let the Florentines themselves describe their
own manner of living, and give, word for word, the rules laid down in a
Florentine paper[5] for any young gentleman who wishes to live in
holiness, peace, and happiness (_sic_).
“On waking in the morning, take a cup of coffee in bed; and if you have
a servant to pour it out, mind that she be a young and pretty one.
“Then light a cigar (but not of native tobacco; it is too bad), or,
better still, take a whiff of a pipe.
“Clear your ideas by smoking, and, little by little, have yourself
dressed by the person who undressed you the night before.
“After writing a meaningless letter, or reading a chapter out of a
novel, go out, weather permitting.
“Should you meet a priest, a hunchback, or a white horse, return
straightway, or a misfortune may befall you.
“After a short turn, get back to breakfast, and, this over, bid the
driver put to and whip up for the Cascine.
“There go from one carriage to the other, and talk scandal to each lady
against all the rest: this to kill time till dinner.
“Eat enough, and drink more; and should some wretch come to trouble your
digestion by begging his bread, tell him a man should work.
“At night, go to the theatre, the club, or into society. At the theatre,
should there be a new piece, hiss it; this will give you the reputation
of a connoisseur; should there be an opera, try to learn an air that you
may sing at the next party; should there be a ballet, endeavour to play
Mæcenas to some dancer, according to the custom of the century.
“One day over, begin the next in the same way, and so on to the end.”
This, in sober earnest, is the life of a Florentine noble; except that,
if rich enough, he spends all his superfluous energy and wealth in
occasional visits to Paris. If unusually clever, he will become a good
singer, or a judge of art—not of pictures and statues, probably, but of
antique pots and pans. Otherwise he has no pursuit whatever, and his
sole occupation is to persuade himself that he is an Adonis, and his
friends that he is as fortunate as Endymion.
Such is the stuff which the Codini nobles are made of, and so let them
drive home in peace. These are not the manner of men to make counter
revolutions. Brought up as boys by a priest, within the four walls of a
palace, they have never had an opportunity of gaining any experience of
life beyond that afforded by the café, the theatre, and the Court, and
they feel alarmed and annoyed to find growing up around them a state of
things in which men will have to rank according as they can make
themselves honoured by the people, and not according to the smile they
may catch at Court. To this must be added, with some, a genuine personal
feeling towards the late Grand-duke, but these are very few; they are
limited for the most part to the courtiers, or “the antechamber” of the
Court that has passed away, and even with them it is no more than a
feeling of patronising friendship—nothing resembling the loyalty of an
Englishman towards his sovereign. But most of the regret expressed for
the late Grand-duke is nothing more than ill-disguised disappointment at
being no longer able to cut a figure at Court and rub shoulders with
royalty; and this is a form of politics not altogether unknown among our
good countrymen at Florence.
It is cruel of reactionary writers and orators in other countries to
draw down ridicule on the harmless and peaceful gentlemen who form the
small band of Codini at Florence, by endeavouring to magnify them into a
counter-revolutionary party.
The Codini at Florence would wish for the Austrians: they have a faint
and lingering hope of a Parisian Court at Florence, under Prince
Napoleon; but they do not even pretend that they would move a finger in
any cause.
There are men in Tuscany, and even gentlemen, who will work and form
themselves, let us hope, on the stamp of Baron Ricasoli; but these are
not to be found among the clique of the Codini at Florence.
The intelligence and energy of the country is for Italy, and nearly all
the great names of Florence—the names of republican celebrity, to their
honour be it said—are to be found in the ranks of the national party. It
is true their name is at present all that they can give to forward the
cause.
Let us hope, however, that the ideas of ambition, and the wider field
for competition which the new system offers, may awake in the children
now growing up in Florence an energy which has been unknown to their
fathers for many and many a generation. Then, perhaps, a walk in the
streets of Florence thirty years hence will no longer show us electors
who will not step a hundred yards out of the way in order to attend an
election. The Florentines may, at their own pleasure, by taking a part
in their own government and the government of Italy, virtually terminate
that Piedmontese tutelage against which they fret, and without which
they are not yet fit to carry out a constitutional system.
FLORENCE, _Feb. 2, 1863_.
THE FRANK IN SCOTLAND.[6]
For the benefit of the reader who may not have time and inclination to
work his way through two thick volumes of research—for the benefit also
of him who might be inclined to that adventurous task, but desires
beforehand to have some notion of the tenor and character of the work
before he invests in it his time and patience—we gave, in our November
Number, a sketch of what we thought the prominent features of the doings
of our countrymen in France, during the long period when Scotland was
alienated from England. We now propose to take up the other side of the
reciprocity. The two sketches will necessarily be distinct in character,
as the material facts to which they refer were distinct. France was, as
we have seen, the centre round which what remained of the civilisation
of the old world lingered; and, along with much wretchedness among the
common people, she was of all the states of Europe that which contained
the largest abundance of the raw material of wealth, and consequently of
the elements by which men of enterprise could raise themselves to
affluence and station. Scotland was on the outskirts of those lands in
which the new civilisation of the northern nations was slowly and coldly
ripening to a still distant maturity. These two countries, so unlike,
were knit into a close alliance, by a common danger inducing them to
adopt a common policy. But, being fundamentally unlike, their close
intercourse naturally tended, by close contact and comparison, to bring
out the specialties of their dissimilarity.
And in nothing is this dissimilarity more conspicuous than when we look
at the method and the object of the Scots’ sojourn in France, and
compare them with those which characterised the few Frenchmen who came
to us. The ruling feature in the former side of the reciprocity is, the
profuseness with which our countrymen domesticated themselves in the
land of their ancient allies, and infused new blood into theirs. There
was little to attract the Frenchman to pitch his tent with us. As soon
almost would he have thought of seeking his fortunes in Lapland or
Iceland. Here, therefore, we have less to do with the fortunes of
individual adventurers than with the national policy of the French
towards Scotland, and those who casually came among us for the purpose
of giving it effect. Our country had in fact been in a great measure
cleared of French names before our intercourse with France began, and
they never reappeared, except casually and in connection with some
special political movement. The Norman French who had migrated from
England over the border having, as we have seen, rendered themselves
offensive by helping their own Norman King to enslave Scotland, were
driven away in considerable numbers at the conclusion of the war of
independence; and afterwards the French, though they kept up the policy
of a close alliance with us, and gave a hearty reception to our own
adventurers, found nothing to tempt them to reciprocate hospitalities.
Hence the present sketch is not likely to afford any such genial history
of national hospitality and successful adventure as the paper devoted to
the conduct of our countrymen in France.
The policy of our alliance against England as the common enemy had
become a thing of pretty old standing; many a Scot had sought his
fortune in France; and names familiar to us now on shop-signs and in
street-directories had been found among the dead at Poictiers, before we
have authentic account of any Frenchmen having ventured across the sea
to visit the sterile territory of their allies. Froissart makes a story
out of the failure of the first attempt to send a French ambassador
here. The person selected for the duty was the Lord of Bournazel or
Bournaseau, whose genealogy is disentangled by M. Michel in a learned
note. He was accredited by Charles V. in the year 1379, and was
commanded to keep such state as might become the representative of his
august master. Bournazel set off to embark at Sluys, and then had to
wait fifteen days for a favourable wind. The ambassador thought there
was no better way of beguiling the time than a recitation among the Plat
Dutch of the splendours which he was bound in the way of public duty to
exhibit in the sphere of his mission. Accordingly, “during this time he
lived magnificently; and gold and silver plate were in such profusion in
his apartments as if he had been a prince. He had also music to announce
his dinner, and caused to be carried before him a sword in a scabbard
richly blazoned with his arms in gold and silver. His servants paid well
for everything. Many of the townspeople were much astonished at the
great state this knight lived in at home, which he also maintained when
he went abroad.” This premature display of his diplomatic glories
brought him into a difficulty highly characteristic of one of the
political specialties of France at that period. It was the time when the
nobles of the blood-royal were arrogating to themselves alone certain
prerogatives and ceremonials distinguishing them from the rest of the
territorial aristocracy, however high these might be. The Duke of
Bretagne and the Count of Flanders, who were near at hand, took umbrage
at the grand doings of Bournazel, and sent for him through the bailiff
of Sluys. That officer, after the manner of executive functionaries who
find themselves sufficiently backed, made his mission as offensive as
possible, and, tapping Bournazel on the shoulder, intimated that he was
wanted. The great men had intended only to rebuke him for playing a part
above his commission, but the indiscretion of their messenger gave
Bournazel a hold which he kept and used sagaciously. When he found the
princes who had sent for him lounging at a window looking into the
gardens, he fell on his knees and acknowledged himself the prisoner of
the Count of Flanders. To take prisoner an ambassador, and the
ambassador of a crowned king, the feudal lord of the captor, was one of
the heaviest of offences, both against the law of nations and the spirit
of chivalry. The Earl was not the less enraged that he felt himself
caught; and after retorting with, “How, rascal, do you dare to call
yourself my prisoner when I have only sent to speak with you?” he
composed himself to the delivery of the rebuke he had been preparing in
this fashion: “It is by such talkers and jesters of the Parliament of
Paris and of the king’s chamber as you, that the kingdom is governed;
and you manage the king as you please, to do good or evil according to
your wills: there is not a prince of the blood, however great he may be,
if he incur your hatred, who will be listened to; but such fellows shall
yet be hanged until the gibbets be full of them.” Bournazel carried this
pleasant announcement and the whole transaction to the throne, and the
king took his part, saying to those around, “He has kept his ground
well: I would not for twenty thousand francs it had not so happened.”
The embassy to Scotland was thus for the time frustrated. It was said
that there were English cruisers at hand to intercept the ambassador,
and that he himself had no great heart for a sojourn in the wild unknown
northern land. Possibly the fifteen days’ lording it at Sluys may have
broken in rather inconveniently on his outfit; but the most likely cause
of the defeat of the first French embassy to our shores was, the
necessity felt by Bournazel to right himself at once at court, and turn
the flank of his formidable enemies; and Froissart says, the Earl of
Flanders lay under the royal displeasure for having, in his vain
vaunting, defeated so important a project as the mission to the Scots.
A few years afterwards our country received a visit, less august, it is
true, than the intended embassy, but far more interesting. In 1384,
negotiations were exchanged near the town of Boulogne for a permanent
peace between England and France. The French demanded concessions of
territory which could not be yielded, and a permanent peace, founded on
a final settlement of pending claims, was impossible. A truce even was
at that time, however, a very important conclusion to conflict; it
sometimes lasted for years, being in reality a peace under protest that
each party reserved certain claims to be kept in view when war should
again break out. Such a truce was adjusted between England on the one
side and France on the other—conditional on the accession of her allies
Spain and Scotland. France kept faith magnanimously, in ever refusing to
negotiate a separate peace or truce for herself; but, as the way is with
the more powerful of two partners, she was apt to take for granted that
Scotland would go with her, and that the affair was virtually finished
by her own accession to terms.
It happened that in this instance the Duke of Burgundy took in hand to
deal with Scotland. He had, however, just at that moment, a rather
important piece of business, deeply interesting to himself, on hand. By
the death of the Earl of Flanders he succeeded to that fair domain—an
event which vastly influenced the subsequent fate of Europe. So busy was
he in adjusting the affairs of his succession, that it was said he
entirely overlooked the small matter of the notification of the truce to
Scotland. Meanwhile, there was a body of men-at-arms in the French
service at Sluys thrown out of employment by the truce with England,
and, like other workmen in a like position, desirous of a job. They knew
that the truce had not yet penetrated to Scotland, and thought a journey
thither, long and dangerous as it was, might be a promising speculation.
There were about thirty of them, and Froissart gives a head-roll of
those whose names he remembered, beginning with Sir Geoffry de Charny,
Sir John de Plaissy, Sir Hugh de Boulon, and so on. They dared not
attempt, in face of the English warships, to land at a southern harbour,
but reached the small seaport called by Froissart Monstres, and not
unaptly supposed by certain sage commentators to be Montrose, since they
rode on to Dundee and thence to Perth. They were received with a deal of
rough hospitality, and much commended for the knightly spirit that
induced them to cross the wide ocean to try their lances against the
common enemy of England. Two of them were selected to pass onto
Edinburgh, and explain their purpose at the court of Holyrood. Here they
met two of their countrymen on a mission which boded no good to their
enterprise. These were ambassadors from France, come at last to notify
the truce. It was at once accepted by the peaceable King Robert, but the
Scots lords around him were grieved in heart at the prospect that these
fine fellows should come so far and return without having any sport of
that highly flavoured kind which the border wars afforded. The truce
they held had been adjusted not by Scotland but by France; and here, as
if to contradict its sanction, were Frenchmen themselves offering to
treat it as naught. There was, however, a far stronger reason for
overlooking it. Just before it was completed, but when it was known to
be inevitable, the Earls of Northumberland and Nottingham suddenly and
secretly drew together two thousand men-at-arms and six thousand bowmen,
with which they broke into Scotland, and swept the country as far as
Edinburgh with more than the usual ferocity of a border raid; for they
made it to the Scots as if the devil had come among them, having great
wrath, for he knew that his time was short. It was said, even, that the
French ambassadors sent to Scotland to announce the truce had been
detained in London to allow time for this raid coming off effectively.
“To say the truth,” says Froissart, mildly censorious, “the lords of
England who had been at the conference at Bolinghen, had not acted very
honourably when they had consented to order their men to march to
Scotland and burn the country, knowing that a truce would speedily be
concluded: and the best excuse they could make was, that it was the
French and not they who were to signify such truce to the Scots.”
Smarting from this inroad, the Scots lords, and especially the Douglases
and others on the border, were in no humour to coincide with their
peaceful King. They desired to talk the matter over with the
representatives of the adventurers in some quiet place; and, for reasons
which were doubtless sufficient to themselves, they selected for this
purpose the church of St Giles in Edinburgh. The conference was highly
satisfactory to the adventurers, who spurred back to Perth to impart the
secret intelligence that though the king had accepted the truce, the
lords were no party to it, but would immediately prepare an expedition
to avenge Nottingham and Northumberland’s raid. This was joyful
intelligence, though in its character rather surprising to followers of
the French court. A force was rapidly collected, and in a very few days
the adventurers were called to join it in the Douglases’ lands.
So far Froissart. This affair is not, at least to our knowledge,
mentioned in detail by any of our own annalists writing before the
publication of his Chronicles. Everything, however, is there set forth
so minutely, and with so distinct and accurate a reference to actual
conditions in all the details, that few things in history can be less
open to doubt. Here, however, we come to a statement inviting question,
when he says that the force collected so suddenly by the Scots lords
contained fifteen thousand mounted men; nor can we be quite reconciled
to the statement though their steeds were the small mountain horses
called hackneys. The force, however, was sufficient for its work. It
found the English border trusting to the truce, and as little prepared
for invasion as Nottingham and Northumberland had found Scotland. The
first object was the land of the Percies, which the Scots, in the
laconic language of the chronicler, “pillaged and burnt.” And so they
went onwards; and where peasants had been peacefully tilling the land or
tending their cattle amid the comforts of rude industry, there the
desolating host passed, the crops were trampled down—their owners left
dead in the ashes of their smoking huts—and a few widows and children,
fleeing for safety and food, was all of animal life left upon the scene.
The part, indeed, taken in it by his countrymen was exactly after
Froissart’s own heart, since they were not carrying out any of the
political movements of the day, nor were they even actuated by an
ambition of conquest, but were led by the sheer fun of the thing and the
knightly spirit of adventure to partake in this wild raid. To the Scots
it was a substantial affair, for they came back heavy-handed, with
droves and flocks driven before them—possibly some of them recovered
their own.
The king had nothing to say in his vindication touching this little
affair, save that it had occurred without his permission, or even
knowledge. The Scots lords were not the only persons who broke that
truce. It included the Duke of Burgundy and his enemies, the Low Country
towns; yet his feudatory, the Lord Destournay, taking advantage of the
defenceless condition of Oudenarde during peace, took it by a clever
stratagem. The Duke of Burgundy, when appealed to, advised Destournay to
abandon his capture; but Destournay was wilful: he had conquered the
city, and the city was his—so there was no help for it, since the
communities were not strong enough to enforce their rights, and Burgundy
would only demand them on paper. What occasioned the raid of the Scots
and French to be passed over was, however, that the Duke of Lancaster,
John of Gaunt, who had the chief authority over the English councils, as
well as the command over the available force, was taken up with his own
schemes on the crown of Castile, and not inclined to find work for the
military force of the country elsewhere. The truce, therefore, was
cordially ratified; bygones were counted bygones; and the French
adventurers bade a kindly farewell to their brethren-in-arms, and
crossed the seas homewards.
Driven from their course, and landing at the Brille, they narrowly
escaped hanging at the hands of the boorish cultivators of the swamp;
and after adventures which would make good raw materials for several
novels, they reached Paris.
There they explained to their own court how they found that the great
enemy of France had, at the opposite extremity of his dominions, a nest
of fighting fiends, who wanted only their help in munitions of war to
enable them to rush on the vital parts of his dominions with all the
fell ferocity of men falling on their bitterest feudal enemy. Thus could
France, having under consideration the cost and peril of gallying an
invading army across the Straits, by money and management, do far more
damage to the enemy than any French invading expedition was likely to
accomplish.
In an hour which did not prove propitious to France, a resolution was
adopted to invade England at both ends. Even before the truce was at an
end, the forges of Henault and Picardy were hard at work making
battle-axes; and all along the coast, from Harfleur to Sluys, there was
busy baking of biscuits and purveyance of provender. Early in spring an
expedition of a thousand men-at-arms, with their followers, put to sea
under John of Vienne, the Admiral of France, and arrived at Leith,
making a voyage which must have been signally prosperous, if we may
judge by the insignificance of the chief casualty on record concerning
it. In those days, as in the present, it appears that adventurous young
gentlemen on shipboard were apt to attempt feats for which their land
training did not adapt them—in nautical phrase, “to swing on all top
ropes.” A hopeful youth chose to perform such a feat in his armour, and
with the most natural of all results. “The knight was young and active,
and, to show his agility, he mounted aloft by the ropes of his ship,
completely armed; but his feet slipping he fell into the sea, and the
weight of his armour, which sank him instantly, deprived him of any
assistance, for the ship was soon at a distance from the place where he
had fallen.”
The expedition soon found itself to be a mistake. In fact, to send
fighting men to Scotland was just to supply the country with that
commodity in which it superabounded. The great problem was how to find
food for the stalwart sons of the soil, and arms to put in their hands
when fighting was necessary. A percentage of the cost and labour of the
expedition, spent in sending money or munitions of war, would have done
better service. The scene before the adventurers was in lamentable
contrast to all that custom had made familiar to them. There were none
of the comfortable chateaux, the abundant markets, the carpets, down
beds, and rich hangings which gladdened their expeditions to the Low
Countries, whether they went as friends or foes. Nor was the same place
for _them_ in Scotland, which the Scots so readily found in France,
where a docile submissive peasantry only wanted vigorous and adventurous
masters. “The lords and their men,” says Froissart, “lodged themselves
as well as they could in Edinburgh, and those who could not lodge there
were quartered in the different villages thereabout. Edinburgh,
notwithstanding that it is the residence of the king, and is the Paris
of Scotland, is not such a town as Tournay and Valenciennes, for there
are not in the whole town four thousand houses. Several of the French
lords were therefore obliged to take up their lodgings in the
neighbouring villages, and at Dunfermline, Kelso, Dunbar, Dalkeith, and
in other towns.” When they had exhausted the provender brought with
them, these children of luxury had to endure the miseries of sordid
living, and even the pinch of hunger. They tried to console themselves
with the reflection that they had, at all events, an opportunity of
experiencing a phase of life which their parents had endeavoured
theoretically to impress upon them, in precepts to be thankful to the
Deity for the good things which they enjoyed, but which might not always
be theirs in a transitory world. They had been warned by the first
little band of adventurers that Scotland was not rich; yet the intense
poverty of the country whence so many daring adventurers had gone over
to ruffle it with the flower of European chivalry, astonished and
appalled them. Of the extreme and special nature of the poverty of
Scotland, the great war against the English invaders was the cause. It
has been estimated, indeed, by those devoted to such questions, that
Scotland did not recover fully from the ruin caused by that conflict
until the Union made her secure against her ambitious neighbour. It was
the crisis referred to in that pathetic ditty, the earliest specimen of
our lyrical poetry, when
“Away was sonse of ale and bread,
Of wine and wax, of gaming and glee;
Our gold was changed into lead;
Cryst borne into virginity.
Succour poor Scotland and remede,
That stad is in perplexity.”
It is not sufficiently known how much wealth and prosperity existed in
Scotland before King Edward trod its soil. Berwick, the chief commercial
port, had commerce with half the world, and bade fair to rival Ghent,
Rotterdam, and the other great mercantile cities of the Low Country.
Antiquarians have lately pointed to a sad and significant testimony to
the change of times. Of the ecclesiastical remains of Scotland, the
finest are either in the Norman, or the early English which preceded the
Edwards. These are the buildings of a noted and munificent people; they
rival the corresponding establishments in England, and are in the same
style as the work of nations having common interests and
sympathies—indeed the same architects seem to have worked in both
countries. At the time when the Gothic architecture of England merged
into the type called the Second Pointed, there ceased to be
corresponding specimens in Scotland. A long period, indeed, elapses
which has handed down to us no vestiges of church architecture in
Scotland, or only a few too trifling to possess any distinctive
character. When works of Gothic art begin again to arise with the
reviving wealth of the people, they are no longer of the English type,
but follow that flamboyant style which had been adopted by the
ecclesiastical builders of the country with which Scotland had most
concern—her steady patron and protector, France.[7]
The poverty of the Scots proceeded from a cause of which they need not
have been ashamed; yet, with the reserve and pride ever peculiar to
them, they hated that it should be seen by their allies, and when these
showed any indications of contempt or derision, the natives were stung
to madness. Froissart renders very picturesquely the common talk about
the strangers, thus:—“What devil has brought them here? or, who has sent
for them? Cannot we carry on our wars with England without their
assistance? We shall never do any good as long as they are with us. Let
them be told to go back again, for we are sufficient in Scotland to
fight our own battles, and need not their aid. We neither understand
their language nor they ours, so that we cannot converse together. They
will very soon cut up and destroy all we have in this country, and will
do more harm if we allow them to remain among us than the English could
in battle. If the English do burn our houses, what great matter is it to
us? We can rebuild them at little cost, for we require only three days
to do so, so that we but have five or six poles, with boughs to cover
them.”
The French knights, accustomed to abject submission among their own
peasantry, were loth to comprehend the fierce independence of the Scots
common people, and were ever irritating them into bloody reprisals. A
short sentence of Froissart’s conveys a world of meaning on this
specialty: “Besides, whenever their servants went out to forage, they
were indeed permitted to load their horses with as much as they could
pack up and carry, but they were waylaid on their return, and
villanously beaten, robbed, and sometimes slain, insomuch that no varlet
dare go out foraging for fear of death. In one month the French lost
upwards of a hundred varlets; for when three or four went out foraging,
not one returned, in such a hideous manner were they treated.” As we
have seen, a not unusual incident of purveying in France was, that the
husbandman was hung up by the heels and roasted before his own fire
until he disgorged his property. The Scots peasantry had a decided
prejudice against such a process, and, being accustomed to defend
themselves from all oppression, resisted even that of their allies, to
the extreme astonishment and wrath of those magnificent gentlemen. There
is a sweet unconsciousness in Froissart’s indignant denunciation of the
robbing of the purveyors, which meant the pillaged peasantry recovering
their own goods. But the chronicler was of a thorough knightly nature,
and deemed the peasantry of a country good for nothing but to be used
up. Hence, in his wrath, he says: “In Scotland you will never find a man
of worth; they are like savages, who wish not to be acquainted with any
one, and are too envious of the good fortune of others, and suspicious
of losing anything themselves, for their country is very poor. When the
English make inroads thither, as they have very frequently done, they
order their provisions, if they wish to live, to follow close at their
backs; for nothing is to be had in that country without great
difficulty. There is neither iron to shoe horses, nor leather to make
harness, saddles, or bridles; all these things come ready made from
Flanders by sea; and should these fail, there is none to be had in the
country.” What a magnificent contrast to such a picture is the present
relative condition of Scotland and the Low Countries! and yet these have
not suffered any awful reverse of fortune—they have merely abided in
stagnant respectability.
It must be remembered, in estimating the chronicler’s pungent remarks
upon our poor ancestors, that he was not only a worshipper of rank and
wealth, but thoroughly English in his partialities, magnifying the feats
in arms of the great enemies of his own country. The records of the
Scots Parliament of 1395 curiously confirm the inference from his
narrative, that the French were oppressive purveyors, and otherwise
unobservant of the people’s rights. An indenture, as it is termed—the
terms of a sort of compact with the strangers—appears among the records,
conspicuous among their other Latin and vernacular contents as being set
forth in French, in courtesy, of course, to the strangers. It expressly
lays down that no goods of any kind shall be taken by force, under pain
of death, and none shall be received without being duly paid for—the
dealers having free access to come and go. There are regulations, too,
for suppressing broils by competent authority, and especially for
settling questions between persons of unequal degrees; a remedy for the
French practice, which left the settlement entirely with the superior.
This document is one of many showing that, in Scotland, there were
arrangements for protecting the personal freedom of the humbler classes,
and their rights of property, the fulness of which is little known,
because the like did not exist in other countries, and those who have
written philosophical treatises on the feudal system, or on the progress
of Europe from barbarism to civilisation, have generally lumped all the
countries of Europe together. The sense of personal freedom seems to
have been rather stronger in Scotland than in England; it was such as
evidently to astound the French knights. At the end of the affair,
Froissart expresses this surprise in his usual simple and expressive
way. After a second or third complaint of the unreasonable condition
that his countrymen should pay for the victuals they consumed, he goes
on, “The Scots said the French had done them more mischief than the
English;” and when asked in what manner, they replied, “By riding
through the corn, oats, and barley on their march, which they trod under
foot, not condescending to follow the roads, for which damage they would
have a recompense before they left Scotland, and they should neither
find vessel nor mariner who would dare to put to sea without their
permission.”
Of the military events in the short war following the arrival of the
French, an outline will be found in the ordinary histories; but it was
attended by some conditions which curiously bring out the specialties of
the two nations so oddly allied. One propitiatory gift the strangers had
brought with them, which was far more highly appreciated than their own
presence; this was a thousand stand of accoutrements for men-at-arms.
They were of the highest excellence, being selected out of the store
kept in the Castle of Beauté for the use of the Parisians. When these
were distributed among the Scots knights, who were but poorly equipped,
the chronicler, as if he had been speaking of the prizes at a
Christmas-tree, tells how those who were successful and got them were
greatly delighted. The Scots did their part in their own way: they
brought together thirty thousand men, a force that drained the country
of its available manhood. But England had at that time nothing to divert
her arms elsewhere, and the policy adopted was to send northwards a
force sufficient to crush Scotland for ever. It consisted of seven
thousand mounted men-at-arms, and sixty thousand bow and bill men—a
force from three to four times as large as the armies that gained the
memorable English victories in France. Of these, Agincourt was still to
come off, but Crecy and Poictiers were over, along with many other
affairs that might have taught the French a lesson. The Scots, too, had
suffered two great defeats—Neville’s Cross and Halidon Hill—since their
great national triumph. The impression made on each country by their
experiences brought out their distinct national characteristics. The
French knights were all ardour and impatience; they clamoured to be at
the enemy without ascertaining the amount or character of his force. The
wretched internal wars of their own country had taught them to look on
the battle-field as the arena of reason in personal conflict, rather
than the great tribunal in which the fate of nations was to be decided,
and communities come forth freed or enslaved.
To the Scots, on the other hand, the affair was one of national life or
death, and they would run no risks for distinction’s sake. Picturesque
accounts have often been repeated of a scene where Douglas, or some
other Scots leader, brought the Admiral to an elevated spot whence he
could see and estimate the mighty host of England; but the most
picturesque of all the accounts is the original by Froissart, of which
the others are parodies. The point in national tactics brought out by
this incident is the singular recklessness with which the French must
have been accustomed to do battle. In total ignorance of the force he
was to oppose, and not seeking to know aught concerning it, the
Frenchman’s voice was still for war. When made to see with his own eyes
what he had to encounter, he was as reluctant as his companions to risk
the issue of a battle, but not so fertile in expedients for carrying on
the war effectively without one. The policy adopted was to clear the
country before the English army as it advanced, and carry everything
portable and valuable within the recesses of the mountain-ranges,
whither the inhabitants not fit for military service went with their
effects. A desert being thus opened for the progress of the invaders,
they were left to wander in it unmolested while the Scots army went in
the opposite direction, and crossed the Border southwards. Thus the
English army found Scotland empty—the Scots army found England full. The
one wore itself out in a fruitless march, part of it straggling, it was
said, as far as Aberdeen, and returned thinned and starving, while the
other was only embarrassed by the burden of its plunder. Much
destruction there was, doubtless, on both sides, but it fell heaviest
where there was most to destroy, and gratified at last in some measure
the French, who “said among themselves they had burned in the bishoprics
of Durham and Carlisle more than the value of all the towns in the
kingdom of Scotland.” But havoc does not make wealth, and whether or not
the Scots knew better from experience how to profit by such
opportunities, the French, when they returned northward, were starving.
Their object now was to get out of the country as fast as they could.
Froissart, with a touch of dry humour, explains that their allies had no
objection to speed the exit of the poorer knights, but resolved to hold
the richer and more respectable in a sort of pawn for the damage which
the expedition had inflicted on the common people. The Admiral asked his
good friends the Lords Douglas and Moray to put a stop to these demands;
but these good knights were unable to accommodate their brethren in this
little matter, and the Admiral was obliged to give effectual pledges
from his Government for the payment of the creditors. There is something
in all this that seems utterly unchivalrous and even ungenerous; but it
had been well for France had Froissart been able to tell a like story of
her peasantry. It merely shows us that our countrymen of that day were
of those who “knew their rights, and, knowing, dared maintain them;” and
was but a demonstration on a humbler, and, if you will, more sordid
shape, of the same spirit that had swept away the Anglo-Norman invaders.
The very first act which their chronicler records concerning his
knightly friends, after he has exhausted his wrath against the hard and
mercenary Scot, is thoroughly suggestive. Some of the knights tried
other fields of adventure, “but the greater number returned to France,
and were so poor they knew not how to remount themselves, especially
those from Burgundy, Champagne, Bar, and Lorraine, _who seized the
labouring horses wherever they found them in the fields_,” so impatient
were they to regain their freedom of action.
So ended this affair, with the aspect of evil auspices for the alliance.
The adventurers returned “cursing Scotland, and the hour they had set
foot there. They said they had never suffered so much in any expedition,
and wished the King of France would make a truce with the English for
two or three years, and then march to Scotland and utterly destroy it;
for never had they seen such wicked people, nor such ignorant hypocrites
and traitors.” But the impulsive denunciation of the disappointed
adventurers was signally obliterated in the history of the next
half-century. Ere many more years had passed over them, that day of
awful trial was coming when France had to lean on the strong arm of her
early ally; and, in fact, some of the denouncers lived to see
adventurers from the sordid land of their contempt and hatred commanding
the armies of France, and owning her broad lordships. It was, in fact,
just after the return of Vienne’s expedition, that the remarkable
absorption of Scotsmen into the aristocracy of France, referred to in
our preceding paper, began to set in.
This episode of the French expedition to Scotland, small though its
place is in the annals of Europe, yet merits the consideration of the
thoughtful historian, in affording a significant example of the real
causes of the misery and degradation of France at that time, and the
wonderful victories of the English kings. Chivalry, courage, the love of
enterprise, high spirit in all forms, abounded to superfluity among the
knightly orders, but received no solid support from below. The mounted
steel-clad knights of the period, in the highest physical condition,
afraid of nothing on the earth or beyond it, and burning for triumph and
fame, could perform miraculous feats of strength and daring; but all
passed off in wasted effort and vain rivalry, when there was wanting the
bold peasantry, who, with their buff jerkins, and their bills and bows,
or short Scottish spears, were the real force by which realms were held
or gained.
The next affair in which M. Michel notes his countrymen as present among
us, was a very peculiar and exceptional one, with features only too like
those which were such a scandal to the social condition of France. It
was that great battle or tournament on the North Inch of Perth, where
opposite Highland factions, called the clan Quhele and clan Chattan,
were pitted against each other, thirty to thirty—an affair, the darker
colours of which are lighted up by the eccentric movements of the Gow
Chrom, or bandy-legged smith of Perth, who took the place of a defaulter
in one of the ranks, to prevent the spectacle of the day from being
spoilt. That such a contest should have been organised to take place in
the presence of the king and court, under solemnities and regulations
like some important ordeal, has driven historical speculators to
discover what deep policy for the pacification or subjugation of the
Highlands lay behind it. The feature that gives it a place in M.
Michel’s book, is the briefest possible notification by one of the
chroniclers, that a large number of Frenchmen and other strangers were
present at the spectacle. This draws us back from the mysterious arcana
of political intrigue to find a mere showy pageant, got up to enliven
the hours of idle mirth—an act, in short, of royal hospitality—a show
cunningly adapted to the tastes of the age, yet having withal the
freshness of originality, being a renaissance kind of combination of the
gladiatorial conflict of the Roman circus with the tournament of
chivalry. The Highlanders were, in fact, the human raw material which a
king of Scots could in that day employ, so far as their nature suited,
for the use or the amusement of his guests. Them, and them only among
his subjects, could he use as the Empire used the Transalpine
barbarian—“butchered to make a Roman holiday.” The treatment of the Celt
is the blot in that period of our history. Never in later times has the
Red Indian or Australian native been more the hunted wild beast to the
emigrant settler, than the Highlander was to his neighbour the
Lowlander. True, he was not easily got at, and, when reached, he was
found to have tusks. They were a people never permitted to be at rest
from external assault; yet such was their nature that, instead of being
pressed by a common cause into compact union, they were divided into
communities that hated each other almost more bitterly than the common
enemy. This internal animosity has suggested that the king wanted two
factions to exterminate each other as it were symbolically, and accept
the result of a combat between two bodies of chosen champions, as if
there had been an actual stricken field, with all the able-bodied men on
both sides engaged in it. It was quite safe to calculate that when the
representatives of the two contending factions were set face to face on
the green sward, they would fly at each other’s throats, and afford in
an abundant manner to the audience whatever delectation might arise from
an intensely bloody struggle. But, on the other hand, to expect the
Highlanders to be fools enough to accept this sort of symbolical
extinction of their quarrel was too preposterous a deduction for any
practical statesman. They had no notion of leaving important issues to
the event of single combat, or any of the other preposterous rules of
chivalry, but slew their enemies where they could, and preferred doing
so secretly, and without risk to themselves, when that was practicable.
As we read on the history of the two countries, France and Scotland, we
shall find the national friendship which had arisen in their common
adversity gradually and almost insensibly changing its character. The
strong current of migration from Scotland which had set in during the
latter period of the hundred years’ war stopped almost abruptly.
Scotsmen were still hired as soldiers—sometimes got other
appointments—and, generally speaking, were received with hospitality;
but in Louis XI.’s reign, the time had passed when they were accepted in
the mass as a valuable contribution to the aristocracy of France, and
forthwith invested with titles and domains. The families that had thus
settled down remembered the traditions of their origin, but had no
concern with Scotland, and were thoroughly French, nationally and
socially. France, too, was aggregating into a compact nationality, to
which her sons could attach themselves with some thrill of patriotic
pride. She made a great stride onward both in nationality and prosperity
during the reign of that hard, greedy, penurious, crafty, superstitious
hypocrite, Louis XI. By a sort of slow corroding process he ate out, bit
by bit, the powers and tyrannies that lay between his own and the
people. Blood, even the nearest, was to him nowise thicker than water,
so he did not, like his predecessors, let royal relations pick up what
territorial feudatories dropped; he took all to himself, and, taking it
to himself, it became that French empire which was to be inherited by
Francis I., Louis XIV., and even the Napoleons; for he seems to have had
the principal hand in jointing and fitting in the subordinate machinery
of that centralisation which proved compact enough in its details to be
put together again after the smash of the Revolution, and which has
proved itself as yet the only system under which France can flourish.
Scotland was, at the same time, rising under a faint sunshine of
prosperity—a sort of reflection of that enjoyed by France. The
connection of the poor with the rich country was becoming ever more
close, but at the same time it was acquiring an unwholesome character.
The two could not fuse into each other as England and Scotland did; and,
for all the pride of the Scots, and their strong hold over France, as
the advanced-guard mounted upon England, the connection could not but
lapse into a sort of clientage—the great nation being the patron, the
small nation the dependant. Whether for good or evil, France infused
into Scotland her own institutions, which, being those of the Roman
Empire, as practised throughout the Christian nations of the Continent,
made Scotsmen free of those elements of social communion, that _amitas
gentium_, from which England excluded herself in sulky pride. This is
visible, or rather audible, at the present day, in the Greek and Latin
of the Scotsmen of the old school, who can make themselves understood
all over the world; while the English pronunciation, differing from that
of the nations which have preserved the chief deposits of the classic
languages in their own, must as assuredly differ from the way in which
these were originally spoken. The Englishman disdained the universal
Justinian jurisprudence, and would be a law unto himself, which he
called, with an affectation of humility, “The Common Law.” It is full,
no doubt, of patches taken out of the ‘Corpus Juris,’ but, far from
their source being acknowledged, the civilians are never spoken of by
the common lawyers but to be railed at and denounced; and when great
draughts on the Roman system were found absolutely necessary to keep the
machine of justice in motion, these were entirely elbowed out of the way
by common law, and had to form themselves into a separate machinery of
their own, called Equity. Scotland, on the other hand, received
implicitly from her leader in civilisation the great body of the civil
law, as collected and arranged by the most laborious of all labouring
editors, Denis Godefroi. We brought over also an exact facsimile of the
French system of public prosecution for crime, from the great state
officer at the head of the system to the Procureurs du Roi. It is still
in full practice and eminently useful; but it is an arrangement that, to
be entirely beneficial, needs to be surrounded by constitutional
safeguards; and though there has been much pressure of late to establish
it in England, one cannot be surprised that it was looked askance at
while the great struggles for fixing the constitution were in progress.
The practice of the long-forgotten States-General of France was an
object of rather anxious inquiry at the reassembling of that body in
1789, after they had been some four centuries and a half in a state of
adjournment or dissolution. The investigations thus occasioned brought
out many peculiarities which were in practical observance in Scotland
down to the Union. All the world has read of that awful crisis arising
out of the question whether the Estates should vote collectively or
separately. Had the question remained within the bounds of reason and
regulation, instead of being virtually at the issue of the sword, much
instructive precedent would have been obtained for its settlement by an
examination of the proceedings of that Parliament of Scotland which
adjusted the Union—an exciting matter also, yet, to the credit of our
country, discussed with perfect order, and obedience to rules of
practice which, derived from the custom of the old States-General of
France, were rendered pliant and adaptable by such a long series of
practical adaptations as the country of their nativity was not permitted
to witness.
There was a very distinct adaptation of another French institution of
later origin, when the Court of Session was established in 1533. Before
that, the king’s justices administered the law somewhat as in England,
but there was an appeal to Parliament; and as that body did its judicial
work by committees, these became virtually the supreme courts of the
realm. If the reader wants to have assurance that there is something
really sound in this information, by receiving it in the current coin of
its appropriate technicalities, let him commit to memory that the chief
standing committee was named that of the _Domini auditorii ad querelas_.
When he uses that term, nobody will question the accuracy of what he
says. The Court of Session, established to supersede this kind of
tribunal, was exactly a French parliament—a body exercising appellate
judicial functions, along with a few others of a legislative
character—few in this country, but in France sufficiently extensive to
render the assembling of the proper Parliament of the land and the
States-General unnecessary for all regal purposes.
In other institutions—the universities, for instance—we find not merely
the influence of French example, but an absolute importation of the
whole French structure and discipline. The University of King’s College
in Aberdeen was constructed on the model of the great University of
Paris. Its founder, Bishop Elphinston, had taught there for many years;
so had its first principal, Hector Boece, the most garrulous and
credulous of historians. The transition from the Paris to the Aberdeen
of that day, must have been a descent not to be estimated by the present
relative condition of the two places; and one cannot be surprised to
find Hector saying that he was seduced northwards by gifts and promises.
It is probable that we would find fewer actual living remnants of the
old institution in Paris itself than in the northern imitation. There
may be yet found the offices of regent and censor, for the qualities of
which one must search in the mighty folios of _Bullæus_. There survives
the division into nations—the type of the unlimited hospitality of the
university as a place where people of all nations assembled to drink at
the fountain of knowledge. There also the youth who flashes forth, for
the first time, in his scarlet plumage, is called a _bejeant_, not
conscious, perhaps, that the term was used to the first-session students
of the French universities hundreds of years ago, and that it is derived
by the learned from _bec jaune_, or yellow nib. If the reader is of a
sentimentally domestic turn, he may find in the term the conception of
an _alma mater_, shielding the innocent brood from surrounding dangers;
and if he be knowing and sarcastic, he may suppose it to refer to a
rawness and amenability to be trotted out, expressed in the present day
by the synonymous _freshman_ and _greenhorn_.
There is a still more distinct stamp of a French type, in the
architecture of our country, so entirely separate from the English
style, in the flamboyant Gothic of the churches, and the rocket-topped
turrets of the castles; but on this specialty we shall not here enlarge,
having, in some measure, examined it several years ago.[8] It was not
likely that all these, with many other practices, should be imported
into the nation, however gradually, without the people having a
consciousness that they were foreign. They were not established without
the aid of men, showing, by their air and ways, that they and their
practices were alike alien. He, however, who gave the first flagrant
offence, in that way, to the national feeling, was a descendant of one
of the emigrant Scots of the fifteenth century, and by blood and rank
closely allied to the Scottish throne, although every inch a Frenchman.
To watch in history the action and counteraction of opposing forces
which have developed some grand result, yet by a slight and not
improbable impulse the other way might have borne towards an opposite
conclusion equally momentous, is an interesting task, with something in
it of the excitement of the chase. In pursuing the traces which bring
Scotland back to her English kindred, and saved her from a permanent
annexation to France, the arrival of John Duke of Albany in Scotland, in
1515, is a critical turning-point. Already had the seed of the union
with England been planted when James IV. got for a wife the daughter of
Henry VII. Under the portrait of this sagacious king, Bacon wrote the
mysterious motto—_Cor regis inscrutabile_. It would serve pleasantly to
lighten up and relieve a hard and selfish reputation, if one could
figure him, in the depths of his own heart, assuring himself of having
entered in the books of fate a stroke of policy that at some date,
however distant, was destined to appease the long bloody contest of two
rival nations, and unite them into a compact and mighty empire. The
prospects of such a consummation were at first anything but encouraging.
The old love broke in counteracting the prudential policy; and, indeed,
never did besotted lover abandon himself to wilder folly than James IV.,
when, at the bidding of Anne of France as the lady of his chivalrous
worship, he resolved to be her true knight, and take three steps into
English ground. When a chivalrous freak, backed by a few political
irritations scarce less important, strewed the moor of Flodden with the
flower of the land, it was time for Scotland to think over the
rationality of this distant alliance, which deepened and perpetuated her
feud with her close neighbour of kindred blood. Well for him, the good,
easy, frank, chivalrous monarch, that he was buried in the ruin he had
made, and saw not the misery of a desolated nation. Of the totally alien
object for which all the mischief had been done, there was immediate
evidence in various shapes. One curious little item of it is brought out
by certain researches of M. Michel, which have also a significant
bearing on the conflict between the secular and the papal power in the
disposal of benefices. The Pope, Julius II., was anxious to gain over to
his interest Mathew Lang, bishop of Gorz, and secretary to the Emperor
Maximilian, who was called to Rome and blessed by the vision of a
cardinal’s hat, and the papal influence in the first high promotion that
might open. The archbishopric of Bourges became vacant. The chapter
elected one of our old friends of the Scots emigrant families, Guillaume
de Monypeny, brother of the Lord of Concressault; but the King, Louis
XII., at first stood out for Brillac, bishop of Orleans, resisted by the
chapter. The bishop of Gorz then came forward with a force sufficient to
sweep away both candidates. He was favoured of the Pope: his own master,
Maximilian, desired for his secretary this foreign benefice, which would
cost himself nothing; and Louis found somehow that the bishop was as
much his own humble servant as the Emperor’s. No effect of causes
sufficient seemed in this world more assured than that Mathew Lang,
bishop of Gorz, should also be archbishop of Bourges; but the fortune of
war rendered it before his collation less important to have the bishop
of Gorz in the archiepiscopate than another person. The King laid his
hand again on the chapter, and required them to postulate one whose name
and condition must have seemed somewhat strange to them—Andrew Forman,
bishop of Moray, in the north of Scotland. There are reasons for all
things. Forman was ambassador from Scotland to France, and thus had
opportunities of private communication with James IV. and Louis XII.
This latter, in a letter to the Chapter of Bourges, explains his signal
obligations to Forman for having seconded the allurements of the Queen,
and instigated the King of Scots to make war against England, explaining
how _icelui, Roy d’Escosse s’est ouvertement declaré vouloir tenir
nostre party et faire la guerre actuellement contre le Roy
d’Angleterre_. Lest the chapter should doubt the accuracy of this
statement of the services performed to France by Forman, the King sent
them _le double des lectres que le dict Roy d’Escosse nous a escriptes
et aussi de la defiance q’il a fait au dict Roy d’Angleterre_. The King
pleaded hard with the chapter to postulate Forman, representing that
they could not find a better means of securing his own countenance and
protection. The Scotsman backed this royal appeal by a persuasive
letter, which he signed Andrè, _Arcevesque de Bourges et Evesque de
Morray_. Influence was brought to bear on the Pope himself, and he
declared his leaning in favour of Forman. The members of the chapter,
who had been knocked about past endurance in the affair of the
archbishopric from first to last, threatened resistance and martyrdom;
but the pressure of the powers combined against them brought them to
reason, and Forman entered Bourges in archiepiscopal triumph. But the
ups and downs of the affair were as yet by no means at an end. That
great pontiff, who never forgot that the head of the Church was a
temporal prince, Leo X., had just ascended the throne, and found that it
would be convenient to have this archbishopric of Bourges for his
nephew, Cardinal Abo. By good luck the see of St Andrews, the primacy of
Scotland, was then vacant, and was given as an equivalent for the French
dignity. Such a promotion was a symbolically appropriate reward for the
services of Forman; his predecessor fell at Flodden, and thus, in his
services to the King of France, he had made a vacancy for himself. He
had for some time in his pocket, afraid to show it, the Pope’s bull
appointing him Archbishop of St Andrews and Primate of Scotland. This
was a direct act of interference contrary to law and custom, since the
function of the Pope was only to collate or confirm, as ecclesiastical
superior, the choice made by the local authorities. These had their
favourite for the appointment, Prior Hepburn, who showed his earnestness
in his own cause by taking and holding the Castle of St Andrews. A
contest of mingled ecclesiastical and civil elements, too complex to be
disentangled, followed; but in the end Forman triumphed, having on his
side the efforts of the King of France and his servant Albany, with the
Pope’s sense of justice. The rewards of this highly endowed divine were
the measure alike of his services to France and of his injuries to
Scotland. He held, by the way, _in commendam_, a benefice in England;
and as he had a good deal of diplomatic business with Henry VIII., it
may not uncharitably be supposed that he sought to feather his hat with
English as well as French plumage. It was in the midst of these affairs,
which were bringing out the dangerous and disastrous elements in the
French alliance, that Albany arrived.
Albany’s father, the younger brother of James III., had lived long in
France, got great lordships there, and thoroughly assimilated himself to
the Continental system. He married Anne de la Tour, daughter of the
Count of Auvergne and Boulogne, of a half princely family, which became
afterwards conspicuous by producing Marshal Turenne, and at a later
period the eccentric grenadier, Latour d’Auvergne, who, in homage to
republican principles, would not leave the subaltern ranks in Napoleon’s
army, and became more conspicuous by remaining there than many who
escaped from that level to acquire wealth and power. The sister of Anne
de la Tour married Lorenzo de Medici, Duke of Urbino. From this
connection Albany was the uncle of Catherine de Medici, the renowned
Queen of France, and, in fact, was the nearest relative, who, as folks
used to say in this country, “gave her away” to Henry II. On this
occasion he got a cardinal’s hat for Philip de la Chambre, his mother’s
son by a second marriage. He lived thoroughly in the midst of the
Continental royalties of the day, and had the sort of repute among them
that may be acquired by a man of great influence and connection, whose
capacity has never been tried by any piece of critical business—a repute
that comes to persons in a certain position by a sort of process of
gravitation. Brave he seems to have been, like all his race, and he
sometimes held even important commands. He accompanied his friend,
Francis I., in his unfortunate raid into Italy in 1525, and was
fortunately and honourably clear of that bad business, the battle of
Pavia, by being then in command of a detachment sent against Naples.
There are men who, when they shift their place and function, can
assimilate themselves to the changed conditions around them—who can find
themselves surrounded by unwonted customs and ways, and yet accept the
condition that the men who follow these are pursuing the normal
condition of their being, and must be left to do so in peace, otherwise
harm will come of it; and in this faculty consists the instinct which
enables men to govern races alien to their own. Albany did not possess
it. He appears to have been ignorant of the language of Scotland, and to
have thought or rather felt that, wherever he was, all should be the
same as in the midst of Italian and French courtiers; and if it were not
so, something was wrong, and should be put right. It was then the
commencement of a very luxurious age in France—an age of rich and showy
costumes, of curls, perfumes, cosmetics, and pet spaniels—and Albany was
the leader of fashion in all such things. It is needless to say how
powerfully all this contrasted with rough Scotland—what a shocking set
of barbarians he found himself thrown among—how contemptible to the
rugged Scots nobles was the effeminate Oriental luxury of the little
court he imported from Paris, shifted northwards as some wealthy
luxurious sportsman takes a detachment from his stable, kennel, and
servants’ hall, to a bothy in the Highlands.
He arrived, however, in a sort of sunshine. At that calamitous moment
the nearest relation of the infant king, a practised statesman, was
heartily welcome. He brought a small rather brilliant fleet with him,
which was dignified by his high office as Admiral of France; he brought
also some money and valuable trifles, which were not inacceptable. Wood,
in his ‘Peerage,’ tells us that “The peers and chiefs crowded to his
presence: his exotic elegance of manners, his condescension, affability,
and courtesy of demeanour, won all hearts.” If so, these were not long
retained. He came, indeed, just before some tangible object was wanted
against which to direct the first sulky feelings of the country towards
France; and he served the purpose exactly, for his own handiwork was the
cause of that feeling. In a new treaty between France and England, in
which he bore a great if not the chief part, Scotland was for the first
time treated as a needy and troublesome hanger-on of France. Instead of
the old courtesy, which made Scotland, nominally at least, an
independent party to the treaty, it was made directly by France, but
Scotland was comprehended in it, with a warning that if there were any
of the old raids across the Border, giving trouble as they had so often
done, the Scots should forfeit their part in the treaty. This patronage
during good behaviour roused the old pride, and was one of many symptoms
that Albany had come to them less as the representative of their own
independent line of kings, than as the administrator of a distant
province of the French empire. The humiliation was all the more bitter
from the deep resentments that burned in the people’s hearts after the
defeat of Flodden, and it was with difficulty that the Estates brought
themselves to say that, though Scotland believed herself able
single-handed to avenge her losses, yet, out of respect for the old
friendship of France, the country would consent to peace with England.
Setting to work after the manner of one possessed of the same supreme
authority as the King of France, Albany began his government with an air
of rigour, insomuch that the common historians speak of him as having
resolved to suppress the turbulent spirit of the age, and assert the
supremacy of law and order. He thus incurred the reputation of a
grasping tyrant. The infant brother of the king died suddenly; his
mother said Albany had poisoned the child, and people shuddered for his
brother, now standing alone between the Regent and the throne, and
talked ominously of the manner in which Richard III. of England was
popularly believed to have achieved the crown by murdering his nephews.
It is from this period that we may date the rise of a really English
party in Scotland—a party who feared the designs of the French, and who
thought that, after having for two hundred years maintained her
independence, Scotland might with fair honour be combined with the
country nearest to her and likest in blood, should the succession to
both fall to one prince, and that it would be judicious to adjust the
royal alliances in such a manner as to bring that to pass. Such thoughts
were in the mean time somewhat counteracted by the lightheaded doings of
her who was the nation’s present tie to England—the Queen-Dowager—whose
grotesque and flagrant love-affairs are an amusing episode, especially
to those who love the flavour of ancient scandal; while all gracious
thoughts that turned themselves towards England were met in the teeth by
the insults and injuries which her savage brother, Henry VIII.,
continued to pile upon the country.
Up to this point it does not happen to us to have noted instances of
offices of emolument in Scotland given to Frenchmen, and the fuss made
about one instance of the kind leads to the supposition that they must
have been rare. Dunbar the poet, who was in priest’s orders, was
exceedingly clamorous in prose and in verse—in the serious and in the
comic vein—for preferment. Perhaps he was the kind of person whom it is
as difficult to prefer in the Church as it was to make either Swift or
Sydney Smith a bishop. His indignation was greatly roused by the
appointment of a foreigner whom he deemed beset by his own special
failings, but in far greater intensity, to the abbacy of Tungland; and
he committed his griefs to a satirical poem, called ‘The fenyet Freir of
Tungland.’ The object of this poem has been set down by historians as an
Italian, but M. Michel indicates him as a countryman of his own, by the
name of Jean Damien. He is called a charlatan, quack, and mountebank,
and might, perhaps, with equal accuracy, be called a devotee of natural
science, who speculated ingeniously and experimented boldly. He was in
search of the philosopher’s stone, and believed himself to be so close
on its discovery that he ventured to embark the money of King James IV.,
and such other persons as participated in his own faith, in the
adventure to realise the discovery, and saturate all the partners in
riches indefinite. This was a speculation of a kind in which many men of
that age indulged; and they were men not differing from others except in
their scientific attainments, adventurous propensities, and sanguine
temperaments. The class still exists among us, though dealing rather in
iron than gold; as if we had in the history of speculation, from the
alchemists down to Capel Court, something that has been prophesied in
that beautiful mythological sequence liked so much at all schools,
beginning—
“Aurea prima sata est ætas, quæ vindice nullo
Sponte sua sine lege fidem rectumque colebat.”
It might be a fair question whether the stranger’s science is so
obsolete as the style of literature in which he is attacked, since
Dunbar’s satirical poem, among other minor indications of a character
unsuited to the higher offices in the Christian ministry, insinuates
that the adventurer committed several murders; and although, the charge
is made in a sort of rough jocularity, the force of it does not by any
means rest on its absurdity and incredibility. He was accused of a mad
project for extracting gold from the Wanlockhead Hills, in
Dumfriesshire, which cannot be utterly scorned in the present day, since
gold has actually been extracted from them, though, the process has not
returned twenty shillings to the pound. This curious creature completed
his absurdities by the construction of a pair of wings, with which he
was to take a delightful aerial excursion to his native country. He
proved his sincerity by starting in full feather from Stirling Castle.
In such affairs it is, as Madame du Deffaud said about that walk taken
by St Denis round Paris with his own head for a burden, _le premier pas
qui coute_. The poor adventurer tumbled at once, and was picked up with
a broken thigh-bone. Such is the only Frenchman who became conspicuous
before Albany’s time as holding rank and office in Scotland.
Albany had not long rubbed on with the Scots Estates when he found that
he really must go to Paris, and as there seems to have been no business
concerning Scotland that he could transact there, an uncontrollable
yearning to be once more in his own gay world is the only motive we can
find for his trip. The Estates of Scotland were in a surly humour, and
not much inclined to allow him his holidays. They appointed a council of
regency to act for him. He, however, as if he knew nothing about the
constitutional arrangements in Scotland, appointed a sort of
representative, who cannot have known more about the condition and
constitution of Scotland than his constituent, though he had been one of
the illustrious guests present at the marriage of James IV. He was
called by Pitscottie ‘Monsieur Tilliebattie,’ but his full name was
Antoine d’Arces de la Bastie, and he had been nicknamed or
distinguished, as the case might be, as the Chevalier Blanc, or White
Knight, like the celebrated Joannes Corvinus, the Knight of Wallachia,
whose son became king of Hungary. M. Michel calls him the “_chivalresque
et brillant La Bastie, chez qui le guerrier et l’homme d’état etaient
encore supérieurs au champion des tournois_.” He was a sort of fanatic
for the old principle of chivalry, then beginning to disappear before
the breath of free inquiry, and the active useful pursuits it was
inspiring. M. Michel quotes from a contemporary writer, who describes
him as perambulating Spain, Portugal, England, and France, and
proclaiming himself ready to meet all comers of sufficient rank, not
merely to break a lance in chivalrous courtesy, but _à combattre à
l’outrance_—an affair which even at that time was too important to be
entered on as a frolic, or to pass an idle hour, but really required
some serious justification. No one, it is said, accepted the challenge
but the cousin of James IV. of Scotland, who is said to have been
conquered, but not killed, as from the nature of the challenge he should
have been; but this story seems to be a mistake by the contemporary, and
M. Michel merely quotes it without committing himself.
Such was the person left by the regent as his representative, though
apparently with no specific office or powers acknowledged by the
constitution of Scotland. Research might perhaps afford new light to
clear up the affair, but at present the only acknowledgment of his
existence, bearing anything like an official character, are entries in
the Scots treasurer’s accounts referred to by M. Michel, one of them
authorising a payment of fifteen shillings to a messenger to the warden
of the middle march, “with my lord governor’s letters delivered by
Monsr. Labawte;” another payment to his servant for summoning certain
barons and gentlemen to repair to Edinburgh; and a payment of twenty
shillings, for a service of more import, is thus entered:—“Item,
deliverit be Monsieur Lawbawtez to Johne Langlandis, letters of our
sovereign lords to summon and warn all the thieves and broken men out of
Tweeddale and Eskdale in their own country—quhilk letters were
proclaimed at market-cross of Roxburgh, Selkirk, and Jedwood.”
This proclamation seems to have been the deadly insult which sealed his
fate. The borders had hardly yet lost their character of an independent
district, which might have merged into something like a German
margravate. There had been always some family holding a preponderating
and almost regal power there. At this time it was the Homes or Humes, a
rough set, with their hands deeply dipped in blood, who little dreamed
that their name would be known all over Europe by the fame of a fat
philosopher sitting writing in a peaceful library with a goosequill, and
totally innocent of the death of a fellow-being. It was one of Albany’s
rigorous measures to get the leaders of this clan “untopped,” to use one
of Queen Elizabeth’s amiable pleasantries. This was a thing to be
avenged; and since La Bastie was taking on himself the responsibilities
of Albany, it was thought as well that he should not evade this portion
of them. To lure him within their reach, a sort of mock fight was got up
by the borderers in the shape of the siege of one of their peel towers.
Away went La Bastie in all his bravery, dreaming, simple soul, as if he
were in Picardy or Tourain, that the mere name of royalty would at once
secure peace and submission. His eye, practised in scenes of danger, at
once saw murder in the gaze of those he had ventured among, and he set
spurs to his good horse, hoping to reach his headquarters in the strong
castle of Dunbar. The poor fellow, however, ignorant of the country, and
entirely unaided, was overtaken in a bog. It is said that he tried
cajoling, threats, and appeals to honour and chivalrous feeling. As well
speak to a herd of hungry wolves as to those grim ministers of
vengeance! The Laird of Wedderburn, a Home, enjoyed the distinction of
riding with the Frenchman’s head, tied by its perfumed tresses at his
saddle-bow, into the town of Dunse, where the trophy was nailed to the
market-cross. As old Pitscottie has it, “his enemies came upon him, and
slew and murdered him very unhonestly, and cutted off his head, and
carried it with them; and it was said that he had long hair platt over
his neck, whilk David Home of Wedderburn twust to his saddle-bow, and
keeped it.”
This affair brought Scotland into difficulties both with England and
France. Henry VIII. professed himself displeased that a French
adventurer should have been set up as ruler in his nephew’s kingdom, and
Francis I., who had just mounted the throne of France, demanded
vengeance on the murderers of his distinguished subject, with whose
chivalrous spirit he had a congenial sympathy. There is an exceedingly
curious and suggestive correspondence between France and Scotland at the
commencement of M. Teulet’s papers, which has been aptly compared to the
papers that have been returned to Parliament by our Indian Government on
the negotiations with some wily Affghan or Scinde chief, in which
reparation is demanded for outrages on a British subject. There is much
fussy desire to comply with the demands of the great power, but ever a
difficulty, real or pretended, in getting anything done; and probably it
often is in the East, as it then was in Scotland, that the difficulty in
punishing a set of powerful culprits has a better foundation in their
power of self-defence than the government is inclined to acknowledge.
Evil days, however, for a time clouded the rising sun of France. The
battle of Pavia seemed to set her prostrate for the time; and when
Scotland, having then many inducements the other way, was reminded of
the old alliance, she answered the appeal with her old zeal.
This article does not aspire to the dignity of history. It has dealt
chiefly with the under current, as it were, of the events connected with
the doings of the French in Scotland—the secondary incidents, which show
how the two nations got on together in their familiar intercourse. Their
intercourse, however, now developes itself in large historical features,
to which it is thought fitting to offer, in conclusion, a general
reference, merely hinting at their connection with the preceding
details. Ostensibly, and as matter of state policy, the old alliance was
so strong that it seemed as if Scotland were drifting under the lee of
France to be a mere colony or dependency of that grand empire—though
there were influences at work which, in reality, utterly defeated this
expected consummation. There was a brilliant wedding when James V. went
to bring home Madeleine of France; and was so honoured that, according
to the documents given by M. Teulet, the officers charged with the
traditions of state precedents grumbled about this prince of a northern
island, who knew no civilised language, receiving honours which had
heretofore been deemed sacred to the royal blood of France. The national
policy that held by this marriage would have had but a frail tenure, for
poor Madeleine soon drooped and died. She had said, as a girl, that she
wanted to be a queen, be the realm she ruled what it might; and so she
had a brief experience—this word seems preferable to enjoyment—of the
throne of cold uncomfortable Scotland. There was speedily another
wedding, bearing in the direction of the French alliance, for that was
still uppermost with the governing powers, whatever it might be with the
English and Protestant party daily acquiring strength among the district
leaders, nobles or lairds. It may have seemed to these, that when the
queen was no longer a daughter of France, but a young lady, the child of
one feudatory and the widow of another, with no better claim to share
the throne than her beautiful face, there was no further danger from
France. But the young queen was a Guise—one of that wonderful race who
seemed advancing onwards, not only to the supreme command of France, but
to something still greater, for they have been known in their boasting
to speak of their house being directly descended from Charlemagne. When
the daughter was Queen of France, and the mother ruled Scotland, the
time for the final annexation seemed close at hand; but, in reality, the
climax had been reached, and the French interest was near to its
downfall. While the queen-mother was taking possession of the feudal
strongholds, and placing all the high offices of state in the hands of
Frenchmen—D’Oysells, de Rubays, Villemores, and the like—in France the
proper method of governing Scotland was considered in council as a
matter of French policy; and the question was discussed whether Scotland
should have the honour of belonging to the crown of France, or should be
a provision for a younger son of the house of Valois.
Those busy politicians, called the Lords of the Congregation, knew these
things, and were stimulated to exertion accordingly. Hence came it to
pass that the Reformation was so sudden an event in Scotland. On the
morning of the 1st of August 1560 the people of Scotland awakened under
the spiritual dominion of the Pope—ere evening his hierarchy was
abolished, and to own it was criminal. The work of that day was not a
deliberative act of legislation, but the announcement of the triumph of
a party. After a long deadly contest the English party had gained a
complete and final victory. It almost enhanced the triumph over French
principles that the Acts of this Parliament never received the royal
assent. Legislation without the intervention of the crown, was flat
rebellion in the eyes of France, and not very reconcilable even with
English decorum. It was owing to this specialty that, when Queen Mary
engaged to support the religion established by law in Scotland, she was
suspected, and not without reason, of stowing away, among the secrets of
her heart, the consideration likely to be some day available, that
Protestantism, not having the sanction of the crown, was not the
religion established by law. If we were to enter with any fulness on
this great passage in history, and to view it through the rich new light
poured upon it by the documents collected by M. Teulet, we would require
more room than the quite sufficient space which this article occupies.
We have opportunity only for this brief reference to them, as the
winding-up and conclusion of that interesting episode in history—the old
alliance between France and Scotland.
Before parting, let us say a word on the personal character and other
merits of the volumes which have led us on this occasion to look into
the connection of our ancestors with the French, and have furnished us
with the greater portion of the material for our two articles. To see
two men of learning, research, and various special abilities, devoting
what must be no inconsiderable portion of a life’s labour to the
connection of our country with the great French empire, is interesting
and pleasant, to say the least of it. We are a nation disposed to court
the light; we are never afraid of the effect that revelations of our
antecedents may have; we are sure of coming well out in all inquiries
into our history and connections; and the present elucidation has not
stripped a leaf from the national laurels—indeed, we take it to have
only removed some of the dust that covered them, and revealed their real
freshness and brightness. To the labourers in such a task we should feel
that we owe a debt of kindly gratitude, and this should not the less
impress us that the work has been done by citizens of that great old
European central power which befriended the poor children of our soil in
the days of their poverty and danger. New interests and attachments,
more suitable to the position of Scotland on the map of Europe, and to
the origin of her people, afterwards arose. When centuries of cruel
wrong and alienation and wrath had passed away, she became reconciled to
that great relation which, let us suppose, in the usual misunderstanding
which creates the quarrels in the romances, had treated her as an alien
enemy. But while the reconciliation has been long consolidated, and has
proved as natural a national adjustment as the restoration of an exiled
child is a natural family adjustment, there is still a pleasing
sentiment in recalling the friends found in the wide world when kindred
were unkind; and the hospitable doors opened to our wandering
countrymen, among those who stood at the head of European civilisation
in the middle ages, must ever remain a memorable record of the
generosity of the patrons, and of the merits of those who so well
requited their generosity by faithful and powerful services. To the
volumes which contain the record of this attachment something more is
due than the mere recognition of their literary merits—they deserve at
the hands of our countrymen an affectionate recognition as national
memorials. The quantity of curious and interesting matter contained in
them, but for the special zeal of the two men who have thus come
forward, might have remained still buried under archæological
rubbish—might have remained so for ever, even until oblivion overtook
them. It is surely right to hope that the zeal and labour embarked by
the adventurers will not be thrown away; and that our countrymen will
take to the volumes, both of M. Michel and of M. Teulet, as works which
it is becoming for them to possess and read as patriotic Scotsmen. If
readers have found any interest in the casual glimpses of their contents
supplied by the present sketch, they may be assured of finding much more
matter of the same kind should they undertake an investigation of the
volumes themselves.
Setting before one on the library table the two volumes of M. Michel,
and the five of M. Teulet, is a good deal like receiving one guest in
full court costume, prepared to meet distinguished company, while
another comes to you in his lounging home vestment of serge, with
slippers and smoking-cap, as if he had just stepped across the way from
the scene of his laborious researches. In the collections in this
country of some men who have given themselves to works illustrated by
fine engravings, the Book of the Ceremonial of the Coronation of Louis
XV. is conspicuous, not only by its finely engraved plates, but by the
instruction they afford as representations of the costume and ways of
the great hierarchy of state officers which clustered round the throne
of the Bourbons before the great smash came. Among the most conspicuous
of these are the Scots Guards, then no longer our countrymen, though the
title was retained. The outfit must have appeared signally beautiful and
chivalrous amid the ponderous state habiliments which the eighteenth
century saw accumulate and fall to pieces. It is evidently a traditional
type of the court or company dress of the man-at-arms of the fifteenth
century—a sufficient amount of steel to betoken the warrior, richly
damasked or inlaid with precious metals—a superfluity of lace and
embroidered cloth of silk or velvet. Altogether, a more superbly and
chivalrously accoutred person than your Scottish Guard it is difficult
to idealise; and in the original engraving there is about him, both in
countenance and attitude, the air of one devoted in enthusiasm and
solemn sense of responsibility, to the duty wherewith he is intrusted.
With a good eye to the appropriate, M. Michel—it is his own suggestion,
we take it, not the binder’s—has transferred this striking figure to the
outside of this book, where it glitters in gold on the true-blue
background, which also relieves the lion, the thistle, and the
_fleur-de-lys_. A glimpse we have just had at a quarto and illustrated
copy of the book in the hands of a fortunate collector, wherein is a
full engraved copy of the plate of the Scots Guard, along with many
other appropriate artistical decorations; but in this shape the book is
not put, so far as we are aware, at the disposal of the public; and any
account of it is, in a manner, a digression into something like private
affairs. Reverting to the common published impression of M. Michel’s
book, let it suffice to say that it is well filled with blazons of the
armorial achievements of our countrymen, assuredly valuable to workers
in heraldry and genealogy, and interesting to those descendants of the
stay-at-home portions of the several families which established
themselves so comfortably and handsomely in the territory of our ancient
ally.
Looking apart from matters of national interest to the literary nature
of M. Michel’s volumes, we find in them specialties which we know will
be deemed signally meritorious; but of the merits to be found in them we
have some difficulty in speaking, since they are literary virtues of a
kind rather out of the way of our appreciation—beyond it, if the reader
prefers that way of expressing what is meant. There is throughout these
two volumes the testimony to an extent of dreary reading and searching
which would stimulate compassion, were it not that he who would be the
victim, were that the proper feeling in which he should be approached,
evidently exults and glories, and is really happy, in the conditions
which those who know no better would set down as his hardships. There
are some who, when they run the eye over arrêts and other formal
documents, over pedigrees, local chronicles telling trifles,
title-deeds, and such-like documents, carry with them a general
impression of the political or social lesson taught by them, and discard
from recollection all the details from which any such impression has
been derived. M. Michel is of another kind; he has that sort of fondness
for his work which induces him to show you it in all stages, from the
rude block to the finished piece of art, so far as it is finished. You
are entered in all the secrets of his workshop—you participate in all
his disappointments and difficulties as well as his successes. The
research which has had no available result is still reported, in order
that you may see how useless it has been. We repeat that we have not
much sympathy with this kind of literature, yet would not desire to
speak profanely of it, since we know that some consider it the only
perfect method of writing books on subjects connected with history or
archæology. The “citation of authorities,” in fact, is deemed, in this
department of intellectual labour, something equivalent to records of
experiments in natural science, and to demonstrations in geometrical
science. Our own sympathy being with the exhibition rather of results
than of the means of reaching them, we have not, unfortunately, that
high respect for footnotes filled with accurate transcripts of
book-titles, which is due to the high authorities by whom the practice
has been long sanctioned. We can afford it, however, the sort of distant
unsympathising admiration which people bestow on accomplishments for
which they have no turn or sympathy—as for those of the juggler, the
acrobat, and the accountant. M. Michel’s way of citing the books he
refers to is indeed, to all appearance, a miracle of perfection in this
kind of work. Sometimes he is at the trouble of denoting where the
passage stands in more than one, or even in every, edition of the work.
He gives chapter or section as well as page and volume. In old books
counted not by the page but the leaf, he will tell you which side he
desires you to look at, right or left; and where, as is the way in some
densely printed old folios, in addition to the arrangement of the pages
by numeration, divisions on each page are separated by the letters A B
C, he tells you which of these letters stands sentry on the paragraph he
refers to. There is, at all events, a very meritorious kind of literary
honesty in all this, and however disinclined to follow it, no one has a
right to object to it.
And, after all, a man who has gone through so much hard forbidding
reading as M. Michel has, is surely entitled to let us know something
about the dreary wastes and rugged wildernesses through which he has
sojourned—all for the purpose of laying before his readers these two gay
attractive-looking volumes. Towards his foreign reading, we in the
general instance lift the hat of respect, acknowledging its high merits,
on the principle of the _omne ignotum pro magnifico_. Upon the diligent
manner in which he has, in our own less luxuriant field of inquiry among
Scots authorities, turned over every stone to see what is under it, we
can speak with more distinct assurance. Take one instance. The young
Earl of Haddington, the son of that crafty old statesman called Tam o’
the Cowgate, who scraped together a fortune in public office under James
VI., was studying in France, when he met and fell in love with the
beautiful Mademoiselle De Chatillon, grand-daughter of the Admiral
Coligny. When only nineteen years old he went back to France, married
her, and brought her home. He died within a year, however, and the
countess, a rich beautiful widow, returned to her friends. She was, of
course, beset by admirers, and in reference to these, M. Michel has
turned up a curious passage in ‘Les Histoirettes de Fallemant des
Réaux,’ which, if true, shows the persevering zeal with which our queen,
Henrietta Maria, seized every opportunity to promote the cause of her
religion. The countess, being Huguenot, and of a very Huguenot family,
the queen was eager that she should be married to a Roman Catholic, and
selected the son of her friend Lady Arundel. The dominion over her
affections was, however, held by “un jeune Ecossois nommé Esbron, neveu
du Colonel Esbron.” The name is French for the chevalier Hepburn, one of
the most renowned soldiers in the French service in the early part of
the seventeenth century. The mamma Chatillon was dead against either
connection. She got a fright by hearing that her daughter had been
carried off to the Fenêbres, or the services of Easter-week which
inaugurate Good-Friday; she consequently gave her a maternal box on the
ear, carried her off, and, to keep her out of harm’s way, forthwith
married her to the Count de la Suze, _tout borgne, tout ivrogne et tout
indetté qu’il étoit_. M. Michel’s purpose is not with this desirable
husband, nor with his wife after she ceases to be connected with
Scotland, but with the young Hepburn who comes casually across the
scene. Following in his track entirely, the next quarter where, after
appearing in the ‘Histoirettes,’ he turns up, is Durie’s ‘Decisions of
the Court of Session.’ This is by no means one of the books which every
well-informed man is presumed to know. So toughly is it stuffed with the
technicalities and involutions of old Scots law, and so confused and
involved is every sentence of it by the natural haziness of its author,
that probably no living English writer would dare to meddle with it. No
Scotsman would, unless he be lawyer—nor, indeed, would any lawyer,
unless of a very old school—welcome the appearance of the grim folio. In
citing from it the decision of Hepburn _contra_ Hepburn, 14th March
1639, even the courageous M. Michel subjoins: “Si j’ai bien compris le
text de cet arrêt conçu dans un langue particulière.” This peculiar
arrêt begins as follows:—“The brethren and sisters of umquhile Colonel
Sir John Hepburn having submitted all questions and rights which they
might pretend to the goods, gear, and means of the said umquhile Sir
John, to the laird Wauchton and some other friends, wherein the
submitters were bound and did refer to the said friends to determine
what proportion of the said goods should be given to George Hepburn, the
son of the eldest brother to the said Sir John, which George was then in
France at the time of the making of the said submission and bond, and
did not subscribe the same, nor none taking the burden for him; upon the
which submission, the said friends had given their decreet arbitral. The
living brethren and sisters of the said Sir John being confirmed
executors to him, pursues one Beaton, factor in Paris, for payment of
20,000 pounds addebted by him to the said umquhile Sir John, who,
suspending upon double poinding,” &c.
Perhaps we have said enough to exemplify the dauntless nature of M.
Michel’s researches. It is impossible to withhold admiration from such
achievements, and we know that, in some quarters, such are deemed the
highest to which the human intellect can aspire. But we confess that, to
our taste, the results of M. Teulet’s labours are more acceptable. True,
he does not profess to give the world an original book. He comes forward
as the transcriber and editor of certain documents; but in the gathering
of these documents from different quarters, through all the difficulties
of various languages and alphabets, in their arrangement so as to bring
out momentous historical truths in their due series, and in the helps he
has afforded to those who consult his volumes, he has shown a skill and
scholarship which deserve to be ranked with the higher attainments of
science. We had formerly an opportunity of paying our small tribute to
M. Teulet’s merits when we referred to his supplemental volume to
Labanoff’s Correspondence of Queen Mary.[9] Among not the least valued
of the contents of our book-shelves, are six octavo volumes containing
the correspondence of La Mothe Fénélon, and the other French ambassadors
to England and Scotland during the latter years of Queen Elizabeth’s
reign, for which the world is indebted to M. Teulet’s researches. The
immediate merit of the book, the title of which is referred to at the
beginning of this article, is, that it is now at the command of the
public. It is indeed a reprint, with some additions, of the papers—at
least all that are worth having—which were previously an exclusive
luxury of the Bannatyne Club, having been printed in three quarto
volumes, as a gift to their brethren, by certain liberal members of the
Club. These papers go into the special affairs of this country as
connected with France and Spain from the beginning of our disputes with
our old ally down to the accession of James VI. In the hands of the
first historian who has the fortune to make ample use of them, these
documents will disperse the secluded and parochial atmosphere that hangs
about the history of Scotland, and show how the fate of Europe in
general turned upon the pivot of the destinies of our country. It is
here that, along with many minor secrets, we have revealed to us the
narrow escape made by the cause of Protestantism, when the project on
the cards was the union of the widowed Queen Mary to the heir of Spain,
and the political combinations still centring round the interests and
the fate of the Queen of Scots, which led to the more signal and
renowned escape realised in the defeat of the Armada.
KINGLAKE’S INVASION OF THE CRIMEA.[10]
Seven years ago, when the war with Russia was about to end—was, in fact,
already virtually ended—and when the war-fever of the English had been
abated by copious blood-letting, and by the absence of further stimulant
to hostility since Sebastopol had ceased to resist, people were already
talking about the future history of the strife. It seemed to be agreed
that the public, which had so eagerly swallowed all the information it
could get, and snapped at all the opinions which floated so thickly on
the stream of current history, was for the present glutted with the
subject, and that to offer it any more Crimean information, however
cunningly dressed, would be like fishing with a May-fly for a July
trout. On the other hand, the subject seemed to be essentially one of
contemporary importance. It had not the elements which gave lasting
interest to the Peninsular war. It had developed no great reputations in
which the nation could for the future undoubtingly confide. It had left
us victorious over no great conqueror. Its memorials were not such as we
should choose to dwell on; for though the nation was very proud of the
early triumphs of the Alma and Inkermann, still the later course of the
struggle had been, though successful in its end, yet disastrous and
gloomy in its progress, and had left, partly through the more brilliant
share which our allies took in the final action, but principally through
the forebodings of our own press, a sense of comparative failure. Mr
Kinglake comes upon the stage at a fortunate time. The weariness of the
subject, once felt, has disappeared, while the strong contemporary
interest in the actors remains. That interest is national in the sense
of being fixed, not on a few great objects, but on a great number of
inferior objects connected with the war. It is not so much patriotic as
domestic. The graves of Cathcart’s Hill, the trenches filled with dead,
the burial-grounds of Scutari, have a strong though softened hold on
innumerable hearts. Everywhere in England—in remote parishes, in small
communities, in humble households—remembrance of the great features of
the struggle is kept alive by the presence of those who survived it. A
strong conviction that French manœuvring was not entirely directed
against the enemy, and that a fair scrutiny would leave us more reason
for self-satisfaction than at first appeared, has long been afloat. And
a succession of great conflicts in which we have been strongly
interested has schooled us in military doctrines, and has rendered us
better able to appreciate the operations of armies than we were either
at the beginning or the end of the Crimean war.
If the time for the history is happily chosen, so is the historian. Few
men who have written so little have so established their reputation as
Mr Kinglake. His ‘Eothen,’ immensely popular at first, has settled into
an English classic. It is full of interest, full of remarkably vivid
descriptions, full of original writing; and though the style does not
reject effects which a very pure taste would condemn, yet it possesses
the eminent merits of vigour, condensation, and richness. In the fulness
of the fame thus earned, Mr Kinglake accompanied the army to the Crimea.
The scenes of the war consequently possessed for him a reality which no
reading, no imagination, no second-hand description can impart. He had
seen the Euxine covered with the vast flotilla of the Allies. He had set
foot on the hostile coast at the same time as the combined armies. He
had accompanied them in their compact advance, when their columns seemed
but spots and patches in the vast circle of sea and plain. His own eyes
had beheld the battle of the Alma, and the signs of death and suffering
that remained next day to mark the phases of the struggle. And when
afterwards he came to record the incidents of the war, though no
individual observation could embrace all the details, there was always
present with him the invaluable power which personal knowledge confers,
to define, to affirm, or to reject. And as it was soon understood that
he intended to write the history of the war, he, in his double capacity
of approved author and actual spectator, became almost, as a matter of
course, the depositary of a vast amount of information connected with
the subject, oral and documentary, private and official. He had a large
acquaintance with the political as well as the military actors in the
drama. Few men, then, could have had so free access as he to the
materials of which the history must be wrought.
Moreover, he had shown in his former work that he possessed another
qualification for his task. History cannot be written at a heat. Patient
inquiry, long meditation, the fortitude necessary for the abandonment of
convenient conclusions too hastily come to, are all indispensable to
success. But with this pursuit of the necessary details, unity of
effect, as numberless failures have shown, is almost incompatible. Now,
Mr Kinglake had given remarkable proof that he could bestow a
microscopic attention on particulars without sacrifice of breadth. It is
generally believed that he spent nine years in bringing the single
volume of ‘Eothen’ up to the standard of his own fastidious taste. The
sarcastic advice of Pope to an aspiring author—“Keep your piece nine
years”—had been literally accepted, but with a result very different
from that which the adviser anticipated. Instead of becoming
dissatisfied with a work looked at after a long interval and with
changed feelings, Mr Kinglake proved that he could not only “strike the
second heat”—the process which Ben Jonson says is so necessary for the
forging of ideas into happy forms of expression—but that he could bring
his thoughts again and again to the intellectual smithy to be recast and
shaped without finding the fire extinct. Here, then, was evidence of a
quality most valuable to one who must long and patiently grope amid
masses of evidence and details, sometimes conflicting, often worthless,
and yet retain freshly the power of throwing the selected results into a
form clear, harmonious, and striking.
We have thus broadly stated some of Mr Kinglake’s eminent qualifications
for his task, and a detailed notice of his work will necessarily include
others. And it is easy to believe that he might have selected a variety
of subjects, his execution of which would have insured unqualified
praise. But for the present task, as might have been seen before he
commenced it, his fitness was marred by one circumstance. His political
course had proved that his animosity towards the French Emperor amounted
to a passion, or, as those who did not care to pick their words might
say, a mania. It might be guessed beforehand, therefore, that the
Emperor would scarcely meet with fair play at his hands. And considering
the share taken by that personage in the events which Mr Kinglake had
undertaken to record, to misrepresent his policy or his doings would be
to distort the history. Any one who entertained such a misgiving must
have found it strengthened when, on glancing over the table of contents,
he perceived that nearly a quarter of the first volume, amidst what
purports to be a record of the “transactions that brought on the war,”
is occupied with an account of the _coup d’état_ which substituted an
empire for a republic in France. On reading the volume his suspicions
would inevitably be converted into certainty. More than that, indeed,
for he would find that his anticipations were far exceeded by a satire
so studied, so polished, so remorseless, and withal so diabolically
entertaining, that we know not where in modern literature to seek such
another philippic. Had Mr Kinglake contrived in this chapter to have
completely relieved his feelings and have been contented with flaying
the Emperor and thus have done with him, leaving him to get through the
rest of the book as naturally and comfortably as he could be expected to
do without his skin, we might consider it as an episode which we should
have been at liberty to set apart from the main purpose of the work. But
like King Charles I., whom David Copperfield’s friend, Mr Dick, never
could keep out of his memorial, this diabolical caricature of despotism
haunts the narrative at every turn. The canvass is spread, the palette
is laid, the artist is at his easel full of his subject—all the great
personages of the time are to figure there, and great incidents are to
form the background. The spectator is at first charmed with the progress
of the design; but presently, amidst the nobly-drawn portraits, there is
a sketch of a monarch with cloven feet appearing beneath his robes, and
a tail curling under his throne; and whereas the rest of the picture is
in true perspective, all that relates to this figure has a separate
horizon and point of sight. The result is as if Gilray in his bitterest
mood had got into Sir Joshua’s studio and persuaded him to let their
fancies mingle in one incongruous work.
We have thus stated our one point of difference with the author of these
fascinating volumes. With this exception we have little to do but to
praise—and indeed, as a piece of writing, we have nothing to do but to
praise the work from beginning to end. How materials in many respects so
unpromising could be made so interesting, is marvellous. Many a reader
who remembers what a tangled skein of politics it was that led to the
war—many a soldier who has a confused recollection of a jumble of Holy
Places, and the Four Powers, and Vienna Conferences, and who would be
glad to know what it was he was fighting about, now that it is all
over—will take up these volumes as a duty, and will be surprised to find
that the narrative approached in so resolute a frame of mind, is more
easy to read and more difficult to lay down than the most popular of the
popular novels.
The dispute about the Holy Places, though not in itself in any
appreciable degree the cause of the war, was the introduction to the
events that led to hostilities. There is something almost ludicrous,
something more befitting the times of Philip Augustus and of Cœur de
Lion than those of Louis Napoleon and Lord Palmerston, in the idea of
great European potentates appearing as the backers of two denominations
of monks, who were quarrelling about the key of a church-door in
Palestine. Nevertheless, the Czar, as the chief of a people whose
passions were strongly aroused by the dispute, had a real and legitimate
interest in the matter. To suppose that the President of the French
Republic, or any section of the people over whom he presided, really
cared whether the Greek or the Latin Church had the custody of this
important key, would be absurd. But the President it was who opened the
question by advocating the claims of the Latins. His object in doing so
is by no means clear. Mr Kinglake accounts for it by saying, “The French
President, in cold blood, and under no new motive for action, took up
the forgotten cause of the Latin Church of Jerusalem, and began to apply
it as a wedge for sundering the peace of the world.” Now, that Louis
Napoleon was desirous of disturbing the peace of the world, is Mr
Kinglake’s argument throughout. It is to his book what the wrath of
Achilles is to the ‘Iliad;’ and he tells us that the reason for this
truculent desire was to prop up the French Empire. But that reason,
though it may plausibly explain the acts of the French Emperor, does not
account in the least for the acts of the French President. We presume Mr
Kinglake hardly wishes us to infer that Louis Napoleon sowed the seeds
of war during his Presidency, as provision for the possible necessities
of a possible Empire. Yet the historian’s theory would seem to demand
the inference.
The poor Sultan, meanwhile, who might well exclaim ‘A plague o’ both
your Churches!’ was the unwilling arbiter of this dispute between his
Christian subjects, and was urged by the great champion on each side to
decide in favour of his protégé. Who might have the key, or whether
there was any key at all, or any sanctuary at all, or any Greek or Latin
Church, was to this hapless potentate a matter of profound indifference.
The French envoy put on the strongest pressure, and the Sultan inclined
to the side of the Latins; the Russian minister thereupon squeezed from
him a concession to their adversaries; and between the two he managed,
as might be expected, to disgust both sects, and to anger the Czar
without satisfying the Emperor. The displeasure of Nicholas was extreme,
and he prepared to support his further arguments by marching a large
army towards the Turkish frontier. And the first use of this force was
to give momentum to the mission of Prince Mentschikoff, who was sent to
Constantinople as the organ of his Imperial master’s displeasure. The
selection of the envoy showed that the Czar wished to take the most
direct and violent course to the fulfilment of his aim; for the Prince’s
diplomacy was of that simple kind—the only kind he seemed capable of
employing—which regards threats as the best means of persuasion.
These strong measures were the first indications that war was possibly
impending. And as they appeared to spring from the religious fervour of
the Czar, which had been roused to this pitch by the gratuitous
intermeddling of Napoleon in the question of the Holy Places, it would
at first seem as if it were indeed the French ruler who had first blown
the coal which presently caused such a conflagration. But in the
interval between the decision of the Sultan about the churches, and the
appearance of Mentschikoff at Constantinople, Nicholas had held with Sir
Hamilton Seymour the remarkable conversations which explain the real
designs cloaked by the religious question. In these interviews he
uttered his famous parable of “the sick man,” representing that the
Turkish Empire was dying, and might fall to pieces any day, and
proposing that the event should be provided for by an immediate
arrangement for dividing the fragments. Provided he had the concurrence
of England, the Czar would not, he said, care what any other Powers
might do or say in the matter.
Here then was a foregone conclusion plainly revealed. The religious ire
of the Czar, the movement of his troops, the mission of Mentschikoff,
were all to be instruments for hastening the dissolution of the sick
man, and appropriating his domains. It was no new idea; for Nicholas was
but following the traditionary policy of his house. And if it could be
believed that his expectations of the speedy collapse of the Turkish
Empire were real, it would be unjust to blame him for wishing to profit
by the event. We are too apt to judge of the policy of other Governments
by the interests of England, and to condemn as unprincipled what is
opposed to our advantage. Nevertheless, to a ruler of Russia, no object
can appear more legitimate than the possession of that free outlet to
the world, which alone is wanting to remove the spell that paralyses her
gigantic energies. Looking from the shores of the Euxine, she is but
mocked by the vision of naval glories and of commercial prosperity; but
let her extend her limits to the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, and no
dreams of greatness can be too splendid for her to realise. But there is
no proof that the Czar’s anticipations respecting Turkey were grounded
on anything more solid than his strong desire to render them true. In
fact, the forecast of the Czar is much the same as that of Mohammed
Damoor, as described in ‘Eothen:’ who, having prophesied that the Jews
of Damascus would be despoiled on a particular day, took steps to verify
his prediction by first exciting and then heading the mob of plunderers.
The reply of England to his overtures satisfied him that he could not
hope for her complicity in his design upon Turkey. Had it been
otherwise, the sick man would, no doubt, have been so cared for that,
sick or well, there would soon have been an end of him. But the Czar
perceived he must for the present forego his desire for the vineyard of
Naboth. Yet there were several reasons why he should still draw what
profit he could from the present opportunity. He had a pretext—an
indifferent one it is true, but still it was more convenient to use it
than to look for another. He had been at the trouble of military
preparations, and was naturally desirous that they should not be barren
of result. And, in the matter of Montenegro, Turkey had just succumbed
to him so readily on a threat of war, that it seemed very unlikely he
should ever find her in a better frame of mind for his purpose.
Therefore, though the sick man was reprieved, yet he was not to go
scot-free; and Mentschikoff was charged, while ostensibly urging the
Sultan to reconsider the question of the Holy Places, to keep in reserve
a demand of much deeper significance.
Scornful in demeanour and imperious in language, Mentschikoff entered
Constantinople more like the bearer of a gage of defiance than a
messenger of peace. His deportment startled the Divan out of its
habitual calm; and the British Chargé d’Affaires, at the instance of the
Turkish Ministers, requested our Admiral at Malta to move his squadron
into the Levant. This demand was not complied with; but the French fleet
was ordered to Salamis. And this movement is condemned by Mr Kinglake as
most impolitic; for it happened, he says, at a time when “the anger of
the Emperor Nicholas had grown cool,” and it “gave deep umbrage to
Russia.” From which he means us to infer that Louis Napoleon, following
his deep design of fanning the flame of discord when it should seem to
languish, was so timing the advance of his fleet as to neutralise the
pacific influences which had begun to have their sway.
Now what are the circumstances of the case? The French Emperor knew
nothing of the conversation with Sir Hamilton Seymour, which did not
transpire till long afterwards. Neither he nor the British Government
were aware of the Czar’s real demands. Ostensibly the matter of
controversy was still the original question between him and the Czar
concerning the Holy Places. And while one of the disputants, France, had
urged her views in the ordinary way by the mouth of her ambassador, her
opponent was preparing to coerce the arbiter by a menacing mission
backed by an army and a fleet. The army already touched the frontier,
the fleet was prepared to sail for the Bosphorus. Will anybody except Mr
Kinglake blame the French Emperor for sending his fleet to Salamis? or
say that he was bound, before taking such a step, to consider whether it
might not give deep umbrage to Russia?
Mentschikoff then proceeded to urge his demands. These were, that, in
addition to the concessions required respecting the Holy Places, the
Sultan should, by treaty with the Czar, engage to confirm the Christian
subjects of the Porte in certain privileges and immunities. Though the
Sultan was very willing to confirm them in these privileges, he was by
no means willing to bind himself by treaty with the Czar to do so; for
by so doing he would give the Czar a right, as a party to the treaty, to
see that it was fulfilled; and hence those who were to benefit by the
privileges would naturally regard most, not him who granted them, but
him who could compel their observance. In fact, it was virtually
conferring on the Czar the protectorate of the Sultan’s Christian
subjects.
It was while the Turkish Ministers were in the deepest embarrassment
between the consequences of listening to such a proposition on the one
hand, and the fear of offending the Czar by refusing to entertain it on
the other, that Lord Stratford appeared on the scene. The coming of the
British Ambassador, and the diplomatic duel that ensued between him and
Mentschikoff, where predominant influence in the Sultan’s counsels was
to be the prize of the victor, forms one of the most brilliant passages
in this brilliant book. The mere presence of the Ambassador of England
restores the Sultan and his Ministers to complete self-possession. When
Mentschikoff blusters, they refresh themselves by a view of Lord
Stratford’s commanding aspect; when the Russian menaces war, they are
comforted by a hint from the Englishman respecting the English squadron.
Of such dramatic excellence is this portion of the story, that the
enthralled reader forgets to inquire how it was that in a dispute
between France and Russia respecting the subjects of Turkey, the
Ambassador of England should be the foremost champion. But we see him
throughout as the power that moves the Mussulman puppets, and from whose
calm opposition the menaces of Mentschikoff recoil harmless; and we see
in distant St Petersburg the great Czar himself lashed to fury at
feeling himself foiled by one whom he has long, we are told, considered
as a personal foe. We cannot but feel proud in these circumstances of
the position of our representative, though it would be difficult to say,
perhaps, what advantage besides this feeling of pride we, as a nation,
derived from it. But it is clear that, while the Czar was dreaming, as
of something possible to be realised by a great display of power, of a
protectorate over the Christian subjects of the Porte, here was a
British protectorate of the most absolute character already established
over the Porte and its subjects, Christian and Mussulman; and we might
almost infer that nothing further was requisite on Lord Stratford’s part
but to humour Mohammedan prejudices by submitting to a few insignificant
religious rites, in order to qualify him for at once taking his place as
Chief of the Ottoman Empire, and the true Commander of the Faithful.
In the diplomatic encounter, Mentschikoff had no more chance than the
fiend in a moral tale of _diablerie_, who urges weak man to sign his
soul away after the good angel has come to the rescue. Baffled at all
points, he departs with all the diplomatic train, muttering vengeance.
And here ends the first act of the drama, when the pretexts of the Czar
have vanished, and he shows his true design. The next begins with the
crossing of the Pruth by the Russian forces, in order to secure the
material guarantee of the Danubian provinces. But the menacing position
of Russia was not the only change in the situation. England, who in the
earlier dispute had no more interest than the other Western Powers in
opposing Russia, had in the progress of the controversy made herself so
prominent that she was, in the judgment of Lord Clarendon, bound to
defend the provinces of the Sultan against an unprovoked attack by
Russia. That she had laid herself under this obligation was entirely
owing to the lofty part which Lord Stratford had played in the drama. On
the other hand, had Lord Stratford not been so ready and conspicuous in
his championship, the Divan, feeling itself unsupported, might have
yielded to the demands of Russia.
For a great part of the narrative, then, the principal positions have
been occupied by England, Russia, and Turkey; and the interest imparted
to scenes which, from an ordinary hand, would have been eminently
tedious, is wonderful. But at this juncture, King Charles I., who has
long been impending, can no longer be kept out of the memorial. The
iniquitous machinations of the French Emperor are brought into the
foreground. The occasion for enlarging on them is that which we shall
presently state. But first we must say that it is from no wish to dilate
on what we think the blemish of the book that we expatiate on this
theme. It is because it is mixed up with all the main parts of a work
which we are bound to treat as an authentic history. But it happens
that, for a reason to be noted hereafter, we can, without injury to the
texture, separate this portion from the rest; and we therefore propose
to follow this thread of the narrative to its end, and so, having done
with it, to be at liberty, for the rest of these volumes, to approve no
less warmly than we admire.
Austria naturally felt considerable interest in the movements of a
formidable neighbour, whose troops were now winding round her frontier,
who, by overrunning Turkey, would enclose some of her provinces, and
who, at the next step in advance, would control the Lower Danube. She
therefore, in conjunction with Prussia, made common cause with the
Western Powers, so far as to offer a strong remonstrance against the
occupation of the Danubian provinces, and to join in their efforts to
preserve peace. Mr Kinglake contends that this kind of pacific pressure
would have secured its object, and that if it had not, Austria would
have joined France and England in having recourse to sterner measures.
But he says that, without waiting for the result of this joint coercion,
England was persuaded to join France in a separate course of action,
which, without necessity, involved us in a war desired only by the
French Emperor. “In order to see how it came to be possible,” says the
historian, “that the vast interests of Europe should be set aside in
favour of mere personal objects, it will presently be necessary to
contract the field of vision, and, going back to the winter of 1851, to
glance at the operations of a small knot of middle-aged men who were
pushing their fortunes in Paris.”
And here is interpolated—for as an interpolation we regard it—that
curious episode which has for its subject the _coup d’état_ and the
establishment of the second French Empire. Standing apart from the
purpose of the book, its isolation gives it peculiar distinctness. But
its inherent character is such that it needs no art or accident to bring
it into strongest relief. It is a singularly clever and singularly
acrimonious attack upon the foremost statesman and most powerful
potentate of these times. And it makes demands on our credulity which
are too heavy for anything short of absolute proof to maintain. For we
are asked to believe that a set of men with no more character or
consideration than Falstaff and his associates, were able to call on the
French nation to stand and deliver, and that the nation thereupon
submitted to be knocked down, to have its throat cut, and to be
plundered by these minions of the moon. Now, does anybody think that
diadems, such as that of France, are to be stolen from a shelf by any
cutpurse who wants to put them in his pocket? Or does anybody think that
a mere cutpurse, having succeeded in the theft, could so have worn his
stolen diadem as to enhance its splendour and renown? That which made
the Empire possible, and that which maintains it now, was the conviction
that the choice of the nation lay between it and Red Republicanism. And
to establish, in any degree, his case, Mr Kinglake should have proved
that no such conviction existed. But if it be true that France found in
the Empire a refuge from anarchy, then reasonable men will not be ready
to scrutinise, in too severe a spirit, the means taken to consolidate
the throne. Granted that the army, the instrument employed by the
President, disgraced itself by an indiscriminate and unprovoked
slaughter—that the opposition of political adversaries was silenced in a
very arbitrary fashion—that a foreign war would probably be necessary
for the security of the new dynasty,—yet will it be said that a result
which has tranquillised France, which has developed her resources and
exalted her reputation, leaves in the establishment of the Empire
nothing except what the world must regret and condemn? And looking at
the portrait which Mr Kinglake has drawn, with so bold and incisive a
touch, of this potentate of wooden face, base soul, and feeble resolve,
who turns green in moments of danger—who, with the aid of swindlers and
bravoes, has yoked France to his chariot, and drives it in a career of
blood with the great Powers of Europe bound to its wheels—we ask, not
only is it brilliant as a work of art, but is it like the original? We
do not profess to believe that the Empire is the perfection of
government. We do not maintain that Louis Napoleon is a model of virtue
and disinterested policy. But if his place in Europe were suddenly
vacant, will Mr Kinglake tell us how it would be better filled, or what
precious things might not be thrown into the gulf before it could be
closed? And if no answer can be given to the question, we may well doubt
the expediency of contributing to bring so important a personage and so
powerful an ally into contempt.
“After the 2d December in the year 1851,” says Mr Kinglake, in
concluding the portion of his work relating to the _coup d’état_, “the
foreign policy of France was used for a prop to prop the throne which
Morny and his friends had built up.... Therefore, although I have dwelt
awhile upon a singular passage in the domestic history of France, I have
not digressed.” Now, even if he could prove the necessities of the
French Empire to have been the main motive of the part England took in
the war, we should still dispute this. No doubt it is the business of
the historian of an important series of events to trace them to their
sources, and the more clearly he can show the connection hidden from
ordinary minds, the more sagacious and ingenious he will appear. But if
there were no limit to this, the history of any event might spread to an
extent altogether boundless; and therefore, to justify digression, it is
necessary for the historian to show that the incidents which led to the
result had a necessary and not an accidental influence in procuring it.
For instance, in the case of a popular uprising against a despotism or a
superstition, it would be expected that the historian should trace all
the successive steps by which the national feelings were roused from
suffering to resistance, because those steps led inevitably and
naturally to that particular result, and not to any other. In such a
case history is performing her proper function of explaining, for the
guidance of posterity, the obscure process by which certain conditions
produce certain effects. But where a war has been caused by the caprice
and unreasoning anger of a potentate, it is beside the purpose to trace
up to his very cradle the effect of early mismanagement or neglect in
rendering him passionate or capricious, for no political lesson can be
taught where results cannot be calculated. In such a case it will be
sufficient to state the fact, that the war originated in the irascible
temper and unaccountable impulse of one who had the power to give his
anger such tremendous vent. It would be absurd to pause in the history,
and to introduce his biography, merely to prove that it is a bad thing
when great power is lodged in the hands of a person who is the slave of
violent caprice. And in the present instance, if it had been stated in
two sentences that the conditions under which the French Empire had
started into existence were such as to render a foreign war, or a
commanding position in Europe, necessary to its stability, the statement
would have fully satisfied the requirements of history, and would have
received general assent.
However, having considered it necessary to prove this proposition by a
separate history of the transition which France underwent from a
republic to an empire, Mr Kinglake undertakes to show how we were
dragged into war by this necessitous Emperor. He asserts many times that
the operations of the French and English fleets caused the war.
“The English Government,” he says, “consented to engage in naval
movements which affected—nay governed—the war.” And again, “The French
Emperor had no sooner engaged the English Government in a separate
understanding, than he began to insist upon the necessity of using the
naval power of France and England in the way which he proposed—a way
bitterly offensive to Russia. Having at length succeeded in forcing
this measure upon England, he after a while pressed upon her another
movement of the fleets still more hostile than the first, and again he
succeeded in bringing the English Government to yield to him. Again,
and still once again, he did the like, always in the end bringing
England to adopt his hostile measures; and he never desisted from this
course of action, until at last it had effected a virtual rupture
between the Czar and the Western Powers.”
And in this way throughout these transactions the Emperor plays a part
much the same as that which Satan took in the scenes in Paradise; and at
every turn we see him moving deviously, quite serpentine in craft and
baseness, or squatting toad-like at the ear of the slumbering British
Government, till now, at the Ithuriel touch of history, he starts up in
his true form of malignant demon.
The various items of the present charge against him are collected by Mr
Kinglake in a compendious form:—
“Not yet as part of this narrative, but by way of anticipation, and in
order to gather into one page the grounds of the statement just made,
the following instances are given of the way in which the English
Government was, from time to time, driven to join with the French
Emperor in making a quarrelsome use of the two fleets:—On the 13th of
July 1853, the French Emperor, through his Minister of Foreign
Affairs, declared to the English Government that if the occupation of
the Principalities continued, the French fleet could not longer remain
at Besica Bay. On the 19th of August he declared it to be absolutely
necessary that the combined fleets should enter the Dardanelles, and
he pressed the English Government to adopt a resolution to this
effect. On the 21st of September he insisted that the English
Government, at the same moment as the French, should immediately order
up the combined squadrons to Constantinople. On the 15th of December
he pressed the English Government to agree that the Allied fleets
should enter the Euxine, take possession of it, and interdict the
passage of every Russian vessel. It will be seen that, with more or
less reluctance and after more or less delay, these demands were
always acceded to by England: and the course thus taken by the
maritime Powers was fatal to the pending negotiations; for, besides
that in the way already shown the Czar’s wholesome fears were
converted into bursts of rage, the Turks at the same time were
deriving a dangerous encouragement from the sight of the French and
English war-flags; and the result was, that the negotiators, with all
their skill and all their patience, were never able to frame a Note in
the exact words which would allay the anger of Nicholas, without
encountering a steadfast resistance on the part of the Sultan.”
We have only, then, to take in their turn the items thus enumerated to
ascertain the justice of the charge. The first of the naval movements
was the advance of the fleets to Besica Bay. This made the Czar very
angry. But it was in itself a perfectly lawful operation, and quite
consistent with friendliness and desire for peace. It by no means
balanced the aggressive advance of the Czar into the Principalities and
the orders to the Sebastopol fleet. Moreover, however irritating to
Nicholas, he condoned it, for we find him long afterwards accepting the
Vienna Note framed by the four Powers, the acceptance of which by Turkey
would have settled the dispute. That it was not accepted by Turkey was
due entirely to Lord Stratford and the Turkish Ministers. “The French
Emperor,” says Mr Kinglake, “did nothing whatever to thwart the
restoration of tranquillity.” It is evident, then, that the movements of
the fleets thus far had produced no effect which was not completely
neutralised, and that the Emperor’s desire for war did not prevent him
from contributing to the general effort for peace.
The next movement of the fleets was into the Dardanelles. The Sultan was
engaged by treaty to forbid the entrance of the fleets of any Power so
long as he should be at peace. What, then, were the reasons for entering
the Straits? Were they purely provocative? Now, we find that the demand
for war on the part of the Turkish people had at this time become so
urgent, that the Ambassadors to the Porte regarded it as almost
irresistible. The French Ambassador viewed it, Mr Kinglake says, “with
_sincere_ alarm.” He wrote a despatch to his Government, imparting to it
what we must admit to have been also “sincere alarm,” for there is no
evidence or insinuation of the contrary; and that alarm being shared by
our Government, the fleets were ordered to enter the Dardanelles that
they might be ready, if wanted, to support the Turkish Government
against the belligerent wishes of its own subjects.
But another important circumstance had occurred before the entry of the
fleets. In invading the Principalities, the Czar had announced that this
was not meant as an act of war. And the Sultan’s hold on these provinces
was of such an anomalous kind that his advisers held him to be at
liberty to construe the invasion as an act of war, or not, at his own
pleasure. He had now given notice to the Czar that unless the Russian
troops should quit the Principalities in fifteen days he would declare
war. Fourteen of the fifteen days had elapsed when the fleets entered.
Except for observing the strict letter of the treaty, it was not of the
least importance whether they entered a day sooner or later. Yet Mr
Kinglake tells us the Czar was very indignant at the violation of the
treaty, and he laments that another day was not suffered to elapse
before the movement. Now, considering all the circumstances—that the
fleets had already been for a long time at the disposal of the
Ambassadors, who might summon them to Constantinople whenever they
judged necessary, and that the Czar knew it—that war steamers had
already been called up to the Bosphorus by both the Ambassadors, French
and English, and the treaty thus broken as completely as by the passage
of a hundred fleets—that the Czar had himself, by the invasion of the
Principalities, deprived himself of the right to complain of the
violation of the treaty—that fifteen days’ notice of a declaration of
war had been given, and that the full term must have expired before the
fleets could arrive at Constantinople—considering all this, the
provocation is reduced to such an infinitesimal quantity, that it is
barely worth a passing mention. There is no evidence whatever that the
prospects of peace were in any way affected by the advance of the
fleets. Yet a hasty reader of Mr Kinglake’s narrative might easily
imagine that it produced the direst consequences. “When the tidings of
this hostile measure,” he says, “reached St Petersburg, they put an end
for the time to all prospect of peace.” And again—
“The Czar received tidings of the hostile decision of the maritime
Powers in a spirit which, this time at least, was almost justified by
the provocation given. In retaliation for what he would naturally look
upon as a bitter affront, and even as a breach of treaty, he
determined, it would seem, to have vengeance at sea whilst vengeance
at sea was still possible; and it was under the spur of the anger thus
kindled that orders for active operations were given to the fleet at
Sebastopol. The vengeance he meditated he could only wreak upon the
body of the Turks, for the great offenders of the West were beyond the
bounds of his power.”
Would not the reader imagine from this that the attack of Sinope had
been proved by full evidence to be the immediate result of the
exasperation of the Czar at the advance of the combined fleets? But Mr
Kinglake acquaints us in a note with the real grounds on which he makes
this confident assertion:—
“This conclusion is drawn from dates. The hostile resolution of the
Western Powers was known to the Czar a little before the 14th of
October, and about the middle of the following month the Black Sea
fleet was at sea. If allowance be made for distance and preparation,
it will be seen that the sequence of one event upon the other is close
enough to warrant the statement contained in the text. In the absence,
however, of any knowledge to the contrary, it is fair to suppose that
the Czar remembered his promise, and did not sanction any actual
attack upon the enemy unless his commanders should be previously
apprised that the Turks had commenced active warfare.”
We read this note with surprise. It proves that Mr Kinglake can, when in
hot pursuit of the foe, step to a conclusion over grounds where few can
follow. The fleets entered the Dardanelles on the 22d October. The
attack of Sinope took place on the 30th November. The Turks and Russians
had been at war for six weeks; and though the Russian Minister had
announced in a circular some time before, that the Czar, in hopes still
of a peaceful solution, would remain on the defensive as long as his
dignity and interests would allow, yet, as Mr Kinglake himself says,
“After the issue of the circular, the Government of St Petersburg had
received intelligence not only that active warfare was going on in the
valley of the Lower Danube, but that the Turks had seized the Russian
fort of St Nicholas on the eastern coast of the Euxine, and were
attacking Russia upon her Armenian frontier;” and he fully absolves the
Czar from any breach of faith in this matter. Yet he would gravely have
us believe that the attack of the ships of one Power upon those of
another with which it is at open war requires explanation, and that the
most natural explanation possible is to be found in attributing it to a
slow retaliation for an imaginary injury inflicted by two other Powers.
It is as if we should be told that, in the early rounds of a celebrated
pugilistic encounter, Mr Sayers had hit Mr Heenan very hard in the eye,
not because they were fighting, but because one of the bystanders had
previously trodden on the champion’s coat.
As the reader will probably decline to follow Mr Kinglake over his
slender bridge of inference, we must look beyond Sinope for the naval
movement instigated by the French Emperor and turning the scale in
favour of war; and, as only one remains to be accounted for, we have not
far to look. The next orders sent to the fleets were intended to obviate
another disaster and disgrace such as that of Sinope. They provided that
Russian ships met with in the Euxine should be requested, and, if
necessary, constrained, to return to Sebastopol. This, Mr Kinglake terms
“a harsh and insulting course of action.” He says the English Cabinet
during their deliberations “were made acquainted with the will of the
French Emperor; ... the pressure of the French Emperor was the cogent
motive which governed the result; ... the result was that now, for the
second time, France dictated to England the use that she should make of
her fleet, and by this time, perhaps, submission had become more easy
than it was at first.” But Lord Clarendon has been quoted by Mr Kinglake
as saying, months before, that it had become the duty of England to
defend Turkey. According to Mr Kinglake, when independent Powers are
acting together, to propose is to dictate, and to acquiesce is to
submit. To make a suggestion is imperious, and to adopt it is
ignominious. But what kind of an alliance would this be? or how would
concert be possible under such circumstances? The proposal of the French
Emperor was so offered as to show that he was thoroughly convinced of
its expediency. If he was so convinced, he was right so to offer it. And
why did the English Ministry adopt it? Because the English people more
than kept pace with the wishes of the Emperor. “A huge obstacle,” says
the historian, “to the maintenance of peace in Europe was raised up by
the temper of the English people; ... the English desired war.” It is
strange doctrine then, that an English Ministry which, by assenting to
the proposition of an ally, expresses the temper of the English people,
thereby submits to foreign dictation.
But the strangest part of the French part of the story is behind. We
have seen how Mr Kinglake traces from the first the devious wiles of the
French Emperor—how it was his craft that first made the question of the
Holy Places important—how his “subtle and dangerous counsels” hurried
England into war, and all because war was necessary to the stability of
his throne. The complicated texture of his intrigue is followed and
traced with immense patience and ingenuity; and yet, when the work is
complete, and his imperial victim stands fully detected and exposed as
the incendiary of Europe, the detective suddenly destroys his own
finely-spun web at a blow. England was the tool of the French Emperor,
but the French Emperor was the tool of a still more astute and potent
personage. “When the Czar began to encroach upon the Sultan, there was
nothing that could so completely meet Lord Palmerston’s every wish as an
alliance between the two Western Powers, which should toss France
headlong into the English policy of upholding the Ottoman Empire.... As
he (Lord Palmerston) from the first had willed it, so moved the two
great nations of the West.” The elaborated structure of French intrigue
falls, and our gay perennial Premier is discovered smiling amid the
ruins. Thus Punch murders his wife and infant, hangs the executioner,
and shines as the dexterous and successful villain, till, at the close
of the piece, Mr Codlin, the real wire-puller, draws aside the curtain
and appears at the bottom of the show, while the great criminal and his
victims revert to their proper condition of sawdust and tinsel.
The terms of the alliance between France and England are surely not
difficult to understand. The policy of upholding the Ottoman Empire was,
as Mr Kinglake says, “an English policy.” The object for which the
Governments of France and England were actively united was an English
object. Naturally we inquire what inducement the Emperor had then to
form the alliance? Mr Kinglake furnishes us with the correct response.
It seemed, he says, to the Emperor “that, by offering to thrust France
into an English policy, he might purchase for himself an alliance with
the Queen, and win for his new throne a sanction of more lasting worth
than Morny’s well-warranted return of his eight millions of approving
Frenchmen. Above all, if he could be united with England, he might be
able to enter upon that conspicuous action in Europe which was needful
for his safety at home, and might do this without bringing upon himself
any war of a dangerous kind.” The advantages of the alliance were to be
reciprocal. The Emperor was to gain in position and reputation, in
return for aiding with his fleets and armies the attainment of an
English object. Mutual interest and mutual compromise were the basis of
this, as of most alliances. We had not to accuse the Emperor of any
breach of faith in executing his part of the compact. Being already, as
Lord Clarendon said, committed to the defence of Turkey, it made a vast
difference to us whether we should enter on a war with Russia alone, or
should be aided by the immense power of France. And it was only fair
that the Emperor should be allowed to occupy, in the transactions which
ensued, that position, the attainment of which was his grand object in
seeking the alliance. Yet Mr Kinglake blames this necessitous potentate
because he did not sacrifice his position and himself to our
interests—because he did not chivalrously place his army and navy at our
service for the promotion of English policy, and remain quietly in the
background, with his generous feelings for his reward; and he blames our
own Government for making those compromises which alone could render the
alliance possible.
And here, we rejoice to say, our serious differences with Mr Kinglake
end. After so much entertainment and instruction as we have derived from
his book, it seems almost ungrateful to make to it so many exceptions.
But if we have occupied much of our space thus, he must remember that it
takes longer to argue than to acquiesce. Moreover, it is partly owing to
his own excellences that we have been able to find matter for dispute.
Many a writer would have so muddled his facts and his prejudices that we
should have found it hard to do more than suspect the presence of error
in the cloudy medium. But his style is so clear, so precise, that the
reasoning everywhere shines through, and a fallacy or an inconsistency
has no more chance of escaping detection than a gold fish in a crystal
aquarium. And besides, Mr Kinglake himself most honestly and liberally
furnishes us with the facts, and even the inferences, necessary to
rectify his theory. Thus the effect, in his history, of his hostility to
the Emperor is not that of a false proportion in a rule of three, which
extends and vitiates the whole process. It is only like a series of
erroneous items introduced in a sum in addition, which may be separated
and deducted, leaving the total right.
The course of the transactions that led to the war may then be traced as
clearly as diplomacy, dealing with many great interests and many unseen
motives, generally permits. The squabble about the Holy Places was not
the origin but only the pretext of the dispute with Turkey. The
conversations with Sir Hamilton Seymour and the mission of Mentschikoff
prove that the Czar was already seeking to dislocate the fabric of the
Turkish Empire, and only took that lever because it lay readiest to his
hand. “A crowd of monks,” says Mr Kinglake, in his picturesque way,
“with bare foreheads, stood quarrelling for a key at the sunny gates of
a church in Palestine, but beyond and above, towering high in the misty
North, men saw the ambition of the Czars.” But the real design could not
long be hidden by the pretext. And the execution of that design would be
subversive of that balance which it was the duty and interest of the
other Powers to maintain. It was for the Czar, then, to choose a time
for his project when he might find each of the other Powers restrained
by some counteracting motive from opposing his ambition. Looking over
Europe, he thought that he perceived the favourable moment. Austria, the
Power most interested from her contiguity, and from the importance to
her of free use of the great waterway of Southern Germany, if she had
much reason to resist, had also much reason to acquiesce. She still felt
too keenly, financially and politically, the effects of the heavy blows
dealt her in 1848–9 to be ready or willing for war. She was under a huge
debt of gratitude to Nicholas, who, in the hour of her direst necessity,
had advanced to save her, without condition and without reward. He
possessed, too, a great personal ascendancy over the young Emperor of
Austria. And, lastly, at this time Austria had a hostile altercation
with Turkey, which would render it more than ever difficult for her to
take part with the Sultan.
It might be calculated that Prussia would follow the lead of Austria.
Her interests were the same in kind, but far less in degree. Once
satisfied that full guarantees for the freedom of the Danube would be
given, she would no longer have special interest in the subject.
As to France, there seemed to be no special reason why she should
interfere. And if she should interfere, the Czar’s sentiments towards
the new Empire were such as would rather lead him to disdainful defiance
than conciliation.
At first he anticipated no difficulty in persuading the English
Government to join in his designs. Finding, however, by the rejection of
his overtures, that he could not hope for the support of England, he
probably postponed the extreme measures of aggression. But, for the
reasons we have stated in a former paragraph, he was unwilling to let
the opportunity pass totally unimproved; and hence the demands of
Mentschikoff for granting the protectorate of the Greek Church in Turkey
to the Czar.
It was Lord Stratford’s share in the diplomatic contest that ensued,
which first gave England prominence in the dispute. And whether the part
he took was in accordance with instructions from his Government, or was
due to the influence of his personal character, the result was to assure
England that the predominance of her Ambassador in the councils of the
Porte, whatever advantage it might confer, carried with it grave
responsibility. When Mentschikoff withdrew in anger from the scene,
England was, in the opinion of her own Ministers, committed to the
defence of Turkey.
We have seen that the Czar’s original design was made dependent on the
concurrence of England. When he found that this was unattainable, the
design was modified. He now found that even in this modified form
England would not only not concur, but would oppose it. Why then did he
persist? It was because he did not believe that the opposition of
England would go the length of war.
Lord Aberdeen, the English Premier, besides being the personal friend of
Nicholas, and therefore disposed to view Russian policy with comparative
indulgence, was the open and professed friend of peace at any price. He
had that horror of war which in a statesman is an unpardonable and fatal
weakness. And in this particular he was believed only to represent the
feeling of the English people. The Czar, in common with most of the
world, was convinced that they were entirely absorbed in the pursuit of
commerce. He took the Exhibition of 1851 for the national confession of
faith. He believed that England had no god but gold, and that Mr Cobden
was her prophet.
This fallacy Mr Kinglake exposes in his happiest style:—
“All England had been brought to the opinion that it was a wickedness
to incur war without necessity or justice; but when the leading
spirits of the Peace Party had the happiness of beholding this
wholesome result, they were far from stopping short. They went on to
make light of the very principles by which peace is best maintained,
and although they were conscientious men, meaning to say and do what
was right, yet, being unacquainted with the causes which bring about
the fall of empires, they deliberately inculcated that habit of
setting comfort against honour which historians call ‘corruption.’
They made it plain, as they imagined, that no war which was not
engaged in for the actual defence of the country could ever be right;
but even there they took no rest, for they went on and on, and still
on, until their foremost thinker reached the conclusion that, in the
event of an attack upon our shores, the invaders ought to be received
with such an effusion of hospitality and brotherly love as could not
fail to disarm them of their enmity, and convert the once dangerous
Zouave into the valued friend of the family. Then, with great
merriment, the whole English people turned round, and although they
might still be willing to go to the brink of other precipices, they
refused to go further towards that one. The doctrine had struck no
root. It was ill suited to the race to whom it was addressed. The male
cheered it, and forgot it until there came a time for testing it, and
then discarded it; and the woman, from the very first, with her true
and simple instinct, was quick to understand its value. She would
subscribe, if her husband required it, to have the doctrine taught to
charity children, but she would not suffer it to be taught to her own
boy. So it proved barren.”
Caustic as this is, it is only too indulgent to the Peace Party. Not
that it is of special importance now to crush what is already so
depressed and abased as to have lost its power of mischief. The course
of the leaders of the party has been such that they could not continue
to enjoy any large measure of popularity, except upon the anomalous
condition that a great number of Englishmen should join in hating
England. For years past no petulant despotism, no drunken republic,
could shake its coarse fist in the face of this country, without finding
its warmest supporters in those men of the olive branch, who were never
weary of urging us to offer both cheeks to the smiter. Their mode of
interference in a quarrel is like that of the affectionate friends, who,
if a man were attacked, would cling round him and hamper him, reviling
him for his pugnacity, while his adversary ran him through the body.
Long fallen from their position as oracles, they lie at the base of
their tall pedestals, and “none so poor as do them reverence.” But, in
granting them honesty of purpose, Mr Kinglake falls, we think, into the
now common error of pushing candour to excess. A man’s mistakes are
honest when he is led into them by motives irrespective of his
interests. The fanatic who sacrifices his own advantage along with that
of other people cannot be accused of baseness. But these men had a
direct interest in preaching the doctrine of the necessity of national
poltroonery. The substitution of a purely commercial policy for that
which the nation had hitherto followed, was intimately blended with
their own personal advantage. The motive, therefore, that inspired the
error renders it inexcusable.
Blind, then, to consequences, the Czar continued his course of
aggression. He marched his troops into the Principalities. Thereupon, no
longer opposed only by England, he finds himself met by the concerted
action of the four great Powers. And the question of interest at this
particular stage is, Whether the primary object of defending Turkey was
to be best attained by the action of the four Powers, or by the
increased decision in action of England and France. Now it is to be
observed, that the Czar knew long before he occupied the Principalities
that Austria would resist the step. Yet the united remonstrance of the
four Powers had failed to induce him to abandon it. And it also failed
afterwards to induce him to retract it. Through remonstrance,
opposition, and the earlier stages of the war, he continued to hold the
provinces. It becomes then a question, when we are considering the
statement that the peaceful pressure of the four Powers would have
attained our object in the most desirable way, whether a course of
action so slow was consistent with our engagement to defend Turkey. It
is a matter at least open to doubt.
But granting that either the slow action of Austria, or the more
decisive policy of France, would have equally availed, if adopted by
common consent, was that unanimity possible? Austria had many reasons
for limiting her interference to diplomatic pressure. Moreover, her
ground of complaint against Russia was the occupation of the
Principalities, not the threatening of Turkey. Should Russia adopt some
other method of coercing Turkey, such as sending her fleet into the
Bosphorus, and withdrawing her troops from the provinces, the interest
of Austria in the dispute would almost vanish, while that of the Western
Powers would increase. And how would it suit France to adopt the course
of Austria, and to aim at a settlement by united action? The French
Emperor’s great inducement in joining in the dispute at all was the
prospect of increased reputation. And when the figure representing the
credit to be gained by joint diplomatic coercion came to be divided by
four, would the quotient satisfy his expectations? It is not too much to
say that England was compelled to choose between France and Austria,
since it was unlikely they would long continue in a common course. And
as the action of England in a war with Russia must be principally
through her fleet, it became of immense importance that the French navy
should act with us rather than be neutral or hostile. In such
circumstances, then, it is by no means clear that we did wrong in
holding with France.
From this period, then, it becomes apparent that, if Russia should
persist in aggression, war was inevitable. And Russia did persist in
aggression. And if it be considered as established that the Czar was led
so to persist by a conviction that England would not resort to war—which
is the general and probably correct opinion—we do not see how it can be
denied that a course of action which must undeceive him would be the
most likely to cause him to desist; and that the naval movements that
ensued were only such as would convince him of our intention without
driving him to extremity. It is plain that the two theories—one of which
is that the pacific disposition of our Government allowed us to drift
into war, and the other that our menacing action irritated the Czar
beyond control, and therefore caused the war—are incompatible.
The fleets then moved to the entrance of the Dardanelles; and, while the
Czar was recovering from the anger produced by that step, the
representatives of the four Powers in conference at Vienna produced
their Note, a mediatory document which would, it was hoped, settle all
difficulties. It was readily accepted by Russia, the reason for which
became apparent when it was offered to Turkey; for the Turkish
Government at once rejected it, on the ground that it might be so
interpreted as to secure to the Czar the protectorate he aimed at. They
proposed alterations, with the concurrence of the mediatory Powers,
which the Czar in his turn rejected; and the Sultan thereupon declared
that, if the provinces were not evacuated in fifteen days, Turkey would
be at war with Russia. The fleets moved through the Dardanelles. The
next step was the attack on the Turkish squadron at Sinope by the
Russian admiral. The English people were now thoroughly roused. They
were indignant, not so much at the breach of faith imputed to the Czar
in making the attack, as at the ruthless destruction and slaughter of
the Turkish force by its far more powerful enemy. The attack, too, had
taken place almost under the guns of the combined fleets, and it was
evident that, if their presence at Constantinople meant anything, and if
we really were engaged to defend Turkey, the repetition of such a
disaster to our ally must be prevented. A measure to this effect, but by
no means strong enough to express the feeling of England, was adopted;
the combined fleets were ordered by their respective governments to keep
the peace by force, if necessary, in the Euxine. But as there had been
as yet no actual collision between their forces and those of the Czar, a
door to peace was still left open. Of this he did not choose to avail
himself, but declared war against France and England on the 11th April
1854.
Such is an outline of the successive events preceding the war which,
unpromising as such a record of futile diplomacy may seem, Mr Kinglake
has wrought into one of the most brilliant of historical pictures.
‘Eothen’ itself is not more entertaining, more rich in colour, more
happy in quaint and humorous turns of expression; while, from the false
effects that are sometimes seen in the earlier work, the present
narrative is entirely free. The style is indeed a model of ease,
strength, clearness, and simplicity. Nor has labour been spared; and the
reader who has so often been expected by historians to be already
familiar with political and diplomatic lore, and has been left to repair
his deficiencies as he may, will be grateful to Mr Kinglake for some of
the elementary instruction which he has conveyed in such a delightful
form, as, for instance, the chapter on “the usage which forms the
safeguard of Europe.” And remembering what animation and vigour personal
feeling, even when so strongly biased, cannot fail to infuse, and seeing
that, in the present case, it has not prevented the writer from fully
stating the facts and deductions which most contradict his favourite
theories, we cease to lament the absence of that judicial calmness which
would have deprived his history of half its charm.
The first glowing scenes now shift to one still more splendid. Diplomacy
has played out its part; its subtlest essays seem but mere babble to the
ear that is listening for the impending clang of arms. Statesmen and
ambassadors gather up their futile documents, and retire to the side
scenes, to make way for the sterner disputants who throng the stage.
If Mr Kinglake was unsparing in his denunciations of French intrigue, he
is no less bold and outspoken in criticising the military merits of our
allies. But we no longer find the same reasons for dissenting from his
conclusions. Many, no doubt, will say that it would have been politic to
suppress some of those revelations which will jar most on the sensitive
ears of our neighbours. But, if history is to be written at all, it must
be written with all the truth attainable. History, which conceals and
glosses, is but historical romance. Moreover, a plain English statement
was wanting to redress the balance between us and the French. It must
not be forgotten that the example of writing a narrative apportioning to
both parties in the alliance the sum of glory gained was set in France,
and that a share, ridiculously small, was awarded to the English. We
remonstrated at the time, in these pages, against the unfairness and
impolicy of allowing such a book as De Bazancourt’s to go forth to the
world with the seeming sanction of the Emperor, at a time when the war
was yet unfinished. A man of no reputation or ability to justify the
selection had been accredited to the French generals in the Crimea.
Furnished thus with information, which might be presumed to be reliable,
he produced a narrative in which the entire credit for the planning and
execution of the successful operations of the war was assigned to the
French with impudent mendacity. As might naturally be expected from a
nation that believes in Thiers, his account was accepted by the French
as veritable history. In England it was but little read. Contemptible as
a composition, its representations of facts were not such as to give it
a claim to which nothing else entitled it. But, so far as it was read
here, it gave just offence. That the Emperor did not disapprove is shown
by the fact that the same valuable chronicler was taken to Italy as
historiographer of the war in 1859, when another compound of bombastic
glorification and misrepresentation was given to the world under
imperial auspices. No Englishman or candid Frenchman who reads the
account of the Crimean Campaign by the Baron De Bazancourt will deny
that it was incumbent on us to tell our own tale; and we rejoice that it
is told by one who, with such remarkable faculty for charming an
audience and imparting to it his own impressions, trusts, nevertheless,
to facts and proofs derived from the documents intrusted to him, for
supporting his claim for justice.
The long European peace had left the armies of the Great Powers with
little except a traditional knowledge of civilised war. It is true that
part of the English army had seen service in India; a large portion of
the French troops had made campaigns in Algeria; and the Russians had
for years carried on a desultory warfare in Circassia. But none of these
theatres of operations had been of a kind to serve as schools of
training for encounters with a disciplined foe. Nor had they developed
amidst the officers that high talent for superior commands to which
either country could turn with confidence. Accordingly, the English fell
back upon their traditions of the old wars of Wellington, as embodied in
his friend Lord Raglan. Whether he was likely to make a great general or
not, it was impossible for anybody to say, for his career had not been
such as to offer any field for the display of the talents requisite in a
commander. Sixty-six is not perhaps the most favourable age for a first
essay in any walk in life. But it was known that he was accustomed to
military business; that his conciliatory and courteous manners would be
of great service in an allied army, and that his rank and dignity would
ensure the respect necessary for the maintenance of our proper position
in the alliance; while, if he had not commanded armies himself, he had
been intimate with him whom we regarded as the commander without a peer.
The French had no available relics of the wars of the First Empire; and
if any such had existed, there were other claimants to be considered,
namely, those soldiers of fortune to whom the Emperor was under
obligations for their share in the _coup d’état_. The claims of St
Arnaud surpassed all others. He was a frothy, vainglorious, gallant man,
who had never shown capacity for any operation more considerable than a
raid against the Arabs. His published letters breathe a high ambition
and spirit of enterprise, but do not reveal any rare military quality.
Lord Russell himself could not be more ready to take the lead in any
description of onerous undertaking. But his self-confidence seems to
have had no deeper root than vanity; for, whereas his letters to his
relations are full of the great part he is playing, or means to play,
neither his acts, nor the official records of his doings as Commander of
the French army, corroborate the views of his own pre-eminence which he
imparted to his family. Mr Kinglake drily accounts for the selection of
this commander by saying that he was ambitious of leading the
enterprise, and that “the French Emperor took him at his word,
consenting, as was very natural, that his dangerous, insatiate friend,
should have a command which would take him into the country of the Lower
Danube.” If it is by this intended we should infer that the wily
potentate expected the climate to disagree with him, the anticipation
was fulfilled; for a frame already weakened by long disease broke up
entirely under the assault of the fever of Varna. The Russians possessed
a fine old remnant of antiquity in Prince Paskiewitch, which was
furbished up, and did very well till, meeting with a mischance before
Silistria, at the outset of the war, he vanished, and the effort to
supply his place with a creditable general was not successful. As
regards military talent, then, it would not seem that either belligerent
possessed an advantage which would preclude Fortune from exercising her
proverbial function of favouring the brave.
While the English and French troops were on the way to Turkey, the
Russians had opened an offensive campaign. The method of doing this was
prescribed to them by the features of the theatre of war. The Danube,
flowing round Wallachia, turns northward and meets the Pruth, so as to
include between the two rivers and the sea a narrow strip; the part of
which, north of the Danube, is a Russian province, Bessarabia, and that
south of the Danube a Turkish province, the Dobrudja. Should the
Russians seek to pass into Turkey through Wallachia, they would lend a
flank to an attack from Austria, if she were to carry her hostility to
the point of war, and their troops would be very critically placed
between Austrian and Turkish foes. But by advancing along the strip the
Russians passed at once from Russian to Turkish territory; while the
Danube covered their right flank from Austria. Still, in order to
proceed beyond the Dobrudja in the direction of the Balkan, and thence
towards Constantinople, as they had done with such signal success in
1829, it was indispensable that they should begin by taking
Silistria—and more than ever indispensable now that the Allies had
command of the Euxine. Accordingly, the opening of the campaign was
marked by the siege of Silistria by the Russians.
Although it soon appeared that Silistria was bravely defended, it was
not expected that the fortress could hold out long. And therefore, in
anticipation of such decisive movements as those of 1829, the first
intention of the Allies was to fortify Gallipoli, thus securing the
Dardanelles as a channel of supply, and the Chersonese peninsula as a
secure base from whence to operate in Turkey. But it soon appeared that
Russia was stumbling at the first obstacle. Gallipoli, therefore, ceased
to be of present importance; and the next idea was to transport the
armies to that point from whence they could most speedily meet the
enemy. And that point was evidently Varna.
Mr Kinglake chronicles two facts relating to this period, not hitherto
published, and the knowledge of both of which he probably derived
(certainly of one) from Lord Raglan’s papers. The first is the project
of St Arnaud to obtain command of the Turkish forces. How this was
defeated is recorded in one of Mr Kinglake’s most characteristic
passages, where the lively, pushing, aspiring Marshal finds his
confidence in his own scheme suddenly evaporating before the grave
dignified courtesy of Lord Stratford, and the mildly implied disapproval
of Lord Raglan. The other is, that, after the embarkation was agreed on,
St Arnaud suddenly announced, that he should move his army by land to
the south of the Balkan; and that, according to his plan, the English
should take the left of the proposed strategical line, and therefore be
farthest from their supplies coming from sea. This scheme, also, he
relinquished; but the fact is notable, first, as showing the propensity
to take what advantage he could at the expense of his ally; and
secondly, as correcting the view of his own predominance and superior
earnestness for action, conveyed in his private correspondence and in De
Bazancourt’s narrative.
The armies landed at Varna, and a campaign in Bulgaria was expected. “My
plan is,” quoth St Arnaud, “to save the fortress, and to push the
Russians into the Danube.” He tells his brother in Paris, that the
operation of moving to aid Silistria will be hazardous, for the Russians
may come down on his right and rear, seize the road of Varna and
Pravadi, and cut him off from the sea. “But, be easy,” he says
consolingly, “I have taken my precautions against the manœuvre, and I
will defeat it.” Not difficult to defeat, one might think, since the
enemy who should attempt it must be commanded by a lunatic. However,
while the Allies were still waiting in vain for the means of transport
to take the field, their difficulties and projects were ended by an
unlooked for incident. The Russians, finding the outermost barrier of
Turkey impregnable, raised the siege, and withdrew across the Danube.
The immense amount of military reputation which they thereby lost was
placed with interest to the credit of the Turks. But the position in
which the Allied Generals found themselves, thus hurrying to save a
fortress which saved itself, and left without an enemy, was extremely
bewildering. St Arnaud seems characteristically to have imagined that
the Russians were frightened by his reputation into retreat. “They fly
me,” he says, while lamenting the loss of a triumph for himself and his
army, which he had contemplated as certain. Not only the Generals but
their Governments were embarrassed and mortified at being thus baulked.
The Emperor’s object could not be attained by mere success without
glory. The British people, already impatient of delays, the causes of
which, though inevitable, they could not understand, were clamorous for
action. Nor did they content themselves with insisting that something
should be done. They indicated the line of action. Urged, as Mr Kinglake
contends, by the press, they shouted with one voice for an attack on
Sebastopol, and this measure the Government enjoined Lord Raglan to
execute. The French Government did not urge St Arnaud to propose the
step; but, if the English were willing for it, he was not at liberty to
withhold his consent. Two questions occur here: was the Government right
in thus ordering the commander of the army to take a step to which his
own judgment might be opposed? and was the step thus indicated a wise
one?
Now, Mr Kinglake seems to think, that if the Government was justified in
controlling its General, it was only because its army was acting in
concert with that of another power, and was dependent on the aid of the
fleets.
“In common circumstances, and especially where the whole of the troops
to be engaged are under one commander, it cannot be right for any
Sovereign or any Minister to address such instructions as these to a
General on a distant shore; for the General who is to be intrusted
with the sole command of a great expedition must be, of all mankind,
the best able to judge of its military prudence, and to give him
orders thus cogent is to dispense with his counsel.”
We, on the other hand, think that the selection of the territory which
is to be the scene of operations, should always rest with the
Government, and for this reason, that the selection must depend even
more on political than on military considerations. Suppose, for
instance, that the Allied generals had desired to follow the enemy over
the Danube, it is evident that it would be of vast importance in the
campaign that would follow, whether Austria should be friendly, or
neutral, or hostile. But which she would be was a matter of which the
Generals could only be informed through their Governments, who must
possess the best information attainable on the subject. And again, the
effect of the invasion of the Crimea on Austrian counsels, on Russian
designs, and on English and French interests, were all political
considerations, to be decided by the Governments, and not by the
Generals. But, the territory fixed on, the manner of operating therein
should be left to the Commander—and this the British Government did.
With regard to the other question, Mr Kinglake appears to think that,
after the Russians had evacuated the Principalities (as they did
immediately on re-crossing the Danube), there was no further ground for
continuing the war, and that a naval blockade would have forced her to
conclude peace. But to have forced her to make peace, returning to the
_statu quo_, would by no means have answered our ends, for it would have
left her to repeat the aggression on a more favourable opportunity, with
the advantage of better understanding the conditions of success. That
she would have consented at that time to give any pledge for the
security of Turkey, is incredible, if we consider the course taken by
her diplomatists at the conferences in the following year, when she had
suffered so severely. But to capture Sebastopol and its fleet, would
give us the security we wanted, and the pressure of the blockade might
then be depended on for ending the war. The question then, in our
judgment, resolves itself into this: Was there a reasonable hope of at
once succeeding in the object of the invasion; and was common foresight
exercised in providing for the possibility of failure?
Events have answered the last question. Due provision was not made for
the possibility of a first failure. The country was aghast at the
position in which the army found itself; and we think that, in making
the statement we are about to quote, Mr Kinglake is recording a state of
opinion, which, though perfectly just, and always maintained to be just
in these pages, both during and after the war, had no existence at the
time he speaks of.
“Those who thought more warily than the multitude foresaw that the
enterprise might take time; but they also perceived that even this
result would not be one of unmixed evil; for if Russia should commit
herself to a lengthened conflict in the neighbourhood of Sebastopol,
she would be put to a great trial, and would see her wealth and
strength ruinously consumed by the mere stress of the distance between
the military centre of the empire and the south-westernmost angle of
the Crimea.”
All this is true; so true that Russia would have done well to leave
Sebastopol to its fate, rather than make those efforts to maintain it
which were so ruinous. Moreover the Crimea is, from its geographical
circumstances, always the most favourable point of Russian territory for
the operations of an enemy who commands the sea. Its form of an extended
peninsula renders it vulnerable at many points; it does not afford the
means of supplying the force necessary for its defence; and the supplies
and reinforcements, having to pass through a region that is always a
desert and sometimes a swamp, must be despatched with vast expense and
loss. The conditions of the theatre of operations selected were then all
in our favour; it only remained to provide adequately for the chances of
war, to render the enterprise judicious.
But there was no thought except of speedy success. Beyond a triumphant
landing, battle, and assault, no man looked. It was a piece of national
gambling where an army was staked upon the turn of the cards;
inexcusable, therefore, even had the chances been still more in our
favour.
Still the chances in our favour were great. The Russian force in the
Crimea was inferior in numbers. Sebastopol might have been captured with
the co-operation of the fleets. That co-operation was a main element of
success. We were deprived of it by Mentschikoff’s stroke of sinking his
ships, so as to block the harbour and exclude the fleets. Was this a
step, the possibility of which the Government of a great maritime nation
ought to have omitted from its calculations? It was not difficult—it was
even obvious—to anticipate that a fleet otherwise useless might thus be
turned to account.
That the invasion was politically a fortunate step, we have no doubt.
All the sufferings, all the losses, all the expense, and all the
discontent at home, could not prevent the course of affairs from turning
ultimately to our advantage, because the distresses of the enemy were
far greater. Russia at the end of the war was absolutely prostrate,
while England was only beginning to handle her vast and increasing
resources. But this, as it was never contemplated, is beside the purpose
of estimating the wisdom of the people and the Government who committed
the armies to the enterprise. The Government is obnoxious to the charge
of not providing for a contingency that ought to have been foreseen, by
furnishing the means for sustained operations. And the Government might,
in great measure, exonerate itself at the expense of the nation. For
years before, no Member of Parliament could have proposed an increase on
the estimates in order to render the army an efficient engine of war,
without being covered with obloquy. At that time, what troops we had
were barely tolerated by the people. Considering all things, we cannot
think the step wise. But we are very strongly of opinion that, as a
means of coercing Russia, it was fortunate.
Many conferences between the Allied Generals took place at Varna, and on
the voyage. No pictures can differ more widely than those of the
attitude of St Arnaud on these occasions, as drawn on the one hand by
himself and De Bazancourt, on the other by Mr Kinglake. In his own
letters, and in the veracious French Chronicle, he is the moving spirit
of the enterprise—he “dominates the discussion”—he infuses life into
everybody—nothing checks him except the slowness of the English. He is
feared by the Russians, admired by the British, adored by the French. Mr
Kinglake, on the contrary, represents him as being in council without
decision and without weight; glad to solve his own difficulties by
deferring to Lord Raglan; forming plans merely to abandon them; and
painfully conscious that he has not the hold on the respect of his own
army necessary to enforce his authority. He had become strongly
impressed with the idea that a landing would be best effected at the
mouth of the Katcha. It would be nearer Sebastopol. The position on the
Alma would thus be avoided; and the march over plains, where it might be
difficult to find water, would be unnecessary. On the other hand a
reconnoissance made by Lord Raglan and Sir John Burgoyne, with the
French Generals, showed that the mouth of the valley was narrow, that
the troops as they landed would be exposed to a flanking fire from guns
which would be, by their position, secure from the counter-fire of the
ships, and that the enterprise might be opposed by the whole Russian
army. These objections seemed to Lord Raglan so strong that he decided
on landing at Old Fort. The result showed the correctness of the
decision, for the landing was unopposed, and the single action of the
Alma cleared the way to Sebastopol. Nevertheless, St Arnaud, writing to
his brother after the landing, contends that he was right. “Observe,
brother,” he says, “I have a military instinct which never deceives me,
and the English have not made war since 1815.”
Mr Kinglake’s account of the disembarkation which he witnessed, of the
delay caused by the mysterious shifting, by the French, of the buoy that
was to mark the spot for the operation—of the different modes of
treating the villagers practised by the English and by the French
troops, and of the march towards the Alma, are described with the
particularity and vivacity which might be expected from so keen an
observer, and so skilful a narrator. He rightly describes the movement
as being of the nature of that proper to movable columns. It was, in
fact, like the march of a convoy, where the escort was vast, and the
conditions favourable. The conditions were favourable, because the open
nature of the country permitted the waggons, instead of straggling along
a great extent of road, on any part of which they might be attacked, to
move in compact order near the entire army. But we quite agree with him
in thinking that the Russian leader showed great incapacity and culpable
want of enterprise in suffering the march to proceed unmolested. The
country was particularly favourable to cavalry, in which arm he was
greatly superior. By incessantly threatening the left flank he would
have compelled us to show front in that direction, and the whole army
would have been obliged to halt, under penalty of witnessing the defeat
of a separated portion. We could not have closed with the force thus
menacing us, because the effort to do so would have withdrawn us from
our proper direction, and from the sea, and because, also, the enemy
could always retire under cover of his cavalry, to a new position on our
flank. If Mentschikoff could have felt secure of being able to file into
position behind the Alma, in time to oppose us there, he might have
employed his whole army in this menacing movement. He made only one
effort of the kind, that on the Bulganak, where a skirmish took place;
but the demonstration was feeble, not supported, and of no avail as a
check, because the army had always designed to halt there for the night.
Nevertheless, the precautions taken by Lord Raglan, in throwing back the
left flank, before bivouacking, to meet a possible attack of the kind,
and the consequent delay in resuming the march next morning, show how
much was to be apprehended from such a mode of harassing us as was open
to a skilful leader.
The ground on which the battle of the Alma was fought is not difficult
to understand. The plain over which the Allies advanced slopes gently
downward for a mile. At the bottom of the slope is a bank, and below the
bank a flat valley, three or four hundred yards wide, in which flows the
Alma. If, then, a person turning his back to the sea, at the mouth of
the river, moves up the Allies’ bank, he has on his right, across the
valley, for the first mile, a steep cliff, as if part of the coast-line
had turned back along the course of the river. The cliff then begins to
resolve itself into broken heights, still steep, but not impracticable.
These continue for nearly two more miles, when, the heights receding
still farther, the slope to the river becomes more gentle, and undulates
in knolls, the general character of the ground, however, being an upper
and lower line of heights, with an intermediate plateau. The ground
continues of this nature far up the stream. Everywhere the last summits
formed the edge of a plain which could not be seen from the Allies’ side
of the stream.
The Russian cavalry prevented reconnoissances which would have given
some assurance of the manner in which Mentschikoff occupied the
position. In the absence of these, maps and plans, and a distant view,
coupled with a rough estimate of the enemy’s force, were all that could
be relied on. With such data as these afforded, Marshal St Arnaud came
to confer with Lord Raglan the night before the battle; and we must say
that we think Mr Kinglake is rather hard upon the Marshal in his
description of the interview. He seems to think there was something
presumptuous in the fact of his coming with a prepared plan, bringing
with him, too, a rough sketch of it drawn on paper. Now, that such a
conference was highly necessary between two commanders about to fight a
battle in concert, nobody will deny. And it is a very good thing, on
such occasions, to have a plan constructed on the probabilities, because
it serves as a basis for discussion. The Marshal’s plan was founded on
the conjecture, that, as the plain at the top of the cliff could be
swept by the guns of the ships, a space would be left near the sea
unoccupied by the Russians. Into that space he proposed to push two
divisions (Bosquet and the Turks), by two roads that led to it up the
cliff. The remaining divisions were to advance against the Russian
front; and he calculated that they would occupy so much of that front
that the movement of the British, forming the left of the Allies, would
be against the right flank of the enemy.
Such was the plan that the Marshal brought to discuss with Lord Raglan.
But it seems that if he came with the hope of getting any suggestions or
ideas in exchange, he was disappointed. “Without either combating or
accepting the suggestion addressed to him, he simply assured the Marshal
that he might rely upon the vigorous co-operation of the British army.
The French plan seems to have made little impression on Lord Raglan’s
mind. He foresaw, perhaps, that the ingenuity of the evening would be
brought to nothingness by the teachings of the morrow.” And when they
came next day into presence of the enemy, Mr Kinglake says: “If Lord
Raglan had not already rejected the French plan of a flank attack by our
forces, it would now have fallen to the ground. It had never made any
impression on his mind.” In a note he says: “It became a plan simply
preposterous as soon as it was apparent that St Arnaud would not
confront any part of the Russian army except their left wing; for to
make two flank movements, one against the enemy’s left, and the other
against his right, and to do this without having any force wherewith to
confront the enemy’s centre, would have been a plan requiring no comment
to show its absurdity.”
Now Lord Raglan’s part in the interview is meant, as recorded, to show
to his advantage. Yet we cannot think that this way of conducting
conferences can be considered as displaying talent. Anybody can appear
to conceal an opinion—even if he hasn’t got one. The Marshal might,
according to this account, justly feel himself aggrieved—first, for
having no notice taken of his plan; and, secondly, for having no grounds
afforded for acting in concert with his ally in the coming battle. Nor
do we think the plan absurd in principle, though it was erroneous in
details. If to turn one flank of an enemy is an advantage, to turn both
flanks will, in general, increase the advantage: whether it is
practicable depends on the relative length of the opposing lines. Now
the Russians had 39,000 men; the Allies had 63,000. And the English
order of battle enables our line to cover more ground than equal numbers
of the enemy. Therefore, after forming on an equal front, there would
still be at least 12,000 men disposable for the turning of each flank;
and 12,000 men on your flank is a serious matter. We say then that the
plan, which was, of course, a suggestion, to be modified according to
circumstances, was not in itself absurd in principle.
The Marshal, therefore, with Lord Raglan’s concurrence, as the French
say—but, according to Mr Kinglake, with such expectations as he might
have derived from the foregoing not very explicit interview—proceeded to
execute his part of the plan by making his right column pass close to
the sea. This was an error, for it was founded on a false assumption; he
supposed the Russian left to be nearer the sea than it really was. He
could not ascertain the truth, because, as is not uncommon in battles,
he could not make a close reconnoissance, and the plain behind the
cliff, being invisible from below, might contain an unknown number of
Russians. A computation of the forces visible would not give certain
means of judging of this point, because troops had been joining
Mentschikoff from various parts—a large detachment had come in that
morning.
The consequence, then, of this error was that more of the French line
than had been expected overlapped the Russians—so much so that those on
the extreme right never joined in the action. Moreover, they were on a
narrower front than their numbers warranted; for though three divisions
were in front, and two following them, yet the three in front formed two
lines. If the two in rear are to be considered as a reserve, it was
twice as large as is common. Thus the English only completed the front
necessary to correspond with the Russian front without overlapping it,
and their attack, therefore, was almost entirely a direct attack. The
right French column was thrown away. The next to it only engaged in a
distant artillery fire: even the third and fourth found themselves
opposed to a force inadequate to their numbers. As Mr Kinglake well
observes, if all the army had been of one nation, the direct attack
would not have been made till that on the flank had already shaken the
enemy’s line. But circumstances rendered it difficult to hold back the
English divisions. The French did nothing to be proud of in the battle.
We perfectly agree with Mr Kinglake that the official accounts and that
of De Bazancourt are mere bombastic inventions. We know that they were
opposed by numbers small in proportion to their own. That some of their
divisions showed but little _elan_ and made small progress, was evident
during the battle. And with regard to their losses, which St Arnaud
places at 1200, we do not deny that they may have lost that number of
men that day; but if they did, the cholera must have been unusually
severe on the 20th September, for there were no signs of such mortality
on the battle-field.
The English then advanced, because the French demanded support, and
because it might not have been judicious to remain longer inactive when
our allies were engaged. Our divisions therefore advanced across the
river. In doing so their order was broken by several causes. First, the
vineyards and enclosures between the troops and the river; then the
river itself; and lastly, the fact that the divisions in deploying had,
by mistaking distance, considerably overlapped. It is evident that if an
inferior army about to be attacked in position could choose how the
attack should be made, it would desire that a great part of the enemy’s
force should be directed where it would be useless, and that the
remainder should make a direct advance. This was what the Allies did.
But though there was no great generalship, the soldiership of the
English was admirable. The divisional, brigade, and regimental officers
took advantage of a sheltering rim of ground on the opposite bank to
restore some degree of order in the broken ranks, and then led them
straight up the slope in the teeth of the Russian guns. Torn by
cannon-shot at close range, and by a hail of musketry from the numerous
infantry—for here Mentschikoff had placed his heaviest masses—they
nevertheless went on in a line which, if irregular, was still
irresistible, drove the Russians back, and captured a gun. Then, being
without support, having lost heavily, and being assailed by fresh
reserves, the front line gave way and retreated down the hill. But by
this time the Duke of Cambridge’s division was across the stream and
moving up. The broken masses passed through the ranks, which closed and
advanced solidly, with the same success as the first line, and the
success was more enduring. English guns, hitherto opposed to the Russian
artillery, were now brought across the stream—they were set free to do
so partly by the progress of the French on the flank, partly by the
action of two guns that Lord Raglan had brought across the stream in the
space between the armies, and which, taking the Russian line in reverse,
caused it to fall back. The English divisions thus maintained
themselves—the heavy columns that advanced against them were repulsed
partly by artillery, partly by the fire of the line—the Russians fell
back slowly to the top of the heights, and retreated along the plain,
pursued by the fire of our horse-artillery. The English batteries then
advanced. When they reached the plateau the enemy’s masses were already
at some distance, moving towards Sebastopol. The French on the right
were coming up so deliberately that it was evident they had no thought
of molesting the enemy’s retreat, and on a proposition being made to
them to join in a pursuit they declined it.
Whether it was or was not owing to the cause to which Mr Kinglake
attributes it—namely, to the fact that the French leaders, selected as
they almost all were for their share in the _coup d’état_, were men in
whom the troops had no confidence—it is certain that the reputation of
the French army was not augmented by this action. The report of St
Arnaud paints their valour and skill in the most brilliant colours. He
does not scruple largely to exaggerate the numbers of the enemy. There
were, according to him, 40,000 Russian bayonets, 6000 cavalry, and 180
guns opposed to the Allies. The true numbers were, according to Mr
Kinglake, 36,000 infantry, 3400 cavalry, and 108 guns. The advantages of
the Russians consisted in their strong position, their superiority in
cavalry, and their 14 heavy guns. The movement of the French was
ineffective, partly from misdirection, partly from their slowness to
close with the enemy. To the English, therefore, fell a task as
difficult as that which would have fallen to them in ordinary cases had
the Russians been equal in strength to the Allies—and the battle of the
Alma is eminently an English victory.
It is evident that if the general of an inferior army can oppose one
great mass of his enemy with a small number of his troops, and is thus
at liberty to meet the remainder on equal terms, he has gained a great
point in his favour; and this Mentschikoff did. Yet we perfectly agree
with Mr Kinglake that Mentschikoff showed no talent, and did no justice
to his troops. As we have seen, he allowed the march to be unmolested.
He made no use of the time at his disposal to strengthen his position
artificially. Mr Kinglake rightly asserts this in contradiction to
official and other authorities. Fords might have been rendered
impracticable, roads obstructed, field-works thrown up, and the
advancing troops would thus have been detained under the heavy fire of
the defenders, till on closing, if they should succeed in closing, it
would be with numbers too much diminished for success. But there were no
intrenchments nor obstacles worth mentioning on the field. And we regret
to observe that Mr Kinglake, though he explains in a note that he knows
the term to be inapplicable, and that he only follows an established
precedent, talks of the position of the Russian battery as “the Great
Redoubt.” We regret it, because the impression conveyed is false to
those who do not know the truth, and irrelevant to those who do. The
only work was a bank of earth not a yard high, which partially covered
the Russian guns of position, and which was probably intended as much
for preventing them from running down the hill as for anything else.
There were no embrasures, for, as the guns looked over the bank, none
were necessary; it had not even the additional impediment of a ditch in
front, the earth which formed it being taken from spaces dug between the
guns. It was no more like a “Great Redoubt,” than it was like the Great
Wall of China. And this being the case, all such expressions as
“storming” are quite inapplicable.
It is evident that, if an army superior in numbers wishes to bring its
superiority to bear, it must outflank the enemy on one or both sides.
Which flank, then, would it have been best in the present case to turn?
The French turned the left. There was the natural temptation of
advancing over ground where the turning columns were protected by the
fire of the fleet. But they moved against an imaginary foe, and a large
part of the force might have been as well on board ship for all the
effect it had on the action. Moreover, though the turning movement was
completed, yet it had none of its legitimate effects, for the Russians
left only two guns and no prisoners. It is clear then that none of the
advantages to be expected from a successful attack in flank followed
here.
Now suppose—as there are but two flanks to an enemy, and no great things
had been done by turning one—that the manœuvre had been effected against
the other. The Allies would have moved away from the sea up the river.
The road next the sea was closed to the Russians by the ships’
broadsides. Opposite the next road, that by which Bosquet led his second
brigade, the Turks might have been left. The right of the French would
then have been where the right of the English really was, that is, in
the village of Bourliouk. And the English would have stretched so far
beyond the enemy’s right, that at least three divisions would have been
available for turning that flank. To the Russians, seeing this, only
certain alternatives would be possible: either to try to thrust
themselves between us and the sea—in which case the cliff would have
restricted them to the one road guarded by the Turks, and where any part
of their force that made the attempt would be lost if it should fail, as
it certainly would fail; or, secondly, an extension of their already
sufficiently extended line till its length corresponded with that of the
Allies, by which extension it would be fatally weakened; or, thirdly, a
movement of the entire army to the right, which would have uncovered the
Sebastopol road, and was therefore not to be thought of. Therefore the
Russians must have stood to fight on the ground they occupied, throwing
back their right wing to meet the threatened attack on their flank. The
Allied artillery should then have been massed—one portion to oppose the
great battery, one to pour a storm of shot on the right wing, the object
of attack; and the horse-artillery and one or two batteries, after
flanking the advance from their own side of the river, should have been
held ready to follow the flanking columns of attack as soon as they
should be established on the other bank. The advance, instead of being
in echelon from the right, would be in echelon from the left—the Light
Division, followed by the First and Fourth, would make the turning
movement and attack the right wing—the remaining English divisions would
advance upon the centre, and upon the angle formed by the centre and
right; and, as soon as the Russian line fronting the river should be
shaken by the front and flank attack and the reverse fire, the French
divisions advancing would find their share of the task easy. Two results
would have followed, both important—the first, that the position would
have been carried with much less loss of life—secondly, that the losses
of the Russians would have been far greater. For it is to be observed
that, by turning the left of the Russians, and interposing between them
and the sea, they were driven back along their proper line of retreat;
whereas, had the right been turned, the English left wing, pushing
obliquely across the enemy’s rear, would have reached the Sebastopol
road on the top of the plateau, and the result of that would have been
to drive the beaten troops towards the sea, and to enclose all that part
of the Russian left which should be last to retreat between our line and
the cliffs, thus capturing many prisoners. And as the enemy were
superior in cavalry, the English left must have carefully guarded
itself, during its advance, from the Russian horse, first, by our
artillery on our own side of the river, and afterwards by guns following
in support, by battalions on the left echeloned in squares, and by our
own cavalry. Many reasons, then, induce us to consider the French attack
a mistake. And the more complete turning movement which Mr Kinglake
seems, as if by authority, to ascribe to Marshal Pelissier, as what _he_
would have done—namely, “to avoid all encounter with the enemy on his
chosen stronghold by taking ample ground to their left, and boldly
marching round him”—would have been objectionable, inasmuch as it would
have left no option of retreating on Eupatoria, in case the attack
should prove unsuccessful; and no plan can be sound that does not
provide for the contingency of defeat.
Mr Kinglake modestly declines to give an opinion on the question of what
plan might have been better. But he need not have scrupled to do so, as
he deals extremely well with the technicalities of military art. His
account of the manœuvres preceding and during the battle is remarkably
clear. His discussion as to the respective merits of lines and columns
shows that he thoroughly appreciates the philosophy of the subject. But
it is not so much to the credit of his estimate of what constitutes
generalship, that he implies so great approval of Lord Raglan’s solitary
ride beyond the enemy’s front, and of his continued occupation of the
knoll there throughout the stress of the battle. Of course it would be a
great advantage to a general in every action to be able to see exactly
what was passing in rear of the enemy’s line. But it would be an
advantage only as it would give him the means of directing his own
troops with greater certainty. To see the enemy’s rear, at the expense
of losing the control of his own army, would be quite the reverse of an
advantage. And imagine the state of things if two opposing generals in a
battle should be absorbed in their efforts to pass, like two pawns at
chess, behind the opposing lines. If it had appeared to the general that
an opportunity existed for wedging a part of his force within a weak
spot of the enemy’s line, staff officers might have been sent to
ascertain the fact, while the guns and their escort required to effect
the manœuvre might have been brought from the reserve, or the nearest
available division, and posted in readiness to advance. We know that
during this excursion of Lord Raglan the English divisions were confused
for want of a controlling power to direct them. The action of the
English artillery was without unity, at a time when a concentrated fire
against the hill on which the attack was to be made would have had a
most important influence on the result. Mr Kinglake tells us that Lord
Raglan from his knoll witnessed the first advance of the troops of our
first line, and saw that they would not be able to hold their ground
because they were not supported; but adds, that he did not attempt to
apply a remedy, because no order sent by him could possibly arrive in
time to be of service. Surely this of itself might have convinced Mr
Kinglake that the general’s place was elsewhere. And we will add, that,
at the close of the struggle, our successful troops did not receive that
impulsion which none but the supreme directing authority can give, and
which was necessary to push the victory home.
But though we do not think the occasions for praising Lord Raglan are
always judiciously chosen, we thoroughly agree in Mr Kinglake’s estimate
of the character of that kind excellent gentleman and gallant soldier.
His tact, temper, and bearing were all of a kind calculated to be of
eminent service in an allied command, and secured to him at once the
attachment of his own army and the respect of the French.
Mr Kinglake has scarcely accomplished half of that task which is so
weighty, but which his qualities as a narrator have made to seem so
light. And it is because so many events yet remain to receive his
impress, that we would venture to remind him how the French army in the
Crimea, though it did not by its first achievements enhance its
reputation, yet performed many great and gallant actions. The aid which
Bosquet brought us at Inkermann, though long in coming, was effectual.
The part of the French in that battle, infantry and artillery, was
highly honourable. They often maintained terrible conflicts in the
trenches, where both sides fought well, but where the French were
victors. Their arrangements for receiving the attack on the Tchernaya
were such that the assailant never had a chance of penetrating their
lines. And their terrible losses in the final assault prove the
magnitude of the obstacles they encountered, and the ardour with which
they overcame them. But while we do not forget this, neither can we
regret that thus far Mr Kinglake has sought to redress the balance of
history, by awarding to our army its share of credit. Reputation is the
breath of its nostrils, and our allies have appeared but too desirous to
monopolise what was gained in this war.
And we also venture to observe that Mr Kinglake’s enemies—and he has
scattered in these volumes dragon’s teeth enough to produce a plentiful
crop—may find occasion to say that in praising his friends he is equally
uncompromising as in censuring his foes. Small traits of character
receive undue prominence, small merits, undue laudation; as, for
instance, when the way in which the Highland Brigade was made to drink
at the Bulganak is praised as if it were a stroke of military genius,
and where a paragraph is devoted to describing how its commander
pronounced the not very remarkable words, “Forward, 42d!” and when it is
further added, “‘As a steed that knows his rider,’ the great heart of
the battalion bounded proudly to his touch,” Mr Kinglake lets himself
slip into a style much beneath his own. But what no enemy can deny is
the extraordinary animation, clearness, sustained interest, and dramatic
as well as descriptive excellence of the work. A vast field for these
qualities yet remains—the flank march, the commencement of the siege,
the hurricane, the action of Balaklava (fine soil for dragon’s teeth),
the battle of Inkermann, the long calamities and glories of the
trenches, the death of the Czar, and of the English commander, the final
assault, and the destruction of the stronghold—into all these scenes we
shall follow Mr Kinglake, confident of seeing them treated by a great
artist.
As a concluding remark, we will say that we think no history of this war
can be complete which does not devote a chapter to the discussion of the
causes which made the British army of 1854 so different, in all except
fighting power, from the British army of 1814, as a machine of war. The
long peace, the growth of the commercial spirit, the Peace Party, the
administration of the army by the Duke of Wellington, and the influence
of the long-continued public demand for economy, must all be taken into
account before the breaking down of that machine, as to be recorded
hereafter, can be fairly and fully accounted for, and a true comparison
drawn between our military system and that of the French.
THE OPENING OF THE SESSION.
The Session has commenced under circumstances so unfavourable to the
Ministry that even their most sanguine friends are dejected. The omens
are unmistakably against them, and the auspices are corroborated by the
more palpable evidence of hard facts. The Session was barely a week old
when the first division took place, and left the Ministry in a minority.
It was a Government question, but the Opposition motion, brought forward
by Mr Peacocke, was carried by the large majority of 113 to 73. This was
a bad beginning; and, unenlightened by the result, the Ministry have
since then exposed themselves to, and undergone, two similar defeats.
The events of the same week out-of-doors brought them a worse and less
avoidable disaster. Two elections went against them. We certainly do not
claim the Cambridge election as any great triumph of Conservative
principles, but it was a blow to the Ministry. Lord Palmerston’s
reputation is deservedly great, and in not a few elections the
Ministerial candidate has escaped defeat by proclaiming himself simply a
Palmerstonian, and asserting that the Premier was as good a Conservative
as any member of the Opposition. The ex-member for Cambridge, Mr
Steuart, although returned as a Conservative, subsequently became a
“Palmerstonian;” but no sooner did his constituents obtain an
opportunity of showing their sentiments by their votes, than they
declared in favour of a Conservative who avowed himself an opponent of
Lord Palmerston. This, we say, may be called a trifle, but it is a straw
which shows which way the wind is blowing. The other electoral
contest—at Devonport—was a very different affair. In former elections
for that borough the Liberals had won the day. Moreover, owing to the
large Government dockyards, the constituency of Devonport is peculiarly
amenable to Ministerial influence. In spite of all this, the Ministerial
candidate, although strenuously backed by the whole influence of the
Admiralty, and himself a Grey to boot, has been defeated, and one of the
most stanch of Conservatives, and a thorough party-man, Mr Ferrand, has
been elected by a majority of thirty. This is a triumph for the
Opposition too remarkable to be explained away. The Government has been
defeated in its own dockyard. Driven to candour by the very magnitude of
the disaster, a Ministerial journal[11] says:—“It is a surprising
innovation. Constituencies like Devonport, where the Government is a
great employer of labourers having votes, have hitherto been considered
almost as nomination boroughs.” Even the Whigs have got sick of
“innovations” now, finding they will no longer go down with the public;
but such an innovation as that accomplished by the constituency of
Devonport must cut them to the heart. If they can no longer get their
candidates returned even in Government pocket boroughs, what are they to
do? In Ireland a Government appointment went a-begging for a year,
because no Whig member would risk the new election that must follow his
acceptance of it. It would seem that the Government are now in the same
sad predicament on both sides of the Irish Channel.
Obviously the “Conservative reaction” has entered upon a new phase. The
country is resolved to have not only a Conservative policy, but a
Conservative Ministry. At first, when it was seen that the Whig Ministry
abandoned its mischievous attempts to degrade the franchise, many
constituencies contented themselves with electing men of Conservative
tendencies, even though they gave a general support to the Government.
But this feeling is dying away; neutrality is being abandoned for active
opposition. The change is doubtless due to more causes than one. But the
chief influence in producing the change is a love of fair-play. This is
peculiarly the case in regard to the English constituencies, where
public opinion is more calm and better balanced on political questions
than it is in the sister kingdoms. There is a striking difference, we
may remark, in the modes of political feeling and action which
characterise the three great sections of the United Kingdom.
Party-spirit and religious zeal (which, though generally, are not always
coincident forces) predominate in Ireland. In Scotland, although the
ecclesiastical spirit is very strong, the peculiar characteristic of the
people in politics is their attachment to ideas pure and simple: they
are the great theorists and innovators, and will go all lengths in the
logical application of their principles. Fortunately the English
constituencies are admirable ballast, and keep straight the vessel of
the State. They care little for “ideas,” but a great deal for good and
safe government: they are businesslike and matter-of-fact, and, above
all things, are lovers of fair-play. In many an English constituency the
representation, by mutual agreement, is divided between the rival
parties. A Whig and a Tory are returned together, or two Tories and a
Whig, or one Tory and two Whigs; and in some boroughs, where there is a
great landed proprietor who owns nearly the whole area of the borough,
the duke or other magnate is allowed to name one member and the majority
of the constituency the other. This is a businesslike compromise which
aptly illustrates English character. Every one knows that property must
have a great influence, whether wielded by a territorial magnate or by a
millowner; but in assigning one seat to the magnate, the constituency
is, by a well-understood agreement, left free to choose its own man for
the other, without any interference on the part of the magnate’s
influence. In the other case (which generally occurs in counties), where
the representation is divided, equally or unequally, between the rival
political parties, the same spirit of compromise is apparent. It saves
many contested elections, and it is likewise a virtual adoption of the
principle of the representation of minorities. Scotchmen would do none
of these things: a divided representation would seem to them as good as
none. As long as any party in a Scotch constituency has a majority,
however small, it will insist upon carrying its own men. The spirit of
compromise which distinguishes English constituencies arises partly from
their love of fair-play, partly from the fact that they are not such
fervid politicians as the Scotch, and deal with politics not as an
affair of immutable principles or scientific deduction, but as an
ordinary business matter, which they decide by striking a balance of the
miscellaneous considerations which affect them. Now, that balance is
turning every day more strongly against the Liberals. The Scotch may
think it best to have Liberals in office even though they carry out a
Conservative policy. But Englishmen don’t like this. In the first place,
it is not fair. Each side should have its innings, and the Whigs have
confessedly played out their game. Office has its sweets, and John Bull
thinks that it is more than time that the Tories should get their turn
of the good things. A man cannot live upon politics any more than upon
love; and although to the leading statesmen on both sides the emoluments
of office are as nothing, the tenure of political power by one party or
the other makes a material difference to each. John Bull understands
this. Moreover, if the retention of office by the Liberals is not fair,
it is also not manly or honest. John Bull, like old George III., does
not like “Scotch metaphysics.” He does not appreciate the casuistical
reasoning by which it may be shown that a Ministry which took office to
do one thing, may stay in office to do the opposite. Since the Whigs
have given up their principles, he thinks they should also give up their
places. Doubtless too, if he takes any interest in the morals of
Whiggery (which we greatly doubt, seeing they are so purely
speculative), he must come to the conclusion that the principles of the
party are rotting so fast on the Treasury seats that it is high time to
give them an airing in the bracing atmosphere of the Opposition benches.
The country now sees that, if it had known the truth four years ago, the
present Ministry would never have been in existence. The Whigs and
Radicals overthrew the Conservative Government in 1859 by means of false
statements and false professions. It took some time before the real
state of the case could be demonstrated, but gradually it was made plain
by the conduct of the Liberals themselves. Slowly but steadily the truth
has dawned upon the constituencies: they feel that they were duped by
the present occupants of office, and they are now conscious also that
they did injustice to the Conservatives. The Whig chiefs who, before
they got into office, deemed Parliamentary Reform a matter of such
urgency that they promised to hold a special session in November in
order to pass a Reform Bill, first delayed to fulfil their promise, and
then threw up the matter altogether. The excuse which they plead is,
that they found Parliament unfavourable to any further tampering with
the constitution. But if Parliament was right, they themselves were
condemned; if it were wrong, why did they not dissolve, and appeal to
the country? Had they been in earnest, they would have dissolved: but
they knew that a dissolution would have been followed by the election of
a Parliament still more hostile to them and to their measure. And
therefore they chose rather to remain self-condemned, and to be pointed
at with the finger of scorn, by the one party as recreants, by the other
as impostors, rather than save their honour at least by the sacrifice of
office. This tells against them now. The revulsion of public feeling was
not, and could not be, immediate—for the duplicity and insincerity of
the Ministry only revealed itself by degrees; but it was certain from
the first, and has now become overwhelming. The Ministry have come to be
regarded with contempt, and every new election is taken advantage of by
the constituencies to give expression to their censure. But this is not
the whole of the change which the last four years have wrought on the
public mind. Alongside of the consciousness of the sins and demerits of
the present Ministry, there has arisen the conviction that the
principles of the Conservative party are the right ones for the country.
The constituencies now feel not only that the present Ministry is a bad
one, but that its predecessor was a good one. They have become sensible
that, if any Reform Bill were needed at all, the Bill brought forward by
Mr Disraeli was the one that best deserved to be adopted. They are now
conscious that if any change at all were requisite in the matter of
Church-rates, Mr Walpole’s Bill was well deserving of support, and that
the measure of total abolition to which the present Ministry have
pledged themselves is wholly out of the question. Finally, and for a
good while past, the country has come to see that, led away by the
misrepresentations of the Whigs, it did gross injustice to the foreign
policy of the Conservative Government. We do not know by what fatality
it was that Lord Malmesbury’s despatches on the Italian question were
not published until too late to affect the division on the vote of want
of confidence in June 1859. Had they been published earlier, we believe
the issue of that division would have been different. Every one may
remember (or may see for himself by referring to the file) the effect
which the publication of those despatches produced on the ‘Times,’ and
how the leading journal, thus enlightened as to the facts, frankly, and
without any reservation, admitted that Lord Malmesbury had been right
throughout. And certainly no one can forget how Lord John Russell, when
taking farewell of the House of Commons, took occasion—or rather made
occasion—to say that he approved of the policy of his predecessor, and
that (which is more than his colleagues could say) he had been of that
opinion from the beginning. The impression, originated and studiously
fostered by Lord Palmerston and his followers, that the Conservatives
are unfriendly to the cause of freedom and independence in Italy, is
totally unfounded. They have certainly mistrusted the disinterestedness
of the policy of the French Emperor, and have cautioned the Italian
Government against seeking to reach the height of its ambition by
machinations which would only redound to its own disadvantage: and on
both of these points the Italians themselves must now be convinced that
the warnings and advices of the Conservative statesmen were wellfounded.
At all events, taught by a bitter experience, the Italian Government is
now following the very course which the Conservatives recommended. We
may add a word on our own part. The Magazine will certainly be admitted
to be as sound an exponent of Conservatism as is to be found either in
or out of Parliament, and we can refer to our own pages to demonstrate
how heartily we have sympathised with the Italian cause, wherever it was
not marred by such secret traffickings with the French Government, as
the Italians themselves now regret and condemn; or by violations of law
which, though natural to times of revolution, may be condoned, but
cannot be approved.
The Ministerial programme for the present Session contains another
confession of errors on the part of the Government, and a fresh proof of
the wisdom of the opinions of the Conservative party. Destitute, as
usual, of the capacity to originate measures of useful legislation, the
Budget is to be brought forward early, to cover the prospective
barrenness of the Session. And what is the feature of this year’s
Budget, upon which the Ministry rely to cover their flagrant incapacity
in other matters of administration? It is a reduction of the naval and
military estimates! It is the adoption of the very course so earnestly
advocated last year by the Opposition, and so strenuously resisted by
the Government. Hardly eight months have elapsed since Lord Palmerston
and his colleagues confidently and haughtily maintained that no
reduction could be made upon the large sums voted for the support of the
national armaments, without destroying the influence and safety of the
country. Mr Disraeli, during last Session, argued strongly in favour of
making such a reduction, on the ground that so heavy an expenditure was
uncalled for, and was in reality damaging to our military power, by
trenching so deeply upon the financial resources of the State. Again and
again he pressed these views upon the Government—it was his constant
theme all through last Session; but the Government refused to accept the
warnings, and resolutely maintained that no reduction could be made.
What, then, are we to think of them now? In what respect is the attitude
of the times more favourable for a reduction now than it was eight
months ago? In so far as there has been any change, the change has been
clearly for the worse. There has been a revolution in Greece, of the
issues of which as yet we have hardly seen the beginning. Servia has
been arming, by the secret assistance of Russia; and the Danubian
Principalities, and northern provinces of Turkey generally, are in a
more unquiet state than they have been for years. And now we have a
revolution in Poland, which is throwing all Central Europe into
agitation, and furnishing fresh opportunities for the intrigues or
intervention of other Powers. So far, then, as there has been any change
in the situation since last summer, the change, we repeat, has been for
the worse. Nothing could demonstrate more strikingly than this the
consciousness of the Government that they were wrong last Session, and
that the Conservatives were right. It is a new triumph for the
Conservative party—a fresh condemnation of themselves by the Ministry.
The trump card with which the Ministry are to lead off this Session has
been stolen from the hands of the Opposition.
It is high time, indeed, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer were
retrenching his expenditure; for, weak as the Administration has been in
other respects, the management of the finances has been peculiarly
disastrous. Although the present Ministry took office with a surplus,
which they owed to their predecessors, in the two succeeding years
(1860–2) in which Mr Gladstone had the exclusive direction of the
finances, his mismanagement accumulated a deficit of four millions
sterling. Nor is this all. For in the same period Mr Gladstone
anticipated the revenue of the country to the extent of
£3,200,000,—namely, £2,000,000 anticipated upon the income-tax, and
upwards of £1,200,000 upon the malt-credit. This enormous deficit—_seven
and a half millions sterling_—was, moreover, accumulated during a period
when the national Exchequer enjoyed windfalls such as very rarely come
to the aid of a Minister of Finance. The falling-in of the terminable
annuities has reduced the charges on the National Debt to the extent of
£2,000,000; and there was also the unexpected repayment of a portion of
the Spanish loan. Mr Gladstone, therefore, has enough to do with the
surplus which he will obtain by the proposed reduction of the
expenditure. He has first to restore the Exchequer balances to their
proper amount, by repaying the £2,684,000 which he abstracted from them
to meet his exigencies between March 1860 and March 1862. He has
likewise to get rid of the addition to the National Debt which he
created, to the extent of £461,000. And, finally, he has to cease his
forestalments of the revenue. When he has done these things, where will
be his surplus? Mr Gladstone, in former times, used to denounce the
slightest forestalment of the yearly revenue as a flagrant “violation of
political morality;” and there is no question that such a procedure can
only be excused under exceptional circumstances and to a very small
amount. The House of Commons, therefore, as watchful guardians of the
public revenue, will surely call upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer to
restore matters to their normal condition before he does anything else.
The same must be done in regard to the Exchequer balances. And if it be
not an equally pressing necessity to pay off the £461,000 of new debt,
surely Mr Gladstone, who aspires to the reputation of a great Finance
Minister, will be ashamed to leave unpaid off a portion of the national
obligations which will hereafter be known as “Gladstone’s Debt.”
Unfortunately, when we think of 1853–4, we must allow that this is not
the only portion of the National Debt which may be thus designated.
Most financiers, and all sound ones, in such circumstances, would devote
the surplus of revenue which might accrue to redressing the adverse
balance of former years. But Mr Gladstone belongs to a new school. He
leaves the balances to come right as they may, or bequeaths them as an
embarrassment to his successor; while he goes on in his seemingly
endless process of devising financial alterations, which always leave
him deeper in the mire. He loves to carry every inch of canvass—he
crowds all sail as he drives his financial pinnace through strange
waters; but he has shipped so many seas that the Exchequer has become
waterlogged. He had better bale out the water before he goes any
further. But this is precisely what he will not do. He must have a
“sensation” budget. He must reduce some branches of the revenue and
experiment with more. Already he lifts up a corner of the curtain to
give us a glimpse of the grand tableau of jugglery which he has in store
for us; and in due time the House will be wheedled and overwhelmed by
the suave rhetoric of the great financial juggler. Possibly, however,
the country will think that it has had too much of this already. It
thinks of the cheap paper and cheap wines, and cannot see anything in
these changes to atone for a deficit of seven millions and a half. Mr
Gladstone’s abolition of the paper-duties was done not only at a wrong
time, but in a wrong way. He not only landed himself in a deficit, but
he landed the papermakers in a dilemma. He struck off the excise-duty on
the one hand and the import-duty on paper on the other, and called it
“free trade;” but while making free trade in the manufactured article,
he ought to have taken care that there should be free trade likewise in
the raw material. Several Continental countries send their paper,
untaxed, to compete in the English markets with the produce of our own
paper-mills, while at the same time they place a prohibitory duty on the
export to our shores of rags. Our papermakers do not object to fair
competition, but they object to be subjected by legislative enactment to
so serious a disadvantage. If the crop of cotton in America were to fall
off in extent (as it has done during this civil war), and the Americans,
when peace is restored, were to place (as they have talked of doing) a
prohibitory duty upon the export of cotton, while we did not retaliate
by placing an import-duty on the manufactured article from their ports,
what would our manufacturers think of this sort of “free trade?” Why,
such a state of matters would produce a calamity in our manufacturing
districts equal to that under which we are now suffering, and ruin the
cotton industry in this country permanently. Yet this is the condition
of affairs which Mr Gladstone voluntarily chooses to impose upon our
paper manufacture, in deference to the clamour and exhortations of his
Radical friends. What has become of the touching picture which the
eloquent financier portrayed of paper-mills springing up all over the
country,—when every hamlet was to have its little factory, engaging the
surplus labour of the lads and lasses; and every glen that had a
streamlet was to be made musical with the noise of a paper-mill? We have
not heard of any such results—we have not heard of any extension at all
of the manufacture; and as for Mr Gladstone’s arcadian dreams of
paper-making, while foreign Governments act towards us in the way they
do, he surely cannot possibly hope for their realisation—unless, indeed,
he expects the whole country to go to rags under his financial
mismanagement.
The other basis upon which Mr Gladstone founds his reputation as a great
financier, and as an ample compensation for his past annual deficits, is
his reduction of the duties upon French wines. We readily admit that
these wines have been poured into this country in greatly increased
quantities during the last eighteen months; but will this continue? And
what is the advantage we derive from the change? “Gladstone’s wines” has
become a current name for these beverages, but it is certainly not a
“household word.” Any one who confesses, with rueful face, that he has
made acquaintance with these wines, never fails to explain that it was
at another man’s table, or at some villanous restaurant’s,—never at his
own. No decanter will circulate if its contents are known to have been
favoured by the legislation of Mr Gladstone. People have become wary and
suspicious at dinner-parties now; and a Paterfamilias may be heard
giving the caution which old Squire Hazeldean gave to his son when about
to dine with Dr Riccabocca, “Whatever you take, Frank, don’t touch his
wines!” Those “cheap wines” have been tried—or, at least, if tried, have
been condemned and discarded at every respectable dinner-table. They
don’t suit the middle classes; that is an incontrovertible fact. We are
not less sure they are equally ill suited to the tastes and requirements
of the working-classes. They have hitherto been tried largely as a
novelty; but they do not improve on acquaintance, even if we could
forget the much better use which Mr Gladstone could have made of his
opportunities. Depend upon it, Nature knows better than any Chancellor
of the Exchequer how to provide for our bodily wants, and supplies the
essential wants of each people from the products of their own country.
Let our working-classes get good beer at its natural price, and it will
be infinitely better for their health, and more to their taste, than
giving them cheap foreign wines, whose thinness and acidity are not
suited for our climate, and which cannot compete with beer as nourishers
and supporters of the bodily strength. When we remember, on the one
hand, that seven and a half millions sterling have been lost to the
country in Mr Gladstone’s financial experiments; and, on the other, how
much better would have been a reduction on the duties of tea, sugar, and
beer, it will be admitted that he could hardly have wasted so much money
with less benefit to the community. Abundance of acid wines and plenty
of paper—it is a curious prescription for Mr Gladstone to found his
reputation upon.
But Mr Gladstone is resolved to proceed in his eccentric course. His
crotchet this year is to cheapen tobacco. Three and a half years ago (in
November 1859) Mr Bright delivered two orations at public meetings in
favour of the abolition of the duties on tea, sugar, and tobacco, and
the substitution therefor of an enormous income-tax. But Mr Bright
thought that the tea and sugar duties were more deserving of reduction
than the duty on tobacco, whereas Mr Gladstone gives a preference to
tobacco. How is this to be accounted for? On the surface it appears a
new piece of financial eccentricity; and in every view of the matter the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, we should think, will find no small
difficulty in obtaining the consent of Parliament to his proposal. There
can be no question that tea, sugar, and beer have each and all prior
claims upon the favour of Parliament, if the wellbeing of the community
is to be consulted. But Mr Gladstone, in the speech which he made when
introducing his proposal, propounded the extraordinary doctrine that a
Chancellor of the Exchequer (and of course the Government which must
approve his acts) has nothing to do with the wellbeing of the community.
His only duty, says Mr Gladstone, is to get as much money as possible
out of the taxed commodities. Judged by this rule, Mr Gladstone has
certainly been a most unsuccessful Minister. We cannot, indeed, accept
this view of a Minister’s obligations to the country; but, even if it
were accepted, it would not furnish any justification of Mr Gladstone’s
proposal. He says that the present duty upon tobacco is so high that
smuggling is carried on to a large extent, and cannot be prevented by
the Custom-house officers. This would be a good argument for abolishing
the duty or reducing it to a trifling amount, but it is totally
inapplicable to the case when he proposes to leave a tax of five
shillings a-pound on manufactured tobacco, which is more than equal to
the price of the best manufactured tobacco, freight included. The
smuggler would still make a profit of more than a hundred per cent on
the value of the commodity; and does any one believe that smuggling
would cease, or even be sensibly diminished, when the premium upon
smuggling is so great, and when (as Mr Gladstone states) the facilities
of evasion are so plentiful? If Mr Gladstone were honest in the plea
upon which he rests his proposal for this reduction of customs-duty, he
would be labouring under a great delusion. But we take another view of
the matter. It seems to us that his real object is secretly to carry out
Mr Bright’s scheme of finance, and with great craft he begins with the
duties on tobacco, where his operations are least likely to excite
suspicion, but which, if accomplished, will render the subsequent steps
of the scheme not only easy but inevitable. There may be little to find
fault with in the present proposal considered by itself; but what is its
bearing in regard to our financial system? Reduce the duty on tobacco,
and what other customs-duty can be maintained? Mr Gladstone was never
more eloquent and plausible than when proposing to reduce the duty on
foreign wines; now he is playing the same artful game in regard to
tobacco. Can Parliament be any longer blind to the course to which he is
committing it? Honest financiers, who could afford to make a reduction
of taxation, would begin with tea, sugar, and beer, as the duties on
these can be remitted with the greatest advantage to the community;
while those on luxuries, such as foreign wines and tobacco, could be
maintained without inconvenience or complaint. But just for this very
reason Mr Gladstone, who aims at accomplishing Mr Bright’s scheme of
taxation, begins at the other end—knowing well that if he can reduce the
taxes on tobacco as well as on foreign wines, the _abolition_ of the
other customs-duties will follow as a natural consequence. A reduction
to the extent of one-half the duties on luxuries cannot be balanced save
by totally abolishing the duties on the necessaries of life. We have a
strong conviction that this is his game; for the good reason that upon
no other supposition is his conduct intelligible. Mr Gladstone is not a
fool; he must have an adequate motive for this seemingly crotchety
course; and we believe we have named it. Let the House of Commons look
to it, before they are led too far into the toils to be able to recede.
Plausible in the extreme, and ever seeking to conciliate or overreach
his audience by all the arts of rhetoric and casuistry, Mr Gladstone
changes his arguments and mode of dealing with the House almost every
year, as may best suit his plans. Financial principles he has none—save
the great one which he conceals. All arguments are fair, he thinks—all
professions of opinion justifiable, in order that he may carry his
point, and lead the House step by step unwittingly towards his goal. We
need not allude to the rhetorical craft by which, in 1860, when he
wished to gain the assent of the House to an increase of the income-tax,
he maintained that there was a deficit of twelve millions; whereas, in
the following year, when the balance was worse by 2½ millions, but when
he eagerly desired to obtain the abolition of the paper-duties, he
boldly represented that there was a surplus. At one time he represents
that the proper way to proceed with a Budget is by a multiplicity of
separate bills; at another time (when it suits his purpose better) in
the form of a single bill. But his disregard of financial principles, or
rather his alternate adoption and repudiation of principles the most
opposite, is a still more glaring offence. In the case of the French
Treaty, he was wholly in favour of Reciprocity; in the case of the
Paper-duties, he represented that it was right for us to abolish them
without any attempt at obtaining reciprocity, and although some
countries actually prohibited the export of the raw material of the
manufacture! He reduced the duty on French wines on the ground that the
reduction would benefit the morals of the working-classes, by enabling
them to drink light wines instead of strong spirits; he now justifies
his proposed reduction of the duty on tobacco on the very opposite
principle—to wit, that a Chancellor of the Exchequer has nothing
whatever to do with the morals or wellbeing of the people. His dogma for
the hour is, that his only duty is to make the taxes as profitable as
possible. We have shown that it is very doubtful if his present proposal
will have that effect; but, in any case, how would his new dogma accord
with his policy in the last two years in wholly abolishing the duties on
paper and other commodities? He is the most dangerous Minister that has
ever been intrusted with the management of the British finances. He has
not only involved the country in an accumulation of deficits, but he has
had the art to persuade Parliament to do this with its eyes open; while
at the same time he leads it onward, with its eyes carefully bandaged,
towards the goal of democratic finance—which of late years has become
the cynosure of his policy, and which he knows would at once become
unattainable if his real purpose were avowed.
Now that we are to have a surplus—in consequence of the Ministry at
length adopting the views of the Opposition—the first duty which
devolves upon the House of Commons is to retrieve the financial mistakes
of the past, and to rid us of its burdens. What the Conservative leaders
advocated last session was not reduction of taxation, but retrenchment
of expenditure. The Government had incurred a deficit of £7,500,000 in
two years, and the first thing to be thought of was, to reduce the
expenditure, in order that the deficit might be cleared off. Let Mr
Gladstone do this—let him clear off the serious deficits in his previous
years of office; and then—but not till then—ought he to propound new
reductions of the revenue. But such a businesslike proceeding would not
make a sensation budget; it would not surround the Ministry with that
bright gleam of popularity which is to retrieve their position, and
carry them through another session of barrenness and humiliation. In all
probability Mr Gladstone’s proposal is to ignore the past deficits, and
devote the whole of his prospective surplus to the reduction of
taxation. By a reduction of taxes the country is to be bribed into
forgetfulness of the past, and rendered placable to the appeal for
respite on the part of a falling Ministry. It is not to be expected that
Mr Gladstone will confine his favours to tobacco: he must support his
great remission of duty on this luxury by minor reductions on articles
of more usefulness. While striking four shillings a-pound off tobacco,
he will strike a few pence or farthings off the price of tea and sugar.
In fact, he will probably, in his usual way, give a trifling sop all
round, in order that he may be allowed to carry his great point in the
reduction of the duties on tobacco. The House will do much better to
abolish, or greatly reduce, the duties on hops and beer. Surely it is
intolerable that foreign luxuries, like tobacco and French wines, should
receive the favours of the Legislature, while the produce of our own
soil and industry, constituting a healthy element of the national food,
should be subjected to heavy taxation. This is a matter which affects
urban constituencies as well as the agricultural interest. Put it to the
vote in any town or county in the land, whether they will have five
shillings a-pound struck off the duty on tobacco, or get the fiscal
burdens removed from beer, and there cannot be a doubt that the whole
suffrages would be given in favour of beer, and against tobacco.
Therefore if Mr Gladstone—as is most likely—be resolved once more to
play an _ad captandum_ game, we trust the House of Commons will be on
the alert to see that any possible reductions of taxation are effected
on articles which enter largely into the food of the people, and not
wasted—with what ulterior object, we need not repeat—upon an enormous
remission on the duties on tobacco and cigars. But it still more behoves
the House to see that Mr Gladstone’s previous deficits are cleared off.
Mr Gladstone must put the finances in the condition in which they were
when he took office. We do not presume he will venture to continue his
practice of forestalling the revenue payments; but he has to refund the
two millions which he abstracted from the balances in the Exchequer in
the two years subsequent to March 1860, and he has also to pay off about
half a million sterling which has been added to the National Debt during
his present term of office. Let him do these things first; and then we
will see how much he has to spare for promoting the introduction of
cigars for the million! Let us clear off our past deficits, before,
under the leadership of this financial sophist, we plunge into others
that we know not of.
The past month has furnished a most singular proof of the want of
sagacity which has characterised the commercial policy of the Whigs
since 1847. On coming into office at that time, their only thought was,
how to rival Sir R. Peel in his highly popular reforms of the tariff.
Unable to equal him in administrative sagacity, they simply travestied
his policy by carrying it to excess. They abolished or reduced
customs-duties, and totally relinquished the Navigation Laws, without a
thought of how the country would fare in its future commercial relations
with other countries. Again and again they were warned that they were
rashly and foolishly relinquishing a valuable vantage-ground without
even attempting to obtain those advantages for our commerce which other
countries would be willing to cede in return. What has been the
consequence? The ‘Magazine’ has so often in former years predicted what
would be the result, that we need not now go over the old ground.
Fortunately the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs has told the tale of
Ministerial failure so well, that his speech on Feb. 17, in answer to Mr
Fitzgerald, completely substantiates the correctness of our old
predictions. We print it here as furnishing ample matter for reflection
to politicians on both sides of the House:—
“When the hon. member for Rochdale went to Paris to negotiate the
French treaty, the first thing he was asked was, What had he to offer?
If he had gone to Paris with his hands empty, it was not probable that
he would have succeeded in obtaining the concessions which the French
Government made to him. Fortunately, however, the hon. gentleman had
much to offer. There were heavy duties on wine and other articles of
French produce and manufactures, and in consideration of a reduction
in those duties the French Government consented to various changes in
their tariff which had proved very beneficial not only to this country
but to France. It was necessary to bear in mind that in our domestic
legislation we differed from France. We at once gave the whole world
the benefit of the concessions which had been made to our ally.
France, on the other hand, withheld from others the privileges she had
conceded to us, and thus retained in her hands the means of bargaining
with other Powers for mutual commercial concessions. When one nation
sought any favour from another nation, there were various grounds on
which the request might be based. An appeal might be made to the
generosity of the other Power, but it was doubtful whether that would
have much effect; or an appeal might be made to a treaty which gave
the applicant the privileges of the most favoured nation, and a claim
advanced for certain privileges which had been granted to another
State. Therefore it was, above all things, desirable that when one had
no concessions to offer in return for the advantages sought, some
other Power, which possessed the means of bargaining, should commence
the negotiations. That was the reason why France had been allowed to
precede us in the present instance, and every concession which was
made to her gave us a right to claim the same. If we had taken the
initiative, the Italian Government would very naturally have said,
‘You have nothing to give us in exchange for what we give you, and if
we freely concede your demands we shall be placed in a bad position in
making terms with France.’ So far from Her Majesty’s Government not
having endeavoured to make treaties of commerce with other nations,
the fact was that there was scarcely a Power in Europe with whom
negotiations had not been opened during the last year or two. The
Belgian Government were asked to make a treaty of commerce with us, as
they had done with France; and it was pointed out to them that it
would be an unfriendly act, having entered into a treaty with France,
to refuse to negotiate one with England. They replied by asking what
we could give to them in return, and they suggested that if they gave
to us what they had given to France, we [having nothing of our own to
offer them] should consent to capitalise the Scheldt dues. Now, the
capitalisation of the Scheldt dues had nothing whatever to do with a
treaty of commerce, and our Government [_nota bene_, having nothing to
bargain with!] at once refused to admit the principle of purchasing a
treaty. [And yet, in the very year previous, they had “purchased” the
treaty with France!]... The House was aware that last year the French
Government were negotiating a treaty with Prussia and the Zollverein.
As soon as that fact became known, our Government applied to Prussia
and the Zollverein to make with us a similar treaty of commerce. The
reply was precisely the same we received from Belgium—that
negotiations could not be entered into with us until those in progress
with France were concluded. France, it was said in effect, can give us
an equivalent. You can give us none.”
During the present month the conflict of parties in the Legislature will
be suspended as far as the business of the country will allow. The
nation and its representatives will have little taste for polemical
discussion during the month that is to witness the joyous event of the
marriage of the heir-apparent to the throne. The country will be in
jubilee, and London will be absorbed in the fêtes and royal ceremonial
attendant upon the nuptials. The good wishes of all flow out to the
young Prince and his Danish bride. The hopes of the nation centre in
him. The hearty greetings of the people await him on this happy
occasion. He has proved himself worthy of the esteem which he so fully
enjoys. Since the days of the Black Prince, no heir to the throne has
given so many happy auguries of his future. Unlike the peerless son of
Edward III., we trust that he will be spared “long to reign over us,”
after the evil hour for us when his royal mother shall exchange her
earthly crown for a better one. Before the royal pageantries and popular
illuminations begin, and the acclamations of the first nation in the
world arise to greet him and his beautiful bride, we tender them our
sympathies, our congratulations, and our best wishes for their
happiness. The union promises to be a happy one for the royal pair. It
is a present happiness, and we trust it will be a lasting comfort, to
our beloved Queen. It is the first gleam of returning sunshine to her
heart after the darkness of sorrow and bereavement which so suddenly
settled down upon her fifteen months ago. We know no drawback upon the
general joy. Even in a political point of view this alliance is
fortunate, and desirable above any other that could be formed. The
country is thrice happy to know that this is a union of hearts as well
as of hands, and that the bride-elect possesses in an eminent degree
those advantages of person, charms of manner, and piety and amiability
of character, which captivate affection and secure domestic happiness.
While as a good princess and queen she will win our hearts, it is an
additional pleasure to feel that, as a Scandinavian Princess, she will
rivet an old and national alliance, and draw into closer bonds the
kindred races of the North.
Though there will be a temporary truce, we fear the conduct of the
Government, whether as represented by Mr Gladstone or by Lord Russell,
will not be such as the Conservative Opposition can approve. Even apart
from its acts, the position of the Ministry is so unnatural, and its
reputation so tarnished and discredited, that it cannot possibly hope
for a much longer respite. Every week its position is becoming more
untenable. In vain do its friends endeavour to frame apologies for its
defeats and pleas for its existence. In vain does the leading journal at
one time claim as a merit for the Premier that he has “no principles;”
in vain does it, at another, seek to intimidate electors by declaring
that “unprincipled constituencies make unscrupulous Governments.” We
should have thought that “unprincipled constituencies” were the very
ones to support a Premier with no “principles.” However, as the
subsequent election at Totnes showed, the threat was no idle word: and
Government influence and the most tyrannical pressure were employed to
coerce the free action of that constituency. But this course also has
failed. At Totnes the Government simply escaped defeat: Liberals were
returned as Liberals had been before. But at Devonport, another pocket
borough of the Ministry, the Government was defeated, and for the first
time for several elections a Conservative headed the poll. Ministerial
tyranny had been carried too far. It succeeded in the first instance,
but would not be brooked in the second. The “unscrupulous Government”
has received a check in the corrupt exercise of its powers which it can
never forget. It was at once a triumph for Conservatism and for the
principle of freedom of election. We do not wonder that Mr Ferrand, when
he took his seat in the House, should be received with hearty
acclamations from the Conservatives, who crowded the Opposition benches
to do him honour. The Conservative party is now stronger by eleven
votes—counting twenty-two on a division—since June 1859, when the united
Whigs and Radicals succeeded in overthrowing Lord Derby’s Government by
a majority of only thirteen.
It is amusing to see the subterfuges by which the Whigs seek to conceal
their discomfiture. Feeling themselves going downhill very fast,
disintegrating, expiring, they cry out that “there are no parties
nowadays.” Some of them even go the length of saying that there are “no
principles;” the correctness of which statement we shall not dispute as
regards themselves. They should know best; and, indeed, as all their old
principles are dead and gone, dismissed into the limbo of vanities, we
do not see how they can have any left. It is certainly suspicious that
the Whigs should have innocently discovered that the age of party is
past, at the very time that the Tory party has regained its old
ascendancy in the Legislature. Plain people will not be at a loss to
assign a reason. The Whigs as a party are extinct, and, like
Chesterfield and Tyrawley, “they don’t wish it to be known.” The only
thing that can keep the Whigs alive in the imagination of the public, is
to show that party is dead. Happily the country has only to look at the
Opposition side of the House to see that the Tory party is alive, and
exuberant in strength and hope. It is fortunate for the interests of the
State that they are so. The main attack upon the bulwarks of the
Constitution has been decisively repulsed—the legions of “Reform” have
been scattered in such hopeless rout that their leaders have thrown away
their standards and disavow their cause. But the fight still goes on
against another front of the Constitution, which, until lately, was but
ill defended. This combat, so interesting and important, is itself a
test of party; and seldom have the organisation and discipline of party
been more strikingly displayed than in this keen warfare. Party dead!
No, truly. “An opinion has been industriously promulgated of late,”
justly observes a contemporary,[12] “that party distinctions have ceased
in public life, and that there are no contested principles between the
two great political connections of the State. Yet simultaneous with the
propagation of this doctrine has been the most systematic and successful
assault in Parliament upon the Church of England that it has encountered
since 1640.” Repulsed from the political front of the Constitution, the
waves of combat still dash furiously against our religious institutions.
It is time that the Conservatives should overthrow the enemies of the
Constitution in this quarter also by a decisive victory. It will be
their crowning triumph. In truth there is no other beyond it. When they
have terminated this combat, the Conservative triumph is complete in the
Legislature, as it already is in the country. The Church is part and
parcel of the British Constitution; and very heartily do we approve of
our ecclesiastical contemporary’s exhortations to Churchmen to look
after their special interests. The Church is a party question, like any
other; and in the intense competition of a constitutional country, the
Church must organise its press, like the other institutions of the land.
There is a good time coming sure enough, and the cause of its coming is
easily understood. The Conservative party are superior alike in
sincerity and in statesmanlike ability to the party which has so long
prided itself in the advocacy of organic changes. Moreover, they
represent the normal feeling of Englishmen. Conservatism is the
distinguishing feature of the British character. The public of this
country has no love for those theoretic ideals of government, those
paper-constitutions, which have so often fascinated and brought misery
upon other nations. The reign of Innovation is ever short-lived with us;
and the supremacy of the party who represent that principle must be
equally transitory. The Whig party, who became champions of innovation
in order to regain the power which they had lost, now find that their
old vantage-ground has slipped from under them. They have had their day
as rough-hewers of the Constitution, and now give place again to the
more masterly artists who know how to chisel the marble while preserving
the lineaments of the noble design. This natural decline of the Reform
party has been rendered more inevitable by the very efforts they have
made to maintain themselves in power. Everything portends the speedy
ascendancy of the Conservative party in Parliament; and the leaders of
the party are the very men to lend to such a cause the lustre of
personal renown. Derby, Malmesbury, Disraeli, Bulwer Lytton, Pakington,
Walpole, Stanley, Cairns, Whiteside, are names of which any party and
any cause might be proud. They have the advantage of years, too, on
their side; for, compared with their rivals, they are all in the vigour
of life, and in the prime of states-manhood. The tide of public opinion
has long been rising in their favour, and they have not long to wait.
They are strong, and therefore are calm; they are patriotic, and will
not imitate the factious tactics of their rivals. But their final
success is at hand; and their triumph will be all the more glorious,
inasmuch as it promises to partake less of the character of a
party-victory, than of an ovation offered to them by the whole
enlightened classes of the community.
_Printed by William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh._
-----
Footnote 1:
‘La Vie de Village en Angleterre; ou, Souvenirs d’un Exile.’ Paris:
Didier. 1862.
Footnote 2:
‘Vie Moderne en Angleterre.’ Par Hector Malot.
Footnote 3:
‘Studies in Roman Law; with Comparative Views of the Laws of France,
England, and Scotland.’ By Lord Mackenzie, one of the Judges of the
Court of Session in Scotland. W. Blackwood & Sons. 1862.
Footnote 4:
I should add that, since writing the above, one day my eye was
attracted by the unusual number of people (there were nine) reading
one of the royal decrees just promulgated and placarded on the wall:
it concerned the uniform of subordinate officials.
Footnote 5:
The ‘Chiacchiera’ of 3d January.
Footnote 6:
‘Relations Politiques de la France et de l’Espagne avec l’Ecosse au
xvi^e Siècle—Papiers d’état, Pièces, et Documents inedits ou peu
connus, tirés des Bibliothêques et des Archives de France. Publiés par
Alexandre Teulet, Archiviste aux Archives de l’Empire.’ Nouvelle
edition, 5 vols. Paris: Renouard. Edinburgh: Williams & Norgate.
‘Les Ecossais en France—Les Français en Ecosse.’ Par Francisque
Michel, Correspondant de l’Institut de France, &c. &c. 2 vols. London:
Trübner & Co.
Footnote 7:
See the cessation of church-building in Scotland brought out in a
well-known article in the ‘Quarterly Review’ for July 1849, on the
Churches and Abbeys of Scotland, understood to be from the pen of Mr
Joseph Robertson.
Footnote 8:
See the article on ‘Baronial and Ecclesiastical Antiquities of
Scotland,’ in the Magazine for August 1850.
Footnote 9:
Article, ‘The French on Queen Mary,’ Magazine for November 1859.
Footnote 10:
‘The Invasion of the Crimea: Its Origin, and an Account of its
Progress down to the Death of Lord Raglan.’ By Alexander William
Kinglake. 2d Edition. William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh and
London.
Footnote 11:
The ‘Daily News.’
Footnote 12:
‘Church and State Review,’ art. ‘Practical Politics.’
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
Page Changed from Changed to
279 were not long absent. Whey they were not long absent. When they
320 a _cause celèbre_ now depending. a _cause célèbre_ now depending.
We We
372 the _coup d’êtat_. The claims of the _coup d’état_. The claims of
St St
● 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_.
● The caret (^) serves as a superscript indicator, applicable to
individual characters (like 2^d).
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