The Project = Gutenberg eBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58 No. 358, August, 1845 by Various (2024)

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58,Number 358, August 1845, by VariousThis eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and withalmost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away orre-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License includedwith this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.orgTitle: Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845Author: VariousRelease Date: January 16, 2009 [EBook #27818]Language: EnglishCharacter set encoding: ISO-8859-1*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH ***Produced by Brendan OConnor, Neville Allen, Jonathan Ingramand the Online Distributed Proofreading Team athttp://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from imagesgenerously made available by The Internet Library of EarlyJournals.)

No. CCCLVIII. AUGUST, 1845. VOL. LVIII.

Transcriber's notes: Minor typographical errors have been corrected. Table of contents has beengenerated for HTML version. Footnotes have been moved to the end of the articles.

Contents

[Pg 129]

ON PUNISHMENT.

How to punish crime, and in so doing reform the criminal; how to upholdthe man as a terror to evil-doers, and yet at the same time beimplanting in him the seeds of a future more happy and prosperouslife—this is perhaps the most difficult problem of legislation. We arefar from despairing of some approximation to a solution, which is theutmost that can be looked for; but we are also convinced that even thisapproximation will not be presented to us by those who seem willing toblind themselves to the difficulties they have to contend with. Without,therefore, assuming the air of opposition to the schemes ofphilanthropic legislators, we would correct, so far as lies in ourpower, some of those misconceptions and oversights which energeticreformers are liable to fall into, whilst zealously bent on viewingpunishment in its reformatory aspect.

We have selected for our comments the pamphlets of Captain Maconochie,not only because they illustrate the hasty and illogical reasonings, theutter forgetfulness of elementary principles, into which such reformersare apt to lapse; but also for the still better reason, that theycontain a suggestion of real value; a contribution towards an efficientprison-discipline, which merits examination and an extensive trial. Wehave added to these pamphlets a brief work of Zschokke's, the venerablehistorian of Switzerland, on death-punishment, in order that we mightextend our observations over this topic also. It is evident that thequestion of capital punishment, and the various questions relating toprison discipline, embrace all that is either very interesting or veryimportant in the prevailing discussions on penal legislation.Transportation forms no essentially distinct class of punishment, as thetransported convict differs from others in this only, that he has toendure his sentence of personal restraint and compulsory labour in aforeign climate.

Reformatory punishment! Alas, there is an incurable contradiction in thevery terms! Punishment is pain, is deprivation, despondency, affliction.But, would you reform, you must apply kindness, and a measure ofprosperity, and a greater measure still of hope. There is no genial[Pg 130]influence in castigation. It may deter from the recommission of theidentical offence it visits, but no conversion, no renewal of the heart,waits on its hostile presence; the disposition will remain the same,with the addition of those angry sentiments which pain endured is sureto generate. No philosopher or divine of these days would invent apurgatory for the purifying of corrupted souls. No—he would say—yourpurgatory may be a place of preparation if you will, but not forheaven. You may make devils there—nothing better; he must be alreadytwice a saint whom the smoke of your torments would not blacken to ademon.

We may rest assured of this, that the actual infliction of thepunishment must always be an evil, as well to mind as body—as well tosociety at large as to the culprit. If the threat alone could beconstantly efficacious—if the headlong obstinacy, the passion, and theobtuseness of men would not oblige, from time to time, the execution ofthe penalty, for the very purpose of sustaining the efficacy of thethreat—all would be well, and penal laws might be in full harmony withthe best educational institutions, and the highest interests ofhumanity. But the moment the law from a threat becomes an act, and thesentence goes forth, and the torture begins, a new but unavoidable trainof evils encounters us. There is war implanted in the very bosom ofsociety—hatred, and the giving and the sufferance of pain. And here, wepresume, is to be found the reason of the proverbially severe laws ofDraco, which, being instituted by a man of virtue and humanity, were yetsaid to have been written in blood: he desired that the threat should beeffective, and that thus the evils of punishment, as well as of crime,should be avoided.

Whatever is to be effected towards the genuine reformation of theculprit, must be the result, not of the punishment itself, but of someadded ingredient, not of the essence of the punishment; as when hopesare held out of reward, or part remission of the penalty, on thepractice of industry and a continuance of good behaviour.

And yet—some one may here object—we correct a child, we punish it, andwe reform. The very word correction has the double meaning of penaltyand amendment. If the plan succeeds so well with the infant, that he whospares the rod is supposed to spoil the child, why should it utterlyfail with the adult? But mark the difference. You punish a child, and ashort while after you receive the little penitent back into your love;nay, you caress it into penitence; and the reconcilement is so sweet,that the infant culprit never, perhaps, has his affections so keenlyawakened as in these tearful moments of sorrow and forgiveness. Theheart is softer than ever, and the sense of shame at having offended iskept sensitively alive. But if you withdrew your love—if, afterpunishment inflicted, you still kept an averted countenance—if noreconcilement were sought and fostered, there would be no reformation inyour chastisem*nt. Between society and the adult culprit, this isexactly the case. Here the hostile parent strikes, but makes no afteroverture of kindness. The blow, and the bitterness of the blow, are leftunhealed. Nothing is done to take away the sting of anger, to keep theheart tender to reproof, to prevent the growing callousness to shame,and the rising rebellion of the spirit. And here reveals itself, in allits force, another notorious difficulty with which the reformer of penalcodes has to contend.

In drawing the picture of the helpless condition of the convicted andpunished criminal, how often and how justly does he allude to thecirc*mstance, that the reputation of the man is so damaged that honestpeople are loath to employ him—that his return to an untainted life isalmost impossible—and that out of self-defence he is compelled toresort again to the same criminal enterprises for which he has alreadysuffered. Struck with this view, the reformer would institute apenitentiary of so effective a description, that the having passedthrough it would be even a testimonial of good character. But who seesnot that the infamy is of the very essence of the punishment? A goodcharacter is the appropriate reward of the good citizen; if the criminal[Pg 131]does not pay the forfeit of his character—if only a certain amount oftemporary inconvenience is to be sustained, the terror of punishment isat an end. Here, on the arena of public life, between society and theculprit, are they not manifestly incompatible—the tenderness that wouldreclaim, and the vigour that must chastise?

There is no question here, we must observe, of that delicate sense ofshame which is the best preservative against every departure fromrectitude. This has been worn out, and almost ceased to operate on themajority of persons who expose themselves to the penal laws of theircountry. It is the value of character as a commercial commodity, as arequisite for well-being, that alone has weight with them. Benevolentprojectors of reform, more benevolent than logical, are fond ofcomparing a prison to an hospital; they contend that the inmates ofeither place are sent there to be cured, and that they should not berestored to society until they are restored, the one to health of body,the other to health of mind. Would they carry out the analogy to itsfair completeness, and maintain that the patient from either hospitalshould be remitted to society with a character equally free from stain?Is the man to be received by the community with the same compassionatewelcome who has gone into prison to be cured of a propensity to theft,as one who has entered an hospital to be relieved of a disease?

An hospital is a word of no inviting sound—and physic, no doubt, issufficiently nauseous to be not inaptly compared to flogging, or anyother punitive discipline: but nauseous drugs are not the only means ofcure; good nursing, vigilant attendance, sometimes generous diet, have alarge share in the curative process. And in the hospital of the mind,the lenitive and fostering measures have a still larger share in thework of a moral restoration. Were this principle of cure, of perfectrestoration, to be adopted as the first principle of penal legislation,it would come to this, that a poor man would have no better way ofrecommending himself to the fatherly care of the state than by thecommission of a crime, and that none, in the lower classes of society,would be so well trained and disciplined for advancing their fortunes inthe world, as those who commenced their career by violating the laws oftheir country.

Imprisonment, with its various accompaniments and modifications, is thegreat reformatory punishment. Indeed, with the exception ofdeath—confined almost entirely to the case of murder—it is the onlypunishment bestowed on serious offences. Imprisonment of some kind,either at home or in the colonies, is the penal safeguard of society;and we must be cautious that we do not so far diminish its terrors, thatit should cease to hold out any threat to a needy malefactor. But beforewe allude to the discipline of the prison, we must take a glance at thisgreat exception of death, which it is the object of many of our zealousreformers entirely to erase from the penal code.

That this extreme punishment should be reserved for the extreme crime ofmurder, seems generally admitted; and the practice, if not the letter,of our law has conformed to this opinion. It would be useless,therefore, to argue on the propriety of inflicting this penalty on otherand less enormous offences. The question is narrowed to this—shalldeath continue to be the punishment of the murderer?

Those who contend for the entire abolition of this punishment, are inthe habit of enlarging much on the inadequate effect produced upon themultitude who witness the spectacle of an execution. This is theirfavourite and most frequent theme. They seem to overlook the much morepowerful effect produced on the imagination of that far greatermultitude who never behold, or are likely to behold, an execution. It iscurious to observe how pertinaciously a certain class of reasoners willdwell on the picture which a crowd presents at a public execution;—muchlike a crowd, we may be sure, at any other public spectacle. Whateverthe object which gathers together a mob of the lowest class, they willsoon begin to relieve the tedium of expectation by coarse jests,drunkenness, and brawling. Yet these descriptive logicians[Pg 132] are neverweary of painting to us the grotesque and disgusting scenes which themass of spectators exhibit on these occasions, as if this were quitedecisive of the question. That ragged children, who have never thoughtof death at all, play their usual pranks at the foot of thegallows—that pickpockets ply their trade in this as in every othergaping crowd—what has all this to do with the impression produced onthe mind of every man and woman throughout the kingdom, by the knowledgethat if he, through sudden passion, or the instigations of cupidity,take the life of a fellow-creature, he shall be—not a spectator at suchan exhibition—but that solitary crawling wretch who, after having spenthis days and nights in agony and fear, is thrust forward, bound andpinioned, to be hanged up there like a dog before the scoffing oryelling multitude?

We willingly concede that a public execution is not an edifyingspectacle. The coarse minds who can endure, and who court it, are thelast to whom such a spectacle should be presented. And, although thepunishment might lose some portion of its terrors, we should prefer thatthe execution should take place in a more private manner; in thecourt-yard, for instance, of the prison, and before a selected number ofwitnesses, partly consisting of official persons, as the sheriffs andmagistrates, and partly of a certain number of persons who might betaken from the several jury lists—the option being given to them eitherto accept or decline this melancholy office. This would be a sufficientpublicity to ensure an impartial administration of the laws. The onlydoubt that remains is, whether it would be sufficient to prevent thespread of false rumours, and absurd suspicions, amongst the people. Itis a prevailing tendency with the mob, whenever any one at all abovetheir own condition is executed, to believe that he has been favouredand allowed to escape. Even in the face of the most public execution,such rumours are circulated. We understand that Mr Tawell is confidentlyreported to be living at this moment in America. Such suspicions,however ridiculous and absurd, must be cautiously guarded against.

After all, the mode of execution is but of secondary importance; arrangeit how you will, it is a lamentable business. Like all otherpunishments, and still more than all other punishments, the actualinfliction of it is an evil to society. When the law passes from thethreat to the execution, it is a social disaster. The main point is,that we present to the imagination of every man a great threat—that ofalmost immediate extermination—if he lift his hand against hisneighbour's life.

That which renders the punishment of death peculiarly appropriate, inour estimation, in the crime of murder, is not by any means itsretaliative character; the sentiment, that "blood must have blood," isone which we have no desire to foster; and if some less grievous penaltywould have the same effect in deterring from the crime, we should, ofcourse, willingly adopt it. Our ground of approval is this, that itpresents to the mind an antagonist idea most fit to encounter thetemptation to the crime. As this temptation must generally be great, andoften sudden, that antagonist idea should be something capable ofseizing upon the apprehension at once—of exercising at once all itsrestraining efficacy. Imprisonment for length of years—the mind mustcalculate and sum up the long list of pains and penalties included inthis threat, before its full import is perceived. But death! And thenthe after-death! For what makes the punishment of death so singularlyapplicable to the case of murder is this, that it awakens whatever mayexist of religious terror in the mind of him who contemplates the crime.On the one hand, he is about to commit a deed on which there are not twoopinions; it is not a crime made such by the laws; it is not even arobbery, for which he may frame excuses out of his destitution, and theharsh distinctions of society; it is murder, which heaven and earth,rich and poor, equally denounce. On the other hand, his guilt will bringhim almost immediately before the tribunal of God, as well as thejudgment-seat of man. No long interval weakens the impression, no longspace holds out the vague prospect of repentance and amendment, and[Pg 133]compensatory acts of goodness; but if he will lift the knife, if hewill mingle the poison, there is the earthly executioner at hand totransfer him to the still more dreadful sentence of the after-world! Thesame opinion which condemns the crime of murder here on earth, as themost atrocious that can be committed, follows him to that othertribunal; and all that his imagination has been accustomed to depict ofthe horrors of internal and eternal punishment, rushes at once upon him.

When the temptation comes in the shape of sudden anger and impetuouspassion, there is a threat as sudden to encounter it. When the crime isrevolved in the secret and guilty recesses of the mind—as when someindividual stands between the tempted man and the possession of afortune, or some other great object of desire—there is religious terroras stealthy, as secret, as unconquerable, as the strongest desire thattakes possession of the human heart, to assist always at hisdeliberations.

M. Zschokke's little treatise, to which we have alluded, contains theusual, together with some unusual, arguments against the punishment ofdeath, and contributes also a novel substitute for it. He begins, intrue German manner, by explaining (inter alia) the difference betweenreason and understanding; the exact distinction between man and the restof the animal creation; and some other metaphysical generalities, which,fortunately, are not concerned with the business in hand. For, as no twowriters agree in their explanations, and as none succeeds in perfectlysatisfying either his reader or himself, it would be impossible, if suchpreliminaries were first to be adjusted, ever to arrive at thediscussion itself. The work is written in letters, addressed to a youngprince; and, at the thirteenth letter—there are but sixteen in thewhole—he approaches his main question—"Nun denn es sei zur sache!""Now then to the matter." And first he protests that death is nopunishment at all. The venerable historian absolutely flies to suchaphorisms as were the delight of Seneca, to prove that death is no evil,and can consequently be no punishment; although there are some who,under the dominion of mere instinct, may deem it such. "The death," hewrites, "of the criminal is no punishment; but for him, as for everyother mortal, only the end of earthly troubles, cares, and sufferings.In vain," he continues, "does the multitude of suicides show us dailythat death is no evil, and therefore no punishment; for the men who thusabridge their days manifestly prefer death to the endurance of the evilsof life."

It has been said, that "he who can look at death starts at no shadows."And certainly, reason on the matter how you will, and prove life to beas worthless as you please, if a man can defy death, and solicit it,there is no other punishment that can be effective. It would be all butimpossible to prevent a criminal, if so resolved, from laying violenthands upon himself; and altogether impossible to prevent him fromcontemplating suicide as his last resort in case of detection, and sonullifying the threat of any other punishment. There is no hold whateveron the man in whom the love of life, or the fear of death, is reallyextinct. But we are far from thinking that Seneca and the Stoics haveyet made so deep an impression on mankind that there is a very generalindifference to death, especially to a death inflicted by others—theignominious sentence of the law.

Again, this author objects, as some others have done, to the punishmentof death, because it is incapable of an adjustment to the degrees ofguilt. What punishment is? Or how can any tribunal determine on degreesof moral guilt? It is not a criminal, it is a crime, that the lawpunishes. To determine between two thieves, which had the better motive,which had the least of thief in him, is not the function of a judge,nor could he perform it, if imposed upon him. It has been remarked bythose who have had wide opportunities of judging—and the annals ofcriminal jurisprudence support the observation—that murderers, taken asa class, are not, as men, the worst order of criminals. Some suddenimpulse, or some one obstinate desire, got the better of their reason;or it might happen, that the motive for committing a great crime was[Pg 134]not of so dark a dye as that which often induces to one of lessturpitude. And yet neither our author, nor any one else, would hesitateto accord to the crime of murder the very severest penalty that standsupon the code.

But M. Zschokke's main argument against the reasonableness and justiceof death-punishment is this, that every man has an originalimprescriptible right, prior to, and in the face of all society—to bea man—"mensch zu sein"—"to develope himself as man." Society maylimit the exercise of this right, but not annul it; may mutilate the manas it thinks fit, but must leave so much of him behind as may bear thename of man. What is to be said of such metaphysical vagaries as these?If this pass for reasoning, the unlawfulness of imprisonment may beproved in the same manner; one has but to assert that man has an apriori indefeasible right to the use of the limbs which nature hasgiven to him. But no man has any right whatever, but under the impliedcondition of performing corresponding duties. This individual, whomthe law will not any longer allow to develope his humanity, should, ifhe had wished to develope himself further, have allowed the like libertyto others.

But that which most remarkably distinguishes M. Zschokke's littleperformance is the substitute for the punishment of death which itsuggests. We believe it was here that M. Sue derived an idea whichoccupies so conspicuous a place in his Mysteries of Paris. Thatsubstitute is blindness. "The blinded man," writes our author, "is aneternal prisoner, without need of prison walls. He must envy otherculprits their chains—their darkest dungeons; for in the darkestdungeons hope may penetrate, and they may one day see the light again.He must envy the dead, on whom the executioner has done his utmost; forto him life itself has become one endless punishment. He is boundwithout fetters—bound more securely than if he were locked to the oaror welded to the rock. Every step, every movement, tells him of hisweakness and of his guilt. The living world around him—he has lost itall; he retains only its sources of pain, and the unfading memory of hisown crime. Scoffed at by the unfeeling, pitied by some, by allshunned—contempt and commiseration and scorn are the smarting scourgesto which he stands defenceless for the residue of his days."

A frightful punishment truly! But we are far from approving of it as asubstitute for death. In the first place, it is equally irrevocable; andit is one, and perhaps the most cogent argument againstdeath-punishment, that it admits of no recall in case of error, noremission or compensation in the event of sentence having been passedupon an innocent man. Our author, indeed, seems to think otherwise; forhe reckons it amongst the advantages of this mode of punishment, that itdoes admit of compensation if it has been unjustly inflicted. To us itseems very doubtful whether any pleasures addressed to the remainingsenses of hearing, of touch, or of taste, can be said to compensate forthe loss of sight. Neither does blindness, any more than death, admit ofdegree or apportionment. In this respect, burning or the use of fireas a punishment, which has been suggested, though not absolutelyadvised, by Bentham, would have a decisive preference. "Fire," writesthat voluminous jurist and legislator, "may be employed as an instrumentof punishment without occasioning death. This punishment is variable inits nature, through all the degrees of severity of which there can beany need. It would be necessary carefully to determine, on the test ofthe law, the part of the body which ought to be exposed to the action offire; the intensity of the fire; the time during which it ought to beapplied; and the paraphernalia to be employed to increase the terror ofthe punishment. In order to render the description more striking, aprint might be annexed, in which the operation should berepresented."—(Works, vol. i. p. 407.)

What is still more to the point, the punishment of blinding is quite asrepugnant to those sentiments of humanity which are said to be outragedby the depriving a fellow creature of his life. As we have beforeintimated, the spectacle of pain inflicted is at all times an evil initself. Even the presence of those gloomy buildings, devoted[Pg 135]to all thewretched purposes of incarceration, is, we should say, a publiccalamity. The more men see of misery, the more callous do they become toit; the less effort do they make to relieve; the more ready are they toinflict it. Punishments should be multiplied as little as possible. Veryslight offences had better be left to the correction of public opinion,and very grave offences should be severely visited, as well to sparepunishment as to prevent crime. We at once admit that it is an evil—thespectacle of putting a man to death. But this of putting out his eyesis, in act, scarce less revolting, and the spectacle is perpetuated. Thepublic execution lasts his lifetime. There is something, too, from whichwe recoil in associating what has hitherto been the most pitifulaffliction of humanity with the idea of punishment of crime. A blind manwalks amongst us the universally commiserated—and good need he has ofour commiseration; it would be a sore addition to his calamity to makehis condition one of suspected turpitude, and expose him to the hazardof being classed with murderers.

With respect to that greater severity of the punishment, on which ourauthor eloquently enlarges, the only severity which a legislature oughtto seek is that which is available in the shape of threat; and nothreat can be more effective than that of taking from a man his life,since he can always, in his own imagination, commute any otherpunishment into that. If it be true, on the one hand, that death is amere privation, and not to be compared, in real severity, to very manyof the positive afflictions of life; and if, on the other, it is stillthe greatest threat which society can hold out—these two facts togetherwould go far to prove that it is the very best punishment which could bedevised.

Dismissing this exception of the punishment of death for the crime ofmurder, imprisonment at home or abroad, accompanied with hard labour,or periods of solitary confinement, is the sole threat of any momentwhich the law holds out against offenders; and it becomes, therefore, ofinfinite importance to establish an effective prison discipline. We lookupon this simplification of our penal operations as an advantage; and weare by no means disposed to favour those inventive gentlemen who woulddevise new punishments, or revive old ones, for the purpose, it wouldseem, of having a variety of inflictions corresponding to the variety ofoffences. A well-regulated prison, where the severity of the taskwork,the nature of the diet, the duration and the strictness of theconfinement, all admit of apportionment to the offence, seems to includeall that is desirable in this matter of punishment. Here, if any where,can plans of reformation be combined with penal inflictions. Such plansought, by all means, to be encouraged; but they are not—whateverCaptain Maconochie, and other zealous reformers, say to thecontrary—the first and peculiar object for which a prison is designed.

Captain Maconochie was for some time superintendent of Norfolk Island. Arough experience. But prison discipline must be much the same in itselements, in whatever part of the world it is carried on. We are notabout to enter into the variety of questions connected withtransportation, or the management of penal colonies. Whereverimprisonment or compulsory labour are to be undergone, the same class ofdifficulties and dilemmas must arise; and we shall deal only withCaptain Maconochie's remarks, as they apply generally to all convicts,whether transported or not.

It is quite curious to observe the unconscious pranks that men of soundunderstandings, but not philosophically disciplined, may be led into,when, from some favourite point of view, they suddenly rush intogeneralities, and proclaim as reasoning what is the dictate of amomentary sentiment. Captain Maconochie, desirous of enlisting oursympathies in favour of his convicts, assimilates their condition tothat of the black slaves, whom the philanthropic efforts of Wilberforce,and others, succeeded in emancipating. The parallel is—to say thebest—very surprising and unexpected. Convicts in the colonies stand inthe same predicament, with regard to society, as their fellow-culpritsat home; and the gallant Captain would hardly preach a crusade[Pg 136] for theliberation of all the prisoners in England—for all who are undergoingthe discipline of our houses of correction. To be compelled to labourfor another man's advantage, and at another man's will, because one is"guilty of a darker skin," and to be compelled to the like taskworkbecause one has committed burglary, are two very different things. Fullof this happy comparison, however, Captain Maconochie proceeds—"They(the blacks) were thus, in the main, merry, virtuous, and contentedbeings; they did not advance—this their condition as slavesforbade—but neither did they recede; and whatever the influence oftheir condition on their own character, it ended nearly with themselves;they were subjects, not agents, and no one was made materially worsethrough their means. In every one of these respects, convicts aredifferently, and far more unfavourably, circ*mstanced. True, they havesinned, which is often alleged as a reason for dealing with them moreharshly; but who has not sinned? Who will venture to say, or would beright if he did say, that, similarly born, educated, and tempted, asmost of them have been, he would have stood where they have fallen? Theyare our brothers in a much nearer sense than were the negroes." Now, iflanguage such as this means any thing, the convict is a most maltreatedperson, and should not have been punished at all. It is really the dutyof sober sensible men to put their veto on such oratory as this; thereis too much of the same kind abroad. We must all of us be ready toacknowledge, that if we had been "born, educated, and tempted," as manyof these felons, we too might have been felons. Does it follow that weought not to have received the punishment of felons? Is this sort ofargumentum ad hominem, which makes the crime in imagination our own,to bribe us into an utterly ruinous indulgence towards it? Crime is notpunished on earth—as divines teach us it will be punished in heaven—ona principle of retributive justice, and according to our moral deserts.To prove that this is not the principle of judicial punishment, we haveonly to call to mind that, whereas, in a moral point of view, the forceof temptation diminishes the guilt, men, in framing their laws,invariably increase the punishment in proportion to the temptation. Thefacility to commit a crime, is one great element in the temptation tocommit it; and this facility has been always considered (as in the caseof forgery) to call for a counterbalance in the severity of the penalty.

In matters of penal legislation, there are two currents of thought,which must be always kept distinct. The one relates to the natural andlittle cultivated feelings of mankind, which demand retaliation forinjuries committed—a vindictive or retributive justice. Here is foundthe rude motive power by and on which legislation has to work; sometimesshaping these feelings to its purposes, sometimes shaping its purposesto them. The other current of ideas is purely legislative, purelyprospective, having for its sole end the well-being of society, andlooking on punishment; not as retributive, or vindictive, or as morallydue, but as a sad necessity for the preservation of order.

In reference to the latter and only legislative mode of thinking, howextremely illogical does it appear this attempt to ward off the penalblow from a guilty party, or to excite our commiseration for him on theground that we all share the same passions and frailties of that guiltyparty! Why, if such passions and frailties were not general, there wouldbe little need of punishment. It is because they are general, that thelegislature is compelled to be so watchful and energetic. If to take theobject of desire from our neighbour were a rare propensity, anextraordinary phenomenon, we might let the prison sink into happy ruin,and a most cheerful desolation.

We have seen how the German, in his metaphysical manner, disposed of theright of society to put one of its members to death; the Captain, thoughno metaphysician, proves, in a manner quite as bold and singular, thatthe state has really no right to inflict any punishment that is not of areformatory character. It is true he admits of punishment—could a manof his experience do otherwise?[Pg 137] But he admits it only as a part of hiscurative process. It is to induce "submission and penitence." He canso far blind himself by his love of theory, or rather his tenacity toone point of view, that he seems to suppose, that reform of thecriminal being the direct object, he would commence his treatment bypenal inflictions. "As already observed, a fever must be reduced beforeits ravages are sought to be repaired; a wound must be probed andcleansed before it can be healed up." And this surgical instance seemsto have satisfied his mind, that the exacerbations consequent onpunishment are an indispensable preparation for a moral restoration. Asto the old-fashioned notion that punishment has for its legitimate andprimary object to deter others from offending, he denounces this, ifpursued as an independent aim, as a flagrant injustice; he regards suchcriminals who are punished for this end only, as sacrifices cruellyoffered up for the benefit of the public.

"In the infancy of society," reasons Captain Maconochie, "and underevery form of pure despotism, the individual is nothing, and thecommonwealth, or its chief, every thing. But just as intelligenceand true knowledge of state policy extend, does this state ofthings become reversed; and in England already, the maxim is becomealmost universal, that private rights are never to be invadedwithout compensation. In two departments only is there still asystematic deviation from this rule in practice. Impressment, inwhich the compensation made, though it has increased much of lateyears, must still be considered inadequate—for otherwise the actit*elf would be unnecessary; and the punishment of offenders with aview to example only, in which they have no concern, and to whichtheir individual interests are yet unhesitatingly sacrificed. Inboth cases the same plea of state necessity is offered injustification; but it will not do. As society advances, andindividuals become more sensible of their own worth, their claimsto regard above such abstractions become more and moreevident."—(General Views, &c., p. 11.)

We would modestly suggest that before this curious analogy can be madecomplete, government ought to press for hanging as well as the seaservice. If the sheriff and his bailiffs sallied forth, and seized uponsome hapless wight, thrust the king's money into his hand, and thusenlisted him into the hanging corps for the benefit of the community,the resemblance would be perfect. But no one, not even the high-sheriffhimself, has the least desire to obtain a single recruit for thisforlorn service; the members of which force themselves in a mostunwelcome manner upon the state. Still less, if possible, does thegovernment desire to be at the expense of erecting large buildings, andmaintaining numerous garrisons of all species of felons. "Banishment ofoffenders, with a view to example only, in which they have no concern,and to which their individual interests are yet unhesitatinglysacrificed!" Indeed, but they have! He who is punished for theft hasstill his life to be preserved, and may one day have his property alsoto be protected by the same law under which he is suffering. One canimagine the strange effect it would produce upon the ignoble army ofmartyrs which throng our jails, to be told that they were sacrifices tosociety—victims whom the community was offering up, most unjustifiably,on the altar of its own interests! At first, the idea would be a littledim and mysterious; but, after a short time, the flattering nature ofthe doctrine would doubtless be sufficient to insure its reception. Theywould, thereupon, call in the jailer, and the chief spokesman of theparty would thus address him:—"We perceive, O jailer! that society isconsulting its own interests in our punishment, and not, as it is boundto do, our especial benefit and advantage. As we have learned thatstripes and bondage are to be inflicted on no man but for his own good,and as we are all agreed, after considerable experience, that we deriveno benefit whatever from them, and you, O jailer! must be satisfiedthat, as medical treatment, they are worse than inefficacious, wedemand, in the name of justice and human reason, our immediatedismissal."

To those who value no information but such as assumes the shape ofdetail of facts, or can be reduced to[Pg 138] figures, and exhibited in theshape of statistical tables, we shall perhaps appear to be wasting timein examining the mere errors of reasoning on this important subject ofpenal discipline. We think otherwise. We apprehend there is nothing morenecessary than to keep active and zealous men steady to first principlesin subjects of great general interest. We are not guilty of underratingthe value of statistical tables; albeit we have seen figures arrayedagainst figures, as if there were two arithmetics, as if there were twochurches in the doctrines of addition and multiplication; but the truthmust be kept in view, that to read statistical tables aright, somethingmore is required than a knowledge of the rules of arithmetic. A fewsound principles, based on a knowledge of human nature, and theelementary bonds of human society, may often preserve us from falsedeductions, which seem to be the sure product of the array of figuresthat are presented to us.

We intimated that Captain Maconochie's pamphlet contained what appearedto us a valuable contribution towards a good prison discipline. Thatcontribution is simply—the commutation of time of imprisonment forquantity of labour to be performed. The amount of work done by theprisoner could be estimated by certain marks awarded or reckoned tohim, and the duration of imprisonment measured by the number of thosemarks to be earned, instead of a certain fixed number of months oryears. This is a very simple idea, and is all the better for itssimplicity. The punishment would be probably rendered more effective asa threat, and the moral effect of the punishment, when inflicted, wouldbe much improved. A compulsion to labour (which becomes, in fact, acompulsion of moral motive, as well as of sheer external control) maylead to a permanent habit of industry. There would be all the differencebetween the listless and disgustful labour of enforced time-work, and alabour in part prompted by the hope of expediting the term of release.An idle vagabond might thus be disciplined and trained into anindustrious workman.

We have no doubt that this principle has already been partially appliedin the management of our prisons, and perhaps in more instances than weat all suspect; but that it has not yet been extensively applied, orreceived the trial which it appears to merit, is certain—because suchan experiment must have been preceded by a very notorious and signalalteration in our laws.

We should be doing an egregious injustice to Captain Maconochie if wewere to judge of him only by the instances we have given of his powersof general reasoning. The perusal of his pamphlets has left in our minda strong impression of the manly character and practical ability oftheir writer. If his abstract reasonings are sometimes perverse, we areconvinced that his practical good sense is such, that in the managementof any enterprise, he would in reality so order his proceedings, that,whatever his pen might do, his conduct would contradict no soundprinciple of expediency. If it were the object to reclaim a set offelons or vagabonds, and fit them—say for the naval and militaryservice—we are persuaded that the task could not be confided to betterhands than those of the gallant Captain. During his residence at Norfolkisland, he seems to have obtained the esteem of even the worst of thesad crew he had to discipline; and this, it is evident, withoutsacrificing a jot of the duties of his station. He is plainly not theman to make any boast of such a matter, or to feel too highly flatteredby it. "Instances of individual attachment to myself," he says, at theconclusion of his pamphlet On the Management of Transported Convicts,"I could multiply without number; but these, for obvious reasons, Iforbear to quote; and in truth they as often pained me as pleased me, bybeing too deferential. It is a great and very common mistake, inmanaging prisoners, to be too much gratified by mere obedience andservility: duplicity is much encouraged by this; and, of two oppositeerrors, it is better rather to overlook a little occasionalinsubordination. I cannot refuse, however, to cite two traits, whosecharacter cannot be mistaken. I had a large garden within a few hundred[Pg 139]yards of the ticket-of-leave village at Cascade, where from 300 to 400men lived, four to six in a hut, never locked up, nor under other guardthrough the night than that of a police sentry, one of their own number.The garden was by the road-side, very imperfectly fenced with openpaling, and fully stocked with choice fruit and vegetables, bananas,pine-apples, grapes, melons, and others, which to men on a salt rationmust have offered a great temptation; these were constantly under view,yet I scarcely ever lost any. And by a letter, received a few weeks ago,I learn that five men, having picked up an old black silk handkerchiefthat had belonged to me, have had their prayer books bound with it." [1]

The Captain's theoretical error is, that he too much confounds thenecessity of penal laws with the duty of public education. The duty ofthe state to educate its subjects is undeniable; but, when criminals arebrought before it, this is not the duty which is then most prominent.This is a duty which ought to have been performed before—it is a dutywhich ought not to be forgotten then; but there is another functionwhich comes into operation, which is typified by the judge, not by theschoolmaster.

We observe that Captain Maconochie confirms, from his own experience,the opinion already expressed by many others upon the policy of solitaryconfinement. For a short period the effect is good; but, if prolonged,it leads either to stupid indifference or moroseness of temper, if itdoes not conduct even to insanity. It is, manifestly, an expedient to becautiously used. We should, before any appeal to experience, and judgingonly from the nature of the human mind, have confidently predicted thisresult. And, indeed, has not the effect of solitary confinement beenlong ago understood and powerfully described? In that delightful tale ofthe Arabian Nights, where the poor fisherman draws up a jar from thebottom of the sea, and, on opening it, gives escape to a confined spiritor genie, this monster of ingratitude immediately draws a huge sabre,with the intention of decapitating his deliverer. Some parley ensues;and the genie explains that he is only about to fulfil a vow that he hadmade while incarcerated in the jar—that, during the first thousandyears of his imprisonment—and, to an immortal genie, a thousand yearsmay reckon as about two calendar months with us—he promised to hisdeliverer all imaginable blessings; but, during the second thousandyears, he vowed that he would kill the man who should release him!Could there possibly be a better illustration of the effect of solitaryconfinement?

But on the peculiar modifications of prison discipline, it is not ourpurpose here to enlarge. This must be reserved to some future occasion.We must content ourselves with observing, that we have little confidencein novelties, and little wish to prompt the invention of our legislatorsin this direction. We are as little disposed to advocate the silent asthe solitary system. Such a demeanour as any reflective man wouldnaturally expect to find in a place of public correction, is all that weshould require to be preserved. All boisterous mirth, all obstreperouslaughter, all loud talking, would, by every efficient governor of suchan institution, be systematically repressed. The labours of such anestablishment should be conducted with stern military order. Every[Pg 140]inmate should feel himself under an irresistible domination, and thatobedience and submission are the only parts he has to enact. How easilythe strongest minds may be led astray when scope is given to inventionin this matter of penal discipline, may be seen in the example of JeremyBentham himself. This celebrated man, whose cogitative faculty wasassuredly of the most vigorous description, but who had a mode ofdeveloping it the most insufferably and needlessly prolix, would havefilled our prisons with inextinguishable laughter by the introduction ofcertain "tragic masks," indicative of various crimes or passions, inwhich the several offenders were to be occasionally paraded—a quaintdevice, which would have given a carnival to our jails.

Our main purpose, in these somewhat fragmentary observations, was toprotest against the reasoning which would divest punishment of itsproper and distinctive character, which, spreading about weak andeffeminate scruples, would paralyse the arm which bears the sword ofjustice. One writer would impugn the right of society to put itsarch-criminals to death; another controverts its right to inflict anypenalty whatever, which has not for its direct object the reformation ofthe criminal. So, then, the offender who will not live with hisfellow-men on the only terms on which human fellowship can bemaintained, is to stand out and bandy logic with the community—withmankind—and insist upon his individual imprescriptible rights. These àpriori gentry would find it very difficult to draw any advantage fromtheir imprescriptible rights, except in a state of tolerable civilgovernment. Civil government is, at all events, the condition on whichdepends the enjoyment of all individual rights; without which they arebut shadows and abstractions, if even intelligible abstractions. Let ushave no more, therefore, of an opposition between the rights ofindividuals and the stern, imperative, expediencies of society. Therecan be no such opposition. Is it not as if some particular wave of thesea should assert a law of motion of its own, and think it injustice tosubmit to the great tidal movements of the ocean?

REFERENCES.

Zschokke's Aehrenlese.—Part I. Pandora, Civilization, Demoralization,and Death-punishment.

On the Management of Transported Criminals. By Captain Maconochie,R.N., K.H., late Superintendent at Norfolk Island.

General Views, &c. &c. By the Same.

[1] Amongst the anecdotes which are told in this concludingportion of the pamphlet, we were struck with the following, whichaffords a striking instance of that tendency to run a-muck from timeto time by which some men are unhappily afflicted:—"One of them, atlength, showed strong indications of approaching insanity. He becamemoody, and twice attempted to destroy himself. I thought that possiblychange of occupation and diet might benefit him; and I brought him to myown garden in consequence, and sought to feed him up. But he rather gotworse. I remonstrated with him; and his answer was a striking one—'WhenI used to be in this way before, I could get into trouble, (commit anoffence, and incur a severe punishment,) and that took it out of me; butnow that I try to behave myself, I think that I am going madaltogether.'"

PÚSHKIN, THE RUSSIAN POET

No. III.

Specimens of his Lyrics.

Translated from the Original Russian, by Thomas B. Shaw, B.A. ofCambridge, Adjunct Professor of English Literature in the ImperialAlexander Lyceum, Translator of "the Heretic," &c. &c.

We trust our readers will not blame us for the slightness ofconstruction and unimportant subjects of many of the minor pieces whichwe have admitted into our present selection from Púshkin's lyricalproductions. It was our object to give the English reader, as far aspossible, a fair and just notion of the poet's peculiar turn of thoughtand style of expression; and to do this completely, it appeared to usindispensable to avoid confining our choice—however natural it mighthave seemed, and however great the temptation to do so—to the moreambitious and elaborate efforts of his genius. The true principles ofcriticism have long ago established the doctrine, that the compositionof a beautiful song, or even of a perfect epigram, deserves to beconsidered as difficult a task, and as rare an achievement, as theproduction of an ode or of an elegy; and though it may be objected that,for the purposes of translation, the song is generally much moreungrateful than the more imposing production, yet we could not considerourselves as fulfilling our promise, (of holding up to our countrymen afaithful mirror of Púshkin's poetry,) had we omitted to attempt versionsof the slighter and more delicate products[Pg 141]of his poesy. It is truethat, in passing through the deteriorating process of translation intoanother language, the lighter works suffer most, and are more likely tolose that exquisite delicacy of expression, and that transparentcolouring of thought, which is the more peculiar merit of the song orthe fugitive poem—these tender blossoms run much more risk of losing,in short, their finer and more evanescent aroma, than the more gorgeousflowers of the tropical regions of poetical imagining; but at the sametime it must be remarked, that the danger in such experiments is not onthe side of the author, but wholly on that of the translator. Thatwe have determined—rashly, perhaps—to encounter this danger, must beour apology for having introduced into our collection many of theshorter and slighter pieces which will be found in these pages, and,among them, the specimen which we are now about to present.

Alas for Her! Why Is She Shining?"

In the following spirited little piece Púshkin has commemorated anincident which occurred in the reign of Peter the Great, and which isprobably sufficiently familiar to the readers of Russian history, torender unnecessary a more than passing allusion to the circ*mstance.Among the thousand traits of grandeur recorded of the Hero-Tsar, thereare few more affecting and sublime than that commemorated in theanecdote of his indulgence to Ménstchikoff, who had betrayed hismaster's confidence, and committed various acts of peculation andoppression. Peter pardoned his unfaithful but repentant minister, andcelebrated this act of generous clemency by a magnificent banquet, atwhich he exhibited to his admiral every testimony of renewed confidenceand affection. This banquet is the subject of the following lines, inwhich all the allusions are probably familiar to our readers, notexcepting the mention made of the imposing ceremony spoken of in thethird stanza; that is to say, the grand review of the infant Russianfleet, at which the Emperor assisted in person, and in the rank ofVice-Admiral. The whole squadron—recently created by the genius andwisdom of the Prince, and freshly covered with naval glory, till thenunknown in Russia—was anchored in the Neva, and along its line slowlypassed, under a general salute of cannon, and accompanied by theacclamations of the crews of the men-of-war, the old pleasure-boat, the"baubling shallop," which had first suggested to Peter's[Pg 142] mind the ideaand the possibility of giving Russia a navy. This small vessel, stillmost religiously preserved in the fortress, and affectionately called bythe Russians the "Grandfather" of their navy, had been constructed forthe amusem*nt of the Tsar Alexéi, by Brandt, a Dutch shipbuilder, whohad visited Moscow during the reign of that prince—the father of thegreat regenerator of Russia. The vessel, a small sloop rigged in theDutch manner, had remained neglected on the lake of Peresláv-Zalévskii(in the province of Vladímir) till it was remarked by Peter, who, fromseeing it, not only conceived the idea of creating a navy, but made itthe means of acquiring for himself the first rudiments of practicalseamanship. As a ship in the Russian language is a masculinesubstantive, the familiar title given to this immortal little vessel is"grandfather," or "grandsire," a word of which we have thought itnecessary to transpose the gender, in obedience to that poetical andstriking idiom in our tongue, by which a ship always rigorouslyappertains to the gentler and lovelier sex. In our version, therefore,the "grandsire" becomes—we trust without any loss of dignity orinterest—the "grandame" of the Russian navy:—

The Feast Of Peter The First.

The following lines (which are not without a kind of fantasticprettiness of their own) do not seen to need any remark or explanation,unless it be the circ*mstance of the poet's qualifying the sky of StPetersburg with the epithet of pale-green. It may be observed thatthis peculiar tint (exactly enough expressed by the adjective) hasstruck almost all the strangers who have visited the northern capital,and has been repeatedly noticed by travellers; as, for instance, Kohl,Custine, &c. &c. Our readers will find the singular colour of the StPetersburg atmosphere (particularly observable in the winter, or atnight) very well described in Sir George Lefevre's amusing "Notes of aTravelling Physician." This greenish tint is as peculiar to the banks ofthe Neva, as is the reddish-black to the neighbourhood of Birmingham orthe Potteries; or the yellowish-brown (in November—"let rude ears beabsent!") to the environs of the Thames:—

"Town of Starving, Town of Splendour!"

In the short and rapid sketch of Púshkin's life and writings which willbe found prefixed to this selection, we made particular mention of thestrong impression produced upon the Russian public by the appearance ofthe noble lines addressed to the Sea. We beg to subjoin a translationof this short but vigorous poem, which has become classical in theauthor's country; an honour it certainly deserves, not only from thesimple grace and energy of the language, but from the weight, dignity,and verity of the thoughts. The lines were written by the poet on hisquitting the shores of the Caspian, where he had so long dwelt insolitude, gathering inspiration from the sublime Nature by which he wassurrounded; and the poem cannot but be considered as a worthy outpouringof the feelings which a long communion with that Nature was so capableof communicating to a mind like that of Púshkin. Of the two great menwhose recent death was naturally recalled to the poet's recollection bythe view of the ocean, the name of one—Napoleon—is specificallymentioned; that of the other is—Byron. Seldom, in the prosecution ofhis difficult but not ungrateful task, has the translator felt theimperfection of his art, or the arduous nature of its object, morekeenly than when attempting to[Pg 144] give something like an adequate versionof the eleventh and twelfth stanzas of this majestic composition. Inorder to give some idea of the fidelity of his imitation, we willsubjoin the literal English of these eight lines:—

To the Sea.

The following lines we think elegantly and prettily expressed.

Echo.

There are few things more curious than to observe how universally thesame legends are to be found in the popular traditions of very distantages and nations, under circ*mstances which render it extremelydifficult[Pg 146] for the most acute investigator to trace how, when, and wherethey were communicated, or even to give any plausible account of theorigin of the legend itself. So difficult indeed is this task, that weare almost driven to account for so singular a phenomenon, byattributing to the human mind an exceedingly small endowment oforiginality; and by supposing that, however the details of these ancienttraditions may have been modified and adapted to suit the peculiarnature, the scenery of each particular country, or the manners, customs,and character of its inhabitants—the fundamental idea, and the leadingincident, remaining the same under the most dissimilar conditions oftime and place, must have a common and a single origin. This doctrine,if carried to its legitimate consequences, would lead us to consider thenumber of the original legends common to all times and many races, assingularly limited; and that a very short list indeed might be made toembrace the root-stories—the uhrsagen, as a German might call them.And really when we reflect that many of the most threadbare jests whichfigure in the recondite tomes of Mr Joseph Miller are to be found,crystallized in attic salt, in the pages of Hierocles, and representedas forming part of the "Hundred merye Talis and Jeastis" whichdelectated the citizens of ancient Greece; when we reflect, we repeat,that the same buffooneries, still retailed by after-dinner cits in theSunday shades of Clapham or Camden-Town, may have raised the easy laughof the merry Greek beneath the portico and in the Agora; it makes usentertain a very humble idea respecting the amount of creative powergiven to man, even for the production of so small a matter as apleasantry, not to speak of pleasantries so very small as some of thesemysterious and time-honoured jokes. If we remember, still further, thatthe pedigree of these trifling insects of the brain, these children ofthe quip, does not stop even in the venerable pages of Hierocles—thatGreek "Joe"—but loses itself, like a Welsh genealogy in the darkestgloom of antiquity, we ought not to be surprised that ancient legends,being often shattered fragments and dim shadowings-forth of mystic andhierophantic philosophy, should be found, with many of their principalfeatures unaltered, in the popular traditions of different ages andcountries.

The tale embodied in the "Lay of Olég the Wise," is identical in all itsessentials with the legend still extant upon the tomb of an ancientKentish family, in the church of (we believe) Minster, in the Isle ofSheppey. The inimitable Ingoldsby has made the adventure the subject ofone of his charming "Legends," and has shown how the Knight came by hisdeath in consequence of wounding his foot in the act of contemptuouslykicking the fatal horse's skull, thus accomplishing the prophecy manyyears after the death of the faithful steed. The reader will perceive,that in the Russian form of the legend the hero dies by the bite of aserpent, and not by the less imposing consequences of mortification inthe toe; but the identity of the leading idea in the two versions of theold tale, is too striking not to be remarked. It is only necessary toobserve that Olég is still one of the popular heroes of Russianlegendary lore, and that the feast, to which allusion is made at the endof the poem, is the funeral banquet customary among the ancient Slavonsat the burial of their heroes; and resembling the funeral games of theheroic age in Greece. The Slavonians, however, had the habit, on suchoccasions, of sacrificing a horse over the tumulus or barrow of thedeparted brave. The Perún mentioned in the stanzas was the War-God ofthis ancient people.

The Lay of the Wise Olég.

We know not whether our readers will be attracted or repelled by thesomewhat exaggerated tone of thought, and the strangeness and novelty ofthe metre, in the following little piece. The gloom of the despondencyexpressed in the lines is certainly Byronian—and haply "somethingmore." It is to be hoped, however, that they may find favour in the eyesof the[Pg 149] English reader—always so "novitatis avidus,"—if only on thescore of the singularity of the versification:—

Remembrance.

There is another little composition in the same key.

"I have outlived the hopes that charm'd me."

The following is a somewhat new version of the famous "E pur si muove"of Galileo.

Motion.

[Pg 150]

In the spirited lines addressed to "The Slanderers of Russia," Púshkinhas recorded a sufficiently conclusive reply to the hackneyed calumniesagainst his country, repeated with such a nauseating uniformity, andthrough so long a period of time, in wretched verse, or more wretchedprose, in the leading articles of obscure provincial newspapers, and onthe scaffolding of obscure provincial hustings. Whatever may be themerits or demerits, in a moral point of view, of the part played byRussia in the events alluded to by the poet, events which form the stocksubject of the scribblings and spoutings we speak of, these tiresometirades do not come with a very good grace from either England orFrance. There is a very excellent and venerable proverb which expressesthe imprudence of the practice of throwing stones, when indulged in bythe inhabitant of an abode composed of a vitreous substance, not tomention a still more greybearded and not less wise saw, specifying, interms rather forcible than dignified, the impolicy of the pot alludingin an opprobrious manner to the blackness which characterizes thesitting part of its fellow-utensil, the kettle; and the "wisdom of ages"might, in the present instance, be very reasonably adduced to moderatethe excessive moral susceptibilities of the aforesaid writers anddeclaimers, and to restrain the feeble flood of words—the dirty torrentof shallow declamation, so incessantly poured forth against Russia onthe subject of Poland. "Judge not, that ye be not judged!" is anexcellent precept for the guidance of nations as well as of individuals;and, we think, a Russian, wearied by the tiresome repetition of the sameaccusations against his native country, can hardly be blamed for asking,in language even more energetic than that here employed by Púshkin,whether England or France have hands so clean, or a conscience so clear,as to justify them in their incessant and insolent attempt to sit injudgment upon their European sister. We certainly think that therecollection of the Affghan war, the bombardment of Copenhagen, of thesplendid exploits of Whig policy and Whig non-intervention in Spain,might make England a little more modest, and a little less inclined todeclaim against the wickedness of other nations—and as to France, herwhole history, from the Republic to the present day, is nothing but asuccession of lessons which might teach la grande nation to abstainfrom exhibiting herself in the character of a moral instructress to theworld.

To the Slanderers of Russia.

We are not sure whether we are right in yielding to the temptation oftranscribing in these sheets so many of the smaller lyrics and fugitivepieces of our author; and whether that very charm of form andexpression which attract so strongly our admiration to the originals,should not have rather tended to deter us from so difficult an attemptas that of transposing them into another language. The chief grace andvalue of such productions certainly consists less in the quantity orweight of the gold employed in their composition, than in the beauty anddelicacy of the image stamped or graven upon the metal; and the criticmay object against us, if our critic be in a severe mood (quod Diiavertant boni!) the rashness of the numismatist, who should hope, inrecasting the exquisite medals of antique art, to retain—or evenimperfectly imitate—the touches of the Ionic or the Corinthian chisel.

True as is the above reasoning with respect to the slighter productionsof poetry in all languages, it is peculiarly true when applied to thesmaller offspring of Púshkin's muse; and were we not sufficientlyconvinced of the danger and the arduousness of our attempt, by our ownexperience and by analogy, we should have found abundant reason fordiffidence in the often repeated counsels of Russians, who all unite inasserting that there is something so peculiarly delicate and inimitablein the diction and versification of these little pieces, as to be almostbeyond the reach of a foreigner's appreciation, and, consequently,that any attempt at imitation must, à fortiori, of necessity be afailure. Notwithstanding all this, and despite many sinister presages,we have obstinately persevered in our determination to clothe in anEnglish dress those pieces, great and small—gems or flowers,productions perfumed by grace of diction, or heavy with weight ofthought—which struck us most forcibly among the poems of our author;and we hope that our boldness, if not our success, may be rewarded withthe approbation of such of our countrymen[Pg 152] as may be curious to knowsomething of the tone and physiognomy of the Russian literature.

Presentiment.

Perhaps our readers would like to see a Russian Sonnet. To many thename of such a thing will seem a union of two contradictory terms; but,nevertheless, here is a sonnet, and not a bad one either.

The Madonna.

The last production which we shall present in our present bundle ofsamples, selected from Púshkin's lyrics, is the irregular ode entitledAndré Chénier. This composition is founded upon one of the mostwell-known and tragic episodes of the first French Revolution: theexecution of the young and gifted poet whose name forms the title of thelines. The story of Chénier's imprisonment and untimely death, as wellas the various allusions to the beautiful verses addressed by him to hisfellow-prisoner, La Jeune Captive, to his calm bearing on the scaffold,and to the memorable exclamation which was made in the last accents everuttered by his lips; all these things are, doubtless, sufficientlyfamiliar to our readers; or, if not, a single reference, either to anyof the thousand books describing that most bloody and yet powerfullyattractive period of French history—nay, the simple turning to thearticle Chénier, in any biographical dictionary, will be amplysufficient to recall to the memory the principal facts of the sad storywhich Púshkin has made the subject of his noble elegy. It will betherefore unnecessary for us to detail the life and death of the hero ofthe poem, and we shall only throw together, in these short preliminaryremarks, the few quotations and notes appended by the Russian poet tohis work. These will not be found of any very formidable extent; and asthe poem itself is not of a considerable length, we trust that thevarious passages, which these quotations are adduced to illustrate, willbe sufficiently perceptible, without our submitting to the necessity ofappending them in the form of marginal annotations or foot-notes, anecessity which would force us to load the text with those unsightlyappendages to books in general, and to poetry in particular—theasterisks and daggers of marginal reference.

The supposed soliloquy of the martyred poet, which forms the principalportion of Púshkin's elegiac ode, is little else than an amplification,or pathetic and dignified paraphrase, of the exquisite compositionactually written by Chénier on the eve of his execution; a compositionbecome classical in the French literature:—

Of the few persons to whom allusion is made in the verses, Abel,Fanny, and the Captive Maid, all that it is necessary to know is,that the first was one of his friends, the companion of his earlyhappiness, and the fellow-labourer of his early studies—"Abel, douxconfidant de mes jeunes mystères;" the second, one of his mistresses;and the third, a young lady, Mlle. de Coigny, who was for some time hisfellow-prisoner, and the person to whom the poet addressed the touchingverses which we have mentioned above. Mlle. de Coigny was the "JeuneCaptive."

In justification of the very emphatic tone in which Púshkin has recordedthe noble generosity and self-sacrifice which conducted Chénier to therevolutionary scaffold, it will be sufficient to quote the words of Dela Touche, and to refer the reader to Chénier's Iambics, which drew downupon his head, and with good cause, the hatred and suspicion ofRobespierre and his subordinate demons:—"Chénier avait mérité la hainedes factieux. Il avait célébré Charlotte Corday, flétri Collotd'Herbois, attaqué Robespierre. On sait que le Roi avait demandé àl'Assemblée par une lettre pleine de calme et de dignité, le droitd'appeler au peuple du jugement qui le condamnait. Cette lettre, signéedans la nuit du 17 au 18 Janvier, est d'André Chénier."—H. De laTouche.

[Pg 154]

The unfortunate poet was executed on the 8th of Thermidor; i.e. theday before the fall of Robespierre. The fatal tumbril which bore Chénierto the guillotine, conveyed also to the same scaffold the poet Roucher,his friend:—"Ils parlèrent de la poesie à leurs derniers moments; poureux, après l'amitiè, c'était la plus belle chose de la terre. Racine fûtl'objet de leur entretien et de leur derrière admiration. Ils voulurentréciter ses vers; ils choisirent la prémière scène d'Andromaque."—H. dela Touche.

At the place of execution, Chénier struck his forehead with his hand,and exclaimed—"Pourtant j'avais quelque chose là!"

André Chénier.

"Ainsi, triste et captif, ma lyre toutefois S'éveillait."

[Pg 157]

MARSTON; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN.

PART XVIII.

Shakspeare.

On returning to London I found the world in the "transition state." Thespirit of the people was changed; the nature of the war was changed; theprinciple of the great parties in the legislature was changed. A new eraof the contest had arrived; and, in the midst of the general perplexityas to the nature of the approaching events, every one exhibited aconviction, that when they came their magnitude would turn all thestruggles of the past into child's play.

I, too, had my share in the change. I had now passed my publicnovitiate, and had obtained my experience of statesmanship on a scale,if too small for history, yet sufficiently large to teach me the workingof the machinery. National conspiracy, the council-chamber, popularebullition, and the tardy but powerful action of public justice, hadbeen my tutors; and I was now felt, by the higher powers, to be notunfit for trust in a larger field. A seat in the English House ofCommons soon enabled me to give satisfactory evidence that I had notaltogether overlooked the character of the crisis; and, after someinterviews with the premier, his approval of my conduct in Ireland wasfollowed by the proposal of office, with a seat in the cabinet.

I had thus attained, in the vigour of life, a distinction for whichhundreds, perhaps thousands, had laboured through life in vain. But minewas no couch of rosy prosperity. The period was threatening. The olddays of official repose were past, never to return. The state of Europewas hourly assuming an aspect of the deepest peril. The war had hithertobeen but the struggle of armies; it now threatened to be the struggle ofnations. It had hitherto lived on the natural resources of publicexpenditure; it now began to prey upon the vitals of the kingdom. Theordinary finance of England was to be succeeded by demands pressingheavily on the existing generation, and laying a hereditary burden onall that were to follow. The nature of our antagonist deepened thedifficulty. All the common casualties of nations were so far frombreaking the enemy down, that they only gave him renewed power. Povertyswelled his ranks; confiscation swelled his coffers; bankruptcy gave himstrength; faction invigorated his government; and insubordination madehim invincible. In the midst of this confusion, even a new terror arose.The democracy of France, after startling Europe, had seemed to besinking into feebleness and apathy, when a new wonder appeared in thepolitical hemisphere, too glaring and too ominous to suffer our eyes toturn from it for a moment. The Consulate assumed the rule of France.Combining the fiery vigour of republicanism with the perseverance ofmonarchy, it now carried the whole force of the country into foreignfields. Every foreign capital began to tremble. The whole Europeansystem shook before a power which smote it with the force of acannon-ball against a crumbling bastion. The extraordinary man who nowtook the lead in France, had touched the string which vibrated in theheart of every native of the soil. He had found them weary of the crimesof the democracy; he told them that a career of universal supremacy wasopen before them. He had found them degraded by the consciousness ofriot and regicide; he told them that they were the chevaliers of the newage, and destined to eclipse the chevaliers of all the ages past. His[Pg 158]Italian campaigns, by their rapidity, their fine combinations, and theirastonishing success, had created a new art of war. He had brought themromantic triumphs from the land of romance. Day by day the populace ofthe capital were summoned to see pageants of Italian standards, cannon,and prisoners. Every courier that galloped through the streets broughttidings of some new conquest; and every meeting of the Councils wasemployed in announcing the addition of some classic province, theoverthrow of some hostile diadem, or the arrival of some convoy of thosemost magnificent of all the spoils of war, the treasures of the Italianarts. France began to dream of the conquest of the world.

The contrast between her past calamities and her present splendour,powerfully heightened the illusion. France loves illusion; she hasalways rejoiced in glittering deceptions, even with the perfectknowledge that they were deceptions; and here stood the most dazzling ofpolitical charlatans, the great wonder-worker, raising phantoms ofnational glory even out of the charnel. The wrecks of faction, theremnants of the monarchy, and the corpses lying headless in the shadowof the guillotine, gave all semblance to the conception—France was acharnel. Her people, by nature rushing into extremes, wild and fierce,yet gallant and generous, had become at length conscious of the nationalfall in the eyes of Europe. They had been scandalized by the rudeness,the baseness, and the brutishness, of rabble supremacy. They gazed upontheir own crimsoned hands and tarnished weapons with intolerabledisgust; and it was in this moment of depression that they saw a suddenbeam of military renown shot across the national darkness. After so longdefeat that it had extinguished all but the memory of her old triumphs,France was a conqueror; after a century of helpless exhaustion, she hadrisen into almost supernatural vigour; after a hundred years, scarcelymarked by a single victory, her capital rang with the daily sound ofsuccessful battles against the veterans of Frederick and Maria Theresa;after lingering for generations in the obscurity so bitter to thepopular heart, France had been suddenly thrown into the broadest lustreof European sovereignty. The world was changed; and the limits of thatchange offered only a more resistless lure to the popular passion, fortheir being still indistinct to the keenest eye of man.

But our chief struggle was at home, and the reaction of our foreigndisasters came with terrible weight upon a cabinet already tottering. Wesaw its fate. Days and nights of the most anxious consultation, couldnot relieve us from the hourly increasing evidence, that the Continentwas on the verge of ruin. The voice of Opposition, reinforced by theroar of the multitude, could no longer be shut out by the curtains ofthe council-chamber. Fox, always formidable, was never more confidentand more popular, than when he made the House ring with prophecies ofnational downfall. His attacks were now incessant. He flung hishand-grenades night after night into our camp, and constantly with stillgreater damage. We still fought, but it was the fight of despair. Pittwas imperturbable; but there was not one among his colleagues who didnot feel the hopelessness of calling for public reliance, when, in everysuccessive debate, we heard the leader of Opposition contemptuouslyasking, what answer we had to the Gazette crowded with bankruptcy? tothe resolutions of great bodies of the people denouncing the war? or tothe deadly evidence of its effects in the bulletin which he held in hishand, announcing some new defeat of our allies; some new treaty ofsubmission; some new barter of provinces for the precarious existence offoreign thrones?

In all my recollections of public life, this was the period of thedeepest perplexity. The name of the great minister has been humiliatedby those who judge of the past only by the present. But then all wasnew. The general eye of statesmanship had been deceived by the formalgrandeur of the continential sovereignties. They had lain untouched,like the bodies of their kings, with all their armour on, and with everyfeature unchanged; and such they might have remained for ages to come,had not a new force broken open their gilded and sculptured shrines,[Pg 159]torn off their cerements, and exposed them to the light and air. Then atouch extinguished them; the armour dropped into dust; the royal robesdissolved; the royal features disappeared; and the whole illusion leftnothing but its moral behind.

It can be no dishonour to the memory of the first of statesmen, toacknowledge that he had not the gift of prophecy. Europe had neverbefore seen a war of the people. The burning passions, rude vigour, andremorseless daring of the multitude, were phenomena of which man knowsno more than he knows of the materials of destruction which lie hid inthe central caverns of the globe, and which some new era may be sufferedto develope, for the new havoc of posterity. Even to this hour, I thinkthat the true source of revolutionary triumph has been mistaken. It wasnot in the furious energy of its factions, nor in the wild revenge ofthe people, nor even in the dazzling view of national conquest. Thesewere but gusts of the popular tempest, currents of the great populartide. But the mighty mover of all was the sudden change from thedisgusts and depressions of serfdom, into a sense that all the world ofpossession lay before the bold heart and the ruthless hand. Every formof wealth and enjoyment was offered to the man who had begun life in thecondition of one chained to the ground, and who could never have hopedto change his toil but for the grave. But the barrier was now cast down,and all were free to rush in. The treasury of national honours wassuddenly flung open, and all might share the spoil. This was the truesecret of the astonishing power of the Revolution. The man who wasnothing to-day, might be everything to-morrow. The conscript might be acaptain, a colonel, a general, before the Austrian or Prussian soldiercould be a corporal. Who can wonder at the march of France, or theflight of her enemies?

Although every night now produced a debate, and the demand on theactivity and vigilance of ministers was incessant and exhausting, thereal debates in both Houses were few in comparison with those of latertimes. In those pitched battles of the great parties, their wholestrength was mustered from every quarter; the question was longannounced; and its decision was regarded as giving the most completemeasure of the strength of the Cabinet and Opposition. One of thesenights came, unfortunately for ministers, on the very day in which thebulletin arrived, announcing the signature of the first Austrianarmistice. The passage of the Tyrol had stripped Austria of its mountainbarrier. Terror had done the rest; and the armistice was signed withinthree marches of Vienna! The courier who had been sent to the Austrianambassador, and had been permitted to pass through France, reported thewhole nation to be in a frenzy of triumph. He had every where seen civicprocessions, military displays, and illuminations in the cities. Theexultation of the people had risen to the utmost height of nationalenthusiasm; and Europe was pronounced, by every Frenchman, from theDirectory to the postilion, to be at their feet.

This intelligence was all but fatal. If a shower of cannon-balls hadbeen poured in upon the ministerial benches, it could scarcely haveproduced a more sweeping effect. It was clear that the sagacity of the"independent members"—only another name for the most flexible portionof the House—was fully awake to the contingency; the "waiters uponProvidence," as they were called, with no very reverent allusion, wereevidently on the point of deciding for themselves; and the "King'sfriends"—a party unknown to the constitution, but perfectly knowing,and known by, the treasury—began to move away by small sections; and,crowded as the clubs were during the day, I never saw the minister risewith so few of his customary troops behind him. But the Opposition benchwas crowded to repletion; and their leader sat looking round withgood-humoured astonishment, and sometimes with equally good-humouredburlesque, on the sudden increase of his recruits. The motion was inanswer to a royal message on continental subsidies. Nothing could havebeen more difficult than the topic at that juncture. But I neverlistened to Pitt with more genuine admiration. Fox, in his declamatory[Pg 160]bursts, was superior to every speaker whom I have ever heard. Hisappearance of feeling was irresistible. It seemed that, if one couldhave stripped his heart, it could scarcely have shown its pulsationsmore vividly to the eye, than they transpired from his fluent and mosteloquent tongue. But if Fox was the most powerful of declaimers, Pittwas the mightiest master of the language of national council. He, too,could be occasionally glowing and imaginative. He could even launch thelighter weapons of sarcasm with singular dexterity; but his true rankwas as the ruler of Empire, and his true talent was never developed butwhen he spoke for the interests of Empire.

On this night he was more earnest and more impressive than ever; thetrue description would have been, more imperial. He spoke, less like adebater, than like one who held the sceptre in his hand; and one whoalso felt that he was transmitting his wisdom as a parting legacy to agreat people.

A portion of that speech, which ought never to be forgotten by theleaders of public affairs in England, was singularly full and powerful.Referring to the calumniated Revolution of 1688—"We now stand," saidhe, "almost in the same position with respect to France and Europe, inwhich the government of William III. stood a century ago. We have onlyto substitute the democracy of France for the monarchy; and Europeenfeebled by the shocks of war, as it is now, for Europe untouched andintrepid, awake to the ambition of the French king, and determined tomeet him sword in hand. But the King of England was even then theguiding mind of Europe. I now demand, what was the redeeming policy ofthat pre-eminent sovereign? It was, never to despair of the triumph ofprinciple; never to doubt of the ultimate fortunes of good in a contestwith evil; and never to hesitate in calling upon a great and free peoplefor the defence of that constitution which had made them great andfree."

Those high-toned sentiments were received with loud cheers. EvenOpposition felt the natural force of the appeal, and the cheering wasuniversal; party was forgotten for the time, and the name of England,and the revived glory of those illustrious days, bowed the whole Houseat the will of the great orator. In the midst of their enthusiasm, hetook from the table a volume of the records, and read the final addressof William to his Parliament; the bequest of a dying king to the peoplewhom he had rescued from slavery. This royal speech had evidently formedhis manual of government, and, certainly, a nobler declaration nevercame from the throne.

Daylight shone on the windows of St Stephen's before the debate closed.The minister had retired immediately after his exhausting speech, andleft his friends to sustain the combat. It was long and fierce; butOpposition was again baffled, and the division gave us a lingeringmajority. It was now too late, or too early, to go to rest; and I hadreturned to my official apartments, to look over some returns requiredfor the next council, when, my friend the secretary tapped at my door.His countenance looked care-worn; and for a few moments after he had satdown, he remained in total silence, with his forehead resting on hishands. This was so unlike the cheerful spirit of former times—times inwhich he had seemed to defy, or almost to enjoy, the struggles of publiclife—that I began to express alarm for his health. But he interruptedme by a look of the deepest distress, and the words "Pitt is dying." Nowords could be fuller of ill omen, and my anxiety was equal to his own."My meaning," said he, "is not, that he must die to-day, or to-morrow,nor in six months, nor perhaps in a year, but that the statesman isdead. He must speak no more, act no more, and even think no more, or hemust go to his grave. This night has finished the long supremacy of thenoblest mind that ever ruled the councils of this country. William Pittmay live, but the minister has finished his days."

"Yet," I remarked, "I never heard him more animated or more impressivethan on this night. He absolutely broke down all resistance. His mindseemed richer than ever, and his combination of facts and reasoningappeared to me unequalled by even his greatest previous efforts. Ishould have almost pronounced him to be inspired by the increaseddifficulties of the time."

"True—yet I conveyed him from the House, fainting;—I have sate, alongwith his physician, at his bedside ever since, applying restoratives tohim, with scarcely a hope of recovery. It is plain that another night ofsuch effort would be too much for his frame; and the question on which Ihave now come to summon an immediate meeting of our friends, turns onthe means of calming public opinion until he shall be able to appear inhis place once more. His career is unquestionably at an end, but hisname is powerful still; and though another trial of his powers inParliament would cost him his life, still, as the head of the cabinet,he might effect, for a while, all the principal purposes of anadministration."

I doubted the possibility of encountering the present strength ofOpposition, reinforced, as it was, by calamity abroad, and asked,"Whether any expedient was contemplated, to restore the public fortuneson the Continent?"

"Every point of that kind has been long since considered," was theanswer. "Our alliances have all failed; and we are now reproached, notsimply with the folly of paying for inefficient help, but with thecruelty of dragging the states of Europe into a contest, where to becrushed was inevitable."

I still urged an enquiry into the strength of states which had neverbeen sharers in the war. "If the minor German powers have been absorbed;if Prussia has abandoned the cause; if Austria has fought in vain—isthe world included in Germany?" I threw the map of Europe on thetable. "See what a narrow circle comprehends the whole space to which wehave hitherto limited the defence of society against the enemy of allsocial order. Our cause is broader than Austria and Prussia; it isbroader than Europe; it is the cause of civilization itself; and why notsummon all civilization to its defence? Russia alone has an army of halfa million, yet she has never fired a shot." Still, I found it difficultto convince my fellow minister.

"Russia—jealous, ambitious, and Asiatic; Russia, with the Eastern worldfor her natural field—what object can she have in relieving the brokenpowers of the Continent? Must she not rather rejoice in the defeats and[Pg 162]convulsions which leave them at her mercy?" I still continued to urgehim.

"Rely upon it; it is in the North that we must look for thereinforcement. If the councils of Catharine were crafty, the councils ofher successor may be sincere. Catharine thought only of the seizure ofTurkey; Paul may think only of the profits of commerce. Yet, is italtogether justifiable to suppose that monarchs may not feel the samesympathies, the same principles of honour—nay, the same abhorrence of asanguinary republicanism—which a private individual might feel in anyother instance of oppression?"

"Still, Marston, I am at a loss to know by what influence a Britishgovernment could urge a Russian despotism into a contest, a thousandmiles from its frontier; in which it can gain no accession of territory,and but little accession of military fame; and all this, while it isitself perfectly secure from all aggression."

"All true; but remember the striking commencement of Voltaire's Memoirof Peter—'Who could have pretended to say, in the year 1700, that amagnificent and polished court would be formed at the extremity of theGulf of Finland; that the inhabitants of Cazan and the banks of theWolga would be ranked among disciplined warriors, and, after beating theTurk and the Swede, gain victories in Germany? That a desert of twothousand leagues in length, should, in the space of fifty years, extendits influence to all the European courts; and that, in 1759, the mostzealous patron of literature in Europe should be a Russian sovereign?The man who had said this would have been regarded as the mostchimerical mortal on earth.' But all this has been done, and the careeris not closed. More will be done still. It may even be our mostessential policy to bring Russia into full collision with France. She isnow the only rival: and I shall scarcely regret the fall of the Germansovereignties, if it clears the field, to bring face to face the twogreat powers which hold at their sword's point the fate of theContinent."

A month passed, of perpetual difficulty in the cabinet, of ill news fromabroad, and of violent discontents among the people. A deficient harvesthad come, to increase the national murmurs; a season of peculiarinclemency had added its share to the public vexations; and I fullyexperienced the insufficiency of office, and of the showy honours ofcourts, to constitute happiness. But a new scene was reserved for me.Casual as my conversation with the secretary of state had been, it wasnot forgotten: it had been related to the minister; and it had so farcoincided with the conceptions of a mind, which seemed to comprehendevery chance of human things, that I was shortly sent for, to enter intothe necessary explanations. The result was, the offer of a mission to StPetersburg. The proposal was so unexpected, that I required time for myanswer. I must abandon high employment at home for a temporarydistinction abroad; my knowledge of Russia was slight; the character ofthe Czar was eccentric; and the success of an embassy, dependent on themost capricious of mankind, was so uncertain, that the result mightstrip me of whatever credit I already possessed.

But, there was one authority, to which I always appealed. I placed theproposal in the hands of Clotilde; and she settled all my doubts atonce, by declaring, "that it was the appointment which, if she had beensuffered to choose, she would have selected, in preference to allothers, for its honour and its services." I had no power to resist suchpleadings—seconded as they were by the rosiest smiles, and the mostbeaming eyes. But Clotilde was still the woman, and I only valued herthe more for it.—Her sincerity had not a thought to hide; and sheacknowledged her delight at the prospect of once more treading on thesoil of the Continent; at gazing even on the borders of her native land,excluded as she might be from its entrance; at the enjoyment of seeingcontinental life in the brilliant animation of its greatest court; andat mingling with the scene in a rank which entitled her to its firstdistinctions.

"But, Clotilde, how will you reconcile your tastes to the wild habits[Pg 163]of Russia, and even to the solemn formalities of a northern court?"

"They both present themselves to me," was her answer, "with the charm atonce of novelty and recollection. From my nursery days, the names ofPeter, Catharine, and their marvellous city, rang in the ears of allParis. Romance had taken refuge at the pole; Voltaire, Buffon,D'Alembert—all the wit, and all the philosophy of France—satirized theFrench court under the disguise of Russian panegyric; and St Petersburgwas to us the modern Babylon—a something compounded of the wildness ofa Scythian desert, and the lustre of a Turkish tale."

The ministerial note had been headed "most secret and confidential," andas such I had regarded it. But I soon saw the difficulty of keeping "astate secret." I had scarcely sent in my acceptance of the appointment,when I found a letter on my table from my old Israelite friend,Mordecai, congratulating me on "my decision." It was in his usual abruptstyle:—

I visited him "in his den;" and it deserved the name as much as ever.Not a pane had been cleared of its dinginess; not a cobweb had beenswept from its ceiling; nothing had been removed, except the pair ofliving skeletons who once acted as his attendants. They had beenremoved by the Remover of all things; and were succeeded by a pair, so[Pg 164]similar in meagreness and oddity of appearance, that I could not haveknown the change, except for its mention by their master, congratulatinghimself on being so "fortunate" in finding substitutes. I found Mordecaiimmersed in day-books and ledgers, and calculating the exchanges with asmuch anxiety as if he were not worth a shilling. But his look was morelanguid than before, and his powerful eye seemed to have sunk deeperbeneath his brow.

"You are probably surprised at seeing me here;" said he, "but I havemore reason than ever to be here. There is a time for all things, butnot if we throw it away. My last excursion to Poland has revived my zealin behalf of my nation; and as years advance on me, like the rest of theworld, I find that I must only exert myself the more."

"But, Mordecai, you are opulent; you can have no necessity forabandoning the natural indulgences of life. You will only shorten yourdays by this toil. At least why do you linger in this dungeon?"

He smiled grimly. "It is a dungeon, and I only value it the more. Tothis dungeon, as you call it, come, day by day, some of the haughtiestnames of the land. If I lived in some west-end Square, with mydrawing-room filled with Louis Quatorze gew-gaws, and half-a-dozenidle fellows in livery to announce my visitors, I should not feel thehundredth part of the sense of superiority, the contemptuous triumph,the cool consciousness of the tyranny of gold, which I feel when I seemy shrinking supplicants sitting down among my dusty boxes andeverlasting cobwebs. I shall not suffer a grain of dust to be clearedaway. It is my pride—it is my power—it is my revenge."

His visage assumed so completely the expression which I had alwaysimagined for Shylock, that I should scarcely have been surprised if Ihad seen him produce the knife and the scales.

"You are surprised at all this," said he after a pause, in which hefixed his searching eyes on me. "I see by your countenance, that youthink me a Goth, a monster, a savage.—I think myself none of thosethings. I am a man; and, if I am not much deceived, I am also aphilosopher. My life has been a perpetual struggle through a world whereevery one worships self. My nation are scorned, and they struggle too.The Jew has been injured, not by the individual alone, but by allmankind; and has he not a right to his revenge? He has at last found themeans. He is now absorbing the wealth of all nations. With the wealth hewill have the power; and another half century will not elapse, beforeall the grand questions of public council—nay, of nationalexistence—must depend on the will of the persecuted sons of Abraham.Who shall rise, or who shall fall; who shall make war, or who shallobtain peace; what republic shall be created, or what monarchy shall berent in pieces—will henceforth be the questions, not of cabinets, butof the 'Change. There are correspondences within this escritoire, worthall the wisdom of all the ministers of earth. There are commands at thepoint of this pen, which the proudest statesmanship dares notcontrovert. There is in the chests round you a ruler more powerful thanever before held the sceptre—the dictator of the globe; the true Despotis Gold."

After this wild burst, he sank into silence; until, to change the feverof his thoughts, I enquired for the health of his daughter. The father'sheart overcame him again.

"My world threatens to be a lonely one, Mr Marston," said he in a feeblevoice. "You see a heartbroken man. Forgive the bitterness with which Ihave spoken. Mariamne, I fear, is dying; and what is wealth now to me? Ihave left her in Poland among my people. She seemed to feel some slightenjoyment in wandering from place to place; but her last letter tells methat she is wearied of travelling, and has made up her mind to live anddie where she may be surrounded by her unhappy nation. I remain hereonly to wind up my affairs, and in a week I quit England—and for ever."

But a new object caught my glance. Mordecai—who, while he was thusspeaking in paroxysms of alternate indignation and sorrow, had never fora moment ceased to turn over his books and boxes—had accidentally[Pg 165]shaken a pile of tin cases from its pinnacle, and the whole rolled downat my feet. On one of them I saw, with no very strong surprise, thewords—"Mortgage—Mortimer Castle." The eyes of both glanced in the samedirection.

"There," said the Israelite, "you have your paternal acres in yourhand—your Plantagenet forests, and your Tudor castle, all in a cubicfoot. On the chair where you are now sitting, your lordly brother satyesterday, gathering up his skirts from the touch of every thing roundhim, and evidently suffering all the torture of a man of fashion, forcedto smile on the holder of his last mortgage. He is ruined—not worth asixpence; Melton and Newmarket have settled that question for him. Butdo you recognise that hand?" He drew a letter from his portfolio. I knewthe writing: it was from my mother—on whom, now old and feeble, thisaccomplished roué had been urging the sale of her jointure. Helplessand alone, she had consented to this fatal measure; and my noblebrother's visit to the Israelite had been for the purpose of inducinghim to make the purchase.

I started up in indignation; declared that the result must reduce myunfortunate parent to beggary; and demanded by what means I couldpossibly prevent what was "neither more nor less than an act ofplunder."

"I see no means," said Mordecai coolly, "except your making the purchaseyourself, and thus securing the jointure to her ladyship. It is only tenthousand pounds."

"I make the purchase! I have not the tenth part of the money uponearth. I ask you, what is to be done?"

"Your brother has here the power of selling—and will sell, if thestarvation of fifty mothers stood in his way. Newmarket suffers noqualms of that kind; and, when his matters there are settled, hiscoachmaker's bill for landaulets and britchskas will make him apedestrian for the rest of his life. But I have refused the purchase;and it was chiefly on this subject that I was induced to invite you tomy 'dungeon,' as you not unjustly term it."

The picture of a mother, of whom I had always thought with thetenderness of a child, cast out in her old age to poverty, with theadded bitterness of being thus cast out by her reliance on the honour ofa cruel and treacherous son, rose before my eyes with such pain, that Iabsolutely lost all power of speech, and could only look the distresswhich I felt. Mordecai gazed on me with an enquiring countenance.

"You love this mother, Mr Marston. You are a good son. We Israelites,with all our faults, respect the feelings which 'honour the father andthe mother.' It is a holy love, and well earned by the cares and sorrowsof parentage." He paused, and covered his forehead with his gigantichands. I could hear him murmur the name of his daughter. The striking ofa neighbouring church clock startled him from his reverie.

Suddenly again bustling among his papers, he said—"Within this halfhour, your brother is to call again for my definitive answer. Now,listen to me. The jointure shall be purchased." I bit my lip; but he didnot leave me long in suspense—"And you shall be the purchaser." Hewrote a cheque for the amount, and placed it in my hand.

"Mordecai, you are a noble fellow! But how am I to act upon this? I amworth nothing. I might as well attempt to repay millions."

"Well, so be it, Mr Marston. You are a man of honor, and a good son. Youwill repay it when you can. I exact but one condition: that you willcome and visit Mariamne and me in Poland."

A loud knock at the hall-door put an end to our interview.

"That is your brother," said he. "You must not see him, as I choose tokeep the name of the purchaser to myself. Take your mother's letter withyou; and give her my best advice to write no more—at least to suchcorrespondents as his lordship."

I rose to take my leave. He followed me hastily; and, taking me by thehand, said—"Another condition I have to make. It is, that not asyllable of all that has passed between us on this subject shall besuffered to transpire. I should make but a bad figure on 'Change, if Iwere suspected of transactions in that style. Remember, it must be aprofound secret to all the world."

[Pg 166]

"Even to my wife?" I asked. "Is she included?"

"No, no," he replied, with a faint laugh; "I look upon you as a meremortal still. All vows are void in their nature, which requireimpossibilities in their execution." We parted.

I told my little city tale to Clotilde. She wept and smiled alternately,as I told it. Mordecai received all his due praise; and we pledgedourselves to find out his Mariamne, in whatever corner of the Lithuanianwilderness she might have hidden her fantastic heart and head. But I hadnow another duty. Within a few hours, we were on our way to thejointure-house. It was a picturesque old building, the residence of theFather Abbot, in the times before the insatiable hand of Somerset hadfallen upon the monasteries. We reached it in the twilight of a gentleday, when all its shrubs and flowers were filling the air with freshnessand fragrance. I found my mother less enfeebled than I had expected; andstill affectionate and tender, as she had always been to her long-absentson. She was still fully susceptible of the honours which had now openedbefore me. Clotilde almost knelt before her noble air and venerablebeauty. My mother could not grow weary with gazing on the expressivecountenance of my beautiful wife. I had secured my parent's comfort forlife; and I, too, was happy.

My embassy, like all other embassies, had its vexations; but on thewhole I had reason to congratulate myself on its acceptance. Myreception at St Petersburg was most distinguished; I had arrived at afortunate period. The French expedition to Egypt had alarmed the Russiancouncils for Constantinople; a possession to which every Russian looks,in due time, as naturally as to the right of his copecks and caftan. Butthe victory of Aboukir, which had destroyed the French fleet, againraised the popular exultation, and English heroism was the topic ofevery tongue. The incomparable campaign of the Russian army in Italy;the recovery, in three months, of all which it had cost the power ofFrance, and the genius of her greatest general, in two years of pitchedbattles, sanguinary sieges, artful negotiation, and incessant intrigue,to obtain, excited the nation to the highest degree of enthusiasm, andthe embassy basked in the broadest sunshine of popularity. Fête nowsucceeded fête; the standards taken in Suwarrow's battles, the proudesttrophies ever won by Russian arms, were carried in procession to thecathedral; illuminations of the capital, balls in the palaces, andpublic sports on the waters and banks of the Neva, kept St Petersburg ina perpetual tumult of joy.

But all was not sunshine: the character of the sovereign in a despotismdemands perpetual study; and Paul was freakish and headstrong beyond allhuman calculation. No man was more misunderstood at a distance, nor lesscapable of being understood near. He had some striking qualities. He wasgenerous, bold, and high-principled; but the simplest accident wouldturn all those qualities into their reverse. To-day he was ready todevote himself to the cause of Europe; every soldier of Russia mustmarch: but, when the morrow came, he revoked the order for his troops,and cashiered the secretaries who had been rash enough to take him athis word. The secret was in his brain; disease was gathering on hisintellect, and he was daily becoming dangerous to those nearest him. Theresult was long foreseen. In Spain, Gil Blas recommends that no man whowishes for long life should quarrel with his cook. In Russia, let noCzar rouse the suspicions of his courtiers. As the Pagans hung chapletson the statues of their gods in victory, and flogged them in defeat, theRussians, in every casualty of their arms, turned a scowling eye upontheir liege lord: and the retreat of Suwarrow, the greatest of Russiansoldiers, from Switzerland, at once stripped the Emperor of all hispopularity.

My position now became doubly anxious. Even despots love popularity, andthe Czar was alternately furious and frightened at its loss. Guards wereplanted in every part of the city, with orders to disperse all groups.Every man who looked at the Imperial equipage as it passed through thestreets, was in danger of being arrested as an assassin. Nobles weresuddenly exiled—none knew why, or where. The cloud was thickening[Pg 167]round the palace. It is a perilous thing to be the one object on whichevery eye involuntary turns, as the cause of public evil. Rumours ofconspiracy rose and died, and were heard again. In free governmentspublic discontents have room to escape, and they escape. In despotismsthey have no room to evaporate, and they condense until they explode. StPetersburg at length became a place of silence and solitude by day, andof murmurs and meetings by night. It reminded one of Rome in the days ofNero; and I looked with perpetual alarm for the catastrophe of Nero.

The Russian is a submissive man, and even capable of strong attachmentto the throne: but there is no spot of the earth where national injuryis more deeply resented; and Paul had been regarded as tarnishing thefame of Russia. His abandonment of Suwarrow—a warrior, of whom theannals of the Russian army will bear record to the end of time—hadstung all classes. More than a soldier, Suwarrow was a great militarygenius. He gained battles without tactics, and in defiance of them. Hehad astonished the Austrian generals by the fierce rapidity of hismovements; he had annihilated the French armies in Italy by thedesperate daring of his attacks. Wherever Suwarrow came, he wasconqueror. In his whole career he had never been beaten. The soldierytold numberless tales of his eccentricity—laughed at, mimicked, andadored him. The nation honoured him as the national warrior. But thefailure of some of his detached corps in Switzerland had embarrassed thecampaign; and Paul, capricious as the winds, hastily recalled him. Thepopular indignation now burst out in every form of anger. Placards fixedat night on the palace walls; gipsy ballads sung in the streets;maskers, at the countless balls of the nobles; satires in quaint verse,and national proverbs, showed the public resentment to be universal.Every incident furnished some contemptuous comment. The Czar had built awing to one of the palaces of Catharine. The addition wanted thestateliness of the original fabric. This epigram was posted on thebuilding, in angry Slavonic:—

In the midst of this growing perplexity, the English messenger arrived.His tidings had been long anticipated, yet they came with the effect ofa thunderclap. The cabinet had resigned! I of course now waited only formy order to return. But, in the mean time, this event formidablyincreased the difficulties of my position. Foreigners will never allowthemselves to comprehend the nature of any English transaction whatever.They deal with them all as if they were scenes on a stage. In theincorrigible absurdity of their theatrical souls, they imagine aparliamentary defeat to be a revolution, and the change of a ministrythe fall of an empire. Paul instantly cast off all his old partialities.He pronounced England undone. The star of France was to be the light ofthe west; he himself to be the luminary of the east. The bold ambitionof Catharine was to be realized; however, without the system or thesagacity of her imperial genius. But Paul was to learn the terriblelesson of a despotic government. The throne separated from the people,is the more in peril the more widely it is separated. The people wouldnot be carried along with their master to the feet of his new politicalidol. The substantial virtues of the national character resisted thatFrench alliance, which must be begun at once by prostration andingratitude. France was their new taunter. England was their old ally.They hated France for its republican insolence; they honoured Englandfor its resolute determination to fight out the battle, not for its ownsake alone, but for the cause of all nations. Paul, in the attempt topartition the globe, was narrowing his supremacy to his own sepulchre.

Yet, this time of national gloom was the most splendid period of thecourt. With the double purpose of recovering his popularity, andconcealing his negotiations, Paul plunged into the most extraordinaryfestivity. Balls, masquerades, and fêtes succeeded each other withrestless extravagance. But the contrast of the saturnine Emperor with[Pg 168]the sudden change of his court was too powerful. It bore the look ofdesperation; though for what purpose, was still a mystery to themillion. I heard many a whisper among the diplomatic circle, that thiswhirl of life, this hot and fierce dissipation, was, in all Russianreigns, the sure precursor of a catastrophe; though none could yetventure to predict its nature. It was like the furious and frenziedindulgence of a crew in a condemned ship, breaking up the chests anddrinking the liquors, in the conviction that none would survive thevoyage. Even I, with all my English disregard of the speculativefrivolities which to the foreigner are substance and facts, was startledby the increasing glare of those hurried and feverish festivities. Morethan once, as I entered the imperial saloon, crowded with the civil andmilitary uniforms of every court of Europe, and exhibiting at onceEuropean taste and Asiatic magnificence, I could scarcely suppress thefeeling that I was only entering the most stately of theatres; where,with all the temporary glitter of the stage, the sounds of theorchestra, and the passion and poetry of the characters—the fifth actwas preparing, and the curtain was to fall on the death of nobles andkings.

The impression that evil was to come, already seemed to be universal.Rumours of popular conspiracy, fresh discoveries by the police, and newtales of imperial eccentricity, kept the public mind in constantfitfulness. At length, I received the formal communication of a"challenge" from the Czar to my sovereign, along with all the othercrowned heads of Europe, to meet him in a champ-clos, and, sword inhand, decide the quarrels of nations. With this despatch came aninvitation for the whole diplomatic body to a masquerade! in which allwere commanded to appear as knights in armour—the Czar, as grand-masterof the Order of Malta, exhibiting himself in the panoply in which he wasto settle the disputes of mankind.

Perplexities like those form a large share of the trials of the foreignambassador. To attend the fête was embarrassing; but to decline theinvitation, would have been equivalent to demanding my passports. And Imust acknowledge, that if the eye was to be gratified by the most superband the most curious of all displays, never was there an occasion morefitted for its indulgence. All the armouries of Europe, and of Asia,seemed to have been searched for the arms and ornaments of thisassemblage. The Kremlin had given up its barbaric shields and caps ofbronze; the plate-mail of the Crusader; the gold-inlaid morions andcuirasses of France; the silver chain-mail of the Circassian; the steelcorslet of the German chivalry; and a whole host of the various and richequipments of the Greek, the Hungarian, the Moresco, and the Turkoman,made the Winter palace a blaze of knighthood.

Yet, to me, after the first excitement, the whole conveyed a deepimpression of melancholy. It irresistibly reminded me of the lastceremonial of dead sovereigns, the "Chapelle Ardente." Even the curtainswhich fell round the throne, fringed with jewels as they were, to melooked funereal. The immense golden candelabra were to me the lightsround a bier. I almost imagined that I could see the sword and sceptrelaid across the coffin, and all of the Lord of Empire that remained, acorpse within.

I was roused from my reluctant reverie by the approach of a group ofmasks, who came dancing towards the recess where I had retired, weariedwith the general noise, and the exhaustion of the fête. One of thecasem*nts opened into the famous Conservatory; and I was enjoying thescents of the thousand flowers and shrubs, of, perhaps, the finestcollection in the world. But, in the shade, the group had evidentlyoverlooked me; for they began to speak of matters which they could nothave designed for a stranger's ear. The conduct of the Czar, the wrongsof Russia, and the "necessity of coming to a decision," were the topics.Suddenly, as if to avert suspicion, one of the group struck up a popularair on the little three-stringed guitar which throws the Russian crowdinto such ecstasies; and they began a dance, accompanying it by amurmuring chorus, which soon convinced me of the dangerous neighbourhoodinto which I had fallen.[Pg 169] The words became well known afterwards. Nolanguage excels the Russian in energy; but I must give them in theweakness of a translation.

My conviction was complete, when, in the whirl of the dance, a smallroll of paper dropped from the robe of one of the maskers, and fell atmy feet. In taking it up to return it to him, I saw that it was a listof names, and, at the head, a name which, from private information, Iknew to be involved in dark political purposes. The thought flashedacross me, in connexion with the chorus which I had just heard, that thepaper was of too much importance to be suffered to leave mypossession.—The life of the sovereign might be involved. The group, whohad been evidently startled by my sudden appearance among them, nowsurrounded me, and the loser of the paper insisted on its instantsurrender. The violence of his demand only confirmed my resolution. Hegrew more agitated still, and the group seized me. I laid my hand uponmy sword. This measure stopped them for the moment. But in the next, Isaw a knife brandished in the air, and felt myself wounded in the arm.My attempt to grasp the weapon had alone saved me from its being buriedin my heart. But the fracas now attracted notice; a crowd rushed towardsus, and the group suddenly scattered away, leaving me still inpossession of the paper. My wound bled, and I felt faint, and desired tobe led into the open air. My mask was taken off; and this was scarcelydone when I heard my name pronounced, and saw the welcome countenance ofmy friend Guiscard by my side. He had arrived but on that day, on amission from his court; had, with his usual eagerness of friendship,gone to enquire for me at the hotel of the embassy; and thus followed[Pg 170]me to the fête at the critical time. As he supported me to my equipage,I communicated the circ*mstances of the rencontre to his clear head andgenerous heart; and he fully agreed with me on the duty of instantlyapprising the Czar of his probable danger. As I was unable to movethrough pain and feebleness, he offered to take the roll with him, anddemand an interview with the sovereign himself, if possible; or, if not,with the governor of the palace. The paper contained not only names ofindividuals, all, long before, objects of public suspicion, but a sketchof the imperial apartments, and, at the bottom, the words—"three hoursafter midnight." I looked at my watch, it was already half-past two.This might, or might not be, the appointed night for this dreadfulbusiness; but, if it were, there was but one half hour between thethrone and the grave. Guiscard hurried off, leaving me in the deepestanxiety, but promising to return as speedily as in his power. But hecame not. My anxiety grew intolerable; hour after hour passed away,while I reckoned minute after minute, as if they were so much drainedfrom my own existence. Even, if I had been able to move, it wasimpossible to know where to follow him. His steps might have beenwatched. Doubtless the conspirators were on the alert to prevent anyapproach to the palace. He might have fallen by the pistol of some ofthose men, who had not scrupled to conspire against their monarch. Themost miserable of nights at length wore away; but it was only to besucceeded by the most fearful of mornings. The career of Paul wasclosed! On the entrance of the chamberlains into his sleeping apartment,the unhappy Czar was found dead. There could be no doubt that he hadperished by treason. He was strangled. The intelligence no sooner spreadthrough the capital, than it produced a burst of national sorrow. Allhis errors were forgotten. All his good qualities were remembered.

But where was my gallant and excellent friend—Guiscard?—Of him I heardnothing.

Another week of suspense, and he appeared. His history was of the mostsingular kind. On the night when I had last seen him, he had made hisway through all obstacles into the palace, and been promised a privateinterview with the Czar. But, while he urged that no time should belost, he had sufficient proof that there could be no chance of aninterview. A succession of apologies was made: the 'Czar was atsupper'—'he was engaged with the minister'—'he had gone to rest.' Intotal hopelessness of communicating his pressing intelligence in person,he at length consented to seal the roll, and place it in the hands ofone of the officers of rank in the household. But that officer himselfwas in the conspiracy. The paper was immediately destroyed; and thebearer of it was considered to be too dangerous to be sent back. He wasput under arrest in an apartment of the palace, and told that his lifedepended on his silence. He urged his diplomatic character in vain. Theonly answer was the sword of the conspirator turned to his throat. Butwithin the week the revolution was complete, and he was set at liberty.A new monarch, a new government, a new feeling followed this dangerousact. But the character of the young monarch was made to be popular; thereign of caprice was at an end. The empire felt relieved; and Russiabegan the most glorious period of her national history.

My mission was now accomplished, for I refused to hold the embassy undera rival cabinet; but I carried with me from St Petersburg twotrophies:—the former was the treaty concluded by Paul with France forthe march of an army, in conjunction with a French column of 300,000men, to invade India—a document which had hitherto baffled alldiplomatic research; the other was the pathetic and noble letter ofAlexander to the British sovereign, proposing a restoration of thenational friendship.

I took my leave of the Russian court with a most gracious audience ofits new monarch. I saw him long afterwards, under differentcirc*mstances, struggling with a tremendous war, pressed by everydifficulty which could beset the throne, and throwing the lastmelancholy and doubtful cast for the independence of Europe. But, both[Pg 171]now and then, I saw him, what nature had made him—a noble being. Hisstature was tall and commanding; and he was one of the most strikingfigures of his court when in the uniform of his guards. But his mannerwas still superior—it was at once affable and dignified; he spoke ofEuropean interests with intelligence, of his own intentions withcandour, and of England with a rational respect for its spirit andinstitutions. Of his own country, he expressed himself with candour. "Ifeel," said he, "that I have a great trust laid on me, and I amdetermined to fulfil it. I shall not make the throne a bed of roses.There is still much to be done, and I shall do what I can. I have theadvantage of a fine material in the people. No being is at once moresusceptible of improvement, and more grateful for it, than the Russian.He has quick faculties and an honest heart. If the common hazards ofempire should come, I know that he will not desert me. In the lastextremity of human fortunes, I shall not desert him."

Those generous declarations were gallantly realized on both sides withina few years. I was not then aware that the Imperial prediction would besoon brought to the test. But it was gloriously fulfilled at Moscow, andproudly registered in the fragments of the throne of Napoleon.

Impatient as I was to reach England, I left St Petersburg with regret.Clotilde left it with those feelings which belong to the finer fancy ofwoman. She remembered it as the scene where she had enjoyed the mostdazzling portion of her life; where every countenance had met her withsmiles, and every tongue was prodigal of praise; where the day rose onthe promise of new enjoyments, and the night descended in royalfestivity. As we drove along the banks of the Neva, she more than oncestopped the carriage, to give herself a parting glance at the long vistaof stately buildings, which she was then to look upon, perhaps, for thelast time. The scene was certainly of the most striking order; for wehad commenced our journey on the evening of one of the nationalfestivals; and we thus had the whole population, in all their holidaydresses, to give animation to the general aspect of the massive andgigantic architecture. The Neva was covered with barges of the mostgraceful form; the fronts of the citizens' houses were hung withdecorations; music sounded from a vast orchestra in front of the palace;and the air re-echoed with the voices of thousands and tens ofthousands, all evidently determined to be happy for the time. We bothgazed in silence and admiration. The carriage had accidentally drawn upin view of the little hut which is preserved in the Neva as the dwellingof Peter. I saw a tear glistening on the long eyelash of my lovelyfellow traveller.

"If I wanted a proof," said she, "of the intellectual greatness of man,I should find it in this spot. I may see in that hut the emblem of hismind. That a Russian, two centuries ago—almost before the name ofRussia was known in Europe—while its court had scarcely emerged fromthe feuds of barbarous factions, and its throne had been but justrescued from the hands of the Tartar—should have conceived the designof such an empire, and should have crowned his design with such acapital, is to me the most memorable effort of a ruling mind, within allhuman recollection."

"Clotilde, I was not aware that you were inclined to give the great Czarso tender a tribute," I said laughingly, at her embarrassment in thediscovery of a tear stealing down her cheek.

Truth was in her reply. "I agree in the common censure of the darkerportions of his course. But I can now judge of him only by what I see.Who is to know the truth of his private history? What can be more unsafethan to judge of the secret actions of princes, from the interested orignorant narratives of a giddy court, or foreign enemies? But theevidence round us allows of no deception. These piles of marble areunanswerable;—these are the vindications of kings. The man who, sittingin that hut, in the midst of the howling wilderness, imagined theexistence of such a city rising round him and his line—at once bringinghis country into contact with Europe, and erecting a monument ofnational greatness, to which Europe itself, in its thousand years of[Pg 172]progress, has no equal—must have had a nature made for the highesttasks of human advancement. Of all the panegyrics of an Imperial life,St Petersburg is the most Imperial."

We passed rapidly through the Russian provinces, and, intending toembark in one of our frigates cruising the Baltic, felt all the delightof having at length left the damp and dreary forests of Livonia far downin the horizon, and again feeling the breezes blowing from that oceanwhich the Englishman instinctively regards as a portion of his home.But, as we drove along the smooth sands which line so many leagues ofthe Baltic, and enjoyed with the full sense of novelty the variouscontrast of sea and shore, we were startled by the roar of guns from theramparts of Riga, followed by the peal of bells. What victory, whatdefeat, what great event, did those announce? The intelligence at lengthbroke on us at the gates; and it was well worth all our interest. "Peacewith France." The English ambassador had arrived in Paris. "War was atend, and the world was to be at rest once more." I changed my routeimmediately, and flew on the road to Paris.

My life was destined to be a succession of scenes. It had been throwninto a whirl of memorable incidents, any one of which would have servedfor the tumult of fifty years, and for the meditation of the fiftyafter. But this was the period of powerful, sometimes of terrible,vicissitudes. All ranks of men were reached by them. Kings and statesmenonly felt them first: they penetrated to the peasant; and the Continentunderwent a moral convulsion—an outpouring of the general elements ofsociety—like that of some vast inundation, sweeping away the landmarks,and uprooting the produce of the soil; until it subsided, leaving thesoil in some places irreparably stripped—in others, filled with a newfertility.

I found France in a state of the highest exultation. The national crywas, "that she had covered herself with glory;" and to earn that cry,probably, no Frenchman who ever existed would hesitate to march toTimbuctoo, or swim across the Atlantic. The name of "conquest" is aspell which no brain, from Calais to Bayonne, has ever thought ofresisting. The same spell lives, masters, domineers over the nationalmind, to this hour; and will last, long after Paris has dropped into thedepths of its own catacombs, and its fifteen fortresses are calcinedunder the cannon of some Austrian or Russian invader. It will beimpossible to tell future ages the scene which France then presented tothe mind. If objects are capable of record, impressions are beyond thepower of the pen. No image can be conveyed to posterity by thesensations which crowded on Europe in the course of the FrenchRevolution—the rapidity, the startling lustre, and the deep despair; asit went forth crushing all that the earth had of solid or sacred. It wasnow only in its midway. The pause had come; but it was only the pause inthe hurricane—the still heavier trial was at hand. Even as a stranger,I could see that it was but a lull. Every thing that met the eye inParis was a preparative for war. The soldier was every thing, and everywhere. I looked in vain for the Republican costumes which I so fearfullyremembered. They had been flung aside for the uniform of the ImperialGuard; or were to be seen only on a few haggard and desolate men, whocame out in the twilight, and sat in silence, and gloomy dreams ofrevenge, in some suburb café. Where were the deadly tribunals, withtheir drunken judges, their half-naked assassins, and the eternal clankof the guillotines?—all vanished; the whole sullen furniture of theRepublican drama flung behind the scenes, and the stage filled with thesong and the dance—the pageant and the feast—with all France gazingand delighted at the spectacle. But, my still stronger curiosity wasfixed on the one man who had been the soul of the transformation. I havebefore my eye at this moment his slender and spirituel figure; hiscalm, but most subtle glance; and the incomparable expression of hissmile. His face was classic—the ideal of thought; and, when Canovaafterwards transferred it to marble, he could not have made it less likeflesh and blood. It was intensely pale—pure, profound, Italian.

[Pg 173]

A LETTER FROM LONDON.

By a Railway Witness.

My Dear Bogle,—It is ten thousand pities that you are not here. Why thedeuce can't you make yourself useful to the commonwealth, by calculatinga gradient, laying down a curve, or preparing a table of traffic, inorder to obtain the proper qualification for a railway witness? Nothingin this world is easier. You have only to sit at your window for a givenamount of hours once a-week, and note down the number of the cabs andcarts which jolt and jingle to the Broomielaw; or, if you like thatbetter, to ascertain the quality of the soil three feet beneath your ownwine-cellar; and you are booked for a month's residence in London, freequarters in a first-rate hotel, five guineas a-day, and all expensespaid. I confess that this regimen seems to me both profitable andpleasant. I have been here for six weeks feeding on the fat of the land,drinking claret which even a Leith man would scarcely venture toanathematize, white-baiting at Blackwall, and varying these sensualqualifications with an occasional trip to Richmond and Ascot races. Ihave, moreover, mark you, a bunch of as pretty bank paper in my pocketas ever was paid into the Exchequer; and the whole equivalent I havegiven for this kind and liberal treatment was certain evidence touchingthe iron-trade of Ayrshire, which I poured into the drowsy ears of fiveworthy gentlemen, about as familiar with that subject as you are withthe mythology of the Chinese. Long life to the railway mania, say I! Ithas been treasure-trove to some of us. The only thing I regret is myinability to carry the war into the enemy's country, and make my fortuneout of the English companies. I have the appetite but not the power;and, after all, it would hardly make up for Flodden.

I like this sort of life much better than assorting cargoes andsuperintending the arrival of sugar casks. There is no want of society,for I find myself here surrounded by the old familiar faces. I do notthink there is a soul in this hotel except townsmen of our own. You meetin the committee rooms the same excellent fellows whom you have dailyencountered for the last ten years on the Exchange, and they are allgetting fatter upon their work. Edinburgh, too, has furnished her quota.We have Writers to the Signet by the score, and a sprinkling of theyoung Advocates whom we are accustomed to meet upon circuit. Poor lads!it does one good to see them thriving. This must be a very differentsort of business from the weariful Parliament House, and the two squareyards of processes, with a fee of three guineas for many an interminablecondescendence. I believe they would have no objection if the Session ofParliament were declared perpetual; and for that matter no more would I.

Certainly, of all tribunals ever invented by the ingenuity of man, aParliamentary Committee is the most extraordinary. It is a court ofenquiry consisting of five members, whose principal qualification isabsolute previous ignorance of the localities and conflicting interestswith regard to which they must decide. Of their impartiality, therefore,there can be no doubt. You or I might just as well sit down at amoment's notice, and adjudicate upon the merits of three competing linesbetween Pekin and Canton, with an equal chance of arriving at asatisfactory conclusion. Of course they must be guided entirely byevidence, and have plenty of materials laid before them from which theymay pick and choose. It is the richest thing in the world to see twocrack engineers pitted against each other. The first, who appears onbehalf of the line, does not know and cannot conceive the slightestengineering difficulty. If a mountain stands in his way, he plungesfearlessly into its bowels, finds in the interior strata of surpassingmineral wealth, yet marvellously adapted for the purposes of a four-miletunnel, and brings[Pg 174] you out sound and safe at the opposite side, asthough he had been perforating a gigantic cheese instead of hammeringhis path through whinstone coeval with the creation. If a lake stands inthe way, he will undertake to drain it, with immense advantage to theneighbouring proprietors. If a valley intervenes, he will bridge it witha viaduct, which shall put to shame the grandest relics of antiquity. Hehas no knowledge of such bugbears as steep gradients or dangerouscurves; a little hocus-pocus with the compasses transforms all theseinto gentle undulations, and sweeps of the most graceful description. Hewill run you his rails right through the heart of the most populouscity,—yea, even Glasgow herself,—and across the streets, without theslightest interruption to the traffic. He will contrive so, that thehissing of the locomotive shall be as graceful a sound as the plashingof a fountain in the midst of our bisected squares; and he is indignantat the supposition that any human being can be besotted enough to preferthe prospect of a budding garden, to a clean double pair of railsbeneath his bedroom window, with a jolly train steaming it along at therate of some fifty miles per hour.

The opposing engineer has a contrary story to tell. He has the utmostconfidence in the general ability of his scientific friend, but on thisoccasion he has the misfortune to differ in opinion. Very carefully hashe gone over the whole of the line surveyed. He is sorry to say that thegradients are utterly impossible, and the curves approaching to acircle. Tunnelling is out of the question. How are two miles ofquicksand and two of basaltic rock to be gone through? The first isdeeper than the Serbonian bog, and would swallow up the whole Britisharmy. The second could not be pierced in a shorter time than Pharaohtook to construct the pyramids of Egypt. He considers a railway in theheart of a town to be an absolute and intolerable nuisance; and, on thewhole, looking at the plan before him, he has come to the conclusion,that a more dangerous and impracticable line was never yet laid before acommittee of the United Parliament of Great Britain.

So much for the engineering Hector and Achilles. Out of these twoopinions, of necessity, must the five respectable members on the benchform their judgment; for of themselves they know nothing, having beenpurposely selected on account of their superior ignorance.Cross-examination makes the matter still worse. A cantankerous waspishcounsel, with the voice of an exasperated co*ckatoo, endeavours to makethe opposing engineer contradict himself. He might as well try tooverturn Ailsa Crag. He of the impossible gradients is the hero of ahundred committees, quite accustomed to legal artifice, cool, wary, andself-collected. He receives every thrust with a pleasant smile, andsometimes returns them with damaging effect. If close pressed, he isconscious that behind him is a thicket of algebra, into which neithercounsel nor judges will dare to follow; and so fortified by themysteries of his calling, he is ready to defy the universe. Then comethe hordes of subordinate witnesses, the gentlemen who are to giveevidence for and against the bill. One side represents the country asabounding in mineral produce and agricultural wealth: the other likensit unto Patmos, or the stony Arabia. Tims swears that the people of hisdistrict are mad, insane, rabid in favour of the line. Jenkins, hisnext-door neighbour, on the contrary, protests that if the rails werelaid down to-morrow, they would be torn up by an insurrection of thepopulace en masse. John thinks the Dreep-daily Extension is the onlyone at all suited to supply the wants of the country; Sandy opines thatthe Powhead's Junction is the true and genuine potato; and both John andSandy, Tims and Jenkins, are backed by a host of corroborators. Thencome the speeches of the counsel, and rare specimens they are ofunadulterated oratory. I swear to you, Bogle, that, no later than a weekago, I listened to such a picture of Glasgow and the Clyde, from thelips of a gentleman eminent alike in law and letters, as would havethrown a diorama of Damascus into the shade. He had it all, sir, fromthe orchards of Clydesdale to the banks of Bothwell,[Pg 175] the pastoralslopes of Ruglen, and the emerald solitudes of the Green. The riverflowed down towards the sea in translucent waves of crystal. From theparapets of the bridge you watched the salmon cleaving their way upwardsin vivid lines of light. Never did Phœbus beam upon a lovelier objectthan the fair suburb of the Gorbals, as seen from the Broomielaw,reposing upon its shadow in perfect stillness. Then came the forest ofmasts, the activity of the dockyards, and

Further down, the villas of the merchant princes burst upon your view,each of them a perfect Sirmio—then Port-Glasgow, half spanned by thearch of a dissolving rainbow—Dumbarton, grand and solemn as became thedeath-place of the Bruce—Ben Lomond, with its hoary head swathed inimpenetrable clouds—and lo! the ocean and the isles. Not a Glasgow manin the committee-room but yearned with love and admiration towards thegifted speaker, who certainly did make out a case for the Queen of theWest such as no matter-of-fact person could possibly have believed. Andall this was done by merely substituting a Claude Lorraine glass for ourordinary dingy atmosphere. The outline was most correct and graphic, butthe secret lay in the handling and distribution of the colours. I shallnot wonder if the whole committee, clerk included come down this autumnto catch a glimpse of that terrestrial paradise.

Such is a brief and unexaggerated abstract of the transactions of theserailway committees; and you may judge for yourself how far the membersare likely to understand the true circ*mstances of the case fromevidence so singularly conflicting. Sometimes three or four days arewasted before they can even comprehend the precise position of the lineswhich they are required to consider, and, after all, these impressionsmust be of the haziest description. For my own part, I think thelegislature has made a most palpable mistake in not intrusting suchimportant functions to parties who possess competent local knowledge;and I am satisfied that the result of the present session has proved theinsufficiency of the system. I demur altogether to the propriety ofdevolving upon Members of Parliament the duties of a civil jury. Theyhave surely enough to do in weighing and determining the largerquestions of policy, without entering into the minute detailsnecessarily involved in the consideration of railways, roads, bridges,and canals. These should be transferred to parties conversant with suchsubjects, and responsible to the public for their decisions. Besidesthis, the direct pecuniary loss to Scotland by the present system ofsending witnesses to London—though personally I have no reason tocomplain—is quite enormous, and demands attention in a national pointof view. It is calculated that not less than a million and a halfsterling, has been expended in the course of last year in carrying theScottish bills through Parliament, and by far the greater part of thissum has been absorbed by plethoric London, and cannot by possibilityreturn. Now, the whole annual value of the lands and houses in Scotlanddoes not exceed ten millions, (in 1843, it was little more thannine)—an amount which is totally inadequate to afford so prodigious adeduction as this, for the mere purpose of procuring authority to carryour own schemes into execution. That the seventh part of the rental of acountry should be drawn away from it, and expended beyond itsboundaries, in the course of simple preliminary investigations, is notonly an exorbitant abuse, but, to my mind, a clear demonstration of thetotal falsity of the system. It may have worked tolerably when there wasless work to do; but the amazing increase of private bills during thelast few years must render a new arrangement necessary. I wish ourcountrymen would be a little more alive to the vast benefit of localinstitutions in a pecuniary point of view. Can there be any doubt, that,if the details connected with all the private bills applicable toScotland, were referred to a paid board of commissioners sittingpermanently in Edinburgh, whose[Pg 176] judgment of course would be subject tothe review of Parliament, the business would be got through, not onlymore cheaply, but with greater satisfaction and dispatch? I cannot seewhy London should be entitled to this exclusive monopoly, or theprinciple of centralization pushed so far as to injure the extremitiesof the empire. The private committee business has already become anabsolute nuisance to the whole bulk of the members. It is a function forwhich few of them have been educated, which is in itself highlydistasteful, and, moreover, interferes most materially with their publicduties. Let them, then, be freed from this thraldom, and Scotland willhave no reason to complain. We don't ask for any power of legislation;we only require that within and among ourselves the necessaryinvestigations shall be made. This can be done in Edinburgh quite aswell as in London; and very sorely does our poor Metropolis stand inneed of such indigenous support. Dublin has its viceregal court, andtherefore can make some stand against centralization. Edinburgh hasnothing left her except the courts of law, which have been pared down byignorant experimentalists to the smallest possible substance. All thatcould be taken from her has been transferred to London. Her localboards, her officers of state, have vanished one by one; and scarce anyremonstrance has been made against these useless and unjustifiableaggressions.

I find myself getting into the Malagrowther vein, so I had better pullup in time, without hinting at the existence of claymores. Only this,should there ever be a decent agitation in Scotland, you will find theold Tories at the head of it, demanding the restitution of certainancient rights, which Whiggery has subverted, and Conservatism troddenunder foot. Undoubtedly, at no very distant period, the great questionsof centralization and uniformity will be gravely and consideratelydiscussed, both within and without the walls of the British Parliament.Next year it is probable that the transit between Edinburgh and Londonwill be effected in fourteen hours. That of itself will go far to bringmatters to a crisis. If we are to be centralized, let the work bethoroughly done; if not, let us get back at least a reasonable portionof our own.

But to the committees. You can have no idea, Bogle, of the excitementcaused by any of their decisions. At the close of the evidence, counsel,agents, and spectators are unceremoniously hustled out of the room, togive leisure for the selected senators to make up their minds on thepropriety of passing or rejecting the preamble of the bill. In the lobbyall is confusion. Near the door stand five-and-twenty speculators, allof them heavy holders of stock, some flushed in the face like peonies,some pale and trembling with excitement. The barristers, for the mostpart, have a devil-may-care look, as if it mattered little to them,whether the Dreep-daily or Powhead's gentry shall carry the day. And, intruth, it is of little consequence. The sittings of this committeecannot by possibility be prolonged, and as most of the legal gentlemenhave other briefs—

"To-morrow to fresh fields and pastures new."

The magistrates of Camlachie, though sorely agitated for the integrityof that important borough, threatened by the Dreep-daily Extension withimmediate intersection, yet preserve a becoming decorum of feature. Thesenior bailie bows a dignified assent to the protestations of theParliamentary solicitor, that it is quite impossible the bill canpass—such an interference with vested rights never can be sanctioned bya British House of Commons, &c. &c.; and then, with a shrewd eye tofuture proceedings, the wily Machiavel hints that at all events theHouse of Lords will be sure to put the matter right. What in the name oftorture can make the committee deliberate so long? Two hours haveelapsed since we were excluded, and yet there is no indication of ajudgment. The chairman of the Powhead's line, which on the whole has hadthe worst of it in evidence, begins to gain confidence from the delay.Whispers arise and circulate that the committee are two to two, thechairman not being able to make up his mind either way; but as his wifeis a third cousin of a[Pg 177] Powheads director, there may yet be balm inGilead. Hark! the tinkling of a bell—there is a buzz as of a hiveoverturned, the doors are opened, and the whole crowd rush elbowing in.How provokingly calm are the countenances of the five legislators! Not atwinkle in the eye of any of them to betray the nature of theirdecision—nay, with a refinement of cruelty positively appalling, thechairman is elaborating a quill into a toothpick until order shall bepartially restored. Now for the dictum—"The Committee, having heardevidence, are of opinion that the preamble of the Dreep-daily ExtensionBill has not been proved, and further, that the preamble of the PowheadsJunction Bill has been satisfactorily proved, and they intend to reportaccordingly." One second's pause, and a triumphant cheer bursts from thedignitaries of Camlachie. The five-and-twenty speculators darting atonce to the door, choke up the entrance for a time—divers coat-tailsgive way, and hats disappear in the scuffle—at last they break out fromthe Cloisters like so many demoniacs, fling themselves intofour-and-twenty cabs, and offer triple fares for immediate transmissionto the City. One, more knowing than the rest, sneaks down to WestminsterBridge, finds a steamer just starting, makes his way by water to theExchange; and five minutes before the earliest cab, obstructed by acovey of coal-carts in the Strand, can fetch its agitated inmate to hisbroker, his speedier rival has sold several thousand Dreep-dailys tounwitting and unfortunate purchasers, and has become the covetedpossessor of every Powhead scrip then negotiable in the London market.If there is any caricature in this sketch I shall submit to do penancein the pillory.

I think I have now bored you sufficiently with railway matters: being aliterary character, you may like to know how I otherwise employ my time.Imprimis, I have not attended a single debate in the House of Commons.It is quite enough to spell one's way through the dreary columns of theTimes after the matutinal muffin, without exposing the mind to thecruelties of a Maynooth debate, or the body to the tender mercies of thenovel mode of ventilation. I find the theatres much more amusing, notfrom the excellence of the dramatic performances, but from their sheerand gross absurdity, which, without actual experience, is almost toomonstrous for belief. The fact is, that a new co*ckney school has arisen,ten times more twaddling and impotent than the ancient academy of thatname. The old professors, for whom I always had a sneaking kindness,affected a sort of solitary grandeur, deported themselves with theconscious swagger of genius, read Tooke's Pantheon, and prated of theHeathen gods. This was very harmless and innocent pastime; tiresome, tobe sure, yet laughable withal; nor did it call for any further rebukethan an occasional tap upon the cranium of some blockhead who forsookhis legitimate sphere, thrust himself in your way, and becameunsufferably blatant. Now the spirit of the times has changed. Theliterary youth of London are all in the facetious line. They haveregular clubs, at which they meet to collate the gathered slang andpilfered witticisms of the week; periodical compotations to work thesematerials into something like a readable shape; and hebdomadal journals,by means of which their choice productions are issued to a wonderingworld. Now, though a single gnat can give you very little annoyance inthe course of a summer's night, the evil becomes serious when you aresurrounded with whole scores of these diminutive vermin, singing in yourears, buzzing in your hair, and lighting incessantly on your face. Invain you turn aside, in hopes to get rid of the nuisance. Go where youwill, a perfect cloud of midges keeps hovering round your head, eachtiny bloodsucker sounding his diminutive horn, in the full and perfectbelief that he discourses most excellent music. Even so, in London, areyou surrounded with these philosophers of the Cider-cellar. Their worksstare you every where in the face; the magazines abound with their wit;their songs, consisting for the most part of prurient parodies, areresonant throughout the purlieus of Covent Garden. What is worse thanall, they have wriggled themselves[Pg 178] into a sort of monopoly of thetheatres, persuaded the public to cashier Shakespeare, who is nowutterly out of date, and to instal in his place a certain Mr J.R.Planché as the leading swan of the Thames. In giving him this prominentplace, I merely echo the opinions of his compeers, who with muchmodesty, but at the same time with praiseworthy candour, haveacknowledged his pre-eminence in the modern walk of the drama, and withhim they decline competition. The new Beaumont and Fletcher, J. Taylorand Albert Smith, Esquires, thus bear testimony to his merits in one oftheir inimitable prologues:

Ben Jonson never penned a more delicate or classical compliment, albeitit halteth a little. Let us then submit to the better judgment of ourbrethren, and bow down promiscuously before any brazen calf which theireager idolatry may rear. Let London promulgate the law of letters, aswell as the statutes of the land. Therefore, say I, away with Romeo, andgive us Cinderella; banish Hamlet, and welcome Sleeping Beauty; let theTempest make room for Fortunio; and Venice Preserved for the gentleGraciosa and Percinet! Do you, Bogle, disencumber your study as fast asyou can of these absurd busts of the older dramatists, now fit fornothing but targets in a shooting-gallery. Fling the effigies, one andall, into the area; and let us see, in their stead, each on itsappropriate pedestal, with some culinary garland round the head, newstucco casts of J.R. Planché, Albert Smith, and Gilbert à-Beckett,Esquires.

After all, is it to be wondered at if the public lacketh novelty?Shakespeare has had possession of the stage for nearly twocenturies—quite enough, one would think, to pacify his unconscionableManes. We have been dosed with his dramas from our youth upwards. Twogenerations of the race of Kean have, in our own day, perished, after aseries of air-stabs, upon Bosworth field. We have seen twenty differentHamlets appear upon the damp chill platform of Elsinore, and fully asmany Romeos in the sunny streets of Verona. The nightingale in thepomegranate-tree was beginning to sing hoarsely and out of tune;therefore it was full time that our ears should be dieted with othersounds. Well, no sooner was the wish expressed, than we were presentedwith "Nina Sforza," the "Legend of Florence," and several other dramasof the highest class. Sheridan Knowles and Sir Edward Bulwer Lyttonprofessed themselves ready to administer any amount of food to thecraving appetite of the age—but all in vain. Tragedy was not what wewanted—nor comedy—no, nor even passable melodrama. We sighed forsomething of a more ethereal sort, and—laud we the gods!—the manna hasdescended in showers. Go into any of the London theatres now, and thefollowing is your bill of fare. Fairies you have by scores inflesh-coloured tights, spangles, and paucity of petticoats; gnomes ofevery description, from the gigantic glittering diamond beetle, to thegrotesque and dusky tadpole. Epicene princes, whose taper limbs andswelling busts are well worth the scrutiny of the opera-glass—dragonsvomiting at once red flames and witticisms about the fountains inTrafalgar Square—Dan O'Connell figuring in the feathers of a Milesianowl—and the Seven Champions of Christendom smoking cigars upon theparapets of Hungerford Bridge! All these things have I seen, Bogle, yea,and cheered them to the echo, in company with some thousand co*ckneys,all agape at the glitter of tinselled pasteboard, and the glories of theCatharine-wheel. Such is the intellectual banquet which London, queen ofliterature, presents to her fastidious children!

The form of dramatic composition now most in vogue is the burlesque; or,in the language of the great Planché, "the original, grand, comic,romantic, operatic, melo-dramatic, fairy extravaganza!" There is a titlefor you, that would have put Polonius to the blush. I have invested somethree shillings in the purchase of several[Pg 179] of these works, in orderthat I might study at leisure the bold and brilliant wit, the elegantlanguage, and the ingenious metaphors which had entranced me when Iheard them uttered from the stage. I am now tolerably master of thesubject, and therefore beg leave, before condescending upon details, tohand you a recipe for the concoction of one of these delectable dishes.Take my advice, and make the experiment yourself. Red Riding-Hood, Ithink, is still a virgin story; but, unless you make haste, she will besnapped up, for they are rapidly exhausting the stores of the "Contesdes Fées." Alexander will probably give you something for it, or youcan try our old friend Miller at the Green. The process is shortly this.Select a fairy tale, or a chapter from the Arabian Nights; write out thedramatis personæ, taking care that you have plenty of supernaturals,genii, elves, gnomes, ghouls, or vampires, to make up a competent corpsde ballet; work out your dialogue in slipshod verse, with as much slangrepartee as you possibly can cram in, and let every couplet containeither a pun or some innuendo upon the passing events of the day. Thisin London is considered as the highest species of wit, and seldom failsto bring down three distinct rounds of applause from the galleries. Ifear you may be trammelled a little by the scantiness of localallusions. Hungerford Bridge and Trafalgar Square, as I have alreadyhinted, have kept the co*ckneys in roars of laughter for years, and aredragged forward with unrelenting perseverance, but still undiminishedeffect, in each successive extravaganza. I suspect you will find thatthe populace of Glasgow are less easy to be tickled, and somewhatjealous of quips at their familiar haunts. However, don't bedown-hearted. Go boldly at the Gorbals, the Goosedubs, and the greatchimney-stalk of St Rollox; it is impossible to predict how boldly themunicipal pulse may bound beneath the pressure of a dexterous finger.Next, you must compose some stanzas, as vapid as you please, to be sungby the leading virgin in pantaloons; or, what is better still, a fewparodies adapted to the most popular airs. I see a fine field for youringenuity in the Jacobite relics; they are entwined with our most sacrednational recollections, and therefore may be desecrated at will. Neverlose sight for a moment of the manifold advantages derivable from a freeuse of the trap-door and the flying-wires; throw in a transparency, anElysian field, a dissolving view, and a miniature Vesuvius, and

you will take all Glasgow by storm, and stand henceforward crowned asthe young Euripides of the West.

You and I, in the course of our early German studies, lighted, as I canwell remember, upon the Phantasus of Ludwig Tieck. I attribute your lossof the first prize in the Moral Philosophy class to the enthusiasm withwhich you threw yourself into his glorious Bluebeard and Fortunatus. Intruth it was like hearing the tales of childhood told anew, only with amanlier tone, and a clearer and more dignified purpose. How lucidly theearly, half-forgotten images were restored under the touch of thatinimitable artist! What a luxury it was to revel with the firstfavourites of our childhood, now developed into full life, and strength,and stately beauty! With these before us, how could we dare be infidelsand recreants to our earlier faith, or smile in scorn at the fancifulloves and cherished dreams of infancy? Such were our feelings, nor couldit well be otherwise; for Tieck was, and is, a poet of the highestgrade—not a playwright and systematic jest-hunter; and would as soonhave put forth his hand in impious challenge against the Ark, as havestooped to become a buffooning pander to the idle follies of themillion. It remained for England—great and classic England—no, byheavens! I will not do her that wrong—but for London, and Londonartists!—I believe that is the proper phrase—after having exhaustedevery other subject of parody, sacred and profane, to invade thesanctuary of childhood, and vulgarize the very earliest impressionswhich are conveyed to the infant. Are not the men who sit downdeliberately to such a task more culpable than even the[Pg 180] nursery jadewho administers gin and opium to her charge, in order that she may stealto the back-door undisturbed, and there indulge in surreptitiousdalliance with the dustman? Far better had they stuck to their old tradeof twisting travesties from Shakespeare for the amusem*nt of elderlyidiots, than attempted to people Fairyland with the palpable denizens ofSt Giles. The Seven Champions of Christendom, indeed! They may well layclaim to the title of Champions of co*ckneydom incarnate, setting forthon their heroic quest from the rendezvous in the Seven Dials.

Let us look a little into their individual feats, although I must needssay, that the whole of these productions bear a marvellous resemblanceto each other. There is no more variety in any of them than can be foundin the copious advertisem*nts of the Messrs Doudney. Still, it cannotbut be that some gems shall scintillate more than others, or, at allevents, be of coarser and duller water. With conscious impartiality, andwithout imputing the palm of slang to any particular individual, I shallgive the precedence to Gemini, and their last approved duodecimo. MessrsTaylor and Smith have bestowed upon the public three dramas—to wit,Valentine and Orson, Whittington and his Cat, and Cinderella. I have notbeen fortunate enough to meet with the earlier portions of this trilogy;but I have got by me Cinderella, of which title the authors, withcharacteristic purity, confess

You shall have a specimen, Bogle, of this extremely racy production,which I strongly recommend you to keep in view as model. You cannot haveforgotten the tale of the poor deserted maiden, whose loneliness is thustouchingly described—

But dear Cinderellar is not doomed to mourn in dust and ashes forever. A prince is coming to her rescue, but in disguise, having changedsuits with his own valet. Let us mark the manner of his introduction tothe interesting family of the Baron:—

Match me that, Bogle, if you can! There is wit, genius, and polish foryou! No wonder that the "School for Scandal" has been driven off thefield. But we must positively indulge ourselves with a love scene, wereit merely to qualify the convulsions into which we have been thrown bythe humour of these funny fellows. Mark, learn, and understand howladies are to be wooed and won—

Beaumont and Fletcher, did I say? Rather Ovid and Tibullus. What abeautiful picture of innocence is conveyed in that suggestive line—

"You thought that I popp'd out upon the sly!"

It is too natural for fiction. It must be a reminiscence of departedbliss—a sigh wafted from the street-door of a furnished lodging-housein Bloomsbury, when our authors plied the bistoury at Guy's. Bogle, ifyou ever should be in love, take a lesson from these great masters, andyour suit is sure to prosper. Not a serving-maid in the Saltmarket butmust yield to such fervid and impassioned eloquence.

Talking of songs, I shall just give you the interesting ditty with whichthis excellent extravaganza concludes. There is fine moral in it, whichwill do well to lay to heart.

"Cinderella sings.
When lords shall fall before my throne,
And dare not call their souls their own
On my slippery path, lest I should fall,
I'll think on the Coal-hole, and sing so small—
With my slipper so fine.
Tra-la, Tra-la!

Gorgeous Tableau.

[Curtain falls."

Yes! there can be little doubt that, after all the Coal-hole is theirgenuine Aganippe.

Would you like to have a slight specimen of Planché, by way of change?It is not fair to give an entire monopoly to Messrs Taylor and Smith,however eminent their deserts, so let us dedicate a moment to thesubstitute for Shakespeare. From six fairy dramas, composed by the WittyWizard, I shall select "Graciosa and Percinet." A very short samplewill, I opine, convince you that his popularity is as deserved as itassuredly is extensive. Hasten we, then, to the glorious tournament ofthe co*ckneys.

"Enter (c.) the King, Heralds, Nobles, and Ladies of theCourt, the Six Knights, viz.:—Sir Regent Circus, Knight of theBull and Mouth; Sir Lad Lane, Knight of the Swan with Two Necks;Sir Snow Hill, Knight of the Saracen's Head; Sir Ludgate Hill,Knight of the Belle Sauvage; Sir Fleet Street, Knight of theBolt-in-Tun; and Sir Charing Cross, Knight of the Golden Cross.

[Exeunt. (R.)

[Pg 184]

Scene IV. Tilt-yard of the Palace. The Lists set out for a Tournament.
Throne for the Queen of Beauty; another for the King; a Chair of State for
the Princess. Pavilions of the Knights-Challengers, &c.

Grognon, King, Graciosa, Knights, Courtiers, Guards, Heralds, &c., discovered.

Per.—Sir Turnham Green!

Of Brentford's royal house a princely scion,
Knight of its ancient order, the Red Lion;
Baron of Hammersmith, a Count of Kew,
Marquis of Kensington, and Lord knows who.
But all these titles willingly I waive
For one more dear—Fair Graciosa's slave!
I'll prove it, on the crest of great or small,
She's Beauty's Queen, who holds my heart in thrall,
And Grognon is a foul and ugly witch!

King.—If you're a gentleman, behave as sich!

Per.—Come one, come all! here, I throw down my gage!

King.—A green gage, seemingly!

Grog.— I choke with rage!
To arms! my knights!

[The Knights enter their Pavilions.

Gra.— I'll bet a crown he mills 'em!

King.—Laissez Aller! That's go it, if it kills 'em!"

I have no patience for such pitiful slaver! And yet this is the sort oftrash which half London is flocking nightly to see, and for which theglorious English drama has been discarded and disdained!

I lay down my pen in utter weariness of the flesh. The jingle of thatlast jargon is still ringing in my ears; and in order to get rid ofit—for if I do not speedily, I am booked as a Bauldie for life—I shallstep down to Astley's, and refresh my British feelings by beholding MrGomersal overthrown (for the twentieth time this season) upon the fieldof Waterloo.

[Pg 185]

PRIESTS, WOMEN, AND FAMILIES.

This remarkable book contains a denunciation, by an angry and an ableman, of some of the most pressing practical evils of the Roman Catholicsystem. The celibacy of the priesthood, the mysteries of theconfessional, the usurpations of priestly direction in the economy offamilies, in the control of women, and in the education ofchildren—these are the objects against which the historian of Francenow directs the arrows of his indignation, and which he seeks to drivefrom among his countrymen by his earnest and energetic attacks. Hishostility has probably been prompted, in part, by the strong feelings ofjealousy at present existing in France between the Universities and theChurch. But his work is not professedly, nor principally, directed tothat subject of controversy. It embraces a larger question, affectingthe various relations of private life, and not confined to one form orphasis of fanaticism. It deserves the anxious consideration of all whoare interested in the progress of European civilization, and may teach avaluable lesson to many who may, at first sight, seem to be far removedfrom the mischief which it seeks to remedy.

For centuries past, it may be said, that the great disease of France hasbeen the disorder in its domestic relations. That amidst the generalsurrender of its upper classes in former times to levity, "and somethingmore," there were many exceptions of family happiness and purity, is ascertain as that human nature, in its worst state of depravity, will everassert its better tendencies, and give indications of the etherealsource from which it has sprung. But, that the prevailing tone of thosewho ought to have given the tone to others, was long of the most lax orlicentious character, admits of little doubt; nor is it wonderful thatpublic corruption and anarchy should have followed fast upon thedissolution of private restraints. The same form of the evil may not nowexist; but the book before us exhibits proofs that there is still a wantof that harmony in conjugal life that is essential as the foundation ofsolid virtue and social prosperity. The husband and the wife are stillseparated from each other; not, it may be, by a lover, but by a priest.There is the same want of sympathy as ever, the same mutual alienationof hearts, the same absence of that kindly agency of mind on mind, whichis needed to strengthen the intellect of the woman and to purify thespirit of the man. It is this state of things that has roused theenergies of a writer not remarkable for his prejudices against theCatholic church in her earlier constitution, but who thinks he sees hernow at his own door, undermining household authority, and stealing fromevery man the affections of those who are united to him by the tenderestties, and whom he cannot cease to love, even when his love has ceased tobe returned.

Michelet's book is divided into three parts. The first treats of"Direction," or spiritual superintendence in the seventeenth century;containing a historical view of clerical influence during that period;and more particularly of the policy and power of the Jesuits. The seconddiscusses the character of "Direction" in general, and particularly inthe nineteenth century. The third is specially devoted to the subject"Of the Family," and winds up the work, by showing the operation of thepoison in the most vital part of the frame.

The preface to the first edition contains powerful passages. We extractsome of the best of them from the English translation by Mr co*cks, whichis sufficiently respectable for our present purpose.

We shall not follow the writer in his review of Jesuitical influencesin[Pg 187] the seventeenth century, though it contains much that might exciteremark and deserve attention. We hasten to the more urgent question—thestate of matters as they exist at the present hour.

The root of the evil, as Michelet thinks, lies in the position of thepriesthood. We are far from adopting all his views, and would declineany indiscriminate condemnation of a body of men who, under any form ofChristianity, must do good in many quarters, and must contain numerousexamples of faithful and fervent piety. But in so far as the system ofthe Romish church is vicious and injurious, it is of vital moment thatwe should trace the effect to its cause. Much evil, we think, isascribable to the doctrines of that church, and of every other that toohighly exalts the powers and functions of the priest as compared withthe people. But, dismissing these for the present, the peculiardiscipline of the Romish system deserves our immediate consideration;and here our attention is first attracted by a striking characteristic,the CELIBACY of the clergy. Let us hear how so important a peculiarityis thought to operate by this acute observer:—

[Pg 188]

We partly know the object and origin of the middle age institution ofcelibacy among the clergy. It was intended to check the tendency tosecularize benefices. It was adapted to the condition of a churchmilitant. It might do good, or at least it could do little harm, whereaged and self-mortified men were the occupants of the office. But ayouthful priesthood, established in all the comforts or the luxuries ofa state endowment, moving and officiating in a sphere where leisure andrefinement give an impulse to the heart and fancy, and yet condemned toa renunciation of all the charities of family union, of all theaffections of a lover, a husband, a father—how unnatural a position isthis, how detrimental to usefulness, how dangerous to virtue! Supposing,even, that the vow is kept in its spirit, and perhaps its violation isnot the greatest imaginable mischief, what must be the effect of suchsolitary seclusion on ordinary minds! What power shall protect the massof the profession on an envious sourness of heart at the sight of thathappiness in others, which in a moment, it may be of rashness, they haverelinquished for themselves. "Croire qu'un voeu, quelques prières, unerobe noire sur le dos, vont vous delivrer de la chair, et vous faire unpur esprit, n'est-ce pas chose puerile?" We hope and are sure it is notoften so; but can we say that sometimes the dark and deserted spirit ofthe priest may not look on the happiness of families with an approach tothe feelings of the Evil One, when gazing at our First Parents in theirstate of innocence?—

But this is not all. Thus doomed to the dreary isolation of a manquéand mutilated life, yet, in the midst of his privations, retaining hisnatural passions, his longings of the heart and affections, the Romishpriest is employed in no ordinary task of clerical occupation orsuperintendence—in preaching merely or in prayer—in the visitation ofthe sick and afflicted. The Confessional is added to his duties, as ifon purpose to enhance the misery of his condition, and the mischief ofhis influence. And with whom is the confessional chiefly conversant? Themale penitent, we presume, is content with a very general acknowledgmentof his errors, and seldom indulges in great outpourings of the spirit,or would submit to any stretch of authority over his conscience orconduct. But the softer sex, whose own tenderness of heart, and whosepower over the hearts of others, make all converse with them so potentfor good or for harm—maidens, and wives in the prime of life, and inthe pride of beauty, opening their souls to a confessor, revealing alltheir secret emotions, their hopes, their disappointments, their fears,their failings, submitting to his questions, and hanging upon his wordsof acquittal or condemnation; surely this is a subject of contemplationfull of awful interest, and on which it is impossible to be at easewhere the mysterious intercourse is without a witness and without acheck—but the consciences of two frail and fallible human beings. Wellmay we say with Michelet, that under such a system the priest ought tobe truly a πρεσβυτεροϛ,"a man who has seen, learned, andsuffered much." A young priest as a father-confessor is not merely "anonsensical contradiction," but a snare and a source of peril both tohimself and his penitents.

The pomp of Popery gives its clergy sufficient aids to their influenceby other means.

The details of a priest's education for the confessional office arenecessarily deplorable. We blame not so much the men as the system. Yetbooks, apparently, are continued among the preparations for this duty,which might well be dispensed with as wholly unsuited to the age. Webelieve that Sanchez was a man of holy life, though his purity, afterthe analogy of one of Swift's paradoxes, left him a man of impure ideas;and no one was ever forced by dire necessity to read his book withoutdisgust and dismay. It may be good for the students of medicine topenetrate into every form in which bodily disease can show itself; butthe pathology of the mind thus hideously represented is degrading evento the observer.

What is the influence by which the power of the confessor is convertedinto that of the director? It is done in the usual way—by the continualrepetition of the same process for a length of time. Habit is theinsidious enemy that, ere it seems to assail, has already conquered andled captive.

It would be painful and repulsive to follow out the acts which theacquisition of such spiritual ascendancy may suggest to wicked or even aweak spirit. The result in general is the complete possession of thewhole mind of the subdued victim, which lives, and moves, and has itsbeing in the will and wishes of its omnipotent tyrant. This change is ofitself destructive of moral independence; but we must not conceal whatthe writer before us represents as an ulterior effect, and which, evenas a possibility, must be contemplated with fear and horror.

We feel assured that, as Michelet himself has said, this last act of thedreadful drama is but seldom represented. But enough may be done,without actual or conscious guilt, to pervert the feelings, and, aboveall, to destroy the peace and the unity of the family.

The subject is resumed in his preface to the third edition.

It would be unjust to assume that a book written under the influence ofstrong feelings contains an impartial[Pg 192] account of actual facts; but eventhe rage with which it has been received by the party attacked, is aproof that it is true to most damaging extent. That its pictures areexaggerated is more than possible. But it is not possible that it shouldbe destitute of a broad and deep foundation of melancholy reality.

What now is the remedy which this physician would prescribe for thedisease he has thus exposed? His words on this subject are welldeserving of attention.

True, O most subtle and sapient Frenchman, the remedy lies in thedirection you have pointed out; but we have doubts if you have fullydiscovered its nature, or are prepared to apply it in its necessaryextent. The husband must make the wife the companion of his heart andthoughts, of his hopes and exertions. Too long has this sympathy andconfidence been unknown in France, where your women have been but thetoys and playthings of your lighter or looser hours, and where often totheir own husbands they have not even been so much. But, as you partlysee, this is not all that is needed to be corrected. In order to be thefitting guide and guardian of the mother of his family, the husband mustshare in those higher feelings which he seeks to regulate and reclaim.You do not hope or wish to see your wife and children devoid ofreligion. But if you would not surrender them to the guidance of othersin those momentous concerns, you must care for them and conduct theircourse yourself, and must learn to travel the road along which they areto be led. The husband must become himself the priest and the director:not by inculcating a vague theism or a cold morality, but byestablishing in his household the purity and the practice of a Christianfaith. If the domestic throne is to be upheld on its rightfulfoundation, the altar must be reared by its side. The philosopher andhistorian must stoop to learn from his own children that simplicity ofwhich they are such powerful teachers, and which will amply repay himfor all the lessons of a more mature wisdom that his learning andexperience can impart. Openly and earnestly sympathizing with theirdevout impressions, he will strengthen and support by his intellectualenergies the soft and more susceptible natures of those placed under hischarge, and will thus shield them from the attempts to mislead andinflame, to which they must inevitably be exposed if left to find theironly sympathy in extraneous influences. This re-establishment of apatriarchal piety is one of the great boons which the true spirit ofProtestantism purchased for its followers, and which alone can protectthe weaker members of the household from becoming a prey to priestlyinterference and false enthusiasm.

The book contains a touching tribute, such as able men have often paidto the maternal affection that formed their minds:—

In a spirit worthy of these feelings, the author contends strongly forthe benefits of maternal education on the character of sons. We shallgive the passage in the original, as it contains a good deal that isFrench, and a great deal that is beautiful:—

A word now as to the application to our own case of the leading viewsalready suggested. It may be thought that the moral they most clearlyinculcate would point to our fellow countrymen in Ireland. But we own wehave a different reading of the lesson, and consider that the peculiarperils here described must as yet have been scarcely felt among thepriesthood of a peasantry. It is in circles where there is less physicalprivation and more sentimental excitement, that the evils of spiritualfascination and domestic division are likely to arise.

Michelet has shown that "Direction," in its worst forms, did notterminate with the seventeenth century, but has revived in his owntimes. We may be allowed to follow out his opinions, and suggest thatJesuits and Directors are not confined to the Romish faith. It behoveseven a Protestant people to be on their guard against the recurrence ofPopery and its Practices under a new aspect. The same erroneous positionmay be reached from opposite directions. The same constitutional maladymay show itself in different diseases. Cæsar was inaccessible to allflattery, except that which told him he hated flatterers. And many aremost in danger of Popish error when it approaches under anultra-Protestant disguise. We are saved, indeed, from the evils of acelibatary clergy. We are not exposed to that ignorance or that envy offamily life which such a institution involves. But ambition and interestwill supply the place of most other vices; and we shall be wise to watchwhether the same battle is not now being fought among ourselves, and forthe same immediate object—the occupancy of the female heart. Thepictures that have been sometimes drawn of our own doings may have onlya limited resemblance. Methodist preachers, and evangelical vicars, maybe exaggerated delineations or mere individual portraits. But still, isit not true that the minds of our women, particularly those that areunmarried or childless, are here, as well as in France, sought to beengrossed, and alienated from their natural attachments, throughpriestly influences and for priestly purposes? Look at any new sectspringing up among us—Look at the last example of the kind, where apeculiar religious body is forcing or feeling its way towards anascendency. Powerful as it seems to be in numbers and in wealth, in whatdoes its main strength consist? It was frankly avowed by one of itsapostles, that the female mind alone seemed properly fitted toappreciate its tenets. A strange confession! We doubt if Luther, Calvin,or Knox, would have boasted of such a fact as characterizing thereligious movements to which they gave an impulse. In the purity offemale feelings we may have a security that any system that recommendsitself to women, must have a fair semblance of goodness as it appears intheir eyes: but it does not follow that their approbation is a test ofits genuine excellence, or of its actual conformity with the type whichit professes to represent. It is no novelty in the history of humannature, that evil makes its first attempts on the weakness of woman.Whatever is calculated strongly to excite the affections will gain thehearts of the more susceptible sex; and, without the aid of strongerintellects, they will run a risk of following after delusive lights, andmay be found as often to be the votaries of an amiable and attractiveerror, as the assertors of a severe and sober truth. We would take leaveto affirm, that a religious creed or constitution among whose supportersa vast preponderance of females was to be found, stood in a dubiousposition, and was open to the suspicion that its principles cannot standexamination by the standards of reason and argument. Certain it is thatthis severance of the sexes by religious distinctions is an unnaturalstate of society, and a serious evil. It is accompanied too, andaggravated, by another source of danger. The system of hanging the faithand feelings on the lips of a man, as if he were a special messengerfrom heaven, is[Pg 196] nothing else than Popery, and goes to put a pope inevery pulpit. Incessant sermons, itinerant speeches, public meetings,devotional assemblies, form a round of excitement of a dangerous anddeceptive kind, and are little else than a species of decentdissipation. The constant intervention of a favorite or fashionableminister in all the exercises of religion, identifies too much thesacred subject itself with the individual who presides over it; whiletheatrical exhibitions of extemporaneous oratory and flights of fancy,make the ordinary ritual of public worship, or the quiet practice ofprivate devotion, seem tame and trivial. The tendency of the evil is,that the direct access to a communion with above is barred against thedeluded and dependent devotee, much in the same manner as the votariesof Romanism are driven for aid to the intermediate intercession of theVirgin and the Saints. If the devotion of women is to be maintainedmainly by the presence and personal influences of a spiritual guide andprompter, the selection ought to be made in accordance with otherprinciples. The substitution of the priest or preacher in the place ofthe husband or guardian, presupposes or foreshows a subversion more orless of the most essential relations of family life. The necessity ofresorting to this means of gaining or maintaining power must degrade theclergy who depend on it, by tempting them to arts of flattery andexcitement, and by corrupting their style of instruction to suit thetastes merely of the more sensitive section of our species, at thesacrifice of that due proportion of more solid and intellectual groundsof thought and principle, which are needed to influence thoroughly theunderstandings of men. The remedy here also is to be found in a similarcourse of conduct to what has been formerly suggested. Let the heads ofevery house do every thing in their power to call into exercise the goodsense and natural feeling of the females who are dependent upon them, atthe same time that they give its due place to that all-important subjectwhich is the occasion of the error. By a judicious mixture of sympathyand sober feeling, they may counteract the extraneous influences thatare now at work, and restore peace to the family, by uniting its membersin the practice of a calm and rational piety, of which, out-of-doors,the best assistance and safeguard are to be found in the time-trieddoctrines and discipline of our Protestant Establishments.

REFERENCE: Michelet, (J.) Du Prêtre, de la Femme, de la Famille. 1845. Priests,Women, and Families. By J. Michelet. Translated by G. co*cks. London:Longmans.

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MY COLLEGE FRIENDS.

No. II.

Horace Leicester.

Oxford! Alma Mater! not to love thee were indeed the ingratitude of adegenerate son. Let the whiners of the Conventicle rail at thee for amother of heretics, and the Joseph Humes of domestic economy propose toadapt the scale of thy expenses to their own narrow notions—I upholdthee to be the queen of all human institutions—the incarnated union ofChurch and State—royal in thy revenues as in thy expenditure—thydoctrine as orthodox as thy dinners, thy politics as sound as thy port.

Oxford! who are they that rail at her? who dare to lift their voiceagainst that seat of high and holy memories? The man who boasts aprivate education, (so private, that his most intimate friends havenever found it out,) who, innocent himself of all academic experiencesand associations, grudges to others that superiority which they neverboast indeed, but to which his secret soul bears envious witness. Or therich nonconformist, risen perhaps from obscurity to a rank in society,indulging either his spleen or his pride—either to send his eldest sonas a gentleman-commoner to Christ-Church, to swallow the Thirty-nineArticles with his champagne; or to have his fling at the Church throughher universities—accusing Churchmen of bigotry, and exclusiveness, andilliberality, because Dissenters do not found colleges.[2] Or, worsethan all, the unworthy disciple who (like the noxious plant that hasgrown up beneath the shade of some goodly tree) has drawn no nobility ofsoul from the associations which surrounded his ungrateful youth: forwhom all the reality and romance of academic education were[Pg 198] alike invain: sneering at the honours which he could not obtain, denying theexistence of opportunities which he neglected; the basest of approvers,he quotes to his own eternal infamy the scenes of riot and dissipation,the alternations of idleness and extravagance, which make up his solerecollections of the university: and looking, without one glance ofaffection, upon the face of his fair and graceful mother, makes thechance mole, or the early wrinkle, which he traces there, the subject ofhis irreverent jest, forgets the kindness of which he was unworthy, andremembers for evil the wholesome discipline which was irksome only tosuch as him.

"Non hæc jocosæ conveniunt lyræ;"

I admit mine is not the tongue or pen for such a subject; and Oxfordhas, I hope, no lack of abler champions. But it was geese, you know, whoonce saved the Capitol; and I must have my hiss at the iniquitousquackeries which people seek to perpetrate under the taking title ofUniversity Reform. And when I, loving Oxford as I do, see some of herown sons arrayed against her, I can only remember this much of myphilosophy—that there are cases when to be angry becomes a duty. Menwho, knowing nothing of the universities from experience, think properto run them down, succeed at all events in exposing one crying evil—theabsurdity of meddling with what one does not understand. We who knowbetter may afford to smile at once at their spite and their ignorance.But he who lifts his voice against the mother that bore him, can fix nodarker blot upon her fame than the disgrace of having given birth tohim.

Show me the man who did not like Oxford, and I will show you either asulky misanthrope or an affected ass. Many, many indeed, are theunpleasant recollections which, in the case of nearly all of us, willmingle with the joy with which we recall our college days. More than theghosts of duns departed, perhaps unpaid; more than the heart-burnings ofthat visionary fellowship, for which we were beaten (we verily believe,unfairly) by a neck; more than that loved and lost ideal of first class,which we deserved, but did not get, (the opinions of our examiners notcoinciding in that point with our own;) yes, more than all these, comeforcibly to many minds, the self-accusing silent voice that whispers oftime wasted and talents misapplied—kind advice, which the heat of youthmisconstrued or neglected—jewels of price that once lay strewed uponthe golden sands of life, then wantonly disregarded, or picked up but tobe flung away, and which the tide of advancing years has covered fromour view for ever—blessed opportunities of acquiring wisdom, human anddivine, which never can return.

Yet in spite of all this, if there be any man who can say that Oxford isnot to him a land of pleasant memories, "Μητ' ἑμοι παῥεστιος γἑνοιτο"—which is, being freely translated, "May henever put his legs under my mahogany"—that's all. I never knew him yet,and have no wish to make his acquaintance. He may have carried off everypossible university honour for what I care; he is more hopelesslystupid, in my view of things, than if he had been plucked fifteen times.If he was fond of reading, or of talking about reading; fond of hunting,or talking about hunting; fond of walking, riding, rowing, leaping, orany possible exercise besides dancing; if he loved pleasant gardens orsolemn cloisters; learned retirement or unlearned jollification—in aword, if he had any imaginable human sympathies, and cared for any thingbesides himself, he would have liked Oxford. Men's tastes differ, nodoubt; but to have spent four years of the spring of one's life in oneof the most magnificent cities and best societies in the world, and notto have enjoyed it—this is not a variety of taste, but its privation.

I fancy there is a mistaken opinion very prevalent, that young andfoolish, older and wiser, are synonymous terms. Stout gentlemen of acertain age, brimful of proprieties, shake their heads alarmingly, andtalk of the folly of boys; as if they were the only fools. And if at anytime, in the fulness of their hearts, they refer to some freak of theirown youth, they appear to do it with a sort of apology to themselves,that such wise individuals[Pg 199] as they are now should ever have done suchthings! And as the world stands at present, it is the old story of theLion and the Painter; the elderly gentlemen are likely to have it theirown way; they say what they like, while the young ones are content to dowhat they like. And the more absurdity a man displays in his teens, (andsome, it must be confessed, are absurd enough) the more insupportable anair of wisdom does he put on when he gets settled. And as there is nohope of these sedate gentry being sent to College again to teach therising generation of under-graduates the art of precocious gravity, andstill less hope of their arriving at it of themselves, perhaps there isno harm in mooting the question on neutral ground, whether such aconsummation as that of putting old heads upon young shoulders isaltogether desirable.

Wherefore, I, Frank Hawthorne—being of the age of nine-and-twenty, orthereabouts, and of sound mind, and about to renounce for ever all claimand title to be considered a young man; having married a wife, and leftsack and all other bad habits; having no longer any fellowship withunder-graduates, or army subs, or medical students, or young men abouttown, or any other class of the heterogeneous irregulars who make up"Young England"—being a perfectly disinterested party in the question,inasmuch as having lost my reputation for youth, I have never acquiredone for wisdom—hereby raise my voice against the intolerable cant,which assumes every man to be a hare-brained scapegrace at twenty, andSolomon at forty-five. Youth sows wild oats, it may be; too many men inmore advanced life seem to me to sow no crop of any kind. There areempty fools at all ages; but "an old fool," &c., (musty as the proverbis, it is rather from neglect than over-application.) I have known menby the dozen, who in their youth were either empty-headed coxcombs ornoisy sots; does my reader think that any given number of additionalyears has made them able statesmen, sound lawyers, or erudite divines?that because they have become honourable by a seat in Parliament,learned by courtesy, reverend by office, they are therefore really moreuseful members of society than when they lounged the High Street, orwoke the midnight echoes of the quadrangle? Nay, life is too short forthe leopard to change his spots, or the Ethiopian his skin; one can butpare the claws of the first, and put a suit of the last European fashionupon the other.

Let any man run over in his own mind the list of those school andcollege companions with whom, after the lapse of ten years or so he hasstill an opportunity of occasionally renewing his acquaintance, andjudging of the effect which time has had upon their habits andcharacters. In how many cases can he trace any material alteration,beyond what results from the mere accidents of time and place? He finds,it is to be hoped, good principles developed, warm impulses ripened intoactive habits, exaggerations softened down, (for I am giving him creditfor not choosing his companions, even in youth, among the vicious inheart and principle;) but if he finds in any what he can call a changeat all, then I ask, in how many instances is it a change for the better?or does he not find it rather where there was no sterling value in themetal, which, as the gloss of youth wears off, loses its only charm?

Thirty is the turning-point of a man's life; when marrying becomes anow-or-never sort of business, and dinners begin to delight him morethan dancing. As I said just now, then, I stand just at the corner; and,looking round before I turn it, I own somewhat of a shyness for thecompany of those "grave and reverend seniors" who are to be myfellow-travellers hereafter through life. There are certain points onwhich I fear we are scarce prepared to agree. I must have one windowopen for the first few miles of the journey at all events—that I maylook behind me. Life's a fast train, and one can't expect to be allowedto get out at the stations; still less to ask the engineer to put back,because we have left our youth behind us. Yet there are some things inwhich I hope always to be a boy; I hope ever to prefer thoughtlessnessto heartlessness,[Pg 200] imprudence to selfishness, impulse to calculation. Itis hard enough to part with all the fiery spirits, the glowingimaginations, the elasticity of mind and body which we lose as agecreeps on; but if, with the bright summer weather and cloudless skies ofyouth, to which we are content to bid farewell, we must lose, too, the"sunshine of the breast"—the "bloom of heart"—then well might the poetcount him happy who died in early spring—who knew nothing of life butit* fair promises, and passed away in happy scepticism of the winterwhich was to come.

Talk of putting old heads upon young shoulders! Heaven forbid! It wouldbut be making them stoop prematurely. If indeed we could put younghearts into old bodies occasionally, we might do some good; or if therecould ever be combined in some fortunate individual, throughout hislife, the good qualities peculiar to each successive climacteric; if wecould mix just enough of the acid and the bitter, which are apt topredominate so unhappily after a long rubbing through the world, toqualify the fiery spirit of youth, and prevent its sweetness fromcloying, the compound would undoubtedly be a very pleasant one. Butthis, it is to be feared, like many other desiderata, is too good to beattainable; and the experience which we undoubtedly want in early life,we acquire too often at the cost of that freshness of heart, whichnature intended as a gift still more valuable.

Nowhere does the old Stagyrite display a more consummate knowledge ofwhat men are made of, than in his contrasted characters of youth andage. I wonder how many of the old gentlemen who call themselvesphilosophers in this degenerate age, ever read or remember what he sayson the subject. It is a great comfort, when one is arguing against somuch collective wisdom, to feel that one has such authority to fall backupon; and I have the less hesitation in bringing my old friend Aristotleforward to help me, because I can assure my unlearned readers, ladiesand others, that I am not going to quote any thing nearly so grave andsensible as modern philosophy. "Stingy, ill-natured, suspicious,selfish, narrow-minded"—these, with scarce a redeeming quality, aresome of the choice epithets which he strings together as thecharacteristics of the respectable old governors and dowagers of hisday; while the young, although, as he confesses, somewhat too much thecreatures of impulse, and indebted to it for some of their virtues aswell as vices, are trustful towards others, honest in themselves,open-handed and open-hearted, warm friends and brave enemies. It istrue, he observes, they have, in a large degree, the fault common to allhonest men, they are "easily humbugged;" a failing which perhaps may letus into the secret of their sitting down so quietly under the imputationof a hundred others. He urges, too, elsewhere, a fact I am not disposedto battle about, that young men do not make good philosophers; but thisis in a book which he wrote for the use of his own son, wherein heprobably thought it his duty to take the conceit out of hisheir-apparent; but if he ever allowed the young philosopher to get asight of the other book containing the two characters aforesaid, it maybe doubted whether he found him as "easily humbugged" afterwards.

Remember, reader, as I said before I claim to occupy neutral ground. IfI essay to defend youth from some injustice which it suffers at thehands of partial judges, it is as an amateur advocate rather than anaccredited champion—for I am young no longer. If I am rash enough tocouch a lance against that venerable phantom, which, under the name ofWisdom, hovers round grey hairs, I am but preparing a rod for my ownback—for I feel myself growing old. I admit it with a sigh; but thesigh is not for the past only, but even more for the present. I mournnot so much for that which Time has taken away, as for the insufficiencyof that which it brings instead. I would rejoice to be relieved from thedominion of the hot follies of youth, if I could escape at the same timethe degrading yoke of the cooler vices of maturity. I do not find mengrow better as they grow older; wiser they may grow, but it is thewisdom of the serpent. We scarce grow less[Pg 201] sensual, less vain, lesseager after what we think pleasure; I would we continued as generous andas warm. We gain the cunning to veil our passions, to regulate even ourvices according to the scale (and that no parsimonious one) which whatwe call "society" allows; we lose the enthusiasm which in some degreeexcused our follies, with the light-heartedness which made themdelightful. Few men among us are they who can look back upon the yearsgone by, and not feel that, if these may be justly charged with folly,the writing of the accusation that stands against their riper age is ofa graver sort.

It is melancholy, rather than amusing, to hear men of a certain age railagainst the faults and extravagance of their juniors. Angry that theythemselves are no longer young, they visit with a rod of iron such anintolerable offence in others. Even newspapers have of late beeneloquent against the disgusting immoralities of breaking knockers andbonneting policemen. The Times turns censor upon such an"ungentlemanly outrage;" the Weekly Despatch has its propriety shockedby such "freaks of the aristocracy;" and both, in their zeal toreprobate offences so dangerous to the best interests of society,sacrifice somewhat of that "valuable space" which should have beendevoted to the bulletin of the health, or the history of the travels, ofthe "gallant officer" who last deliberately shot his friend in a duel;or the piquant details of the last crim. con., with the extraordinarydisclosures expected to be made by the "noble defendant." Society has nosympathy with vices to which it has no temptation; it might have donefoolish things in its day, but has long ago seen the folly of them. Sowe make a graceful acknowledgment of having been wrong once, for thesake of congratulating ourselves upon being so very right now.

Let me then, for some few moments, recall those scenes which, on thestage of life, have passed away for ever; and forgetting, as memoryloves to do, the evil that was in them, let it be not idle repining tolament the good.

Oh! dark yet pleasant quadrangle, round whose wide area I might wandernow, a stranger among strangers, where are they who once gave life andmirth to cheer those ancient walls? There were full a score of rooms,congenial lares, in which no hour of day or night would have found meother than a welcome guest. I had friends, yea, friends, within thoseprison-like windows—warm hearts walled in by thy cold greystones—friends that had thoughts, and feelings, and pursuits incommon—who were not hospitable in words alone, suffering each other'spresence with well-concealed ennui—but friends in something more thanin the name. In vain, among the cold conventionalities of life, shall Ilook for the warm and kindly welcome, the sympathy of feeling, theunrestrained yet courteous familiarity of intercourse, which was partand parcel of a college life; and if for this only I should say ofOxford, that I shall not look upon its like again—if for this only, Idoubt whether the years of my youthful pilgrimage were altogether evil,who shall gainsay me? Where, or in what society of wise, and orderly,and respectable "grown-up children," shall I find the sincerity andwarm-heartedness that once were the atmosphere of my daily life? Whereis the friend of my maturer choosing, into whose house I can walk at anytime, and feel sure I am no intruder? Where is the man, among those withwhom I am by hard fate compelled to associate, who does not measure hisregard, his hospitality, his very smiles, by my income, my station insociety—any thing but myself? Older and wiser!—oh yes!—youthfulfriendship is very foolish in such matters.

But I suppose I must put up, as I best may, with the accumulating weightof years and wisdom. It won't do to give up one's degree, and beginagain at the university, even if they leave us a university worth goingto. At all events, one could not go back and find there those "oldfamiliar faces" that made it what it was; and it is more pleasant tolook upon it all—the place and its old occupants—as still existing insome dream-land or other, than to return to find an old acquaintance inevery stick and stone, while every human face and voice is strange tous.

Yet one does meet friends in old scenes, sometimes, when the meeting isas unexpected[Pg 202] as delightful. And just so, in my last visit to Oxford,did I stumble upon Horace Leicester. We met in the quadrangle where wehad parted some six years back, just as we might if we had suppedtogether the night before; whereas we had been all the time hundreds ofmiles asunder: and we met as unrestrainedly, only far more cordially.Neither of us had much time to spare in Oxford, but we dined together ofcourse; talked over old friends, and told old stories. As to the first,it was strange enough to moralize upon the after-fortunes of some of ourcontemporaries. One—of whom, for habitual absence from lectures, andother misdemeanours many and various, the tutors had prophesied allmanner of evil, and who had been dismissed by the Principal at his finalleave-taking, with the remark that he was the luckiest man he had everknown, inasmuch as having been perseveringly idle without being plucked,and mixed up in every row without being rusticated—was now working hardday and night as a barrister, engaged as a junior on committee businessthe whole Session, and never taking a holiday except on the Derby day.The ugliest little rascal of our acquaintance, and as stupid as a post,was married to a pretty girl with a fortune of thirty thousand. Another,and one of the best of us—Charley White—who united the business habitsof a man with the frolic of a schoolboy, and who ought to have beenadded to the roll of the College benefactors, as having been the founderof the Cricket and the Whist Club, and restored to its old place on theriver, at much cost and pains, the boat which had been withdrawn for thelast five years, and reduced the sundry desultory idlenesses of theunder-graduates into something like method and order—Charley White wasnow rector of a poor and populous parish in Yorkshire, busily engaged inbuilding a new church and schools, opening Provident Societies, andshutting up beer-shops, and instructing the rising generation of hisparishioners in catechism and cricket alternately. While the steadiest(I was very near saying the only steady man) among our mutualacquaintance, who looked at every sixpence before he spent it, checkedhis own washing-lists, went to bed at ten o'clock, and was in short anexemplary character, (he was held out to me; on my first entrance, as avaluable acquaintance for any young man, but I soon despaired ofsuccessfully imitating so bright a model)—well, this gentleman havingbeen taken into partnership, somewhat prematurely perhaps on thestrength of the aforesaid reputation, by his father's firm—they wereLiverpool merchants of high standing—had thought proper, disgustedprobably with the dissipations and immoralities of trade, to retire toAmerica in search of purity and independence, without going through theform of closing his accounts with the house. The Liverpudleians, indeed,according to Horace's account, gave a somewhat ugly name to thetransaction; he had been cashier to the firm, they said, who were minussome tens of thousands thereby; but as the senior partner was known tohave smoked cigars at a preparatory school (thereby showing what hewould have done had he been sent to Oxford,) whereas our friend wasalways "a steady man," I leave the reader to judge which party isentitled to the most credit.

It was after we had separated that a friend of mine, not an Oxford man,who had dined with us and appeared much amused by some of Horace'sreminiscences, asked me the very puzzling question, "Was your friendLeicester what they call a 'rowing man' at College?" Now, I protestaltogether against the division of under-graduates into reading men androwing men, as arbitrary and most illogical; there being a great manywho have no claim to be reckoned either in one class or the other, and agreat many who hover between both. And this imaginary distinction,existing as it notoriously does at Oxford, and fostered and impressedupon men by the tutors, (often unintentionally, or with the very bestintentions,) is productive in many cases of a great deal of harm. A man(or boy if you please) is taught to believe, upon his very firstentrance, that one of these characters will infallibly cling to him, andthat he has only to choose between[Pg 203] the two. For the imaginary divisioncreates a real one; in many colleges, a man who joins a boat's crew, ora cricket club, or goes out now and then with the harriers, is lookedupon with suspicion by the authorities at once; and by a very naturalconsequence, a man who wants to read his five or six hours a-dayquietly, finds that some of his pleasantest companions look upon him asa slow coach. So, probably before the end of his first term, he ishopelessly committed, at nineteen, to a consistency of character rarelymet with at fifty. If he lays claim to the reputation of a reading man,and has an eye to the loaves and fishes in the way of scholarships andfellowships, he is compelled, by the laws of his caste, to renouncesome of the most sensible and healthful amusem*nts which a universitylife offers. He must lead a very humdrum sort of life indeed. It is notenough that he should be free from the stains of vice and immorality;that his principles and habits should be those of a gentleman; that heshould avoid excesses, and be observant of discipline; this theuniversity would have a right to expect from all who are candidates forher honours and emoluments. But there is a conventional character whichhe must put on besides this. I say "put on;" because, however natural itmay be to some men, it cannot possibly be so to all. His exercise mustbe taken at stated times and places: it must consist principally ofwalking, whether he be fond of it or not, varied occasionally by asolitary skiffing expedition down the river, or a game of billiards withsome very steady friend on the sly. His dress must exhibit either thenegligence of a sloven, (in case he be an aspirant for very high honoursindeed,) or the grave precision of a respectable gentleman of forty. Hemust eschew all such vanities as white trousers and well-cut boots. Hemust be profoundly ignorant of all university intelligence that does notbear in some way on the schools; must be utterly indifferent what boatis at the head of the river, or whether Drake's hounds are fox orharriers. He must never be seen out of his rooms except at lecturebefore two o'clock, and never return to a wine-party after chapel. Hisjudgment of the merits of port and sherry must be confined principallyto the fact of one being red and the other white, and the compounding ofpunch must be to him a mystery unfathomable. Now, if he can be, orassume to be, all this, then he will be admitted into the most orthodoxand steady set in his college; and if he have, besides, an ordinaryamount of scholarship, and tact enough to talk judiciously about hisbooks and his reading, he may get up a very fair reputation indeed. Andwhen at his final examination he makes, as nine-tenths of such men domake, a grand crash, and his name comes out in the third or fourthclass, or he get "gulfed" altogether—it is two to one but his friendsand his tutor look upon him, and talk of him, as rather an ill-usedindividual. He was "unlucky in his examination"—"the essay did not suithim"—they were "quite surprised at his failure"—"his health was notgood the last term or two"—"he was too nervous." These are cases whichhave occurred in every man's experience: men read ten hours a-day, witha watch by their side, cramming in stuff that they do not understand,are talked about as "sure firsts" till one gets sick of their verynames, assume all the airs which really able men seldom do assume, andtake at last an equal degree with others who have been acquiring thesame amount of knowledge with infinitely less pretension, and who,without moping the best part of their lives in an artificial existence,will make more useful members of society in the end. "How was it," saidan old lady in the country to me one day, "that young Mr C—— did notget a first class? I understand he read very hard, and I know he refusedevery invitation to dinner when he was down here in the summervacation?" "That was the very reason, my dear madam," said I; "you maydepend upon it." She stared, of course; but I believe I was not far out.

Let men read as much as they will, and as hard as they will, on anysubjects for which they have the ability and inclination; but never letthem suppose they are to lay down one code of practice to suit alltempers and[Pg 204] constitutions. Cannot a man be a scholar, and a gentleman,and a good fellow at the same time?

And, after all, where is the broad moral distinction between thesesoi-disant steady men, and those whom they are pleased to consider as"rowing" characters? it has always seemed to me rather apocryphal. If aman thinks proper to amuse himself with a chorus in his own rooms at oneo'clock in the morning, it seems hardly material whether it be Greek orEnglish—Sophocles or Tom Moore. It's a matter of taste, and tastesdiffer. Nor do I think the morality of Horace or Aristophanes, or thetheology of Lucretius, so peculiarly admirable, as to render them, perse, fitter subjects for the exclusive exercise of a young man'sfaculties than "the Pickwick Papers," or "The Rod and the Gun." I haveheard—(I never saw, nor will I believe it)—of the profanity of certainsporting under-graduates, who took into chapel the racing calendar,bound in red morocco, instead of a prayer-book; I hold it to have beenthe malicious fiction of some would-be university reformer; but, even iftrue, I am not sure that I much prefer that provident piety which I havenoticed getting up its Greek within the same walls by means of aSeptuagint and Greek liturgy. Religion is one thing, classical learninganother, and sporting information another; all totally distinct, andtotally different: the first immeasurably above the other two, butstanding equidistant from both. It does not make a man one whit thebetter to know that Coræbus won the cup at Olympia B.C. 776, than itdoes to know that Priam did not win the St Leger at Doncaster A.D.1830; from all I can make out, the Greeks on the turf at present are notmuch worse than their old namesakes; I dare say there was a fair amountof black-legism on both occasions. Men injure their moral and physicalhealth by reading as much as by other things; it takes quite as much outof a man, and puts as little in him to any good purpose, to get up hislogic as to pull in an eight-oar.

Besides, if one is to read and enter into the spirit of a dozendifferent authors, one dull monotonous round of physical existence seemsill fitted to call out the requisite variety of mental powers. I holdthat there are divers and sundry fit times, and places, and states ofmind, suited to different lines of reading. If a man is at work uponhistory, by all means let him sport oak rigidly against all visitors;let him pile up his authorities and references on every vacant chair allround him, and get a clear notion of it by five or six hours'uninterrupted and careful study. Or, if he has a system of philosophy toget up, let him sit down with his head cool, his window open, (not theone looking into quad.,) let him banish from his mind all minor matters,and not break off in the chain of argument so long as he can keep hisbrain clear and his eyes open. Even then, a good gallop afterwards, or acigar and a glass of punch, with some lively fellow who is nophilosopher, will do him far more good than a fa*gging walk of so manymeasured miles, with the studious companion whose head is stuffed asfull of such matter as his own, and whose talk will be of disputedpassages, and dispiriting anticipations of a "dead floorer" in theschools. But if a man wants to make acquaintance with such books asJuvenal, or Horace, or Aristophanes, he may surely do it to quite asgood purpose, and with far more relish, basking under a tree in summer,or with a friend over a bottle in winter.

The false tone of society of which I have been speaking had itsinfluence upon Horace Leicester. Coming up to the university from apublic school, with a high character, a fair amount of scholarship, anda host of acquaintances, he won the good-will at once of dons and ofunder-graduates, and bid fair to be as universal a favourite at collegeas he had been at Harrow. Never did a man enter upon an academic lifeunder happier auspices, nor, I believe, with a more thoroughdetermination to enjoy it in every way. He did not look upon hisemancipation from school discipline as a license for idleness, norintend to read the less because he could now read what he pleased, andwhen he pleased. For, not to mention that Horace was ambitious, and hadat one time an eye to the class list—he had a taste for reading, and astrong natural talent[Pg 205] to appreciate what he read. But if he had a tastefor reading, he had other tastes as well, and, as he thought, notincompatible; much as he admired his Roman namesake, he could not devotehis evenings exclusively to his society, but preferred carrying out hisprecepts occasionally with more modern companions; and he had no notionthat during the next four years of his life he was to take an interestin no sports but those of the old Greeks and Romans, and mount no horsebut Pegasus. For a term or two, Leicester got on very well, attendedlectures, read steadily till one or two o'clock, when there was nothingparticular going on, kept a horse, hired an alarm, and seldom cutmorning chapel, or missed a meet if within reasonable distance. It was acourse of life, which, in after days, he often referred to with a sighas having been most exemplary; and I doubt whether he was far wrong. Butit did not last. For a time his gentlemanly manners, good humour, andgood taste, carried it off with all parties; but it was against theordinary routine, and could not hold up against the popular prejudice.The reading men eyed his top-boots with suspicion; the rowing mencomplained he was growing a regular sap, always sporting oak when theywanted him. Then his wine-parties were a source of endless tribulationto him. First of all, he asked all those with whom he was most intimateamong his old schoolfellows to meet each other, adding one or two of hisnew acquaintances: and a pretty mess he made of it. Men who had sat onthe same form with him and with each other at Harrow, and had betrayedno such marked differences in their tastes as to prevent theirassociating very pleasantly there, at Oxford, he found, had beenseparated wide as the poles by this invisible, but impassable, line ofdemarcation: to such a degree indeed, that although all had called uponHorace, as they had upon each other, before it seemed decided on whichside they were to settle, yet when they now met at his rooms, they hadbecome strangers beyond a mere civil recognition, and had not a singlesubject to converse upon in common. In fact, they were rather surprisedthan pleased to meet at all; and it was in vain their host tried to getthem to amalgamate. Many seemed to take a pleasure in showing howdecidedly they belonged to one set or the other. One would talk ofnothing on earth besides hunting, and sat silent and sulky when Horaceturned the conversation; another affected an utter ignorance of all thatwas going on in the university that was not connected with class-lists,scholarships, &c. What provoked him most was, that some of those whogave themselves the most pedantic airs, and would have been double-firstclass men undeniably, if talking could have done it, were those whoseheads he well knew were as empty as the last bottle, and which made himthink that some men must take to reading at Oxford, simply because theyhad faculties for nothing else.

At all events, Horace found the mixed system would not answer forentertaining his friends. So the next time he asked a few of the readingmen, some of whom he knew used to be good fellows, together; and as hereally had a kindred taste with them on many subjects, he found an houror so pass away very pleasantly: when just as he was passing the wineabout the third round, and his own brilliancy and good-humour werebeginning to infect some of his guests—so that one grave genius oftwenty had actually so far forgotten himself as to fill a bumper bymistake—up jumped the senior man of the party, and declaring that hehad an engagement to walk with a friend at seven politely took hisleave. This was the signal for a general dispersion; in vain did Horaceassure them they should have some coffee in the course of an hour, andentreat some one or two to return. Off they all went with sundry smilesand shakes of the head, and left their unfortunate host sitting alone inhis glory over the first glass of a newly opened bottle of claret.

I happened to be crossing the quadrangle from chapel in company withSavile, at the moment when Leicester put his head out of his window asif to enquire of the world in general what on earth he was to do withhimself for the next hour or two. Savile he[Pg 206] hailed at once, and beggedhim to come up; and though I knew but little of him, and had never beenin his rooms before, still, as I was one or two terms his senior, therewas nothing contrary even to Oxford etiquette in my accompanying Savile.We laughed heartily when he explained his disappointment. Savile triedto comfort him by the assurance that, as he had an hour to spare, hewould sit down and help him to finish a bottle or two of claret with agreat deal of pleasure; and was inclined to attribute the failure of theevening, in a great measure, to his name not having been included in thelist of invitations—an omission by which he declared all parties hadbeen the losers; Horace's reading friends standing very much in need ofsome one to put a little life into them, and himself as a candidate fora degree, having missed a fair opportunity of meeting, among so manychoice fellows, some one to "put him up to the examiners' dodges." ButLeicester was irrecoverably disgusted. Nothing, he declared, would everinduce him to ask a party of reading men to his rooms again; and fromthat hour he seemed to eschew fellowship with the whole fraternity. Notthat he became idle all at once; on the contrary, I believe, for sometime he worked on steadily, or at least tried to work; but he wasnaturally fond of society, and having failed to find what he wanted, wasreduced to make the best of such as he could find. So he graduallybecame acquainted with a set of men who, whatever their good qualitiesmight be, had certainly no claim whatever to be considered hard readers,and who would have considered a symposium which broke up at seveno'clock as unsatisfactory as a tale without a conclusion. Amongst these,his gentlemanly manners and kindness of heart made him beloved, whilehis talents gave him a kind of influence; and, though he must have feltoccasionally that he was not altogether in his right place, and that,besides his popular qualities, he had higher tastes and endowments withwhich the majority of his companions could hardly sympathise, he was toolight-hearted to philosophise much on the subject, and contented himselfwith enjoying his popularity, occasionally falling back upon his ownresources, and keeping up, in a desultory kind of way, his acquaintancewith scholarship and literature. The reading men of course looked uponhim as a lost sheep; the tutors shook their heads about him; if he didwell, it was set down as the result of accident; while all his misdoingswere labouring in his vocation. For, agreeably to the grand divisionaforesaid, Horace was now set down as a "rowing-man;" and he soon madethe discovery, and did more thereupon to deserve the character than heever would have done otherwise. He was very willing to go on in his ownway, if all parties would but let him alone; he was not going to be madea proselyte to long walks, and toast and water, nor had he anyconscientious abhorrence of supper-parties; and, as his prospects inlife were in no way dependent upon a class or a scholarship, and heseemed to be tacitly repudiated by the literati of his college, youngand old, on account of some of his aforesaid heterodox notions on thesubject of study, he accustomed himself gradually to set their opinionsat defiance; while the moderate reading, which encouragement andemulation had made easy at school, became every day more and moredistasteful.

Horace's tottering reputation was at last completely overset in the eyesof the authorities by a little affair which was absurd enough, but inwhich he himself was as innocent as they were. It happened that ayouthful cousin of his, whose sole occupation for the last twelve monthsof his life had been the not over-profitable one of waiting for acommission, had come up to Oxford for two or three days, pursuant toinvitation, to see a little of the manners and customs of theinhabitants. I think he had some slight acquaintance with our thenvice-principal—a good-natured, easy man—and Horace had got leave forhim to occupy a set of very small, dark rooms, which, as the college wasnot very full, had been suffered to remain vacant for the last two orthree terms; they were so very unattractive a domicile, that the last[Pg 207]Freshman to whom they were offered, as a Hobson's choice, was currentlyreported, in the plenitude of his disgust, to have take his name off thebooks instanter. It is not usual to allow strangers to sleep withincollege walls at all; but our discipline was somewhat lax in those days.So Mr Carey had a bed put up for him in the aforesaid quarters. He was,of course, duly fêted, and made much of by Horace and his friends; anda dozen of us sat down to a capital dinner in the rooms of the former,on the strength of having to entertain a "stranger from the country;"the hospitality of Oxford relaxing its rules even in favour ofunder-graduates upon such occasions. It must have been somewhere towardsthe next morning, when two or three of us accompanied young Carey downto No. 8; and, after chatting with him till he was half undressed, lefthim, as we thought, safe and quiet. However, soon after we had retired,some noisy individual in the same staircase thought proper to give aview-hollo out of his window, for the purpose of wishing the publicgood-night. Now there was one of the Fellows, a choleric little oldgentleman, always in residence, holding some office, in which there wasas little to do, and as much to get as might be, and who seldom troubledhimself much about college discipline, and looked upon under-graduateswith a sort of silent contempt; never interfering with them, as hedeclared himself, so long as they did not interfere with him. But onepoint there was, in which they did interfere with his personal comfortoccasionally, and whereby his peace of mind and rest of body wereequally disturbed. Mr Perkins always took a tumbler of negus at tenprecisely, and turned in as the college clock struck the quarter past;by the half-hour he was generally asleep, for his digestion was good,and his cares few. But his slumbers were not heavy, and any thing like arow in the quadrangle infallibly awoke him, and then he was like a lionroused. He was wont to jump up, throw up his window, thrust out a redface and a white nightcap, and after listening a few seconds for thechance of the odious sounds being repeated, would put the very pertinentquestion usual in such circ*mstances, to which one so seldom gets anequally pertinent reply—"Who's that?" In case this intimation of MrPerkins being wide awake proved sufficient, as it often did, to restorequiet, then after the lapse of a few more seconds the head and thenightcap disappeared, and the window was shut down again. But if thenoise was continued, as occasionally it was out of pure mischief, thanin a minute or two the said nightcap would be seen to emerge hastilyfrom the staircase below, in company with a dressing-gown and slippers,and Mr Perkins in this disguise would proceed to the scene ofdisturbance as fast as his short legs could carry him. He seldomsucceeded in effecting a capture; but if he had that luck, or if hecould distinguish the tone of any individual voice so as to be able toidentify the performer, he had him up before the "seniority" nextmorning, where his influence as one of the senior fellows ensured aheavy sentence. But he had been engaged in so many unsuccessful chasesof the kind, and his short orations from his window so often elicitedonly a laugh, though including sometimes brief but explicit threats ofrustication against the noisy unknown, strengthened by little expletiveswhich, when quoted by under-graduates, were made to sound somewhatdoubtfully—that at last he altered his tactics, and began to act insilence. And so he did, when upon opening his window he saw a light inthe ground-floor rooms of the staircase whence the sounds proceeded onthe evening in question. Carey, by his own account, was proceedingquietly in his preparations for bed, singing to himself an occasionalstanza of some classical ditty which he had picked up in the course ofthe evening, and admiring the power of the man's lungs in the room abovehim, when he heard a short quick step, and then a double rap at hisdoor. He was quite sufficiently acquainted, by this time, with the waysof the place, not to be much surprised at the late visit and at the sametime to consider it prudent to learn the name and status of hisvisitor before admitting him; so[Pg 208] he retorted upon Mr Perkins, quiteunconsciously, his own favourite query—"Who's that?" his first andobvious impression being that it was one of the party he had justquitted, coming probably, in the plenitude of good fellowship, to bringhim an invitation to wine or breakfast next day.

"It's me, sir—open the door," was the reply from a deep baritone, whichthe initiated would never have mistaken.

"Who are you?" said Carey again.

"My name is Perkins, sir: have the goodness to let me in." He wasgetting more angry, and consequently more polite.

"Perkins?" said Carey, pausing in his operations, in the vain endeavourto recall the name among the score or two to whom he had beenintroduced. "I'm just in bed—were you up at Leicester's?"

"Open the door, sir, if you please, immediately," and then came what ourfriend took for a smothered laugh, but was really a sort of shiver, forthere was a draft in the passage playing all manner of pranks with thedressing-gown, and Mr Perkins was getting cold.

An indistinct notion came into Carey's mind, that some one who had methim in College might have taken him for a Freshman, and had somepractical joke in view; so he contented himself with repeating that hewas going to bed, and could let no one in.

"I tell you, sir, I'm Mr Perkins; don't you know me?"

"I wish you a very good night, Mr Perkins."

"What's your name, sir? eh? You impudent young puppy, what's yourinfernal name? I'll have you rusticated, you dog—do you hear me, sir?"

On a sudden it struck Carey that this might possibly be a domiciliaryvisit from one of the authorities, and that his best plan was to openthe door at once, though what had procured him such an honour he was ata loss to imagine. He drew back the spring lock, therefore, and the nextmoment stood face to face with the irate Mr Perkins.

His first impulse was to laugh at the curious figure before him; butwhen demands for his name, and threats of unknown penalties, werethundered forth upon him with no pause for a reply, then he began tothink that he had made a mistake in opening the door at all—that hemight get Leicester into a scrape if not himself—and as his person wasas unknown to Mr Perkins as that gentleman's to him, it struck him thatif he could give him the slip once, it would be all right. In a momenthe blew out his solitary candle, bolted through the open door, all butupsetting his new acquaintance, whom he left storming in the mostunconnected manner, alone, and in total darkness. Up to Leicester'srooms he rushed, related his adventure, and was rather surprised thathis cousin did not applaud it as a very clever thing.

What Mr Perkins thought or said to himself, what degree of patience heexhibited in such trying circ*mstances, or in what terms heapostrophised his flying enemy, must ever remain a secret with himself.Five minutes after, Solomon the porter, summoned from his bed just as hehad made himself snug once more after letting out Horace's out-collegefriends, confronted Mr Perkins in about as sweet a temper as that worthyindividual himself, with this difference, that one was sulky and theother furious.

"Who lives in the ground-floor on the left in No. 8?"

"What, in 'Coventry?' Why, nobody, sir."

"Nobody! you stupid old sinner, you're asleep."

"No, sir, I ain't," and Solomon flashed his lantern in Mr Perkins's faceas if to ascertain whether his eyes were open. Mr Perkins startedback, and Solomon turned half round as if to disappear again.

"Who lives there, Solomon, I ask you? Do you mean to tell me you don'tknow? You are not fit—"

"I knows every gentleman's rooms well enough: nobody hasn't lived inthem as you means not these four terms. Mr Pears kept his fox in 'em onetime, till the vice-principal got wind of him. There may be some varmintin 'em for all I knows—they a'n't fit for much else."

"There's some confounded puppy[Pg 209] of a Freshman in them now—at leastthere was—and he lives there too."

"I know there be'n't," said the persevering Solomon. And, withoutdeigning a word more, he set off with his lantern towards the place indispute, followed by Mr Perkins, who contented himself with an angry"Now you'll see."

"Ay, now we shall see," replied Solomon, as, somewhat to Mr Perkins'sastonishment, they found the oak sported. Having made a selection from ahuge bunch of keys, the porter succeeded, after some fumbling, ingetting the door open. The room bore no traces of recent occupation.Three or four broken chairs and a rickety table were the only furniture:as far as the light of Solomon's lantern could penetrate, it looked thevery picture of desolation. Solomon chuckled.

"There is a man living here. I'll swear there is. He was undressingwhen I came. Look in the bedroom."

They opened the door, and saw a bare feather-bed and bolster, the usualmatériel in an unoccupied college chamber. "Seeing's believing," saidthe porter.

But, with Mr Perkins, seeing was not believing. He saw Solomon, and hesaw the empty room, but he did not believe either. But he had evidentlythe worst side of the argument as it stood, so he wished the porter asulky good-night, and retreated.

The fact was, that the noisy gentleman in the rooms above, as soon as hecaught the tones of Mr Perkins's voice at Carey's door, had entered intothe joke with exceeding gusto, well aware that the visit was reallyintended as a compliment to his own vocal powers. Carey's sudden boltpuzzled him rather; but as soon as he heard Mr Perkins's footsteps takethe direction of the porter's lodge, he walked softly down-stairs to thefield of action, and, anticipating in some degree what would follow,bundled up together sheets, blankets, pillow, dressing apparatus, andall other signs and tokens of occupation, and made off with them to hisown rooms; sporting the oak behind him, and thus completing themystification.

As the facts of the case were pretty sure to transpire in course oftime, Horace took the safe course of getting his cousin out of collegenext morning, and calling on Mr Perkins with a full explanation of thecirc*mstances, and apologies for Carey as a stranger unacquainted withthe police regulations of their learned body, and the respect duethereto. Of course the man in authority was obliged to be gracious, asLeicester could not well be answerable for all the faults of his family;but there never from that time forth happened a row of any kind withwhich he did not in his own mind, probably unconsciously, associate poorHorace.

Whether my readers will set down Horace Leicester as a rowing man ornot, is a point which I leave to their merciful consideration: a readingman was a title which he never aspired to. He took a very creditabledegree in due season, and was placed in the fourth class with a man whotook up a very long list of books, and was supposed to have read himselfstupid.

"He ought to have done a good deal more," said one of the tutors; "hehad it in him." "I think he was lucky not to have been plucked, myself,"said Mr Perkins; "he was a very noisy man."

Hawthorne.

[Pg 210]

ZUMALACARREGUI.

On a dull damp October morning of the year 1833—concerning the moreexact date of which it can only be ascertained that it was subsequentlyto the twentieth day of the month—a man rather above the middle height,wrapped in a military cloak of dark grey cloth, and wearing an oilskinschako upon his head, was seen proceeding through the streets ofPampeluna in the direction of the gate known as the Puerta del Cármen.Although the cloak and schako, which were all that could at first bedistinguished of his dress, indicated their wearer to be an officer, itwas observed, that on passing the guard-house at the gate, he took somepains to conceal his face, as though fearful of being recognised. Onceoutside the walls, he crossed the river Arga by the Puente Nuevo, andcontinued his progress along the Irurzun road. He had arrived at aboutcannon-shot distance from the fortress of Pampeluna, when a man, leadinga small horse by the bridle, suddenly emerged from a place ofconcealment by the roadside. The officer hastily fastened on a spurwhich he had brought with him, put foot in stirrup, and mounted. For afew moments he remained motionless, gazing at Pampeluna, as thoughbidding a silent adieu to the friends he left behind him; then strikinghis single spur into his horse's flank, he rapidly disappeared. Twohours later he entered at full trot the village of Huarte Araquil, fiveleagues from Pampeluna. The officer alighted at the house of a friend,where there presently came to meet him a respectable inhabitant ofPampeluna, by name Don Luis Mongelos, and the vicar or parish priest ofHuarte, Don Pedro Miguel Irañeta. The latter, as well by his sacredcharacter as by reason of the services that, at a former period, he hadrendered to the cause of the Spanish monarchy, enjoyed some influence inhis district.

The conference that Mongelos and Irañeta held with the unknown officerlasted till a late hour of the night, when they separated to take a fewhours' repose. At early dawn they reassembled, and set out for thevalley of Berrueza, where they were told that they would find the chiefof the Navarrese Carlists, Don Francisco Iturralde, whom they weredesirous of seeing. They were fortunate enough to meet with him thatsame day at the village of Piedramillera.

In those early days of the Royalist insurrection, and in the state ofanxiety and fermentation in which men's minds then were, the appearancein the Carlist camp of an officer of rank could not do less than excite,in the highest degree, the curiosity and interest of the inhabitants,especially of those who had taken up arms for Don Carlos. Accordingly,whilst the three strangers were with Iturralde, there was rapidly formedat the door of the latter's quarters a large group, composed ofvolunteers and peasants, and even of women and children. All were eagerto know who the person in the colonel's uniform might be; butnevertheless, when he at last came out, and the crowd pressed forward toexamine him, not one of the numerous assemblage could tell his name. Thedisappointed gazers were dispersing, when a party of officers came up;and no sooner did these behold the stranger, than they exclaimedsimultaneously, and in a tone of mingled surprise andenthusiasm—"Zumalacarregui!"

Rarely has the axiom, that circ*mstances and opportunity make the man,been more fully exemplified than in the person of the chief whose namewe have just written. For forty-five years he lived unknown andunnoticed beyond a very limited circle,[Pg 211] remarked only by his owncomrades, and by the generals under whom he served, as a good drill andan efficient regimental officer. After twenty-five years' service, heoccupied the undistinguished post of colonel of a Spanish line regiment.The probabilities were, that he would end his life with the embroideredcuff of a brigadier-general, and be forgotten as soon as the earth hadclosed over him. One man died, leaving a disputed crown; and spurred on,as some say, by injustice done to him, as others maintain, by anenthusiastic devotion to a principle, Zumalacarregui, in the twentymonths of life that were still accorded to him, raised and organized, byhis own unaided energies, a numerous and efficient army,outmanœuvered the practised leaders, and defeated the veteran troopsthat were sent against him, and made himself a name that has beenrepeated with respect and admiration by some of the highest militaryauthorities in Europe.

Don Tomas Zumalacarregui, a native of Guipuzcoa, was twenty years of agewhen he first saw fire at Saragossa in 1808. When the French raised thesiege, he returned home, and remained there till Guipuzcoa, followingthe example of the other Spanish provinces, declared against theusurpation of Napoleon. He then immediately joined Jauregui, betterknown as El Pastor or the Shepherd, on account of his having, likeanother Viriatus—but without becoming a bandit—exchanged the crook forthe sabre. In spite of the youth of his new follower, El Pastor foundhim of great assistance; and it is even said that Zumalacarregui,ashamed of having for leader a man who could not write, undertook toteach him, and succeeded in so doing,. The war of independence at anend, Areizaga, captain-general of the Basque provinces, appointedZumalacarregui his aide-de-camp; and finally, by his interest andrecommendation, procured him a captain's commission in the line. In thisnew position the young officer made himself remarked for two things—aninflexible firmness of character, and an enthusiastic love of hisprofession. All his leisure was passed in the study of tactics, and herarely opened a book that treated of any other subject.

In 1822, under the constitutional regime, Zumalacarregui, being ofknown Royalist opinions, was deprived of his company. He joined Quesada,who was at the head of the realistas in Navarre, and from him receivedcommand of a battalion, which he kept till, at the end of the war, itwas disbanded in common with all the Navarrese corps. Whilst holdingthis command, his skill and merit, and a certain air of superiority,which was natural to him, excited the envy and dislike of some of hisbrother officers; but to the intrigues and artifices employed to injurehim, he only opposed a redoubled zeal in the execution of his duty.Subsequently he commanded a regiment with the rank oflieutenant-colonel, and was at last made full colonel of the 3d lightinfantry. The excellent state into which he brought this corps, causedit to be sent from Valencia to Madrid, to form part of the militarypageant by which Queen Christina's first arrival at the capital of Spainwas celebrated. This piece of duty, it was expected, would have procuredZumalacarregui his brigadier's rank; but the only thing he got by it wasa fall from his horse, from the effects of which he afterwards suffered.

Zumalacarregui's last command in the service of Ferdinand was that ofthe 14th of the line. A curious narrative of the circ*mstances thatoccurred whilst he had this regiment, is to be found in a letter fromthe Carlist general, Don Carlos Vargas, who was at that timeaide-de-camp to Eguia, captain-general of Galicia, in which province the14th was quartered.

"From time immemorial," says Vargas, "there had existed in the districtof the Ferrol a society of robbers, regularly sworn in and organized,having branches all over the country, and so well directed in theiroperations, that it was found impossible to make an end of them, or todiscover who they were. When any one of the associates was seen tofalter, or was suspected of an intention to betray his companions, hewas immediately assassinated, and almost always in some horriblemanner.[Pg 212] Persons of every class and description belonged to thisassociation—even women, old men, and government functionaries of highgrade. From 1826 to 1832, a merchant of the name of C—— was at thehead of it—a very wealthy man, with respect to whom no one couldexplain how it was that in so few years he had accumulated such greatriches. The public authorities, whose duty it was to discover andsuppress so infamous a society, had been drawn into it by bribery orintimidation, or both; so that, instead of preventing the robberies,they protected the robbers, and gave them all the opportunities in theirpower. In spite of his known zeal, energy, and activity, General Eguiahad been unable to destroy, or even discover, this numerous band. He hadbeen deceived by the apparent zeal of the alcalde mayor of the Ferrol,Don V.G. D——, and of an escribano, named R——, a captain ofroyalist volunteers. These two men denounced and prosecuted sundry smalloffenders who formed no part of the grand association; and, by the goodunderstanding between them, baffled all the efforts of thecaptain-general."

Eguia, finding that the robberies continued to as great an extent asbefore, and that the temporary governor of the Ferrol did not aid himefficaciously in detecting their perpetrators, removed him from his postand conferred it on Zumalacarregui, with whose character he was wellacquainted. The latter in a very few days obtained a clue to the wholeconfederacy, and arrested C—— and other rich accomplices. Variousanonymous offers of large sums of money were now made to Zumalacarregui,and repeated threats of assassination held out to him; but he wasneither to be bribed nor frightened, and the wealthy and influentialconfederates set every engine at work to bring about his dismissal andruin. Being known as a Royalist, the events that occurred at La Granjain 1832 facilitated the designs of his enemies. At the same timeBrigadier-General Chacon, then commanding the royal corps of marines atthe Ferrol, and who has since been political chief of Madrid and one ofthe cabinet, was also manœuvring against Zumalacarregui, whosecharacter, it appears, awed him considerably. Under a pretext that aCarlist pronunciamento was contemplated, Chacon shut himself up in thearsenal with his marines, and persisted in remaining there in spite ofthe assurances of safety given to him by the governor. At last, havinghad an interview at Santiago with the Captain-General Eguia, the lattersucceeded in tranquillizing his fears, and the marines came out of theirstronghold, looking very like a parcel of children whose nurse hasthreatened them with a bugbear. Notwithstanding the absurdity ofChacon's demonstration, it attracted the attention of the Christinoparty, then in power; and as at that period all the officers of rankknown to entertain Royalist opinions were deprived, one after the other,of their commands, there was nothing surprising in the same measurebeing adopted with regard to Zumalacarregui, although nothing could bealleged against him, whether as a man of honour or in a military orpolitical point of view. As soon as he left the Ferrol, the proceedingsagainst the robbers became paralysed; those of them who had been takenwere set at liberty, and resumed with impunity their course of crime.

In July 1833 Zumalacarregui took up his residence at Pampeluna, where,three months later, he learned the death of Ferdinand VII. and thedeclaration of General Santos Ladron in favour of Don Carlos. He wouldprobably have immediately departed to join the insurgents, had not theauthorities of Pampeluna had their eyes upon him. General Solá, thengovernor of that fortress, hearing that he had been negotiating thepurchase of a horse, sent for him and enquired if such were really thecase. Zumalacarregui replied that even if it were so, it need notsurprise any body, for all his life he had been accustomed to keep ahorse. "Nevertheless," returned Solá, "for the present your Señoria mustbe pleased to do without one." And this was the motive of theclandestine manner in which Zumalacarregui left Pampeluna.

It has been already shown that although, from earliest manhood,[Pg 213]Zumalacarregui employed himself diligently in cultivating thosequalities, and acquiring that knowledge, by the judicious application ofwhich he afterwards gained such celebrity, his really public andimportant life extended over a period of little more than a year and ahalf. But within that short space how much was comprised! What hardshipand exertion—what efforts both mental and bodily—what an amount ofactivity, excitement, peril, and success were accumulated in those fewmonths of existence! From the peculiar circ*mstances under whichZumalacarregui's achievements occurred, an historian was very difficultto be found for them. Those who surrounded him were generally speakingmen of action, less skilled in handling the pen than the sabre; andmoreover, during the six years' struggle, in which most of those whosurvived its sanguinary contest took part to its close, the successionof events was so rapid, the changes were so constant, that the incidentsof to-day might well cause those of yesterday to be imperfectlyremembered. Even the newspaper emissaries who hovered about the scene ofthe contest, striving to collect intelligence, were foiled in so doingby the constant movements of the Carlist general, by the wild countryand inclement season in which he carried on his operations. In the year1836, a young Englishman, whom a love of adventure and zeal for thecause had induced to draw his sword in behalf of Charles V., published anarrative of twelve months' service with Zumalacarregui. There is muchin his book to amuse and interest, and Captain Henningsen, as we havereason to know from other sources than the internal evidence of hiswritings, is a gallant and accomplished officer. His descriptions aregraceful and agreeable, the sketches and anecdotes he gives are the veryromance of civil warfare—not that, as we believe, he either did or hadany occasion to embellish his account of a campaign which abounded inthe picturesque and the dramatic. He was only with Zumalacarregui,however, during the latter half of his career, when the forces of theCarlists had already assumed a certain numerical importance, and theirresources were on the increase. Of its earlier portion he could speakbut from hearsay; and it was during that earlier period thatZumalacarregui had the greatest difficulties to contendwith—difficulties in overcoming which he displayed extraordinary talentand perseverance. Besides this, we have always looked upon CaptainHenningsen's book rather as a slight, though interesting and truthful,narrative of personal adventure, than as a record of Zumalacarregui'scareer; nor does he claim for it a higher character than the one we aredisposed to concede to it. "I have merely," he says, "drawn a roughsketch with charcoal on a guard-house wall—neither memoir, travels, norhistory—but which may have the merit of being a sketch from the life."This is a correct definition. But the character and exploits ofZumalacarregui were worthy of a chronicler who should treat the subjectmore seriously—and such a one has lately been found. A personal friend,who followed him from the first day that he took up arms for Don Carlos,a native of the province in which the war was chiefly carried on, fullyacquainted with its state and the feelings of its inhabitants, as wellas with the incalculable disadvantages under which Zumalacarreguilaboured and the few advantages he enjoyed, has undertaken the task. Tenyears after Zumalacarregui's death, the Carlist general, Don JuanAntonio Zaratiegui, has written, from the country of his exile, thememoirs of his former leader.

Although the arrival of Zumalacarregui was hailed with the most livelyjoy by the insurgents, and notwithstanding that he was senior in rank toany officer then with the Navarrese Carlists, there were stilldifficulties in the way of his taking the command. The whole force inNavarre consisted but of nine hundred men—peasants for the most part,many without arms, others with old and unserviceable ones; yet was thecolonelcy of this ragged and badly equipped regiment an object ofcompetition. Iturralde, who held it, refused to give it up,although—with the exception of Juan Echevarria, the priest of LosArcos, who afterwards made his name infamous for his crimes andexcesses—all the officers[Pg 214] and influential persons there assembled weredesirous he should resign it in favour of Zumalacarregui. CaptainHenningsen relates that Iturralde sent two companies of infantry toarrest his rival, who, "reversing the game, sternly commanded them toarrest Iturralde, and was obeyed." Of this we see no mention in the bookbefore us, where we are told, on the contrary, that Zumalacarregui,finding Iturralde obstinate in retaining the command, was mounting hishorse with the intention of departing and offering his services to theAlavese Carlists, when he was prevented on so doing by the mass ofofficers and persons of distinction in the camp, who compelled him toreturn to his quarters, promising that they would find means ofarranging matters satisfactorily. The captains formed up theircompanies, and marched them to the parade-ground. When all wereassembled, Major Juan Sarasa, who was looked upon by the soldiers assecond in command, drew his sword, and exclaimed in a loud voice,"Volunteers! In the name of King Charles the Fifth, Colonel Don TomasZumalacarregui is recognised as Commandant-General of Navarre!" It iscertain that as Don Carlos was then far away from Navarre, and ignoranteven of what was going on there, he could not make this nomination; butneither had he appointed Iturralde nor any of the other chiefs whocommanded in the various provinces. Under such circ*mstances this wasperhaps the most proper and solemn way of conferring the command,especially when the choice fell upon the officer of the highest rankthere present. Before sheathing his sword, Sarasa ordered the guard ofhonour at Iturralde's quarters to be relieved, and that Iturraldehimself should be kept under arrest until further orders from the newchief. All this having taken place without opposition or disturbance,Zumalacarregui made his appearance upon the parade, passed the troops inreview, and then causing them to form a circle round him, he addressedthem at some length.

From the first formation of a Carlist force in Navarre, the men had beenin the habit of receiving two reals, about fivepence sterling, a-day.This rate of pay had been established by General Santos Ladron, andcontinued by Iturralde, with the view of attracting volunteers. Thenecessary funds had hitherto been supplied from certain moneys that hadbeen found at the beginning of the war in the hands of varioussubordinate administrations. These funds, however, were now nearlyexhausted, and Zumalacarregui's first announcement to the soldiery was,that he should reduce their pay one-half till times were better.Considering the circ*mstances under which he had assumed the command,this was a bold step. Most generals would have sought rather toconciliate their men by an increase than to risk exciting discontent bya reduction. Nevertheless, owing to Zumalacarregui's tone of mingledfirmness and conciliation, this alteration was made without exciting amurmur.

Releasing Iturralde from his arrest Zumalacarregui appointed him secondin command, whilst Sarasa cheerfully descended to the thirdplace—thereby proving that in what he had done in favour ofZumalacarregui, the good of the cause he had espoused was his onlymotive. The command in chief, however, was merely ad interim. On thearrival of Colonel Eraso, who was then detained in France, it was to begiven up to him. But when Eraso made his appearance, so convinced was heof Zumalacarregui's superiority of talent, that he insisted, in spite ofthe latter's urgent entreaties, in taking only the second post.

Upon assuming the command, Zumalacarregui at once determined on adoptinga defensive system of warfare—the only one, indeed, that waspracticable with his wretched resources and handful of men. Just at thattime General Sarsfield was marching with a strong column to the scene ofthe insurrection; and at his approach the Castilian Carlists, underMelino and Cuevillas, fled and dispersed to their homes. Sarsfield movedon, and occupied Vittoria with little opposition. Soon afterwardsZumalacarregui, who had betaken himself to the banks of the Ebro inhopes of seizing some arms and horses, received an urgent summons torepair to Bilboa, then held by the Royalists, and which Sarsfield was[Pg 215]advancing to attack. He hastened to obey the call, but only arrived atthat extremity of Navarre nearest to Biscay, in time to meet the remnantof the Biscayan Carlists flying before the triumphant Christinos. Thetroops in the Basque provinces, which, the evening before, had amountedto five or six thousand men, were now reduced to as many hundreds. Theirarms, ammunition, and artillery, the latter consisting of four guns, hadbeen abandoned, and were in the power of the conquerors; and so completewas the dissolution of the Carlist forces, that a vast number of personswho were compromised by their conduct or opinions, seeing themselveswithout defence, crossed the frontier into France. Zumalacarregui, withthree scanty, ill-armed battalions, which he had formed out of thehandful of Navarrese peasants before alluded to, was now the only hopeof the cause. The war was, to all appearance, at an end; and so itundoubtedly would have been but for Zumalacarregui's extraordinaryqualities. When he left Pampeluna, the three Basque provinces and thegreater part of the Rioja, or plains of the Ebro, were held by theCarlists. Merino had just issued a proclamation announcing himself to beat the head of twenty thousand Castilian volunteers. In all, there werenearly forty thousand men under arms for Don Carlos, and ready tosupport the Navarrese rising. Suddenly this brilliant perspective haddisappeared like a scene in a play, and the twelve or fifteen hundredmen, half-naked, without uniform, and badly armed, who were assembled inthe valley of the Borunda, found themselves alone and unprotected infront of a formidable and well-provided foe. All was confusion andpanic, when Zumalacarregui opposed his zeal and energy to the contagionof alarm that was rapidly spreading amongst his men. His precautions,his decided and inflexible character, gave life to a cause apparently atthe last gasp. Encouraging some, rousing others from the lethargy intowhich they were sinking, he proceeded resolutely with the organizationof his three battalions, introduced strict discipline and subordination,and procured five hundred muskets, and a supply of cartridges, fromBiscay and Guipuzcoa. General Villareal, who had saved one battalionfrom the wreck of the Alavese troops, joined him; and the juntas anddeputations of the various provinces named Zumalacarreguicommander-in-chief of all the Carlist forces.

Meanwhile, Sarsfield's movements appearing too dilatory to the Christinogovernment, he was replaced by General Valdes, and appointed Viceroy ofNavarre. The arrival of winter, however, and a heavy fall of snow, insome degree paralyzed the operations of the Christinos, whilst thisoccasioned incredible sufferings to the Carlists. One battalion of thelatter, in passing from Navarre to Guipuzcoa, across the mountains ofAralár, lost 460 men out of 620, of which it consisted. Numbed by cold,and worn out by fatigue, they remained to die upon the road, or draggedthemselves for shelter to lonely hamlets and isolated farmhouses, wheremany of them were discovered and taken by Christino detachments sent tohunt them down. "Truly," says Zaratiegui, "it was a lamentable sight tobehold these unfortunate men, who were unable to move hand or foot, thuspersecuted. But even in this state of impotence and peril, not one ofthem chose to avail himself of the pardon which the Christino generalsat that time freely offered to those who should renounce Don Carlos.Doubtless a great proof of how noble and constant was their firstresolution."

In order not to inconvenience the inhabitants, Zumalacarregui was in thehabit of distributing his troops over large districts, himselffrequently remaining with only a handful of men about him. On one ofthese occasions an incident occurred which is related at considerablelength by General Zaratiegui, who evidently attaches the greatestimportance to his late chief's most trifling actions, and, in the courseof his book, compares him to or sets him above various renowned heroesof ancient and modern times. The anecdote, however, is curious, asshowing the constant state of vigilance and anxiety in which theCarlists were kept during these early days of their uprising.

[Pg 216]

"Zumalacarregui had taken up his quarters in the hamlet of Zabal, whichconsisted of only four houses; and, as the season was unfavourable for abivouac, he had scattered the troops through various small villages inthe neighbourhood. With himself there remained only a guard of fifteenor twenty men, and a few aides-de-camp. It was in the middle ofDecember, when the nights are at the longest, and consequently the mostfavourable time of the year for an enemy to accomplish a surprise. TheCarlist general lay awake in his bed, watching for the dawn, whichseemed to him longer than usual in appearing; till at last his ownrestlessness and impatience made him fancy that the Christinos werecoming to surprise him. A distant noise which he heard, and whichresembled the trot of horses, confirmed the hallucination. He sprangfrom his bed, and, nearly naked as he was, descended the stairs, openedthe door of the house, and tried to snatch away the musket of thesentinel posted there, in order to defend himself against theapproaching enemy. The sentry, at once recognising him, kept him offwith his hand, and said firmly—'General, leave me my arms; whenneedful, I shall know how to use them.' The man had only joined theCarlists three days before, and, excepting his musket, bore no mark orsign of his new profession, not even a cartouch-box; and, to completethe singularity of the scene, he was mounting guard bareheaded. Thehorses, of which Zumalacarregui, with extraordinary fineness of ear, haddetected the approach at a very great distance, soon afterwards madetheir appearance. They were mounted by the men whose duty it was to gofrom one village to another during the night, collecting rations. Thingsreturned to their previous state of tranquillity, and the sentinel wasrewarded for his steadiness and presence of mind.

"This incident," concludes Zaratiegui, "recalls to my recollection ananecdote told by a Spanish author, of the great Captain Gonzalo deCordova. When that hero was laying siege to a fortress on the island ofCephalonia, which was defended by the Turks, he was many times seen toget up in his sleep, and to cry out to his soldiers to come and repelthe enemy; and it is also said, that owing to these alarms the Spaniardsmore than once escaped a surprise."

Without reference to a map, it would be difficult for our readers toappreciate a description of the extraordinary marches and countermarchesby which Zunalacarregui avoided his enemy until such time as he was ableto fight him. Sarsfield had no sooner established himself in hisvice-royalty at Pampeluna, that he collected all the troops he had athis disposal, and began running after the Carlist chief. He displayedgreat activity, made forced and rapid marches, and on arriving oneevening at the town of Puente la Reyna, found himself, by the result ofa well-planned movement, within an hour and a half's march of Artajona,where Zumalacarregui had halted. Sarsfield made sure of coming to blowsthe next morning; but he had forgotten to take into consideration theinsensibility to fatigue, and capacity of exertion, of the Navarresemountaineers. In the middle of the night, Zumalacarregui turned out hismen in dead silence, without sound of drum or trumpet, and beganretracing his steps along the road which he had that day followed. Thenext morning, before Sarsfield arrived at Artajona, Zumalacarregui wasat Dicastillo, a long day's march off, and precisely at the samedistance from the Christino general at which he had been when the lattercommenced his pursuit. Sarsfield found matter for reflection in this,and perceiving, doubtless, that a war in such a country as Navarre, andagainst such a man as Zumalacarregui, was likely to prove a shoal uponwhich more than one military reputation would be wrecked, he confidedthe direction of operations to Generals Lorenzo and Oraa, and returnedto Pampeluna, whence he no more issued forth.

The first encounter between Zumalacarregui and the Christinos took placeon the 29th of December, near the village of Asarta. The Carlist forceconsisted of seven small battalions or corps, together about 2500 men,knowing, for the most part, little[Pg 217] or nothing of a soldier's duty. Manyof the muskets were useless, and the ammunition so scarce, that tencartridges formed the allowance with which these troops went, for thefirst time, under fire. In the combat that ensued, the Christinossuffered considerable loss; and although the Carlists, who had most ofthem expended their ammunition, finally retreated in haste and disorder,the mere fact of having sustained for some time the assault of an enemyso far superior to them in discipline and equipments, inspired these rawrecruits with fresh courage and confidence. The resistance that had beenmade contrasted advantageously with the facility with which, at thefirst commencement of the war, far larger bodies of the insurgents hadbeen put to flight. Several Christino officers came over to the Carlistsafter this trifling action, of which the moral effect was altogetherhighly favourable to the cause of Don Carlos.

Dividing his forces into three detachments, Zumalacarregui sent two ofthese to draw off the attention of Lorenzo and Oraa, whilst he himselfsuddenly appeared before the royal manufactory of shot and shell atOrbaiceta, near the French frontier. The garrison, consisting of twohundred men, capitulated, although it might very well have held out theplace against an enemy without artillery, until the arrival ofassistance, which would have been certain to come in two or three days.Here were found two hundred excellent muskets, a brass four-pounder, andmore than 50,000 cartridges; besides an immense quantity of round-shotand other projectiles, which at that time were useless to the Carlists,as they had no artillery.

When, instead of the news which they had been expecting to receive, ofthe extermination of the royalist faction, the Pampelonese learned thatOrbaiceta was captured; and that Lorenzo and Oraa had succeeded innothing except in knocking up their horses and fa*gging their men; theysent to Valdes, the general-in-chief of the army of the North, who wasthen in Biscay, imploring him to come and make an end of the Carlists.Valdes hastened to Pampeluna, and on arriving there at once made asortie with five or six thousand men. Zumalacarregui posted himself in anarrow pass, on the road along which the Christinos were advancing, andawaited their arrival. Having done this, he sent out a number ofofficers and soldiers, who were well acquainted with the country, toobserve the movements of the Queen's troops, and give notice of theirapproach. The evening was drawing in, when a peasant came up in allhaste, laden with a large stone of a thin flat form, nearly a foot and ahalf long. On reaching the presence of Zumalacarregui, he laid it down,and requested the general to read what was written on it. One of thescouts having no writing materials, and thinking the peasant incapableof bearing a verbal message correctly, had taken this novel means ofconveying intelligence to his chief. In danger of being outflanked,Zumalacarregui was compelled to abandon his advantageous position. Thefollowing day a skirmish took place without result; and at last Valdes,finding that he only fatigued his men uselessly, by pursuing anadversary whom it was impossible to overtake, remained for some daysinactive.

A week had elapsed, which Zumalacarregui had passed at Navascues, busiedin organizing his troops, and making various important administrativearrangements, when the approach of Oraa compelled him to a change ofplace. On the evening of the 17th of February, the Christino generalhaving put up his infantry in the hamlets of Zubiri and Urdaniz, and thedetachments of cavalry that accompanied him, at a large venta or innbetween those two places, Zumalacarregui resolved upon a nocturnalattack.

It was at midnight that, by the light of a dozen trees, which had beenset on fire, and served for gigantic torches, the Carlist leader formedup five companies in a thick wood, and after communicating to them hisproject, directed them how to proceed. The post of honour was assignedto a student of the name of Amezqueta, who, by his feats of courage,subsequently rose from the rank of a simple volunteer to that ofcolonel, and died[Pg 218] in consequence of wounds received in action. Onecompany was sent to open a fire upon Zubiri, in which Oraa himself waslodged; another was to attack the venta, where the cavalry werequartered; and the remaining three were to penetrate into the streetsand houses of Urdaniz, which were occupied by five or six hundredChristinos.

The night had at first been bright and moonlit, but was now cloudy anddark; and Zumalacarregui, in order to avoid the terrible consequencesthat might ensue if his soldiers mistook one another for the enemy,ordered them to put on their shirts over their other garments. Ithappened to be Carnival time, and the men, not at once understanding thereason of this order, took it as a sort of masquerade proceeding, andmade themselves exceedingly merry about it. The result showed hownecessary a precaution it was. After various difficulties, occasioned bythe bad roads and extreme darkness, the three detachments reached theirrespective destinations at about half-past two in the morning, and thefire against Zubiri and Urdaniz commenced almost at the same moment. Inthe first-named place, the Christinos kept themselves shut up in thehouses, from the windows of which they returned the fire, guided intheir aim by the flashes of their assailants' muskets. The sole objectof the Carlists was, to keep them employed, in order that they might notinterfere with what was going on at the two other points of attack. Thecavalry at the venta having neglected all precautions, and possessing noeffective means of defence, soon fell into the power of the Carlists;but at Urdaniz, which was held by infantry, and against which theexpedition was more particularly directed, a hard-contested fight tookplace. The first picket which the Carlists encountered was cut to piecesto a man; the fire of a second outpost spread the alarm; but,nevertheless, the attacking party penetrated into the ground-floor ofmost of the houses, and a desperate contest ensued upon the stairs. Thehorses in the stables were either carried off or killed; and nothingwould have been easier than to have set fire to the houses, and soensured the destruction of all the Christinos. From this lattersanguinary measure, which a Cabrera or a Valmaseda would probably nothave hesitated to adopt, Zumalacarregui abstained. "It did not agree,"says his biographer, "with the principles of equity and justice which heobserved relatively to the villages and their inhabitants;" from whichwe are left to infer, that the burning alive of five hundred Christinosoldiers, could it have been done without injuring houses or peasants,would have been rather an acceptable holocaust to the Carlist chief.

When all the advantages calculated upon from this expedition had beenobtained, the retreat was sounded, and, forming up his men with thegreatest celerity, Zumalacarregui marched rapidly away, carrying off thearms, horses, and prisoners, that had been taken. With all his haste,however, early upon the following day Lorenzo and Oraa were close uponhis heels; but the wary Carlist had omitted no precaution, and, inanticipation of a hot pursuit, had ordered four battalions to meet himat the neighbouring pass of Lizarraga, where he accordingly found themwaiting his arrival, and immediately prepared to give the Christinos awarm reception. The latter, on arriving in front of the position,probably considered it too formidable a one to attack; for theyforthwith retreated, leaving Zumalacarregui in the peaceable enjoymentof a triumph which greatly increased his reputation and the confidenceof his followers.

Quesada, who succeeded Valdes in the command of the Queen's army, wasthe first to introduce the horrible system of reprisals, or, it shouldrather be said, to occasion it, by cruelty towards his prisoners.Valdes, if he had done little towards terminating the war, had at leastnot envenomed it, or rendered its character more ferocious than he hadfound it. Although it was impossible to suspect him of any leaningtowards his opponents, he always showed great moderation and humanity,and caused the wounded Carlists who fell into his hands to be treatedwith as much care as if they had been his own men. Quesada, on thecontrary, irritated at the failure of certain attempts he had made to[Pg 219]seduce Zumalacarregui, and subsequently other Carlist leaders, fromtheir allegiance to him they called their King, and acting under theinfluence of a disposition which many events in his life sufficientlyproved to be cruel and bloodthirsty, had scarcely assumed the commandwhen he gave the signal for reprisals, by shooting at Pampeluna theCarlist officer, Don Juan Hugalde, although Zumalacarregui had offeredto give a Christino officer and two sergeants in exchange for him. Thiswas followed by numerous similar acts of cruelty, which at last werecause that Villareal, by order of Zumalacarregui, shot more than ahundred prisoners who had been taken a short time previously at avillage near Vittoria. Fortunately, at that particular period, theprisoners on neither side were very numerous. In an action near Segura,Leopold O'Donnell, cousin of the present governor of the Havannah, andson of the well-known Count of Abisbal, fell into the hands of theCarlists, with four other officers and a number of rank and file. Thefive officers were shot, in retaliation for some recent execution ofCarlist prisoners; but Zumalacarregui, willing to make another effortfor the establishment of a more humane system, spared the lives of themen, and ordered that seven amongst them who were wounded should betaken care of, and, when cured, sent back to Pampeluna. In return forthis act of mercy, Quesada shot every prisoner he had, wounded or not.Amongst others, a Captain Bayona, who had received two desperate wounds,and was at the point of death, was dragged from his bed and shot on thepublic square of the village of Lacunza. Zumalacarregui might haverepaid this atrocity by the slaughter of the Christino prisoners whowere still in his power, but having promised them their lives, he wouldnot recall his word.

A few days after this, four officers were made prisoners by Iturralde,who entered the town of Los Arcos with a battalion, and captured thembefore they had time to retreat to the fort. Quesada feeling very sureof the fate reserved for them, hit upon a stratagem by which he hoped tosave their lives. He caused to be arrested at Pampeluna the parents ofseveral Carlist officers of rank, shut them up in the citadel, and sentconfessors to them. They were to be shot, he said, the very moment heshould learn the death of the officers whom Iturralde had taken. Theunfortunate captives begged permission to write to their sons andrelatives in the Carlist army, and this request, which was what Quesadahad reckoned upon, was granted. Those to whom the letters were sentpresented themselves before Zumalacarregui in the most profoundaffliction, and implored him to show mercy to the four men on whoselives depended the existence of persons so dear to them. ButZumalacarregui, who saw at once that such a precedent would be in thehighest degree dangerous, inasmuch as most of the Carlists had friendsand near relatives in the Christino country, was firm in his refusal.The officers were shot, but Quesada did not dare to incur the odiumwhich reprisals of the nature he had threatened would have heaped uponhis head. It was remarked also that he was greatly discouraged by theproof he on this occasion obtained of his opponent's firmness andenergy, and of the unlimited authority and influence he enjoyed overthose under his command. The shooting of prisoners of war continuedwithout intermission till the Eliot convention took place.

The month of April had arrived without any one of the Carlist leadershaving received a communication, either verbal or written, from theprince for whom they had now been six months under arms. At last, on the11th of April, Zumalacarregui, who was then in the valley of theBerrueza, received the much wished-for letter from the hands of a nativeof Burgos, who, in the disguise of a muleteer, managed to reach hiscamp. In this letter, which was dated the 18th of March 1834, Don Carlosdeclared that his "royal heart and soul were sweetly affected by thecontemplation of the heroical efforts that were being made in the causeof religion and his legitimate rights." He promised to maintain thefueros of the provinces, approved all that had been done, and gavevarious and extensive powers to Zumalacarregui, whom he styled Mariscal[Pg 220]de Campo of the royal armies. The enthusiasm which this documentoccasioned amongst the troops and the people of the provinces was sogreat, that Zumalacarregui declared it to be worth a reinforcement oftwenty thousand men. It is probable also, although no express mention ismade of it, that about or rather before this time, some small suppliesof money had been received from the friends of Don Carlos in Spain, orother countries; for we find the junta of Navarre busied in providingnew clothing for a part of the troops. The taxes levied in the districtsin which the Carlists operated, and those duties on goods passing thefrontier which they were able to collect, must at that period have beenof very trifling amount, and insufficient to meet the expenses even ofZumalacarregui's small army.

During three months that Quesada had held the command, which he assumedwith a force that he himself admitted to consist of 23,000 infantry, and1400 horse, he had accomplished literally nothing. On the other hand,the Carlists had had several partial successes against himself and hissubordinates; he had lost a vast number of men; and finally, at theaction of Gulinas, near Pampeluna, Linares, one of his generals was soill-treated by Zumalacarregui, that all the carts and vehicles inPampeluna, including the bishop's carriage, were insufficient to carrythe wounded into the town. After this last disaster, the Spanishgovernment resolved to give Quesada a successor; and General Rodil, whohad just returned from his expedition into Portugal, upon which he hadgone in the vain hope of seizing the person of Don Carlos, was orderedto repair to the northern provinces with the troops under his command.After being detained some days at Madrid by Queen Christina, who had afancy to review the division, Rodil, whose activity was his bestquality, continued his march, and soon reached the Ebro with tenthousand infantry, a proportionate number of cavalry, and a prodigioustrain of baggage and artillery. It is said that more than a thousandcarts, and a still greater number of baggage animals, followed his army.Generals Cordova, Figueras, Carandolet and others of note, formed partof his brilliant staff, and at Logrofio he was joined by Lorenzo andOraa with their divisions. The imposing force thus got together wassufficient, it might well have been thought, to crush, ten times over,the few companies of raw guerillas under Zumalacarregui's command.

The clash of arms and note of war-like preparation that now resoundedalong the right bank of the Ebro, crossed the stream, and penetratedinto the valleys of Navarre. The eyes of the Carlists, both soldiers andcivilians, were fixed upon their chief, who, far from trying to concealthe approaching danger, rather exaggerated its magnitude. There wasnothing he dreaded more than that his followers should think he wastrying to deceive them. That, he knew, would destroy their confidence inhim. He issued a proclamation to the troops, in which, after talking ofthe formidable preparations of the enemy, he put a question to them."Volunteers!" he said, "shall you quail at the sight of this numerousarray?" When the officer who read the proclamation in front of theassembled Navarrese battalions came to this question, a unanimous "No!"unpremeditated and heartfelt, burst from the lips of every man present.Upon learning this indication of the temper of the troops,Zumalacarregui resolved upon a movement of unparalleled audacity. He hadinformation that on the following day Lorenzo and Oraa were to leaveLogrofio for Pampeluna, followed twenty-four hours later by Rodil, withthe troops he had brought from Portugal. Zumalacarregui determined toadvance rapidly from the mountains amongst which he then found himself,and to fall upon Rodil's left flank, trusting that troops unaccustomedto that description of warfare would resist but feebly a sudden andunexpected attack. However this daring plan might have succeeded, itwould certainly have been attempted, had not a totally unlooked-for,and, to the Carlists, a most important event occurred to prevent it.

At midnight, on the 11th of July, the Carlist troops were about tocommence their march, when Legarra, the abbot of Lecumberri, suddenlyappeared before Zumalacarregui, and[Pg 221] placed in his hands a sealed letterof very small dimensions. The handwriting was unknown to the general,and the sole address consisting of the two words, "ForZumalacarregui," he asked Legarra, previously to opening the letter,whence and from whom it came. The sole information the abbot could givewas that he had received it from the junta of Navarre, and had beendesired to use all haste in its delivery. The general then opened andread the missive; and as he did so, all those who were present were ableto note upon his countenance the great satisfaction with which the fewwords it contained inspired him. He immediately countermanded the march,ordered the horses to be unsaddled, and the troops to take up theirquarters for the night.

The contents of the note which caused all these changes, were asfollows:—

"Zumalacarregui: I am very near Spain, and to-morrow I trust byGod's help to reach Urdax. Take the necessary measures, andcommunicate this to no one.

"Carlos."

In spite of this last injunction, Zumalacarregui, calculating that DonCarlos must by this time be on Spanish ground, could not refuse himselfthe pleasure of telling such good news to his personal friends. Theyrepeated to others, and it soon became known throughout the camp, thatthe King was coming. At daybreak the next morning, Zumalacarregui setout, and at eleven at night reached the frontier town of Elizondo, wherehe found Don Carlos, who, tired with his journey, had already gone tobed, but, nevertheless, immediately received his faithful adherent. Onthe following day he had several conferences with Zumalacarregui, onwhom he conferred the rank of Lieutenant-general and Chief of his Staff.The same afternoon the bells were set ringing, and a Te Deum was sungfor the happy arrival of the royal fugitive. It was attended by DonCarlos, Zumalacarregui, the Baron de los Valles, and various othernotabilities.

His partizans as yet possessing no fortified town or stronghold in whichhe could remain with security, Don Carlos was compelled, as soon as hearrived in Spain, to seek safety in constant change of place.Zumalacarregui, on the other hand, with Valdes and his formidable armymenacing him on all sides, could spare but little time to play thecourtier. After conducting Don Carlos through the valleys of Araquil,the Borunda, and the two Amezcoas, in all of which that prince wasreceived, we are informed, with the most lively demonstrations of joy,he confided him to the care of General Eraso, who marched him off to theBasque provinces, to show him to the people, and keep him out of harm'sway. The Christino government and generals had at first affected todisbelieve the arrival of Don Carlos, and had spread reports that aperson who resembled him had been chosen by the Carlist leaders topersonate the prince, and deceive the people. Soon, however, the factwas placed beyond a doubt; and Rodil, sending several of his generals tofind Zumalacarregui, set out with twelve thousand men in pursuit of DonCarlos, who was then in Biscay with a retinue of only twelve persons.The small number of the Prince's attendants proved his best safeguard.The Christinos advanced, displaying a vast front, and confident ofcatching him; but favoured by the intricacies of the mountains, theextensive forests and deep barrancas of Biscay, having, moreover, thepeasantry in his favour, and persons perfectly acquainted with thecountry for guides, Don Carlos had little difficulty in eluding pursuit.All Rodil's front and flank marches and countermarches served but tosend a vast number of his men into hospital, and to immortalize his namein that province by the devastations and incendiarism that the soldierycommitted.

Whilst this was going on, Zumalacarregui was buzzing like an enragedhornet round the divisions of Oraa, Carandolet, Lorenzo, and othergenerals, cutting off outposts, surprising detachments, and doing them avast deal of mischief, with little or no loss to his own troops. GeneralCarandolet was particularly unfortunate; twice did Zumalacarreguisurprise him; first in the pass of San Fausto, where his column wasnearly destroyed;[Pg 222] and a second time in the town of Viana, on the Ebro.On this last occasion the affair was decided by the Carlist cavalry,which for the first time had an opportunity of distinguishing itself. Itconsisted of 250 ill-equipped and undrilled lancers, at the head ofwhich Zumalacarregui put himself, and charging the Christino horsem*n,who were nearly twice as numerous, broke them and put them to flight.

It is unnecessary, and would be monotonous, to follow Zumalacarregui,step by step, through the summer campaign of 1834, which was a mostimportant one for the cause he defended. With the increase of numericalforce, which his successes, and the arrival of Don Carlos, brought tohis standard, the lack of arms, money, and ammunition began to makethemselves nearly as sensibly felt as at the commencement of the war.When Don Carlos arrived in Spain and formed a ministry, Zumalacarreguihoped and expected that the men composing the latter would possess someinfluence abroad, and would be able to procure assistance of variouskinds. In this, however, he found himself mistaken; and to make mattersworse, he appears to have been already thwarted, in his plans andarrangements, by the persons about Don Carlos. The division of counsels,which subsequently ruined the Carlist cause, was already beginning to befelt.

At the arrival of Don Carlos, the army was composed entirely ofvolunteers, but a levy was now ordered of all the men capable of bearingarms. Zumalacarregui opposed this strenuously, but was finally compelledto give way, and four new battalions were formed, although there wasscarcely a musket in store to give to them. By this ill-advised measure,the agricultural interests of the country were materially compromised,and new and heavy charges imposed upon the military chest, for themaintenance of troops which, being unarmed, were of course useless. Thiswas a source of great vexation to Zumalacarregui, who certainly hadenough to do to make head against the enemy opposed to him, withoutbeing compelled at the same time to procure supplies, arms, andammunition for his troops, and to attend, in great measure, to theadministrative arrangements, which usually fall to the charge of thecivil authorities. At the commencement of the war, fifty thousandcartridges were all he possessed, and those were soon consumed, as wellas some that were taken from the Christinos. It was very difficult andcostly to get powder from France, which could only be introduced inquantities of three or four pounds, or little more. Unable to supportthe delay and expense of this, Zumalacarregui established manufactoriesin secluded corners of Navarre and the Basque provinces; and then, withinfinite risk, caused saltpetre to be brought from the very heart ofArragon, and subsequently from France. The powder that was at firstproduced was very weak and bad, and the manufacturers worked day andnight till they found means of improving it. The rules introduced intothe battalions, in order to economize this precious commodity, weresingular enough. The soldiers were forbidden to load their muskets tillthe very moment of commencing an action; and then were only to fire whenthe enemy was very near and fully exposed. Even the guards and pickets,in view of the Christinos, had but a single musket loaded, which thesentinels passed from one to another when relieved. Zumalacarreguihimself made frequent inspections of the men's ammunition, and wouldoften stop soldiers whom he met in the street or on the road, toascertain that they had not lost or wasted their cartridges.

The security of the Carlist army did not so much depend on the vigilanceof outposts and advanced guards, as on the system of transmittinginformation that was established amongst the village alcaldes, and onthe zeal and fidelity of the confidentes or spies. Without reckoningthose persons who acted in the latter capacity in the vicinity of theirown homes, Zumalacarregui always had about him eighteen or twentyregularly paid spies; and to these, even in the moments of his greatestpoverty and difficulty, he showed himself liberal to prodigality.Notwithstanding[Pg 223] that it was out of his power to recompense sufficientlythe risks they ran, and the important services they rendered, these menperformed their arduous duties with admirable fidelity. Zaratieguirelates an anecdote of one of them who, having been guilty of someneglect, received, by order of Zumalacarregui, two hundred blows with astick, and was then turned out of the camp. The evening of the same dayon which this took place, when the general called as usual for hisconfidentes, the man who had been beaten made his appearance with theothers. Although Zumalacarregui was acquainted with the characteristicfidelity of these men, he could not help being struck with this instanceof it. His natural generosity of character prevented him from hesitatinga moment in restoring his confidence to the offender. "Rest yourselftonight," he said to him; "to-morrow you will have to go upon aservice of the greatest importance, and which you alone are able toperform." And the man left the room, perfectly consoled for the pain andhumiliation of his beating, by these few kind words, addressed to him inpresence of his comrades.

Another anecdote will illustrate the affection of the Carlist soldiersfor their leader, and their sympathy with his difficulties. The troopsall wore alpargatas—a species of sandal, of which the sole is ofplaited hemp. These are admirably adapted for long marches in dryweather, but the wet destroys them, and they go to pieces directly. Ofthese sandals, as of every other description of equipment, there wassometimes great difficulty in obtaining a sufficient supply. One daythat it rained heavily, Zumalacarregui was going to pass, with severalbattalions, from the Ulzama to the valley of Ollo. The soil was clay,and there was sure to be a great destruction of the hempen shoes.Zumalacarregui, who at that time had no others wherewith to replacethem, rode along the line of march, and spoke to man here and there. "Apeseta," said he, (about tenpence sterling,) "for every man who presentshimself this evening with a sound pair of alpargatas." The word waspassed from mouth to mouth; the soldiers understood the difficulty inwhich their general was, took off their shoes, and performed a long andtoilsome march barefoot. The next day, when Zumalacarregui ordered thepromised recompense to be distributed, the commandants of battalionssaid that it was unnecessary, for that none of the men claimed it.

About this time, Zumalacarregui made an expedition beyond the Ebro, withthe view of carrying off a quantity of woollen cloth from themanufactories at Escaray. He was unsuccessful in the immediate object ofthe expedition; but, at a short distance from Logroño, he fell in with aconvoy, escorted by two companies of infantry and three strong squadronsof dragoons. The latter charged the Carlist cavalry, which was of muchinferior force, and threw it into complete disorder. Zumalacarregui, whowas a short way behind, saw the disgraceful flight of his lancers, setspurs to his horse, came up with the fugitives, and rallied them. Assoon as he had got together fifty men, he charged the Christinos,regardless of the great disparity of force. The charge took place on thehigh-road, where there was no room to form front by troops or squadrons.Six or eight Christino dragoons of gigantic stature, tiradores orpioneers as they were called, occupied the whole width of the road,whilst the convoy made all haste to gain the town. Zumalacarregui, withsix of his men, attacked them, and scarcely had their lances crossed theChristino sabres, when the dragoons were all killed or wounded. TheCarlists charged onwards; the whole of the Christino cavalry was cut topieces or forced to run, and the convoy remained in the hands of theconquerors. It consisted of two thousand muskets, and came veryopportunely to arm the four new battalions, which had been more thanthree months in idleness, waiting for weapons.

On the 27th and 28th of October, just one year after Zumalacarregui hadtaken command of the Carlist army, occurred the two famous actions inthe plains of Vittoria, when General O'Doyle and two thousand Christinosfell into the hands of the victors, and nearly as many more were[Pg 224] leftdead upon the field. O'Doyle and some of the officers taken were shot;but the lives of the men were spared, and soon afterwards, at their ownrequest, their arms were restored to them, and they were incorporated inthe Carlist battalions. This, and other disasters, which about this timebefell Rodil's army, occasioned his recall by the Queen's government,and the celebrated Mina was appointed in his stead.

The increase of Zumalacarregui's forces, and the advantages he hadgained, inspired him with the idea of capturing some of the Christinoforts in Navarre and the Basque provinces; the said forts beingexceedingly prejudicial to his operations. The great obstacle to hiswishes was, the weakness of his artillery. This consisted only of threesmall field-pieces, such as are carried on the backs of mules, and couldbe of little service in attacking fortifications. Of shot and shell hehad a large supply, which had been taken at the manufactory ofOrbaiceta. For seven or eight months these stores had been lying thereneglected, none of the Queen's generals having had the foresight toremove them to a place of safety. Zumalacarregui now caused them to betaken away, and concealed in the most intricate recesses of themountains. But these projectiles were of little use without guns; and toprocure the latter the ingenuity of the Carlists was taxed to the veryutmost. Zumalacarregui remembered that, upon a sandy spot on theBiscayan coast, an old iron twelve-pounder was lying neglected andforgotten. This he ordered to be brought to Navarre. A rude carriage wasconstructed, on which it was mounted, and it was then dragged by sixpair of oxen over mountains, and through ravines, to the Sierra ofUrbasa, where it was buried. Soldiers are very ingenious in inventingappropriate names; and as soon as the Carlist volunteers saw thisunwieldy old-fashioned piece of ordnance, full of moss and sand, andcovered with rust, they christened it the Abuelo, or the Grandfather, bywhich appellation it was ever afterwards known. The only artilleryofficer at that time with Zumalacarregui was Don Tomas Reina, who now,in conjunction with one Balda, a professor of chemistry, began to devisemeans for founding some guns. In the villages and hamlets within acertain circumference, a requisition was made for all articles composedof copper and brass, such as brasiers, stew-pans, chocolate pots,warming-pans, &c.; but as it was found impossible to get sufficient ofthese, the three field-pieces were added, and the whole melted together.In the midst of a forest this strange foundery was established, andafter numerous failures, occasioned by want of experience and of theproper tools, Reina succeeded in making a couple of howitzers, which,although of uncouth appearance, it was thought might answer the purposefor which they were intended.

Never were the Christinos more confident of a speedy termination to thewar than when Mina took the command. The well-earned reputation of thatchief, his peculiar aptitude for mountain warfare, and intimateacquaintance with the country of Navarre, which had been the scene ofhis triumphs during the war against Napoleon, certainly pointed him outas the most fitting man to oppose to Zumalacarregui. Forgetting thatsimilar hopes had been founded on the skill of Quesada and Rodil, and onthe imposing forces they commanded, hopes which had been so signallyfrustrated, the Queen's partizans now set up a premature song oftriumph, soon to be turned into notes of lamentation. The Mina of 1834,old and bed-ridden, with his energies, mental perhaps as well asphysical, impaired by long inaction, was a very different man from theMina of 1810. When fighting against the French, the sympathies of theNavarrese were with him; now they were against him, and in a war of thisdescription, that difference was of immense importance. In spite of thewintry season and of the badness of his health, one of the first thingshe did on assuming the command was to make an excursion to Puente laReyna, Mañeru, and other places, where, in days gone by, he had had hisheadquarters, and which he had[Pg 225] then never entered without being greetedas a hero and patriot, and welcomed with enthusiastic vivas. Heflattered himself that this enthusiasm would be again awakened by hisappearance; and was so much the more shocked when he found himselfreceived with the utmost coldness and indifference. His illness wasaggravated by disappointment, and he returned angry and disgusted toPampeluna. Thence, incapacitated by his infirmities from exertinghimself in the field, he directed from his cabinet the operations of hislieutenants, and issued orders, the cruelty of some of which soon causedhis name to be as much execrated in Navarre as it had there once beenvenerated. At no period of the war was less mercy shown to each other bythe contending parties than during Mina's command. Besides shooting allprisoners taken with arms in their hands, he caused the wounded whom hefound in the Carlist hospitals to be slain upon their beds, andgarroted or strangled a gentleman of Pampeluna, for no reason thatcould be discovered except that he had two sons with the Carlists.Several forts having about this time being taken or battered byZumalacarregui, Mina determined to get possession of the guns with whichthis had been done. He was aware of the difficulty the Carlists had inobtaining artillery; and knowing that it could not easily be transportedfrom one place to another in that rugged and mountainous country, heconjectured that they were in the habit of burying it, which wasactually the case. In order to obtain information as to the whereaboutof the mortars with which the enemy had been shelling Elizondo, hedecimated the male inhabitants of Lecaros, and then burnt the villageitself to the ground. Such atrocities as these, far from advancing thecause of Queen Isabel, materially injured it, offering as they did astrong contrast with the conduct of Zumalacarregui, who, at the takingof Los Arcos, Echarri-Eranaz, and other places, had shown mercy, andeven great kindness, to the wounded and prisoners he took. At last Minahaving ventured out in person with a division of the troops, carried ina litter because he too ill to sit his horse, was signally beaten byZumalacarregui at a place called Siete Fuentes, or the Seven Fountains,and himself narrowly escaped being taken prisoner. Soon after thisdisaster he was deprived of the command, having done nothing whilst heheld it but lose men and forts, and exasperate the Navarrese peasantryto an unparalleled extent.

An attempt that was made about this time to assassinate Espartero, whothen commanded a moveable column in Biscay, is thus narrated by GeneralZaratiegui:—

"The constant passage of Espartero between Bilboa and Orduna, inspired apeasant, who occupied a farmhouse near Luyando, with the idea ofattempting that general's life. It was said that the man had been robbedor ill-treated by the soldiers of Espartero's division; but it is quiteas probable that the peasant fancied in his simplicity, that if he couldkill the Christino general, the war and the evils it inflicted on hiscountry would be at an end. Taking a large tree trunk, he fashioned itinto a sort of cannon, fixed it at a spot where it commanded thehigh-road, and loaded it to the very mouth. The next time Esparteropassed that way, the peasant watched his moment, set fire to the fuse ofthis singular piece of artillery, and then ran away. The Christinosoldiers hurried to the spot whence the explosion had proceeded, andfound the wooden cannon burst into fifty pieces. It was evidently theact of an individual; but nevertheless the unlucky village of Luyando,being the nearest to the scene of the event, was immediately set onfire. Out of the sixty houses composing it, more than one half wereconsumed; and if the others escaped, it was merely because theChristinos happened to want them at the moment for their ownoccupation."

Valdes was the last Christino general opposed to Zumalacarregui. Beingminister of war at the time of Mina's dismissal from the command, heordered all the troops that could possibly be spared to march toNavarre, and himself followed to direct their operations. Upon hisappearance the war assumed a more humane character; and soon afterwardsthe arrival of the[Pg 226] British commissioner, and his successfulintervention, put an end to the system of reprisals, although afterZumalacarregui's death it was again more than once resorted to by themost ferocious of the leaders on either side. In honour of Lord Eliot,Zumalacarregui set at liberty the prisoners he had made in the recentaction of the Amezcoas, in which Valdes had been roughly handled. LordEliot having expressed a wish for an autograph of the Carlist leader,Zumalacarregui took a pen and wrote, in Spanish, as follows:—

"At Asarta, a village of the valley of Berrueza, celebrated for thevarious combats which have occurred there in the course of the presentcentury, the honour of receiving his Excellency Lord Eliot was enjoyed,on the 25th April 1835, by Tomas Zumalacarregui."

Colonel Gurwood made the Carlist chief a present of an excellent fieldglass, which had been used by the Duke of Wellington on some occasionduring the Peninsular war. "This telescope was so esteemed byZumalacarregui," says his biographer, "that as long as he lived healways carried it with him; and at the present day, in spite of itstrifling intrinsic value, it is treasured by his family as the mostprecious heir-loom they possess."

The non-success of Valdes's expedition to the valleys of the Amezcoas,and the fatigues and losses sustained there by his troops, had greatlydiscouraged the latter. On all sides the Carlists were obtainingadvantages, and their adversaries began to entertain a panic terror ofZumalacarregui, who availed himself of this discouragement and temporaryinaction of the foe to attack several fortified places. Amongst others,the town of Treviño, situated between Vittoria and the Ebro, and at onlythree or four hours' march from the cantonments of Valdes's army, fellinto the hands of the Carlists. Assembling thirteen battalions at theVenta of Armentia, Zumalacarregui brought up his artillery, consistingof one cannon and one howitzer, with which in two days he forced theplace to capitulate. Although Valdes, from where he was, could hear thesound of the guns, he did not venture to show himself till the Carlistshad destroyed the fortifications, and effected their retreat withprisoners and artillery.

It was after this successful expedition, and at what may be consideredthe most fortunate period of Zumalacarregui's career, that Don Carlosconceived the idea of conferring a title on him. He caused this to beintimated to the general, and also that he was only waiting to know whattitle it would be the most agreeable to him to receive. "We will talkabout it," replied Zumalacarregui, "after entering Cadiz. As yet we arenot safe even in the Pyrenees, and a title of any kind would be but astep towards the ridiculous." It was not till eleven months after hisdeath that Don Carlos issued a decree, making him grandee of Spain, bythe titles of Duke of Victory and Count of Zumalacarregui.

The garrisons of Estella and of various other fortified towns in theinterior of Navarre and the Basque provinces, were now withdrawn byorder of Valdes; other strong places were taken or capitulated, thegarrisons remaining for the most part prisoners of war. Within twomonths after the Eliot convention, the Carlists had got 300 Christinoofficers and 2000 rank and file, prisoners in their various depôts,without reckoning those who, on being captured, took up arms for DonCarlos. To exchange against these, the Queen's generals had not a singleprisoner. About this time Espartero was beaten at Descarga by Eraso;whilst Oraa met the same fate in the valley of the Baztan at the handsof Sagastibelza. Jauregui abandoned Tolosa, leaving behind him aquantity of ammunition and stores, and shut himself up in St Sebastian.

The intrigues and manœuvres of certain individuals who surrounded DonCarlos, pandered to his weaknesses, and worked upon his superstitiousbigotry, began to occasion Zumalacarregui serious annoyance, and tointerfere in some instances with his plans. During a short visit toSegura, where the Carlist court then was, he experienced much disgustand vexation. His health, moreover, began to fail him; and a week later,from the town of Vergara, which[Pg 227] he had just taken, with its garrison of2000 men, he sent in his resignation. The following day Don Carloshimself came to Vergara, and had a short conference with Zumalacarregui,after which the latter marched upon Durango and Ochandiano, towns on theBilboa road, and took the latter, whilst the former was abandoned by itsgarrison. It was now his wish to attack Vittoria, which was the nearestlarge town, and the easiest to take; but just at this time, Don Carlos,it appears, had been disappointed of a loan, and his flatterers andadvisers had been consoling him for it, by holding out a prospect oftaking Bilboa, which opulent commercial city contained, they said,enough riches to get him out of all his difficulties. Zumalacarreguiopposed this plan, but his deference for Don Carlos finally caused himto yield; and with a heavy heart, and a train of artillery totallyinadequate to the reduction of so strong a town, he sat down beforeBilboa. Two twelve-pounders and one six-pounder, two brass fours, twohowitzers and a mortar, were all that he had to oppose to the strongdefences and forty or fifty guns with which the capital of Biscay wasprovided. There was also a great lack of certain descriptions ofammunition. For the mortar there were only six-and-thirty shells; and toadd to the misfortunes of the attacking party, their two largest guns,the twelve-pounders, burst on the very first day of the siege. Duringthe whole of that day and night, Zumalacarregui neither ate nor slept;and on the morrow, which was the 15th of June, he wrote a letter to theheadquarters of Don Carlos, then at Durango, informing the ministers,that owing to the immense disproportion between his means of attack andthe enemy's powers of defence, he expected it would be necessary toraise the siege.

After sending off this despatch, a great weight seemed removed from themind of Zumalacarregui, and he went down to the batteries. With the viewof observing whether the Bilbainos had made any repairs or thrown upworks in the course of the night, he ascended to the first floor of ahouse situated near the sanctuary of Our Lady of Begoña, and from thebalcony began to examine the enemy's line. Whilst standing there, abullet struck him on the right leg, about two inches from the knee. Ninedays afterwards he was dead—killed, there can be little doubt, less bythe wound or its effects than by the gross ignorance of his medicalattendants. Three Spanish doctors, a young English surgeon, and acurandero, or quack, named Petriquillo, whom Zumalacarregui had knownfrom his youth, and in whose skill he had great confidence, were calledin. The Englishman, however, returned after two days to the squadron towhich he was attached, giving as his opinion, which agreed with that ofDon Carlos's own surgeon, one Gelos, that in a fortnight Zumalacarreguiwould be on horseback again. Whilst Petriquillo was applying ointmentsand frictions, and a doctor of medicine cramming the patient with drugs,Gelos and another surgeon kept tormenting the wound with their probes.The wounded man's general health, already affected by the variousannoyances he had recently experienced, began to give way; and at last,within three or four hours after the extraction of the ball, anoperation that appears to have been performed in the most butcherlikemanner, Zumalacarregui breathed his last. He was forty-six years of age,and left a wife and three daughters. All his worldly possessionsconsisted of three horses and a mule, some arms, the telescope given himby Colonel Gurwood, and fourteen ounces of gold.

If that weak and incapable prince, Don Carlos de Borbon, had allowedZumalacarregui to follow up his own plans of campaign, instead ofdictating to him unfeasible ones, there can be little doubt that in lessthan another year he would have entered Madrid. The immense importanceof the prestige attached to a general is well known. That ofZumalacarregui was fully established, both with his own men and theQueen's troops. The latter trembled at his very name; the former, at hiscommand, were ready to attack ten times their number.

"Are there only two battalions yonder?" enquired Captain Henningsen of aCarlist soldier, pointing to a position which was menaced by a large[Pg 228]body of the enemy. "That is all, Señor," was the reply; "but the generalis there." The man was as confident of the safety of the position asthough there had been twenty battalions instead of two. And such was thefeeling throughout the Carlist army.

The only one of the Carlist or Christino leaders who united all thequalities essential to success was Zumalacarregui. Some were honest, afew were perhaps good tacticians, others were not deficient in energy,but none were all three. The Christino generals were generallyconspicuous for their indecision, and for their want of zeal for thecause they defended. Many of them would have been sorry to see an endput to a war which gave them occupation, rapid promotion, decorations,titles, and money. When Zumalacarregui began his campaign with a handfulof men, no one could catch him; when he got stronger and showed fight,no one could stand against him. As soon as he died, his system ofwarfare was abandoned, and victory ceased to be faithful to the Carliststandard. The battle of Mendigorria, which occurred within a month afterhis death, and in which the Carlists were signally defeated by Cordova,taught the former that their previous successes had been owing at leastas much to their general's skill as to their own invincibility.

The most salient points in Zumalacarregui's character were hisgenerosity and energy. The former was carried almost to an excess. Hecould not see persons in want without relieving them; and as his soleincome whilst commanding the Carlist army consisted of 2500 reals, ortwenty-five pounds sterling, a-month, which he took for his pay, hefrequently found himself without a maravedi in his pocket. It is relatedof him, amongst many other anecdotes of the same kind, that once inwinter, the weather being very cold, he had ordered a coat, having onlyone, and that much worn. The tailor had just brought it home and beenpaid for it, when Zumalacarregui, happening to look out of the window,saw one of his officers passing in a very ragged condition. He calledhim up, made him try on his new coat, and finding that it fitted him,sent him away with it, himself remaining in the same state as before.

For the charges of cruelty of disposition which have been broughtagainst Zumalacarregui, we are inclined to believe there was veryinsufficient ground. He was a severe disciplinarian, shot his own menwhen they deserved it, and his prisoners when the Christinos set him theexample; but if he had not done so he had better have sheathed his swordat once, and left Don Carlos to fight his own battles, in which casethey would very soon have been over. His present biographer, who writescoolly and dispassionately, and appears as sparing of indiscriminatepraise of his friends as of exaggerated blame of his foes, givesnumerous instances of Zumalacarregui's goodness of heart and humanefeeling. Of a bilious habit and a hasty temper, he could ill bearcontradiction, and at times would say or do things for which he wasafterwards sorry. In such cases he was not ashamed to acknowledge, andif possible repair, his fault.

The death of Zumalacarregui was the subject of unbounded exultation tothe Christinos; and for long afterwards there might be seen upon thewalls of their towns and villages the remains of a proclamationannouncing it, and predicting a speedy annihilation of the faction.Although this prophecy was not made good, and the war was protracted forupwards of four years longer, it soon became evident that the losssustained was irreparable, and that the hopes of Carlism in thePeninsula lay buried in the grave of Tomas Zumalacarregui.

REFERENCE: Vida y Hechos de Don Tomas Zumalacarregui, Duque de la Victoria, Condede Zumalacarregui, y Capitan-General del Ejercito de S.M. Don Carlos V.,por el Général del mismo Ejercito, Don J.A. Zaratiegui.

[Pg 229]

NORTH'S SPECIMENS OF THE BRITISH CRITICS.

No. VII.

Mac-Flecnoe and the Dunciad.

The field which we have invaded is one obviously of a vastcomprehension. Taking it up, as we have rightly done, from Dryden, morethan a century and a half of our literature lies immediately andnecessarily within it. For the fountain of criticism once opened andflowing, the criticism of a country continually reflects its literature,as a river the banks which yield it a channel, and through which itwinds.

But the image falls short of the thing signified; for criticism isretrospective without limit, as well as contemporaneous. Heaven onlyknows whether it may not be endowed with a gift of prophecy; and for itshorizon—is this narrower than the world? We have undertaken a fieldwhich seems limited, only because it stretches beyond sight. Let ushope, however, that we shall find some art of striking our own roadthrough it, without being obliged to study, both in the reflection andin the original, all the books of all nations and ages, criticising, aswe go along, both originals and criticisms. Every subject, saidBurke—we remember his remark, though not the very words—branches outinto infinitude. The point of view draws a horizon—the goal determinesa track. "The British Critics" themselves are a host,

But discreet conscientious Oblivion has infolded under his lovingpinions nine hundred and ninety-nine in every thousand; while we thinkof concerning ourselves with those only whose names occupy some notableniche, pedestal, or other position, in the august house of the greatgoddess, Fame. We desire to show the spirit and power of Britishcriticism, to display the characteristic working of the Britishintellect in this department of intellectual activity. Therefore, amongknown names, we shall dwell the most upon those writers whose works themind of the nation has the most frankly, cordially, and unreservedlytaken to itself, recognising them, as it were, for its ownproductions—those writers whose reputation the country has the mostdistinctly identified with her own renown.

We have taken hold upon two such names, Dryden and Pope. And tens ofthousands have experienced with us the pleasures that arise from arenewed or new intimacy with powerful spirits. The acquaintance is notspeedily exhausted. It grows and unfolds itself. When you think to havedone with them, and lift up your bonnet with a courteous gesture ofleave-taking, your host draws your arm within his, and leads you outinto his garden, and threading some labyrinthine involution of paths,conducts you to some hidden parterre of his choicest flowers, or to theaërial watch-tower of his most magnificent prospect.

The omnipotent setter of limits, Death, freezes the tuneful tongue,unnerves the critical hand, from which the terrible pen drops into dust.Shakspeare has written his last play—Dryden his last tale. You maydream—if you like—of what projected and unwritten—what unprojectedbut possible comedies, histories, tragedies, went into the tomb in thechurch of Stratford upon Avon! In the meanwhile, you will find that whatis written is not so soon read. Read for the first time it soon is—notfor the last. For what is "to read?" "Legere" is "to gather."Shakspeare is not soon gathered—nor is Dryden.

Walk through a splendid region. Do you think that you have seen it? Youhave begun seeing it. Live in it fifty years, and by degrees you mayhave come to know something worth telling of Windermere! Our vocation[Pg 230]now, gentles all, is not simply the knowing—it is the showing too; andhere, too, the same remark holds good. For we think ten times and more,that now surely we have shown poet or critic. But not so. Some otherattitude, some other phasis presents itself; and all at once you feelthat, without it, your exposition of the power, or your picture of theman, is incomplete.

You have seen how the critics lead us a dance. Dryden and Pope criticiseShakspeare. We have been obliged to criticise Shakspeare, and thiscriticism of him. Dryden measures himself with Juvenal, Lucretius, andVirgil. We, somewhat violently perhaps—with a gentle violence—construea translation into a criticism, and prate too of those immortals.Glorious John modernizes Father Geoffrey; and to try what capacity ofpalate you have for the enjoyment of English poetry some four or fivecenturies old, we spread our board with a feast of veritable Chaucer.Yet not a word, all the while, of the Wife of Bath's Tale of Chivalryand Faëry, which is given with fine spirit by Dryden—nor of the co*ckand the Fox, told by the Nun's priest, which is renewed with infinitelife and gaiety, and sometimes we are half-inclined to say, withfidelity in the departure, by the same matchless pen. Good old fatherChaucer! Can it be true that century rolling after century thickens thedust upon Adam Scrivener's vellum! Can it be true that proceeding timewidens the gulf yawning betwixt thee and ourselves, thy compatriots ofanother day, thy poetical posterity! The supposition isunnatural—un-English—un-Scottish. Thou hast been the one popular poetof England. Shakspeare alone has unseated thee. Thou hast been taken tothe heart of Scottish poets, as though there were not even a dialecticalshadow of difference distinguishing thine and their languages. A dimtime, an eclipsing of light and warmth fell upon the island, and to readthee was a feat of strange scholarship, a study of the more learned. Buthappier years shall succeed. As Antæus the giant acquired life andstrength by dropping back upon the bosom of his mother earth—she, theuniversal parent, was, you know, in a more private and domestic meaninghis mother—so, giants of our brood, dropping back upon they bosom, OFather Chaucer! shall from that infusive touch renew vitality andvigour, and go forth exultingly to scale, not Olympus, but Parnassus.And now, in illustration of the ruling spirit—known and felt in itsfull power only by ourselves—of this series—North's Specimens of TheBritish Critics—we invite unexpectedly—(for who can foresee theensuing segment of our orbit?)—the people of these realms to admirewith us the critical genius of Dryden and of Pope, displayed in theirmatchless satires—Mac-Flecnoe and the Dunciad.

In regard to these poems, shall we seek to conciliate our countrymen byadmitting, at the outset, that there is something in both to beconfessed and forgiven? That there is something about them that placesthem upon a peculiar footing—that is not quite right? They must bedistinguished from the legitimate poems, in which the poet and theservant of the Muses merely exercises his ministry. He then furnishes tothe needs of humanity, and is the acknowledged benefactor of his kind.But these are wilful productions. They are from the personal self ofthe poet. They are arbitrary acts of mighty despots. They kill, becausethey choose and can. And we, alas!—we are bribed by the idolatry ofpower to justify the excesses of power. Let not our maligners—ourfoes—hear of it, for it is one of our vulnerable points.

Yet as long as men and women are weak and mortal, genius will possess aprivilege of committing certain peccadilloes that will be winked at andhushed up. We proclaim poetry for an organ of the highest, profoundesttruth. But every now and then, when we are in difficulties, we shroudthe poet and ourselves under the undeniable fact, that poetry isfiction; and under that pretext, wildly and wickedly would throw off allresponsibility from him, and from ourselves, his retainers and abettors;and yet something, after all, is to be conceded to the mask of the poet.All nations and times have agreed in not judging[Pg 231] him by the prosaiclaws to which we who write and speak prose are amenable. His is aplayful part, and he has a knack of slipping from under the hand ofserious judgment. He is a Proteus, and feels himself bound to speak thebare truth only when he is reduced to his proper person, not whilst heis exercising his preternatural powers of illusion. He holds in hisgrasp the rod of the Enchanter, Pleasure, and with a touch he unnervesthe joints that would seize and drag him before the seat of an ordinarypolice. But we must remember that we are now scrawling unprivilegedprose; and beware that we do not, like other officious and uncautiouspartizans, bring down upon our own defenceless heads the sword which thedelinquency of them mightier far has roused from the scabbard.

Let us see, then, how stands the case of such satirists.

War enters into the kingdom of the Muses. Rival wits assail oneanother—Dryden and Shadwell. Nec dis nec viribus æquis. This is aduel—impar congressus Achillei. But when Pope undertakes to hunt downthe vermin of literature, this is no distraction of the Parnassian realmby civil war. This is the lawful magistrate going forth, armed perhapswith extraordinary powers, to clear an infested district of vulgarmalefactors and notorious bad characters.

Vile publishers, vile critics, vile scribblers of every denomination, inprose and verse—all those who turn the press, that organ of light forthe world, into an engine of darkness—who may blame the poet forclothing them in such curses as shall make them for all time at onceloathsome and laughable in Christian lands?

Letters! sent by heaven for accomplishing the gift of speech. Theindividual thinker, by turning his thoughts into words, advances himselfin the art and power of thought—unravels, clears up, and establishesthe movements of "the shadowy tribes of mind." And so the federalrepublic of nations, by turning the spoken word into the written,advance their faculty of thinking, and their acquisition of thought. Thethought has gained perpetuity when it is worded—the word has gainedperpetuity when it is written. Reason waits her completed triumph fromthe written work, which converts, and alone can convert, the thought ofthe individual mind into that of the universal mind; thus constitutingthe fine act of one aspiring intelligence the common possession of thespecies, and collecting the produce of all wits into the public treasuryof knowledge.

The misusers of letters are therefore the foes of the race. Thelicentious thinker and writer prejudices the liberty of thinking andwriting. Those who excel in letters, and in the right use of letters,are sensitive to their misapplication. Hence arises a species of satire,or, if you will, satirist—The Scriblero-Mastix. He must attackindividuals. A heavily-resounding lash should scourge the immoral andthe profane. Light stripes may suffice for quelling the less nocentdunces. In commonplace prose criticism, whatever form it may take, thiscan be done without supposed personal ill-will; for the Mastix is thenonly doing a duty plainly prescribed. The theologian must censure, andtrample as mire, the railing assailant of the truths which in his eyescontain salvation. The reviewer must review. But what, it may be asked,moves any follower of the Muses to satirise a scribbler? He seems to goout of his way to do so; for verse has naturally better associations.But the personal aggression on the wit by the dunce, may fairlyinstigate the wit to flay the dunce. Now he finds the object of hissatire in the way. The fact is, that Dryden's poem and Pope's wereboth moved in this way. The grew out of personal quarrels. Are they onthat account to be blamed? Not if the dunces, by them "damned toeverlasting fame," were the unhappy aggressors.

Dryden's times, and possibly something in his own character, trained hismuse to polemics. His pen was active in literary controversies, whichwere never without a full infusion of personalities. More thoroughlymoved at one time against one offender—though the history of the feudis in some parts imperfectly traceable—he compelled the clouds andhurled the lightning, in verse, on the doomed head[Pg 232] of Thomas Shadwell.The invention of the poem entitled Mac-Flecnoe is very simple. RichardFlecnoe was a voluminous writer, and exceedingly bad poet—a name ofscorn already in the kingdom of letters. Dryden supposes him to be theKing of Dulness, who, advanced in years, will abdicate hiswell-possessed throne. He selects Shadwell from amongst his numerousoffspring, all the Dunces, as the son or Dunce the most nearlyresembling himself—hence the name of the poem—and appoints him hissuccessor. That is the whole plan. The verse flows unstinted from thefull urn of Dryden. The perfect ease, and the tone of masterycharacteristic of him, are felt throughout. He amuses himself withlaughing at his rival, and the amusem*nt remains to all time; for allwho, having felt the pleasure of wit, are the foes of the Dunces. It isnot a laboured poem—it is a freak of wit. You cannot imagine himattaching much importance to the scarcely two hundred lines, thrown offin a few gleeful outpourings. To us, Shadwell is nothing. He is aphantom, an impersonation. His Duncehood is exaggerated, for he was awriter of some talent in one walk; but being selected for the throne, itwas imperative to make him Dunce all through. To us, there, he is merelya Type; and we judge the strokes of Dryden in their universality, notasking if they were truly applicable to his victim, but whether theyexpress pointedly and poignantly the repulsion entertained by Wit forDulness. In this enlarged sense and power we feel it as poetry. When thefather, encouraging his heir, says—

"And when false flowers of ret'ric thou wouldst cull, Trust Nature;do not labour to be dull; But, write they best, and top"——

Nothing can be happier. The quiet assumption of Dulness for the highestpoint of desirable human attainment—the good-nature and indulgentparental concern of the wish to save the younger emulator of his ownglory from spending superfluous pains on a consummation sure to come ofitself—the confidence of the veteran Dullard in the blood of the race,and in the tried and undegenerate worth of his successor—the sufficientdirection of a life and reign comprehended, summed up, concentrated inthe one master-precept—"do not labour to be dull"—are inimitable. Youfeel the high artist, whom experience has made bold; and you feel yourown imagination roused to conceive the universe of Dunces, each yieldingto the attraction of his genius, fluttering his pinions with anexquisite grace, and all, without labour or purpose, arriving at thegoal predestined by nature and fate.

We know of no good reason why, for the delectation of myriads in theirminority, Maga should not give Mac-Flecnoe entire; but lest old andelderly gentlemen should think it too much extract, she gives all shecan, and lets you dream the rest.

The Mac-Flecnoe of Dryden suggested—no more—the Dunciad of Pope.There is nothing of transcript. Flecnoe, who,

settles the succession of the state on Shadwell. That idea Pope adopts;but the Kingdom of Dulness is re-modelled. It is no longer an agedmonarch, who, tired out with years and the toils of empire, gladlytransfers the sceptre to younger and more efficient hands, but theGoddess of Dulness who is concerned for her dominion, and elects her newvice-regent on the demise of the Crown. The scale is immeasurablyaggrandized—multitudes of dunces are comprehended—the composition iselaborate—the mock-heroic, admirable in Dryden, is carried toperfection, and we have, sui generis, a regular epic poem.

In the year 1727, amongst the works first given to the public in theMiscellancies of Pope and Swift, was the treatise of MartinusScriblerus, Περι Βαθους or the Art of Sinking in Poetry.The exquisite wit and humour of this piece, which was almost whollyPope's, enraged the Dunces to madness; and the mongrel pack opened infull cry, with barbarous dissonance, against their supposed whipper-in.[Pg 235]Never was there such a senseless yell: for the philosophical treatise"On the Profund" overflows with amenity and good-nature. Pope is all thewhile at play—diverting himself in innocent recreation; and, of all thesatires that ever were indited, it is in spirit the most inoffensive toman, woman, and child. The Dunces, however, swore that its wickednesswent beyond the Devil's, and besought the world to pay particularattention to the sixth chapter as supra-Satanic. Therein Martinus ranges"the confined and less copious geniuses under proper classes, and, thebetter to give their pictures to the reader, under the name of animals."The animals are Flying Fishes, Swallows, Ostriches, Parrots, Didappers,Porpoises, Frogs, Eels, and Tortoises. Each animal is characterized in afew words, that prove Pope to have been a most observant zoologist; andsome profundists, classified according to that arrangement, areindicated by the initial letters of their names. The chapter is short,and the style concise—consisting of but four pages. Some of the initialletters had been set down at random; but profundists rose up, with loudvociferation, to claim them for their own; and gli animali parlanti,on foot, wing, fin, "or belly prone," peopled the booksellers' shops. C.G., "perplexed in the extreme," was the cause of perplexity to others,figuring now as a flying-fish, and now as a porpoise. While J. W. wasnot less problematical—now an Eel, and now a Didapper.

"Threats of vengeance," says Roscoe, "resounded from all quarters, andthe press groaned under the various attempts at retaliation to whichthis production gave rise. Before the publication of the Dunciad,upwards of sixty different libels, books, papers, and copies of verses,had been published against Pope." The allied forces—vævictis!—published a Popiad. Threats of personal violence werefrequently held out—a story was circulated of his having been whippednaked with rods; and, to extent the ridicule, an advertisem*nt, with hisinitials, was inserted in the Daily Post, giving the lie to thescandal. Were such brutalities to be let pass unpunished? Dr Johnsonsays that "Pope was by his own confession the aggressor"—and so say DrWarton and Mr Bowles. The aggressor! Why, the Dunces had been maligninghim all their days, long before the treatise on the Profund. And thatis bad law, indeed, that recognises a natural right in blockheads to beblackguards, and gives unlimited license of brutality towards any man ofgenius who may have been ironical on the tribe. But then, quoth somehypocritical wiseacre, is not satire wicked? Pope was a Christian; andshould have learned to forgive. Stop a bit.

We talk of poets and books, as if we who occupy the tribunal were,during that moment at least, miracles of clear-sighted incorruptiblejustice, and of all the virtues generally. Conscience reasserts herwhole sway in our minds as soon as we sit on other men's merits anddemerits; almost the innocence of Eden re-establishes itself in ourbreasts. Self-delusion! Men we are at the guilty bar—Men on theblameless bench. There is a disorderly spirit in every one of us—aspice of iniquity. Human nature forgives a crime for a jest. Not thatcrimes and jests are commensurable or approximable; but they are beforethe same judge. He dislikes, or professes to dislike, the crime.Indubitably, and without a pretence, he likes the jest. Here, then, isan opportunity given of balancing the liking against the disliking; and,under that form, the jest against the crime. If he likes the jest morethan he dislikes the crime, the old saw holds good—

"Solvuntur risu tabulæ, tu missus abibis."

Well, then, the wit of Dryden and Pope is irresistible. What follows?For having contented our liking, we let them do any thing that theylike. Poor Og! poor Shadwell! poor Bayes, poor Cibber! He sprawls andkicks in the gripe of the giant, and we—as if we had sat at bull-fightsand the shows of gladiators—when the blood trickles we are tickled,and—oh, shame!—we laugh.

The Dunciad suffers under the law of compensations. As the renown of theactor is intense whilst he lives, and languishes[Pg 236]with the following generations, so is it with poems that embrace with ardour the Present.When the Present has become the Past, they are, or at least theirliveliest edge is, past too. No commentary can restore the fiery hatesof Dante—nor the repellent scorn of Hudibras—nor the glow of laughterto Mac-Flecnoe and the Dunciad. Eternal things are eternal—transitorythings are transitory. The transitory have lost their zest—the eternalhave their revenge.

Yet, a hundred years and more after the Dunciad, a critic may wish thatthe matter had been a little more diligently moulded, with moreconsideration of readers to come—that there had been less of merenames—that every Gyas and Cloanthus had somewhat unfolded his ownindividuality upon the stage—had been his own commentary—had, by aword or two, painted himself to everlasting posterity, in hue, shape,and gesture, as he stood before the contemporary eye. 'Tis an idlespeculation! The thing, by its inspiring passion, personal anger andoffence, belonged to the day. The poet gives it up to the day. He useshis poetical machinery to grace and point a ridicule that is to tellhome to the breasts of living men—that is to be felt tingling by livingflesh—that is to tinge living cheeks, if they can still redden, withblushes.

Yet, for all that, the Dunciad still lives; ay, in spite of seeminginconsistency, we declare it to be immortal. For, build with whatmaterials she may, the works of genius that stand in the world ofthought survive all time's mutations, cemented by a spirit she alone caninterfuse. It must not be said that a poem shelved is dead and buried.Open it at midnight, and the morning is in your chamber.

We love to commune with the rising and new-risen generations; elderlypeople we do not much affect; and, for that we are old ourselves, we areaverse from the old. Now, of our well-beloved rising and new-risengenerations, how many thousands may there be in these islands who haveread the Dunciad? Not so many as to make needless in our pages a fewexplanatory sentences respecting its first appearance, and the notinconsiderable changes of form it was afterwards made to assume. At thehead of the Dunces at first stood one Theobald, who, with some of therequisite knowledge and aptitude for a reviser of the text ofShakspeare, was a poor creature, and a dishonest one, but too feeble andtoo obscure for the place. Fifteen years afterwards, (1742,) at theinstigation of Warburton, Pope added to the Dunciad a Fourth Book. In itthere was one line, and one line only, about Colley Cibber.

Dr Johnson calls that an acrimonious attack! "to which the provocationis not easily discoverable;" and says, "that the severity of this satireleft Cibber no longer any patience." The Doctor speaks, too, of the"incessant and unappeasable malignity" of Pope towards Cibber, and takesthe part of that worthy in the quarrel. Colley was absolutelypoet-laureate of England; and having no longer any patience in hispride, "gave the town" an abusive pamphlet, in which he swore that hewould no longer tamely submit to such insults, but fight Pope with hisown weapons. Dr Johnson says—"Pope had now been enough acquainted withhuman life to know, if his passion had not been too powerful for hisunderstanding, that from a contention like his with Cibber, the worldseeks nothing but diversion, which is given at the expense of the highercharacter." Pope had no contention with Cibber. Two or three times hehad dropped him a blistering word of contempt—once a word of praise tothe Careless Husband. But now Pope eyed the brazen bully, and saw inhim the proper hero of the Dunciad. Theobald vacated the throne, andretired into private life. Cibber was made to reign in his stead—and inthe lines written by Pope on the coronation, the monarch's character isdrawn, if we mistake not, in a style that sufficiently vindicates thePoet from the Doctor's charge, "that his passion had been too powerfulfor his understanding." True, "the world seeks diversion," and she hadit here[Pg 237] to her heart's content; but not from any undignified"contention" with Cibber, which Pope disdained, but from matchlesspoetry that "damned to everlasting fame." "Cibber," says Johnson, "hadnothing to lose. When Pope had exhausted all his malignity upon him, hewould rise in the esteem both of his friends and his enemies." Cibber,then, in the Dunciad, had a triumph over Pope!! Good.

But how, you ask, did Pope contrive to place Cibber in Theobald's shoes,without injury to the rest of the poem? Why, he did not place Cibber inTheobald's shoes. Theobald walked off in his shoes into the shades.Samuel says, that by the substitution, Pope has "depraved hispoem"—inasmuch as he has given to Cibber the "old books, the coldpedantry and sluggish pertinacity of Theobald." That is not true.Compare the places in the original Dunciad, in which Theobald figures atlarge, with that now filled by Cibber, and you will admire by whatwizard power the transformation is effected. Many lines, far too good tobe lost, are retained—and among them there may be a few morecharacteristic of the old Dunce than the new. But Cibber is Cibber allover—notwithstanding; nor needed Joseph Warton, who was as ready toindulge in a nap as any one we have known, to object that "to slumber inthe goddess's lap was adapted to Theobald's stupidity, not to thevivacity of his successor." Pope knew better—

Here he comes.

The eyes of the goddess have been fixed, with sleepy fondness more thanmaternal, upon him, her chosen instrument, during all his address; andwe can imagine the frowsy Frow weeping big fat tears with him as heweeps. Pope's "passion had not been too powerful for hisunderstanding," nor for his imagination neither, when he was inditingthe following pathetic and picturesque lines:—

[Pg 240]

What next? The compact Argument informs us she forthwith revealsherself to him, transports him to her Temple, unfolds her arts, andinitiates him into her mysteries; then announcing the death of Eusdenthe poet-laureate, anoints him, carries him to court, and proclaims himsuccessor. The close of the Book was as much improved as the opening bythe changes consequent on the substitution of Cibber for Theobald. In1727, when the poem was composed, Eusden, "a drunken parson," wore thelaurel; but now Cibber had been for years one of the successors ofSpenser, and of the predecessors of Wordsworth—though indeed that lastfact could not be known to Pope—and well he deserved this still higherelevation. And here again we must dissent from Dr Johnson's judgment,"that by transferring the same ridicule (not the same) from one toanother, he destroyed its efficacy; for, by showing that what he said ofone he was ready to say of another, he reduced himself to theinsignificance of his own magpye, who from his cage calls cuckold at aventure." We love and honour the sage, but here he is a Sumph.

Oh! do read the Second Book, for we can afford but a few extracts; and,to whet you up, shall prate to you a few minutes about it.

The two ancient kings of heroic song have left us exemplars of Games.The occasions are similar and mournful, although the contests areinspired by, and inspire a jocund mood. At the funeral of Patroclus,Achilles appoints eight games. He gives prizes for a chariot-race, acestus-fight, a wrestling-match, a foot-race, a lance-fight, adisk-hurling, a strife of archery and of darters. Æneas, on the firstanniversary of his father's funeral, proposes five trials of skill—forthe chariot-race of Homer, suitably to the posture of the Trojanaffairs, a sailing-match; then, the foot-race, the terrible cestus,archery, and lastly, the beautiful equestrian tournament of Young Troy.The English Homer of the Dunces treads in the footsteps of his augustpredecessors, and celebrates, with imitated solemnities, a joyousday—that which elevates the arch-Dunce to the throne. Here too we havegames, but with a dissimilitude in similitude. He adopts an intermediatenumber, six. The first is exceedingly fanciful and whimsical. Thegoddess creates the phantom of a poet. It has the shape of acontemptible swindler in literature, a plagiarist without bounds, namedMore. He is pursued by two booksellers, and vanishes from the grasp ofhim who has first clutched the fluttering shade. "Gentle Dulness everloves a joke;" and the aforesaid admirable jest having kindledinextinguishable laughter in heaven, Gentle Dulness repeats it (sheloves to repeat herself,) and starts three phantoms in the likenessesrespectively of Congreve, Addison, Prior. Three booksellers give chase,and catch Heaven knows what, three foolish forgotten names. For thesecond exertion of talent, confined to the booksellers Osborne and Curl,the prize is the fair Eliza, and Curl is Victor. Osborne, too, issuitably rewarded; but as this game borders on the indelicate, it shallbe nameless. Hitherto, after the simplicity of ancient manners, therehave been contentions of bodily powers. But the games of the Duncesbelong to an advanced age of the world, and a part of them areaccordingly spiritual. The third falls under this category. A patron isproposed as the prize. He who can best tickle shall carry him off. Thededicators fall to their task with great zeal and adroitness. Alas!there steps in a young thief of a competitor unknown to Phœbus, butdeep in the counsels of Venus! He, aided by the goddess, and a votaressof her order whom the goddess deputes, avails himself of the nobleprize's most susceptible side,

"And marches off, his Grace's secretary."

The fourth game sets up a desirable rivalry with monkeys and asses. Whoshall chatter the fastest? Who the loudest shall bray?

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So numerous are the monkey-mimics that the claims of the chattererscannot be adjusted—

Sir Richard Blackmore, with his six epics and sundry other poems, brayslouder and longer than the most leathern or brazen of the other throats;Chancery Lane and Westminster Hall taking prominent part in thereverberating orchestra. The place is to be ranked amongst the famousecho-descriptions, and beats Drayton's and Wordsworth's hollow.

The fifth game is DIVING.

The last of the contests offers one or two difficulties. The goddesswill appoint her Supreme Judge in the Court of Criticism, and sheordains a trial of qualifications. This is the manner of ordeal. A dullpiece in prose, and a dull piece in verse, is to be read aloud. Theauditor who remains the longest awake carries the election. The twopreparations of Morphine exhibited, are a sermon of H—ley's (Henley orHoadley?) and Blackmore's Prince Arthur. Six candidate heroes presentthemselves, three from the University, and three from the Inns of Court.Some explanation seems to be required of an arrangement which allotsextraordinarily high promotion in the State of Dulness to a real andprodigious effort of mental energy. What explanation can be given? Arethe affairs of Dulness conducted, in some respects, by the same ruleswhich obtain in the Commonwealth of Wit? Is it held there, as here, thatthe first step to be taken, in order to forming a judgment of any book,is to read it? Was it prudently considered that the dullest of criticscan read only as long[Pg 243] as his eyes are open? and that the function ofjudge must incessantly bring under his cognisance papaverous volumes,with which only a super-human endowment of vigilance could hopesuccessfully to contend? so that the goddess is driven, by the necessityof the game, to admit within the circuit of her somnolent sway, a virtueto which she is naturally and peculiarly hostile? Or are we mistaken insupposing that vigour of mind really qualifies for hearing a dull bookthrough? Is it dulness itself that the most ably listens to dulness? Weare out of our element, we presume, for we arrive at no satisfactorysolution.

Be all this as it may, the method of competition fails of accomplishingits end; and the chair, after all, is left vacant. Not that the divinityhas in the least misjudged the way of operation proper to her belovedtomes; but she has miscalculated the strength of her sons. Every dullhead of the congregated multitude—of the illustrious competitors—andof the two officiating readers, bows overcome. There is, perforce, anend; and the chair is yet open to the whole kingdom.

The trial involves another matter of some doubt. Do the two clerks readaloud at one and the same time? and to the same audience? Thedescription conveys the impression that they do. If so, one might havebeen tempted to fear that the sermon and the poem might have neutralizedeach other; but, on the contrary, the mixture worked like a patent.

Where has Cibber been all the while, and what has he been doing? "Whatsu'd he hae been doin'? Sittin' on his nain lowpin'-on-stane—lukin'frae him." Joe Warton complains that he is too much of a passive hero.Why, he is not so active as Achilles, or even Diomed; yet in Book Secondhe is equal to Æneas. He is almost as long-winded, and excels the Piousin this, that he braves a fire of his own raising, whereas the otherflies from one kindled much against his will—

Is that being passive? The crowds are passive—not he surely, who, inthe potent prime of coxcombhood, without shifting his seat of honour,breathes over all his subjects such family resemblance that they seemone brotherhood, sprung from his own royal loins. Besides, who everheard, in an Epic poem, of a hero contending in games instituted in hisown honour? Yet we do not fear to say, that had he, inspired by thespectacle of Curl and Osborne displaying their prowess for the fairEliza, leapt from his gorgeous "seat," and amid the shouts of thelieges, in rainbow glory jointed the contest, that infallibly he had wonthe day. We have the authority of Aristotle on our side.

You cry aloud for an extract. Here is a superb one:—

Ulysses and Æneas presented themselves alive and in the body, asvisitors in the land of departed souls. A descent to the shades is notwanting in our Epos. It fills the whole Third Book. But our poet againmanages a discreet difference in his imitation. Our Dunce hero visitsElysium in a dream; whilst he sleeps, his head recumbent on the lap ofthe goddess, in the innermost recess of her sanctuary. His visionresembles the Trojan's rather than the Greek's adventure. "A slipshodsibyl,"

leads him. She seems to be typical of the half-crazed human poetess, inusual sublime dishabille. Venerable shades of the Dull greet him. As inVirgil's Elysian fields a glimpse is afforded into the dark philosophyof human existence, and we see the Lethean bank crowded with spirits,who taste and become prepared to live again—so here. And as Æneas findsAnchises engaged in taking cognizance of the ghosts that are to animate[Pg 245]Roman bodies, so here Cibber sees a great Patriarch of Dulness, Bavius,(him of old classical renown,) dipping in Lethe the souls that are to beborn dull upon the earth. The poet cannot resist a slight deviation fromthe doctrine of his original. By the ancient theory the Lethean dipextinguishes the memory of a past life, of its faults, and of theirpunishment; and thence the willingness to inhabit the gross, earthyframe, as generated anew. But the dip of Bavius is more powerful; itquenches the faculties that are innate in a spirit, fitting it

The subterranean traveller then falls in with the ghost of ElkanahSettle, who properly represents Anchises, and expounds the glories ofthe Kingdom of Dulness. Something is borrowed also from the vision ofAdam, in the Eleventh Book of Paradise Lost. And something isoriginal; for that which has been is declared as well as that whichshall be; and the kingdom of intellectual darkness to the earth's vergedisplayed in visible presentment, which the speaker interprets. TheEmperor Chi Ho-am-ti, who ordered a universal conflagration of booksthroughout his celestial dominions—the multitude of barbarous sonswhich the populous North poured from her frozen loins to sweep in delugeaway the civilization of the South—figure here. Here is Attila with hisHuns. Here is the Mussulman. Here is Rome of the dark ages. GreatBritain appears last—the dulness which has blessed, which blesses, andwhich shall bless her. We extract the prophetical part. The visionedprogress of Dulness has reached the theatres; and some sixteen verseswhich contain—says Warton, well and truly—"some of the most lively andforcible descriptions any where to be found, and are perfect pattern ofa clear picturesque style," call up into brilliant and startlingapparition the ineffable monstrosities and impossibilities whichconstituted the theatrical spectacles of the day. The sight extorts theopening exclamation—

In Book Fourth the goddess occupies her throne. All the rebellious andhostile powers—wit, logic, rhetoric, morality, the muses—lie bound;and diverse votaries of Dulness successively move into presence. Thefirst is Opera, who puts Handel to flight. Then flow in a crowd of allsorts. A part have been described:—

[Pg 247]

A dreadful figure appears—The Schoolmaster. He eulogizes the system ofeducation, which teaches nothing but words and verse-making.

pour in from the colleges—Aristarchus (Richard Bentley) at their head.He displays his own merits as a critic, and extols the system ofteaching in the universities; but strides away disgusted on seeingapproach a band of young gentlemen returned from their travels on theContinent, and accompanied by their travelling tutors and theirmistresses. One of the tutors reports at large to the goddess on thestyle and advantages of their travels, and presents his own pupil. Whereis such another passage to be found in English poetry? It surpassesCowper's celebrated strain on the same subject.

A set of pure idlers appear loitering about. Annius, an antiquary, begsto have them made over to him, to turn into virtuosos. Mummius, anotherantiquary, quarrels with him, and the goddess reconciles them. Theminute naturalists follow "thick as locusts."

[Pg 249]

A florist lodges a heavy complaint against an entomologist. The singularbeauty of the pleading on both sides has often been noticed, and by thebest critics, from Thomas Gray to Thomas De Quincey.

The mighty mother cannot find it in her heart to pronounce a decisionwhich must aggrieve one of such a devoted pair. She extols them both,and makes over to their joint care and tuition the fainéantsaforesaid. The subject leads her into a more serious strain of thinking.There is an evident danger; for the studies which she recommends arestudies of nature, and the study of nature tends to rise out of nature.The goddess, accordingly, is strenuous in cautioning her followers tokeep within the pale of trifles, and of the sensible. The suggestion ofthe hazard fires a clerk, a metaphysician, who, on the behalf of themetaphysicians, undertakes for a theology that shall effectually shutout and keep down religion. Gordon, the translator of Tacitus, andpublisher of the irreligious "Independent Whig," being mentioned by theorator of the metaphysicians with praise, under the name of Silenus,rises and advances, leading up, apparently, the Young England of theday. He presents them as liberated from priest-craft, and ready fordrinking the cup of a "Wizard old," attached to the suite of thegoddess. This "Magus" extends to them the cup of self-love.

There is philosophy enough in the last piece of oblivion.

Impudence, pure mild Stupidity, Self-conceit, Interest, theAccomplishment of Singing, under the auspicious smile of the goddess,take possession, sundrily, of her children; and the two great arts ofGastronomia, scientific Eating and Drinking.

The Queen confers her titles and degrees, assisted by the twouniversities. She then dismisses the assembly with a solemn charge:—

[Pg 250]

Mr Bowles, himself a true poet, thinks the Fourth Book the best. "Theobjects of satire," he says, "are more general and just: the one isconfined to persons, and those of the most insignificant sort; the otheris directed chiefly to things, such as faults of education, falsehabits, and false taste. In polished and pointed satire, in richness ofversification and imagery, and in the happy introduction of characters,speeches, figures, and every sort of poetical ornament adapted to thesubject, this Book yields, in my opinion, to none of Pope's writings ofthe same kind." Excellently well said. But what inconsistency in saying,at the same time, "These observations of Dr Warton are, in general, veryjust and sensible." And again, "I by no means think so meanly of it asDr Warton." Meanly, indeed! Why, he has just told us he thinks it equalto any thing of the same kind Pope ever wrote. But the distinguishedWintonian chose to speak nonsense, rather than speak harshly of old Joe.What are Dr Warton's "in general very just and sensible observations?""Our poet was persuaded by Dr Warburton, unhappily enough, to add aFourth Book to his finished piece, of such a very different cast andcolour, as to render it at last one of the most motley compositionsthere is, perhaps, any where to be found in the works of so exact awriter as Pope. For one great purpose of this Fourth Book (where, by theway, the hero does nothing at all) was to satirize and proscribeinfidels and freethinkers, to leave the ludicrous for the serious, GrubStreet for theology, the mock-heroic for metaphysics—which occasion amarvellous mixture and jumble of images and sentiments, pantomime andphilosophy, journals and moral evidence, Fleet Ditch and the High Prioriroad, Curl and Clarke." That reads like a bit of a prize-essay by abachelor of arts in the "College of the Goddess in the City." TheDunciad is rendered not only a motley, but, perhaps, the most motleycomposition of an exact writer, by a Book added to it when it was in astate of perfection—for as a Poem in Three Books, "it was clear,consistent, and of a piece." This is not the way to make a poem motley,nor a man. "Motley's the suit I wear," might have taught the Doctorbetter. They who don't like the Fourth Book can stop at the end of theThird, and then the Poem is motley no more. It is in a higher strainthan the Three, and why not? The goddess had a greater empire thanWarton, who was a provincial, had ever dreamt of in his philosophy; but,in Pope's wide imagination, it stood with all its realms. The hero hadno more to say or to do—Cibber was banished to Cimmeria for life, towork in the mines—and Dulness had forgotten she ever saw his face.

That long clumsy sentence about "a marvellous mixture and jumble ofimages and sentiments," &c. &c. &c., is pure nonsense. In itself, theFourth Book is most harmoniously constructed as a work of art, and itrises out of, and ascends from the Third, a completed creation. To callthat YAWN mock-heroic, would be profane—it is sublime!

[Pg 252]

"Speaking of the Dunciad," continues the Doctor, "as a work of art, ina critical, not religious light, I must venture to affirm, that thesubject of this Fourth Book was foreign and heterogeneous, and theaddition of it is injudicious, ill-placed, and incongruous, as any ofthose similar images we meet with in Pulci or Ariosto." The addition ofa Fourth Book to a poem, previously consisting of Three, is not an imageat all, look at it how you will, and cannot therefore be compared with"any of those dissimilar images we meet with in Pulci or Ariosto." Wemuch admire Pulci and Ariosto, especially Ariosto, but they and theirdissimilar images have no business here; and were Dr Joseph alive anywhere in the neighbourhood, we should whistle in his ear not to be soostentatious in displaying his Italian literature, which was too thin tokeep out the rain.

"It is," he keeps stuttering on, "like introducing a crucifix into oneof Teniers's burlesque conversation pieces." We see no reason why acrucifix should not be in the room of a good Catholic during a burlesqueconversation; and Teniers, if he never have, might have painted one insuch a piece without offence, had he chosen to do so; but the questionwe ask, simply is, what did Doctor Joseph Warton mean? Just nothing atall.

"On the whole," stammereth the Doctor further on, "the chief fault ofthe Dunciad is the violence and vehemence of its satire." The samefault may be found with vitriolic acid, nay, with Richardson's UltimateResult. No doubt, that for many domestic purposes water ispreferable—for not a few, milk—and for some, milk and water. But notwith that latter amalgam did Hannibal force his way through the Alps.

But, softly—the Doctor compares the violence and vehemence of Pope'ssatire—no—not the violence and vehemence, but the height—towater—but to water rare among the liquid elements. "And the excessiveheight to which it is carried, and which therefore I may compare to thatmarvellous column of boiling water near Mount Hecla in Iceland, thrownupwards, above ninety feet, by the force of subterraneous fire." Andhe adds in a note, to please the incredulous, "Sir Joseph Banks, ourgreat philosophical traveller, had the satisfaction of seeing thiswonderful phenomenon."

"What are the impressions," eloquently asks the inspired Joseph "leftupon the mind after a perusal of this poem? Contempt, aversion vexation,and anger. No sentiments that enlarge, ennoble, move, or mend the heart!Insomuch so, that I know a person whose name would be an ornament tothese papers, if I were suffered to insert it, who, after reading a bookof the Dunciad, always soothes himself, as he calls it, by turning toa canto of the Faery Queene." There is no denying that satire is aptto excite the emotions the Doctor complains of, and few more stronglythan the Dunciad. Yet what would it be without them—and what shouldwe be? But other emotions, too, are experienced at some of the games;and some of an exalted kind, by innumerable passages throughout thepoem. Were it not so, this would be a saturnine world indeed. Would wehad had the name of the wise gentleman, that it might ornament thesepapers, who so frequently indulged in "contempt, aversion, vexation, andanger" over Pope, that he might soothe himself, as he called it, withSpenser. We wonder if he occasionally left the bosom of the FaeryQueene for that of the Goddess of Dulness.

"This is not the case with that very delightful poem Mac-Flecnoe, fromwhich Pope has borrowed many hints and images and ideas. But Dryden'spoem was the offspring of contempt, and Pope's of indignation; one isfull of mirth, and the other of malignity. A vein of pleasantry isuniformly preserved through the whole of Mac-Flecnoe, and the piecebegins and ends in the same key." That very beautiful and delightfulpoem, Mac-Flecnoe! That very pretty and agreeable waterfall, Niagara!That very elegant and attractive crater of Mount Vesuvius! That veryinteresting and animated earthquake, vulgarly called the GreatEarthquake at Lisbon! Having ourselves spoken of the good-humour ofDryden, (some twenty pages back, about the middle of this article,) wemust not find fault with Warton for saying that a vein of pleasantry ispreserved through the whole of Mac-Flecnoe;[Pg 253] but what thoughtMac-Flecnoe himself? "Ay, there's the rub." Then what a vein ofpleasantry is preserved through the whole of Og! So light and delicateis the handling, that you might be charmed into the soft delusion, thatyou beheld Christopher with his Knout.

"Since the total decay," innocently exclaims this estimable man, "wasforetold in the Dunciad, how many very excellent pieces of criticism,poetry, history, philosophy, and divinity, have appeared in thiscountry, and to what a degree of perfection has almost every art, eitheruseful or elegant, been carried?" Mr Bowles—mirabile dictu—backs hisold schoolmaster against the goddess. "Can it be thought," says theCanon—standing up for the age of Pope himself—"that this period wasenlightened by Young, Thomson, Glover, and many whose charactersreflected equal lustre on religion, morals, and philosophy? But such issatire, when it is not guided by truth." All this might have been saidin fewer words—"Look At Blackwood's Magazine." There is not, in theDunciad itself, an instance of such stupidity recorded, as thisindignant attribution of blindness to the present, and to the future,"as far off its coming shone," to "the seed of Chaos and old night," bytwo divines, editors both of the works of Alexander Pope, Esq. in eight(?) and in ten volumes.

Lord Kames, in his Elements of Criticism, urges an objection to theopening of the Dunciad, which, if sustained, is sufficient to provethe whole poem vicious on beginning to end. "This author (Pope) isguilty of much greater deviation from the rule. Dulness may be imagineda Deity or Idol, to be worshipped by bad writers; but then some sort ofdisguise is requisite, some bastard virtue must be bestowed, to givethis Idol a plausible appearance. Yet, in the Dunciad, Dulness,without the least disguise, is made the object of worship. The mindrejects such a fiction as unnatural." Warburton meets this objectionwith his usual fierté and acumen. "But is there no bastard virtue inthe mighty Mother of so numerous an offspring, which she takes care tobring to the ears of kings? Her votaries would, for this single virtue,prefer her influence to Apollo and the Nine Muses. Is there no bastardvirtue in the peace of which the poet makes her the author?—'Thegoddess bade Britannia sleep.' Is she not celebrated for her beauty,another bastard virtue?—'Fate this fair idol gave.' One bastardvirtue the poet hath given her; which, with these sort of critics, mightmake her pass for a wit; and that is, her love of a joke—'For gentleDulness ever loved a joke.' Her delight in games and races is another ofher bastard virtues, which would captivate her nobler sons, and drawthem to her shrine; not to speak of her indulgence to young travellers,whom she accompanies as Minerva did Telemachus. But of all her bastardvirtues, her FREE-THINKING, the virtue which she anxiously propagatesamongst her followers in the Fourth Book, might, one would think, havebeen sufficient to have covered the poet from this censure. But had MrPope drawn her without the least disguise, it had not signified a rush.Disguised or undisguised, the poem had been neither better nor worse,and he has secured it from being rejected as unnatural by ten thousandbeauties of nature." This is too Warburtonian—and Lord Kames must beanswered after another fashion, by Christopher North.

What would his lordship have? That she should be called by some othermore specious name? By that of some quality to which writers and othermen do aspire, and under the semblance of which Dulness is actuallyfound to mask itself—as Gravity, Dignity, Solemnity? Why, two losseswould thus be incurred. First, the whole mirth of the poem, or thegreater part of it, would be gone. Secondly, the comprehensiveness ofthe present name would be forfeited, and a more partial quality taken.

The vigour and strength of the fiction requires exactly what Pope hasdone—the barefaced acceptance of Dulness as the imperial power. Thepoet acts, in fact, under a logical necessity. She is really the goddessunder whose influence and virtue they, her subjects, live; whoseinspiration sustains and governs their actions. But it would be againstall manners that a goddess should not be known[Pg 254] and worshipped under herown authentic denomination. To cheat her followers out of their worship,by showing herself to them under a diversity of false appearances, wouldhave been unworthy of her divinity.

As to the probability of the fiction, the answer is plain and ready.Nobody asks for probability. Far otherwise. The bravery of the jest isits improbability. There is a wild audacity proper to the burlesque Eposwhich laughs at conventional rules, and the tame obligations of ordinarypoetry. The absurd is one legitimate source of the comic.

For example, are the Games probable? Take the reading to sleep—which ispurely witty—a thing which the poet does not go out of his way toinvent. It lies essentially on the theme, being a literary αγωνand it is indeed only that which is continually done, (oh, usmiserable!) thrown into poetical shape. But it is perfectly absurd andimprobable, done in the manner in which it is represented—not thereforeto be blamed, but therefore to be commended with cachinnation while theworld endures.

The truth is, that the Dunces are there, not for the business of sayingwhat they think of themselves, or not that alone, but they must say thatwhich we think of them. They must act from motives from which men do notact. They must aspire to be dull, and be proud of their dulness. Theymust emulate one another's dulness, or they are unfaithful votaries. Inshort, they are poetically made, and should be so made, to do,consciously and purposely, that which, in real life, they doundesignedly and unawares.

Lord Kames goes wrong—and very far wrong indeed—though Warburton wasnot the man to set him right—through applying to a compositionextravagantly conceived—an epic extravaganza—rules of writing thatbelong to a sober and guarded species. In a comedy, you make a man playthe fool without his knowing that he is one; because that is animitation of human manners. And if you ironically praise the virtues ofa villain, you keep the veil of irony throughout. You do not now andthen forget yourself, and call him a villain by that name. But thespirit and rule of the poem here is, that discretion and sobriety arethrown aside. Here is no imitation of manners—no veil. The persons ofthe poem, under the hand of the poet, are something in the condition ofthe wicked ghosts who come before the tribunal of the GnossianRhadamanthus; and whom he, by the divine power of his judgment-seat,constrains to bear witness against themselves. The poor ghosts do it,knowing that they condemn themselves. Here the mirth of the poet makesthe Dull glorify themselves by recounting each misdeed under its properappellation.

Joseph Warton mistakes the whole matter as much as Lord Kames. "Justcriticism," says he, "calls on us also to point out some of the passagesthat appear exceptionable in the Dunciad. Such is the hero's firstspeech, in which, contrary to all decorum and probability, he addressesthe goddess Dulness, without disguising her as a despicable being, andeven calls himself fool and blockhead. For a person to be introducedspeaking thus of himself, is in truth unnatural and out of character."Would that the Doctor had been alive to be set at ease on this point byour explanations—but he is dead. They would have quieted his mind, too,about the celebrated speech of Aristarchus. "In Book IV.," he adds, "issuch another breach of truth and decorum, in making Aristarchus(Bentley) abuse himself, and laugh at his own labours.

If Bentley has turned Horace and Milton (Warton blunderingly reads Maro)into prose by his emendations, (Milton assuredly he has—Pope may be[Pg 255]wrong about Horace?) he has rendered vast service to the empire ofDulness; and it would be quite unreasonable that he should not claim ofthe goddess all merited reward and honour, by announcing exactly thisachievement. With what face could he pretend to her favour by tellingher that he had restored the text of two great poets to its originalpurity and lustre? She would have ordered him to instant execution or toa perpetual dungeon.

Finally, how happened it that such perspicacious personages as LordKames and Dr Warton, to say nothing of their hoodwinked followers,should have thus objected to the passages and speeches singled out forcondemnation, as if they alone deserved it, without perceiving that thewhole poem, from the first line to the last, was, on their principle,liable to the same fatal objection? And what, on their principle, wouldthey have thought, had they ever read it, of Mac-Flecnoe?

Pope takes the name Dulness largely, for the offuscation of heart andhead. He said, long before,

and he now seems to think himself warranted in attributing vices andcorruptions to a clouded understanding—so to Dulness. At least, thedarkness and weakness of the moral reason came under the protection ofthe mighty mother—the daughter of Chaos and of Night. She fosters thedisorder and the darkness of the soul. Mere bluntness and inertness ofintellect, which the name would suggest, he never confines himself to.Of sharp misused power of mind, too, she is the tutelary goddess. Errorswhich mind arrives at by too much subtlety, by self-blinding activity,serve her purpose and the poet's; and so some names of powerfulintellects are included, which, on a question of their merits, indeed,had better been left out. So the science of mathematics, faroverstepping, as the poet conceives, the boundary of its legitimateactivity—

The real foe of Dulness, then, is Truth—not simply wit or genius. Thenight of mind is all that Dulness labours to produce. Misdirected witand genius help on this consummation, and therefore deserve hersmile—all the more that they are her born enemies, turned traitors totheir native cause; and most formidable enemies too, had they remainedfaithful. Needs must she load them with dignity and emoluments. Tracethe thought. The poem begins from the real dull Dunces; and theirgoddess is Dulness, inevitably: nothing can be gainsaid there. This isthe central origin. Go on. Pert or lively dunces, who are not real dull,will come in of due course. And from that first foundation the poet maylawfully go on to bring in perverted intelligence and moral vitiation ofthe soul. Reclining on our swing-chair—and waiting for the devil—withthe Æneid in the one hand and the Dunciad in the other, we have thismoment made a remarkable discovery in ancient and in modern classicpoetry. Virgil, in his eighth book, tells us that the pious Æneas,handling and examining with delight the glorious shield which the Sireof the Forge has fabricated for him, wonders to peruse, storied there inprophetical sculptures, the fates and exploits, and renown, of hisearth-subduing descendants. In one of these fore-shadowingrepresentations—that of the decisive sea-fight off the promontory ofActium—you might believe that, under the similitude of the conflict andvictory which delivered the sovereignty of the Roman world into the handof Augustus, the sly Father of the Fire has willed by hints to prefigurean everlasting war of light and darkness, the irreconcilable hostilityof the Wits and Dunces, and the sudden interposition of some divinepoet, clothed with preternatural power, for the "foul dissipation andforced rout" of the miscreated multitude.

The foe, whose pretensions to the empire of the world are to be signallydefeated, advances to the combat—"ope barbarica"—helped with aconfederacy of barbarians. Queen Dulness herself is characteristicallydescribed as heartening and harking forward her legions with purenoise.

[Pg 256]

that is, rather with her father Chaos's drum, or the drum native to theland of Dulness. Either interpretation forcibly marks out the mostturbulent and unintellectual of all musical instruments; and we think atonce of her mandate on a later day,

The contending powers are presented under a bold allegory.

"Omnigenumque Deûm Monstra et Latrator Anubis,
Contra Neptunum et Venerem, contraque Minervam,
Tela tenent."

Neptune prefigures this island, the confessed ruler of the waves and theprecise spot of the globe vindicated, as we have seen, by two greatpoets from the reign of Dulness. Venus is here understood in her noblestcharacter, as the Alma Venus of Lucretius's invocation, as the Power ofLove and the Beautiful in the Universe. The Goddess of Wisdom speaks forherself. Against them a heterogeneous rabble of monsters direct theirartillery, under a dog-headed barking protagonist, (what a chosen symbolof an impudent, wide-mouthed, yelping Bayes!) the ringleader of the Cryof Dunces.

Behold the striking and principal figure of the poet himself, armed andready to loose from his hand his unerring shafts.

"Actius hæc cernens arcum intendebat Apollo
Desuper."

The poet, impersonated in the patron god of all true poets, is highVirgilian; and the proud station and posture, and the godlikeannihilating menace of that "Desuper" is equally picturesque andsublime.

The same verse continued brings out the effect of the god's, or of thepoet's interposition, in the instantaneous consternation and utterscattering of the rascal rout.

"... Omnis eo terrore Ægyptus et Indus,
Omnis Arabs, omnes vertebant terga Sabœi."

The entire progeny of barbarism are off, in full precipitation, for aplace of refuge, if harbour or haven may be had. Or, as the sameinspired bard elsewhere has it—"fugêre feræ"—the wild beasts havefled.

The triumph is complete. The panic seizes their imperial mistressherself, who, turning her prow, sweeps with all sails set from the lostbattle.

"Ipsa videbatur ventis Regina vocatis
Vela dare et laxos jam jamque immittere funes;
Illam inter cædes, pallentem morte futurâ,
Fecerat Ignipotens undis et Iapyge ferri."

And why is Augustus made Victor? Does not his name stand, to all time,as the emperor of good letters? Is an Augustan age a less precise andpotential phrase for a golden age of the arts, than a Saturnian age forthe same of the virtues? And why is Antony beaten? Surely, because herepresents the collective Antony-Lumpkinism of literature. And what hasthe dear Cleopatra to do in the fight? The meretricious gipsy—the wordis Virgil's own—by her illicit attractions, and by the dusk grain ofher complexion, doubly expresses to the life the foul daughter of Nightwhom the Dunces obey and worship.

Vulcan, says Virgil, made the shield, like a god, knowing the future.But here Virgil makes Vulcan. And we have now seen enough fully tojustify the later popular tradition of his country in steadfastlyattributing to him the fame of an arch-wizard. Looking at the thing inthis light, we derive extreme consolation from the final augurous wordsof our last citation—"pallentem morte futurâ"—which we oppose withconfidence to the appalling final prophecy of Pope, and believe that thegoddess is, as the nymphs were said to be, exceedingly long-lived, butnot immortal.

Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne and Hughes, Paul's Work.

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