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THE
SOUTHERN BRANCH,
#NIVERSITY OF CALFORNIA,
LIBRARY,
(Los ANGELES, CALIF.
NORTH BRITISH REVIEW,
M A R C H AND
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UNE, 1 8 6 5.
VOLUME XLII.-X L11
A M E R IC A N E D IT IO N.
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N EW Y O R K:
PUBLISHED BY LEONARD SCOTT & CO,
38 wAt KER STREET, wesT OF BROADWAY.
186 5.
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N OR T II B R IT IS EI R E VIE W.
No. LXXXIII.
F () R M A R C H, 1865.
ART. I.—THR RISE AND PROGREss oF THE stance, a head-waiter of an establishment

Scottish ToURIST. through which the throng of a great pleasure
1. A Tour through the whole Island of Great district passed all day and all night; what
JBritain, and Volume III, which completes ever time you arrived or departed, early or
this Work, and contains a Tour through late, midnight or dawn, he was ever in a state
Scotland. By a GENTLEMAN (known to be of brisk, civil activity. We asked him when
by DANIEL DEFoE). Printed and sold by he slept. “I sleep in winter,” was the
an 8Wer.
G. STRAHAN, in Cornhill, 1727.
2. Toddles's Highland Tour. London: Rout Connected with this, however, is another
LEDGE, 1864. and larger social phenomenon, the diagnosis
of which, whatever we may say of its cause,
MoNTHs ago the summer tide of tourists is more accessible to us, and is seen by all of
has receded from our straths and glens town us. A century ago, a sensible man, residing
wards to the last drop. The Trossachs, the in “the West end,” would have as soon
rich indented lochs of Argyle, the hoary thought of going for change of air to White
peaks of Glencoe, the dusky forests of Brae chapel or Wapping as to Glencoe or Braemar,
mar, the snowy and savage precipices of the where he and his neighbours now crowd in
Cairngorms, a while ago all swarming with until they almost carry London with them,
busy, noisy, intrusive citizens, are now as and where they profess to imbibe a vast
silent as much less than a century ago they amount of enjoyment. Whence has come
were all the year round; more silent indeed, this social change? We profess not to go
since the indigenous population of these re into its depths, and display its hidden causes.
gions has within the century notably and But as the matter is really one worth looking
beneficially decreased. To live ever in crowds at, the holiday-seekers of the last year who
has a social influence on man. To live ever have returned from the poetry to the prose of
alone has also an influence, though to call it life, in the interval when the recollections of
social might sound Irish. The fate of the last year's tour are mingling with the projects
chronic inhabitants of tourist districts, who for the coming summer, may perhaps peruse
are three months of the year in the midst of with interest at the domestic hearth some
a throng, and have to pass the rest of it in notice of the conditions under which the
solitude, must subject them to peculiar in scenery of Scotland, and especially of the
fluences which no one has thought it worth Highlands, became fashionable. The litera
while specially to study and elucidate. These ture connected with its rise in the world we
influences must have a special development consider especially deserving of attention.
in those actively concerned in ministering to Some day or other it may tax the powers of
the comforts and pleasures of the tourist: the some mighty compiler in the production of a
faculties continuously strained to their utmost “Bibliotheca Itineraria.” Meanwhile we be
stretch for a few months—the strain then sud lieve that in a few casual notices of it we shall
denly withdrawn till its periodical recurrence. breaking new ground.
be
One would expect this to have a kind of hi “Tourist” is a new word; it is not to be
bernating influence. We remember, for in found in Johnson, who, however, defines
WOL. XLII. N-1
2 * The Rise and Progress of the Scottish Tourist. March,
“tour” as a “ramble or roving journey.” To | language that eminent patriot used,—in the
this Webster adds “circuit,” “excursion,” speech of Agricola thers is an allusion to
“trip,” and tells us that a tourist is one who fatiguing marches acr" ns, mountains, and
makes a tour. This seems to be coming rivers, Cum vos palude ontesve et flumina
something near the point, as indicating loco fatigarent. It is a pily that we have not
motion for the purposes of enjoyment, not of something more palpable and critical than
business or duty. And as among by far the this, from some Roman pen, for the Romans
greater portion of mankind no such enjoy knew good scenery. They are said to have
ment exists, or is capable of being conceived, even walked about for pleasure. In Strabo
and even among ourselves it is a compara mention is made how two Roman legionaries,
tively recently discovered source of enjoy found in Spain at a distance from their post,
ment, the various phenomena indicating its who could give no better account of them
origin and progress onwards to its present selves than that they walked for enjoyment,
vast influence as an institution of our country were deemed to be two lunatics who had
and age, seem sufficiently important for a escaped from bondage, and were an object of
little special attention. considerable anxiety to the good people who
We may trace its beginnings in something desired to see them safe back to their camp.”
more subtle than by putting the finger on It would require very positive and distinct
the name of the first man who actually made evidence, however, to prove that the Romans
a journey for pleasure. Indications of the ever went so far from the indolent luxurious
enjoyment of scenery and variety among ness, in which alone they found true pleasure,
those who moved about on duty or business as to seek it in the active and sometimes
are the germs of the tourist's passion. Our afflictive pursuits of the modern tourist. If
history gets far on before we have much of Cicero or Atticus walked together in the
this. The first strangers from the civilized shady avenues of Tusculum, while they dis
world who are recorded as visiting us—Julius cussed the difference between goodness and
Agricola and his followers—came on stern perfection, or Virgil enjoyed a saunter in his
business. Tacitus, in his clear, rapid narra Mantuan farm, we may be assured that no
tive of the transaction, sticks closely to that citizen of the empire mounted his impedi
business, and permits not his pen to wander menta on his shoulders to ramble about in
iuto devious paths. One would like to know Britain, even among such scenery within the
what they thought of the scenery. There is walls as he could safely approach. Their
a well-known tradition that as they marched sense of the noble in scenery advanced so far
northwards over the spur of the Ochils, and as to accept of the savage and terrible as
came to that nick called the Wicks of Beglie,
worthy of enjoyment. This we see even in
and saw beneath them the broad strath of the selection of their villas; but they enjoyed
Tay, with its gleaming river and background it all in indolent eontemplation, not in active
of mountains, they exclaimed, “Behold the vagabondage.
Tiber! behold the field of Mars!”—a com The next set of notable visitors were the
parison which Scott and many of his fellow Irish monks, who came over to re-convert us
countrymen reprobate as a gross injustice to after the inroads of strangers from Scandina
the northern river. It is necessary, however, via had swept Christianity as well as Roman
to throw this story away as a modern inven civilisation out of the land. We have ample
tion. Indeed, from the invasion of Agricola narratives of the ways and pursuits of these
to the present time, or even to the time of monks. We know that they went about a
the first publishing of the exclamation, is far
good deal. St. Columba, for instance, paid a
too long for tradition to live. memorable visit to Brude the King of the
Just twice are there remarks in Tacitus Picts at his lodge on the banks of the Ness;
which in any way connect themselves with and St. Cormac on his way from Ireland to
the character of the scenery. When, as he Iona to visit his old friends there, went so far
describes it, the army marched northward, astray among the Hebrides, that some people
and the fleet sailed in sight of it, the land
* “Tots & Oüirrovas, 5:e Toirov et, rö Tów "Popaiov
troops, when they recounted their adventures raph}\}ov a Tuaröredov, ičarras Tāv raśl anxów Ttvas, diva
to their colleagues of the fleet, told of the wäurrowra; Šv rais 630i, Tsotn iron Xápty, gavíav £roAaffó
dense forests they had penetrated, and the rts, hyriabat riv bööv airois Éri rā, ornvä, ö, ätov #
rough mountains they had scrambled over. pévetv sat figuzia, idpv6évras, ) uáxtadat.”
In the speech of Agricola, so accurately re “Et vettones, quo tempore primum in Romano
ported,—and, by the way, Tacitus is quite rum venerunt castra, cum quosdam centuriones
impartial, and makes room for the spirited viderent, deambulandi causa viam hacillac fleetere,
speech of Galgacus, the leader of the Caledo opinatos insanire homines, duces seeis ad taberna
cula praebuisse: putabant enim aut in tabernaculo
nians, although it would have been a far more quiete sedendum, aut pugnandum esse."—Gros. L.
important service had he just told us what III. cap. iv.
1865. The Rise and Progress of the Scottish Tourist. 3
suppose he had gone to Iceland. But we that kingdom a place or mention in one page
get no notions of scenery from these monks; of any Gazette.”
and, in fact, they speak so indistinctly of the Oliver Cromwell paid a visit to Scotland,
nature of the country, that we might suppose a visit decidedly on business of a very en
from Adamnan's Life of the Master that Iona grossing kind. In one of his despatches he
was a very fertile island, fruitful in corn and noticed the character of one morsel of our
grass, if we did not know it to be a barren scenery in his own professional way. The
rock, and believe it to have been just as bar finest of those deep ravines cut into the rock
ren fourteen hundred years ago as it is now. of St. Abb's Head, he calls a place “where
When King Edward came over, his mission ten men to hinder are better than forty to
was entirely on business. But whether or make their way.” He left his mark on the
not he himself enjoyed the scenery of the country; not such a brand as he put on Ire
territory he was so determined to take, he land, for only a portion of the Scots people
adorned it for the present day by planting in were at enmity with him. From the railway,
it the finest castles which the country pos however, in passing the great square tower of
sesses. On the other side of the War of Inde Borthwick, one can see a portion of the stone
pendence there probably was not much facing, beautifully peeled by his ordnance
enjoyment of mere scenery. Wallace, ac from the neighbouring height. It gives one
cording to tradition, frequented Cartland a lively notion of how
Craigs—a grand rocky cleft in the fruitful “Oliver Crummell,
vale of Clyde—but it was rather for protec He did her pummel,
tion than to court the influence of sublimity And made a breach in her battlement.”
in stringing the nerves to deeds of heroism. Cromwell noted what he saw in Scotland
Bruce had to wander through the very finest for his own utilitarian purposes, and he greatly
scenery in Scotland. Part of it comes out enriched the country by opening trade. Be
with grand effect in the Lord of the Isles, fore his time, everything known about the
but it is a different affair when we go to Bar national resources is of a vague kind, and had
bour's epic. So when Bruce had to find a there been tourists in the reign of Charles
retreat in the fastnesses of the Cairngorm II., it would have been in the records of the
mountains, here is all we have, when he might proceedings of the Protectorate, that they
have taken his hero to the wondrous Loch would have found what parts of Scotland
Avon, and made him say as Scott makes him were likely to afford a good inn. Cromwell
say at Coruisk—“St. Mary! what a scene is sent a commissioner named Thomas Tucker
here,” and so on. to investigate the trade statistics of Scotland.
“The queen dwelt thus in Kildrummy, This man's report was printed by the late
And the king and his company Lord Murray for the Bannatyne Club, and is
That war twa hundred an na ma, the earliest satisfactory account of the towns
Fra they had sent their horse them fra, and harbours of Scotland, and of the mate
Wanderet amang the high mountains, rial resources of the country. -
Where he and his oft tholed pains,

For it was to the winter near, It is more to the point of the present arti
And so fell foes about him were, cle, that one of Cromwell's troopers, by name
That all the country them warred. Richard Franck, wandered over a great part
So hard among them assailed of Scotland, and recorded his movements in
Of hunger, cold, and showers shell, a solid book. The temptation that led him
That none that lives can well it tell.” onwards was the fishing-rod. For an esti
Between the War of Independence and mate of his knowledge and aptness in this
the great contest in the seventeenth century, craft, we may refer to Mr. Russel's book on
the only considerable visits to Scotland were the Salmon: a wonderful combination, by
those of the French auxiliaries, who returned -the way, of those qualities deemed incom
home terrified by the hungry sordidness of patible with each other-science, statistics,
the land and the barbarous independence of and fun. Franck seems to have been a con
the common people. Clarendon tells us that ceited, pompous, prosing man, and a euphuist
when the astounding intelligence of the sign of the most inflated kind. Yet the fellow
ing of the Covenant, and the collection of a had evidently a sense of scenery, which he
Scottish army, reached London,-"the truth lets out in his own floundering way. So of
is, there was so little curiosity either in the Loch Lomond he says:—“This small Medi
Court or the country to know anything of terrane is surrounded with woods, mountains,
Scotland, or what was done there, that when rockey, boggy, sandy, and miry earth; and is
the whole nation was solicitous to know what the greatest inland sea in Scotland; nor is it
passed weekly in Germany and Poland, and parallel'd with any southward; and all the
all other parts of Europe, no man ever in north inferiour to it, excepting only the
quired what was doing in Scotland, nor had Lough called Ness.” Then presently come
4 The Rise and Progress of the Scottish Tourist. March,
he to “Beautiful Buchanan, besieged with parted to this man's narrative a descriptive
bogs and baracadoed with birch trees; the vigour and richness totally unintended on
Highlander's landscape and the Lowlander's his part. Leaving Crawfordjohn, he says:
prospect; whose boggy swamps incommode “From this place I went over mighty hills,
the traveller.” The following fragmentary sometimes being amongst the clouds and
passages will perhaps suffice as specimens of sometimes amongst bogs, I think without
the trooper's manner:— seeing a house, or anybody but a poor shep
“Let us relinquish the suburbs of Leven, to herd's boy, to Elvinfoot, a poor sorry place of
trace the flourishing skirts of Calvin, whose two or three houses; and here is a rapid river
smiling streams invite the angler to examine that tumbles over a rocky bottom, though it
them; for here one would think the stones is not deep. . . . I should not have travelled
were steep'd in the oil of Oespres, to invite the this day, being Sunday, but I was willing to
fish to come ashore; where you may observe get out of this country as soon as I could;
every bubling stream reflect a smile on the amor oh, the curse that attended it! I was far
ous banks, covered with green, and enamell'd
with flowers. Here also the sylvans upon shady past Elvinfoot, and the road, or rather steep
bushes bathe themselves in silver streams; and tracks—for since I left Douglass I hardly saw
where trouts, to sport and divert the angler, any other—were so obscure, I could hardly
will leap on shore, though with the loss of their find a way, and the rocks were so thick and
lives.” close that I had often much ado to get myself
Then came the “turrets of sooty Glorret” and horse between them. Now I were on a
or Glorat, near to which place vast precipice of a high rock, with the river
roaring under me, and anon I was in a bog !
“Glides the glittering Kaldar; a large and spa Poor man, this was far from the worst of it.
cious rapid river, accommodated both with trout
and salmon: but the access lies too open, more Mist came on, good, sound Scotch mist. He
especially amongst her pleasant gliding streams, had the folly to enter on that ground without
where the angler, if lord of his exercise, may a pocket-compass, -a folly no tourist should
expect incredible entertainments: whose foun ever perpetrate.
dations are laid in gravelly sand, and interchang A dark cloud, he tells us, came between
ably mixed with shining stones that look not him and the sun, “and out of this cloud fell
unlike to golden granulaes: but were they such, such a shower of rain, that I was wet through
I should fancy Tagus but a toy to it. Because
to imprint in the angler's memory those remark presently, and it grew so suddenly dark that
able characters of shining rocks, glittering sands, I could scarcely see my hands. I got down
and falls of water, which 'tis morally impossible and groped with my hands for a path, but
he should ever forget. quickly found the sheep-tracks had misled
“Not far from this dingy Castle of Glorret
stands delectable Kilsieth; in whose martial me. I began to sink in half way up the leg,
and my horse more, and now and then I
fields Marquess Montross defeated his country tumbled over a bank, but what sort of one I
men. North-west from thence we must top could not tell; and now I came so near the
those burdened mountains of Compsy, whose
weeping rocks moisten the air, representing the river that I heard it roar dismally, and did
spouts; and are a lively emblem of the cataracts not know but every step I went I might tum
of Nile. From whence we descend to the Kirk ble down a steep cliff, or fall into the river
of Compsy; near to which kirk runs the memo Annan.” After waiting for some time he fell to
rable Ander wick, a rapid river of strong and “holloring,” but in vain, and he feared going
stiff streams; whose fertil banks refresh the bor
derer, and whose fords, if well examined, are argu
up the hill, not knowing what company he
might find there. Night came on him, and
ments sufficient to convince the angler of trout;
he tried to sleep in his saddle and horse-cloth,
as are her deeps, when consulted, the noble race
but he had to shift them over and over, as
and treasure of salmon; or remonstrate his ignor
ance in the art of angling.” whenever he lay down he found himself sink
Fifty years later a countryman of Franck's, ing in the bog. “As the day,” he continues,
much less genial and eloquent, had the mis “began to dawn, I hoped it fair, but feared a
fortune to visit us. It was in the year 1704 fog. Sometimes I thought I saw a bush at
that an Englishman, name unknown, pene adiscerned
distance, and sometimes a house; but plainly
that if I had gone lower down the
trated a little way into Scotland, though, had hill, I had gone into a deep bog by the river
he consulted his ease and safety, he had bet side. I went a mile one way, and then back
ter have stayed in Lombard Street.* There
again, and a mile the other, but could see
is an old Latin saying, that indignation makes neither house or road.” He came at last to
one poetical; and the indignant expression a village, Belated travellers are proverbially
of his fears and sufferings has actually im unscrupulous in giving trouble, but this one's
* North of England and Scotland in 1704. method of proceeding was quite original.
Printed in 1818 from a MS. in possessicn of Mr. “My patience had served me almost all it
Johnson. would, and I threatened to break their win
dows, but could not find a pane of glass in shows the horror he felt of Highland scene
the town. I then fell to unthatching a house, ry. Thus:—
and pulled off some of the turf, at which a “In passing to the heart of the Highlands we
fellow came angrily out, but when he saw me proceed from bad to worse, which makes the
was very humble, and directed me over the worst of all the less surprising; but I have often
small river Annan, and in the way to Moffat,heard it said by my countrymen, that they verily
for which I rewarded him ; and on this 17th believed if an inhabitant of the south of England
were to be brought blindfold into some narrow
of April 1704, I got to Moffat. This is a rucky hollow, enclosed with these horrid pros
small straggling town among high hills, and pects, and then to have his bandage taken off,
is the town of their wells, in summer time he would be ready to die with fear, as thinking
people coming here to drink of their waters;
it impossible he should ever get out to return to
but what sort of people they are, or where his native country.”
they get lodgings, I can't tell, for I did not An English officer quartered at Fort
like their lodgings well enough to go to bed.” Augustus immediately after the 'Forty-Five,
Such was a stranger's introduction, about a gave forth his sorrows in similar strains:—
century and a half ago, to this which is now
“It is a rarity to see the sun, but constantly
the most charming watering-place in the black skies and rusty looking rocky mountains,
British dominions.
attended with wintry rains and cutting winds,
Everybody is, or ought to be acquainted with violent streams of water rolling down from
with the Letters from a Gentleman in the every part of the mountains after hard rains,
North of Scotland to his friend in London, and so filling the rivers surprisingly soon.”f
commonly attributed to Captain Burt, an en Almost alongside of Burt's homely book
gineer officer who helped General Wade to came a performance of a different order, from
make his famous roads. It is a pity that the pen of a higher artist. Whenever there
more is not known of him. He is mentioned
in the little book called the Olio of William is found bearing date somewhere in the first
Davis, who says he was a pompous man, and
quarter of the eighteenth century a book on
any matter of everyday life, full of vivacity,
tells a story about his pomposity being snub wit, humour, exactness of description, and
bed. Rebuking an Aberdeen boy for not worldly sagacity, it is attributed to Daniel
tendering him due respect, he said: “Don’t Defoe. In many instances the judgment is
you know, sirrah, that I'm the representa dubious, or absolutely a mistake, but the be
tive of His Majesty;” to which the answer lief that he is the author of A Tour through
was, “Representative o' His Maujesty! I've the whole Island of Great Britain stands on
seen a better representative o' His Manjesty circumstantial evidence, which would be in
on a bawbee,”—that is to say, on a halfpenny. controvertible, if the internal evidence of the
The anecdote is in keeping with the remark style and substance did not at once satisfy
able absence of the faculty of veneration the reader that no other man could have
common to the youth of Aberdeen, but it written such a book. A portion of the
certainly exemplifies a logical confusion, which
is not among their defects. In those districts * Letters from a Gentleman, ii. 13.
where it would now be an outrage on one of + Journey through England and Scotland along
the most sacred laws of fashion to abuse any with the Army under the command of H.R.H. the
thing, Burt abused right and left. He was a Duke of Cumberland, p. 95.
thorough John Bull; made his own country # The following is the title in full:—“A Tour
the standard of everything, and found things Thro' the Whole Island of Great Britain, divided
into Circuits or Journies. Giving a l'articular and
elsewhere to be right or wrong just as they Diverting Account of Whatever is Curious, and
conformed with or diverged from his stand worth Observation, Viz. I. A Description of the
ard. But for all that his descriptions are ac principal Cities and Towns, their Situation, Mag
curate and valuable. The engravings in the nitude, Government, and Commerce. II. The Cus
old editions of the book are very curious. toms, Manners, Speech, as also the Exercises,
Diversions, and Employment of the People. III.
They give us the genuine costume of High The Produce and Improvement of the Lands, the
landers in the period between the two rebel Trade and Manufactures. IV. The Sea-Ports and
lions. There we see the original belted plaid Fortifications, the Course of Rivers, and the Inland
in its latter days, and just before the genius Navigation. W. The Publick Edifices, Seats, and
of one of Wade's army tailors invented the Palaces of the Nobility and Gentry. . With Useful
Observations upon the Whole. Particularly fitted
philabeg, —for such is the ignoble origin of for the reading of such as desire to Travel over the
the costume which the advertisements of Island. Wol. III. Which completes this Work,
Highland drapers, appealing to the Cock and contains a Tour thro' Scotland, &c. With a
ney mind, call the “ancient garb of Old Map of Scotland by Mr. Moll. By a Gentleman.
London, Printed: And sold by G. Strahan, in
Gaul.” Burt sighed for Richmond Hill Cornhill. W. Mears, at the Lamb without Tem
and its gentle beauties, and a sentence ple-Bar. And J. Stagg, in Westminster-Hall.
taken almost anywhere from his book M DCC xxvii.”
third volume, published in 1727, is given to water-course; and next time he goes that
Scotland. Defoe lived some time among us, way, the Clyde in flood is rushing through
and his estimate of Scotland, standing where the streets on either side, and threatening to
it does in the midst of literature as full of carry the bridge before it. Then at Drum
gross abuse as it is destitute of knowledge lanrig, along with a Derbyshire man at the
concerning us, is alike a proof of the sound request of the Duke of Queensberry, he goes
ness of his judgment and the breadth of his poking among the hills for lead ore, and
sympathies. “Those,” he says, “who fancy “here we were surprised with a sight which is
there but wild men and ragged mountains, not now so frequent in Scotland as it has been
storms, snows, poverty, and barrenness, are formerly—I mean one of their field-meetings,
much mistaken: it being a noble country, of where one Mr. John Hepburn, an old Came
a fruitful soil and healthy air, well seated for ronian, preached to an auditory of near 7000
trade, full of manufactures by land, and a people, all sitting in rows on the steep side of
treasure great as the Indies at their door by a green hill, and the preacher on a little pul
sea. The poverty of Scotland and the fruit pit made under a tent at the foot of the hill.
fulness of England, or rather the difference He held his auditory, with not above an in
between them, is owing not to mere difference termission of half an hour, almost seven
of climate, or the nature of the soil, but to hours; and many of the poor people had
the errors of time and their different consti come above fifteen or sixteen miles to hear
tutions.” him, and had all the way to go home again
A critical question has arisen, whether his on foot.”
narrative is not so far fictitious, that whereas He is here close to the deep chasm called
it is enlivened by a reference to immediate the Enterkin, which he describes not only in
events, and has all the air of a set of adven his book of travels, but also in his Memoirs of
tures put on paper just after their occurrence, the Church of Scotland, as the scene of an
—yet it is believed that he had not been in affair between Covenanters and dragoons.
Scotland for twenty years before he wrote the He describes it as terrible, for it would have
book. He says he made five different tours been too bad at that time to have introduced
here, and there is not much reason to doubt such a scene to good society like an orange
this. He seems to have liked the people. grove or a shaven lawn; but there is a fascina
He says to his countrymen in another place, tion in its horror which makes him eloquent
“If the Scots want money, I must tell you and descriptive. It is a curious testimony to
they do not want manners; and one piece of the enduring freshness of these descriptions,
humanity they are masters of which you, that Dr. John Brown has cited both of them
with all your boasted improvements, are with in one of his popular miscellanies on Scottish
out: and that is, courtesy to strangers, in scenery; has cited them of course as attrac
which they outdo even the French them tive to readers of the present age, though that
selves.”f to which they were addressed looked upon
There probably never was a man better en all such scenery as odious.
dowed with the power of making out an The charm of De Foe is that he is per
alibi; of taking the reader with him to Dum fectly natural, yielding to the influences
fries or Inverness while he was all the while around him, and giving himself up to the ab
in his own study at Cripplegate. But he solute control of no conventionality. He be
goes into the particularities of travel with a gins hill-climbing at the Cheviots, and lets
profuseness which would lay him open to de out his greenness and Cockneyism by his
tection even at the present day, and must anxiety about the question, whether he shall
have put him in the power of a multitude of find standing-room on the top. “We all had
contemporary readers, if he sat at home and a notion that when we came to the top we
shammed the traveller. He had not the ad should be just as upon a pinnacle, that the
vantage of an unpeopled island like Selkirk's hill narrowed to a point, and we should only
Juan Fernandez. So we find him enjoying have room enough to stand, with a precipice
the hospitalities of Lauder, the minister of every way around us;” but the end of the
Mordinton, who writes on the Cyprianic age. adventure, on the contrary, is, “I was agree
He tells us that Lord Tweeddale's pictures ably surprised when, coming to the top of the
are at Pinkey, because the mansion of Yester hill, I saw before me a smooth, and with re
is not finished. On one journey a very re spect to what we expected, a most pleasant
markable phenomenon enables him to walk plain of at least half a mile in diameter, and
through the Clyde dry-shod above Glasgow in the middle of it a large pond, or little
Bridge, which he laughs at, with its great lake of water; and the ground seeming to
skeleton-looking arches striding over an empty descend in every way from the edges of the
* Review, iii. 671. + Review, vi. 174. * Review, iii. 62.
1865. The Rise and Progress of the Scottish Tourist. " 7
summit to the pond, took off the terror of the the countenance of the local magnates, “but
first prospect.” if they are first well recommended asstrangers,
All men of action have their special saga and have letters from one gentleman to ano
cities and prowess. An Orkney cragsman is ther, they would want neither guides nor
frightened to descend a stair, and a chamois guards, nor indeed would any man touch
hunter would be unnerved at a crossing in the them; but rather protect them, if there was
Strand. De Foe's courage and wisdom were occasion, in all places; and by this method
both exercised on man rather than inanimate they might in the summer-time lodge when
nature, and his simplicity about the culmina and wherever they pleased with safety and
tion of a mountain is well compensated by the pleasure, travelling no farther at a time than
sagacity contained in the following dream of a they thought fit. And as for their provisions,
New Town of Edinburgh thatmighthave been, they might supply themselves with their guns
and now is:– “On the north side of the city with very great plenty of wild-fowl.” He
is a spacious, rich, and pleasant plain, extend knew, indeed, a party of five, “two Scots and
ing from the Lough which joins the city to three English gentlemen,” who had actually
the river of Leith, at the mouth of which is carried out an expedition after this fashion
the town of Leith, at the distance of a long into the unknown wilds of the north High
Scots mile from the city; and even here were lands, and in a very tantalizing way winds
.not the north side of the hill, which the city up the affair by saying, “It would be very
stands on, so exceeding steep, as hardly (at diverting to show how they lodged every
least to the westward of their flesh-market) night; how two Highlanders who had been
to be clambered up on foot, much less to be in the army went before every evening and
made passable for carriages. But, I say, were pitched their little camp; how they furnished
it not so steep, and were the Lough filled up, themselves with provisions, carried some with
as it might easily be, the city might have them, and dressed and prepared what they
been extended upon the plain below, and fine killed with their guns; and how very easily
beautiful streets would, no doubt, have been they travelled over all the mountains and
built there; nay, I question much whether, in wastes without troubling themselves with
time, the high streets would not have been houses or lodgings; but, as I say, the par
forsaken, and the city, as we might say, run ticulars are too long for this place.”
all out of its gates to the£ By the way, this book has an interest for
Burt tells a story of a surveyor who had the bibliographer, the bibliomaniac, the book
gone to the Highlands, taking his credentials hunter, or whatever the collector of literary
with him as a Government officer, but who specialties may call himself. In fact, in the
found them so little available for his protec eyes of this class it should be invested with a
tion that arrangements for putting him to certain romantic interest, for, like the hero
death looked quite serious. In his terror he of a deep-plotted romance, its position has
remembered that a Writer to the Signet in been claimed in the eye of the world by an
Edinburgh had given him a letter of intro impostor, against whom it has been vindicated,
duction to a local magnate. The production with no better fate, after all, than to show
of this brought immediate security and hos: that the writer is a spurious De Foe, and that
pitality, with the question, Why the teil he the reality had long been lost sight of in the
had used that tamned Covernment paper in contest between rival shams. In most good
stead of Cousin Lachlan's letter. De Foe libraries, from sixty to eighty years old, will
found that it would have been useless to go be found a book, in four small volumes, called
to the Glengary or the Macrae country with The Tour through the whole Island of Great
out the countenance of the chiefs and other Britain. As a work both popular and useful,
local powers. He seems to have made him it went through many editions. It used to
self so good a fellow among them indeed, that go by the name of De Foe's Tour, and it was
their hospitalities became rather oppressive not rated as an imposture. It had some title
to him; and he sketches out a plan for tra to the name, in as far as it grew out of that
versing the country, calculated to avoid entire book, becoming towards it what a stupidish,
dependence either on the futile resources of plodding, elderly gentleman is to a wild ad
public places of entertainment, or on local venturous youth. It became a sort of tra
hospitality. His plan is a delightful one, vellers' guide and statistical companion. . It
alive with the spirit of the genuine explorer had everything that the sanction of a high
and lover of nature. He proposes that a name could give to recommend it, for its re
small party should organize themselves, and construction was known to be the work of
carry tents and baggage with them. It Samuel Richardson, who went through the
would be madness to attempt this without ordeal of being the most fashionable novelist
* Tour, iii. 118. # Tour, iii. 33. * Tour, iii. 211, 212.
of his day. Still, in later times, the four whose dwellings—and that was the only side
volumes were looked on rather disdainfully, he cared about—was just the same as those
and collectors preferred the fresh and genuine of the English Howards and Wilmots. In
De Foe. Now, it happened that one John the next step of the social scale he found a
Mackay, unknown to fame, printed, in several difference, but not such as he expected or
editions, the latest of which is dated in 1732, desired, though, had he remembered the
“A Journey through England, in Familiar political condition of Scotland, and the for
Letters from a Gentleman here to his Friend eign tendencies of the gentry, he might have
Abroad,” in two volumes, followed by a third, expected it. In that range of country life,
called “A Journey through Scotland, etc., where at home he could only find October
being the Third Volume, which completes ale-drinking, fox-hunting boors, he met with
Great Britain.” A tacit resolution seems to polished gentlemen and accomplished scholars,
have been passed in the bookish world to who had studied at Leyden, Ratisbon, or
make this personate De Foe's book. Look Douay. The unfortunate politics, and the
at the catalogue of any public library, under presence of actual civil war, raised their social
the name of De Foe, and you will find that position, since their thoughts and their con
the genuine book is carefully distinguished versation ran on dynasties and foreign alli
rom Richardson's recasting, and when you ances, instead of parochial bickerings and
get your hand on the ‘genuine’ book, behold disputes about rights of way and swing-gates.
it is Mackay's. Go to any vender of old In another grade he found, just as at home,
books, and ask if he has De Foe's Tour,— pompous pig-headed professors and frousy
“the genuine, mind, not Richardson's,”—the country clergymen of the epicurean or the
dealer understands you perfectly; he has the ascetic cast, like the Trullibers and Parson
genuine article; he produces the three vo Adamses he had left behind. Most unplea
lumes, and, lo, they are the inevitable Mac sant of all, there were men whom he did or
kay's. The world owes to Mr. Wilson, in his might meet, whose literary fame was so con
life of De Foe, the exposition of this curious siderable that it has since eclipsed his own.
history of a bibliographical changeling. The scientific traveller was then becoming
The best way to enjoy De Foe's Tour is to common, but Johnson had no science, and
read it after Johnson's. The true-born Eng when he touched on it he wrote nonsense.
lishman was free from the lexicographer's He came to the country to condemn it, and
burden of dictionary words, and his obligation he did condemn it. One of his foregone con
to turn every sentence in his rounding lathe. clusions was that it was a barren treeless
Going from one to the other, then, is like tract, and in this he managed somehow to
going from social conventionalism to freedom; make out his point. It is curious to observe
it feels as if one were escaping from a highly how skilfully he evaded the finest scenery of
served establishment, with its pomps and cere Scotland. Going northwards, he hugged the
monies, its plush and shoulder-knots, and sea, as sailors sometimes say of the shore,
systematic organization for the day's tedious and thus kept on the bleak coast, swept by
ness, and taking to the hill as a wanderer, east winds, which a Kentucky man is said to
with the free world before one. have commended as “an almighty clever clear
Johnson's coming among us was a great ing.” When at Aberdeen, if he had chosen
event. It was considered, on the principle of to turn the hill, and get into the nearest
every dog having his day, that Scotland had at shelter, he would have found scattered clumps
last got a turn on the wheel of fortune, and the of trees, which, thickening as he went up the
book that was to come of the strange excur Dee, would scarce have deserted him till he
sion was waited on with intense anxiety. found himself in the great forest of Glen Tan
The author of it could scarcely use his pen ner, which, down to recent times, not only
without setting down something remarkable sufficed for the shipping in the north-east
and worth reading, and yet his qualifications coast, but gave the port of Aberdeen an ex
were as uncongenial to his work as they could port trade in ship-timber. Glen Tanner would
well be. He knew a deal of what is told in have given him shelter till it handed him
books, but his knowledge of mankind was over to the still wider forest districts of Brae
limited to “The Town;” and of the world be mar and Ballochbuie. The trees would dis
yond it, he was as ignorant as his own appear as he approached the snows and pre
“Rasselas” of everything outside the happy cipices of the source of the Dee, but on the
valley. He was, in fact, just a noble speci other side he would find one or two gnarled
men of the Cockney. He seems to have pines struggling bravely up to the edge of
expected when he crossed the Tweed, to see the snow, and these, thickening as he de
something as foreign and strange as if he had scended, would bring him to the dense forests
gone to Cashmere or Morocco for it. He did of Rothlemurchus, Glen More, and Glen
find a few patrician courtiers, the inside of Feshie, where Aaron Hill proposed to esta
blish timber-yards and saw pits for the navy. “I sat down on a bank such as a writer of
Such would have been the character of his romanca might have delighted to feign. I had,
journey had he turned westward. Eastward indeed, no trees to whisper over my head, but a
clear rivulet streamed at my feet. The day was
was a scene of another kind. There spread calm, the air soft, and all was rudeness, silence,
the broad plains of Buchan, so affluent in and solitude. Before me, and on either side,
sand that the drifts would often cover many were high hills, which, by hindering the eye
an acre, and once desolated a whole parish. from ranging, fixed the mind to find entertain
Except the few who make a dash at the ment for itself.”
Bullers, the modern tourist would no more The storm which “the journey” raised in
think of penetrating here—though the aspect the Scottish mind was prodigious, and per
of the country has brightened with much haps had its influence on the reaction in
verdure since Johnson's day—than he would favour of the national scenery. An English
spend a week in the Romney Marsh. The man, named John Topham, was living in
hospitable mansion of Lord Errol seems to Edinburgh when this thunderbolt burst, and
have been the direct attraction that led John
has left his account of the scene:—
son into this desert, but when he beheld the
character of the country so opened to him, “EDINBURGH, January 24, 1775.
he must have felt the joy which brightens in “Dr. Johnson's account of his tour into Scot
the bosom of the malignant when their worst land has just made its appearance here, and has
suspicions about their enemies are confirmed. put the country into a flame. Everybody finds
His next step showed great ingenuity. It some reason to be affronted. A thousand people
who know not a single creature in the Western
was difficult to get through the HighlandsIsles interest themselves in their cause, and are
without encountering trees; but through the
offended at the accounts that are given of them.
Highlands he would go, so he selected his But let this unfortunate writer say what he will,
route through those districts where General
it must be confessed that they return it with in
terest. Newspapers, magazines,
Wade, for strategic reasons, had burned the '
teem with abuse of the Doctor. While one day
forests, and thus got through uninterrupted
to the Hebrides, where, as in Buchan, the some very ingenious criticism shows he might
have wrote such a thing better, the next others
watery winds sweep the shore. He was thus equally ingenious prove he had better never have
enabled conscientiously to say, - wrote such a thing at all. In this general up
“Of the hills, many may be called, with Ho roar, amidst this strife of tongues, it is im
mer's Ida, abundant in springs; but few can possible that a dispassionate man should be
deserve the epithet which he bestowed upon heard.”f
Pelion, of waving their leaves. They exhibit The works of some of his assailants are
very little variety, being almost wholly coveredhighly amusing. He laid himself open to
with dark heath, and even that seems to be assault by the rash way in which he tilted at
checked in its growth. What is not heath is
nakedness, a little diversified by now and then everything that did not conform with his own
a stream rushing down the steep. An eye ac. experience and philosophy of high civilisa
customed to flowery pastures and waving har tion and culture. For instance, announcing
vests is astonished and repelled by the wide ex the profound principle that “where there are
tent of hopeless sterility.” mountains there are commonly minerals,” he
Some of the lovers of mountain scenery finds that in the Western Highlands “com
maintain that it has in it a potency of physi mon ores would be here of no great value;
cal exhilaration, which may impart intel for what requires to be separated by fire,
lectual enjoyment, but is not under the con must, if it were found, be carried away in its
trol of the intellect. They say that a sworn mineral state, here being no fuel for the
abstainer may as well drink wine and smoke smelting-house or forge.” In strange anti
opium experimentally, in the certainty that thesis to this stands a passage in De Foe, also
his hatred of stimulants and narcotics will speculating on the possibility of discovering
resist their influence, as a lover of parks and ore in the Highlands:—
lawns can wander among mountains without “But it seems reserved for a future and more
feeling them stir his blood; and really John industrious age to search into; which, if it
son seems to have felt it, despite his preju should happen to appear, especially the iron,
they would no more have occasion to say that
dices and his resolution to adhere to them, nature furnished them with so much timber and
uttered in the preceding and many other woods of such vast extent to ne purpose, seeing
passages. In fact, he had broken down, like it may be all little enough to supply the forges
some surly stoic who determines to resist the for working up the ironstone, and improving
influence of a tragedy or a touching romance; that useful product. And should a time come
and we find him, for one brief moment only when these hidden treasures of the earth should
however, in this condition:
*Journey, 1st edit., pp. 86, 87.
* Journey, 1st Ed., p. 84. # Topham's Letters from Edinburgh, p. 137.
be discovered and improved, this part of Scot now swarm in was abominable to English
land may no longer be called poor; for such a taste is admitted, and it is also admitted that
production would soon change the face of things, not a word can be said in favour of its beauty;
bring wealth and people and commerce to it, utility is its sole merit
fill their harbours full of ships, their towns full
of people, and by consuming the provisions, “Those barren hills which hurt an English eye,
bring the soil to be cultivated, its fish cured, and Afford the streams which vast machines supply,
its cattle consumed at home, and so a visible Whose powers, directed by mechanic skill, .
prosperity would show itself among them.” Must each design on easiest terms fulfil;
Nay, even our heaths, in such derision held,
But there was a practical answer to the For growing commerce leave an open field;
reproach as affecting the Highlands generally, Our barren rocks which English wits detest,
more conclusive than theory could afford. And make the butt of many a clumsy jest,
On account of the vast quantity of wood in By ' transformed they shape the pile sub
lme,
the Western Highlands, mining companies
in England took their ores to be smelted And strength and grandeur to convenience
Olin -
there. One of these smelting places, within Def' ages time's corroding rust,
a few miles of Inverary Castle, where John When mould'ring bricks are mingled with the
son got high hospitality, has left its reminis dust.” *
cences in the name of “Furnace,” yet held These verses, which cannot be called poe
by the village where it stood, and in the try, remind us that hitherto, like Monsieur
quantity of slag still scattered around the site Jourdain, we have been dealing with mere
of its extinguished and demolished furnaces.f prose. It is naturally to poetry and romance
It is remarkable, however, that all the assail that we should look for the most distinctive
ants deal with the material charges of poverty symptoms of the existence of a sense of the
and barrenness; none of them has the hardi
sublime and beautiful in scenery. Let us see
hood to maintain that the scenery of “Cale whether these do more than their plain com
donia stern and wild,” has its own special panion for our scenery. It is said by some
merits as well as the parks and pastures of Welsh scholars that the descriptions of scene
England. ry in the old Welsh poems are so applicable
Of the weakness of a cause one may some
times find a clearer revelation in a defence of to the West Highlands, as to show that King
Arthur held his court there; but this is a
it than in an attack on it. Among the na
tional champions, a certain James Alves de point on which we possess neither Welsh
learning nor virtue enough to lift up our tes
livered in rhyme his wrath against the partial timony. If Thomas of Erceldoun wrote the
tales—
Romance of Sir Tristrem, he would have pre
“When Johnson fibs, or jaundiced Junius rails, served his copyright of fame by describing
When Wilkes degrades, or Churchill bolder the Eildons and Huntly Burn. It is difficult
sings to speak to what is not to be found in any
The fall of Scotland and her race of kings.” kind of literature; yet from a considerable
The following lines, with their extremely acquaintance with old Scots poetry, from The
meagre amount of inspiration, are curious in Bruce downwards, we incline to deny that
their very prosaicness, as showing the terms throughout there is in it anything descriptive
on which the impeacher and the vindicator of the romantic scenery of Scotland. James
met. That all the scenery which tourists I. and Dunbar are both exquisite describers
of nature; but it is of garden or agricultural
* Tour, iii. 201. nature. Alexander Hume's delicious poem
+ Some of his critics were too angry, and in too of The Day Estival, or Summer Day, con
unuch haste to give vent to their wrath, to limit tains a series of pictures of rural life as lovely
their comments to matters in which he could be
as Cuyp's, but all are life in the plain, or by
thus distinctly contradicted. A good specimen of the side of the smooth flowing river. The
angry incoherence is furnished by Remarks on Dr.
Samuel Johnson's Journey to the Hebrides, by the sole allusion to anything else is when he de
Rev. Donald M'Nicol, A.M., minister of Lismore, scribes the heat of midday —
in Argyleshire. This Highland minister, writing “The time sae tranquil is and still,
from the fastnesses of his own mountains, thus gal That nowhere shall ye find,
lantly maintains the ancient renown of his country
for shipbuilding, without having his authorities at Save on a high and barren hill,
hand:—“There was a ship of war built in Scot The ayr of peeping wind.”
land, in the minority of James IV, the equal of Mr. Pierce Gillies, in editing The Essayes
which had never been built in Britain, nor seen
upon the seas in those times. Its dimensions I am of a Prentise in the Divine Art of Poesie, by
not just now able to ascertain; but they have been James the Sixth of Scotland and First of Eng
accurately described by several of our historians,
whom £ not at present an opportunity of
land, says: “Amid the romantic scenery of
consulting” (p. 158). * Alves's Banks of Esk.
his birth and education, he probably never “Now farewell Rannoch, with thy loch and isle,
looked on any object with the true eye of a To me thou wast right traist both even and
morn;
poet. . . . He had no eye for wild and un
sophisticated nature. There is no evidence Thou wast the place that would me nocht be
guile,
that he ever looked with rapture on the cas When I have been skoft at the King'ssk horn.
tled cliffs and ačrial towers of his native city; *k * *k
or that he ever watched with a heart full of Now good Glendochart, for ever more adieu,
emotion the beams of the morning sun as That oft has been my buckler and my
cending out of the sea; and the rocky cliffs beild (protection);
of Arthur Seat, that overhang Holyrood Pa Both day and night to me thou wast right
true,
lace, half seen, half lost, amidst the lingering
vapour of night.” How should he have been And lately until when I grew in eild (age),
And durst no more be seen upon the field,
expected to have an eye for such things? The Than dare the owlet when the day is light,
sense of them had not been discovered or in
Yet thou me keeped with thy main" and
vented—whichever be the proper term. It might.
was no more likely to be referred to in poetry
than any undiscovered portion of science, Farewell Glenlochy, with thy forest free;
such as the steam-engine or electricity. Farewell Fernay, that oft my friend has
been;
Perhaps Shakspeare, in the two words of Farewell Morinch. Alas, full woo is me!
his scene direction, “Blasted Heath,” has Thou wast the ground of all my woe and
done more than any one in his day to stamp teyne (grief).
a feature of Scottish scenery. Mr. Charles Farewell Breadalbane, and Loch Tay so
Knight laboured hard to prove him one of a sheen:
set of players who had gone as far northward Farewell Glenurchy and Glenlyon baith,
as Aberdeen. He thought the description of My death to you will be but little skaith.
Macbeth's Castle had the clearness and pre
Farewell Glenalmond, garden of Pleasance,
cision of one who had seen the building. Then For many fair flowers have I from you
he is accurate in his topography while speak ta'en;
ing of two remarkable features of our scenery Farewell Strathbran—and have remembrance
—Dunsinane and Birnam. The strongest That thou shalt never more see Duncan
point, however, was, that his witch was the again.sk sk sk sk
Scottish witch—a creature of the wilds and
wastes and storms—not the English witch, Farewell Stratherne, most comely for to know,
who existed in barn-door plebeianism, tor Plenished with pleasant policy preclair,
Of towers and towns standing fair in £w.
menting poor clowns and their cattle in the * sk
most vulgar and unpoetic of forms. Shak Farewell Menteith, where oft I did repair,
speare, however, found the nature of the Scot And came unsought aye, as does the snow,
tish witch in the books. His instinct told To part from thee my heart is wonder sair.”
him there was poetry in it, and he seized it. The existence of this morsel in MS. in Tay
Perhaps if he had actually been in Scotland mouth Castle excited a good deal of curiosity
we should have had something from him as in the inquiring world, at last gratified
good as the description of Dover Cliff. by Professor Innes, who printed it for the
To the general dearth of expressions in old Bannatyne Club in the Black Book of Tay
poetry purporting an enjoyment of the savage mouth. If not, properly speaking, published, it
features of the scenery of Scotland, there is was thus put at the command of all who might
an odd exception; an exception carrying us a desire to see it and comment on it. The best
great deal further than the old proverbial no commentary, however, that we yet have on
tion that the exception renders the rule all it, is to be found in Professor Innes's own
the more distinct by drawing attention to its Sketches of Early Scotch History, to which
precise terms. In the old poem we refer to we refer for a fuller account of the whole af.
there are quaint melodious reminiscences of fair than any we can here give room for.”
scenes which are thronged by the tourists of It was generally supposed that Laideus, as
the present day, and which yet, for centuries the hero is called, was a merely typical per
after the date of the poem, were deemed howl son, but he comes forth as a man of this world
ing wildernesses, into which the lover of in very emphatic form and large proportions.
pleasure journeys no more thought of enter He is identified with Duncan M“Gregor of La
ing, than he now does of going to the Black dassach, the head of a band of reivers of that
country or the Fens. Here are some lines proscribed name. He flourished for a period
from that poem, in which the ordinary tou unusually long for one in his position-from
rist will recognise several of the places he has the year 1513 to the year 1552—and hence
been compelled to go to in the course of his
duty: * See Sketches of Early Scotch History, p. 355 et seq.
perhaps the fame that tempted our anonymous as if he were fondly recalling some peaceful
poet to impersonate him as a type of his class.scene of his early youth; “it seems but yes
The poem professes to embody his prison terday that he whopped the coal-heaver down
thoughts while waiting execution in the feu Fox-under-the-Hill, by the wharf there. I
dal dungeon of the Earl of Breadalbane. That think I can see him now a-coming up the
potent chief had the old power of pit and Strand between the two street keepers, a little
£ He would have thought twice be sobered by the bruising, with a patch o' wine
ore he exercised the power of death on any gar and brown paper over his right eyelid,
responsible subject of the king; but with a and that 'ere lovely bull-dog as pinned the
M‘Gregor it was a different affair. Putting little boy arterwards a-following at his heels.
one of their tribe to death was at all times What a rum thing time is, ain't it, Neddy?”
meritorious, and in fact it would have been The old satirist finds his fun in the grotesque
considered a sort of indecorum to trouble the ness of linking ideas of sentiment and poetry
king's courts about the matter. While Dun with Highland scenery; the modern novelist
can was at large, to be sure, the king's court finds his in linking such ideas with low Lon
fulminated indictments and other documents don life.
against him, which did him no harm, while The Lowlander viewed the Highland reiver
they furnish us, through their hard formality of that day with loathing, and a contempt
of statements, with some glimpses of his fero only modified by terror. Even the panic of
cious and sanguinary life. One of them says rage, fear, and antipathy, aroused in the Lon
how, under “silence of night,” he came to the don mind two years ago against the ticket-of
house of one of the retainers of Breadalbane, leave men whom imagination set garotting
“and by force took him furth of his said h s, in every street, was something far inferior.
and by way of murder strake him with whin To put poetical sentiment and feeling into
gairs (or hangers), and cruelly slew him, and the mouth of one of the accursed race was
spulyet and took from him his purse, and in high irony. It was heightened by making
it the sum of forty pounds; and incontinent the events of his savage criminal life the ob
thereafter passed to the lands of Killin, to the ject of his tender reminiscences. It was still
house of ane pure man called John M'Bean, further heightened by the physical character
£ and there assegit the said house and of the places on which his affections alighted.
rake the doors thereof, and by force took Instead of lawns and pleached alleys, fair
the said John forth of the samin, and strake gardens and fountains, it was that howling
his head from his body and cruelly slew him.” wilderness, that abode of horrors——the High
Professor Innes says, “There is poetry in the lands of Perth and Inverness—the district
wild wail of the chained robber, and more which all the fashionable world now delight
over a sense of natural beauty and a tender in. To speak of Glendochart, £
ness of feeling which we do not look for in Glenurchy, Breadalbane, Loch Tay, and
writers of that age, and which no earlier Stratherne, was sufficient to call up sensations
Scotch poet had expressed so well, if we ex of the most lively horror and disgust.
cept the admirable Gawin Douglas.” The reiver's sentimental reminiscences point
This sense of natural beauty and tender to two distinct elements of Highland scenery,
ness are the specialties that are significant each adored in the present day for its special
to the present purpose. The poem is a satire beauties. The one was where he got his
of that kind which clothes in the attributes prey, the other where he hid it and himself.
of the loved and the beautiful whatever is Along all the streams there are straths or
most loathed and detested. It is in the same haughs of rich alluvial land. Until sheep
vein of the burlesque that in the Pickwick farming began, these were the only productive
Papers the dirty ruffians clustering about a tracts close to the Highlands, and their acre
debtors' prison of the old type, are found sen age was valuable as well for its fruitfulness as
timentally moralizing over past scenes of Lon its narrowness. But there was one terrible
don street brutality, as Byron muses on his element in the price paid by the Lowland
boy-feelings and the dreams he then dreamt peasant who cultivated these straths—the
under the shadow of Lochnagar, or as Wa ceaseless vigilance and contest with “the
verley recalled all that had passed between Children of the Mist”—who occupied the
his first and second visit to Tully-Veolan. So rocky recesses rising close over them. At
when Neddy is called upon to remember the that time the ethnic position towards each
pugnacious butcher, Tom Martin: “Bless my other of the Celtic freebooter and the Low
dear eyes,” said Mr. Roker, shaking his land farmer was about as antagonistic as that
head slowly from side to side, and gazing ab of the Red Indian to the Pilgrim Father in
stractedly over the grated window before him, New England.
Onr extracts may possibly have been read
* Sketches, p. 865. without a suspicion that the author had not
himself some sympathy with the old High “were eaten and slain by them within the
lander bidding an eternal farewell to the said island.” The place was viewed with
scenery which he loved. The fact is that the horror as the dwelling of creatures, filthy,
asterisks in the quotations represent some ferocious, and half-naked, who lived like wild
lines that would have revealed the wolf. For beasts, surrounded by the bones, the refuse,
instance, there is pleasant Stratherne, “most and the rotting carcases of the animals they
comely for to know"—that was a tempting had stolen. But a still more revolting sus
district, rather far off from the places of re picion hung around them—that of cannibal
treat, and also rather strong in a warlike ism. It was often recalled how St. Jerome
Lowland peasantry, but rich in cattle, and said he had seen the Celtic Scots eating hu
worth a great venture. After the sentimen man flesh, and had noticed how they relished
tal lines, there follow these— the more succulent parts of the ' of
“I rugged thy ribs till oft I made them roar, women and young people. The suspicion
Garthy wives, if they will do no more, that the Highlanders were cannibals lingered
Sing my dirge after usum Sarum, in England later than the '45. In that ex
For oft time I gart them alarum.” ceedingly popular book, Captain Johnston's
To those who know the local history of Lives of Highwaymen and Robbers, there is
the times, this rugging of the ribs calls up a a specific and sober account of Sawney Bean
and his gang who had eaten away to such an
scene of horror such as, in later times, has extent as to have told on the census if there
only been realized by the Indian scalpings of had been one. If therefore, the inhabitants
distant settlements in America, or the Sepoy
rebellion in India. of the isle had sedulously tended a comely
It will serve, perhaps, still more distinctly Lowland maiden such as Ellen Douglas, they
to emphasize the antagonism between the incurred might have borne the suspicion sometimes
existing and the older notions about the High by New Zealanders when attentive
lands, to remember that this Duncan M“Gre to the feeding of their missionaries; that is,
gor was just a Roderic Dhu, and that always supposing her to have been as Words
nothing was more natural than that about worth puts it—
his out-premises there might be seen wander “...A creature not too wise and good
ing some captive maniac, like Blanche, For human nature's daily food.”
“Tane in the morn she was a bride, To come back to the ordinary poetic litera
When Roderick forayed Devon side.” ture of Scotland. William Drummond, as
All the world knows about the loveliness of
every tourist knows pretty well, possessed one
of the most charming little specimens of
Ellen's Isle, and the heroic and romantic in Scottish rock and river scenery in existence;
cidents of which a rich poetic fancy, by but if he ever makes any allusion to it in his
selecting the picturesque elements out of re poetry, we have not discovered the passage.
alities, made it the theatre. Thousands are People say that strange piece of wild and
the pilgrims who have worshipped at the plaintive musing, called a Cypresse Grove—
shrine, and found it even lovelier than they like a combination of Jeremy Taylor, Cicero,
expected in its rich feathering of birch and and Sir Thomas Browne—had reference to a
aspen. But to respectable persons of the grove of his own, but it was doubtless purely
sixteenth century, it was a den of Cacus, in mythical. In some complimentary verses
fested by murderers, and a great emporium addressed to him by his contemporary the
of stolen goods. In the indictments it was Earl of Stirling, there is a distinct reference
called Island Warnoch, a picturesque enough to his stream of Esk, and some other allusions
name, which might have been of use to Scott, to scenery, of which the reader may make
if he had fallen on it. Some persons were the best he can. Thus
indicted for the slaughter of John Macgillies, “Swan which so sweetly sings
several thefts of horses and cattle, and “being By Aska's banks, and pitifully plains,
in company with Duncan Macewan Mac That old Meander never heard such strains,
gregor, called The Tutor, at the burning of Eternal fame thou to thy country brings;
Aberuchel, where seven men were slain, three And now our Caledon
bairns were burnt, twenty kine and oxen were Is by thy songs made a new Helicon.
stolen, reft, and away taken.” And the next Her mountains, woods, and springs,
accusation is for “taking part with the rebels While mountains, woods, springs be, shall
sound thy praise,
and fugitives that took to the isle called
Island Warnoch, and taking into the said isle
And '' fierce Boreas oft make pale her
ays
of eight score kine and oxen, eighteen score And kill these myrtles with enraged treath
sheep and goats, stolen, reft, and away taken Which should thy brows enwreath,
from the inhabitants of the country about,”
“whilk,” as the document elsewhere says, * Pitcairn's Criminal Trials, iii. 232.
Her floods have pearls, seas amber do send “There view I winged Skye and Lewes long,
forth Resort of whales, and Uist where herrings
Her heaven hath golden stars to crown thy Swarm,
worth.” And talk, at once delighted and appalled
If the poet had in his mind the place By the pale moon with utmost Hirta's seers,
Of beckoning ghosts, and shadowy men that
“Where Johnson sat in Drummond's classic bode
shade,” Sure death. Northere doth Jura's double hill
he did not deal with it as our modern poets Escape my sight; nor Mull, though bald and
do. But Lord Stirling—perhaps better known bare;
as Sir William Alexander, the founder of the Nor Islay, where erewhile Macdonalds reigned.
Thee too is more I heist. Moloch's shrine;
Scottish baronetage of Nova Scotia—has left Inchgall, first conquered by the brand of Scots;
other touches which show that he and Drum And filled with awe of ancient saints and kings:
mond had some little enjoyment of Scottish I kiss, O Icolmkill, thy hallowed mould.
scenery of the secondary kind. Thus— Thus, Caledonia, many-hilled, to thee
“Those madrigals we sung amidst our flocks, End and beginning of my ardent song
With garlands guarded from Apollo's beams, I turn the Druid's lyre, to thee devote
On Ochiis whiles, whiles near Bodotrian This lay, and love not music but for thee.”
streams, There is here a germ of the pure feelin
The echoes did resound them from the rocks, for Scottish scenery which is not to be £
Of foreign shepherds bent to try the states;
Though I, world's guest, a vagabond do stray, in Allan Ramsay's Gentle Shepherd, pastoral
Thou may thy store, which I esteem, survey.” though it be. It has often been remarked
that Allan's shepherds have a kind of Cow
Thus it appears that the two poets had gate twang about them, and the imperfect
companionable wanderings among the Ochils ness of his descriptive power is to this day a
—a seat of very noble scenery, including the distraction and torment to hapless tourists,
cleft rock on which Castle Campbell stands, in this respect, that there are two rival com
the turbulent rocky break of the Devon called petitors—quite unlike each other—for the
the Devil's Mill, the Rumbling Bridge, and honour of being the genuine “Habbie's
the Calder Linn. *
How.”
We shall find Scottish poets of a century There is a powerful revelation of the feel
later affording us fewer traces of a love of ing of the day in that beautiful little ode of
scenery even than this. There is a beautiful Smollett's on Leven Water. The tourist
poem which, since the days of Leyden's and now rushes as fast as he can past that com
Scott's early investigations, has been at large monplace stream—no better than an ordi
in search of an author. It is called “Albania,” nary English river—ardent to seek the inner
and may be, for aught we know, quite fami wilds of Glenfalloch or Balquhidder. It was
liar to our readers, though the original edition probably the immediate contrast with such
of it is a rarity, and even Leyden's Scottish '" that inspired the poet to sing
Descriptive Poems in which it is reprinted, is OW
not in every one's hands. It was first printed
in 1737, the editor telling the world that it “No torrents stain thy limpid source,
“was wrote by a Scottish clergyman some No rocks impede thy dimpling course,
years ago, who is since dead.” Aaron Hill— That sweetly rambles o'er its bed
who, as we have seen, travelled in Scotland With white round polished pebbles spread.
—was much struck by this piece, and en While lightly poised, the scaly brood
In myriads cleave thy crystal flood:
deavoured to express his appreciation of it in The springing trout, in speckled pride;
poetry:— The salmon, monarch of the tide;
“Known though unnamed since, shunning vul The ruthless pike, intent on war,
gar praise, The silver eel, and mottled par.
Thy muse, would shine, and yet conceal her Devolving from thy parent lake,
rays.” A charming maze thy waters make
All that internal evidence tells is, that he By bowers of birch, and groves of pine,
And hedges flower'd with eglantine.”
lived in Aberdeen, whether a native of that
district or not. This poem rather deals with It would almost seem as if these melliflu
the material elements of the country's ous lines were made so attractive to draw off
strength, than with anything aesthetic. In attention from the earlier stages of these wa
the noble simplicity and beauty with which ters, tossing down the sides of the mountains
it describes vulgar material objects it might in their disreputable ruffianism; yet at this
be compared to Raphael's arabesques. But day it is in this early stage, and not in their
touches of a sense of the beautiful in nature reputable condition as “a charming maze,”
break through it, and the concluding lines that the waters which, in the Falloch and
testify that the author enjoyed wild scenery: other roaring torrents, toss themselves into
Loch Lomond, and pass through to the Firth the pen—but he goes down the glen for it,
of Clyde, delight the pleasure-seeker. describing a scene purely lowland.
James Thomson was an exquisite describer
of nature, but he chose English nature for his “The water keely on a level slid
Wi little din, but couthy what it made.
theme, discarding the claims of the wild Bor On ilka side the trees grew thick and strang,
der land in which he passed his youth, as And wi' the birds they a' were in a sang;
well as those of the North Highlands in On every side, a full bowshot and mair,
which he was a sojourner. Yet it is possible The green was even, gowany, and fair;
to detect here and there the tone of one With easy sklent on every hand the braes,
whose eye had been educated in scenery To right well up, wi' scattered busses raise.
wilder than he describes. For instance, that Wi’ goats and sheep abone, and ky below,
The bonny braes a in a swarm did go.”
fine descriptive touch—
“Where o'er the rock the scarcely waving pine, On the supposition that the love of moun
Fills the brown shade with a religious awe.” tain scenery is an acquired taste, and that
the first and most natural objects of human
His account of the shepherd lost in the admiration are things made by human hands,
snow is thoroughly moorland, and in the one would expect the waterfall to be the first
Castle of Indolence, there is a picture one prominent object taken up as the taste for
would carry home to the Highland forests— nature advances, and so in practice we find
which were more abundant in his day than it to be. Among what may be called the
they are now — rugged elements of nature, the cataract was
“Full in the passage of the vale above, the first to be tolerated. It presented an
A sable silent solemn forest stood, immediate analogy to the fountain—a very
Where nought but shadowy forms was seen to ancient ornament. When water power came
move,
into use, it was impossible to resist admiration
As idless fancied in her dreaming mood;
And, up the hills on either side, a wood of a phenomenon which was so grand an ex
Of blackening pines aye waving to and fro, aggeration of the mill-race, from the edge of
Sent forth a sleepy horror through the blood, which careful mothers drew their children
And where this valley winded out below, with a shudder. It was an admiration like
The murmuring main was heard, and scarcely Hajji Baba's, who, when told that the huge
heard to flow.”
steamship was moved by the vapour of boil
Another poet was much more untrue to ing water, said that it must have the great
his native hills, though he professed to sing grandmother of all kettles on board. The
of them. This was Alexander Ross, the au Romans made waterfalls; articles that laugh
thor of the Fortunate Shepherdess. That to scorn such productions as the cataract at
work is a remarkable testimony to a phe Virginia Water. There was Tivoli, and also
nomenon which might be termed absolute Terni, “a hell of waters where they howl and
blindness to sublimity in scenery. The cot. hiss,” as Byron said. He pronounced it to
tage of its author may still be seen in the be the first waterfall in Europe, Handec be
wild pass fortified by the old tower of Inver ing the second; but we suspect he is wrong,
mark, whence rises up an array of vast moun and that there are finer specimens than either
tains rough and precipitous—the group of in Norway or Bavaria.
which the chief is Byron's Lochinygair. There was something in the geological
The author had not the excuse of seeking conditions of waterfalls to facilitate early
distant classical scenery for neglecting what familiarity with them. The finest of them
were thus continually in his eye, for the inci belong to accessible countries. The feeders
dents of the poem are entirely Highland. up among the far recesses of the mountains
They turn on the event thus curtly set down— have not wealth enough of water to make a
great display, and have only the interest of
“Nae property these honest shepherds pled, wild, little, restless, raving torrents through
All kept alike, and all in common fed; dungeons walled in by closing rocks. Even
But ah! misfortune, whilst they feared no ill, when the burn descends from near the top of
A crowd of Ketterin did their forest fill; a mountain to the glen below, there are few
On ilka side they took it in wi' care,
And in the ca' nor cow nor ewe did spare.” high leaps—sometimes to the hunter after
the picturesque provokingly few. The ad
They carried off the heroine—and hence justment to each other of the masses of
the story. But it is all mythical and fancy primitive rock through which they generally
pastoral, a good deal like Barclay's Argenis, pass makes it so. It is when the streams
which the author, who was a scholar, seems have united and swollen into rivers, and then
to have had in his eye. In one place, he find the terraces on the lower ranges of the
gives a very pretty little description of a mountains, that the most notable waterfalls
scene which shows that he could paint with exist—witness Niagara, where the fall is from
a terrace in a country comparatively flat. looked upon the cataract with a touch of feel
Niagara was known and wondered at long ing higher than the brutal love of the phe
before people cared for other kinds of wild nomena of disorder, some would naturally
scenery—dry scenery we might call it, if we extend their allegiance to the other and
were to frame a tourist nomenclature on the calmer portions of the stream that had caught
principles of the commercial room. We their attention by impetuously dashing itself
know this from a large old engraving of it— over the rock. If they did so, their thoughts
seventeenth century work evidently. So "would come into communion with other and
early as the year 1678, indeed, a certain deeper sensations tending to consecrate riv
Johannes Herbinius wrote a systematic dis. ers in the love and almost the devotion of
sertation on cataracts, full of curious reading the people. There has long been a reverence
and curious plates." for the chief rivers in Scotland. There are
The chief Scottish falls are very accessible. traces of the same feeling in other countries,
Those of the Clyde in the midst of agricul and it has its causes, like every other phe
ture and manufactures; the Grey Mare's Tail nomenon; but this is not the occasion for in
close to a high-road through the pass from vestigating them. That the feeling has in
one district to another; the falls of Devon in Scotland come under the eye of the very
a fruitful vale; and even Foyers, not far from highest authority in such matters, is shown
a frequented high-way and a navigable loch. when we recall Frank Osbaldistone approach
At Corra Linn there is, or used to be, a tes ing the upper reaches of the Forth in that
timony to its popularity, at a time when weary ride with the Bailie and Andrew Fair
mountain scenery was not only neglected but service. “‘That's the Forth, said the Bailie
detested. This is a summer-house built in a with an air of reverence, which I have ob
substantial manner by Sir James Carmichael served the Scotch usually pay to their dis
of Bonniton in 1708. “From its uppermost tinguished rivers. The Clyde, the Tweed,
room,” says the parish clergyman in the old the Forth, the Spey, are usually named by
Statistical Account, “it affords a very strik those who dwell on their banks with a sort
ing prospect of the fall; for all at once, on of respect and pride, and I have known duels
throwing your eyes towards a mirror on the occasioned by any word of disparagement.”
opposite side of the room from the fall, you There is scarcely a river of any note in
see the whole tremendous cataract pouring Scotland that cannot boast some considerable
as it were upon your head.” The founder of poetic tribute. Even so modest a stream as
this summer-house had probably been a tra. the Don has been solemnized once in Latin
velled man, who brought such an idea home hexameters, and twice at least in vernacular
with him as one of the ingenious resources verse. Collectors in this department of Scot
of the polite world abroad, which, fortunately, tish topography are acquainted with a thin
has not been extensively adopted among us. quarto volume called Donaides, professing to
The falls of the Clyde have been celebrated be the produce of the genius and scholarship
in a poem of the middle of last century by of Joannes Ker, Professor of Greek in King's
the elder John Wilson, who deals in power College, Aberdeen. The professor, however,
ful metaphors:- -
influences the tenor of this effort more than
“Where down at once the foaming waters pour, the pastoral poet. There is little in it either
And tottering rocks repel the deafening roar; about the river or the scenery, and it con
view: e
from below, it seems from heaven they centrates on the university to which its author
Seen from above, they seem to sink to hell.” belonged—standing near the mouth of the
river—and a Maecenas of the establishment,
Thus we find people so far awakened to a whose munificence probably influenced the
hankering for the picturesque as to find author's income. The river nymphs, of
something to feed it on in a cataract. The course, bear trophies and tribute to him,
phenomenon is, in fact, calculated to awaken among the items of which are myrtles, lau
the lowest and least aesthetic instincts of curi rels, and other vegetables, which do not
osity. It is a seeming insurrection against naturally grow on the banks of the Don.
the orderly conditions of nature—a row, a There is a very small scrap in the vernacular
kick-up, a great splutter. The persons who called “A Poem in imitation of Donaides, by
rush to see a fire or a street outbreak, feel David Malloch, A. M.” This is the same
something genial in it. It thus drew atten man who afterwards earned celebrity in Eng
tion when the taste for scenery was in an land as David Mallet—the same who was
extremely chaotic condition. Of those who hired by the Duchess of Marlborough to
* Dissertationes de Admirandis Mundi catarac write the history of the great duke, and
tis, supra et subterraneis, earumque Principio, auc managed so successfully in his talk about
tore M. Johanne Herbinio, Biciná-Silesio, Amster what was gone over in this division and that
dam. 1678. chapter, that he got paid for the completion
of the book when he had not written a line acquaintance with historical events coming
of it. His poem is a bad translation of part rather too near to his own door. He be-,
of the bad Latin original. longed to the Gowrie family, who enacted
It is instructive as to old notions of what the celebrated mystery with King James.
was worth seeing and commemorating in Much as has been said about this, a good
Scotland, that the Don was evidently a much deal has still to be set forth, and may be so
greater favourite than its neighbour the Dee, some day.
now reverenced as gathering round its upper Adamson's poem has for some time been in
reaches some of the most beautiful and most much esteem among people curious in the
sublime scenery to be found in Scotland. The literature and antiquities of Perthshire; its
Don was a more substantially affluent stream, merits have not been to the same extent
as sweeping between good corn and pasture known to, and acknowledged by, the rest of
lands. There was an old saying, “Don for mankind. It seems that the author of the
corn and horn; and Dee for fish and tree.” poem was diffident about letting it out to the
No special efforts of the muse were ever be world. As his editor says, “Mr. Adamson
stowed on the Dee, until just the other day was importuned by his friends to publish the
the scholarly Dr. Adamson printed his Aran two poems. He resisted their solicitations,
dines Devae. The river was perhaps for the but the request of his friend Mr. Drummond
first time named in known poetry when, near at last prevailed.” This is William Drum
ly contemporaneously, Hogg sung “the grisly mond of Hawthornden.
rocks that guard the infant rills of Highland Of course, to have excited his admiration,
Dee;” and Byron in his forbidden poem said Adamson's muse is classical. In estimating
“For auld lang syne brings Scotland—one and it critically, one must remember that it be
* -
longs to the very beginning of the classic
Scotch plaids, Scotch snoods, the blue hills, epoch, and was of such kind as, had it ap
the clear streams, peared half a century later, would have been
The Dee, the Don, Balgownie brig's black wall, termed imitative and conventional. But such
All my boy feelings, all my tenderer dreams as it is, it is original, and it is so unlike any
Of what I then dreamt.”
thing written in the present day, that we are
The Tay has a poet-laureate of its own, perhaps better judges of its merit than our
whose work is very peculiar, puzzling its grandfathers, who were cloyed with such stuff.
reader with the question whether it is or is 'o those, indeed, who have got a little tired,
not to be counted a work of genius. It is first of the Scott and Byron, and next of the
called The Muses Threnodie, which means Tennyson and Longfellow school, matter like
the mournful muses.” It is a sort of In Me the following, which is the opening of “The
moriam, the memory of one who had depart eighth muse,” will almost be refreshing —
ed from among three sincere friends being “What blooming banks sweet Earn, or fairest
ever recalled in mournful numbers. The ay,
parts of the poem are ranged, like the history Or Almond doth embrace! these many a day
of Herodotus, by the order of the nine muses, We haunted! where our pleasant pastorals
but the special function of each has as little We sweetly sung, and merrie madrigals.
influence on the character of the division de Sometimes bold Mars, and sometimes Venus
fair,
voted to her, as she has on the unadorned And sometimes Phoebus' love we did declare;
narrative of the father of history. Sometimes on pleasant plaines—sometimes on
One of the triumvirate of friends comme mountains,
morated in the book was a George Ruthven, And sometimes sweetly sung beside the foun
tains.
a physician in Perth. It appears that he was -
more than ninety years old when the book But in these banks, where flows Saint
Conil's well,
was published in 1638. He was a boy, of The which Thessalian Tempe doth excell,
the age at which events leave an indelible Whose name and matchless fame for to declare,
impression, at the epoch of the Reformation, In this most doleful dittay must I spare;
and he was thus able to distribute gossip Yet thus dar say, that in the world again
about momentous acts. His anecdotes thus No place more sweet for muses to remain
make Adamson's verses of some importance For shadowing walks, where silver brooks do
as authority in history. But Ruthven had spring,
And smelling arbours, where birds sweetly
Sing,
* “The Muses Threnodie, or Mirthful Mournings
on the Death of Mr. Gall, containing a variety of In heavenly music warbling like Arion,
£ poetical descriptions, moral instructions, Like Thracian Orpheus, Linus, or Amphion,
istorical narrations, and divine observations, with That Helicon, Parnassus, Pindus fair,
the most remarkable antiquities of Scotland, espe To these most pleasant banks scarce can com
cially of Perth, by Mr. H. Adamson. Printed at pare.
Edinburgh, in King James's College, 1638.” These be the banks where all the muses dwell,
WOL. XLII. N
18 The Rise and Progress of the Scottish Tourist March,
And haunt about that crystall brook and plexed how to deal with those vast porphyry
well.
rocks, but with a poetic ingenuity that does
Into those banks chiefly did we repair, him credit he evades the difficulty by getting
From sunshine shadowed—and from blasting immediately to the top of Goatfell; turning
all"
where with the muses we did sing our song.” his back on the grand mountain masses on
the other side, he keeps his eye steadily on
The word “mbuntains” occurs in this pas Ayrshire, where he receives the favourite
sage, but it is used in a kind of pastoral sense. themes of his muse:
What comes more to the point is, that the “Far look thy mountains, Arran, o'er the main,
pilgrims of the Tay begin a few miles above And far o'er Cunningham's extensive plain;
Perth and sail downwards. The haugh or From Loudon Hill and Irvine's silver source,
alluvial land here begins, and broadens down Through all her links they trace the river's
wards till it forms the broad, flat Carse of course;
Gowrie. These carse lands were then the View many a town in history's page enroll'd,
only portions of Scotland that resembled Decay’d Kilwinning and Ardrossan old;
Kilmarnock low, that 'mid her plains retires,
those broad acres of England that have been And youthful Irvine that to fame aspires.
covered for centuries with oaks and apple In neighbouring Kyle, our earliest annals
trees and wheat. It was entirely on these boast,
fruitful plains that Adamson indulged his Great Colin fell, with all his British host;
melancholy muse. We hear nothing from His antique form, with silver shining bright,
him about the majestic scenery of the upper In pleasant Caprington delights the sight.”
regions of the river, now so ardently frequent If we professed to give anything beyond a
ed by admiring pilgrims. He notices the Al mere sketch of superficial phenomena, and
mond, thinking of the flat meadows through were to aspire at philosophy, we might en
which it passes just before its junction with deavour to explain how the eye's enjoyment
the Tay, but he has nothing to do with the of a river would naturally extend to the im
narrow rocky glen some twenty miles farther mediate landscape around it, and so travel
up, where is the reputed grave of Ossian, now onwards. But we have the fact that, physi
known to every reader by those wild lines of cally, rivers open up scenery. They do so
Wordsworth which so haunt the memory, not merely in fishing and navigable traffic.
“In this still place, remote from men.” Their alluvial banks are, as we have seen, the
The Clyde is a sort of antithesis of the readiest fertile ground, and they at the same
Tay and of most other rivers. It flows towards time afford natural levels for inland transit.
the Highlands. We have already dealt with These two causes will be sufficient to account
the poet who commemorates its cataracts, for the houses of the gentry having been
He duly traces the stream down, describing placed on the river's edge wherever such a
all the specialties of scenery and life around site was available. It will be hard to find an
it, to instance of a laird in possession of a margin
“Where Bute's green bosom spreads to meet of river building out of sight of it. Probably,
the day, in most instances, the mansions were built on
Round Rothesay's towers the morning sun principles of pure utilitarian convenience, long
beams play." \
before the owners discovered that the pros
Around are the Argyleshire mountains and pect commanded by them was beautiful.
the peaks of Arran. The author has man It is a remark, partaking of a truism, that
fully done his poetic duty on streams, cata accessibility promotes the popularity of scene
racts, bridges, lawns, forests, gardens, sheep ry. What nature in this respect owes to
£ fish and fishers, shepherds, shep science is well exemplified in the district we
erdesses, and all the old accepted elements are now speaking of—the Highlands acces
of poetry. He has even gone out of the sible from the Clyde. It is almost impossible
old routine to give poetic dignity to coal to estimate the blessings which this pleasure
mines, manufactories, shipyards, salt-works, ground is to Glasgow. It raises one of the
and various other institutions with which the densest, dirtiest, and most immoral conglome
real has much more to do than the ideal. rates of humanity to a stage above many of
He seems, however, to be entirely at a stand the finest cities of the empire, as a place of
for inspiration when he gets into that grand residence of one who must live in a city.
group of mountain scenery which it is diffi There is a sort of compensating spirit in that
cult for us now to imagine any one looking steam which, having made the mills, created
at without feeling the impulses of poetic also the delightful place of refuge from their
thought throbbing within him. Having be dust and din. No wonder that James Watt
stowed his homage on Bute and the Cum is a sort of deity here. How, even with the
braes in due proportions, he could not evade luxuries of the Saut-Market, Glasgow could
Arran. He seems to have been sore per have been endurable without this refuge, it is
difficult to conceive. But the adaptability of

He was repeated in the periodicals of the
the human animal is amazing, and there areday, for his was an age of many magazines,
those who can find satisfaction anywhere. nearly all of which lived by extracts, without
Nay there is a very genial picture of whatprofessing to give a single original sentence.
are the enjoyments—the moral enjoyments— There was, besides the library quartos, a
of a Gorbals or Stockwell Street, without drawin
clever called Ram
g-room abridgment of his Tour in The
steamers, in a little book British Tourists' or Travellers' Pocket Com
bles round Glasgow. panion. The volumes are very readable; so
The stratum of transition, to use a geolo readable indeed as to be now rare, because
gical phrase, where the love of waters passes they were used up. It was through Pennant
on to their rocky banks, may be hit at Dun that the world first received the eloquent
keld, where the soft in forest and meadow outpou
ring of admiration and surprise with
blends into the wild. In Captain Slezer's which Sir Joseph Banks commemorated his
hard engravings of Scottish towns and man discovery of Fingal's Cave. It was by Pen
sions, scratch ed about the period of the Revo nant, too, if we mistake not, that the poem
lution, there is just one in which an attempt on the ascent of Ben Lomond, scratched on
is made to bring out picturesqueness in moun a window-pane at Rowardennan, was first
tain scenery, and that one is of Dunkeld. published, and became so popular that until
The scene becomes still more picturesque lately no Scotch guide-book could any more
when it is transferred into the Délices de la
dispense with it than it now can with
Grand Bretagne of Beverell, printed in 1727,
where it is said of Dunkeld that it stands “The western waves of ebbing day
“dans une campagne, où l’on voit d'un côté Roll'd o'er the glen their level way.”
d'agréables forêts et de l'autre de hautes Jane Maxwell, Duchess of Gordon,” was
montagnes pelées et fort roides qui semblent
la menacer de leurs cimes.” a very extraordinary woman. Her strong
Towards the end of the last century, High colours are now fading away almost to ex
land scenery obtained a considerable rise in tinction, in fulfilment of the destiny of all
the market through the combined influence chesssocial reputations. Had she not been a Du
she would have been famous still, be
of four great social powers, all working sepa filling a rank insufficient within its
cause,
rately and independently of each other, but own bounds to afford work for so active a
all helpin g in one cause. These were, Pen
nant the traveller, Jane Duchess of Gordon, spirit, she must have done something in lite
Robert Burns, and James Macpherson. Pen rature or otherwi se that posterity would have
remembered. An anecdote about her father,
nant, who is now much forgotten, was an ec Sir William Maxwell of Monrei
centric man of genius. Perhaps he is less re one th, affords
membered for his books than for that enmity of the boldest and sharpest of the retorts
of his towards the prevailing fashion of wigs, preserved in Dean Ramsay's pleasant Remi
shows the blood she inherited.
which make his portraits look, even at the niscences, and
three great points of the Duchess were
present day, as if there were something want. herThe beauty, her wit, and her impudence. She
ing that should accompany the single-breasted was, to use a modern slang expression, “up
coat and huge waistcoat, and must have to anythin In the great world she could
g.”
brought on him when in the flesh an amount of hold her own with Fox and Talleyrand. But
social torment, which nothing but the strong
est sense of an imperious duty could strength her remarkwhatev
able powers enabled her to appro
en any human being to endure. One story priate er was mentally remarkable in
about him is, that in a tavern in Coventry he the small world without losing caste—the
had taken such offence at the wig of a pep terror of all people of high rank when they
unbend. Thus she had about her Lord
pery old colonel, that nothing would serve
him but to snatch it and throw it in the fire; Kames, Harry Erskine, Clerk of Eldin, and
whereupon he had to run for his life, and the among men of genius, Beattie the poet and
community of Coventry-renowned for a Robert Burns. The two last named were
rather remarkable procession in old times born peasants. The one had made himself
were blessed with the vision of the bald tra a learned professor, and of course a gentle
man entitled to hold his head up. The other
veller fleeing before a bald warrior with a was
drawn sword in his hand. what all the world knows; but it served
Pennant had great influence in his day. to allay his morbid irritation towards the
the influence of one so
He described everything he saw, and described world, to come within differe
lofty, as to see little
it with spirit. Pottering among his heavy positio nce between the
of the country gentle or emi
quartos, written in an old-fashioned style, one ment lawyer on the one side of man
n
her, and the
might suppose that all his influence was
through hard pounding, but it was not so. * See North British Review, No. lxxviii.
20 The Rise and Progress of the Scottish Tourist. ' March,
peasant poet on the other. She had a pas scenery, but there is a feeling that the whole
sion for the scenery in her neighbourhood, action goes on in a land of wild heaths, great
and it was worthy of her admiration. She mountains, torrents, tempests, and ancient
lived on the western slope of the Cairngorm forests. People have occupied themselves so
mountains, at almost the nearest inhabitable much about the great question of genuineness
point to the grand scenery walled in by them. that they have overlooked the mighty poetic
All the great folks had to go there whether genius of the author. Whatever he got from
they liked it or not, and the precipices and authentic sources, the scenery is his own, for
scenery of Braeriach and Ben Muich Dhui it is not the way of the old Irish writers to
were thus better known in that day than touch it. Indeed this was one of the meta
they have been since. Her daughters suc rhorphoses necessary in the subtraction of the
ceeded to her taste. There was a story in stories from Ireland and their adaptation to
the country—we forget whether it was about Scotland, since the portion of Ireland ruled
the mother or one of the daughters—how by Fingal or the Fin M'Coull of the annalists
being one day on the top of Ben Muich Dhui has little or no mountain scenery. He does
with a child and a large dog, she was caress not deal in detailed pictures of scenery, but
ing the child, when the dog either in jealousy the feeling of it is in almost every line, and
or fancying she was injuring the child, flew sometimes a little sketch weaves itself into
at her and bit her so as to pull part of the the narrative, as in the description of an an
flesh of the forehead over her eyes, and so cient tomb: “A mountain stream comes roar
through that terrible wilderness she had to ing down, and sends its waters round a green
find her way home bleeding and blinded. hill. Four mossy stones in the midst of
It seems to have been through this in withered grass rear their heads on the top.
fluence that Burns was prompted to sing of Two trees which the storms have bent spread
the Highlands, and of course whatever he their whistling branches around. This is thy
said was well listened to. He did honour to dwelling, Eragon; this thy narrow house.”
Foyers, and the power of his pen is attested Or take a passage from the many addresses
by the leafy covering that shelters the Bruar to the sun: “Thou too, perhaps, must fail:
Water—the fruit of his poetic Petition. Still thy darkening hour may seize thee, strug
these are not Burns's great works, nor is his gling as thou rollest through the sky. But
strong spirit in them. Though he proclaimed pleasant is the voice of the bard—pleasant to
that his heart was in the Highlands, he never Ossian's soul. It is like the shower of the
celebrated them with so much heart as in morning when it comes through the rustling
that yell of rage and disappointment in which vale on which the sun looks through mist just
he says— rising from his rocks. . . Pleasant is thy
“There's naething here but Hieland pride,
beam to the hunter sitting by the rock in a
But Hieland scab and hunger.” storm, when thou showest thyself from the
parted cloud, and brightenest his dewy locks;
Burns seems to have loved lowland scenery he looks down on the streamy vale, and be
best. This, of course, is matter of opinion, holds the descent of roes.” Again: “Pleasant
but we shall put it to something like a test. from the way of the desert the voice of music
Every one knows the land of Burns as a pro came. It seemed at first the voice of a stream
fessional tourist's district. That land is low far distant on its rocks. Slow it rolled along
land, though it is close to a fine Highland the hill, like the ruffled wings of a breeze
district which would have been included in when it takes the tufted beards of the rocks
it, had Burns been partial to wandering there. in the still season of night.” The poems of
He sang of the “banks and braes of bonny Ossian were one of the literary feats that
Doon,” blooming so fresh and fair; this is from time to time have taken the world b
the lowland part of the Doon where it winds storm. They filled the hearts of their readers
through the pastures of Ayrshire. But far with their own sentiment; and thus the roar
up, the Doon roars between great walls of ing of the mountain-torrents, the sighing of
rock, and brings you to a lake surrounded by the winds among the rocks, the grey moors,
grand mountains of granite. This region and the stormy hill-tops were rescued from
where Kirkcudbrightshire and Ayrshire meet vulgarity; they were associated with the sub
would have been in itself probably an illus limity, instead of the coldness, bleakness, and
trious touring district, but for the ease with sterility that chilled the soul of Captain Burt.
which the western Highlands are reached. Still there were several steps ere the pas
Throughout Macpherson's Poems of Ossian, sion for scenery in its present shape reached
however, which, though written earlier, its climax in the Lady of the Lake.
reached the climax of their celebrity about the It is a pleasant task to endeavour to throw
same time, there is quite a Highland spirit. a little sunshine on a reputation which has
It is not that there are set descriptions of been overshadowed by another. Of all those
who have heard of Scott's Lady of the Lake, the word “elegant,” which reminds you of
only a few have heard of the little book the Irish guides at Killarney, with their
called “Sketches descriptive of Picturesque “illigant” waterfalls and “illigant” echoes.
Scenery on the Southern Confines of Perth But remember that Mr. Graham is a beginner
shire,” published in 1806, by Patrick Graham, of a school. We test him as we do Chaucer in
minister of Aberfoyle. Though it was Scott poetry, or Van Eyck in painting, and in this
who made the Trossachs illustrious, Graham sense he challenges admiration and respect.
was their discoverer. This book is merito He proposed that some plan should be
rious and curious in literature, from its being taken to open up his favourite district by giv
among the earliest not only to notice the ing visitors the means of accommodation.
specialties of Higland scenery, but to notice Recent pilgrims to the Trossachs will perhaps
them in the same aesthetic spirit in which be amused by the modest bound within which
they are now cultivated. Take this— he retained his suggestions. “It has often,”
he says, “occurred to the writer of this
“Ben-Venue, in Aberfoyle, is perhaps one of
the most picturesque mountains in Britain. Its sketch, that it might well reward the trouble
height is about 2800 on the north; besides the and expense of the innkeepers of Callander,
immense masses of rock which appear in this or of the occupier of the farm of Brenchyle,
and in all other mountains to have been, by on which the northern part of this celebrated
some couvulsion of nature, torn from the sum scenery lies, to build a cottage either at the
mit, the whole slope is covered, for two-thirds eastern extremity of the lake, or in a small
upwards, with alders, birches, and mountain neck of land which runs into it about a mile
ashes of ancient growth, and sprinkled over the
surface with a grace and beauty unattainable by to the west. Two comfortable bedrooms,
the hand of art. At the first opening of Loch with a kitchen and an open shade, with some
Katrine especially, and for a considerable way provisions for horses, would be enough.
along the lake, the shoulder of Ben-Venue There from the 1st of May to the 1st of No
stretching in abrupt masses towards the shore, vember should a servant be kept, and a sup
presents a sloping ridge, elegantly feathered with ply of provisions sent from time to time from
birches, in a style which the pencil may in some
the inn at Callander or Aberfoyle.”
degree exhibit, but which verbal description can Worthy Mr. Graham was not aware of the
not possibly represent.”
splendid destiny that awaited the spot on
He offers his advice to the visitor in a way which he had bestowed his affections. Had
which shows his decided conviction that he Scott, before he wrote the Lady of the Lake,
was revealing to the world what it was a “invested ” in a handsome hotel at the Tros
great loser by not being acquainted with, sachs, it would have been a better speculation
and the crowds who have since flocked thi than many he indulged in. There have been
ther confirm his testimony. Having induced quack doctors who have acted in this manag
his stranger to visit his favourite district, he ing way, setting up establishments on the
says— chance of a system of cure to be promulgated
“On entering the Trossachs, let him remark by them becoming famous. Nature has a
balance, however, in the distribution of her
on the right the beautiful disposition into which
nature has thrown the birches and the oaks, gifts, and perhaps the genius that could in
which adorn the projecting cliffs; let him re vent and perfect such a scheme is not the
mark the grouping of the trees, with their ele same as that which can create a great poem.
gant figure and form. Some aged weeping No productions of the present day, not even
birches will attract. Ben-An and Ben-Wenue
Macaulay's History, created such a wild sensa
will present at every step varied pictures. In
'' through the dark ravine that opens on tion as the great works which were the suc
ch Katrine, whilst he admires again the dis cessive steps in fame to Scott and Byron.
position of the birches, the hawthorn, the hazels, There are those alive who remember the as
and oaks, and mountain ashes, let him remark tonishment of the country folks at the impe
an echo produced by the concave rock on the tuous influx of all peoples, nations, and
left, which, though too near to repeat many syl languages to their wild solitudes. The poem
lables, is remarkably distinct and loud. Imme was a great wonder in its fresh novelty of
diately on entering Loch Katrine, let him attend social life as well as of scenery. We have
to the magnificent masses of Ben-Venue as they
tumble in upon the eye from the south; there seen how the same subject,—the life and
can be nothing more sublime.” social condition of a reiver,—was treated by
an author, his contemporary. That author
Observe we are not maintaining that this would doubtless have thought it just as im
would be either very remarkable thinking or possible to make a hero out of a Roderic Dhu,
very fine writing were it some quarter of a as we would now think it impossible to make
century nearer us. There are some conven a hero out of any prowling thief who casts a
tionalisms of a past style in it, not in full har furtive squint at the policeman as he skulks
mony with the genius of the place, such as away.
22 JEpigrams. March,
ART. II.—Epigrams, Ancient and Modern: Blande puer, lumen, quod habes, concede
sorori:
Humorous, Witty, Satirical, Moral, Pa
negyrical, Monumental. Edited, with an Sic tu caecus Amor, sic erit illa Venus.”
Introductory Preface, by the Rev. JoHN It is somewhat curious to trace this blun
Booth, B.A., Cambridge. London: Long der of Mr. Booth's to its source, as we think
man. 1863.
we can do. The German poet Kleist had
condensed this Latin epigram into a couplet,
A Book of English epigrams, original and and to make it intelligible, had prefixed to it
translated, was a desideratum in our litera what the critics call a lemma, being a clumsy
ture; but the want has not been supplied by contrivance by which the title of the epigram
the volume before us, which is a poor pro furnishes a part of the explanation which the
duction. As a collection, it is neither select, epigram itself should give. Kleist's title is
complete, nor correct. It omits many good thus given in German:—“An zwei sehr
epigrams; it has a great preponderance of schöne, aber einăugige Geschwister.” Mr.
bad ones. It gives bad editions of some of Booth, or the authority from whom he bor
the best; and it contains many things that rows, has translated Kleist's production, but
are not epigrams at all. Take a few exam seems to have supposed that Geschwister
ples of its faults: meant sisters, whereas it here means a sister
and brother.
“NOBILITY OF BLOOD.”
We subjoin two translations of the original
“Worth makes the man, and want of it the epigram, one of them by Charles Cotton, but
fellow, •
The rest is all but leather and prunella; neither, we fear, very successful:—
What can ennoble fools, or knaves, or cowards? “Acon his right, Leonilla her left eve
Nothing; not all the blood of all the Howards. Doth want; yet each in form the Gods outvie.
DRYDEN.” Sweet boy, with thine thy sister's light im
prove,
Here we have two disconnected couplets So shall she Venus be, and thou blind Love.”
from Pope's Essays, well enough known to
be hackneyed, forced into union so as to do “Acon his right eye, Leonilla mourns
service as an epigram, the fourth line spoiled Her left; yet each a god-like grace adorns.
in the transcription, and the whole ascribed Let but your eye, sweet boy, your sister's be;
to Dryden. Blind Cupid you'll become, bright Venus she.”
One of Prior's best epigrams is the follow Malone, in his Life of Dryden, has given
ing, said to have been made extempore:— us another version by George Russell, which
“Nobles and heralds, by your leave, is more elegant, but more diffuse:—
Here lies what once was Matthew Prior; “But one bright eye young Acon's face adorns,
The son of Adam and of Eve. For one bnight eye fair Leonilla mourns.
Can Bourbon or Nassau claim higher?" Kind youth, to her thy single orb resign,
To make her perfect, and thyself divine;
This spirited and harmonious verse is thus For then, should Heaven the happy change
transmuted in Mr. Booth's collection:— allow,
“Gentlemen, here, by your leave, She would fair Venus be, blind Cupid thou.”
Lie the bones of Matthew Prior: So much for the execution of Mr. Booth’s
A son of Adam and Eve, task. Let us now offer some remarks on the
Can Bourbon or Nassau go higher?”
subject of the book.
Take another, in a different style of blun Except in the single article of length, or
dering:— rather of shortness, the Epigram presented
“ON Two BEAUTIFUL ONE-EYED SISTERs. to us in the Garland of Meleager is essen
tially different from the Epigram of Martial
“Give up one eye, and make your sister's two, and of the modern school. The Greek model
Venus she then would be, and Cupid you.”
is chiefly marked by simplicity and unity,
With half an eye one may see that a one and its great beauties are elegance and ten
eyed sister, even by becoming wholly blind, derness. The other form of Epigram is, for
could not be a Cupid. But the lines are, in the most part, distinguished by a duality or
truth, an abridged translation of the elegant combination of objects or thoughts, and its
Latin epigram on a one-eyed brother and sis excellence chiefly lies in the qualities of wit
ter, by Hieronymus Amaltheus, which is to and pungency. The one kind sets forth a
be found in Pope's Selecta Poemata Italo single incident or image, of which it details
rum, as well as in other collections : the particulars, in a natural and direct se
“Lumine Acon dextro, capta est Leonilla sinis quence. The other deals with a diversity of
tro: ideas, which it seeks to connect together by
Et potis est formá vincere uterque Deos. some unexpected bond of comparison or con
1865. Epigrams. 23
trast. To minds familiar exclusively with the understood, so as to pass freely from mouth
later style of Epigram, its more ancient name to mouth, and fasten readily in every
sake appears at first sight tame and insipid; memory.} -
but a better acquaintance with the beautiful The respective merits of the pointed and
epigrams of the Anthology reveals by de the pointless epigram will always be differ
grees their true merit, and their high place in ently estimated by different tastes. A man
literature. -
celebrated in his time, Navagerio or Nauge

In what way these two different forms of rius, a Venetian senator of high classical at
composition came to pass under the same tainments, had such a dislike to the style of
name, is not very easily understood; but per Martial, that he kept, with solemn observance,
haps the best explanation of it is that which a day in the year, when he committed to the
has been suggested by Lessing. The original flames three copies of that author, as a sa
epigram was merely an inscription, and pre crifice to the manes and memory of Catullus,
supposed some column, statue, or other visible of whom he was an ardent admirer. Perhaps,
monument on which it was inscribed. The however, this exhibition of feeling on his part
object thus presented was necessarily such as had not reference merely or mainly to the
to excite attention and interest, and the in epigrammatical style of the two poets. It
scription was framed to answer the inquiry to was connected probably with the known pre
which the object gave rise. The more recent ference which Navagerio gave to the pre
epigram is not properly an inscription, and Augustan Latin writers, over those even of
has no visible or external counterpart to the Augustan age. The best poems of Ca
which it corresponds. But it supplies this tullus are far superior in delicacy and tender
want by something within itself. It sets out ness to any of Martial's; and if the address
with some proposition calculated to excite to Sirmio is to be called an epigram, Catullus
curiosity, and to call for an answer or solu is about the first epigrammatist that ever
tion, which, after a short suspense, the close wrote. But according to modern ideas, few
of the epigram proceeds to supply. From even of his minor poems can properly be
the nature of the case, the tendency of such called epigrams; and anything that he has
a composition must be, to seek out relations written in that epigrammatic style seems to
of thought which will produce surprise; and us of no very high order. There is scarcely
hence it will come to deal chiefly with those room, therefore, for a comparison between the
ingenious analogies which are the essence of two poets, and men of catholic taste will be
wit: a paradox stated, and reconciled to com content to admire both writers in their seve
mon sense; a groundless reproach turned ral spheres without seeking to disparage
into a compliment, or a compliment into a either. In the pointed epigram, it seems un
banter; a foolish jest exposed and refuted by deniable that Martial was eminently success
a clever repartee; any difficulty propounded ful, and that his best specimens abound, not
and dexterously evaded,—these, and similar only with wit and ingenuity, but with good
developments of ideas, seem to constitute the sense and good feeling.
true epigram of the more recent school. We do not intend here to enter on the
This view of Lessing's has been the subject consideration of the Greek Anthology. That
of controversy, and it must be owned, that subject was, in our own time, and at our own
many things pass for epigrams that scarcely door, so admirably and exhaustively illustrat
comply with his definition or description. ed by one whose genius as a poet was most
Many a mere bon-mot receives, when versified, conspicuous in his criticisms on poetry, that
a name that it does not deserve. So also may it would be unpardonable in us to re-open
a short story, or anecdote, or epitaph. But the theme without having some ideas to offer
the model epigram of this class must, we more new or more striking than any we can
think, consist of the two parts to which we hope to bring to the task. Neither shall we
have referred, and which may be termed the attempt to travel over the wide extent to
preparation and the point. Its best merits which Epigram has been diffused through all
are exhibited in the startling or perplexing modern literatures, whether clothed in classi
enunciation of the subject, in the unexpected cal or in vernacular language. That field,
and yet complete explication of the mystery though hitherto but little explored, is too
or difficulty raised, in the dexterity with large and comprehensive, and the relations of
which the solution is for a time kept out of its different parts are too complex and recon
sight, and in the perfect propriety and felicity dite to be embraced in any discussion of or
of the language employed throughout. The dinary dimensions. The object of this paper
true epigram—whether serious or comic will be to show the general principles which
whether sentimental or satirical—must always regulate the Modern Epigram, and to bring
be short; for its object is to be quite portable, out the beauties and structure of our English
easily remembered, easily repeated, and easily epigrams, with such reference to compositions
24 Epigrams. March,
of that kind in other languages as may sug Your neighbours round about, will find you
gest the influences under which our native -
rayling.”
epigrammatists have written, and the sources '... -- “OF Two WELSH GENTLEMEN.
from which their manner or materials have
been derived. “Two Squires of Wales arrived at a towne,
We have scarcely any eminent English And To seek their lodging when the sun was down;
(for the In-keeper his gates had locked),
poet that can be styled an epigrammatist. In haste, like men of some account they
Ben Jonson has a book of 133 epigrams, knocked.
but not many of them are quotable, or ever The drowzy Chamberlaine doth aske who's
quoted, except some of a serious cast, which there?
are not truly epigrammatic. Harrington's They told, that Gentlemen of Wales they were.
epigrams have merit; but they also, for the How many (quoth the man) are there of you ?
most part, are harsh and obsolete. By far They £ Heer's John ap Rees, ap Rise, ap
ew ;
our best writer of epigrams is Prior, though And Nicholas ap Giles, ap Stephen, ap Davy:
his epigrams are comparatively few in num Then Gentlemen, adieu, (quoth he) God save
ber, and some of them are of inferior merit. yee.
The great bulk of this commodity among us Your Worships might have had a bed or
is supplied by authors unknown, or better twaine,
known for other things; and by translations But how can that suffice so great a traine?”
or paraphrases of favourite epigrams from Those that follow we give almost at ran
Martial and from modern French writers.
dom, and without reference to chronology:
We subjoin here a few of the best English
“DUM VIVIMUs VIVAMUs.”
epigrams, not for their novelty, but as illus
trating the rules as to this mode of compo “‘Live while you live, the epicure would say,
sition which we before indicated, and showing “And seize the pleasure of the present day.'
the different ways in which curiosity and sus ‘Live while you live, the sacred preacher
pense, surprise and satisfaction, may be pro cries,
duced, as well as the occasional deviations ‘And give to God each moment as it flies.'
that occur from the right standard. Lord, in my view let both united be,
We begin with two or three of Harring I live in pleasure while I live to Thee.”
Doddridge.
ton's Epigrams, the first of which is one of
the best in the language, and is often quoted, “None, without hope, e'er loved the brightest
fair:
but very seldom referred to its author.
But love can hope where reason would de
* OF TREASON. spair.”
“Treason doth never prosper, what's the reason? Lord Lyttleton.
For if it prosper, none doth call it Treason.”
“On parents' knees, a naked new-born child,
“OF SIXE SoRTs oF FASTERs. Weeping thou sat'st, while all around thee
Abstinet Sixesorts offolks I find use fasting days, smiled;
But of these sixe, the sixt I only prayse. So live, that sinking in thy last long sleep,
Aeger, The sick man fasts, because he cannot Calm thou may'st smile, while all around thee
eat. weep.” *
Egens, The poore doth fast, because he hath no Sir W. Jones, from the Persian.
meat.
“I loved thee, beautiful and kind,
Cupidus, The miser fasts, with mind to mend And plighted an eternal vow ;
his store; So altered are thy face and mind,
Gula, The glutton, with intent to eat the 'Twere perjury to love thee now.”
more;
Lord Nugent.
Simia, The Hypocrite, thereby to seeme more
holy. “If all be true that I do think,
Virtus. The Virtuous, to prevent or punish There are five reasons we should drink;
folly. Good wine; a friend; or being dry;
Now he that eateth fast, and drinks as Or lest we should be by and by;
fast Or any other reason why.”
May match these fasters, any but the Dean Aldrich.*
last.”
“THE METAMORPHosis.
* OF ENCLOSING A COMMON.
“A lord that purposed for his more avayle, “The little boy, to show his might and pow'r,
To compasse in a common with a rayle, Turn'd Io to a cow, Narcissus to a flow'r;
Was reckoning with his friend about the cost
And charge of every rayle, and every post; * This is a translation of the following lines:
But he (that wisht his greedy humour crost) “Si bene commemini, causae sunt quinque bibendi:
Sayd, Sir, provide your posts, and without Hospitis adventus; presens sitis; atque futura;
fayling, Et vinibonitas; et quaelibet altera causa.”
1865. Epigrams. 25
Transform'd Apollo to a homely swain, Perhaps it was right to dissemble your love;
And Jove himself into a golden rain. But—why did you kick me down stairs?”
These shapes were tolerable; but by th’ mass Anonymous.
H' as metamorphosed me—into an ass.” “When Tadloe treads the streets, the paviours
Suckling.
cry
“If man might know God £ you, Sir!—and lay their rammers
The ill he must undergo, by.'
And shun it so, Anonymous.
Then it were good to know:
But if he undergo it, , This last epigram seems to have been a great
favourite with our forefathers. It is the last
Tho' he know it,
What boots him know it? quoted in his preliminary essay by the
He must undergo it.” worthy editor of the Festoon, Mr. Richard
Suckling.” Graves, the author of the Spiritual Quixote.
“Rich Gripe does all his thoughts and cunning He gives it as an innocent and allowable allu
bend sion to personal peculiarities, nowise deroga
tory from the maxims in those lines which
To increase that wealth he wants the soul to
spend: he so earnestly cites to us, “Cursed be the
Poor Shifter ! does his whole contrivance set
verse,” etc., and we quite agree with him.
To spend that wealth he wants the sense to One writer there is, of English, or rather
get.
of
Kind Fate and Fortune! blend them if you Latin,Welsh birth, who wrote exclusively in
Caln . and who is well entitled to the name
And of two wretches make one ": man.” of epigrammatist. John Owen, or Audoenus,
alsh, a native of Caernarvonshire, an Oxford scho
“Jack eating rotten cheese did say,
lar, and ultimately a poor country school
“Like Samson I my thousands slay.' master, published four successive sets of epi
“I vow, quoth Roger, "so you do, grams, which were collected into one volume,
And with the selfsame weapon, too.’” about the year 1620, and were received with
Anonymous. great approbation both in this country and
“With nose so long and mouth so wide, on the Continent. He appears to have been
And those twelve grinders side by side, £ and pensioned to some extent by
Dick, with a very little trial, enry Prince of Wales, to whom some of his
Would make an excellent sun-dial.” books were dedicated. He died in 1622.
From the Greek. A regular epigrammatist must, we suspect,
"Ward has no heart, they say; but I deny it: be a singular and rather unhappy sort of
He has a heart, and gets his speeches by it.” man, with some of the idiosyncrasies and
Rogers. sorrows of a comic actor, a paid writer in
Punch, or a professed punster. What is
"To John I owed great obligation; other men's amusement is his business. He
But John unhappily thought fit
To publish it to all the nation: is perpetually in pursuit of materials to make
Sure John and I are more than quit.” epigrams of The various incidents and rela
Prior. tions of life, whether serious or ludicrous, are
+. regarded by him in only one point of view:
“Ovid is the surest guide as affording secret analogies or antitheses
You can name to show the way that may be put into an epigrammatic form.
To any woman, maid, or bride— Owen seems to have been thoroughly imbued
Who resolves to go astray.”
Prior. with this spirit. An epigram was to him
everything. All the arts, all the sciences, all
"Brutus unmoved heard how his Portia fell; ranks, all professions in life, all things in
Should Jack's wife die-he would behave as heaven or on earth, human and divine, were
well.”
epigrammatized by him. He seems, like
Anonymous. Antony, to have been ready and willing to
"When late I attempted your pity to move, lose everything for the Cleopatra of his affec
What made you so deaf to my prayers? tions, and a remarkable instance is given of
*
a sacrifice thus incurred by him. One of his

* This is a translation of the Greek lines: epigrams, alluded to by all his biographers, is
El uty jv waffeiv in these terms:
'A det raffeiv, “An Petrus fuerit Romae, subjudice lis est:
Kai uń ra6eiv, Simonem Romae nemo fuisse negat.”
KaAdviv rô Hafletv.
Ei kai dei raffety “If Peter ever was at Rome,
A det patietv, By many has been mooted:
Tt dei gaffety; That Simon there was quite at home,
Xph Map raffeiv. Has never been disputed.”
26 Epigrams. March,
This playful allusion to the double relation “WOTUM SALOMONIS.

of the name SIMON had a twofold effect on “Cur Regis sapientis erat Sapientia votum?
Owen's fate. It gained him a place in the Optasset Salomon, si sapuisset, opes:
Pope's Index Expurgatorius, and it lost him Non optavit opes Salomon; sapientius optat:
one in the will of a rich Catholic uncle. The Nam sapere optavit: Cur? quia non sa
same general idea we have seen elsewhere puit.”
embodied in these lines— “Solomon, had he been wise, would for Wealth
have preferred his petition;
“The Pope claims back to Apostolic sources; Needless it were to have wished what he
But when I think of Papal crimes and courses, already had got :
It strikes me the resemblance is completer Wisely he asked not for Wealth, but for Wis
To Simon Magus than to Simon Peter.” dom to mend his condition;
Was it because he was wise? No, but be
It has been observed by Lessing that it is cause he was not.”
impossible to read much of Owen at a time “Dat Galenus opes, dat Justinianus honores,
without a strong feeling of weariness, which Dum ne sit Patiens iste, nec ille Cliens.”
he ascribes to the fact that the style of his “Physic brings wealth, and Law promotion,
epigrams is pedantic, and that he deals too To followers able, apt, and pliant;
much in abstract ideas, without the life-like But very seldom, I've a notion,
pictures that a man of the world would have Either to Patient or to Client.”
presented. There may be something in this “Hoc quod adest Hodie, quod nomen habebat
view; but it should be remembered that epi heri ? Cras.
grams are not food, but condiment, and that Cras Hodie quodnam nomen habebit? Heri.
any large dose of them is both repulsive and Cras lentum, quod adest nunquam, nec abest
unwholesome. The continued tension in procul unquam,
which the mind is kept, and the rapid and Quonam appelleturnomine cras? Hodie.”
renewed exertion that is constantly occasioned “‘This day which now you call To-day,
by passing from one unconnected set of ideas What yesterday you called it, say :"
We called it then To-morrow.
to another, produce the same sense of fatigue
that we feel in an exhibition of pictures, even “And what its name to-morrow, pray?'
Why then, the name of Yesterday
when the individual works are of high excel 'Twill be compell'd to borrow.
lence.
Owen's epigrams, which are many hun “To-morrow, too, which ne'er is here
But ever is advancing near,
dreds in number, are of various merit; but A like fate will befall it:
they display a large amount of ingenuity and It will to-morrow change its name,
fertility of thought and fancy, with much And quite another title claim:
rectitude of feeling, great neatness and terse To-day we then must call it.”
ness of expression, and no inconsiderable de
gree of learning and acquaintance with affairs. ‘Theiologis animam subjecit lapsus Adam',
Et corpus Medicis, et bona Juridicis.”
Some of them are not worth translating, and
“From Adam's fall behold what sad disasters!
some are untranslatable, such as those which Both us and ours it sells to various masters:
turn on mere verbal wit, as where Jacob and
Esau are each said to have given omne jus Our soul to Priests, our body to the Doctors,
suum to his brother. Others are excellent exer Our lands and goods to Pleaders and to Proc
tors.”
cises in versification, and several translations
of a great part of them have appeared. It While on the subject of Latin Epigrams
is not within our purpose to dwell long upon written by Englishmen, we may notice one
them here; but we venture to subjoin a few of considerable merit, occasioned by the re
of the more remarkable as a specimen — markable controversial incident said to have
happened in the sixteenth century to the two
“Wis bonus esse? velistantum, fiesque volendo: Reynoldses, William and John: “Of which
Is tibi posse dabit, qui tibi velle dedit.” two brothers, by the way,” so Peter Heylyn
“Would you be good? then will to be; you'll tells us in his Cosmographie (p. 303), “it is
be so from that hour; -
very observable, that William was at first a
For He that gave you first the Will, will give Protestant of the Church of England, and
you then the Power.”
John trained up in Popery beyond the seas.
Or thus:— William, out of an honest zeal to reduce his
brother to this Church, made a journey to
“Would you be good? the will is all you want: him; where, on a conference between them,
By merely willing it, your wish is gained:
For He the needful Power will straightway so fell it out that John, being overcome b
grant his brother's argument, returned into Eng
From whom the rightful Will you first ob land, where he became one of the more strict
tained. or rigid sort of the English Protestants; and
1865. Epigrams. 27
William, being convinced by his brother but his Latin ones contain much beauty, and
John, stayed beyond the seas, where he that which we have selected is among the
proved a very violent and virulent Papist: best and most famous, though, strange to say,
of which strange accident, Dr. Alabaster, it is often misquoted.
who had made trial of both religions, and “AQUAE IN VINUM vERSAE.
amongst many notable whimsies, had some
fine abilities, made the following epigram, “Unde rubor vestris et non sua purpura lym
which, for the excellency thereof and the phis?
rareness of the argument, I shall here sub Quae roso mirantes tam nova mutat aquas?
Numen (convivae) praesens agnoscite numen;
join :”— Nympha pulica Deum vidit, et erubuit.”
“LIs ET VICTORIA MUTUA.
“Why shine these waters with a borrowed
Bella inter geminos plusquam civilia fratres glow 7
Traxerat ambiguus Religionis apex: What rose has tinged the stream as forth it
Ille Reformatae Fidei pro partibus instat, gushed?
Iste reformandam denegat esse fidem.
Ye Guests, a present Deity thus know;
Propositis causae rationibus, alterutrinque The modest Nymph beheld her God, and
Concurrére pares et cecidére pares. blushed.”
Quod fuit in votis, fratrem capit alteruterque,
Quod fuit in fatis, perdit uterque fidem. There is, perhaps, a fault in this epigram,
Captivi Gemini nullos habuère triumphos,” as introducing in the close, by the use of the
Sed victor victi transfuga castra petit. word Nympha, a mythological idea into a
Quod genus hoc pugnae est? ubi victus gaudet sacred scene; and the line would perhaps be
uterque,
Et tamen alteruter se superässe dolet.” in better taste if we adopted the common but
incorrect reading—
“Religious discord, when such feuds were rife, “Lympha pudica Deum vidit, et ernbuit.”
Two Brothers roused to worse than civil
strife. Of which there could be no better transla
On Reformation's side the one was ranged; tion than the schoolboy's impromptu :
The other wished the Ancient Faith unchang
“The modest water, awed by power divine,
In wordy war, th' opponents, nothing loath, Beheld its God, and blushed itself to wine.”
Rush'd on to battle, and were vanquish'd both. That our own countrymen may here not
Each, as he wish'd, the other's doctrine shook, wholly be overlooked, we shall give one La
But each, as fate decreed, his own forsook: tin epigram, if it be not rather an epitaph,
No triumph from such victory could flow,
When both were found deserting to the foe. by a Scottish writer, who belongs, indeed, to
s: combat! where defeat with joy was select the post-Augustan age; but the specimen we
mail'd, had the honour to be translated by the
And where the conquerors grieved they had greatest English poet of his age or party.
prevail'd 1" Dr. Archibald Pitcairn, whose writings if
Another of the same. well illustrated, would reveal a good many
“Upon opposite sides of the Popery question curious particulars as to his own times, was a
(The story's a fact, though it's hard of diges thorough Jacobite and a firm Episcopalian;
tion), though these opinions were, by his enemies
Two Reynoldses argued, the one with the at least, thought to be quite compatible with
other, an absence of any genuine religious belief.
Till each by his reasons converted his brother. We insert his lines upon the death of the
With a contest like this did you e'er before Wiscount of Dundee, with Dryden's ver
meet, Slon :--
Where the vanquish’d were victors, the win
ners were beat!” “IN MoRTEM WICEcoMITIS TAoDUNENSIs.
We shall here add a single but very cele “Ultime Scotorum, potuit quo sospite solo
brated epigram by one who received from a Libertas patriae salva fuisse tuae: "
brother poet the highest possible tribute of Temoriente, novos accepit Scotia cives,
praise— Accepitolue novos, te moriente, Deos.
Illa tibi superesse negat, tu non potes illi:
(“Poet and Saint! to thee alone are given Ergo Caledoniae nomen inane vale;
The two most sacred names of earth and
Tuque vale, gentis priscae fortissime ductor,
heaven:”) Ultime Scotorum, atque ultime Grame,
Crashaw, to whom we allude, is not, we vale.”
think, very happy in his English epigrams; “Oh last and best of Scots! who didst main
tain
* Heylyn's reading is— Thy country's freedom from a foreign reign;
“Captivi gemini sine captivante fuerunt.” New people fill the land now thou art gone,
But we prefer what we have given in the text, New gods the temples, and new kings the
which is taken from another source. -/-, throne.
28 JEpigrams. March,
Scotland and thee did each in other live; ‘Si pelago Tibrim praefers, urbem aspice utram
Nor wouldst
W1We.
thou her, nor could she thee sur que;
Ilam homines dices, hanc posuisse Deos.’”
Farewell, who dying didst support the state, “Neptune saw Venice on the waters stand,
And couldst not fall but with thy country's And all o'er ocean stretch her wide command:
fate.”
‘Now, Jove, he cried, “boast those Tarpeian
Dryden. steeps -
Where thy son Mars his state majestic keeps:

If British epigrammatists who have writ Could Tiber match the sea, look here and
ten in Latin are rather beyond our present OWn
beat, those of other countries who have done That city men could build, but this the Gods
so are still more excluded. It would indeed alone.’”
be an endless task to review the innumerable
The other is a pleasing description of the
writers of epigrams that the Continent has Seine at Paris by Santeuil, engraved on the
produced. We do not profess to have Bridge of Notre Dame:—
equalled the industry or undergone the suf
ferings of a very respectable compiler, who “Super Pontem Nostre-Dame Parisiis Subter
made a collection for the use of Eton School currente Sequaná.
in the latter part of the seventeenth century, “Sequana, quum primum Reginae allabitur urbi,
and who declares that, in the performance of Tardat praecipites ambitiosus aquas.
his task, he had read as many as 20,000 epi Captus amore loci, cursum obliviscitur anceps
Quo fluat, et dulces nectit in urbe moras.
grams, the most of which would have been Hinc varios implens, fluctu subeunte, canales,
rather a disgrace than an ornament to his Fons fieri gaudet, quimodo flumen erat.”
book. He is particularly severe on the inef.
fable silliness of those which occur in the “When to the Queen of Cities Seine draws near,
Ambitious he retards his swift career;
Deliciae of the German poets: “Ingentibus Enamour'd of the place, forgets his way,
voluminibus ingentem absurdissimorum Epi And round it lingers with a fond delay;
grammatum numerum complexas.” This Through countless conduits loves his streams
criticism is perhaps too indiscriminate. to pour,
There are some excellent epigrams in several A fountain now, that was a flood before.”
of the Italian and other Continental Latin The allusion here, in the last couplet, is to
ists who are not Germans; and although the the distribution of the waters of the Seine
German mind is not peculiarly epigrammatic, through pipes and wells for the use of the
we are disposed to believe that there, too, inhabitants of Paris. We find two epigrams
some pearls might be found hid among the on this subject in Vavassor's works, which
rubbish. Of all collections we fear the rule seem to have led the way to the more finished
must be what Martial at first laid down, Sunt composition above given.
mala plura. The writing of epigrams is “SEQUANA, PoTUI FLUV1Us IDoNEUs.
like the casting of a net; we must be satis
fied if an occasional good throw compensates “Sequana, vectandis rate mercibus utile flumen:
Sequana, fons purae, potibus aptus, aquae.”
for many failures.
We ' not, however, dismiss these Con “DUCTUs AQUARUM E SEQUANA.
tinental followers of Martial without giving “Sequana nuper, ubi, regalem ingressus in
a specimen of their compositions; and we urbem,
shall first select for that purpose two of a Magnificas avido lamberet amne domos;
£ character, which are models of their Circuitu gaudens, et captus amore locorum,
Quaerebat longas ducere in urbe moras.
ind; but which are rather pointed descrip
Ergo ' subiit per mille foramina plum
tions of famous scenes than proper epigrams. Ulin :
The first is the celebrated description of We Flumen erat; clausis fons quoque factus
nice by Sannazarius, for which the Venetian aquis.”
Senate remunerated him at the rate of a
handsome sum of gold for every line:— We shall add a third epigram, by Henry
Harder, a Danish writer, who was Secretary
“DE MIRABILI URBE VENETIs. of Legation at the Court of England in
Charles the Second's time, and who, from
“Widerat Hadriacis Venetam Neptunus in that circumstance probably, came to take an
undis
Stare urbem, et toto ponere jura mari;
interest in the subject of this epigram, where,
with considerable elegance and much truth,
“Nunc mihi Tarpejas quantumvis, Jupiter, arces
Objice, et illa tui moenia Martis, ait: he sets forth and accounts for the beauty of
the English language:–
“LINGUA ANGLICANA.
* Epigrammatum Delectus Ex omnibus tum ve
teribus, tum recentioribus poetis accurate decerp “Perfectam Veneris faciem picturus Apelles
tus. In usum Scholae Etonensis. Londini, 1686. Virgineos totă legit in urbe greges.
1865. Epigrams. 20
Quicquid in electis pulchrum vel amabile Some of the best French writers have written
formis
excellent epigrams, and there is no end to
Repperit, in Paphiae transtulit ora Deae. those of anonymous authorship which lie
Excessit nova forma modum: se pluribus una
Debuit, at cunctis pulchrior una fuit. scattered about through the popular litera
Effigies Veneris, quam sic collegit Apelles, ture of the country. The field is too exten
Effigies linguae est illa, Britanne, tuae.” sive for our attempting to traverse it here;
“Apelles, striving to paint Venus' face, but we select a few miscellaneous specimens.
Before him ranged the Virgins of the place. The following epigram on the Sacraments
Whate'er of good or fair in each was seen, is attributed to Marshal Saxe ; but if he is
He thence transferred to make the Paphian the author of it, he must have had some one
Queen; to correct his orthography:—
His work, a paragon we well might call,
Derived from many, but surpassing all. “Malgré Rome et ses adhérents,
Such as that Venus, in whose form were found Ne comptons que six sacrements;
The gathered graces of the Virgins round, Vouloir qu'il en soit davantage
Thy Language, England, shows the magic N'est pas avoir le sens commun,
force
r Car chacun sait que Mariage
Of blended beauties cull'd from every source.' Et Pénitence ne sont qu'un.”
We throw in here one or two shorter ones “Whatever Rome may strive to fix,
The Sacraments are only sIx.
to complete our specimens of Latinity:— This truth will palpably appear,
“Has Matho mendicis fecit justissimus aedes; When o'er the catalogue you run:
Hos et mendicos fecerat ante Matho.” For surely of the Seven 'tis clear, -
Vavassor. Marriage and Penance are but one.”
“Grimes justly built this Alms-house for the The jeu d'esprit that we next insert, brings
oor, out, with some cleverness, the idea that the
Whom he had made so by his frauds before.” sex of the mind is not always the same as
“Dum dubius fluit häc aut illåc, dum timet that of the body:—
anceps -
Ne malé quid faciat, nil bené Quintus agit.” “Quand Dacier et sa femme engendrent de leurs
JPaschasius. corps, -
(Pasquier.) Et quand de ce beau couple il nait enfans,

alors
“Tom, weak and wavering, ever in a fright
Lest he do something wrong, does nothing Madame Dacier est la mére;
right.” Mais quand ils engendrent d'esprit,
Et font des enfans par écrit,
“Quid juvat obscuris involvere scripta latebris? Madame Dacier estle Lére.”
Ne pateant animi sensa, tacere potes."
Sammarthanus. “When Dacier jointly with his learned wife
(Sainte Marthe.) Has children of the flesh that spring to life,
“Why wrap your thoughts in phrases learn'd I'm quite disposed, as much as any other,
and long? To hold that Madame Dacier is the mother.
If you would hide your meaning—hold your But when good Dacier and his wife combined
tongue.” Produce their books, those children of the
IN EFFIGIEM ScALIGERI IN BIBLIOTHECA SER
mind,
I owe I feel an inclination rather
- WATAM.
To hold that Madame Dacier is the father.”
“Inter mille libros (nec sedes dignior ulla)
Quae tulit immensus Scaliger, ora vides: This couplet on a little figure of Cupid is
Mille libros, hospes, nimium ne respice, major well known :
Hic, tibi quem monstro, bibliotheca fuit.”
Grotius. “Quique tu sois, voilà ton maitre,
“Here 'mid these thousand books, a fit retreat, Qui l'est, le fut, ou le doit étre.'
The likeness of great Scaliger you meet. “Whoe'er thou art, thy master see,
The books regard not, piled up shelf on shelf; That is, or was, or is to be.”
A vaster Library was He himself.”
We here give a rather neat epigram by
None of the modern languages is so well La Monnoie on a bad specimen of a transla
adapted for epigrammatic composition as the tion of Horace made by Pellegrin, which
French; and the state of society in France, accompanied the original text:
at least before the Revolution, was peculiarly
fitted for the production and reception of a “Il faudroit, soit dit entre nous,
A deux divinités offrir ces deux Horaces;
species of satire, by which absurdities of all
Le latin à Vénus, le déesse des grâces,
kinds, and in all departments of life and af. Et le français a son époux.”
fairs, could be so readily and effectively held “AN APPROPRIATE DISTRIBUTION.
up to ridicule. The epigram, in fact, came
almost seriously to be considered as a prac “Two Horaces, from yonder shelf,
tical check upon an absolute monarchy. I'll offer now with solemn vows:
30
Epigrams. t
March,
The Original, to Venus' self, grammatic merriment with the French; and
And the Translation—to her Spouse.” great lawyers were readily selected wherever
Every one knows Piron's epitaph on him they would prove appropriate butts. There
self in revenge for his exclusion from the are many epigrams on Cujacius the great
Academy:— civilian, who had an ill-behaved daughter;
“Cigit Piron, quine fut rien, but they are too abusive to quote. We ven
Pas même Académicien.” ture to give the essence of several composed
“Here lies Piron, a man of no position, in French and Latin, on another great law
Who was not even—an Academician.” yer, Tiraquellus, or Tiraqueau, who had the
The '' on Medicine, also by Piron, reputation of producing every year a book,
while his wife, with equal regularity, pro
is perhaps less known, but it seems to us to
be very good:— duced a bantling, till her number was said
to have reached so high a figure as thirty.
“Dans unbon corps Nature et Maladie The jokes are endless against him for the
i Etaient aux mains. Uue aveugle vient-lā; equal number of libri and liberi that thus
C'est Médecine; une aveugle étourdie came into the world; and as he was a tee
Qui croit, par force y mettre le holà.
A droite, à gauche, ainsi donc la voilà totaller, he was all the more readily assailed
Sans savoir ou, qui frappe-à l'aventure by his less temperate brethren. Take these
Sur celle-ci, comme sur celle-lä,
Tant qu'une enfin céda. Ce fut Nature.” lm: -
£" of some of the squibs against
“In some strong frame Experience daily sees “Tiraquellus and his wife,
Two foes contending, Nature and Disease. Vying in a genial strife,
A blind man brings his aid, the fray to end, Every year, as sure as may be,
“The Doctor” named, and meant as Nature's Give the world a book, and baby.
friend.
She, of course, has his assistance,
But right and left, alike on friend and foe, When she gives her babes existence;
All in the dark he deals the random blow.
But has he, from her instructions,
Sometimes poor Nature feels his heavy hand; Any help in his productions?”
Sometimes Disease can scarce his force with
stand. “Tiraqueau, while drinking water,
At last, with all his might, a blow is sped, Has an annual son or daughter;
That knocks one combatant upon the head.. Wine or beer he ne'er partook,
Which of the two thus falls to rise no more? Yet he writes an annual book.
Alas! 'tis Nature: and the conflict's o'er.” Large already is the score,
And we look for many more.
The following, we think, is very pretty, But if he, on water merely,
very French, and we fear very untranslat Can achieve these wonders yearly,
able : What if wine with gen'rous fire
“Quand unami tendre et sincére Should a larger aim inspire?
Prévient et comble vos souhaits, Such increase bis works might gain,
Il faut divulguer ses bienfaits; As the world could scarce contain,
C'est étre ingrat que de setaire. And 'twould be a task bewildering—
Where to put his books and children.”
“En amour c'est un autre affaire;
Il faut savoir dissimuler; Our next is a very good imitation of Mar
Les faveurs veulent du mystère; tial; but well adapted to satirize a faulty
C'est étre ingrat que de parler.” style of tedious and pedantic pleading that
“When some true friend, with thoughtful care, prevailed in France, and which is so admira
Prevents and crowns the wish you feel, bly ridiculed in Racine's Plaideurs —
The kindness you could then declare
'Twould be ungrateful to conceal. “Pour trois moutons qu'on m'avait pris,
“Love is a different affair:
J'avais un procès au bailliage;
Gui, le phénix des beaux esprits,
Mysterious silence is its aim : Plaidait ma cause et faisait rage.
The favours that are granted there, Quand il ent dit un mot du fait
'Twould be ungrateful to proclaim.” Pour exagérer le forfait,
Or, in a different style, thus:— Il cita la fable et l'histoire,
Les Aristotes, les Platons:
“Friendship and Love by different laws ordain Gui, laissez là tout ce grimoire,
How we should treat the kindness we obtain.
Et revenez à nos moutons.”—La Harpe.
Your favours, Priscus, promptly I reveal,
But yours, my Celia, sacredly conceal. “About three sheep, that late I lost,
Honour and gratitude alike forbid I had a lawsuit with my neighbour;
To hide what should be told, or tell what And Glibtongue, of our bar the boast,
should be hid.” Pleaded my case with zeal and labour.
He took two minutes first to state
The law and lawyers are, as might be ex The question that was in debate;
pected, a favourite and fertile subject of epi Then show'd, by learn'd and long quotations,
1865, Epigrams. 31
The Law of Nature and of Nations; And many grieved to see such strife
What Tully said, and what Justinian, Between his living and his teaching.
And what was Puffendorff's opinion. His flock at last rebellious grew:
Glibtongue! let those old authors sleep, “My friends, he said, ‘the simple fact is,
And come back to our missing sheep!” Nor you nor I can both things do;
But I can preach—and you can practise.’”
We forget whether the following is ori
ON JANE DUCHEss of GoRDON DECLINING To Go
ginal in the French, or is imitated:
To A WATERING-PLACE, As BEING vulgaR AND
“Huissiers qu'on fasse silence, DULL.
Dit entenant audience
Un président de Baugé. “Vulgar and dull? you'll therefore stay away!
C'est un bruit à tête fendre; That is, methinks, as if the Sun should say,
Nous avons déjà jugé “A cold, dark morning; I'll not rise to-day.’”
Dix causes sans les entendre.”
To A MR. WELLwood who ExAGGERATED.
“TERMINER sans OYER.
“You double each story you tell;
“‘Call silence!” the Judge to the officer cries; You double each sight that you see:
‘This hubbub and talk, will it never be Your name's W, E, double L,
done? W, double O, D.”
Those people this morning have made such a A CoNTRAST.
noise
We've decided ten causes without hearing “‘Tell me,’ said Laura, “what may be
one.’” The difference 'twixt a Clock and me.”
We shall now wind up our exhibition of ‘Laura, I cried, ‘Love prompts my powers
To do the task you've set them:
specimens with a few English epigrams, A Clock reminds us of the hours;
which, for the most part, we believe to be You cause us to forget them.’”
unprinted, though some of them may be FROM PETRARCH's PRose.
known by oral circulation. We cannot ven
ture to say that all are good; but we hope “You say your teeth are dropping out;
A serious cause of sorrow :
that a fair proportion of them are so, and
Not likely to be cured, I doubt,
that there are few which have not some epi To-day or yet to-morrow.
grammatic interest:— But good may come of this distress,
PROPosED WALENTINE TO A GREEK PROFEssoR of While under it you labour,
GREAT LEARNING BUT Rough MANNERs. If, losing teeth, you guzzle less,—
“Thou great descendant of the critic line, And don't backbite your neighbour.”
True lineal child of Bentley, Brunck, and To AN ASTRONOMER.
Porson,
Forgive my sending you this Valentine– “An Astrologer once, old authorities tell,
It is but coupling Valentine with Orson.” While he gazed at the stars, tumbled into a well:
A GREEK IDEA ExPANDED. For the Sages, whose optics to distances roam,
Very often o'erlook what may happen at home.
“Of Graces four, of Muses ten, So you, by your skill (be it whispered between
Of Venuses now two are seen; us),
Doris shines forth to dazzle men, Can foresee the conjunctions of Mars and of
A Grace, a Muse, and Beauty's Queen, Venus; -
But let me whisper one thing more:— But all your astronomy doesn't discover
The Furies now are likewise four.”
The proceedings, downstairs, of your wife and
RECIPRocITY. her lover.”
JFrom the Greek. DoUBLE VISION UTILISED.
“Damon, who plied the Undertaker's trade, “An incipient toper was checked t'other day
With Doctor Critias an arrangement made. In his downward career in a rather strange
What grave-clothes Damon from the dead way.
could seize, The effect of indulgence, he found to his
He to the Doctor sent for bandages; trouble,
While the good Doctor, here no promise Was, that after two bottles, he came to see
breaker, double;
Sent all his patients to the Undertaker.” When with staggering steps to his home le
betook him,
MEUM AND TUUM REcoSCILED.
He saw always two wives, sitting up to rebuke
“The Law decides questions of Meum and him.
Tuum,
By kindly arranging—to make the thing *This seems an imitation of an epigram by Sir
Suum.” Thomas More, which thus concludes:–
THE DIVISION of LABoUR, “Astra tibi aethereo pandunt sese omnia vati,
Omnes et quae sint fata futura monent.
A parson, of too free a life, Omnibus ast uxor quod se tua publicat, id te
Was yet renown'd for noble preaching, Astra, licet videant omnia, nulla monent."
32 Spain. March,
One wife in her wrath makes a pretty strong circumstances in which individual epigrams
case :
But a couple thus scolding, what courage could of a special kind have been called forth,
whether in connexion with personal, political,
face?”
or social incidents. Such a history would
A LATE REPENTANCE. introduce us to a great store of entertaining
“Pravus, that aged debauchee and even instructive anecdote; but it would
Proclaim'd a vow his sins to quit; require an extent of knowledge and industry
But is he yet from any free, which are now but seldom met with, and
Except what now he can't commit?” which are certainly not possessed, or not dis
“GALLUS CANTAT.” played, by the editor of the volume which
“At Trent's famed Council, when, on Reason's has led to the present notice.
side
A Frenchman's voice assail'd the Pontiff's
pride
Some Romish priest, the Gallic name to mock,
Exclaim'd ‘’Tis but the crowing of a Cock!’
“So call it,"’twas replied; “We're well content, ART. III.—1. Spanien und Seine Fortschrei
If, when the cock crows, Peter would repent.” tende Entwickelung. Von Dr. JULIUs
Whether, at the present time, Peter, ad FREYHERRN voN MINUTOLI. Berlin, 1852.
Galli cantum, will repent of his late Encycli 2. Spain : her Institutions, Politics, and
cal Letter, or of any of his other errors, is a Public Men. By S. T. WALLIs. Lon
question which we shall not endeavour to don: Sampson Low. 1853.
determine. 3. Historia Politica y Parlamentaria.
We now bring to a close these rather de Por DoN JUAN RIco Y AMAT. Madrid,
sultory observations on a subject which, we 1860.
think, is deserving of much more attention 4. Trienta Años de Gobierno Representa
than it has lately received. Scholarship has tivo en España. Por DoN Jose MARIA
not latterly been much in the ascendant ORENSE. Madrid, 1863.
among us. The literary past has been nearly 5. The Attaché in Madrid. New York,
swallowed up in the exciting interest of the 1856.
present; and as far as style is concerned, 6. Das Heutige Spanien. Von FERNANDo
condensation and simplicity have given way GARRIDo. Deutsch, von ARNOLD RUGE.
to a multiplication of words and an unnatu Leipzig, 1863.
ral vehemence of manner. We think it not 7. Olózaga. Por DoN ANGEL FERNANDEz
unreasonable to attempt reviving, in some DE Los Rios. Madrid, 1863.
degree, the interest which a former genera 8. Spain, and the War with Morocco. By
tion felt in a form of composition, where, in O. C. DALHousIE Ross. London: Ridg
its different aspects, wit or elegance combines way. 1860. *
with cleverness and brevity, to produce its 9. La Asamblea Española de 1854 y La

effect whether in touching the feelings or Cuestion Religiosa. Madrid, 1855.
amusing the fancy. 10. Etudes Littéraires sur L'Espagne. Par
We do not seek to raise the Lower Epi ANToINE DE LATOUR. Paris, 1864.
gram to the level of the Higher; but the
Lower has its own beauties and uses. In a THE opening, in August last, of the line
serious view, it admits of some force and dig from Beasain to Olazagutia, through a country
nity, and it may sometimes serve as a vehicle as rugged, although fortunately more beauti
of satire to unmask hypocrisy or punish vice. ful than those strange Basque names, com
But its proper domain is that region of play pleted the railway communication between
ful ridicule which, in a kindly and social Madrid and Paris. Amongst many good re
spirit, points out and tends to rectify the sults which will flow from this, not the least
harmless oddities and follies of human nature, will be the invasion of the Peninsula by
and supplies one of the best relishes and re many travellers, who have hitherto taken, all
laxations of life, a source of joyous and inno too literally, the witty saying that “Africa
cent merriment, which many of our educa begins with the Pyrenees.” Such travellers
tionists of the present day, both of the will belong, for the most part, to one of two
romantic and of the utilitarian schools, seem categories: those who go abroad in search of
very erroneously to leave out of view. novelty, and those who are attracted to the
The subject that we have been considering Peninsula by the love of art. To these two
has many and various bearings to which we classes we do not address ourselves, for they
have scarcely adverted in our remarks In have, in numerous well-known books, every
particular, we might suggest the literary in literary help that they can possibly need.
terest which would attend a review of those May we not hope, however, that in addi
1865. Spain. 33
tion to those who go to Spain as the nearest Then we have Mr. Wallis, who wrote in
preserve of picturesque barbarians, or as one 1853, and who looks at Spain through the
of the great Museums of the world, there spectacles—and very colourless ones they
will be some who will go with other views— are—of an accomplished, highly cultivated
some who will cross the Bidassoa in the American gentleman, a warm friend to free
hope of seeing for themselves whether the institutions, but possessed of a more than
vague rumours of revival which reach our aristocratic hatred of popular clap-trap. His
shores are true or false; whether there is book is only too easy to read; but his means
any hope that the nation, once so famous, is of information were ample, his head is clear,
going to take part in the forward move and his conclusions, after making allowance
ment of Europe; or whether it is indeed true, for a little unsoundness on questions of trade,
as Mr. Buckle tells us, that “she lies at the will commend themselves to most English
further extremity of the Continent, a huge men. -
and torpid mass, the sole representative now Next comes Rico y Amat, a prejudiced
remaining of the feelings and knowledge of Tory writer, but very useful for giving the
the Middle Ages.” sequence of events down to 1854, discussing
Travellers who have this purpose in view, all Parliamentary matters in great detail,
will find that they have embarked upon an and quoting many important documents at
enterprise, which is made unnecessarily diffi full length. In strong contrast to him is the
cult by the erroneous notions about Spain, go-ahead Orense, Marquis of Albaida, who,
which prevail even amongst well-informed dissatisfied with the conduct of his brother
persons in England, as well as by the scanti Progressistas, has cast in his lot with the
ness of the information with regard to her Democrats. The views of the politicians
condition, which is readily accessible. It is who were hurled from power in 1854 may
mainly for the purpose of clearing away from be gathered, by one who has eyes to look for
the path of such investigators some prelimi them, from a very slight but clever little book
nary difficulties that we have drawn up this called the Attaché at Madrid, which, profess
paper—not without hope that some one who ing to be translated from the diary of a young
may be benefited by its hints may repay the German diplomatist, who spent part of 1853
obligation with interest; may give us, in a not and 1854 in the Spanish capital, and pub
too bulky volume, a full and accurate estimate lished in America, really owes its origin to
of the state and prospects of Spain. one who had the best information, and excel
This is perhaps the place to say a word or lent reasons for wishing well to the cause of
two as to some books which such an investi Sartorius. When the reader has laid it down,
gator may take with him, or may buy in Ma he may take up Garrido's work, which we
drid. They are not very numerous, and none have used in its German form. Garrido be
of them is by itself of surpassing importance; longs to the extreme left, as may be guessed
but they are the best that exist, written by when we mention that his book was trans
persons of very different views and charac lated by Arnold Ruge, and that he was in
ters, and one who is anxious to ascertain the troduced to the ex-editor of the Hallischen
truth may, by a sensible use of them, arrive Jahrbücher by Dr. Bernard. It would be as
at pretty correct conclusions. imprudent, unconditionally to accept his
First, we have Minutoli, whose work may view of matters, as to find nothing to object
be taken as a very exact inventory of Spanish to in those of Rico y Amat, or of the author of
affairs in 1851. Minutoli writes from the the Attaché at Madrid, but his pages are full
Standpunkt of a Prussian bureaucrat who of statistics and information of all kinds, de
thinks that Berlin is illuminated by Intelli serving to be read and weighed most care
genz in a quite supernatural manner, and who fully.
believes that the via prima salutis is to have #. articles in the Annuaire des Deux
an efficient and upright Beamtenthum. He Mondes, which extend in unbroken succession
is anxious for the development of all manner from 1850 to 1864, are somewhat Moderado
of wealth, and for the furtherance of the hap in tone, but extremely valuable and interest
piness of the greatest possible number, but ing. The Spanish papers in the Revue itself
he distrusts the power of the people to work are not, perhaps, so happy as those on several
out its own well-being, and is consequently other countries; but some of them, such as
a good friend to the Moderado régime which C. de Mazade's on Larra, and on Donos.
extended from 1843 to 1854. His book is, Cortes, will repay perusal even now. The
it will be observed, somewhat out of date, life of Olozaga, lately published—surely the
but it still is serviceable, though we must hugest political pamphlet which ever appear
warn those who read it that it stands in the ed—should also be consulted.
same relation to the typical blue-book in No one, of course, will omit to read the
which that stands to a sensation novel. Handbook and the Gatherings, both full of
VOL. XLII. N-3
34 Spain. March,
that wisdom of Spain which is treasured up reign, merely reminding the reader that
in her proverbs, and quite indispensable, in Don Carlos represented two totally distinct
spite of their constant offences against good interests,—first, that of bigotry and corrup
taste. Captain Widdrington's works are still tion generally, in all parts of the Peninsula;
valuable, while most of the modern English and, secondly, the infinitely more respectable
books of travel in the Peninsula are absolutely aspirations of the Basques, who, attached to
worthless. liberty, but possessed of little enlightenment,
Spain has slipped of late years so thorough desired to remain a semi-republican island in
ly out of the notice of Englishmen, that it the midst of an absolute Spain, rather than to
would be mere affectation to pretend to ima lose the local franchises which they knew, in
gine that one in a thousand knows even the the general freedom of a constitutional Spain,
A B C of her recent history and politics. We which had not yet come into existence, al
must, therefore, briefly relate the events of the though its advent was near at hand.
present reign, for some knowledge of these is The queen-mother, obliged by the force of
quite necessary to those who would compre circumstances to rely on the support of the
hend her actual position. Liberal party, but anxious to be as little
The Cortes of Cadiz, in 1812, devised a liberal as possible, accepted the resignation
Constitution, which, in spite of many ble of Zea Bermudez, who represented the party
mishes and shortcomings, was on the whole of enlightened despotism, and called to her
most creditable to its framers. It sinned, in councils Martinez de la Rosa, who had suf
deed, against several of the first principles of fered much for his attachment to constitution
Liberalism; but it cordially accepted many al principles during the late reign, but who
others, and, considering the circumstances of from 1833 till his death in 1862, was one of
the country, it unquestionably went too far in the most eminent of the Moderado or Con
a democratic direction. In 1814, Ferdinand servative statesmen of Spain. By his advice
VII. overthrew this Constitution, restored the she promulgated the Estatuto real, a Consti
Inquisition, and ruled for six years despoti tution incomparably less liberal than that of
cally. In 1820, the revolt of Riego, and the Cadiz, but still a Constitution, and one pro
movements which followed it, again inaugu fessing to be founded upon the ancient and
rated a brief period of liberty, which continued long-disused liberties of the land. This docu
until the Spanish patriots were put down by ment, we may observe in passing, may, like
the French, under the Duc d'Angoulême, and that of 1812 and all its successors, be read at
the rè dissoluto was once more able to ride length in Rico y Amat's History. By the
rough-shod over all that was honest and Estatuto were created an upper house of
virtuous from the Bidassoa to the lines of “Proceres,” and a lower house of “Procura
Gibraltar. This terrible time lasted until the dores.” These soon met, and the discussions
day when Ferdinand VII. was trundled off to which took place in them, combined with the
his last home in the Escurial, in the way agitation out of doors, and some diplomatic
which Ford has described with so much grim misadventures, soon obliged Martinez de la
humour. The last act of importance in the Rosa to retire. He was followed by Toreno;
wretched man's life had been the confirma but he, too, was unable to hold his own. A
tion of the right of succession of his daughter far more energetic and enlightened minister
Isabella II., as against his brother Don Carlos. was required, and that minister soon appeared
The pretensions of that personage had been in the great reformer Mendizabal.
already loudly proclaimed, and he hardly He it was who concentrated the forces of
waited for the challenge of the Royalists to the revolutionary agitation, which had al
erect his standard. That challenge soon came, ready broken out in the provinces, and gave
for on the 24th October, 1833, the voice of them a definite direction. This he did chiefly
the herald, according to ancient custom, was by three great measures, which will cause his
heard in Madrid, proclaiming, “Silencio, name ever to be held in honour by all Spanish
silencio, silencio, oyid, oyid, oyid, Castilla, patriots. These three measures were the
Castilla, Castilla, por la Senhora reina Doña closing of the monasteries, the sale of all the
Isabel II. que Dios guarde.” Bilbao was the lands belonging to the regular clergy, and
first place to pronounce for the Pretender, the organization, on a thoroughly popular
and ere long the whole of the North was in basis, of the National Guard. All this he
arms, and the civil war had begun. How that effected in a very short space of time, for his
war raged, and how many souls, heroic and Cabinet, attacked at once by the most impa
other, it sent to Hades, it is unnecessary to tient Liberals, by the retrograde party, and by
say. How it ended we shall presently have French intrigue, had a hard battle to fight,
occasion to relate, but we must confine our and soon gave way to an administration, of
narrative, for the present, to that portion of which the leading spirits were Isturiz, and
Spain which acknowledged the rightful sove the once impetuous, but now tamed Galiano.
1865. Spain. 35
These politicians, however, utterly failed to feated in the elections, he was succeeded by
carry the country with them, and their days the reactionary Ofalia; he again by others of
of power were few and evil. Readers of the little note, till the Convention of Vergara
Bible in Spain will recollect the strongly came to alter the whole position of affairs.
contrasted descriptions of Mr. Borrow's visit The reader will recollect that during all
to Mendizabal at the zenith of his power, and these ministerial changes, revolutions, and
to Isturiz, when that Minister had already be making of Constitutions, the Philistine was
gun to hear the mutterings of the storm still in the land. The advanced posts of Don
which was soon to burst upon his head. That Carlos had been seen from the walls of Ma
storm was the mutiny which broke out drid, Gomez had made a sort of military pro
amongst the troops stationed at the royal gress from one end of the country to the
residence of La Granja, which is situated in other, La Mancha was in the hands of one
the mountainous country to the north of rebel, Valencia was overrun by another, and
Madrid. The leader of this mutiny was a the whole of the mountainous north was a
certain Sergeant Garcia, and the chief objects camp of the factious. Fortunately for the
of the discontented soldiery were to force the cause of Queen Isabella, there were dissen
Queen Regent to dismiss her ministers and sions in the enemy's ranks not less bitter than
to proclaim the Constitution of 1812. In those which distracted the capital. The mili
these objects they were completely success tary party and the clerical party hated each
ful. Christina yielded to the threats of the other with a deadly hatred; and at last their
mutineers, and power passed once more into animosity became so embittered that Maroto,
the hands of the movement party. the most important of the lieutenants of Don
After the assassinations, disorders, and es Carlos, took the law into his own hands, and
capes across the frontier, which are usual in put some of the most conspicuous of his op
Spanish political crises, the new Govern ponents to death. This was the beginning
ment, which was of course composed of men of the end; and after infinite intrigues, the
of Liberal politics, convoked the famous Con little Basque town of Vergara saw the signa
stituent Cortes of 1837. Out of its labours ture of the document which assured the
arose the new Constitution, which was based throne of the young Queen, put a period to
on that of Cadiz, but differed from it in many the war of Navarre, and made the pacification
particulars. , Argüelles, who had been one of of Aragon merely a question of time. Espar
the principal authors of the former, was also tero's attitude had now been for some time
concerned in the latter, and was indeed a of the greatest possible interest to all who
member of the committee which drew up the watched the politics of Spain. He was evi
resolutions on which it was based. Its tone dently inclining more and more towards the
is much less democratic than that of its pre Progressista party, while his relations with
decessor; and the fact that Olozaga and other the Moderado Government became ever
distinguished Liberals supported it, created colder. A letter addressed by his secretary to
much dissatisfaction in the ranks of their fol one of the Madrid papers had openly con
lowers. We are far, however, from thinking, demned the conduct of the Ministry in dis
that in the circumstances of Spain, the changes solving the Cortes, with a view to get rid of
which they introduced were otherwise than the Progressista majority; and the party
necessary. With regard to the one point in which was now about to resort to revolution
which the Constitution of 1837 made more ary measures in Madrid, reckoned on his
concession to Liberal opinions than that of assistance. -
1812, there can be no great question among The struggle in the Cortes of 1840 was
honest and intelligent men. The Cortes of fierce but short. The galleries, as was usual
Cadiz proclaimed the Roman Catholic religion in those stormy times, took an active part in
to be the only true one. The legislators of the political combat; and on one occasion
1837 contented themselves with asserting as the scenes of 1793 seemed about to be re
a fact that the Spanish nation professed the peated. In spite of the gallant resistance of
toman Catholic religion, and bound itself to the Progressista party, the Goverment carried
maintain that form of faith. -
several reactionary laws,—the most important

This great work had not been long com of which was one for the modification of the
pleted, when the Ministry which had been municipal system, which would have had the
called into existence by the mutiny of Granja effect of very much diminishing the influence
succumbed in its turn to another military re of the Liberals throughout the country, and
volt, excited by the partisans of those whom of strengthening unduly the powers of the
it had so summarily displaced, and Espartero, Crown. Just at this crisis, when Madrid
whose military reputation was already great, was in a most uneasy state, and nearly all the
became for a brief period the President of the large towns hardly more tranquil, the young
Council; for a brief period, we say, for, de Queen was advised to take warm sea-baths
36 Spain. March,
Barcelona, and to that place she repaired, self from the very first with Ministers and
accompanied by her mother. Christina had private advisers who had not the confidence
not been long in the Catalan capital when of his party, and who soon became known to
she announced to Espartero that she had giv the public by several injurious epithets. Some
en her assent to the law relating to the muni called them Ayacuchos, from the name of one
cipalities. To this ungracious declaration he of the battles in South America which had
replied by resigning his position as command been most disastrous to the Spanish arms,—
er-in-chief. His resignation was not accept the insinuation being that they were a mere
ed; and he then informed the Regent that clique of military old fogies; while others
he was about to retire from the city, as he spoke of them as Santones, intending thereby
could be of no further use to her. Hardly to ridicule their want of revolutionary energy.
had he done so than Barcelona broke into The Moderado party soon took advantage
full revolt, and the Ministers who had accom. of the weakness of the Government; and in
panied the Queen fled hither and thither. October, 1841, a military revolt broke out at
The movement begun amongst the turbulent Pamplona, at Madrid, and elsewhere, in the
Catalans, rapidly spread all over Spain. Ma interest of Christina. The Regent showed a
drid pronounced on the 1st of September, good deal of decision. A file of soldiers at
whereupon the Regent gave way, and Espar Vittoria sent to his account Montes de Oca,
tero was ordered to form a new Government. who had been Minister of Marine in the for
Her new advisers insisted that she should mer Government. General Leon met a simi
issue a manifesto, in which she should throw lar fate at Madrid; while O'Donnell got safe
upon the late Cabinet the whole responsibi to France, living “to fight another day.”
lity of the recent attempts at reaction, that Espartero, however, had other adversaries
she should solemnly promise that the law re more formidable than even the Moderados.
lating to the municipalities should not be car More than once he was obliged to put down
ried into execution, and that the Cortes with a strong hand the Democratic agitations
should instantly be dissolved. These terms of Barcelona; and each successive act of
she refused, resigned the regency, and took vigour directed against those who, after all,
refuge in France, addressing from Marseilles formed the extreme left of his own party, cost
to the Spanish people a proclamation, in him a large portion of his popularity. Then
which the sentiments of her heart were ex the French Government did all it could
pressed, or disguised, in the ornate language by underhand methods to assist Christina,
of Donoso Cortes. The abdication of Chris and to discredit Espartero, and at last a hos
tina left the first place in the State without tile vote in the Lower House destroyed his
an occupant, and it was necessary to fill it as Ministry. By this time the Progressista
speedily as possible. The question which party was so disorganized that his second Ca
now became urgent was, How should this be binet was not more generally satisfactory than
done? Two opinions divided the suffrages his first. His third, at the head of which
of the victors in the recent struggle. The was Lopez, who had distinguished himself
advanced Progressistas were in favour of a very much as a popular orator, came too late,
regency of three. The immediate entourage and was too short-lived. Its fall, which was
of Espartero desired the elevation of their the result of Espartero's firm support of his
chief to undivided authority. It was this last friend Linaje against it, was another blow to
view which prevailed; for the Moderados, his influence; nor did the friendship of Eng
seeing that the question was an apple of dis land at all tend to his greater popularity
cord to their enemies, threw all their influ amongst a proud and ignorant people. Of
ence into the scale of Espartero, feeling the many accusations brought against him,
sure that they should succeed in embroiling not the least potent in exciting hatred was his
him, with the majority of those whose alli alleged subservience to our commercial po
ance had placed the successful soldier in a licy. And now the end came fast. A coa
position to play the great game of politics. lition, which comprised large numbers both
So it came about that on the 8th of May, of the Progressista and the Moderado party,
1841, Espartero was chosen by the Cortes to was formed throughout the country. Pro
be sole Regent; and no sooner was he fairly nunciamientos followed. Narvaez, O'Don
installed in his office, than the edifice of his nell, and many of the exiled or fugitive gene
power began to crumble under his feet. His rals, entered Spain. Treachery helped the
descent was more rapid than even his rise, work that disunion had begun; and in the
for the circumstances in which he found him beginning of August, 1843, the idol of Sep
self required infinite skill in intrigue,—a qua tember, 1840, was on his way to England,
lity of which the honest and well-meaning whither he was presently pursued by a de
Duke of Victory had a very small share. cree which stripped him of all his titles, ho
His great mistake was his surrounding him nours, and decorations.
1865. Spain. 37
Lopez was the next First Minister. His tory of the matter was probably that the
intentions were, we believe, not otherwise Minister was somewhat more peremptory in
than honest, but his position was an untena his manner than is usual, as a man of Oloza
ble one. Himself an advanced Progressista, ga's character and commanding appearance
he found himself obliged to place all the mili might well either be, or appear to be, when
tary powers of the country in the hands of urging a matter of pressing national import
the Moderado generals, who had borne the ance upon a puzzle-headed young woman,
brunt of the contest with the Duke of Vic and that the worthless persons who surround
tory. He soon saw that the game was up, ed the Queen, and who were entirely in the
and passed through the Cortes a measure for hands of the opposite party, magnified the
proclaiming the Queen of full age eleven importance of the incident in her eyes, until
months before the time which the Constitu they actually brought her to sign a paper in
tion prescribed. This done, he placed his which she perhaps hardly knew how to dis
resignation in the hands of Her Majesty, and tinguish the false from the true.
retired from power a sadder and a wiser man. Olozaga, after his defence, fled to Lisbon
He had much occasion for sadness, for the to avoid the by no means chimerical danger
knell of his party was very soon to sound; of assassination; and the meaning of the in
nevertheless it was a Progressista Ministry trigue gradually unfolded itself, as it was seen
which succeeded his, and there was still one that Gonsalez Bravo was merely an instru
act of the play to be played out. ment in the hands of Narvaez—the bridge,
The new President of the Council was as some one said at the time, by which that
Olozaga, who was then a foremost, and now ambitious warrior meant to arrive at power
perhaps the foremost, figure amongst the Pro with his pure Moderado following. When
gressistas. the bridge was passed, the Ministry of Gonsa
Hardly was he fairly in the possession of lez Bravo disappeared, and the Duke of Wa
power, when there occurred an incident of so lencia, whom he had served so well, ruled in
strange a kind, that it only requires to be his stead, and advanced with firm steps upon
seen through the mist of ages '' the ro the road of reaction. The leading measure of
mantic interest of the Gowrie conspiracy. his Government—its flower and crown in the
The President of the Council could reckon eyes of the Moderado party—was the revision
upon the ardent support of a minority in the of the Constitution, and the promulgation of
Cortes, but of a considerable majority in the the new Constitution of 1845. We have
Electoral body. It was therefore his obvious already seen that the Constitution of 1837
interest to appeal, as soon as possible, to the was less liberal than that of 1812. That of
country, and a decree dissolving the Legisla 1845 was in its turn far less liberal than its
ture shortly appeared. Hardly, however, had predecessor. The liberty of the press was
it been promulgated, when strange rumours curtailed; the Senate became a nominated,
arose in Madrid, to the effect that the decree not an elective body; the Cortes lost its right
for the dissolution of the Cortes, to which the of assembling by its own authority, in case
young Queen owed the declaration of her ma the Sovereign neglected to summon it at the
jority, had been obtained, not only by undue proper time, and the principle of the national
moral pressure, but by personal violence; and sovereignty disappeared from the preamble.
these rumours acquired additional confirma The most significant change, however, in the
tion, after a decree had appeared revoking circumstances of the hour, was that which
the former one and dismissing the Minister. precluded the necessity of the approbation of
Expectation was raised to its height, when, the Cortes as a preliminary to the royal mar
on the day appointed for the discussion, a per riage. This was the event which was the
sonage new to such functions, took his seat pivot of intrigue for several years.
in the Congress, with the ministerial portfolio Those who would understand the compli
under his arm. This worthy defender of the cations of Spanish politics during the period
Throne was no other than the editor of the that immediately preceded and immediately
Spanish “Satirist” of that day—Gonsalez followed the marriage of the young Queen to
Bravo; and the paper which he proceeded to her cousin Don Francisco de Assis, must
read was a full account, signed by Her Ma find the clues of half a dozen plots, in which
jesty, of the violence which had been employ the interests of courtiers, ministers, and con
ed by the late Premier. The discussion was fessors were strangely interwoven with the
long and stormy. Its principal feature was of hopes of Carlist, French, Neapolitan, and Por
course the speech of Olczag", which even his tuguese competitors for the doubtful blessing
adversaries admit to have been a very great of the royal hand. Most readers will, we pre
effort, and in which he contrived to exculpate sume, be satisfied to remember that no less
himself without bringing home to his Sove than six Ministries rose and fell in an incre
reign the charge of falsehood. The real his dibly short space of time, and that all of them
38 Spain. March,
were more or less of a Moderado complexion. The last months of 1853 and the first of
At length a Cabinet was formed, in which 1854 passed uneasily. Every day the scan
the chief places were filled by Narvaez, and dals of the Court and of the Ministry became
Sartorius, Count of San Luis, a very young more flagrant, and the measures of repression
man, who had acquired fame first as a jour more severe. General after general was sent
malist, and then as a politician. It was this out of Madrid, and the persecutions of the
Government which was in power when the Government fell, be it observed, not on the
events of February, 1848, threw Europe into Progressistas, who were keeping quite aloof
confusion. It contrived to pilot Spain through from public affairs, but upon all the sections
that stormy time with tolerable success. More of the Moderado party, except the immediate
than once the democratic party took up arms. followers of Sartorius. Accusations of the
There was fighting in the streets of Madrid, grossest pecuniary corruption against many
and many persons were transported, but the persons in high places were bruited about,
amount of bloodshed was not very great. This and almost universally believed. The crisis
Ministry fell, like so many of its fellows, be came in June, 1854. “Will you not come
fore a palace intrigue, the wire-pullers in with us?” cried General Dulce to the Minis
which were ecclesiastical persons. Their suc ter of War, as he rode in the grey of the
cessors, however, only remained in place morning out of Madrid, to try, as was sup
twenty-four hours, long enough to win a place posed, a new cavalry saddle. “I should like
in Spanish history as the “ministerio del re nothing better,” answered General Blaser,
lampago"—the lightning ministry—so rapid “but I am too busy.” In a few hours it was
ly did they flash out of and into obscurity. known that Dulce had been joined by O'Don
Narvaez and Sartorius returned to power nell, and that the long expected revolt had
with a somewhat modified list of colleagues, taken place. An indecisive action took place
and tried to fortify their power by new elec between the Queen's troops and the revolted
tions, in which the authority of the Govern generals at Vicalvaro, whence the name Wi
ment was exercised in so barefaced a manner, calvarist—which is now very generally given
that it scandalized even Madrid, and the as to the followers of O'Donnell; and that com
sembly which resulted from this pressure was mander issued a proclamation at Manzanares,
called the “Congreso de familia.” All this explaining that the pronunciamiento was made
zeal was, however, in vain. The intrigues of in favour of constitutional government and
Christina, who had quarrelled with Narvaez, morality. Up to this point the rising, it can
were too much for him, and down once more not be too distinctly understood, was a Mo
went the Sartorius Ministry. It was now the derado rising, and Narvaez himself, as after
turn of Bravo Murillo, who claimed the con wards appeared, was deeply implicated in the
fidence of the country as a financial genius conspiracy. But on the 17th of July the
and economical reformer. So determined was whole aspect of affairs changed. A popular
he to have this confidence entire that he ac rising took place in Madrid, and the revolt
tually succeeded in excluding from the new of O'Donnell was swallowed up in a revo
Cortes the very man who had peopled the lution. After a very agitated period, things
last one with his creatures, and Sartorius began to settle down. The '. régime
found himself for a time in private life. The of eleven years was fairly at an end, and the
rock upon which Bravo Murillo ran was an Queen, with the Counts of Lucena and Lu
attempt to imitate the coup d'état, and to re chana, O'Donnell and Espartero, was await
model the Spanish Constitution by getting ing the meeting of a Constituent Cortes,
the Cortes to sanction en bloc nine new laws, which was to decide, amongst other things,
which would have undone nearly all that had whether the Bourbon dynasty was to con
been done since the death of Ferdinand. His tinue to rule in Spain. It met on the 9th
attempt, eagerly backed by the Court cama November, 1854, and scon decided that ques
rilla, utterly failed. In vain he sent Narvaez tion—194 as against 19 were quite willing
across the frontier. The country would have to keep Queen Isabella on the throne if she
none of his reforms, and he too passed into would conduct herself with tolerable propriety.
nothingness, leaving behind him as his legacy The discussion on the other bases of the new
the Concordat of 1852, by which the Pope Constitution took more time. There was a
to a certain extent accepted the measure of very long one early in 1855, upon the ques
Mendizabal in 1836, and other accomplished tion of religious toleration, and other matters
facts, obtaining in return many concessions. were hardly less warmly debated. The great
Several short-lived Cabinets succeeded, and est work, however, of the Constituent Cortes
on the 18th September, 1853, Sartorius was was their carrying out to its legitimate issue
again the President of the Council, with the the leading measure of Mendizabal's admi
Marquis of Molins, Calderon de la Barca, nistration, and freeing the soil of Spain, with
General Blaser, and others, to assist him. inconsiderable exceptions, from the tyranny
1865. Spain. 39
of the dead hand, and from the colossal en nell and his friends in 1854 had not been
tails under which it had so long suffered. The followed by a revolution. This, considering
Queen resisted, in the interest of the Church, their views, which were those of Liberal Con
but yielded after a private interview with servatives (Union Liberal), was natural
O'Donnell and Espartero at Aranjuez. Next enough; but it was also quite natural that
to this great measure, which although one of when the Court and its corrupt adherents
its immediate results was a Carlist rising in saw that it was possible to go so far in a re
Aragon, gave very general satisfaction, the actionary course, they should wish to go a
best acts of this Assembly were those which little further; and so after three months of
it passed in furtherance of the material inter power O'Donnell was tripped up, and Nar
ests of the country. Its other purely political vaez came in with a Cabinet in which he was
performances were not so successful. It settled by no means the most anti-liberal element.
the Constitution, but never promulgated it, He pushed the reaction a good deal further,
and several of the most important laws which and above all, made an arrangement with
were necessary to supplement that Consti Rome by which the sales of Church lands
tution were never finished. It should be the already effected were recognised, but all
first care of all such bodies to do quickly what further sales were stopped, and other con
ever their hand finds to do, for if their deli cessions were made to the clergy. The Con
berations continue long, they invariably be stitution of 1845 was likewise altered in so
come unpopular, since they are always ac far as the composition of the Senate was con
cused of wishing unduly to prolong their cerned. Narvaez fell in the autumn of 1857,
own power, while agitators are quite sure to overthrown partly by the results of his inter
take advantage of a provisional state of things ference in one of those bed-chamber questions
to pursue their own objects. So it happened which are so constantly arising in the palace
in Spain in the spring of 1856. Disturbances, of Madrid, and partly by the odium excited
and above all incendiary fires, became the by the rabid reactionary tendencies of his
order of the day. By the middle of 1856 colleague Nocedal. He was succeeded by
people began to weary. The conflicts in the General Armero, who took for his motto:
Cortes between the moderate Progressistas, “The Constitution of 1845—neither more
on the one hand, and the advanced Pro nor less.”
gressistas, backed by the Democrats on the As, however, the Narvaez Government had
other, were frequent and severe. Not less turned out too reactionary for its own party,
marked was the division in the Cabinet the Armero Government turned out to be
between O'Donnell and Espartero. At length too much the other way. In other words,
a quarrel, occasioned by an attack which the Moderados hardly knew their own mind.
was made by Escosura, the Minister of the One combination more was tried. M. Isturiz,
Interior, upon the Moderado views of O'Don the vir pietate gravis of his side of politics,
nell, brought about an open rupture, and at was sent for and formed an administration,
four o'clock in the morning, on the 14th July, which had no particular fault, except that it
a ministerial crisis took place. (In Madrid, commanded the sympathies of nobody, and
ministerial crises always seem to take place inwhen it followed its predecessors, as it very
the small hours, thanks to the owl-like habits soon did, the Queen once more called O'Don
of society in that capital.) When the Madrile nell to her councils. O'Donnell came back,
nian housewives came back from market, determined to represent the Union Liberal
they were able to tell their lords that a re more thoroughly than ever, and to construct,
volution had taken place since they went to if possible, some machine by which, amidst
bed. Their lords committed the imprudence the decomposition of parties, he might con
of flying to arms, and thereby gave O'Don trive to guide the politics of Spain. So con
nell and the Queen the excuse they wanted ciliatory was he, that in one province it is
for a little coup d'état. O'Donnell and his said he had a Progressista civil governor, a
colleagues, the most important of whom was Moderado secretary, and a military com
Rios y Rosas, straightway dissolved the Cor mandant who belonged to the Union Liberal.
tes, and as the Constitution which it had The new Congress was composed of equally
elaborated had never been promulgated, fell diverse elements, and gave him infinite
back upon the Moderado Constitution of 1845, trouble, when very luckily the Italian war of
supplemented by an additional act of their 1859 came to call off the attention of that
own, good as far as it went, although of ex people from internal affairs; and so kind were
tra-legal origin. the influences of the Palmerstonian star under
Henceforth they worked steadily, and with which he was born, that no sooner was the
no unnecessary severity, to bring back matters contest over, than the Moors began to make
to the position in which they would have themselves so intolerably unpleasant, that he
been if the military revolt begun by O'Don had an excellent excuse for proposing to his
40 Spain. March,
countrymen to go to war on their own ac O'Donnell's own rebel manifesto. A more
count. dangerous adversary perhaps than two men
The speech of the President of the Coun so well known for their advanced Liberal
cil, announcing the commencement of hostili opinions, was Rios y Rosas, who, as we have
ties with Morocco, caused the greatest re seen, was the leading spirit of O'Donnell's
joicings in all parts of the country; and Cabinet in 1856, the very incarnation of the
through the five months during which the Union Liberal. When a politician of his
war lasted, the Government had little to com colour reminds the Sovereign that princes
plain of even from the Opposition press. The who are too long obstinate generally finish
Spanish arms were, of course, victorious, and their lives in exile, the state of affairs has be
peace was soon restored. It was fortunate come alarming. O'Donnell, knowing that
that this was so, since, if the struggle had his internal policy would not bear inspection,
lasted longer, the attempt of Ortega, who, in and satisfied with the success of his Moorish
he beginning of April, 1860, landed at the diversion, still continued to try to distract
mouth of the Ebro with the garrison of the popular attention by bold diplomatic strokes.
Balearic Isles, of which he was captain-gene If the additional Concordat, published in
ral, with a view to renew the Carlist wars, | 1860, made too great concessions to the cleri
might have been more inconvenient. As it cal interest, had he not soon the re-incorpora
was, the danger did not last above twenty tion of St. IDomingo, and the impetuous action
four hours; Ortega was taken and shot, the of the Spanish commander on the Mexican
Conde de Montemolin and his second brother coast, to flatter the national vanity? The
were arrested, and liberated after signing a Liberal party from the first pointed out what
renunciation of their supposed rights,—a re these measures must lead to ; but Ministers
nunciation which, as they had pledged their live from hand to mouth in Spain, and that
honour in it, and were their father's sons, is the best course which keeps things quiet
they naturally made haste to disavow, so soon for the moment.
as they were in a place of security. Their sud The O'Donnell Cabinet continued all
den and most strange deaths at Trieste, a few through 1862, reaped what little glory was
months after, deprived these transactions of to be gained from the successes obtained, in
any importance, and left their brother Don concert with France, in Cochin-China, and
Juan at the head of the family. With the incurred much additional unpopularity from
return of tranquillity the struggle of parties the results of the Mexican expedition. It fell
recommenced, and was envenomed as well by at length early in 1863, and the Marquis of
the severities which were exercised, or alleged Miraflores, who had been a supporter of the
to have been exercised, in putting down a proposals of Bravo Murillo in 1852, succeeded
sort of Socialist rising or Jacquerie which the Duke of Tetuan. The liberalism of the
broke out during the summer of 1861 at new chief did not, however, go far enough to
Loja, not very far from Malaga, as by the prevent his allowing one of his colleagues to
constantly increasing influence of the clerical issue a most imprudent circular, restraining,
camarilla. O'Donnell, who had now been after the model of Imperial France, the right
in power for a longer time than any Minister of electoral meetings. The result of this mis
since Spain became a constitutional country, take was, that the whole Progressista and
had become fond of office, and, in order to Democratic parties refused to take part in the
keep it, allowed his measures to be far too elections. Miraflores succeeded in getting a
much moulded by the Court, which was un Congress, composed of various fractions of
der the control of the Nuncio, acting chiefly the several Conservative parties, but fell be
through the Nun Patrocinio, one of those fore an adverse vote of the Senate, on the
personages, halfrogue, half-enthusiast, who question of reforming the composition of that
are so common in Catholic countries. In the body, as arranged in 1857.
end of 1861, the attacks in both branches of The Mon Cabinet settled for a time the
the Legislature became very frequent and difficult question about the composition of
fierce. Olozaga particularly distinguished the Senate by restoring in its integrity the
himself by his plain speaking, and when Constitution of 1845, but agitated by rumours
O'Donnell, with a strange want of tact, ap of revolutionary projects in various quarters,
pealed from him to the other great Progres they acted in an extremely arbitrary manner,
sista leader, Don Pascual Madoz, it was only exiling Prim, for example, to Oviedo, and
to draw from that statesman a warning to the trying obnoxious journalists by councils of
Administration to change its ways, “lest war. In the meantime, the conflict with
some one might say, at the head of 2000 Peru and St. Domingo, and the state of the
horse, that he would no longer serve a Go finances, got more and more desperate. In
vernment which was dishonoured by a cama September last, Narvaez was sent for, and
rilla,”—the quotation being taken from came into power with a Cabinet which con
1865. Spain. 41
tained, besides himself, no less than four ex life by the Crown, out of certain specified
Presidents of the Council. So far as we can | categories of persons; and a Congress of
divine his intentions, they are to carry on the Deputies, who are chosen by those possessing
Government by means of the various sections the franchise in the various electoral districts.
of the Moderado party; but to modify the The number of the Senate may be at any
traditions of that party, to a certain extent, time increased at the royal pleasure, and the
in a Liberal direction. It may be hoped, too, conditions now required may be altered by
that necessity may ere long oblige him to law. In practice, a Ministry supported by
take some step to improve the credit of Spain. the Crown can create a majority in the Senate
The press in this country has, with one voice, at any moment.
applauded his conduct in the matter of St. The number and qualifications of the mem
Domingo, but the state of Spain is still exces bers of the Congress of Deputies depend on
sively dangerous. The Liberal party con the electoral law for the moment in force.
tinues to abstain. Recent experience has At present there are 349. Parliaments are
shown that the Queen has not learnt wisdom, quinquennial, and there is a property qualifi
and one of her unsuccessful attempts to create cation. In practice, the system is so worked
a Government in lieu of her present advisers, that the Government in power can always get
might, if it had been a little more successful, a reliable, and, in general, an overwhelming
have cost her dear. Until the whole system majority. It does not fare much better with
of government is thoroughly altered, another the guarantees of public and individual liber
1854 is at any moment possible. ty common to most constitutions. They are
The reader who has followed us thus far pompously paraded in this Moderado great
will be able to judge for himself whether the charter, but convenient little clauses are in
country which has passed through so many troduced, which leave the Ministers free to
political vicissitudes in thirty years can be do pretty much what they please. In short,
fairly described, in the words of Mr. Buckle, the existing Spanish Constitution deserves
as “a torpid mass.” We shall now briefly what has been said of it by many persons,
sketch its existing Government, endeavouring and by none more pointedly than by Gonsa
to answer as shortly as possible the more im lez Bravo, the present Home Minister. It is
portant questions which an intelligent inquirer neither one thing nor another; the product
into the state of an European community is neither of frank despotism, nor of frank con
likely to ask. It will be seen, we hope, that stitutionalism.
the Spain of to-day, with all her faults, is The Government of Spain is carried on by
hardly a representation of “the feelings and nine Ministers. The Premier, who is, un
knowledge of the Middle Ages.” happily, but too often a soldier, is called the
Doña Isabel Segunda, Queen of the Spains, President of the Council, and is supposed to
rules over the conterminous but most hetero direct the general policy of the country. His
geneous provinces of Spain proper (la Penin colleagues are
sula), over the “adyacentes,” including the The Minister of Grace and Justice.
Canaries, the Balearic Isles, the small places The Minister of the Interior (de la Gobernacion).
(Presidios) on the north coast of Africa, with The Minister of Public Welfare (de Fomento).
Fernando Po and Annabon in the Gulf of The Minister of Finance (de Hacienda).
Guinea, and over certain colonies in America The Minister of War. -
The Minister of Marine.

and Asia (Ultramar). España presidial is in The Minister of the Colonies.
some respects under the same, in others un The Minister of Foreign Affairs (de Estado).
der different regulations, from the rest of the
monarchy. The colonies, of which we shall To the province of the Minister of Grace
speak hereafter, are subject to an exceptional and Justice belongs everything that is con
régime. nected with the administration of the law,
By the Constitution now in force, which both in the civil and ecclesiastical courts, and
is, as we have seen, that of 1845, the Sove he superintends the proceedings of all legal
reign can do no wrong, and Ministerial re functionaries, from the judges of the supreme
sponsibility is fully recognised. The legisla tribunal at Madrid, down to the Alcaldes, or
tive power resides in the Crown and in the mayors of the towns, and to the juges de pair
Cortes, but far too large a space is left for the in the country districts. The state of the
arbitrary action of authority, and royal de department committed to his charge is not
crees often do the work which ought to be one of the things upon which Spain can be
done by the Legislature. The Cortes consists congratulated, for the confusion, delay, and
of two bodies: a Senate whose members are, uncertainty of Spanish law is a frequent sub
with the exception of those sons of the mo ject of complaint in the country. According
narch and of the heir-apparent who have at to Mr. Wallis, the last collection of laws
tained the age of twenty-five, nominated for which had any pretension to completeness
42 Spain. March,
was published in 1806. This Novissima re. have been engrafted on it. The worst of
copilacion was founded on the Nueva recopi these is the venality and partiality of the
lacion of Philip II. Neither of these two judges. As long as these prevail there is a
documents, however, quite excludes the au canker at the root of all prosperity.
thority of some more ancient codes, which In the office of the Minister of the Interior,
are understood to be in force, in cases not all the threads of a most elaborately central
otherwise provided for. We need hardly say ized system meet in one point. France, as
that the laws promulgated in 1806 have been France was under Louis Philippe, supplied
altered in a thousand ways since. the model upon which the victorious Modera
The criminal law, as revised in 1853, is dos of 1845 re-crganized their own country;
decidedly humane. The punishment of death and the changes which have been introduced
is inflicted only in cases of wilful murder. since, have not been favourable to local liber
The gallows, to which the Iberian mind has ties.
a peculiar objection, has been superseded by The whole mainland of Spain is divided,
the garotte, to which it attaches, for some for administrative purposes, into forty-seven
reason or other, more agreeable associations. provinces. Over each of these is an officer
Corporal punishments and the pillory have who bears, in the province of Madrid, the
been abolished. Trials take place in public, title of Political Chief, and in the other forty
but there are no juries, and have never been six that of Civil Governor. Each of these
any, except in cases connected with the press. personages is assisted by counsellors, ap
A curious description of his own trial, at pointed, like himself, by the Crown, and by
Lerida, for publishing a pamphlet which was a consultative body whose members are
charged with a seditious tendency, is given elected by the province. The local adminis
by Garrido. The jury was however once tration is carried on by Alcaldes, who are
more abolished in press cases after the coun also nominees of the Government, and are
ter Revolution of 1856, and now forms no helped in the discharge of their functions by
part of the judicial procedure of Spain. elected councils, larger or smaller, according
Prisoners are often detained a most unrea to the population of the district; those same
sonable time before they are tried; while ca Ayuntamientos, or municipalities, of which
price, bribes, and the protection of the pow we have already spoken, and whose power,
erful, have still far too much influence upon before the reaction abridged it, was the main
the lot of the criminal. Mr. Wallis, himself stay of the Liberal party. In the very small
a lawyer, and with a keen interest in all that est places there is a still humbler administra
relates to his profession, bears testimony to tor, who is called the Alcalde pedaneo.
the high character of the leading advocates All these Alcaldes, great and small, must
at Madrid, and was evidently much struck do as the Minister of the hour commands,
with the advantage which they have over and they are the principal instruments by
American lawyers, and, to a certain extent, which the elections are worked, so as to
over English barristers, in finding all the produce the results which are desired by the
lower and mechanical part of litigation taken party in power.
off their hands by the attorney and the The management of the police forms ano
notary, or escribano. This last-named per ther part of the multifarious duties of the
sonage is a kind of middleman between the Minister of Gobernacion. Minutoli speaks
attorney and the court. “Every picture,” well of it; and all men speak well of the
says Mr. Wallis, “that is painted of the law's allied service called the Guardia Civil,
delay, and of the costly injustice, for which which looks after the safety of the roads, and
men curse it, has for its chief figure the is due to General Narvaez. The danger to
escribano. which the traveller is exposed from robbers
“Consemblante infernal y pluma en mano.” in Spain has, of course, been materially
diminished by the increase of railways; but
All evidence “goes before the judge in the even the common roads are much safer than
shape of declarations made before the es they were.
cribano, and reduced by him to writing. In There is really hardly anything that does
deed there is nothing which concerns the not fall within the province of the Minister
case, in law or in fact, of which the escribano of whom we are writing, and Minutoli, in de
is not the conductor, from the '' to the scribing his functions, speaks de omni scibili.
parties, and from the parties to the judge and Of the charitable institutions of Spain he
to each other.” expresses warm approbation, and on this head
This is an evil inherent in the system. the reader will do well to consult the Attaché
We fear, however, that whatever evils there in Madrid, always remembering that he is
are inherent in the system of Spanish justice, reading the work of a Roman Catholic neo
they are far surpassed by the evils which phyte.
1865. Spain. 43
Of the lunatic asylums, the state of which troubles, and to have come to light in recent
Ford describes as very bad, Minutoli also and more peaceful times. Travel where you
gives a painful account. On the other hand, will in Spain, you will see more evidence of
he says that the prison at Valencia was un poverty than of abundance; but even in the
der the management of Col. Montesinos, the poorest districts, let there be a piece of cleri
very best which he ever saw in Europe, ex cal or other land to be sold by the authori
cept that at Munich under Obermayer, and ties upon advantageous terms, and it is curi
he certainly adduces some most remarkable ous to see how many people are able to offer
facts in support of his opinion. The apti for it. Not less interesting is it to notice
tude of Col. Montesinos for his work must that the ill-will of the Church has had so
have been quite exceptional, and his prison little effect in preventing the acquisition of
very unlike some others in Spain; for about estates once devoted to pious uses.
the very time that he was doing wonders at On the subject of the material revival of
Valencia, the Carcel del Corte at Madrid Spain—a revival to which nothing save peace
was, as we know from Borrow, in a frightful has contributed so much as the sale of lands
condition. which belong to the clergy—a long array of
The management of the post in Spain most carefully marshalled and significant fig
does scant credit to ministerial wisdom. ures appeared in an article of our too short
Nothing more ridiculous can be imagined, lived contemporary, the Home and Foreign
and its irregularities are complained of by all Review. The writer, who had peculiar
travellers. Out of six letters recently ad means of information, shows that the popu
dressed to the writer at Barcelona, according lation is steadily increasing, having risen
to the form advised by Ford, not one ever more than five millions between 1797 and
reached his hands. Tourists cannot be too 1860; that there is every reason to suppose
earnestly cautioned not to have letters of im that agricultural production has increased
portance addressed to them at the Post-office during the same period more rapidly to the
in Spain. They should always be sent to south than to the north of the Pyrenees;
the house of some banker, or other well that the use of meat is becoming more com
known person. mon, and the number of cattle and other do
The persecution of the press is another mestic animals rapidly multiplying. Not
most important part of this, Minister's func less cheering is it to learn that the consump
tions, and whatever else he may neglect, he tion of coal has more than quadrupled in the
generally fulfils this part of his duty with last few years, and that the possessors of iron
great zeal. Two hours before a newspaper mines are not less prosperous, while the ex
is published, a copy must be in the hands of ports and imports had increased by 350 per
the police, and they often exercise their right cent. between 1843 and 1860.
of confiscating the whole impression, and of There is no more agreeable feature in the
prosecuting the editor. Bad as things are, last ten years of Spanish history than the
however, there is certainly at this moment rapid development of railway communica
more freedom for public writers in Spain tion. We have seen that the line from Bay
than in France. onne to Madrid is quite finished.
The Ministry of Public Welfare has the A gap of twenty hours occurs in the rail
care of the mines, of agriculture, of the way communication between the capital and
scanty but priceless forests, of all public Cordova, but when that city is once passed,
works, of the studs, of the telegraphs, in there is no interruption till the traveller ar
short, of commerce and material improve rives at Cadiz. Fifteen hours of very com
ment of every kind. fortable railway travelling connect the seat
The rapid development of the wealth of of Government with the port of Alicante,
Spain during the last twenty years has ex and with the capital of the wealthy and im
cited more attention beyond her own boun portant province of Valencia, while in less
daries than any other phenomenon connected than two years we may hope to see the loco
with her recent history; but the very rea motive traversing the whole length of the
sonable and proper attitude of the London coast line from the city of the Cid to Per
Stock Exchange towards a defaulting State, pignan. Already passengers are set down at
has had the indirect effect of closing the the Saguntum station, and are, indeed, car
channels by which we in England would in ried considerably past it to the northward.
the natural course of things have heard of From Barcelona the line is only completed
her prosperity. It is chiefly from France along the Catalonian shore as far as Gerona,
that those supplies of capital have come but one can go straight across the country
which have swelled the not inconsiderable from sea to sea, without any diligence-travel
hoards of the natives, which appear to have ling. Montserrat, Manresa, so famous in
been kept out of harm's way during the the life of Loyola, Lerida, the Ilerda of Ho
44 Spain. March,
*
race, Calahorra, the ancient Calagurris, and Turn where we will, we see what marvel
Tudela, are all stations upon this line, the lous changes an increase of science would
latter half of which is singularly picturesque, work in this splendid country. There are
ascending as it does the upper valley of rivers of wine, but it is rarely fit to drink.
the rapid and beautiful Ebro, and descending There are lakes of oil, but it is equally
the course of the Nervion, affording through abominable. There are acres of peaches, but
almost every mile the most beautiful views, the fruit is a sort of turnip. There is no
and doing infinite credit to the engineering want of industry. The Spaniard works hard
skill of its daring constructors. The journey with his hands, as those of our engineers
from Miranda to Bilbao is the very poetry of who have superintended railways in Spain
railway travelling. The railway already are ready to testify. Sobriety is a common
connects Pamplona with Saragossa, and Sara virtue. Intelligence is not wanting, and ele
gossa with the metropolis, while the lounger mentary education is not so very backward.
of the Puerta del Sol can hurry to the fresh It is intelligent direction which is wanted,
breezes of Santander without any of “les belles central direction, if nothing better can be
horreurs,” which Mr. Borrow has so feelingly got, independent local direction where that
described. Even Zamorra, whose desolation is possible. How many Spaniards, however,
had become as much of a jest in Spanish are there who have imitated Espartero, who
literature as that of Cumae in the days of devotes the greater portion of his time to
Juvenal, can now be reached by railway, and making his property near Logroño a model
if only the lines from Santa Cruz to Cordova, for his neighbours?
and from Madrid to Badajoz were completed, It is melancholy when we reflect that vast
the tourist would really have very little rea spaces of fertile land in Spain have been ut
son to complain. Several other import terly waste since the days of Philip III, to
ant lines are in progress, and not a few know that every year large numbers of in
minor lines are already completed, but we dustrious persons emigrate to Oran and else
need not give further details, as Spain has where, and that the attempts at colonization
already an Indicador of its own, on the plan in Andalucia have not been crowned with
of the well-known French publication. We any great success. The religious difficulty
would not have given even these, if it had here, as elsewhere in the old world, has done
not been that a good deal had been done, much to keep far from the borders of Spain
even since the publication of Hans Ander the most hardy and useful colonists. -
sen's In Spanien, the most recently published Garrido has accumulated, in his fifteenth
book of Spanish travel which any of our and sixteenth chapters, statistical tables illus
readers is likely to have seen. trative of the commerce and manufactures
The roads that are to feed these railways of Spain. We should be more tempted to
advance more slowly, but still they advance. quote their principal figures, if they were
We can well believe that the Marquis of Al more complete, and if some of the more im
baida tells an “ower true tale,” when he portant industries, as, for instance, the cotton
says that the promise of a road or a bridge spinning of Catalonia, were not exotics fos
is one of the commonest bribes held out by tered by unwise laws. Of all Spanish ex
the Alcaldes to induce their fellow-towns ports, the most important is wine, and of all
men to vote for the Government candidates,— Spanish wines, the most important is sherry.
“the Diputados di Amen,” as they are wittily We observe that the amount sent out of the
called. Not less true, we fear, is it that country doubled between 1841, and 1861,
these roads and bridges are oftener promised though the price advanced by about 80 per
than made. cent. It should not be forgotten that, as
The coasting vessels and those for foreign Ford points out, sherry, although grown in
trade advance in numbers, and in the fre Spain, is chiefly made by and for foreigners.
quency of their voyages, while something is There is less wine drunk at a Spanish table
being done for the harbours, which, especially d'hôte in a month than at a German one in a
along the eastern coast, are far from being what day.
they must be, if Spain is to become, as she One of the most important matters to
surely one day will, a great maritime power. which the department of Fomento could de
Judging by the number of houses which vote itself, would be the increase and better
bear upon them the device of some insurance distribution of the water supply of Spain.
company, we should have thought that fire Drought is, next to misgovernment, the great
insurance was more generally practised curse of the country. The formation of re
than the figures before us would lead us to servoirs to catch the winter rains must one
believe. Banking is very far behindhand, day be set about in good earnest, if Spain is
and credit walks still with lame and stagger ever to support a population at all equal to
ing feet. that which we see in many other countries,
* ** * * -
1865. Spain. 45
The re-plantation of those forests which hu ples. The barbarous octrol minimizes the
man shortsightedness and folly have destroyed internal commerce of the country, loses
is another urgent necessity, but its difficulty many hours of every day to thousands of in
is, alas! proportionate to its importance. dustrious people, and fosters the vicious pro
The multiplication of canals for purposes pensities of a whole army of officials, whose
of irrigation would be another great boon, illegitimate gains, as every traveller knows,
but unfortunately this too is, from the cha are far greater than their honest ones. An
racter of the Spanish rivers, far from easy. elaborate and vexatious system of stamps in
Long and loud has been the clamour in fa terferes with almost every transaction of life.
vour of making the upper Tagus and upper With one hand the Minister of France
Douro navigable, but neither they nor the beckons into existence a host of contraband
Ebro are as yet of much use for purposes of istas, and with another an army of carabine
transit. One is tempted to believe that the ros, to keep them in check. The lottery
Moors, as they quitted the soil of Europe, still sows demoralization broadcast over the
laid a curse on the waters of Spain,—so un whole Peninsula. In short, there are few
successful have their conquerors been in imi economical heresies which are not embraced
tating their dealings with that wayward ele as great truths by Queen Isabella's Govern
ment. ment, in spite of the efforts of many enlight
It was the brilliant and unfortunate Larra ened persons who translate Bastiat, and
who proposed to inscribe over the gate of otherwise attempt to dispel the darkness of
the Madrid Exchange, “Aqui yace el crédito the land.
Español,” and who observed, that when that Of the wrongs of the bondholders we will
was done, everybody would compare the say nothing. There are few Spanish topics
building to the Pyramids of Egypt, marvel which are so familiar to the newspaper
ling that a work so vast should be raised for reader. Those, however, who would learn
the sepulchre of a thing so little. The Eng what can be advanced on the Spanish side
lish translation of the suggested inscription of the case, might look with advantage at the
has the advantage, as Ford perceived, of the pamphlet called Spain and Morocco, by Mr.
double meaning of the verb. Things are Owen Ross.
somewhat better than they were in those So obvious are the benefits which would
days of repudiation and bankruptcy, but still accrue to Spain from an honest arrangement
the Spanish Finance Minister has a bad time with her creditors, and so perfectly able is
of it. she to make one which would be accepted as
The best source of information to which satisfactory, that we cannot doubt that such
we can refer those who wish to know the will be made. Made it would have been ere
most important facts about the public debt this, if the present state of things had not
and the actual state of the money matters of been useful to speculators, whose influence at
Spain, are two sections of the article “Es. Madrid is more powerful than any considera
pagne,” in Block's Dictionnaire Général de tion of national prosperity, to say nothing of
la Politique. They are both written by national honour.
Barzanallana, who is at this moment the We have seen that in the year 1858 the
Spanish Chancellor of the Exchequer. He neo-Catholic party, which had attempted to
gives as the total amount of the debt on the stop the sale of the national Church lands,
1st January, 1862, — 14,603,231,950 reals, was obliged to give way to the politicians of
but it has of course increased since. He the “Union Liberal.” They re-commenced
also states the amount of the budget voted the good work, and an enormous amount of
on the 4th March, 1862, at 2,003,853,536 real property has now passed from the dead
reals, for the ordinary expenses of the State, to the living hand. The money received by
as against 2,009,938,000 reals, the estimated the State has been and is being applied to
ordinary revenue, while more than 560,000, many good objects—inter alia, to the con
000 reals were assigned to extraordinary ex struction of harbours and lighthouses, to
penses, which it was expected would be met canals, roads, and bridges. Unfortunately,
by receipts not forming part of the ordinary vast sums have been squandered on prepara
revenue. We may remind our readers that tions for and munitions of war; while, accord
a sum in reals may be converted into one in ing to Garrido, not one penny has been spent
pounds sterling, with sufficient accuracy for in promoting the increase of knowledge,—
ordinary purposes, if it is divided by 100. the great want of Spain.”
Many of the methods of raising the reve
nue are much complained of by intelligent *As these sheets were passing through the press,
the news arrived of the generous step taken by the
Spaniards. The tariff is still ruinously pro Queen of Spain. It would be vain at present to
tective. The tobacco and other monopolies ''
speculate on the effect to be produced on the
are opposed to the most elementary princi Spanish finances by the sale of the Crown lands;
46 Spain. March,
Assuredly finance is not the bright side of the Times correspondent, whose letters have
Iberian affairs. And yet let any one com since been re-published, and should be re
pare the figures of recent budgets with those ferred to by those who are anxious to form
of the days of Spain's prosperity and pre an opinion as to the real importance of Spain.
eminence, asking himself after he has done so Official returns of the year 1863, quoted in
what people mean when they say that she the Statesman's Year-book, give 151,668
has declined. Her relative position has men as the total strength of the Spanish mili
changed, and she has not advanced as she tary forces; but more than 22,000 of these
ought to have done; but how much of that belong to the Carabineros and to the Guardia
halo of greatness which surrounds her past Civil, while more than 44,000 are militiamen.
is mere delusion. It should not be forgotten There are also troops in the Canaries and in
that the figures we have cited are only those the Colonies, which are not included in the
connected with the central Government. above. The army is recruited by conscrip
Very large sums are raised for public pur tion; but great privileges are given to volun
poses by the provincial councils and by the teers, who receive a large bounty, and sub
municipalities. It should also be borne in stitutes are freely permitted. Minutoli calls
mind that the debt has been much increased particular attention to the artillery, which is
by the State's having given to the former destined to act in mountainous districts,—
owners of lands held in mortmain, obligations an arm of the first importance in the land of
upon the National Treasury instead of the Sierras. The exercises of the army in gene
estates which they lost. ral, and of the cavalry in particular, are
The events of the Peninsular War left on arranged on the French model. We have no
the English mind a somewhat too unfavoura very certain information as to how far Spain
ble impression of the Spanish soldier. Faults, is keeping pace with the latest improvements
which were really attributable only to his in military science, but the recent educational
officers or to the War Department, were un programme for the Prince of Asturias inclines
hesitatingly ascribed to him; and his deme us to think that it will not be in this direction
rits are even now popularly accepted as part that Narvaez is likely to err. The Spanish
of the low estimate of Spain, which is usual navy, which had sunk very low, rose rapidly
amongst us. And yet the great Captain who into importance under Charles III, and at
freed the Peninsula by no means shared these the commencement of the present century
views. He did not hesitate to express the was still in a very flourishing condition. The
highest opinion of the warlike virtues of the great disaster of Trafalgar inaugurated ano
Spanish private; and a person is still living ther period of decline, from which it is only
who can testify to his having said, “The now recovering. Perhaps it is to the filibus
British soldier—if you treat him well—if you tering expeditions against Cuba, more than
feed him—if you clothe him—will go any to any other cause, that we must attribute
where, and fight anybody; but the Spanish the very marked improvement that is now
soldier—if you don't treat him well—if you visible in the Marine Department. Some
don't feed him—if you don't clothe him— credit is also due to the Marquis of Molins—
will do the same.” better known by his name of Roca di Togores
The necessities of the civil wars directed —whose poetical and rhetorical merits raised
very great attention to the better organization him to the office of First Lord of the Ad
of the royal troops in Spain; and when peace miralty about the time that the Cuban ques
returned, the wants of the service were not tion became alarming. As early, however,
lost sight of Minutoli, who had himself as 1845, things had begun to mend; and
served for twenty-four years in the Prussian Minutoli speaks of as many as 78 vessels be
army, gives a most detailed account of the ing in process of construction, or undergoing
whole military system, satisfying in his scru large repairs, in the spring of 1851. Ever
pulous pages alike the curiosity of the drill since, there has been a gradual advance, and
sergeant and of the army tailor. His sum now, like other and greater powers, Spain is
ming up is highly favourable to the efficiency turning her attention to the construction of
and high character of the troops of Queen ironclads, of which she has several afloat.
Isabella, who, when he wrote, had been for The officers of the Spanish navy are very
some time reposing on their laurels. When, highly spoken of by Mr. Wallis and others.
a few years afterwards, they were called to Both the war and commercial marine suffer
make proof of their valour and endurance in much from the obstinate adherence of the
the war with Morocco, they earned, it will authorities to a system based upon the French
be remembered, much praise at the hands of maritime inscription. The sailor too has, it
but the measure is a certain sign that our hopes would appear, other grievances, of which the
for Spain are not unfounded, and it goes some way chief are a low rate of pay and severe pun
to remove our fears for the Spanish Dynasty. ishments. It is probable that the Spanish
1865. Spain. 47
Government will follow in the wake of their position. The advice of every man of com
great neighbour in undoing the mistakes of mon sense, who desires the welfare of Spain,
Colbert; but Garrido says that it as yet is to the Spanish Foreign Minister, will, if he
only the Democratic party which urges this understands the circumstances of that country,
change. be, for some time to come, a very simple one.
The Minister who now presides over the “Instantly recognise all accomplished facts
colonies of Spain has not a very laborious in Italy or elsewhere, and then withdraw for
office. Her gigantic colonial empire has now the next quarter of a century into a masterly
sunk to Cuba, Porto-Rico, a corner of the inactivity. Try to forget that Spain has ever
Virgin Islands, part of the Philippines, the evercised any influence beyond her own bor
Marian Archipelago, with the far scattered ders. Instruct all your ambassadors to con
Carolinian group. The whole population of fine themselves to protecting the lives and
these possessions may be 8,000,000, so that rights of their countrymen in foreign lands,
Holland has now many more colonial subjects and to keeping you well informed, taking
than her once terrible antagonist. especial care to hear as much and to say as
The want of good faith the Spanish Go little as possible.” If this policy were per
vernment has displayed in all that relates to severed in, and the other Ministers were as
the slave-trade, has been a frequent subject active as their colleague was tranquil, Spain
of complaint in this country. Since the would not, at the end of the period we have
treaty of 1817, the slaves in Cuba have enor named, have to ask humbly to be admitted
mously increased, and almost every Captain into the councils of Europe. She would be
General has made large sums by conniving one of the “Great Powers,” in virtue of being
at the importation of slaves from Africa. a great power.
The most conspicuous exception to this rule The most important member of the pre
was General Valdez, who administered the sent Cabinet is Narvaez, who is President of
island during the regency of Espartero, and the Council, and who is just as old as the
whose name is a synonyme for honour. The century. In 1822 he took the side of the
Democratic party is of course thoroughly Liberal party, and after the French invasion
opposed to the existing system, and its writers was obliged to live very quietly at Loja, his
do not cease to point out that sooner or later native place, until the death of Ferdinand.
the sins of the past and present will be washed In 1834, he returned to the army and distin
out in blood. The absolute stoppage of the guished himself upon several occasions, more
slave-trade, with gradual emancipation imme especially in 1836, when he overtook, and
diately begun and steadily persevered in, are defeated the famous Carlist leader Gomez.
the only possible methods of conjuring the From this time forward he became suffi
frightful calamity which impends over the ciently important to be considered as a sort
Queen of the Antilles. of rival to Espartero. His first attempts
The really Liberal party in Spain, as we were however unsuccessful, and after a fruit
have seen, is altogether opposed to attempts less endeavour to put himself at the head of
at “re-vindication” of colonial empire. Gar a party, he fled to France, whence, in 1843,
he returned, as we have seen, to take a de
rido even goes so far as to say, that Spain, if
she lost the Colonies which she still has, cisive part in the overthrow of the best and
would be all the stronger, and there is much most patriotic of Spanish politicians. His
to be said on that side of the question. He history from that date has been sufficiently
admits, however, that public opinion is not commented on in the preceding pages.
ripe for such a change as this, and Spain will Avrazola, the Minister of Justice, was ori
have done all that England can expect, if ginally an advocate, but early took to poli
she tries to imitate what we have done during tics, and has been long one of the most pro
the last thirty years, without attempting to minent Moderados. He also held for many
place herself abreast of our most advanced years high judicial office, but is remarkable
colonial politicians. Her dependencies are for the subtlety rather than the breadth of
still governed by an arbitrary system, for the his intellect.
laws procured in the Constitution of 1837 Gonsalez Bravo, the Minister of the Inte
have never been introduced. The Captain rior, was in his youth a violent Progressista,
General of Cuba, if we believe the Demo as he who cares to turn to the furious papers,
cratic press, is as despotic as a pasha. quoted from the Guirigay in Rico y Amat,
The Secretary for Foreign Affairs is gene will readily see. Since he took office in
rally placed in the list of Spanish Ministers 1843, he has, of course, become very differ
immediately after the President of the Coun ent; witness his recent circular against the
cil. We have put him last, wishing thereby press. He is, however, we suspect, too clever
to indicate that there is none of his colleagues a man not to see that in the present state of
who does not occupy a more really important Spain some concessions to the Liberal party
48 Spain. Marcm,
have become quite necessary, and it was pro which supports the principles of the Corre
bably his influence that gave so liberal a tone spondant is, so far as we are aware, the Di
to the professions which the Narvaez Govern ario di Barcelona, an old-established journal,
ment made, when it first came into power. which is now under the direction of M. Mañe
Alcalá Galiano, the Minister of Fomento, y Flaquer, a man of intelligence and ability.
approaches the end of his long career. He The Royalists, who have rallied round the
was born at Cadiz in 1789, entered the diplo present dynasty, have the Regeneracion for
matic service in 1812, took an active part their organ.
in the Revolution of 1820, and was banished The Moderados have the Reino, the Con
for his share in it. During the eight years temporaneo, and several other journals.
that he passed in England, he was a frequent The Union Liberal has the Epoca, the Po
contributor to the Westminster and Foreign litica, etc.
Quarterly. On his return to Spain he again The Progressistas have, amongst others,
entered political life; was a bitter opponent the Novedades and the Iberia, the latter of
of the first two constitutional Ministries, and which is perhaps the best Spanish paper
a supporter of Mendizabal. Like the Duke which now appears. It is strange that it is
of Rivas, however, and many others, he soon hardly ever quoted by the English press,
changed his politics, and the second half of while the names of very inferior journals ap
his life has been passed as a Moderado. He pear frequently.
enjoys a great reputation as an orator, and The Democrazia, which is edited by Caste
his lectures at the Madrid Ateneo were in lar, a professor at the University of Madrid,
their day extremely celebrated. Of the re who has attracted much attention by a series
maining Ministers, the most distinguished is of lectures at the Ateneo, upon the civilization
Benavides, one of the best debaters in the of the first five centuries, represents the
Cortes, who a few weeks ago succeeded Llo opinions of the Democratic Progressistas;
rente as Minister of Foreign Affairs. while the Discussion is the organ of the So
Parties in Spain at the present time may cialist Republicans. Till recently, that jour
be thus divided:— nal was under the guidance of a Catalan, M.
I. The Royalists, “pure et simple,” who Pi y Margall, and it still has great influence
are again split into three factions: the Car in Barcelona and its neighbourhood. In lite
lists, the Neo-Catholics, and the Royalists of rary merit it seems to us very inferior to the
Isabella II. Democrazia, with which it lives on the worst
II. The Constitutionalists, who are either— possible terms.
Moderados; There is at present no Spanish review.
Men of the Union Liberal; One was tried a few years ago, but its success
Moderate Progressistas; was not sufficient to justify its continuance.
Advanced Progressistas. Altogether, indeed, this is not one of the hap
III. The Democratic party, which has two piest moments of the Spanish periodical press.
sub-divisions, according as its members are– The laws which restrain it are severe, and
Democratic Progressistas, or Socialist they are not justly applied. Still, however,
Republicans. there is quite enough liberty to make very
good writing possible, if there was in the
Neither the Constitutional Progressistas journalist class the requisite amount of talent
nor the Democrats have taken any part, as and information. The reader must not jump
we have seen, in the recent elections, but to the conclusion that the press of Madrid is
they, like all other sections, have their repre to be despised, but the proportion of its words
sentatives in the press. to its ideas is certainly too great.
The Carlists have for their principal organ Garrido gives 279 as the number of the
the Esperanza, a large paper, of very little journals of Spain. Of these, 62 were daily
merit, but which has, we believe, a great cir and political, 52 belonged to the bishops, 58
culation. Practically, this party, of course, to the Government, and the other 92 were
can only strengthen the hands of the clerical devoted to particular branches of knowledge,
faction, the Neo-Catholics, whose chief paper to commerce, and so forth. These figures
is El Pensamiento Español. It must be re have probably not been very much altered in
membered that Neo-Catholicism in Spain the last two years; and although the state of
means something very different from the com things which they disclose is not one to make
paratively moderate views to which it is ap us over-sanguine, yet compare it with the
plied in France. . In the latter country, we accounts which we have of Spain from 1823
connect it with the name of Montalembert, to 1833, and we seem to have entered a new
and with certain velléités towards Liberalism, world.
while in Spain it is the creed of the “real old Students of Spanish literature who have
bats of bigotry.” The only paper in Spain been led down to the reign of Charles IV. by
1865. Spain. 40
the learned and only too painstaking Tick lar poet and romance writer, Don Antonio de
nor, may well be excused if they decline to Trueba. Those who care to know more
pursue its history to our own times with such about living Spanish writers may turn to the
imperfect helps as they can find. They must work of Latour, which we have placed at the
not, however, conclude, as too many do, that head of this article. We should warn them,
nineteenth century Spain has no literature however, that this author is but the one-eved
worthy of the name. The only substitute for in the kingdom of the blind, and we only
Ticknor which we can suggest to them, of recommend him because, superficial and
course a very imperfect one, is the two-volume prejudiced as he is, we know no better guide,
collection of extracts from Spanish contempo When will some one do for Spain what Marc
rary writers, edited by Ochoa for Baudry in Monnier in L'Italie est-elle la Terre des:
1840. A biographical notice of each author Morts * has done for the sister Peninsula?
is prefixed to the passages taken from him. Although the state of education in Spain
Amongst many now dead they will find the is very far from being satisfactory, even when
names of Hartzenbusch, Pacheco, the Duke of compared with other Catholic countries, it
Rivas, Ventura de la Vega, and not a few would be a sad mistake to suppose, as too
others who are still alive. There are also many do, that it is no better than Mr. Bor
several writers who have appeared since row found it. In the year 1832 there were
Ochoa's collection was given to the world. in the whole country only 700 educational
Such is Campoamor, whose short pieces, establishments, and in 1839 these had, thanks
called Doloras, are of really very great merit, to the civil wars, increased only to 900. In
and may be most strongly recommended to the end of 1851, Minutoli calculated that
those lovers of fugitive poetry who have come there were
to the end of all the better known literatures
17,009 Boys' Schools, at
have to offer in this kind. tended by 626,882 scholars.
If quantity were of great importance in 5,021 Girls' Schools, at
literature, great would be the place which tended by 201,200 Ps
would be filled in the eyes of his contempo 287 Asylums for Chil
raries by Don Modesto Lafuente, the twenty dren, educating . 11,100 ,
second volume of whose history of Spain only Total, 839,182 ,
brings us down to 1814; but those best en
titled to speak with authority upon such a On the 1st of January, 1861, according to
subject accuse him of much too great haste, official returns quoted by the writer in the
and of pandering to some of the worst preju Home and Foreign Review already alluded
dices of his countrymen. The history of the to, the number of children receiving instruc
reign of Charles III, by Ferrer del Rio, re tion had risen to 1,046,558, and the propor
lates in minute detail the annals of a period tion between the sexes had materially altered,
which is very imperfectly known, and has for whereas in 1851 there were three times
been favourably received by foreign critics. as many boys as girls in the schools, the ratio
Like these, the great statistical work of Don in 1861 was as nine to four—a change which
Pascual Madoz has found its way into good can hardly fail to be fruitful of good to the
English libraries. Amador de los Rios is next generation. Minutoli, speaking from
retracing in fuller detail the ground already personal observation in many parts of
so well traversed by Ticknor. Beginning, Spain, says that in spite of their low sala
however, with the beginning, he thinks it ries the schoolmasters are in general very
necessary to go back not only to Lucan and tolerable, and that he came from time to
Martial, but even to Portius Latro, the time upon schools which were quite excel
worthy rhetorician who was the teacher of lent.
Seneca. All this progress has been made in little
The Marquis of Pidal, long prominent in more than a quarter of a century, for the first
politics, is an historian of a higher order, school-law that seems to have had any effect
and unlike Lafuente, who is said to have was framed in 1838. In 1797 there were
spent only five days at Simancas, has brought not 400,000 children attending the primary
many new facts to light. schools.
The lady who writes under the assumed Very little good, we fear, can be said of
name of Fernan Caballero, is perhaps better the class of schools corresponding to the
known out of her own country than any liv French Lycées. They are few in number,
ing Spanish writer, and at least one of her and ill attended. Hence the Universities
novels has been translated into English. It have to do much of the work that ought to
is unfortunate that her influence, such as it be got over in the years of boyhood—an evil
is, is thrown into the scale of the anti-liberal of which we know something nearer home.
party. This is the case, too, with the popu In Spain, Greek, which in the sixteenth cen
WOL. XLII. N -4
50 Spain. March,
tury had a very heretical flavour, has never faculty is extremely liberal.” Not the least
been much studied, and we were recently remarkable of its professors is M. Sanz del
assured by an eminent Professor of the Uni Rio, whose Ideal de la Humanidad para la
versity of Madrid, that the instruction in vida now lies before us. Tell it not in Gath,
Latin usually given in Spanish schools, was but it is the philosophy of Krause which is now
extremely imperfect. taught to the rising generation in the metro
The Universities are ten in number, but of polis of the auto-da-fé,—of Krause, who found
these Madrid is the only one which is organ in freemasonry the germ of that higher order
ized on the scale of a great national esta in which he believed that all States and
blishment. It represents the famous Univer Churches would one day merge. Vera is
sity of Alcalá—whose name we connect with preaching Hegel at Naples, and Krause is
Cardinal Ximenes, and the Complutensian indoctrinating the “only court.” It is enough
Polyglot. It alone bears the title of “Cen to bring Philip II. out of his grave again.
tral,” while its humbler sisters are only “Dis Garrido observes, that although the law of
trict Universities.” These are situated at 1856, which now governs public instruction
Barcelona, Granada, Oviedo, Salamanca, in spain, was framed by a very reactionary
Seville, Santiago, Valencia, Walladolid, and Cabinet, the ideas of the time have been too
Saragossa. strong for its contrivers, and it is to a great
The darkness of the Middle Ages still lies extent working in a liberal direction. He
deep upon Walladolid and Salamanca, but in tells an amusing anecdote of the troubles of
Seville the ideas of our time have at least an unfortunate boy at school in Andalucia,
one worthy exponent. In the capital of who, when examined by the priest with re
Catalonia the Scotch philosophy contrives to gard to the creation of the world, made the
reconcile itself with the fervent Catholicism same answer which he had been taught to
of Balmez, a foeman more worthy the steel make in the natural history class of the same
of Protestant controversialists than any whom establishment. Everywhere throughout Spain
Spain has produced since the commencement the old and the new, superstition and en
of her decline; and the general tone of that lightenment, are in presence of each other,
University appears for the moment to be but nowhere do they met in sharper conflict
singularly alien to the Democratic tendencies than in the educational institutions. All at
which have of late been so prominent in the tempts to make the scientific works used
most active and turbulent of Spanish pro even tolerably conformable to the teaching of
vinces. The University of Saragossa shares the Church seem to have been given up.
in the general decay of the old capital of Education is certainly cheap, even when we
Aragon; a decay whose persistence is all the consider that Spain is a poor country; and
more remarkable, when it is remembered indeed it is difficult to understand how tole
how favourably it is situated with respect to rably competent professors can be secured for
railway communication. The library of this the very small remuneration which is offered.
institution is really one of the most touching It is unfortunate that we cannot refer those
spectacles which the lover of letters is likely who desire to know something of the religious
to see in any part of Europe. Room after state of Spain, to any recent work which can
room may be traversed without finding al bear comparison with Doblado's Letters,
most a single book likely to interest any one which are now more than forty years old,
except the bibliomane. Yet even here, where for there is no subject on which it is more
so little provision is made for giving solid in difficult for a foreigner to speak. A few facts,
struction to the students, we could mention however, we may note as certain: First,
the name of one professor who is honoura The existing Spanish Constitution, although
bly distinguished among his reactionary col it still contains no clause proclaiming reli
leagues by liberality and intelligence. gious toleration, is in this one respect very
A detailed account of the Madrid Univer much more liberal than that of Cadiz, which
sity, with all the apparatus of higher, second distinctly committed the nation to intole
ary, and primary instruction which it sets in rance. . At present the legislation of Spain
motion, is to be found in a convenient little recognises the liberty of religious opinions,
volume, the Memoria-Anuario de la Univer but does not recognise the liberty of religious
sidad Central. On paper at least, everything worship. The distinction is a pitiful one
seems well ordered, and in a course of steady for these our days, but still it is very real,
improvement. Whether Dr. Pattison and
Mr. Arnold would give as pleasant a picture * Even in medicine the land of Sangrado has
of the actual working of the machine is quite made great progress. The clinical instruction now
another question. It is, however, undoubtedly given at Madrid is not inferior to the best in
Europe. See a long and interesting article in the
doing good service to sound learning; and British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review, for
the tone of the very important philosophical 1861, p. 314.
1865. Spain. 51
and represents the abolition of an enormous spectably supported, but that the reason
amount of tyranny and annoyance. Secondly, iven by some of the most influential persons
The territorial power of the priesthood, once in support of the less liberal proposal of the
so great, has ceased to exist; monasteries are committee, which was ultimately adopted,
a thing of the past, and in their place we find were by no means such as could be acceptable
only a few scattered mission-houses, while the to conscientious bigots, while the counter
whole number of ecclesiastics has been di proposal which was brought forward by the
minished by many thousands. Thirdly, Neo-Catholic party met with very little
Although it might be imagined that the sa favour. The motion of Montesinos, deputy
crifice of so large a portion of its worldly ad for Caceres, in Estremadura, to establish com
vantages might have been repaid to the plete religious toleration, was only lost, on the
Spanish clergy by an increase of spiritual 15th of January, 1855, by 103 votes to 99.
influence, this has certainly not been the There is little doubt that if it had not been
case, and every traveller knows that neither for the difficulties occasioned by the bigotry
they nor their office are respected by large of Queen Isabella, and the fear of introducing
sections of the community. another element of disturbance into an
Some curious evidence with regard to this already agitated country, the amendment we
point is supplied by a book published in 1851, have just alluded to, would have been
and entitled, The Practical Working of the carried.
Church in Spain. Its authors (for more It is probable that the barbarous suppres
than one had contributed to its pages) belong sion of the Reformed tenets was one of the
or belonged to that section of English chief causes of the decline of Spanish glory,
Churchmen who talk of Dr. Pusey as “one but we do not feel by any means sure that
whose words are priceless.” It may then the introduction of a considerable leaven
readily be inferred that they went to the Pe of Protestantism into sixteenth century Spain
ninsula expecting to see and hear much with might not have exercised so powerful a dis
which they could sympathize. They thought solving force as to have undone the work of
that they were entering a land of “happy Ferdinand and Isabella, by breaking the
peasants, all holy monks, all holy priests, country once more into two or more separate
holy everybody,” and great, accordingly, was kingdoms. No one has a right dogmatically
their consternation when they found cere to assert that this would not have been so,
monies profaned, confession laughed at, and until he has well weighed and considered
the clergy despised. In Malaga and Cadiz, the centrifugal forces which have long worked,
in Seville and Cordova, through all south nay which are even now working, in Spanish
eastern Spain, they beheld the old religion politics. It is not impossible that the histo
sinking into contempt. The priests candidly rians of the twentieth century may think
confessed that they had lost their hold over that they understand why it was that the
the middle class, or, to use their own peculiar good cause was allowed so utterly to fail;
diction, they said, “If it was not for the poor, and as they narrate the discomfiture which
there would be no worship of God in the assuredly awaits the “Great Church” in the
land.” Sometimes, when a sermon of an ex £ may see how fatal to the interests
ceptionally startling kind woke up the slum of superstition has been that national unity
bering consciences of the masses, the ancient of which its advocates have said so much.
fanaticism flared up again in a ghastly way; The shades of Ægidius and San Roman are,
but it was a mere momentary revival, and if we mistake not, likely to be far more
things soon returned to their accustomed thoroughly avenged upon their enemy than
course. We strongly recommend those who they would have been by the kind of partial
are interested in Spain to read this little success which followed efforts similar to theirs
work, because the testimony which it gives in France or Southern Germany; and those
is evidently wrung from its authors with who read their story by the light of what is
great reluctance. They had no sympathy now passing in the Peninsula, may comfort
with some of the more flagrant delusions of themselves with the saying—
the Roman system, with its Mariolatry, for “Though the mills of God grind slowly,
example; but with much that to a real Protes Yet they grind exceeding small.”
tant is quite as objectionable, they were
thoroughly at one. It would, however, be a mistake to sup
If we turn to the debates which took place pose that there is any tendency towards the
in the Constituent Cortes with regard to re Confessions of the sixteenth century on the
ligious toleration, and which have been pub part of any appreciable number of Spaniards.
lished in a separate volume, we shall see that The expedition of Mr. Borrow, except so far
not only were several of the amendments as it produced a book which has been well
brought forward by the Liberal party very re called “Gil Blas in Water Colours," was
52 Spain. March,
a perfect failure, as is well explained in are as enlightened in these great matters,
Captain Widdrington's second work. The and earnest, as the best amongst ourselves;
more recent movement, to which the name and just as surely as the opinions of Luther
of Matamoros is attached, has not even the and Melancthon would, through the Enzinas
proverbial importance of straws that show family and many others, have-taken root in
which way the wind blows. If any exhorta Spain and converted a large minority of the
tions of ours were likely to reach the class nation, if the persecutions of Philip II. and
of persons who find a vent for their superflu his successors had not made it absolutely im
ous energy in missions to the Mediterranean, possible, so one or other of the forms of pure
we would advise them, for the present, to de Christianity which, under various names and
vote all their attention to Italy. There they with differences more or less marked, but
will find, under the protection of an enlight not of vital importance, are becoming the
ened Government, a fair field and certainly creed of most thinking men in the countries
no disfavour. There, by a plentiful expendi. of Europe generally recognised as progressive,
ture of money and zeal, they will be able will most certainly, before the end of this
thoroughly to test how far their views are century, have great influence in rapidly
suitable to Latin populations in the nineteenth reviving Spain. Only let all concerned re
century. The cause of progress can only member, that any attempt on the part of
gain by their having full scope for their ope foreigners to hasten this good work will only
rations, whether judicious or otherwise. In retard it. There is an excellent Castilian
Spain the case is very different: they have proverb which impatient reformers would do
to deal with a half-enlightened Government, well to remember: “No por mucho madrugar,
and with a people which, so long as we hold amanece mas temprano:” “However early
Gibraltar, will be apt to look with intense you get up in the morning, the dawn comes
dislike on everything which has a peculiar never the sooner.”
English colour. Whatever they do, let them All this is not very like the Middle Ages;
at least not make Gibraltar the pivot of their and we cannot help thinking that if Mr.
operations. The only result of doing so will Buckle had lived, he would have found it ne
be to stultify their own efforts, and to alien cessary to reconsider the latter part of his
ate the sympathy of Spaniards from any of elaborate and valuable treatise on Spain.
their converts who may get into trouble. We think that the key to modern Spain is
Our own impression is, that the form of Ro to recollect that she is essentially not mediae
manism which prevails in Spain is lower, and val, but that, in the room of the old faith,
retains less of the real spirit of Christianity, loyalty, and pundonor, she has not as yet got
than that which exists in any other Catholic any great national belief, philosophy, or idea,
country with which we are acquainted. Over in the light of which to live. The old prin
the lower classes it still has very considerable ciples were bad enough, yet let no man con
hold; but much rather as a superstition than demn then utterly, till he has seen the Cathe
as a religion. On the other hand, the creed dral of Toledo, and read what is best in Cal
of the bulk of the men among the educated deron. Nearly all the moral and social phe
classes is pure indifferentism, and probably nomena which we now observe amongst the
in their heart of hearts the majority of those educated classes of Spain, may be explained
who are opposed to religious toleration, by the influence of a superficial French cul
oppose it in order that they may not have the ture acting upon a people in whom long ty
trouble of settling what attitude they are to ranny had dried up the springs of national
take up towards the religion of the State. At life.
present they are Catholics, as a matter of The question which underlies all other
course, just as they are Spaniards. If they questions in the Peninsula is the question of
could be anything else, they would be the dynasty. Will this wretched Bourbon
ashamed to £ in a system which race ever be able honestly to reconcile itself
they utterly despise. This state of things with constitutional government, or must it be
need surprise nobody: it is the natural result trampled down at Madrid as elsewhere? Our
of the forcible suppression of free thought, readers will have gathered that, altogether
and is seen in a less degree even in those apart from the play of the £ forces,
countries—Pagan and other—where public there is an evil influence which is perpetually
opinion, and not penal legislation, is the sup interfering with the action of government.
porter of the existing creeds. We cannot As long as there is the camarilla in the pa
expect this miserable hypocrisy, injurious lace, there will be a constant danger of revolu
alike to morality, to literature, and to states tion in the streets. It is more than probable
manship, soon to pass away; but a begin that Queen Isabella would ere this have been
ning is made. Any one who knows Spain set aside, if it were possible to put anybody
could mention the names of Spaniards who in her place; but against every candidate
1865. Spain. 53
whose claims have ever been canvassed, there whole fiscal system, as well as to the extreme
are great objections, and he must be an ar impolicy of the excessive centralization which
dent republican indeed, who would seriously prevails in every department of the State.
propose to try his favourite form of govern We cannot, however, too strongly impress
ment in such a country. As long as the upon our readers that the punctual execution
Queen persists in giving her confidence to of the laws which even now exist in Spain,
priests, swindlers, and favourites, it is impos bad as these laws in many particulars are,
sible to say what may happen from hour to would very much improve the position of the
hour: but if the royal difficulty could be got country. Everywhere there is slackness,
over, and the intelligence of the country could gross dishonesty, want of business habits, and
be reconciled with its dynasty, which we falsehood. With regard to all this side of
should be heartily glad to see, the next step Spanish affairs, the observations of Ford can
should be, if not to restore the Constitution of not be too frequently read, or too carefully
1837, at least very much to alter that of treasured. Against such evils as these the
1845, and above all, to sweep away those dis best government can do but little; and any
honest saving clauses which leave it open to man who, like Espartero and some of his
a Minister to exercise despotic authority un friends, stood erect amidst the general debase
der constitutional forms. We have not much ment, deserves, although their conduct
fault to find with the franchise. Anyhow amounts to little more than a protest, to be
the improvement that would be effected, if placed upon the same level as far more suc
all parties would consent honestly to abstain cessful Reformers in more fortunate lands.
from the exercise of that undue influence The railways and the abolition of passports
which has been employed against all in turn, have done and will do much to diminish that
would be so enormous, that all questions re intense provincial jealousy, which is one of
lating to it sink by comparison into insignifi the greatest difficulties of Spanish rulers.
cance. Corruption by private persons has Intercourse with foreign nations, which has
never made much progress in Spain, although now become so easy, will gradually force the
there, as in France, it is upon the increase. Spaniards of the upper and middle classes,
If these reforms could be effected, Englishmen both men and women, to become more edu
could look with great equanimity upon a cated. The bull-fight, at once an index and
nominated Senate, and the continued abey a stimulant of national brutality, is now more
ance of the National Guard, although we are flourishing than ever; but this may be ac
far from venturing to hope that real reforms counted for by increased wealth, and every
will be carried out without recurrence to the where there is an intelligent minority which
use of that powerful but dangerous instru protests against it. We should, however,
ment. Another crying evil, which it would only be too happy to think, that the hun
be most important to sweep away, is the in dredth anniversary of the day on which Jovel
tolerable number of functionaries and pen lanos attacked it would see it beginning to
sioners, who eat up the revenues of the State, vanish.
and eke out their wretched pay by bribery and If Spain had only, at the commencement
oppression. This, however, is an evil with of the present reign, adopted a reasonable
which the constitutional government of Spain policy towards her colonies, she might ere
finds it as difficult to deal as does the Auto this have stood towards them in a position at
crat himself. It is easier to say that Spain once honourable and profitable, and have act
ought to have half the number of employés ed in Europe as the head of the Spanish race
which she now has, and to double their sala in all parts of the globe. As it is, it is more
ries, than to propose any feasible means of probable that she will lose the last of them,
effecting such a reform. It is no less clear than that she will be wise in time, and intro
that her policy ought to be to have a small, duce a good government. Her colonial, like
thoroughly well-appointed army, which might her foreign policy, has remained that of Fer
act as a nucleus in the improbable case of a dinand the Seventh. There is surely no
really necessary war, round which her popu power in Europe to which non-intervention is
lation, than which none in Europe more more recommended by nature, for the Pyre
easily adopt the habits of the soldier, might nees, as has been truly said, “damp the
rapidly rally. Nor would it be less desirable sound of her voice.” She has but two real
that Spanish generals should confine them. foreign interests, and both these are penin
selves to their own art, standing aloof from sular: the union with Portugal, and the pos
politics, and imitating, in this respect, their session of Gibraltar. The former of these
naval brethren. We have alluded already to will, we think, certainly come about, when
the ruinous results which have followed the both nations arrive at a higher point of de
unfair dealing of Spanish Finance Ministers, velopment, for such a union will increase the
to the abominations of the tariff, and the power of both in geometrical ratio. We
54 Tests in the English Universities. Ma
should not, however, be deceived, for as yet ART. IV.—1. A Plea for the Abolition
nothing is prepared for it, and the Pedrist Tests in the University of Oxford.
intrigues of 1854 were quite premature. GoLDw1N SMITH. Oxford: Wheeler
There are hardly two capitals in Europe, Day. London: Hamilton & Co.; 186
which have so little intercourse with each 2. An Answer to Professor Goldwin Sm.
other as Lisbon and Madrid. When the fron Plea for the Abolition of Tests. By 1
tier is cut by half-a-dozen railways it will be H. R. BRAMLEY, M.A., Fellow and T.
very different, and ere that time may we not of St. Mary Magdalen College. Lond
hope to see a really free and good Govern Rivingtons.
ment in both countries? At present, Portu
gal is politically much in advance. With re WITHIN the last few years it has bec
gard to Gibraltar, we have not the space to almost a platitude to remark how differen
discuss the question of its transfer either from character are the questions now rising
the English or the Spanish point of view. importance among us from those which v
Many years may pass before it becomes a the objects of public attention and polit
question of immediate interest, but no reason warfare during the last two reigns. S.
able man can doubt that it must one day be may think that, along with the more defi
such; and we only trust that both Govern recognition of a policy of non-interven
ments may have the good sense to set about abroad, there has come a more resolute
its discussion, when the proper time arrives, centration of interest upon domestic matt
with a due respect for themselves and for Others may declare the phenomenon only
each other. In the meantime, it is desirable result of the indifference to sweeping polit
that writers and speakers should from time changes which it is natural that a perio.
to time bring the matter before the attention great material prosperity should prod
of this country, in order that the public mind Others again, penetrating deeper, will s
may not be unprepared. Spain would have its causes in the spirit of an age, which,
made a very great step towards prosperity, complacent and self-indulgent as it may
if she could only understand, that all intelli pear, is yet restless, inquiring, and filled v
gent Englishmen wish that she should rise to a belief in progress. But whatever be
a point of national wealth and real power, cause, the fact is certain. In each succ
such as she has never as yet attained. They ing session of Parliament more and m
are quite aware that, in the present condition time is consumed in debates upon project
of the world, Spain cannot be prosperous social and religious change; parties are
without being enlightened, peaceful, and in ginning to reconstruct themselves upon
dustrious, and they well know that the trans basis of new beliefs and new cries; the
formation of the Iberian Peninsula into an fidence of the nation is given to those sta
enlightened, peaceful, and industrious state, men chiefly in whom is recognised the
would not only be a great blessing to mankind, and the wisdom to deal successfully v
but would add enormously to the well-being questions of social improvement.
of their own country, which is becoming every Among such questions, those relating
day more and more the workshop and the education hold a front place; and am
entrepôt of the world. Nor will the complete those relating to education, there is n
regeneration of Spain be less important to us more important than that of University
in an intellectual than in a material point of tension and reform. Strictly speaking,
view. Consider what she did when she was is not a political matter at all, for little
enslaved to a faith only less bloody than that be done in it by direct legislative interfere
which she overthrew in Mexico—a faith at A wise and happy policy has left the l
which all intelligent Romanists now shudder; versities both of England and Scotland
then judge what she may do when the fine more independent than their sisters in o
intellects of her people are freed from the European countries; and it is from their
bondage of ignorance, and she has her fair decisions and their own free action that
share of the knowledge of those facts of the have most to hope. However desirabl
universe, which are now acquired for human may be that the two great academies of E
ity. So surely as a new product of any va land should exercise a greater influence
lue is discovered, it soon finds its way to Eng the education of the whole country;
land. So surely as a new idea is born into they should be more easily accessible to
the world, it soon finds its way hither also, less wealthy classes; that room should
and no nation can now become rich or wise found in their curriculum for branches
without largely contributing to the increase knowledge as yet imperfectly recognised,
of our riches and wisdom. which to be studied rightly must be stu
philosophically, these objects cannot be
tained by the sudden enactment of any si
1865. Tests in the English Universities. 55
scheme, but must be left to the slowly work nor will the decision in the one necessarily
ing influences of frequent discussion, of indi involve a similar conclusion in the other.
vidual example, of enlightened public opinion. The argument most frequently advanced for
To this principle there is, however, one clerical subscription, that since the Christian
exception, an exception itself important, but Church rests upon dogma, and the clergyman's
still more so because a change therein is the chief duty is to teach dogma, a statement of
necessary precondition of every other change. his dogmatic belief is necessary as a security
In the matter of religious tests nothing can to the laity, has obviously no application to
be done but by the direct aid of the Legisla the case of the Universities. Anything which
ture. Here, and here only, has the law affects the fortunes of the greatest ecclesiasti
stepped in to restrain the freedom of the cal institution of Britain must always be to
University, by imposing, sometimes directly, every thoughtful man, be he Churchman or
sometimes through the medium of commis Dissenter, Englishman or Scotchman, a mat
sioners, certain subscriptions and declarations ter of the profoundest interest. But without
of religious belief or conformity, and it is ac any disparagement to the question of English
cordingly by the law only that these can be clerical tests, it may fairly be said that the
removed.* This question is one of immedi question before us is a wider, if not a deeper
ate practical moment; it has already been one; for it affects not one body of Christians
brought forward in Parliament, and it is likelymerely, but the whole nation; and it is inter
to engage for several years to come no small woven with many other projects of reform in
measure of the attention of the Legislature. which neither religion nor the English Church
We may add, that it is a question affecting has any direct concern.
in the most serious way the interests of Scot We shall therefore make no apology for
land, though its bearings are unfortunately considering the subject of University Tests,
and unaccountably very little known among apart from any theory as to the desirability
us here. of theological standards for the ministers of a
Before entering on the subject, one remark religious body, seeing that it is at once a
cannot be omitted. The discussion of the wider, a more practical, and above all, a far
merits of these tests, as tests, has nothing to simpler question.
do with any discussion of their truth. Those It will be in the remembrance of our read
who have attacked them, being often them ers, that in the sessions of 1862 and 1863,
selves sufferers, have sometimes appeared to two petitions were presented to Parliament,
rest their case upon the latter ground, and praying for relief from certain academical
have mixed up an invective against the doc tests. One of these—that of 1862—was
trine with an invective against the test...We signed by seventy-four fellows of Colleges
do not propose to enter upon any such line at Cambridge, and sought for a repeal of
of argument. If a test is as a matter of fact that part of the Act of Uniformity which
disbelieved by many persons, that, though it requires heads and fellows of Colleges to
may be a very good reason against imposing make on their admission a declaration of con
it, can evidently have nothing to do with its formity to the Liturgy of the Church of Eng:
abstract truth ; and everybody knows that land. That of 1863 came from Oxford, and
the legal establishment of both these and was directed against the existing tests gene
other formularies of doctrine has been and is rally. The names of one hundred and six
condemned by many whose own orthodoxy present and former fellows or tutors of Col
is above suspicion. leges and professors were appended to it, in
Further, the question of University Sub cluding a large proportion of distinguished
scription is wholly distinct from that of Cleri teachers and writers." Upon these petitions
cal Subscription in the Anglican Church. were founded the two bills introduced into
Reasons have already been given in this Re the House of Commons in the sessions of
view for believing that a relaxation of that 1863 and 1864 respectively. Mr. Dodson's,
subscription is to be desired in the interests which proposed to abolish at Oxford the re
of the English Church herself—reasons many quirement of subscription to the Articles on
of which apply to the case of the Universities taking the degrees of M.A., D.C.L., and D.M.,
also, for they tend to show that subscription was carried on the second reading by a ma
is a broken reed in any hand. But seeing jority of twenty-two, after a spirited debate in
that both the persons subject to the test, and which many leading politicians took part;
the circumstances, differ wholly in the two was carried again, on the proposal to go into
cases, each must be argued and judged apart; committee, by a majority of ten; carried a
* Some of these restrictions are matter of sta * It was stated in the House of Commons at the
tute, others only of academical law, but practically time that thirteen professors had signed, and that
the intervention of Parliament would be as ne out of 181 first-class men who were fellows of Col
cessary in the latter case as in the former. leges, 56 had signed.
56 Tests in the English Universities. March,
third time, against Sir W. Heathcote's amend the Act of 1856) required in the taking of
ment, by a majority of ten; read a third time any lay degree whatsoever. But no one is
by the casting vote of the Speaker; and admitted into the senate or governing body
finally rejected, on the question “that this of the University, until he shall have declared
bill do now pass,” by a majority of only two, himself a bona fide member of the Church of
in the midst of an excitement only second to England. Of course, the degree of M.A.,
that of the Danish debate which followed. stripped of all rights of government, is a mere
Mr. Bouverie's • bill,” to make it lawful for barren title, or rather a humiliating badge of
Colleges to relax, if they should think fit, the inferiority; and the condition of things at
requirements of the Act of Uniformity, by Cambridge differs from that at Oxford chiefly
admitting Dissenters to fellowships, came on in this, that the above declaration of member
for discussion rather later in the session, and, ship is generally found to be less distasteful
from whatever cause, met with a less warm than a signature to the Articles.
reception. It was rejected on the second Secondly, as regards the Colleges.
reading by a considerable majority. Both In both Oxford and Cambridge, every head
measures, however, found an amount of sup and fellow of a College is required by the act
port, and excited an amount of hostility, of Uniformity to make, on his admission, a
which must have surprised their authors declaration before the Vice-Chancellor that
themselves; and the commotion raised by he will conform to the Liturgy of the United
them in Parliament, which has already found Church of England and Ireland, as it is by
an echo in the country, proclaimed that they law established. There can be little doubt
had fairly entered the sphere of political, it that this provision was introduced into the
may almost be said of hustings' questions. Act in order to reach the clergy at the Uni
To understand clearly what they proposed to versities, as its other sections were the means
do, it may be well to give an exact statement of ejecting beneficed clergymen. Now, of
of the existing law, distinguishing those en course, the majority of those whom it affects
actments which relate to the University as a are laymen.
whole from those which concern the several In addition to this, which is matter of the
Colleges. And first, as to the Universities. law of the land, the statutes of most Colleges,
In Oxford, up to the Act of 1854, sub both at Oxford and Cambridge, prescribe to
scription to the Thirty-nine Articles was re their heads and fellows tests more or less
uired from all students at matriculation; to stringent. In some it is provided that the
the Articles and the Thirty-sixth Canon in fellow shall be a person conforming to the
taking any degree whatsoever. That Act Liturgy of the Church of England; in others,
abolished the subscription at matriculation he is merely threatened with deprivation for
and in taking the degree of Bachelor in any contumacious non-conformity. Others, again,
of the lay faculties, leaving it subsisting in require him to declare that he embraces the
the case of the higher degrees. Thus at faith of the English Church, or is willing to
present, every one who proceeds to the degree use her rites. Several Colleges at Cambridge
of Master of Arts, or Doctor of Laws or Me require him to be or declare himself a bona
dicine, must sign the Thirty-nine Articles, fide member of the Church of England. It
and the three articles of the Thirty-sixth is also provided in some cases that if he open
Canon, in the second of which the subscriber ly secedes from the worship of the Church of
declares, “willingly and ex animo,” that the England he shall be deprived of his fellow
Book of Common Prayer and of the Order ship. At Trinity, Cambridge, where this pro
ing of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, con vision exists, the fellow makes before admis
taineth in it nothing contrary to the Word sion the following declaration :-Ego N. N.,
of God, and that it may lawfully be used, and promitto me veram Christi religionem omni
that he himself will use, the forms in the said animo amplexurum, Scripturae auctoritatem
book prescribed, in public prayer and in the humanis judiciis praepositurum, regulam vitae
administration of the sacraments. Only per et summam fidei ex verbo Dei petiturum;
sons having so subscribed are admitted into cactera quae ex verbo Dei non probantur pro
the Houses of Convocation and Congregation humanis habiturum.”
and the Hebdomadal Council,—the three It will be perceived from this statement
bodies by which the University is governed, that there are two very different sorts of tests
and to whose members almost all academic imposed, and correspondingly two different
ower and privilege belongs. classes of persons who complain of them.
At Cambridge no subscription is now (since Subscription to a formulary of doctrine so
* Introduced first in 1863; then in a modified
minute as the Thirty-nine Articles is felt as
form in 1864. a burden by members of the Church of Eng
+ The latter part of this declaration has evi land already admitted to the University, and
dently no meaning except as applied to clergymen, chiefly, as is natural, by the laymen, of whom
a profession of faith is demanded on no other portant, does not by any means include the
occasion in their lives. Conformity to the rest. Many means are open to us of pro
services of the Church they are generally moting it which we do not use. It is surely
willing enough to promise, since it binds desirable that those to whom the destinies of
them only to continue doing what most of nations are intrusted should have correct
them do already. On the other hand, the speculative views, yet we do not require a
Nonconformists, the great majority of whom declaration of belief from the Prime Minister.
might sign the Articles as £ as an Wherever, in short, there is an immediate
Anglican, are unable to declare their conformi object to be attained, we look to that imme
ty to the Liturgy, since that would be tanta diate object only, and neglect others, no mat
mount to forsaking the religious community ter how serious. So here of the University,
in which they have been brought up. Prac as compared with the Church. The object
tically, many of them probably would con for which the Church exists is to preserve and
form, but when it is thus put to them it be teach religious truth; and if that truth takes
comes a point of honour to refuse, Thus the a dogmatic form, creeds and formularies of
removal of either test singly, while relieving doctrine may be a necessary part of the ec
one party, would leave the other just where clesiastical system,” since it is by them that
it is now. Different, however, as are the her teaching is shaped. But the objects for
positions of the excluded Dissenter and the which the University exists are education and
oppressed Churchman, their interest in the learning, the training of the human mind, and
matter is really the same. The two tests the advancement of human knowledge: ob
must stand or fall together, for the party jects quite distinct from the enforcement of
which defends them regards each as equall dogmatic truth, distinct even from the forma
essential; and it would probably be found al tion of a moral and religious character. It
most as hard to exclude Nonconformists from may indeed be said that the great aim of all
a body which maintained no doctrinal stand education is to make men better, and that for
ard, as it would be to keep up that standard this religious teaching and even religious
when the obligation to conform to the out dogma are indispensable. True, but it does
ward services of the Church had been with not therefore follow that the training of the
drawn. For most purposes, therefore, these intellect and the moulding of the heart are
tests may be considered together as parts of one indissolubly connected, and should be done
system, and it will only be necessary occasion by the same persons in the same way. As a
ally to examine into the peculiarclaims of each. matter of fact, we see that they are quite dis
Three questions may be asked with regard tinct. They appeal to different parts of our
to any institution:—First, Is the end which nature. The capacity for receiving the one
it proposes to serve a good and fitting one, is frequently out of all proportion to that for
not merely laudable in itself, but a proper ob the other: so also is the capacity for teach
ject for this particular institution? Secondly, ing them. Strictly speaking, religion cannot
Are the means by which this end is to be at be taught at all; and so far as it can be,
tained good in themselves? And lastly, Are should be taught first at home, and after
those means actually successful ?—is the end wards by the Church, whose peculiar function
proposed attained by them | Let us try the it is to do so. Intellectual education not only
University Test system in these three points. can, but must be and is pursued quite apart
The object for which these tests exist is from theology, in a religious spirit, no doubt,
commonly held to be the preservation and but without reference to doctrine. To mix
enforcement of sound doctrine; that is to say, up the teaching of religious dogma with the
of true opinions on the weightiest of all sub teaching of Latin and Greek, of the natural
jects. The importance of that object in itself sciences, of jurisprudence and logic, even of
will be granted by every thinking man, no history and metaphysics, would pervert and
matter what his views may be. It must, impede all these studies, while it made re
however, be also granted that the intrinsic ligion itself ridiculous. If any one supposes
goodness of an object does not oblige us to that they are so taught in the most religious
pursue it unceasingly by every lawful means of Universities, he may satisfy himself by a
and on every lawful occasion. The argument visit to Oxford or Cambridge. He will there
is no doubt hackneyed, but so is the fallacy. hear all those subjects treated exactly as they
Common sense tells us, that we succeed best in are treated in the schools of Germany, of
all things by doing one thing at a time, and that Scotland, of America; that is to say, without
the general ends of society are best served by reference to dogmatic theology at all. Or let
a number of separate organizations, each de
voted to its own proper purpose. The wants * This of course does not decide how far great
and the capacities of man are very various, strictness is desirable in such creeds, in the interests
and doctrinal truth, although the most im of theology and the Church itself.
58 Tests in the English Universities. Mar
him, if he wishes to spare himself the jour done. The man whose sense of honour, a
ney, take up the books which English under sense of the magnitude of divine things, is
graduates are directed or advised to read for keen that he will not swerve a step from t
their examinations—Gibbon and Grote and path of truth for the sake of worldly adv
Mommsen, Locke and Adam Smith and tage, has been rejected; the man whose cr
Bentham and Mill—and judge from them for science is more elastic, and who thinks ti
himself. It may indeed be said, that the really theology is one of those things whi
nature of a great educational institution abso signify very little anyhow, and should not
lutely forbids her to teach dogma. It is not allowed to stand in a man's way, has be
her business to force opinions upon her pupils, received. Unless you suppose a natural co
which would have no real value to them if so nexion between scepticism and honesty, t
forced, but to enable them to form true and probability is, that the man who is lost
just opinions for themselves. you, differed from your doctrine infinitely l
Let the University be set free from a dis than the man you have got.
tressing incubus to follow her own vocation, But the mischief does not stop here. W
—a vocation which is the widest and the all know what the practical result is. So
noblest any secular institution can have, and persons stay away from the University al
she will serve both the world and the Church gether, or leave it immediately on taki
far more effectively than she has ever done their bachelor's degree, knowing that to atti
before. its crowning honours and emoluments th
Having thus endeavoured to show that the would have to desert the principles or t
end for which these tests exist, the main religious community to which they h
tenance of orthodoxy, is one with which the formerly adhered. But of those who do con
University has nothing to do, we come, in who pass through the lower degrees a
the second place, to inquire more particularly reach the point in their career to seek adm
into the essential nature of the means which sion to Convocation, or to compete for fello
the University is supposed to have hitherto ships, scarcely one refuses the test, a
employed for this end. What in themselves scarcely one believes it; that is to say,
are these declarations and subscriptions; and cepts it in the same plain obvious sense
what is their tendency on those who take which he would a set of propositions on a
them? This part of the argument is so very other subject. When we say scarcely one
simple, and has been so often set forth before is understood that we do not speak of ca
now, that a few words upon it may suffice. less undergraduates, who have never thoug
A test is a device by which we attempt to about doctrinal theology at all. They si
discover a man's feelings and wishes, just as from habit, when the time for M.A. com
our own observation enables us to know his just as boys of twelve or fourteen used to si
physical qualities and his acts. Not being last century. We speak of the intellige
able to read his mind, we throw ourselves upon students, from among whom the fellows
his honour, and ask him to declare it to us. Colleges are taken, and who become in t
Now, mark the result in different cases. We end tutors and professors; who may be d
take extreme cases, because they show the tined in after life to reflect lustre on th
result more clearly, but the principle is the University; and who carry away from h
same in all. An honest and scrupulous man the stamp of a culture higher than the co
may very possibly take the test proposed to mon. To call such men dishonest or
him; but if it be a minute and exact test, the scrupulous because they subscribe, would
tendency of different minds, thinking inde eminently unjust. They act for what th
endently, to arrive at different conclusions, believe to be the best, and choose of two ev
is such that the chances are great that he will that which seems the lesser. They look up
refuse. Certain it is, that the more honest the Articles as a curious historical monume
and scrupulous he is, and the keener his in quite out of place in the present day, attem
terest is in theology, his refusal is the more ing to deal with subjects which transcend
probable. Take another case. You put your man language, and whose very minuten
test to a man who has no strong sense of the and preciseness, making it impossible to
importance of such matters at all. He signs, terpret each expression literally, allow th
perhaps with an uneasy sigh, more probably to interpret it away altogether. They co
with a smile. In any case, the less honest sole themselves by the example of friends a
he is, and the more indifferent, the more ready teachers whom they respect, and who ha
is he to sign. See now what has been gained taken the tests in a more or less unnatu
on the transaction. He must be a rigid dog sense. “Why,” each one asks hims
matist indeed, who, if orthodoxy and honesty “should I injure my chance of an honou
cannot be had together, will give the prefer ble and useful career? Why debar mys
ence to orthodoxy. Yet this is just what is from aiding, by my vote and voice and z
1865. Tests in the English Universities. \ 59
in teaching, in the great work of raising and Partly on account of the general difficulty in
purifying the University and my own Col. this world of getting anything changed which
lege, all for the sake of scruples which others has grown up with and become a part of old
have overcome, and which may very likely institutions,—men's self-interest or mere sul
spring only from over-conscientiousness?” len stupidity maintaining the time-honoured
They say, and they say truly, that they are abuse, until pent-up indignation finds its vent
the victims of a system. But what are we at last in a sort of moral earthquake, involv
to think of a system which must be defended ing in a sudden and terrible overthrow that
by one or other of the alternatives given which ought to have been slowly and peacea
in the pointed and eloquent words of Mr. bly reformed in the bygone days of calm.
Goschen ? Partly, however, also from a real fear of the
“How can we deal with a man who comes future, a large party in the English Church
to the University with a superficial form of and in Parliament still believe that these tests,
adherence to the Church, and under the although they do not exclude the heretic, are
stimulus of the very learning and study which yet in some way or other a bulwark of sound
it is the duty and highest privilege of the doctrine. They are, it is thought, a sort of
University to enforce, finds that although he banner set on high in the midst of the Uni
honestly wishes to believe certain things, yet versity, round which the faithful may rally
honestly he cannot? Is such a man to be and enroll themselves (by subscribing) as its
told, ‘Stifle that morbid craving after truth; defenders. They may not inspire the dis
if you cannot give an honest adhesion to the affected with loyalty, or stifle treasonable
Church, give it anyhow. Or are we to say thoughts, but they can at least prevent open
to him, ‘You ought to have arrived at one revolt. They are a testimony rendered to
conclusion only from your study, and you the truth by the most learned bodies in the
have arrived at another. We wished you to country,—an exhortation to the young man
listen, and not to reflect. Your learning is what he should believe, which if he neglect,
great, your genius undeniable, your character it is at his own peril, and his instructors are
unblemished, but you dissent from one of the blameless.
five hundred propositions contained in the The reply to these arguments is by a ques
Thirty-nine Articles; you are weak enough tion : Are these tests snch a standard and
to confess it, and you can never be a member testimony,–are they any part of it? Do
of that University, which otherwise you are they now discharge, have they ever discharg
so fitted to adorn.' I leave the opponents of ed, the high functions thus claimed for them?
the measure the benefit of the choice between Teachers supposed to be heretical they are
these two answers.” Yet this is the system powerless to punish or expel, for in the course
which religion is invoked to defend. of centuries there has never been but one
Bad, however, as the moral effects of such such prosecution attempted, and that one
a state of things are, they are not so bad as ended in ludicrous failure. Yet it is certainly
might have been expected. It is not indeed not to any want of fancied culprits that this
possible for men deliberately to put their fact can be ascribed. Heretical books they
names to statements which they disbelieve, are still less able to exclude; nay, such books
without having the purity of their conscience are recognised in the University examina
stained, and their sense of the binding nature tions, and are, as we learn from the pamphlet
of a moral obligation perceptibly weakened. before us, recommended to candidates for
But here, as one evil may sometimes cure honours. Upon the general tone of thought
another, the dangers of the lax practice are and conversation in the two Universities, they
greatly alleviated by the prevailing laxity of do, no doubt, exercise an influence, a serious
opinion. Public feeling has done what law and increasing one. To state the nature of
refuses to do, by abolishing the meaning of that influence, by describing the present con
subscription. Thus it comes that nobody now dition of academical opinion, will be to an
supposes that signature to a test is a profession swer the third of the criteria by which it
of belief at all, though such a notion is too was proposed at starting to try the test sys
often professed when it is desired to hold up tem. Supposing doctrinal orthodoxy to be
some formidable opponent to the reprobation the object for whose promotion tests exist,
of the laity. Why, then, is the test main have they succeeded? Do they now promote
tained ? Why, when it has confessedly it? There is no unfairness in judging the
failed to answer its original purpose, is it tree by its fruits.
pleaded for as earnestly as if £ life of the In describing the present state of the Uni
Church and Christianity depended upon it? versities, some distinction must be made be
tween Cambridge and Oxford. The former,
* Speech of Mr. Goschen in the House of Com from a variety of causes, among which may
mons, March 16, 1864. be counted the absence of a violent Roman
izing party, and the greater freedom which them to preserve, in the midst of contests in
she has hitherto enjoyed from legally im which their sympathies are strongly engaged,
posed subscriptions, has been and still is com the fairness and moderation which befit a
paratively unvexed by religious strife. But teacher. Even the relation between pupil
at Oxford, if the newspapers and the evidence and tutor is disturbed, and the suspicion
of those who reside there is to be trusted, the which accusations and insinuations have en
bitterness of theological faction is greater gendered is too apt to take the place of that
than anywhere else in England, greater than mutual confidence which can alone give such
has ever been known before even there. The a relation value. The pupil not unfrequently
presence of tests, and the constant reference watches closely for any expression of the tu
to them in every dispute that arises, doctrinal tor's opinions, eager, according to his own
or political, makes dogmatic theology almost predilections, to condemn or applaud the ex
the only topic of discussion; the sense of an pected heterodoxy. The tutor, knowing him
oppressive yoke makes the tone of discussion self observed, is sensible of an invisible barrier
invariably unfriendly to orthodoxy. Every between himself and his pupil, and seldom
body is proud to show that if his hand signs ventures to address him at all on a religious
his mind is free, and revenges himself for the topic, lest he should be suspected of a wish to
humiliating compliance by hating and abusing influence his faith. It is not the test that
the clerical power which enforces it. It is makes him avoid even the appearance of pro
superfluous to say that among the younger selytizing, but his own sense of honour to the
members of the University there is no regu pupils and the pupils' parents; it is the state
lar study of theology; they merely seize and of morbid theological excitement, for which
repeat the notions which take their fancy, or the test system is responsible, that obliges
are expounded by the oracle of their coterie, him to forego one of the most precious
or seem effective for the purposes of contro means of forming the character of those who
versy. If it was not for the peculiar circum are intrusted to him. All the while, too, the
stances of Oxford, theological problems would test is burdensome to himself—not much less
hardly occur to them at all, or, if they did burdensome if he happens to agree generally
come before them, would be met in a calm with it, than if he rejects it altogether. It is
spirit. But in Oxford, the more clever and a badge of servitude and degradation, like
active of the young men are excited by the that light fetter which the refined cruelty of
contests of their seniors, and naturally sym some Oriental tribe forces the captive always
pathize with the party of attack. Liberalism to wear, not too heavy to make him useless
is fashionable among them, and liberalism is as a slave, but heavy enough to remind him
fast becoming synonymous with heterodoxy. always of its galling presence.
Some one may say: “What then it surely The prospect of this state of quasi-bondage
matters little what a set of hasty young men and discomfort has not failed to produce its
think or do?” . . We doubt it. Is it so light natural consequence. It is found more and
a thing that a large part of the ablest youth more difficult to persuade persons of distinc
of England should learn to associate the doc tion to remain at the University, either as
trines of Christianity with a policy of tyranny lay-tutors or as clergymen. There seems
and repression and timidity? Be this as it some danger that the work of teaching will
may; the present state of Oxford is at least soon be left in the hands of men inferior to
a proof that the imposition of tests does not those who have discharged it during the last
produce unanimity of opinion, nor dispose forty years. As in the similar case of that
men to love what they are bidden under decline in the acquirements of the Anglican
penalties to accept. And just as intrusion of clergy, about which such loud complaints
theological dogma into things with which it have been raised by the bishops, the phe
has nothing to do tends to injure theology nomenon is partly due to the greater pros
herself, so has it still more conspicuously in pects which other careers of life open up to
jured the University by drawing her away ambition, compared with the quiet life and
from her proper functions. The minds of the moderate income of a tutor or professor.
younger graduates and teachers are now Nevertheless it is certain that some—and
wholly absorbed by religious or political parti those who know Oxford and Cambridge will
sanship, and the cause of education and be at no loss for examples—are deterred by
learning suffers in proportion. The turmoil the idea that if they remain at the Universi
of discontent, the ever-recurring faction fights, ties, they must lead what is more or less a
canvassings and agitations of all sorts, unsettle false life, a life of enforced submission to
men's minds, and turn their energies into an formularies of whose truth they are not con
unprofitable channel. They have little leisure vinced, with the possibility that a time
and less inclination for studies that lie out of may come when an increasing divergence
the common track. It is not possible for from those formularies may make it their
duty eventually to resign their academical mation, which deprived the priesthood of
posts. the sanctity and power it had hitherto enjoyed,
Do not let us be mistaken here. It may and made it nothing more than one of many
be thought that if this be so, it is so far an learned professions, the most sacred, but by
argument for tests, for it shows that they are no means entitled to control the rest. Con
not wholly effectless. We wish to allow formably to this altered state of things, the
them all the credit they deserve, and are Universities, which had never been religious,
ready to admit that they sometimes do in but always educational institutions (theology
duce men of doubtful theology to prefer a was indeed the chief study, but theology then
life elsewhere. Those who see no necessary included all knowledge), passed in every
connexion between excellence in teaching La Protestant country but one out of the hands
tin or chemistry and a belief in the Athana of the clerical order, but still remained de
sian Creed, will think this not a gain at all. voted to their original function, that of being
But what we wish to point out here is that, centres where able men might gather to pur
if a gain, it is wholly neutralized by the sue their own studies, and instruct the young
other circumstance of the case. When in every branch of useful learning. In Eng
many men known to be heterodox remain, land alone it was not so. There, in the
the departure of a few, and those not always midst of the violence and disorder of the
the most extreme, makes no perceptible differ religious contest, the University as distinct
ence. They would not have proselytized had from the Colleges, disappeared; the Colleges,
they stayed, just as no one now proselytizes; rich and exclusive corporations, remained,
their opinions would probably have become by mere force of usage and habit, clerical.
known, but so are the opinions of every emi Usurping the power of the deserted Univer
nent resident known. The mere fact that sity, and reconstituting it from their own
men of ability dislike an exclusive religious members, the priestly Colleges impressed
system so much that they go away to get rid upon both Oxford and Cambridge that ex
of it, is not without its influence upon the clusively clerical character which was never
undergraduate mind. seriously disturbed till quite recent times.
It must not, however, be forgotten that The case of England, therefore, so far from
there is another and very different ground on being an instance of the rule that education
which these tests are defended. Many per. has remained in sacerdotal hands, is the soli
sons who do not care much for the invisible tary exception to the contrary rule,—an ex
Church or her doctrines, have a great tender ception partly owing to the greater wealth of
ness for the visible Church and her privileges; her collegiate foundations, partly to the al
and these men say the business of the tests liance between her Church and arbitrary
is not to preserve Christian dogma, but to power. The functions of the mediaeval priest
keep the Universities in connexion with the hood are now discharged by lawyers, physi
Church of England. We are thus brought cians, engineers, by professional statesmen, by
back to the old starting-point, and must fol public writers and men of letters generally,
low out from it a different line of argument. just as much as by the modern clergy. Nor
Supposing this last suggested end to be really can the Church now claim, in virtue of any
the end which the tests are meant to serve, thing more than the accident of name, to
is it a right and a fitting one In other represent the Church of the Middle Ages,
words, do the Universities, either historically, and enjoy like her the exclusive right of
or on what may be called grounds of abstract educating the people; while if it be said
reasoning, belong to the Church of Eng that she is at any rate the legal heir of the
land; or is their present connexion with her old Church, and as such entitled to the en
a comparatively modern and an accidental dowments which were her predecessors, we
one The so-called argument from history shall have to ask whether the intentions of
is so often appealed to by the extreme Church the founders of those endowments are or are
£ that it cannot be left unexamined. not to be strictly observed. If they are, do
ut we will be brief upon it, and will say as not the endowments now belong to the Ro
little about the Middle Ages as possible. man Catholics, who hold the creed of their
When the Universities arose in Europe, founders? If, on the other hand, the nation,
not only learning, but also every profession represented by its Legislature, has the right
and all education was in the hands of the of altering their distribution, and was justi
clergy. They were, indeed, not so much fied in transferring them at the Reformation
ministers of religion as a great intellectual to a body professing a different creed, and
caste, charged to promote in every way the persecuting those who adhered to the old one,
spiritual good of mankind. This system, does not that right still subsist? May not
already decaying from the operation of other the Legislature, by another exercise of its
causes, was rudely broken up by the Refor power, admit to a share in these foundations,
religious bodies differing less from the “These tests are the vestiges, the last linger
Church of Elizabeth than the Church of ing vestiges, of an age of religious tyranny and
Elizabeth differed from the Church of Beck oppression of conscience,—an age when the best
et? We cannot be in doubt which alterna of Christians and of citizens, guilty of no of.
tive to embrace. The Church of the Refor fence but that of loving the truth, and desiring
to impart it to their brethren, were treated as
mation has now become divided into many felons, harassed, fined, thrust into noisome dun
branches. But the Universities were at first, geons, and kept there till they died, at the in
and continued till the time of the last Stuarts, stigation of ecclesiastics who dishonoured the
what they are in justice now: the property, Christian name, and by the hands of politicians,
not of any one Church, nor of all the who equally dishonoured it, and who in many
cases had no convictions whatever of their
Churches taken together, but of the English
people. And the true restoration of the an own; when the Eucharist itself, the bond of
Christian love, was prostituted to the purposes
cient system would be to make every citizen of political hatred with the approbation of a so
of Great Britain now, as every citizen of the called Christian clergy, though with a profanity
whole European commonwealth was then, worse, because deeper in its nature, and pollut
ing holier things, than the impieties of the ig
eligible to all their offices, honours, and emo
luments. norant heathen; when in Scotland, many a
So much for the history of the matter: let peasant, merely for worshipping God in the way
he thought the best, was shot down by a godless
us see now upon what abstract grounds of soldiery hounded on by bishops styling them
right the claim of the Anglican Church is selves the successors of the Apostles; when Ire
rested. It is said that the control of the na
land was oppressed by the penal code which
tional Universities is essential to the exist bribed the child to apostasy by enabling him, as
ence of the national Church, and we are a reward, to strip his father of his property, and
threatened with the ultimate destruction of not only of his inherited property, but of that
the Establishment if we inflict such blows which he might himself acquire; when immo
rality and infidelity went hand in hand with
upon her. We firmly believe that no such spiritual slavery; and, while Baxter and Cala
results would follow; but after all, the ques my lay in prison for their convictions, obscene
tion is not of the interests of the Church of
plays were being acted in the harem of a De
England, but of the claims and interests of fender of the Faith, who lived a careless infidel,
the whole country; and, even if the proposed mocking at morality and God, and who died a
change should impair the power of the craven infidel, calling in his panic for the viati
Church, it would nevertheless be a necessary, cum of superstition. Is not that age, with all
because a just measure. If, as has been ar that belonged to it, numbered with the past?
gued in the preceding pages, the functions of Are not its practices disclaimed "even by those
who have not yet eradicated its sentiments from
the Universities are secular, if they have re their hearts? Have not all men, capable of
ally nothing to do with any Church, what profiting by any experience whatever, profited
reason can be given for keeping them in the by the experience which, recorded in characters
hands of the State Church : In the eye of more terrible than those of blood, tells us that
the law they are lay corporations, subject to conscience cannot be forced, that God will ac
no ecclesiastical jurisdiction, visited by the cept none but a free allegiance; and that reason,
Sovereign in the Court of Queen's Bench. and reason alone, is our appointed instrument
for bringing each other to the truth? Can any
Historically, they are national institutions, one imagine that the suppression of differences
founded to be the instructors of the whole
of opinion, which the great powers of the earth,
people, at a time when, as the whole people seated on its most ancient and awful thrones,
were of one Church, there was no sectarian fail to effect with their united force, will be
jealousy to interfere with their beneficent effected by a party born but yesterday, and still
mission. Their restriction to members of the unsettled in its own opinions, with so miserable
Church of England dates only from the reign a fragment of that force as an academical test?
of Charles II, when the Church ceased to re Why should we, the great body of the English
people, who have no interest to serve but those
present the nation, and is but a part of that of truth and sincere religion, any longer oppress,
system of exclusion and persecution which vex, and harass the consciences of each other?
disgraced our history for a century and a Why should we thus aggravate the religious
half; the system which “treated the Dis perplexities and distresses which are gathering
senter as half a criminal and half a citizen,” fast enough around us all? If it is for a politi
and which has left among us an evil legacy cal object that we do this, how can true.policy
be divorced from justice? If it is for a reli
of hatred and envy, and the rankling sense of gious object, how can religion consist with de
wrong. To quote the words of the eloquent pravation of conscience?”
pamphlet which we have placed at the head
of this article:*—
brilliant productions of its brilliant author, only
because we conclude that every person who is in
* We have not quoted more largely from Profes terested in the question will procure and read it
sor Goldwin Smith's pamphlet, one of the most for himself.
Nor, indeed, can any reason be given for without obtaining fellowships, much to the
confining the Universities to Churchmen, vexation of their College, which was power
which would not have been equally a reason less to help them. While Dissenters have so
for maintaining the Test and Corporation Acts. mortifying a prospect before them, it need
But if the National Church be not the not be thought strange that the Church is
Church of the whole nation, but of little left in undisputed possession. If outward con
more than the half; if the proportion of its formity be that which is really vital to a
adherents has been steadily decreasing; if Church—more vital than faith in her doc
struggles and recriminations within threaten trines, or love for her services, or zeal in her
disruption; if there is not, judging the future work—then may the church rejoice, for out
from the past, any prospect of its gathering, ward conformity at the Universities she has.
while its services and its tests remain what It is purchased at the price of a great injus
they are, the whole population within its tice to the nation, and of the sorrow and dis
pale, the question assumes a very different gust of many of her own best members. But
aspect. If the interests of Anglicanism are it is supposed to be the necessary support of
not those of the nation, what reason can be her power, and so every change will be re
£ for sacrificing the greater to the less? sisted until resistance : at last become
very Englishman has just as good a right hopeless.
to seek the benefits of the education which That resistance, however, will come not
the great public academies provide, and from the Church of England herself, but
share in the endowments which the munifi from a political faction within her which
cence of past generations has bequeathed to falsely claims to speak in her name. The
the nation, as he has to enter the civil or force of her reasons which have been set
military service of the Crown, to become a forth above is admitted by many excellent
member of an Inn of Court, or of the House men, some in the Universities, others filling
of Commons. Sectarian restrictions are as positions of dignity and influence in the
unjust in the one instance as in the other. Church. They grant that a test is of all
It will be seen that our case against tests, tools the most useless and the most danger
considered as enforcing conformity to the ous, and they deplore both the disquietude of
Church, differs from that brought against mind which exists in the great seats of learn
them as aids to theological truth. Both ends ing, and the exclusion of so large a part of
appear to us equally mistaken, equally re their fellow subjects from the benefits of a
moved from the business of a place of education. high education. They would willingly re
The means too are equally objectionable on lax or abolish the present subscriptions, if
moral grounds, for the means are the same they did not fear such a course might involve
declarations and subscriptions. But here the other evils still graver than the present. Even
likeness ends. In the former case we saw if mere timidity and aversion to change were
that the means had signally failed of their at the bottom of these fears, the characters
aim, that their tendency had been to create of those whom they influence would oblige
doubt instead of allaying it. Here no such us to regard them with respectful attention,
complaint has been made. As a means of But it would be absurd to deny that there
excluding Nonconformists from the Universi are some difficulties in the reform proposed,
ties, the tests are not only effective, but far as well as much in the circumstances of the
more effective than any one supposed they time, to excite apprehensions and make ob
would be. Their maintenance for the de jections even plausible. To show, therefore,
gree of M.A., and for the fellowships, has at if possible, that their importance has been ex
Oxford almost wholly neutralized the bene aggerated, that they are not sufficient to out
volent intentions of the Legislature, when it weigh the advantages of a change, is at least
invited Dissenters to come, by abolishing the as important a part of the whole case as the
subscription at matriculation and the B.A. statement of the accusations brought against
degree. Seeing themselves debarred from tests themselves.
all the great prizes of the place, and knowing The first and most serious of these ob
that whatever their aptitude for teaching or jections is that which concerns the religious
love of study, they will not be permitted to teaching of the Universities. That teaching,
remain. as tutors, few, very few, members of it is feared, will be lost if its standards, the
any non-Anglican body have availed them tests, are removed.
selves of the change of 1854. At Cambridge, One might suppose, from the reverence
which has never been quite so exclusive, it and affection with which this religious teach
happened lately that two senior wranglers in ing is dwelt on, that it is the chief occupation
succession, being one of them a Scotch Pres of the University to give it, and that a cor
byterian and the other an English Noncon respondingly deep impression is produced on
formist, were obliged to leave the University those who receive it. The influence may be
great, but the quantity is certainly small. conscience of a Dissenter; but if any should
For the benefit of those persons who know it object, it would be easy to excuse his attend
only by report, an exact statement of it must ance, just as those who are thought able to
be given. At Cambridge one Gospel is re pass the University examination are frequent
quired at the little-go examination, and two ly excused now. Lastly, there are the public
or three questions are put in Paley's Evi University sermons, which no student is
dences of Christianity. The best examination bound to attend, but which the orthodox Dis
on record has been passed by a Jew. At senter, who has usually more taste for sermons
Oxford the candidate is questioned in the text than his Anglican compeer, is rather more
of the four Gospels at the examination before likely to frequent than the majority of the
moderators, and a general, usually a very present undergraduates. Can any one who
general knowledge of Old Testament history really values religious teaching attach any
and of the text of the Thirty-nine Articles is weight to what has been described? If re
required in passing the final examination for ligious instruction is the chief business of the
the degree of B.A. Even this may be avoid University, how comes it that she gives her
ed by any one who, professing himself not pupils such a scanty pittance? Such as it is,
a member of the Church of England, offers however, it is quite independent of the tests,
himself for examination in one Greek and and might, as far as doctrine goes, be given
one Latin author, by way of compensation. equally well by or to a Catholic or a Dissenter.
Of the Colleges we will speak presently; but The abolition of tests would not affect it, un
as far as regards the University, all the re less Parliament added a provision to that ef
ligious training that the undergraduate re fect, for it rests on University and College
ceives is comprised in these several exami rules, which a majority of Convocation or of
nations. There are, indeed, both at Oxford the fellows in any existing College are alone
and Cambridge, theological professors giving competent to change. Lastly, so far as it is
stated lectures; but inasmuch as only students a difficulty, it has arisen already at the bid
of theology are obliged to attend these lec ding of Parliament, for Dissenting under
tures, and no one else ever does, they cannot graduates do now come to Cambridge, and
be considered a part of the general teaching. Roman Catholics to Oxford.
Now, an academical body has a perfect right It is also said, and this was an argument
to examine for her degrees in any branch of on which stress was laid in the Oxford pe
knowledge whatever, the narratives of Scrip tition against Mr. Bouverie's bill, that the
ture included; and to such an examination abolition of tests will introduce all sorts of
no Protestant Dissenter, perhaps not even a religious differences, and destroy the peace
Roman Catholic, would have either the right and harmony which now prevail in the Uni
or the will to object. There is not thereforeversities. The subject is grave, yet one can
any need for a change in this respect. But hardly repress a smile at such words as these.
considering that this so-called religious teach
Peace and harmony indeed! when professors
ing is just what the University of London or anathematize their colleagues; when Uni
the “godless Colleges” in Ireland would give,versity quarrels are fought out in the columns
if they asked the candidate for a degree two of the daily press; when, on every question
or three questions about the kings of Israel to which the least religious colour can possi
and Judah, and the chronological order of bly be given, excited voters swarm up from
the gospel miracles, and considering also that every country parsonage; when every com
it is usually crammed up, in the fortnight be mon-room resounds with theological war
fore the examination, from the manuals of cries; when members of Parliament come
Pinnock or Wheeler, its supposed peril need down from London to encourage the under
hardly excite such terror. As to the Colleges, graduates to organize themselves into societies
those of Cambridge give no compulsory in against the so-called liberalism of their teach
struction in theology at all. In those of Ox ers. The discord which has prevailed in Ox
ford, a “Divinity lecture,” as it is called, is a ford since the beginning of the Tractarian
regular part of the College work, being in movement could not be aggravated by the
tended to prepare the student for the Uni presence of Nonconformists and Roman Ca
versity examination. In this lecture, how tholics, for the points upon which those bodies
ever, little or no doctrinal instruction is given; differ from the standards of the Church of
the pupils construe the text of the Gospels, England are less serious than the points now
the tutor asks what such and such a phrase debated between members of the Church her
would be in Attic Greek, or inquires a little self. It may be said that as this state of
into the genealogies of the Herods. That is things is recent, and due to temporary causes,
all.” There is nothing which can affect the day; and there the taught have never been op
* Very much the same thing takes place in the £ by tests at any time, while the
ave been free from them since 1853.
teachers
Greek classes of the Scotch Universities every Mon
so it will be transient. This is surely an ad in the Scotch Universities, where the theolo
mission that tests have not produced unani gical faculty remains in connexion with the
mity, at least no one proposes to check the Established Church, while the other faculties
variance of opinion by imposing stricter ones. are free. Those who suppose that the ortho
Transient, indeed, we believe it may be made, doxy of the future clergy of the Church de
but by an expedient exactly opposite. It is pends on their being kept from all contact
not to be expected or wished that all theo with persons of any other religious body,
logical controversy should cease, for so long must have very little confidence in a faith so
as the minds of fallible men differ, so long ready to fall at the first assault, and must
will discussion be a sign of life and interest surely be ignorant of the dangers which be
and activity, and silence a sign of deadness. set the student now. If, as might be sup
All that can be hoped for is to take from posed from the language of some among
theological disputes that peculiar acrimony them, the chief duty of a clergyman is to
which now disgraces them. In the world at combat dissent in his own parish, is he likely
large, this can be accomplished only by to be fitted for the fight if he has never
the growth of a spirit of charity and for before seen his enemy? If, as it is surely
bearance. In the University, nothing is so more in the spirit of the Gospel to hope, his
likely to promote it as a removal of the ex duty is rather to cultivate friendly relations
isting tests, which draw men's attention per with all who bear the Christian name, will
force to doctrinal differences, which give oc he not look more charitably upon those who
casion to the reproach of deceit, which, by differ from him in what are after all minor
humiliating men, incline them to talk and points, when he has learnt to know them in
write more bitterly. the familiar intercourse of the lecture-room
Some persons who admit that the claims and the dining-hall? The mutual hatred of
of the Nonconformists deserve consideration, Anglicanism and Nonconformity could never
argue that as they have already their deno have been so bitter if the two parties had not
minational Colleges, and free entrance to the been socially strangers to one another. Un
University of London, there is no injustice in less this hostility is natural and is to be per
keeping the older academies for the Church manent, anything which allays it is a com
of England, which must also have theological mon benefit. As for those persons who tell
seminaries of her own. Here there is a seri us that if Dissenters were admitted, Church
ous misapprehension. , Oxford and Cam parents would no longer send their sons to
bridge are in no sense theological seminaries. Oxford and Cambridge, but retire somewhere
The religious teaching given to the ordinary else to found new seminaries conducted on
undergraduates is, as has been seen, a mere ' principles, they do not deserve, and
phantom,-a phrase which sounds well in probably do not expect, to be seriously an
Parliament, but has nothing corresponding swered. The English laity are not possessed
to it in the reality. That which the theolo by any such horror of the schismatics when
gical student receives is somewhat greater, ' meet every day in the world. The
but still absurdly small, far less than a candi wish only that their sons should be well edu
date for orders is forced to pass through in cated, and obtain the start in life which a
Scotland or Germany. It is confined to at fellowship gives. They know that dissent is
tendance at two courses of lectures of some the last vice their son is likely to contract;
of the Divinity professors; that is to say, to and as for orthodoxy, they see that it can't
the production of two certificates, each wit. be insured now, and that, to have a value at
nessing that A. B. has sat for ten or twelve all, it must be able to keep itself scatheless in
hours in the professor's lecture-room. At the presence of the heterodox.
Cambridge there is a theological examination, A difficulty somewhat more serious, and
bnt the University leaves it optional, though indeed the only one that can be considered
some bishops require candidates for orders to serious at all, has reference to the domestic
have undergone it. In fact, the want of a arrangement of the Colleges. Divine service
proper course of Divinity at the old Univer is performed in their chapels according to the
sities has been felt so much, that a whole rites of the Church of England, and it is
crop of theological Colleges has sprung up to thought that, if Dissenters are not required
supply its defects. It is not easy to see how to attend, it will be hard to enforce the at
the admission of Dissenters would interfere tendance of others. The difficulty is not,
with the Divinity lectures, for the professors however, a new one, for undergraduates are
being by statute clergymen, and most of them now admitted who belong to other commu
canons, would necessarily continue members nions, and no complaints have been made of
of the Church of England, subject in that be perplexities caused thereby. If Catholics,
half to the ordinary clerical tests. The state they are desired by the College authorities to
of things would be just that which N-5
VOL. XLII.
now exists attend mass on Sundays in their own place
-
#(, 11
\,* f* :
66 Tests in the English Universities. M:
of worship. If Protestants, they are not usu ensnaring and disquieting. It would als
ally compelled to go to the College service, a new test, with a meaning perplexing
but in nine cases out of ten they go, and cause unascertained, and liable to be in
would probably continue to do so. They preted more strictly than the old one, w
admit the beauty of the English Liturgy, and edge has been now pretty well blunted in
find little or nothing in it of a controversial wear and tear of three centuries. If bona
nature. Some Colleges at Cambridge have membership were taken to mean, as it w
had a good many Nonconforming students, naturally seem to mean, that the person
and as things have gone smoothly enough fessing it was in full communion with
there, one does not see why they should not Church of England, accepted her faith
be made to do so at Oxford. It is only in general sense, and was in the regular h
the position of the fellows, whom the aboli of attending her services, then a great m
tion of tests would release from the obliga persons who now become members of Co
tion of conformity, that any change would be cation could not with honesty take it.
introduced. Even here the difference would means less than this, what is its value
be scarcely perceptible. Practically, a fellow safeguard at all? To those classes, mored
of a College goes to chapel now when he who are now excluded, it would be no ben
pleases, ' stays away when he pleases,— but an injury and discouragement. The g
the latter more frequently; he would do much majority of English Nonconformists
the same then. In fact, most of these diffi Scotch Presbyterians can at present sign
culties which look formidable in the abstract Thirty-nine Articles, considered merely
are found in the concrete to vanish altogether. doctrinal formulary, as honestly as 1
There never was a great principle advocated Anglicans. But a declaration such as th
yet which did not find men starting up to would be quite impossible for them to m
oppose it with petty objections of detail,— without openly deserting the religion of t
objections which, even supposing them valid, fathers. There would also be a pect
were not worthy to be weighed against the harshness, a refinement of injustice, in
benefits it promised, and which, when the ex giving relief to those within, while shut
eriment was tried, were usually proved to the door tighter against others without.
£ chimerical. So will it be in this case also. it would be to reason thus: “Outward
The Anglican service will not be interfered formity with the Church appears to ul
with, for the vast majority both of undergra vitally important, that we must reject yo
duates and fellows will continue to be Angli you cannot profess it. But the belief in
cans. No problem will present itself which matic truth is so slight a thing, that we
may not easily be solved by a little mutual not require it of you at all.” Or in o
consideration and forbearance. As to the no words: “That which is essential to
tion that men of different religious persua Church and to salvation is her organiza
sions cannot join in the common offices of as a visible body; that which is indiffe.
College life, cannot dine at the same table, or is the doctrinal system she holds.” Fee
help to set the same examination papers, it is this, the strong Church party are resolve
not more injurious to the character of the cling to the Articles at all hazards; and
fellows than it is chimerical. If the quarrels confess, that if there are to be tests at
of the last few years have not destroyed cour doctrinal ones appear to us the most con
tesy and mutual regard, as they assuredly ent, and not the most unfair. Nothing w.
have not, nothing will. really be gained to the cause of justice by
No examination of this question would be compromise, nor do we suppose it likel.
complete without some account of the various find support in any quarter.
compromises by which it has been proposed, A second compromise that has been
while rendering a measure of relief to the gested is less objectionable in itself, althc
persons who now complain, to respect the it is but a small instalment of what may
scruples and allay the fears of those who ly be demanded. It is proposed, instea
think downright abolition too hazardous a admitting Dissenters into the existing
course. Among these there was one eagerly leges, to allow them to found halls of t
canvassed during the debate in Parliament own, where they may celebrate their
last session, the proposal to place Oxford on services, and educate their students in
the same footing with Cambridge, by sub way they like best. This they cannot
stituting for subscription to the Articles, a now, on account of a clause in the Unive
declaration of bona fide membership in the statutes requiring the master of a private
“Church of England. Considerable as this re to be a member of Convocation, i.e., to
lef would be to many, it would not meet the signed the Articles; and if that clause
case of all who now suffer. Such a declara removed, any number of miniature sect:
tion would still be a test, and therefore both Colleges might be erected at once. (
pared with the present system, such permis College which wished to dispense with it,
sion might be considered a boon, and so Mr. either permanently or for a time, to do so.
Gladstone endeavoured to represent it. But it The effect would be that a College of strong
would be an infinitesimalone, and clogged with Church sympathies, which objected to receive
restrictions that would further lessen its value. a Nonconformist as fellow, might still refuse
Unless the masters and tutors of such halls him; while another more tolerant one, might
were admitted to the governing body of the suspend the Act by a resolution or bye-law,
University, they would have to live in a de and be then free to take the candidate who
graded and client-like condition, obeying laws pleased them best in the examination, whether
which they had no share in making, and Anglican or Dissenter. The advantages of
looked down upon by the regular Colleges. this plan are obvious. It relieves the Col.
The young men educated at them would still leges from a restriction to which no similar
be excluded from the great prizes of the place lay corporation is subject elsewhere, and
—the College fellowships—and their ambition which obliges them, as was conspicuously the
confined to the barren honour of a place in case at Cambridge not long since, to pass
the Tripos or the class-list. Living apart, over men whom they are eager to elect. This
and associating only with persons of their restriction would be removed wherever it was
own religious persuasion, they would lose the felt to be one. But no College would have
distinguishing benefit and glory of the Eng to fear the intrusion of unwelcome strangers,
lish University system, the opportunity of and if the existing fellows do dread the evils
mixing freely in a large and varied society, which have been dilated on as likely to fol
where a man learns to be tolerant and wise low the admission of Dissenters, the remedy
minded,—to know men as well as opinions. If, would be in their own hands. How far
therefore, these non-Anglican halls are to those evils are probable is a matter on which,
have a fair chance at all, they must be put on having themselves grown up under the bene
an equal footing with the old foundations. ficent shade of the test system, and learnt to
To quiet the fears of those who think that know its virtues, they must be admitted com
the abolition of the present tests would make petent to judge. If this arrangement were
it easier to utter or teach heresy in the Uni introduced, an arrangement the moderation
versity, the plan has been started of retain and fairness of which none but the most
ing the test in a penal instead of a declara bigoted partisan can impeach, it is probable
tory form. No one should in future be asked that only two or three Colleges in each
to sign it, but if, in his capacity of University University would in the first instance avail
teacher, he openly contravened it, he might be themselves of the liberty. If it were found
made liable to censure or punishment. Or a to answer ill, they could renounce it, and the
man might be required to declare that he others would be warned. If it succeeded,
would not, as a member of the University, the objections now made would be for ever dis
impugn the doctrines of the Articles, or attack posed of.
the Church of England. This expedient, No one, however, who looks at the present
which has frequently been employed as a com state of parties in the Church and in Parlia
'' in similar cases in England, is that ment expects to see either this or any other
y means of which the test question at the compromise peaceably accepted. The warmth
Scotch Universities was finally disposed of. of the debates last session, the rigorous whip
It is humiliating, and if the views of the func ping up of members, the close division lists,
tion of the University stated in the preced the joy of the one party at its success, the
ing pages be correct, it is indefensible in scarcely less conspicuous satisfaction of the
principle. Probably, however, men would be other at a defeat which was almost a victory,
found sufficiently willing to accept it; for it finally, the excitement with which the matter
does not interfere with their freedom of was discussed among University men every
thought, and demands only that abstinence where, all showed that the question had
from open assault which good sense and good passed into the region of party warfare, there
feeling would in any case have counselled. to remain till the majority, one way or the
We have already said that the fear of an at other, becomes overwhelming. Neverthe
tack on orthodoxy by University teachers less, it may not be too late to ask the more
appears to us groundless; but if any one is moderate and charitable of those who oppose
possessed by it, such a declaration as this the measure, to consider the probable issue
would answer his purpose as well as the exist of the policy they have been induced to
ing tests. adopt. Let us quote the conclusion of Mr.
The last compromise to be mentioned here Gladstone's speech upon the second reading
is that contained in Mr. Bouverie's bill of last of Mr. Dodson's bill:—
session. He proposed not to repeal the Act “No doubt it is natural for bodies of men, and
of Uniformity altogether, but to allow any the history of all religious sects and parties shows
*.
it, to make use of the day of prosperity, not, as cal exercise of power, what she might win
I think true wisdom would dictate, for the pur far more easily by generosity and self-devo
pose of accommodating difficulties and removing tion. It is not in the poor shreds of privi
grounds of offence, but for the extremest asser lege which still remain to her that her
tion of every right and every privilege to which strength consists, but in the purity of her
it still remains within their strength to cleave.
Various bills have been proposed involving con doctrines, in the zeal and learning of her mi
cession in one shape or another to Dissenters, nisters, in the affection of her people. As it
and persons who desire the relaxation of tests; is in the world, so is it in the University.
and it appears to me, that the readers of our dis She reigns there not by virtue of tests, which
cussions will have concluded with regret, if they seem made to be evaded, which are sources,
are readers of wise and dispassionate mind, that not of faith, but of discontent, but by the
very precious opportunities—golden opportuni prestige of her antiquity, by her association
ties—have been lost of uniting and knitting to
gether the minds and hearts of men by reasona with the upper classes of the country, by the
ble concession, and that the assertion of right impressiveness of her worship, by that very
by majorities, which have been, perhaps, some theological toleration which she wishes now
what ruthlessly, and certainly sternly made, are to repudiate. By these she will reign, though
by no means calculated to diminish those dan all, and more than all, the changes now pro
ers which lie in the future,—that they procure, posed should be accomplished. With such
indeed, the gratification of a triumph for the mo perennial fountains of strength, need she so
ment, but that they store up difficulties for those dread the admission of others to benefits
who are to sit on these benches in this House
hereafter. With that policy of indiscriminate which will none the less be hers, because
resistance to almost every measure aiming at re they are not hers alone? .
laxation or relief, I must say it is not simply as That admission, however, certain as it may
a minister of the Crown, and not only as a mem appear, will not be achieved without quick
ber sitting on this side of the House, that I de ened activity on the part of men in Parlia
cline to associate myself, but because I believe ment and of the non-University public gene
that, however sincerely, however honourably
intended—and that I do not for one moment rally. The party within has done all that
question—it is a policy no more fatal to the ap can be expected from them in urging their
plication of the principles of civil and social jus views by petition; it remains for members of
tice than to the best interests of the Church of the Legislature and their constituents to see
England herself.” the magnitude of the question. Hitherto
the English Dissenters and the people of
These are grave words, coming as they do Scotland have shown an apathy in the mat
from the most illustrious and not the least ter, which can only arise from ignorance of
dutiful of the sons of the English Church, the advantages to be contended for. The
but not too grave for the occasion. Why, it seem to suppose, for one thing, that the Uni
may well be asked, should the clergy be al versities are still the seat of a large party—
ways associated with resistance to reform ? Romanizing in religion, ultra-Tory in politics
Why should the people be always alienated —who will strain every nerve to oppose a
‘by the contempt of their claims? Why, change, and, if defeated, will make the place
above all, should the Church herself descend as uncomfortable as possible to the new
from her pure and lofty seat of spiritual comers. No idea can be more unfounded.
power, to become the accomplice or the tool The unfortunate constitution of the Universi
of a political faction ? Those are her worst ties constantly causes the wishes and opi
enemies who would force her into such an nions of the residents to be misrepresented.
alliance, or make her believe that any tem The governing body, which alone has the
porary advantage so gained can compensate right to speak officially, is composed of all
for the degradation which will surely follow. Masters of Arts whose names are on the
In struggling to retain the exclusive posses books, the overwhelming majority of whom
sion of every emolument, every vestige of are country clergymen, who represent not
legal privilege, every rag and tatter of legal the Oxford or Cambridge of to-day, but of
power, when she might appeal so confidently some thirty or forty years ago, with all the
to the liberality of her own members, is not additional prejudices which a retired and
the Church, or rather the party which claims professional life is likely to engender. The
to represent her, doing her best to make men Oxford Convocation is therefore not an aca
believe it is not her religious mission that is demical body at all, but a mere organ of the
first in her thoughts, but her worldly wealth Anglican clergy, ignorant of the present state
and sway? Unjust, indeed, such a belief of the University, and alien in feeling from
may be. But it is one which cannotbut its pursuits. The real body to be regarded
recur, so long as she attempts to play in the is that of the residents, fellows, tutors, and
nineteenth century, the part of the Church professors, very many of whom, as their two
of the middle ages, and grasp, by a tyranni petitions showed, desire the removal of tests,
while the general spirit of almost all is a gathered, intercourse with whom is readily
tolerant and liberal spirit, which would not opened to every promising junior. Even the
repel the help of Dissenters in the work of external splendours of the place must not be
education. The traditional bigotry of these omitted in enumerating the influences which
seats of learning is not what it once was, and form the student's character, and which con
those whom it still enthrals are not to be tribute to give him a breadth of view, a keen
found among the ablest men and the most ac ness of susceptibility, and what may be called
tive workers. It is hardly to be expected that a fine intellectual polish, which are among the
a majority of the residents would as yet.de most precious and the rarest of mental gifts
clare a wish to have Dissenters admitted; and excellences. But there is another aspect
but the latter may be sure that if they come of the question, which seems to us of wider
they will not be coldly or slightingly received. import than either the relief to conscience
Nor is this all. The real advantages and within the Church or the act of justice to
benefits which Oxford and Cambridge offer Dissenters, and that is the prospect of fur
are very imperfectly understood by the world ther measures of reform to which the aboli
at large. Their vast and yearly increasing tion of tests is only the prelude. The time
revenues, once grossly abused for private seems to have come, in what may fairly be
ends, have within the last twenty years been called the great educational revival of our
arranged on a wholly new footing, devoted days, for the Universities to resume in some
to educational purposes, and made real prizes measure their old position, and again become
of merit, setting aside in nearly every case the great educators of the country.
distinctions of birth or country or previous If the subject were not too large a one to
place of education. In Oxford, between be touched upon in the conclusion of an
thirty and forty fellowships are given away article, it would be easy to show that in any
by competition every year; in Cambridge, a scheme of national education, very important
number usually greater." The number of functions, such as no Government Board
scholarships and exhibitions, whose value could discharge, might be intrusted to bodies
ranges from £30 or £40 up to £90, each so venerable, so influential, and so independ
College giving away three or four, it may be ent. The middle-class examinations may be
five or six annually, is still greater. Of these, considered as a step in this direction, and
indeed, the supply exceeds the demand; for many other plans might be suggested by
the tutors are beginning to complain that which the learning and culture of the old
they sometimes cannot find candidates suffi academies might be brought to bear upon
ciently deserving; and any measure which the middle and lower schools of the country
would enable the University to draw her with the most valuable results. Nor are the
members from a wider field, would be a be benefits less clear which would flow from a
nefit to her no less than to the classes ex change by which the education given at Ox
cluded. ford and Cambridge might be placed within
These pecuniary prizes are, however, but a the reach of poorer men. Class distinctions
small part of the benefits which the old Uni would be softened down; the Universities
versities hold out, and which no newer insti themselves would be invigorated; the culture
tution can pretend to equal. Those who bid and tone of feeling of the whole hation would
the Roman Catholics content themselves with be sensibly raised. Before, however, any
Oscott, and the Nonconformists with the part of this programme can be carried out,
University of London, know well enough the the barrier must be overthrown which cuts
differences between these seminaries and off the University from half of the people;
those which they keep to themselves. The the fetter must be broken which impedes her
teaching at Oxford and Cambridge, however in the performance of her proper functions.
inferior to what it might be, is still incompa A hundred examples prove that she will be
rably the best to be had in England. But none the less religious when a doctrinal pro
the teaching is the smallest part of their fession is no longer a passport to her offices.
educational power. No other Universities in That she should again become, as in the first
the world have social advantages at all com ..and brightest period of her history, the intel
parable to those which the mixture of the lectual leader of the country, is not to be
University and College systems gives; in no looked for, although even now it is hard to
other is so large a number of intellectual men over-estimate the value of places where sci
ence may be cultivated apart from its practi
* In the smaller Colleges at Cambridge the fel cal results, where learning may be pursued
lowships are not directly competed for; but as more deeply than by men engaged in active
they are almost invariably given to those who
have most distinguished themselves in the Univer. professions, where the real bearings of a poli
sity examinations, they are not less truly prizes of tical problem may be investigated away from
merit. the disturbing influence of party conflicts,
70 Topography of the Chain of Mont Blanc. March,
where, in the common meeting ground of all the great De Saussure (though he lived far
studies, the relations of the several branches later than either), to find that parties of ac
of human knowledge and their methods may tive young Englishmen, fresh from barristers'
be most fitly discussed. But, admitting the chambers and mercantile counting-houses,
narrower scope of her present duties, enough stroll unconcernedly amongst the “seracs”
is left to make her welfare a matter of the of the glaciers of Géant and Bossons, start
most vital interest to all of us. In the Mid one morning & l'improviste for the summit of
dle Ages she was national, and it was be Mont Blanc, and cross as many dangerous cols,
cause the learning and intelligence of the and ascend as many aiguilles in one week as
whole people centred in her that her mission the sedate Genevese (more frugal in his ex
was so great and so beneficent. She was citements) thought of undertaking in a twelve
then the constant foe of Ultramontanism, as month. We say nothing here of the spirit
well as the foremost leader of domestic pro of feminine adventure, of bivouacs at the
gress. That position she cannot indeed re Tacul, and of pic-nics at the Jardin; these
sume, nor is it to be wished that she should; are every-day matters.
but she may still confer incalculable benefits It is refreshing to think that while fashion
on the people, if released from the control of and civilisation have altered so much, Nature
a party, which, while it cherishes all that was in her stupendous constancy remains un
worst and weakest in the mediaeval system, changed. A new road or bridge may make
sets itself to oppose the spirit, of which the a scar here or there, but the trace is lost
mediaeval University was the chosen seat, the amidst the gigantic scenery around; cultiva
spirit of progress and intelligence. To the tion may be pressed a little higher than
modern University that spirit may again formerly, but the eternal hills and the inex
return, when, by ceasing to be a sectarian, haustible ice-floods keep their own without
she has become a national institution, and challenge. The voice of gay or of discord
when the removal of obsolete restrictions has ant music, the rattle of equipages, and the
set her once more free for her own great many-tongued voice of the crowd, assembled
work of education. out of every nation under heaven, are alto
gether but as an inaudible whisper in the
boundlessness of that mountain space, whose
echoes can resound only to the crash
of thunder, the ill-boding fitful noise of dis
tant cataracts, and the roar of the icy ava
ART. W.—1. A Map of the Chain of Mont lanche. Happily, we say, there are some
Blanc, from a Survey by A. ADAMs things which human art cannot utterly spoil.
REILLY, Esq. Privately Photographed, Of these Chamouni (by which we mean the
1864. Alpine district of which it is the capital) is
2. The Alpine Journal. Vol. I. 1864. On Q'.
8vo, Longman and Co. To return for a few moments to Wind

3. Scenes from the Snow Fields of Mont ham and Pococke. Their visit to Chamouni
Blanc. By EDMUND T. Col.EMAN, Esq. and Montanvert took place in June, 1741. It
With Coloured Lithographs by VINCENT was related with much simplicity and absence
BRooks. Folio. 1859. Longman and of exaggeration, in a letter from Mr. Wind
Co. ham to his friend M. Arlaud, a landscape
painter at Geneva, which was published later
Could Windham and Pococke revisit (1743) as a small quarto pamphlet, in English,
Chamouni in the year of grace 1865, after which appears to be rare, as but a single
their sleep of a century, no doubt they copy has ever fallen uuder the notice of the
would be somewhat astonished. Instead of present writer.
the poor cabaret, with its bush hanging out It is quite true, in a general sense, that
as a sign, they would find luxurious hotels, Windham and his companions were the dis
thronged by wealthy and fashionable parties, coverers of Chamouni. Unquestionably, a
and placarded with advertisements in English Priory had existed there for several centuries
of the “Chamouni Hotels Company (Limit previously. It had been visited by bishops
ed); capital, £100,000!” Not less would and other dignified clergy in the course of
the pious Saint François de Sales be scan their ecclesiastical journeys; the valley was in
dalized to find his priory defunct, and a place habited and cultivated, had an annual fair, and
of English Protestant worship built not far traded with the neighbouring town of Sal
from the massive Catholic church erected lenches in agricultural produce. But all this
during his episcopacy. But it may be did not bring it within the ken of the general
doubted whether the consternation of these outer world, or even of the more curious
worthies would not be exceeded by that of prying travellers and naturalists, the Simlers,
1865. Topography of the Chain of Mont Blanc. 71
the Merians, the Fatios, the Wagners, and consisted of William Windham of Felbrigg,
the Scheuchzers, not to mention foreigners, in Norfolk, father of the statesman who was
such as Burnett and Addison.” It appears the contemporary and colleague of Pitt; his
to be unquestionable, however surprising, tutor Benjamin Stillingfleet, the naturalist;
that the cultivated men of Geneva ' neVer Lord Haddington and his brother Mr. Baillie,
yet thought of penetrating to the foot of that with their tutor Mr. Williamson, an eminent
noble snowy range, which forms one of the but somewhat eccentric scholar; Mr. Aldbo
chief glories of their landscape; nay, they rough Neville, an ancestor of the present
believed that the mass of the glaciers lay to Lord Braybrooke; Robert Price, a man of
the north instead of the south of Chamouni; great worth and accomplishment, father of
that is to say, between Chamouni and Sixt. Uvedale Price; Mr. Chetwynd; and last of
J. C. Fatio de Duillier, a Genevese of some all Pococke, as already mentioned, who
reputation, and a member of the Royal So joined, but did not originate the expedition.
ciety of London (where, however, his brother All those above named, except Mr. William
Nicholas was better known), although he es son (whose health did not allow it) took
timated with considerable accuracy the art in the excursion to Chamouni. But
height of Mont Blanc from trigonometrical Windham was the leader, for which post his
measures taken at a distance, propagated alert, muscular, and ardent temperament well
these errors, and manifested the same incre fitted him. He is described as having been
dible absence of curiosity. This was in the tall, thin, and narrow-chested, yet eminently
first quarter of the eighteenth century. Cha handsome, so fond of athletic sport as to
mouni and the district of Mont Blanc were to all have been known in London as “boxing
intents and purposes (save ecclesiastical) un Windham.” He rather affected the air of a
known to the outer world until Windham's gay man of fashion, impatient of restraint,
journey; and its subsequent notoriety is direct yet he was an excellent linguist, and was ac
ly traceable to that alone. So that our mod quainted besides with the sciences and fine
ern guide-books (such as Mr. Murray's and Mr. arts to an extent of which few believed him
Ball's) have gone somewhat towards the oppo. capable. Had he lived a hundred years
site extreme from the older ones of Ebel and later, he must inevitably have been first
Reichard, when they represent Chamouni to President of the Alpine Club. He was ex
have been well known to strangers at the emplary in private # and several of his
period to which we refer. friends have recorded the attachment which
Windham and Pococke were both remark he inspired; especially his tutor Stillingfleet,
able men; and we think it not without inter both in prose and verse.” Windham and
est for our readers to note a few particulars Price both died in 1761; Pococke in 1765,
respecting the society of Englishmen who having previously become an Irish bishop.
thus invaded the peaceful valley which has Next to Windham, Price and Stillingfleet
since become so celebrated. Pococke, the seem to have taken most interest in the expe
best known of the group, had just returned dition to Chamouni; the former acted as
from his important travels in the East, which draughtsman, the latter as naturalist. It is
had lasted from 1737 to 1741, when, happen stated in a Swiss publication that Pococke
ing to pass through Geneva, he became asso amazed the population ofSallenches by appear
ciated with a party of his countrymen, who for ing in the dress of an Arabian Emir, an account
several winters had made that city their which seems scarcely probable. The journey
home. This intelligent and cultivated society was undertaken in June, 1741, and occupied
seven days. The first they slept at Bonne
* Chamouni knew more of the outer world than ville; the second at Servoz; the third, they
the outer world knew of Chamouni. The natives, proceeded to Chamouni, visited Montanvert,
with what £ to be the instinct of the Savoy
descended on the glacier, and returned to
ard and the dwellers in the Piedmontese valleys, Chamouni to sleep. The fourth day they slept
even at that early period, went abroad in the
prime of life to learn trades and make money in at Sallenches, the fifth at Bonneville. There is
foreign countries, but generally returned to settle no exaggeration to be found in the narrative.
and to die in their native glens. Let us here say, Considering the unfrequented nature of the
once for all, that we adhere to the good old-fashion country, and the size and character of the
ed spelling of Chamouni, sanctioned by De Saus.
sure, in preference to the modern official corrup party, it was natural for them to take their
tion of Chamonix. The derivation of the name own servants, horses, provisions, and a tent.
is ascribed by Captain Sherwill, with great proba
bility, to the . Latin words campus munitus, by * See Literary Life of Benjamin Stillingfleet, 3
which it is designated in an early monastic char vols. 1811. From this interesting work we have ex
ter. And it is interesting to find in Scheuchzer's tracted these particulars of Windham. Had it not
map of Switzerland, antecedent to the time of appeared too great a digression, some account of
Windham, that the spelling is given Chammuny, the other members of this remarkable group of
approaching still nearer to the Latin. men might have been added.
)|
*
C 72 Topography of the Chain of Mont Blanc. Marc

–
That they carried fire-arms was conformable Martel. After the date of De Saussur
to the habits of travellers of the period, even
visit it became notorious enough. Delt
. in Britain. Windham's party were too short
a time on the glacier to make more than
passing observations. That it resembled the
Pictet, Bordier, Bourrit, and many othe
made the mountains of Savoy the objects
their summer excursions, but De Saussure e
seas of Greenland, or a lake put in agitationcelled them all in the ability and persev
by a strong wind and frozen all at once, wererance of his researches, and in the ability
the apt comparisons by which they described his descriptions. These are too well know
it. The magnificent slab on the Moraine to require notice here. Our chief object
near Montanvert, which has the names of this article is a limited one. It is to give
Windham and Pococke painted on it, still tra outline of the physical peculiarities of t
ditionally commemorates the spot where they chain of Mont Blanc, and to make the read
took refreshment. It has been immemori acquainted with some recent and partly u
ally called “La pierre des Anglais, but was published investigations of that wonder
unfortunately broken in half some years ago mountain group. We shall first consider t
by some foolish persons lighting a fire upon topography; next trace the steps by whi
it. Another possibly less certain tradition our present knowledge of it has been obtaine
exists, that one Tairraz, an ancestor of the and then illustrate some of its more striki
present or recent proprietor of the Hôtel de features in a little more detail.
Londres, had the honour of lodging the English Mont Blanc, as every one knows, is t
£ in his humble inn, and that Windham highest mountain in Europe, and, indeed,
imself suggested the name for the hotel. the old world, with the exception of the Him
Windham, by his letter to Arlaud the layas. It lies in the chain of Alps, yet p
Genevese, had made known the wonders of culiarly situated with regard to these, bei
Chamouni to the curious of that capital, who on a sort of angle or elbow where the Al
for ages had lingered listlessly under the turn from a south and north direction (sta
shadow of Mont Blanc. In 1742, accordingly, ing from the Mediterranean) to a directi
a party from Geneva, better provided than more nearly, though not accurately, west a
the English had been with the means of ob east, which they may be said to follo
servation, made a more detailed survey of throughout the remainder of their course
the Walley of Chamouni and the Mer de they terminate in Styria. But the chain
Glace. They made a sort of rude survey of not continuous, like the vertebrae of a serpel
the ground, measured the heights of some as it used to be represented in the older mal
mountains, and recorded many useful and On the contrary, it is being much broken
correct observations on the phenomena of into groups having more or less defin
glaciers, as well as on the mineralogy of the boundaries. One of the most distinct of su
district. Pierre Martel, an engineer and groups or mountainous centres is that of Mo
teacher of mathematics, seems to have taken Blanc. It may be described as a rude par
the lead in this matter, and published an lelogram, whose longer diagonal extends frc
English account of it in a letter to Wind south-west to north-east, and which is €
ham, along with which we find, for the first closed by four valleys. These are:
time, Windham's own letter to Arlaud.”
1. On the N.w, the valley of the Arv
The plates are grotesque, and that of the vil - chief place, Chamouni.
lage of Chamouni and the Aiguilles so ex 2. On the s.E., the valley of the Doi.
travagantly inaccurate, that we must suppose chief place, Courmayeur.
it done, for the most part, from memory. Of 3. On the w, the valley of Montjoie; ch
the small attempt at a map we shall speak by place, Contamines.
and by. -
4. On the E., the valley of Ferret; ch

De Saussure was born in 1740, whilst
Windham and his friends were residing at place, Orsières.
Geneva. His biographer, Senebier, expressly Of these valleys, the two first are by mu
refers his first journey of 1760 to the interest the longest; and the parallelogram has its t
excited by the Englishmen's visit to Cha. acute extremities at the Col de Bonhom
mouni. In the interval we know of no allu on the south-west, and the Mont Catogne
sion to Chamouni, except the narrative of the north-east, the distance of these poi
being twenty-nine English miles. Mo
* The full title of the book or pamphlet is, “An Blanc is situated, not in the centre of t
Account of the Glaciers or Ice Alps in Savoy, in parallelogram, but much nearer to its weste
Two Letters, one from an £h Gentleman
end. Throughout its extent, the mount
[Windham] to his Friend at Geneva; the other
irom Peter Martel, Engineer, to the said English ridge of which Mont Blanc is the culmi
Gentleman, as laid before the Royal Society, Lon tion is single and continuous, so far rese
don, 1744.” bling the serpentine vertebrae, to which, as
have said, the Alps as a whole cannot be from table-lands already of great height.
likened. The southern slopes in general are The valley of Chamouni is 3425 feet above
much steeper than the northern slopes. The the sea at the Prieuré or village.
summit of Mont Blanc is considerably nearer As it is well known that the magnitude of
to the valley of Courmayeur than to the val glaciers depends principally on the area of the
ley of Chamouni; in consequence, it is utterly mountain-basins in which they take their
inaccessible from that side. But it is also origin, and by whose snows their waste is
the more imposing object as seen from thence. continually supplied, it follows that the gla
The stupendous walls of the range rising from ciers are least important when the slopes are
the valley of Courmayeur form a spectacle most precipitous. With one notable excep
perhaps unequalled in the Alps, especially tion, the glaciers of the Chamouni side of
when enhanced by the exquisite scenery and Mont Blanc are by far the most important of
Italian vegetation of the valley of the Doire. the chain, as well as the best known. As the
Courmayeur is only 4200 English feet above glaciers form the key to the topography of
the sea; and as Mont Blanc has a height of the district, we will here enumerate the larger
15,780 feet, the relative elevation is in the ones according to their position on the four
highest degree impressive. The relative ele sides of the chain, commencing from the
vation is 11,580 feet, an amount barely ex north-east angle, distinguishing by small capi
ceeded in the case of even the highest moun tals those most remarkable by their size:—
tains of the globe, which rise from valleys or
N.W. Slope, Chamouni. W., Val Montjole. S.E. Slope, Courmayeur. E., Wal. Ferret.
Trient. | Bionassay. “Glacier.” Laneuvaz.

Tour. Miage (N.) Allée Blanche. Salena.
ARGENTIERE. TRELATÉTE. MIAGE (s.) Arpetta.
GL. DEs BoIS (Mer de Brenva.
Gace). Jorasses.
Bossons. Triolet.
Taconnay. Mondolent.
The position of these glaciers (which are Géant, which he mentions as traditionally
all shown upon the map) is important, as in spoken of as a pass or col in the chain. This
dicating the natural drainage of the district; interpretation of Windham's meaning is ren
and we shall find that an extraordinary di dered more clear by the words which follow:
versity of opinion has obtained at different “The place where we ascended was between
periods as to their distribution and arrange them [i.e., the horns], from whence we saw
ment. plainly the valley which forms one of these
Early in the last century, as we have seen, horns.” As the place he speaks of was the
the chief glaciers were supposed to lie to the Montanvert, the “horns” could only be, as
north, instead of to the south of Chamouni. already said, the glaciers of Bois and Bossons,
This, of course, was rectified by the visit of the only ones which actually obtrude them
Windham and Pococke; but their idea of selves on the notice of the visitor to Cha
the extent and course of the ice-streams of mouni by the route of Servoz.
Mont Blanc was equally limited and inaccu Pierre Martel, in his expedition of 1743,
rate. Windham says, “The glaciers consist made a considerable step. For in the quaint
of three large valleys that form a kind of Y; map which accompanies his pamphlet, we find
the tail reaches into the Val d'Aoste, and the all the chief icy outlets of the N.E. slope in
two horns into the valley of Chamoigny.” dicated after a fashion, beginning with Trient,
We might at first sight imagine that the Y and ending with Bossons and Taconnay con
represents the Mer de Glace and its branches, sidered as one. This map represents very
—the glaciers of Géant and Léchaud. There curiously the idea which seems strongly to
is no doubt, however, that this is not the case, possess the minds of the dwellers near great
and that the branches he refers to are the glacier-bearing chains, that the glaciers are
glaciers of Bois and Bossons, the only two but the overflows of one great central reser
of those in the valley of Chamouni which he voir or accumulation of snow and ice. In
distinctly saw ; and that the “tail” reaching some parts of the Alps singular traditions
into the Val d'Aoste was symbolical of the prevail of such unvisited central valleys, ima
glacier of Brenva, or possibly of the Col du gined to be habitable, and peopled by a race
74 Topography of the Chain of Mont Blanc. March,
who hold no communication with the lower nates over the whole; the boundaries of the
world. The natural tendency is to exaggerate glaciers are very inaccurate, and the interior
the extent and importance of what is un of the group is hopelessly conjectural.
known. All untraversed mountain chains are In 1842, the writer of the present article
assumed to be greater in area than they prove made a special survey of the Mer de Glace of
to be when surveyed, and the popular esti Chamouni and its tributaries, which, in some
mate of the length of glaciers is at least of the following years, he extended by further
double or three times the reality. The per observations so as to include the Glacier of
sistence of the notion of a common reservoir Bossons. The area of this survey extended
or “Mer de Glace,” with numerous outflows parallel to the chain from the summit of Mont
reaching to the valleys, by means of which Blanc to the borders of the Glacier of Argen
its accumulations are discharged, together tière, and in a perpendicular direction from
with the acknowledged fact of the motion of the Grandes Jorasses to the chain of the
the ice of glaciers (referred to in Windham's Breven.
letter), proves that the “viscous” or “plastic” About the same time, M. Séné of Geneva
theory of glaciers has been the creed of the was engaged on his remarkable model, on a
peasantry from early times. , Martel concili considerable scale, of the chain of Mont Blanc.
ates easily and ingeniously what he could see It was acquired by and is still exhibited in
with what he imagined. An ice stream or his native town. Though immense patience
ocean is represented as taking its rise near was bestowed on this interesting work, the
Mont Blanc, and flowing parallel to the whole author of it had two defects which seriously
chain in a N.E. direction, terminating in the marred its accuracy. In the first place, he
glacier of Trient. From it descend, as sepa was no surveyor, and used no divided instru
rate overflows, the glaciers of Bossons, Bois, ments; and, secondly, he eschewed glaciers
Argentière, and Tour. A “tail” extends and mountain peaks, and contented himself
towards Cormayeur, symbolizing probably the with peering into the recesses of the chain
glacier of Brenva. It is sufficient here to from the most commanding points which he
note, that in every case the ridges separating could find on its outskirts. Hence, wher
the glaciers of Chamouni, indicated here as ever the chain becomes intricate, or its cen
mere islets in the icy flood, are stupendous tral parts are removed from ordinary obser
ranges, nearly or altogether impassable, vation, this otherwise fine model is value
and linked on to the backbone of the less. -
chain. The only parts of the range of Mont Blanc,

It is astonishing how slight was the im which, down to 1850, could be said to be
provement of the map of Mont Blanc during well understood, were those which were open
the remainder of the last century. In 1778, ed up by three well-known expeditions,—the
De Saussure put forth, in the first and second route to the Jardin, the passage of the Col
volumes of his immortal work, two maps du Géant, and the ascent of Mont Blanc.
based on the map of Savoy by Borgonio, The extreme eastern and western parts of the
with emendations by Pictet of Geneva, of chain were yet untraversed. In 1850, the
which it is hardly possible to speak too dis present writer succeeded in traversing the
paragingly. They are in one sense worse main chain from the Col de Balme to
than the map of Martel, because they are Orsières, but the time was too short to un
filled up with material absolutely fictitious. ravel the intricate mountain group which
The great ice-sweep is now interrupted by the intervened between this route and the Jardin.
range at the back of the Glacier of Talère; The fact was however established of the un
but the Glaciers of Argentière, Tour, and diminished height of the main chain, even
Trient, are thrown into one, as are those of so near its eastern extremity. At the head
Bionassay, Trelatéte, and Miage. De Saus of the Glacier du Tour it was found to be
sure's sense of truth could never, one would 11,300 English feet, or somewhat higher than
suppose, have been satisfied with these wretch the Col du Géant in the immediate vicinity
ed productions, yet they reappeared in 1803 of Mont Blanc. All the existing maps—
(after his death, indeed) in the second edition
of his Travels.
'' feeble copies from one another—throw
very little light on this part; and M. Sené's
Very superior, undoubtedly, to these must model was especially in fault. Not less am
be considered the special map of Mont Blanc biguous was the course of the chain between
by Raymond, published early in the present Mont Blanc and Col de Bonhomme to the
century, when Savoy was under the régime westward, which includes three or four mag
of Imperial France. The valleys are tolera nificent summits, such as the aiguilles of Bio
bly we'l laid down, and some of the features nassay, Miage, and Trelatéte, and several
of the best-known parts of the chain have a noble glaciers.
certain truth; but a hazy feebleness predomi In 1858, if we recollect rightly, the Alpine
Club was founded in London; * and those Blanc and the Col de Bonhomme, which was
who felt an interest in the improvement of a great advance upon anything which had
our knowledge of mountains were sanguine then appeared; but the meagre engraving
as to what might be done by its members. from it in the second series of Peaks, Passes,
In the first volume of its Transactions (Peaks, and Glaciers (1862), was very far from doing
Passes, and Glaciers, 1859), we find an ac it justice. In Mr. Tuckett's drawing some
count of the pass of the Col de Salena by Mr. thing like the mutual relations of the glaciers
Wills, and an exploration of the Col de Miage of Trelatéte, Miage, and Bionassay appears
from the north side by Mr. Hawkins. The for the first time, although the proportions
last-named col, and the summit of the Ai of the ground plan were far from exact,—the
guille de Miage had, however, been already s.w.. extremity of the chain being carried
attained by Mr. Coleman, whose magnificent out to an angle far too acute.
work, published in the same year, contains It was in 1861 that the much desired
the most vivid pictures of glacier landscape Sheet xxII. of the Swiss Federal Map was is
which have yet appeared. But neither Mr. sued by General Dufour. It contained so
Coleman nor his companions possessed the much of the chain of Mont Blanc as is in
enviable art of topographical sketching—at cluded within Swiss territory, that is, the
least they did not exercise it on this occasion; eastern slope between the Col de Balme and
and such geographical knowledge as they the Col Ferret. Unfortunately this was not
may have personally acquired, could not be a very important part of the chain, but at
communicated or rendered definite by the least it furnished one boundary of the “Gor
use of words alone. At this time an un dian Knot” already referred to, which lay
fortunate prejudice against the use of a theo between the Glacier of Talèfre, already sur
dolite was present to the minds of most veyed, and the Glacier of Salena, which is
members of the Alpine Club, whose leading wholly Swiss. The chain of Mont Blanc
passion—that of boundless muscular exertion, was, however laid down in outline through
and unfettered freedom of range—would cer out a considerable part of its extent, but the
tainly have been controlled by the compa Swiss surveyors were only responsible for its
nionship of that estimable instrument, which accuracy up to their own boundary. The
is somewhat heavy to carry as well as liable remaining features were taken, it is believed,
to damage, and which demands for its use from Piedmontese documents; but it required
leisure, patience, and unlimited power of re only a slight inspection to show that the data
sisting benumbing cold on isolated summits on the two sides of the frontier were not re
and glacial wastes. No, the theodolite was concilable, and the result proved the truth of .
not popular amongst the Alpine Clubbists! the proverb, that old work patched with new
Mr. Tuckett of Bristol, however, one of makes the rent worse. The relative position
their number, possessing a correct eye and of the Glaciers of Argentière, Tour, and Sa
good fingers, as well as legs, contributed lena was, if possible, more unintelligible than
some able sketches of country in 1860 and it had ever been.
1861. In the former year he followed the In 1862, Mr. A. Adams Reilly, a gentle
glacier of Argentière for the first time to its man of liberal education and an accurate
origin behind the curtain of rocks which se draughtsman, directed his attention to the
parates it from the glacier of Talèfre, and, “Gordian Knot” in question. He crossed
ascending the main ridge of the Alps, he at the Col d'Argentière, discovered by Mr.
tained a col of the immense height of 12,500 Tuckett, and made panoramic drawings of
feet, without, however, descending on the op the chain in various directions. But it was
posite side,—a passage first effected in 1861 found impossible to reconcile these with the
by Mr. Winckworth, who reached the Wal position of the summits and glaciers as indi
Ferret by the Glacier de la Neuvaz. Mr. cated on the Swiss map; and Mr. Reilly
Tuckett, however, made a sketch of this knot decided on directing his journey of 1863
of mountains—not unworthily called the expressly to clear up such ambiguities. For
Gordian Knot,-for its extrication was not this purpose he provided himself with an ex
reached without further time and labour. In cellent theodolite, and arranged to extend the
1861, he contributed a careful eye-sketch of triangulation which formed the basis of the
the country between the summit of Mont survey of the Mer de Glace of 1842, up the
valley of the Arve to the Col de Balme, and
* The more immediate antecedents to the forma thence again to the very origin of the Glacier
tion of the Club were the appearance in 1856 of of Tour. The present writer was fortunately
Mr. Wills's Wanderings in the High Alps, and able to place at Mr. Reilly's disposal the un
Messrs Hudson and Kennedy's Ascent of Mont published additions which he had made in
Banc by a New Route and without Guides.
+ Scenes from the Snow Fields of Mont Blanc, 1846 and 1850 to his original survey, extend
folio, 1859. ing it from the south to the north bank of the
76 Topography of the Chain of Mont Blanc. M.
Arve near Chamouni. In particular, he had more satisfactory than the clear and be
determined with considerable accuracy the ful draught which now lies before u
interval in English feet between the Pavillon which even the secondary clusters of p
de Flegère and the summit of Mont Breven. are defined with admirable exactness
The distance between these two is nearly readings of the theodolite. It is a
three English miles, and it forms an admi which leaves nothing to be desired,
rable base for extending the triangulation in would do credit to the most expert pr
any direction. Mr. Reilly dexterously avail sional surveyor.
ed himself of it; and after a survey of much But Mr. Reilly, having theoretically
labour, owing to the exceeding roughness of entangled the Gordian Knot, confirmed
the country, finally connected the survey of extrication of it by actually walking thr
the Mer de Glace and Chamouni district (in it. Ascending the Glacier of Argentièl
cluding Mont Blanc), with the Swiss survey, the gap separating the Aiguille de Char
which terminated at the Col de Balme and net from that of Argentière, he asce
the east boundary of the Glacier of Tour. that gap. A glance from the summi
It would require the reader to have before course, showed how the land lay. Whe
him the Swiss map of 1861, or some equiva descended upon the eastern side of the r
lent authority, to understand the geographi he found himself on the Glacier of Sa
cal emendation thus effected. To state its not on the Glacier of Tour. Had the F
J'L chief result in a single sentence, two moun ral map been correct, he would have
tains, each 13,000 feet high, and standing on still in Savoy; as it was, he found himse
the map a mile and a half apart, were pulled Switzerland. This col he distinguishe
together and made one; while a snow field of the name of the Col de Chardonnet.
some four square miles in extent was anni long before, two members of the Al
hilated. The Glacier of Tour takes its ori Club, Messrs. George and Macdonald, ha
gin from a mountain spur leading north-east been led astray in seeking for the Col d
wards from the Aiguille de Chardonnet. Be gentière of Mr. Tuckett (which lies to
hind that spur, the Glacier of Salena extends south of the Tour Noire), had already effe
itself southwards up to the foot of the Tour a passage from Argentière to the Glacie
Noire, and is separated from the Glacier of Salena across the ridge intermediate betw
Argentière solely by the ridge extending these two-passes. But it is so highly dar
from that summit to the Aiguille de Chardon ous and impracticable that it will prob
net. Now, previously, things had been very never again be tried.
differently represented. The Glacier of Tour Most amateurs would have considered
was imagined to extend southwards far be fair summer's work to explore and maj
yond the Aiguille de Chardonnet, and far be intricate and desolate country, which ha
yond even that of Argentière, and to be years been the despair of topographers.
bounded on the south-east by the Glacier of Mr. Reilly was of a different opinion,
Laneuvaz, which in reality it does not ap having surveyed the chain upwards
proach within two miles, which are occupied Chamouni as far as its eastern declivitie:
by the upper basin of the glacier of Salena. proceeded with his theodolite in a wes
If this description be followed, it will be un direction, and proceeded to make a recon
derstood that the Swiss surveyors, when map sance of the far larger remaining portic
ping the upper basin of the Salena, had right the chain of Mont Blanc. Taking suit
in front of them the great rocky boundary of and prominent stations, especially the M
the glacier of Argentière, including the two Joli and Rosaletta (in the Wal Montjoie.
vast peaks of Argentière and Chardonnet. turned the Col du Bonhomme, and cont
But, misled by the Piedmontese survey, they ing his observations on the Col de la Sei
believed that they were still divided from it managed to connect his observations on
by a parallel ridge, to the culminating point north side with those on the south sid
of which (a magnificent frosted cone as seenMont Blanc, and to complete a topograpl
from the east) they gave the name of Point draught of the entire mountain group
des Plines, a peak which proved the very means of a chain of twenty stations, ext
bugbear of geographers; and no wonder, for ing to the Col Ferret, where, entering S
the Point des Plines, as such, had no exist zerland, the Federal map supplied all nee
ence,—it was and is neither more nor less information.
than the long familiarly known Aiguille d'Ar This reconnaissance, as we have calle
gentière. f
was performed, though with the utmost
The results of his painstaking survey of yet in a far less elaborate style than
Ç i
the Glacier of Tour, Mr. Reilly laid down on
a map to the scale of Ink Tw, or about an
which we have described as belonging to
survey eastward. Considering the short
inch and a half to a mile, and nothing can be in which it was done, and absence of extr
.# {
ous materials, it is one of the most admirable importance. The result, however, is owing
instances which have come across our notice to the admirable manner in which, on his
of what is commonly called a “tour de force.” return home, Mr. Reilly made use of the ob
Aided he no doubt was by two or three fun servations which he had accumulated. The
damental positions which he obtained from a rapidity of the survey was to be compensated
French engineer, to whom they had been for by the patience of the reductions. And
communicated by the Dépôt de la Guerre. one is at a loss whether most to admire the
But with this trifling exception, and the base truly masculine vigour with which observa
line from which he first started, all was his tions of a very fatiguing and elaborate kind,
own. The map of the chain of Mont Blanc, extending over a crooked line of fifty miles
founded on these observations, and displayed in the most rugged country in Europe, were
at a meeting of the Alpine Club in London, obtained and recorded in the course of a very
on the 3d May, 1864, is in all respects a tri few weeks, or the indomitable perseverance
umph of sagacity and of art. Mr. Reilly, in with which he spent the whole succeeding
a short paper explanatory of that map, has winter and spring at his desk, evolving point
stated the principles on which it was con by point the exquisite convolutions of that
structed:— chain, and the details of its wonderful struc
“All the points I have determined,” he says, ture. With certain trifling exceptions, Mr.
“about 200 in number, lie where my observa Reilly states that he “has not indicated the
tions placed them; and I have not changed the smallest feature for which he had not the
£ of one of them in deference to any map, authority of a photograph, or of a series of
owever much I might differ from it. I was rough sketches which he had taken from
careful to do this, for I thought that a series of nearly all his stations, and on which his
original observations would be far more useful theodolite observations were noted.” The
—useful in its very errors—than any compila
tion of existing ones; for in dealing with these remarkable panoramas, which he thus slightly
it is impossible to say whether any change one mentions, form no insignificant part of Mr.
makes increases or diminishes the error. . . . . Reilly's contributions to the topography of
This departure from the system usually em the district. They extended, we believe, to
ployed, I found of inestimable value, and had it a length of some 160 feet, and embraced
been more generally pursued, nearly all the views of the chain in almost every conceiva
mistakes with which mountain maps abound ble direction. They have been largely in
would have been avoided.”—Alpine Journal, creased in number by his excursions during
June, 1864, p. 269.
the past summer (1864); and experience has
After this very clear statement, no one can enabled the author to combine in making
doubt that Mr. Reilly's results, whatever they them a rapidity of execution with an accuracy
may be, are original to him ; and we cannot of proportion and outline, which might well
but admire the union of boldness and saga seem to be irreconcilable.
city, amounting to genius, with which our We have already said that 200 points of
amateur, undertaking a work of the kind for the chain were fixed by the actual intersec
the first time, proceeded to execute a plan so tion of theodolite angles. This is sufficient
Belf-denying, yet so wise. We are prepared to trace out the main skeleton of the whole
to allow that the structure of Mr. Reilly's range. The intervals were filled up by the
chain of triangles was not what an officer of aid of eye sketches, and of the panoramas
the Ordnance Survey would have chosen. just mentioned.
We may perhaps even admit with him that The map on the scale of 15 #57, beauti
“the hair of an engineer would rise up on his
fully shaded and coloured, having been pre
head at the unprofessional way in which his sented by the author to the Alpine Club,
results were arrived at:” but we also know the first consideration, of course, was how it
how much may be done by a thorough in might be most fitly rendered available to
sight into the matter in hand, even with travellers and men of science. In deference
irregular materials. Had Mr. Reilly been to the author's wishes, its publication was
able to spend twice as long as he did in fix delayed until he should have revisited the
ing his stations and connecting them, he ground in the course of the succeeding sum
would no doubt have saved himself a world mer, and thus again tested the general ac
of anxious labour in the protraction of his curacy of the whole. In the meantime, a
results, and in the final draught of his map. reduced photographic copy was made at the
We are satisfied, however, that the result expense of some members of the Alpine
would have been little different from what it Club.
proved to be; in fact, that as far as the map The routes indicated in red on Mr. Reilly's
is to be useful to the tourist or to the geolo map show the principal traverses of the chain
gist, the deviations in it from the proportions of Mont Blanc, which, chiefly of late years,
of nature are inappreciable and of no positive have been effected. They have, we believe,
78 Topography of the Chain of Mont Blanc. M
been all crossed by Mr. Reilly himself in one were unknown—for its height and diffi
or other of the last few summers, and it is more justly celebrated, however, for th
evident to simple inspection how full an in ly remarkable sojourn there in 1788
sight these expeditions must give into the seventeen days, of the great De Saussu.
deepest recesses of the chain, and that to the purposes of scientific experiment.
one so eminently qualified to use the advan now the map shows by its red lines
tages of his position, no considerable pecu other passes (or nine in all) by whicl
liarity of structure or arrangement could have chain has been crossed. Beginning a
remained undetected by his eye, or unrecord s.w.. end, we find two of no special diffi
ed by his unwearied pencil. But in point of the Col du Mont Tondu and the Col
fact, the routes in question by no means ex claves, numbered with the figures 2 :
haust our topographer's explorations. The which must afford a grateful variety
ordinary pathways round about the entire traveller bound from the Wal Montjoie
chain, which are printed in black, have of Allée Blanche, who has already crosse
course been all, once or oftener, trod by him; somewhat wearisome pass of the Bonho
but further, to avoid confusion, we have, with Next we have the Col de Miage (num
the exception of the tracks to and from Mont ' connecting the northern and sou
Blanc, indicated in red, only “through routes” glaciers of that name, which probably
leading from one face of the chain to another. in interest to no other in the chain,
Numberless ascents and deviations in different height is 11,100 feet, and it is one c
directions have been made by him besides. steepest and narrowest of the practi
During last summer, 1864, besides the now barriers in the Alps. It was first traver
usual feat of mounting Mont Blanc—the or 1858 by Mr. Coleman, thus abridging
dinary summer recreation of an Alpine Club mensely in point of distance, though
man—Mr. Reilly had the good fortune to as much so in time, the long circuit from
cend, for the first time, three virgin peaks of mouni to Courmayeur; while the perfe
the chain, all among the highest of the second sight which it gives into the unsurp
order of summits. There was first the Aiguille magnificence of the great glacier of the
d'Argentière (12,800 feet), whence he could Miage, with its views of the western prec
survey at a glance the “Gordian Knot,” and of MontBlanc, places it in the very first
testify to the non-existence of a distinct in point of scenery. The Col de Miag
“Pointe des Plines.” Then there was the long be remembered for a singular acc
Mondolent (12,566 feet), which he reached which happened there in 1861 to a y
from the Col Ferret, and which, though ly Englishman, who slipped down a fa
ing on the very outskirts of the chain in a snow and ice through a vertical heig
south-easterly direction, commands, as Mr. more than 1700 feet, and barely es
Reilly records in his notes, “the perfection of with life.*
a view:” Mont Blanc is thence seen from an Intimately connected with this col i
uncommon direction, supported on the left fifth in order (numbered 8 on the
by the vast summits of the towering Jorasses which was traversed last summer, for th
seen in profile, and on the right by the as time, by Mr. Reilly, who calls it the C
piring, and till lately all but unknown, Ai Dôme de Gouté. It undoubtedly for
guille de Triolet. The views towards the most remarkable pass, as by it Courm
Combin and the Alps of Cogne are unsur may be reached from Chamouni by the
passed. The third and loftiest summit of the of the Grands Mulets and Dôme de C
three new ascents was the Aiguille de Trela Mr. Reilly's point of departure was the
tête (12,851 feet), in a very different (the mit of the Col de Miage, from when
south-western) quarter of the chain, com reached diagonally the ridge which ex
manding the whole of that region,—so lately from the Aiguille de Bionassay eastwa
almost a terra incognita, and an unparalleled the “Dôme;” and it is still uncertain wh
panorama of the western and steepest slopes this ridge can in all circumstances be re.
of Mont Blanc. directly from the level of the S. Glac
To return, however, for a few moments— Miage. Having attained the summit
for we must now draw to a conclusion—to Dôme by this novel route, Mr. Reilly
the “through routes” of the chain indicated his accustomed intrepidity, proceeded
in red, we must recall the fact that until little his way down the N.E. face of the
more than a dozen years since, only a single right upon the Grands Mulets, instead
pass was recognised in the whole extent of ing round by the grand plateau. It is
twenty-eight miles, intervening between the esting to know that he was accompani
Col du Bonhomme and the col or valley of
Champey. This pass was the Col du Géant, * A detailed account of the accident v
celebrated—in the days when Alpine clubs found in Peaks and Passes, Second Series.
this occasion by Mr. Birkbeck, the victim of Jardin, and ascending the Talèfre Glacier to
the accident of 1861 above referred to, whose its s.E. angle, he, with his companion, Mr.
Alpine ardour appears to have suffered no Whymper, attained the Col de Triolet with
diminution in consequence of that tremendous out very serious difficulty at 8.10, an early
somersault. The expedition which it had in hour, considering the great height, which is
terrupted was directed towards the very pas 12,160 feet. The view must partake much
sage thus effected three years later. of the character of that from the Mondelant,
The neighbourhood of the Dôme de Gouté already referred to, which is but a little way
is intersected by several routes. Two of farther east, and only 400 feet higher. The
these lead to the summit of Mont Blanc. One descent from the Col to the Glacier of Trio
is the usual route by the Grands Mulets let is steep and difficult. The more level
and the Rochers Rouges. Another is that part of the névé of the glacier was only
originally tried by De Saussure, and repeated reached at 10.50, and the moraine an hour
ly attempted since, by the Glaciers of Bionas later. The glacier is a long one, and in order
say and the Aiguille de Gouté. This last to escape the torrent at its foot, the next
route offered no advantages while it was higher glacier, that of Mont Dolent, had to
necessary to re-descend from the level of the be used as a bridge. Finally, the châlets of
Döme to the grand plateau, and take the old Praz de Bar were reached at four, being
course to the top; but in 1859 the Rev. C. eleven and a half hours from the Couvercle.
Hudson” effected the direct passage from the To descend the valley to Courmayeur would
Döme to Mont Blanc by the Nw. ridge of take three hours more.
the latter, which overhangs the awful preci . The remaining cols of the chain are those
pices of the S. Miage, traversing the inter of Argentière (19), from Chamouni to la
mediate knoll, known from an early period Folly; of Chardonnet (18), from Chamouni
under the name of the Bosse du Dromedaire. to Orsières; and that of the Fenêtre de Salena
It does not appear that any special difficulty (21), in the same direction. Of these we have
occurs on this, the most natural access of any already said enough.
to the highest mountain of Europe; and it is Not one of all these passes, excepting the
inexplicable why, though repeatedly “pros two nearest to the Col du Bonhomme, is
pected,” it has for generations been regard under 11,000 English feet in height.
ed as impracticable. And here we must take leave, for the
Mont Blanc was ascended in 1863 from present, of Mr. Reilly and his map. He has
one other direction by Messrs. Maquetin and generously made over all right of property in
Briquet. By crossing the Col de Géant from the latter to the Alpine Club, and the Club,
Courmayeur, and bivouacking at the south by accepting the trust, have engaged that the
foot of the Aiguille de Midi, they gained the public shall receive the benefit of Mr. Reilly's
summit of Mont Blanc by the Mont Maudit labours. The author having undertaken to
and the Mur de la Côte. This route presents reduce and redraw the map on a scale of
some points of interest, but it is absurd and # 5 of nature, and to correct it throughout
illogical to consider it as a route from Cour from his latest observations, this finished
mayeur to the summit of Mont Blanc. It is drawing—which is a masterpiece of its kind—
essentially a route by Montanvert and the has, we understand, been placed in the hands
Glacier du Géant, entirely situated on the of a competent artistin lithography,and will be
northern slopes. published in the course of two or three months.
Of the next pass in order, the Col du Géant The result, even after making some allowance
(11,200 feet), numbered 27 on the map, for the lithograph falling short of the origi
we need say no more here. The following nal, will, we trust, justify the encomiums we
one, the Col de Triolet, achieved by Mr. have pronounced on Mr. Reilly's labours. It
Reilly in 1864, has a newer interest, and is will be a real boon to the tourist, the geo
likely, we should think, to become popular grapher, and the geologist. It will be by far
amongst members of the Alpine Club. This the proudest trophy which the Alpine Club
is the only outlet yet discovered from the can show of the enterprise and devotion of
Glacier of Talèfre, and it leads into the Italian its members. The junior but rival Clubs of
Val Ferret, near to the col of that name, by Switzerland, Vienna, and Turin, will find that
the Glacier of Triolet. Mr. Reilly, starting the coronet of Alpine exploration has been
from Montanvert, slept under a shelter-stone secured for Britain. It is certainly a remark
on the Couvercle. From the notes with which able fact, that a mountain range so limited in
he has kindly furnished us, we find that, leav extent as that of Mont Blanc, so remarkable by
ing his bivouac at 4.30 A.M., passing the its elevation, so attractive by its scenery,
should have remained unsurveyed till the
* So stated in Mr. Ball's Guide. We cannot re second half of the nineteenth century. It is
collect to have met with the original account. still more remarkable that the three import
80 Essays in Criticism. March,
ant States—France, Italy, and Switzerland— what may be called a middle class of readers
which share amongst them this stronghold of has been in our day almost created,—men of
nature, should have been unable to agree to too active intelligence to live by fiction alone,
make a map of it on a common scheme, and but who do not venture among the highest
that it should have been left to a British places of literature from want of leisure, or of
amateur to supply so glaring a deficiency. mental range, or it may be from imperfect
As to Mr. Reilly himself, we can only ex education,—men who will hardly encounter
press the hope that his perseverance, skill, Grote, or Merivale, or Mill, but who yet weary
and taste, having found a fit field for their of the flash of Miss Braddon or the common
exercise, will continue to be further employed place of Trollope. It must indeed be a mind
for the promotion of geography and the bene of a very ordinary stamp whose requirements
fit of mountaineers. can be satisfied by English fiction, disor
ganized and inartistic as it now is. The
wants of this class of readers are best supplied
by good essays or articles; and we therefore
think that when a writer gratifies a natural
ambition by seeking for his work a more
ART. VI.–Essays in Criticism. By MAT abiding form than the review or the maga
THEw ARNOLD. London, 1865. zine, he should receive a hearty welcome, not,
as is too often the case, a condescending, al
IN a recent number of this Journal,” when most a contemptuous recognition. *
quoting one of Mr. Matthew Arnold's lumi It is, however, questionable how far con
nous judgments, we ventured to express our siderations such as these are applicable to the
belief that his papers, should they ever be case before us. Mr. Arnold's essays can hard
brought together, would furnish us with some ly be classed as good popular writing, and
of the most subtle and most cultivated criti will hardly recommend themselves to ordi
cism in the English language. No man nary and hasty readers. Their publication
hastily decides on publishing a volume of es: in this form can be justified on a higher
says; and we fear, therefore, that Mr. Arnold ground—on the ground of their intrinsic
must have determined on this step before merit. On the other hand, doubts may be
those remarks can have met his eye. Other entertained as to their probable popularity.
wise, it would be no small satisfaction to think They are all in the strictest sense critical, and
that any words of ours had suggested the criticism is never popular. Most of the
idea of this publication; or, what is perhaps sources of attraction which have made the.
more possible, had in some degree strengthen success of so many similar publications are
ed a half-formed purpose. wanting here : we have not the attractiveness
Writers in the periodical press are addicted of biography, the power of history, or the yet
to republishing their essays, and are prone to livelier interest which attaches to social and
apologize for so doing. The tendency is na political questions. Nor is the style of the
tural; the apologies unnecessary. Men of the criticism calculated to conciliate. No pre
greatest ability and most profound informa judices are flattered; no faults are left unex
tion do not now think it unworthy of them posed; and the standards appealed to are
to write, and to write their best, in magazines not such as will readily be recognised, or even
and reviews. And it is very natural that comprehended, by the every-day reader.
such men should seek to rescue their work Mr. Arnold began his literary career as a
from that forgetfulness which inevitably over poet. It is not often that prize poems are
whelms such a form of publication. More worthy of being remembered; but Mr. Ar
over, it is for the interest of readers that this nold's poem on Cromwell, which obtained the
tendency should be encouraged. In their Newdigate at Oxford, in 1843, was an ex
behalf it is especially to be desired that writ ception to this general rule of oblivion. The
ings of the class we refer to should be pre purely poetical merit of some portion of it
served at least beyond the hour. It is not was not inconsiderable; but it was specially
that the days of books, and of good books, remarkable for the manliness and good taste
too, are over. Surely to call English litera which prevailed throughout, and still more
ture at the present time frivolous, is to take for an effort at construction which succeeded
a very partial view. There is no lack of good in giving, even to a prize poem, something of
writers or of thoughtful readers; but each of artistic completeness. This manliness and
these classes appears smaller than it did some cultivated taste, and this reverence for art,
years ago, because the number of writers and can be traced in all Mr. Arnold's subsequent
readers of all sorts has increased. Especially poems; and these qualities, beyond all else,
have made him the critic he is. In 1849
* No. lxxxi., August, 1864. Mr. Arnold published anonymously a small
1865, Essays in Criticism. 81
volume of poems, and another in 1852. These the principles on which they worked, and the
were republished under his name in 1857, rules by, which they were guided. Such was,
with additions and alterations; and in 1858 on the one hand, the criticism of Johnson
he attempted to enrich English literature himself; such was, on the other hand, the
with “what is most perfect in the forms of criticism of Milton, of Dryden, and in our
the most perfectly formed literature in the own times of Coleridge, and even of Words
world,”—namely, the form of Greek tragedy. worth. Yet at no time was good criticism
Merope, however, proved a failure, as such common; and now it has almost passed
experiments usually do; but his other poems away from amongst us. It has lost much by
have achieved a very considerable amount of having become anonymous. The censor no
popularity. It is no part of our present pur more speaks with the weight of a great
pose to enter into any criticism of Mr. Ar name, and the genus irritabile refuse to bow
nold's poetical labours. It must be conceded before an authority which they have not
that the highest imaginative power is not otherwise learned to reverence. Worse than
his; but he possesses many eminent poetical this, criticism is forgotten in article-writing.
gifts notwithstanding. His varied and musi. The primary object is to make an entertain
cal versification; his diction, of great beauty, ing article; and the work is undertaken by
yet never overloaded with gaudy richness,— able men and experienced writers, but who
indeed he sometimes carries his horror of have not made criticism a special study, and
mere verbal ornament to excess; his culti who do not set it before them as an exclusive
vated thought; a good taste which is never aim. This tendency is quite fatal: for the
forgotten; a repose which dwells upon his first purpose of criticism is by no means to
page,—all these things combine to give his amuse or entertain; on the contrary, its first
poetry a peculiar charm. It is refreshing to purpose is to teach and discipline, and herein
turn from the feverish obscurities which, un lies its weakness as regards noisy popularity,
der the name of poems, so trouble our litera but its real glory and strength. To these
ture, to the vigour of Mycerinus, the Homeric causes mainly it is owing that, in Mr. Arnold's
echoes of Sohrab and Rustum, the pathos words, while of “the literature of France and
and romantic beauty of Tristan and Iscult. Germany, as of the intellect of Europe in
Beyond question, Mr. Arnold can claim to be general, the main effort, for now many years,
numbered among the licensed critics, accord has been a critical effort; the endeavour, in
ing to Pope all branches of knowledge, theology, philoso
“Let such teach others who themselves excel, phy, history, art, science, to see the object as
And censure freely who have written well.” in itself it really is, almost the last thing for
which one would come to English literature
But it is Mr. Arnold's prose writings is just that very thing which now Europe
which will gain for him the greatest and most most desires,—criticism.”
enduring reputation. For some years he has The truth of this sentence will be question
been in the habit of contributing to various ed by few. English criticism for years past
reviews and magazines, papers which had has been at the lowest ebb; it observes no
power to command attention even amid the system, it rests on no principles, it lays down
turmoil of periodical literature. Marked be no rules. It was at first sight startling to see
yond common by originality of view and the Saturday Review not long ago contend
fearlessness of expression, they often excited ing that the prevailing fault of our criticism
dissent, sometimes provoked hostility; but was too great leniency. But, doubtless, the
they never failed to arouse interest, and to remark was true. Those who love to dispa
stimulate thought. They were for the most rage the critic's craft are always telling us
part critical, and the criticism was of a rare how much easier it is to blame than to praise.
stamp. Long ago, Dr. Johnson remarked It may be so, if whether the praise or the
that “criticism, though dignified from the blame is well founded be held a thing of no
earliest ages by the labours of men eminent account. On the other hand, vaguely to
for knowledge and capacity, and, since the praise implies infinitely less trouble than to
revival of polite literature, the favourite study censure according to sound principles, and to
of European scholars, has not yet attained justify censure by argument and example.
the certainty and stability of science.” (Ram A flagrant instance, now some years old, of
bler, 158). If this was true of the criticism the commonness and worthlessness of critical
of Dr. Johnson's day, it is far more true of praise, has lately been again brought before
the criticism of our own. Formerly, when the public. Moved by we know not what
reviews and magazines were unknown, criti sudden impulse, Professor Aytoun has writ
cism stood by itself, and was pursued for its ten to the newspapers denying that commend
own end; or otherwise, was given to the atory expressions with regard to Festus,
world by the leading poets as explanatory of } which have been printed with his name at
VOL. XLII. N–6
82 IEssays in Criticism. March,
tached, were really written by him. It had, Other influences are also at work, some of
we are told, been too hastily assumed that slighter force than the above, others more
Mr. Aytoun was the writer of an article in deeply-rooted and more powerful. Good-na
Blackwood's Magazine, in which the said ex ture, a dislike of trouble, the arts of puffery,
pressions did appear; and he is therefore free all tend to pervert criticism; but worst of all
from the reproach of having praised over is the indecision and want of fixed principles
much; but then, in the same list of “opi among critics, who, uncertain as to what
nions of the press,” there were extracts from should be really aimed at, have, of course, no
the best periodicals in the country (though sound basis on which to rest their judgments.
without the names of the writers), extolling And what incalculable mischief is hereby
the merits of Festus in language which would done to literature? Writers reject only too
have required some modification if applied to gladly the authority of judges who speak
Paradise Lost. What can be the causes of with hesitating lips, and give themselves over
all this evil? Mr. Arnold suggests the fol to all manner of lawlessness. That a novel
lowing:— or a poem should be a work of art, framed
“For, what is at present the bane of criticism according to certain artistic rules, seems an
in this country? It is that practical considera idea never present to their minds. They
tions cling to it and stifle it; it subserves inter strive indeed after effect, but it is not legiti
ests not its own; our organs of criticism are or. mate effect; it is the effect of “fine passages,”
gans of men and parties having practical ends to so misplaced, so at variance with artistic ex
serve, and with them those practical ends are
the first thing and the play of mind the second; cellence, that things which might have been
so much play of mind as is compatible with the beauties become deformities brought out into
prosecution of those practical ends is all that is strong relief. To such writers the merit of a
wanted. - An organ like the Revue des Deux poem like Dora, or a novel like Tom Jones,
Mondes, having for its main function to under is an utter mystery. We need not dwell on
stand and utter the best that is known and
this theme. Unhappily there is little need
thought in the world, existing, it may be said, as to convince the world of the shortcomings of
just an organ for the free play of the mind, we English literature at the present time.
have not; but we have the Edinburgh Review, For this dismal saturnalia of sensation no
existing as an organ of the old Whigs, and for as
much play of mind as may suit its being that; vels and spasmodic poetry, our so-called cri
we have the Quarterly Review, existing as an ticism is in no small degree responsible. The
organ of the Tories, and for as much play of mind vagaries of half-educated writers have had no
as may suit its being that; we have the British control; the taste of half-educated readers
Quarterly Review, existing as an organ of the has had no direction. How much evil has
political Dissenters, and for as much play of thence resulted no man can tell; things are
mind as may suit its being that; we have the
Times, existing as an organ of the common, sa at a sad pass when the watchers prove to be
tisfied, well-to-do Englishman, and for as much themselves in need of watching. Nay, our
play of mind as may suit its being that. An critics do more than negative mischief. They
so on through all the various fractions, political are strenuous in the propagation of evil.
and religious, of our society; every fraction has, One critic like Mr. George Gilfillan can do in
as such, its organ of criticism, but the notion of finitely more harm to literature than any
combining all fractions in the common pleasure number of spasmodic poets. For he is the
..of a free disinterested play of mind meets with prime source of mischief: he it is who calls
no favour. Directly this play of mind wants to
have more scope, and to forget the pressure of those poets into their brief but harmful
practical considerations a little, it is checked, it existence.
# made to feel the chain; we saw this the other “But, of the two, less dangerous is the offence
day in the extinction, so much to be regretted, of To tire our patience, than mislead our sense.”
the Home and Foreign Review; perhaps in no
organ of criticism in this country was there so Are these things irremediable? Is criti
much knowledge, so much play of mind; but cism nothing but mere opinion resting on no
these could not save it; the Dublin Review sub more certain basis than caprice? and must
ordinates play of mind to the practical business literature therefore for ever wander without
of English and Irish Catholicism, and lives. It
must needs be that men should act in sects andcontrol, without a guide? Surely no. Cri
parties, that each of these sects and parties ticism may not yet have become what Dr.
should have its organ, and should make this or Johnson would have it to be, a science; but
gan subserve the interests of its action; but it it is, when rightly understood, an intelligible
would be well, too, that there should be a criti and certain art. The laws which it lays
cism, not the minister of these interests, not down are not arbitrary; they are general
their enemy, but absolutely and entirely inde ized from the practice of the masters of lite
| endent of them. No other criticism will ever rature, and come to us approved by experi
a tain any real authority or make any real way
towards its end,—the creating a current of true ence, and invested with the weight of author
and fresh ideas.” ity. Criticism concerns itself both with form
1865. Essays in Criticism. 83
and matter, applying to these certain definite who, after all, are free in their choice of a busi
tests. It inquires, in the first place, whether ness? That would be making criticism lend it
the language, the illustrations, the metaphors self just to one of those alien practical conside
are correct, and in good taste; in the second rations, which, I have said, are so fatal to it.
place, whether they are rich and beauiful; and, One may say, indeed, to those who have to deal
in the third place, it rises to a study of the cha with the mass-so much better disregarded,—of
racters, takes in the nature of the subject, looks current English literature, that they may at all
to the due subordination of the parts, and the events endeavour, in dealing with this, to try it,
so far as they can, by the standard of the best
artistic completeness of the whole. It is very that is known and thought in the world; one
idle, therefore, to assail such an art as being may say, that to get anywhere near this stand
nothing beyond an unkindly love of fault art, every critic should try and possess one great
finding. On the contrary, it has its origin in literature, at least, besides his own; and the
a love of truth, and its real aim is to discover more unlike his own, the better. But, after all,
and foster excellence, though, as a means to the criticism. I am really concerned with,—the
this end, it may be sometimes necessary to criticism which alone can much help us for the
expose pretence and incompetence. To be future, the criticism which, throughout Europe,
is at the present day meant, when so much stress
impatient of the restraints of criticism, to dis is laid on the importance of criticism and the
parage it, to rail at it, to affect an unreal in critical spirit, -is a criticism which regards Eu
dependence of its judgments, are certain signs rope as being, for intellectual and spiritual pur
of weakness in an author. poses, one great confederation, bound to a joint
To prove all this, and illustrate it, and ex action and working to a common result; and
emplify it, has been the aim of much of Mr. knowlewhose members have, for their proper outfit, a
dge of Greek, Roman, and Eastern anti
Arnold's writing. His first separate prose quity, and of one another. Special, local, and
publication was, we think, the lectures on temporary advantages being put out of account,
translating Homer, which he delivered as Pro that modern nation will in the intellectual and
fessor of Poetry at Oxford. The originality, spiritual sphere make most progress, which most
the fearlessness, we regret to add the occa thoroughly carries out this programme. And
sional arrogance of tone which marked these what is that but saying that we too, all of us, as
lectures, gained for them much attention. shall individuals, the more thoroughly we carry it cut,
make the more progress? . . . .
But as they were fully noticed in the North
British Review" at the time of their publica ning: conclud
“I e with what I said at the begin
to have the sense of creative activity is
tion, we cannot do more than allude to them the great happiness and the great proof of being
now. In the present volume he has collected alive, and it is not denied to criticism to have it;
together essays, ranging over a great variety but then criticism must be sincere, simple, flexi
of subjects, but all of them in the strictest ble, ardent, ever widening its knowledge. Then
sense critical. In the first of these, called it may have, in no contemptible measure, a joyful
The Functions of Criticism at the Present of sense of creative activity; a sense which a man
it sight and conscience will prefer to what he
Time, he not only explains those functions, might derive from a poor, starved, fragmentary,
but also vindicates their dignity and utility. inadequate creation. And at some epochs no
Mr. Arnold must tell us himself what, and of other creation is possible.”
what sort, is the criticism he upholds and We must not, however, suppose that Mr.
would endeavour to practise:— Arnold would limit the sphere of criticism to
“But stop, some one will say; all this talk is of literature alone. On the contrary, he main
no practical use to us whatever; this criticism tains that criticism, being truly an endeavour
of yours is not what we have in our minds when to see things as they really are, cannot be
we speak of criticism; when we speak of critics limited in its scope, but must extend its ef
and criticism, we mean critics and criticism of
forts in all things relating to man and human
the current English literature of the day; when life,—s
you offer to tell criticism its function, it is to ociety, politics, religion. He admits,
this criticism that we expect you to address indeed, that where these burning matters are
yourself. I am sorry for it, for I am afraid I concerned, it is most likely to go astray;
must disappoint these expectations. I am bound nevertheless, it must set out on the danger
by my own definition of criticism: a disinterested ous wayfaring, and take its chance. Safety,
endeavour to learn and propagate the best that according to Mr. Arnold, lies in this only,
is known and thought in the world. How much that criticism must “maintain its indepen
of current English literature comes into this dence of the practical spirit and its aims.”
‘best that is known and thought in the world?'
Not very much, I fear; certainly less, at this It must abandon altogether the sphere of
moment, than of the current literature of France practical life, and rest content with discover
or Germany. Well, then, am I to alter my de ing and impressing on the world adequate
finition of criticism, in order to meet the require. ideas, trusting that those ideas will bring
ments of a number of practising English critics, forth their fruit in a fitting, though it may
be a distant season. Such a work may be
* No. lxxii, May, 1862. slow and obscure, but it is not the less the only
S4 Essays in Criticism. March,
proper work of criticism. Now this is a strik practical, though by no means so relevant, as
ing thought, but we doubt whether it be a the argument with which Mr. Arnold con
sound one. It seems to rest on a confusion trasts it, viz., that, happy as we may be, we
between the direct and the indirect influence should probably be yet happier were the
of the critical spirit on the affairs of life. The desired political changes to take place. We
indirect influence is exerted, of course, remember a London paper, of a very unideal
through literature. It is in this sense that and Philistine” character, which had a co
Mr. Arnold upholds the justice of Goethe's lumn, entitled “Our Civilisation,” exclusively
claim to have been “the liberator” of the devoted to the chosen arguments of Mr.
Germans, because he taught the German Arnold's ideal theory of criticism.
poets that men must live from within out. Again, the illustration given by Mr. Ar
wards, placing the standard inside the man nold of how criticism should approach reli
instead of outside him,—a doctrine, as Mr. gious themes, succeeds in keeping quite clear
Arnold says, “absolutely fatal to all routine of any practical tendency, but this at the ex
thinking.” All this, to be sure, had not pense both of distinctness and utility. He
much effect on the political life of Germany, objects to Bishop Colenso's criticism on the
has not even yet had much effect in that ground that it strengthens the common con
direction; whence Heine's impetuous at fusion between science and religion; and
tacks on Goethe, “come to be eighty years though he does not reprint his two essays on
old doing this, and minister, and in good the Bishop's first volume, which appeared
condition; poor German people! that is some time ago in Macmillan's Magazine, yet
thy greatest man.” But whether such he “cannot forbear repeating once more, for
influence of criticism be really important, his benefit and that of his readers, this sen
or all but imperceptible in its working, tence from my original remarks upon him:
this at least is clear, that it is an indirect There is truth of science and truth of reli
influence. The immediate effect is produced gion ; truth of science does not become truth of
by literature, and we do not gain much religion till it is made religious. And I will
towards clearness of thought by running up add : Let us have all the science there is
the chain of causality, and attributing that from the men of science; from the men of
effect to criticism. But if we do so, we must religion let us have religion.” Now this
be careful to note that the word thus used passage, so far as we understand it, appears
means pure literary criticism only—affecting to rest upon a very extraordinary misconcep
active life, if at all, slowly and indirectly; and tion. If the truths of science and the truths
surely to say that such criticism must sever of religion are to be kept always distinct—
itself from the merely practical, and concern the one delivered only by men of science,
itself with “adequate ideas,” though true and the other delivered only by men of religion,
valuable doctrine, is not a novel discovery. what are we to make of their seeming oppo
On the other hand, when comment or sition? That there is a seeming opposition
criticism, or whatever we choose to call it, no one will deny, and must we, then, accept
applies itself directly to matters of action, it the opposition as inexplicable Can we
seems impossible but that it must take a make no endeavour to get beyond this seem
practical turn. Let us test the thing by Mr. ing ? Can criticism do nothing to reconcile !
Arnold's own instances. When extreme or ls the task of showing that there is no real
ill-timed demands for political change are opposition between science and religion too
met by dwelling on our present “unrivalled “practical?” It rather seems to us that this
happiness,” he objects to the answer, not on might be attempted without placing any
behalf of the reformers, but in the interests
of a correct theory of criticism. But what * This is a German nickname of which Mr. Ar
style of answer does he suggest as in accord. nold is ' fond, and, as it is hardly possible to
ance with his own theory ! Why, the write on these Essays without referring to it, we
somewhat rude one of taking an aggravated subjoin his explanation of its meaning:-‘Philis
time must have originally meant, in the mind of
case of child-murder from the newspapers, those who invented the nickname, a strong, dogged,
and tabling it against the “unrivalled hap unenlightened £ of the chosen people, of
piness” notion. Now, we say nothing as to the the children of the light. The party of change,
would-be remodellers of the old traditional
the value of this answer, nor pause to in European order, the invokers of reason against
quire how far the fact of child-murders tak custom, the representatives of the modern spirit in
ing place in England from time to time is every sphere where it is applicable, regarded
inconsistent with the position that the people themselves with the robust self-confidence natural
of England as a body enjoy more happiness to reformers, as a chosen people, as children of the
light. They regarded their adversaries as hum
than the people of any other nation; but we drum people, slaves to routine, enemies to light;
ask, is not this of Mr. Arnold's a most practi stupid and oppressive, but at the same time very
cal answer? It seems to us every whit as strong.”
known and thought in the world cannot be of

harsh restraints on the free play of thought,
and that, if accomplished, it would be the English growth, must be foreign; by the nature
greatest and happiest step ever made in of things, again, it is just this that we are least
spiritual progression; in a word, criticism likely to know, while English thought is stream
ing in upon us from all sides, and takes excellent
might herein exercise not only its appropriate,
care that we shall not be ignorant of its exist
but its noblest functions. Finally, approachence; the English critic, therefore, must dwell
ing social questions in the same spirit, Mr.much on foreign thought, and with particular
Arnold falls foul of the Divorce Court, be heed on any part of it, which, while significant
cause that institution does not accord with and fruitful in itself, is for any reason, specially
the “refreshing and elevating” marriage likely to escape him.” -
theory of Catholicism. Mr. Arnold's mind is open to foreign

Now, if all this merely means, that criti thought from many sources. His scholar
eism, being an honest endeavour to get at ship shows itself in the only way in which
truth, must keep itself free from party catch scholarship can show itself becomingly, i.e.,
words, from party considerations, ay, even in its results, its influence on the judgment
from party ideas, there can hardly be room for and the style. It has given him what Pope
dispute. Surely so simple a truth need not considers the rarest quality of the critic, good
have been so elaborated. But if it mean taste :- -
more than this, if it mean that criticism can “In poets, as true genius is but rare,
be applied with profit, or indeed, can be ap True taste as seldom is the critic's share.”
plied at all to questions of active life, yet in
no way concern itself with results, keeping But he has much that is higher than mere
above all practical considerations, then we scholarship, though unfortunately separable,
think Mr. Arnold altogether mistaken, and and too often separated from it; he has
we are sure that his criticism will be for ever caught “the secret of antiquity"—has pene
barren. Indeed, his theory breaks down in trated to the spirit of the ancient writers.
his own hands. In the examples he himself The influence of Germany seems to have
gives, he refutes the self-laudatory Briton by been but slight upon him; on the other
extracts from newspapers; he attacks the hand, he has a perfect familiarity with French
Divorce Court on the very practical grounds literature—the literature of criticism par ex
of its “crowded benches, its reports, its cellence; some will say that he surrenders
money compensations;” and when he turns himself too unreservedly to its dominion.
to religion, his criticism only ceases to be His Gallicism is perhaps extreme, and this,
combined with his devotion to classical mo
practicable by becoming totally useless, and
not a little obscure. dels, may give a certain narrowness to his
To say the truth, it is not when dealing judgments; but in these days of utter lawless
with these weighty matters that Mr. Arnold ness, when there is truly no king in Israel,
is at his best. He does not understand them ; and every man writes as seems good in his
he does not, we suspect, greatly care to nn own eyes, we welcome any ruler even though
derstand them ; his interest in them strikes his laws be rigid and his rule severe. Com
us as being forced. When he passes from ing to his work of criticism with such powers
confuting Mr. Adderley and Mr. Roebuck to and such resources, he magnifies his office,
analysing the beauties of Maurice de Guérin, very naturally, and not, we think, unduly.
he carries his readers into a new atmosphere | We have quoted one passage in which he
of warmth and light. His principles of criti tells us what criticism should be, in another
cism will be found safe guides in the region and yet more striking passage, he tells us
what criticism can do :
of the fine arts, though he does not seem to
possess the special knowledge required in an “The critical power is of lower rank than the
art-critic; but literature is the theme he creative. True; but in assenting to this propo
knows best, likes best—where he is, in all sition, one or two things are to be kept in mind.
It is undeliable that the exercise of a creative
respects, most at home. His natural qualifi power, that a free creative activity, is the true
cations for the work of literary criticism function of man; it is proved to be so by man's
have been enhanced by assiduous cultivation. finding in it his true happiness. But it is unde
No man can be a good critic who does not niable, also, that men may have the sense of ex
possess a familiarity with at least one great ercising this free creative activity in other ways
literature hesides his own. And this is than in producing great works of literature or art;
especially the case with Englishmen, who, if it were not so, all but a very few men would
as we have said before, find so little in their be shut out from the true happiness of all men;
own literature which can stimulate or foster they may have it in well-doing, they may have
it in learning, they may have it even in criticis
the critical spirit. ing. This is one thing to be kept in mind.
“By the very nature of things, as England is Another is, that the exercise of the creative
not all the world, much of the best that is power in the production of great works of lite
86 Essays in Criticism. Marc
rature or art, however high this exercise of it paratively poor, barren, and short-lived affa
may rank, is not at all epochs and under all con This is why Byron's poetry had so little endu
ditions possible; and that therefore labour may ance in it, and Goethe's so much; both Byr.
be vainly spent in attempting it, which might and Goethe had a great productive power, b
with more fruit be used in preparing for it, in Goethe's was nourished by a Areat critic l eff
rendering it possible. This creative power works providing the true materials for it, and Byrol
with elements, with materials; what if it has was not; Goethe knew life and the world, t
not those materials, those elements ready for its poet's necessary subjects, much more compr
use? In that case it must surely wait till they hensively and thoroughly than Byron. He kne
are ready. Now in literature,—I will limit my a great deal, more of them, and lie knew the
self to literature, for it is about literature that much more as they really are.”
the question arises,—the elements with which
the creative power works are ideas; the best This book of Mr. Arnold's is not a lar,
ideas, on every matter which literature touches, one, containing but nine short essays in a
current at the time; at any rate, we may lay it From the first, that on the Functions of Cri
down as certain that in modern literature no cism, we have quoted so largely that o
manifestation of the creative power not working readers can judge for themselves of its in
with these can be very important or fruitful. port and merits. We have also indicat
And I say current at the time, not merely ac pretty fully the scope of the second pape
cessible at the time; for creative literary genius
does not principally show itself in discovering on the Literary Influence of Academis
new ideas; that is rather the business of the which appeared last summer in the Cornh.
philosopher; the grand work of literary genius Magazine. Two beautiful critical estimat
is a work of synthesis and exposition, not of of Maurice and Eugénie de Guérin follo
analysis and discovery; its gift lies in the faculty showing a rare power of sympathy and a
of being happily inspired by a certain intellec preciation, and containing some very perfe
tual and spiritual atmosphere, by a certain order specimens of translation; and not less beau
of ideas, when it finds itself in them: of dealing ful and appreciative is a sketch of the El
divinely with these ideas, presenting them in
the most effective and attractive combinations, peror Marcus Aurelius. Perhaps the be
making beautiful works with them, in short. paper in the book, certainly the most chara
But it must have the atmosphere, it must find teristic, is that on Joubert, the “French Col
itself amidst the order of ideas, in order to work ridge;” while that on Spinoza is plainly ti
freely; and these it is not so easy to command. most unsatisfactory and inadequate. N
This is why great creative epochs in literature merous as our quotations have been, we giv
are so rare; this is why there is so much that is the following extract from the notice of Hei
unsatisfactory in the productions of many men rich Heine, because it illustrates, far bett
of real genius; because for the creation of a
master-work of literature two powers must con than any remarks of ours, Mr. Arnold's view
cur, the power of the man and the power of on English literature, and thus throws lig
the moment, and the man is not enough without on his theory of criticism:—
the moment; the creative power has, for its “We in England, in our great burst of liter
happy exercise, appointed elements, and those ture during the first thirty years of the presel
elements are not in its own control.
century, had no manifestation of the model
“Nay, they are more within the control of spirit, as this spirit manifests itself in Goethe
the critical power. It is the business of the works or Heine's. And the reason is not f:
critical power, as I said in the words already to seek. We had neither the German wealt
quoted, ‘in all branches of knowledge, theology, of ideas, nor the French enthusiasm for al
philosophy, history, art, science, to see the ob plying ideas. There reigned in the mass
ject as in itself it really is.' Thus it tends, at the nation that inveterate inaccessibility
last, to make an intellectual situation of which ideas, that Philistinism,-to use the Germa
the creative power can profitably avail itself. nickname,—which reacts even on the indivi.u
It tends to establish an order of ideas, if not genius that is exempt from it. In our grea
absolutely true, yet true by comparison with est literary epoch, that of the Elizabethan ag
that which it displaces; to make the best ideas English society at large was accessible to idea
prevail. Presently these new ideas reach society, was permeated by them, was vivified by the
the touch of truth is the touch of life, and there to a degree which has never been reached i
is a stir and growth everywhere; out of this England since. Hence the unique greatness i
stir and growth come the creative epochs of English literature of Shakspeare and his col
literature.
temporaries; they were powerfully upheld b
“Or, to narrow our range, and quit these con the intellectual life of their nation; they applie
siderations of the general march of genius and freely in literature the then mod rn ideas,—t
of society, considerations which are apt to be ideas of the Renaissance and the Reformatio
come too abstract and impalpable, -every one A few years afterwards the great Englis
can see that a poet, for instance, ought to know middle class, the kernel of the nation, the cla
life and the world before dealing with them in whose intellectual sympathy 'ad upheld a Shal
poetry; and life and the world being, in modern speare, entered the prison of Puritanism, an
times, very complex things, the creation of a had the key turned on its spirit there for tw
modern poet, to be worth much, implies a great hundred years. He enlargeth a nation, say
critical effort behind it; else it must be a com Job, and straiteneth it again. In the literar
movement of the beginning of the nineteenth have not even an adequate description of his
century, the signal attempt to apply freely the writings themselves, still less an estimate of
modern spirit was made in England by two his merits, or an explanation of his influence.
members of the aristocratic class, Byron and English literature has yet to be enriched with
Shelley. Aristocracies are, as such, naturally im
penetrable by ideas; but their individual mem a true and sufficient representation of that
bers have a high courage and a turn for breaking most remarkable man, who combined “the
bounds; and a man of genius, who is the born wit and ardent modern spirit of France, with
child of the idea, happening to be born in the the culture, the sentiment, the thought of
aristocratic ranks, chafes against the obstacles Germany.” But to do this was no part of
which prevent him from freely developing it. Mr. Arnold's purpose; so we rest with what
But Byron and Shelley did not succeed in he has given us well content.
their attempt freely to apply the modern
spirit in English literature; they could not suc Our readers will readily forgive us if we
ceed in it; the resistance to baffle them, the recall to their recollection Pope's picture of
want of intelligent sympathy to guide and up a model critic:—
hold them, were too great. Their literary crea “But where's the man who counsel can bestow,
tion, compared with the literary creation of Shak Still pleased to teach, and yet not proud to
speare and Spenser, compared with the literary know?
creation of Goethe and Heine, is a failure. The Unbiass'd, or by favour, or by spite;
best literary creation of that time in England Not dully prepossessed, nor blindly right;
ceeded from men who did not make the same Though learn'd, well-bred; and, though well
ld attempt as Byron and Shelley. What, in bred, sincere; -
fact, was the career of the chief English men of Modestly bold and humanly severe;
letters, their contemporaries? The greatest of Who to a friend his faults can freely show,
them, Wordsworth, retired (in Middle Age And gladly praise the merit of a foe;
phrase) into a monastery. I mean, he plunged Blest with a taste exact yet unconfined;
himself in the inward life, he voluntarily cut A knowledge both of books and human kind;
himself off from the modern spirit. Coleridge Generous converse; a soul exempt from pride;
took to opium. Scott became the historiograph And love to praise, with reason on his side?"
er-royal of feudalism. Keats passionately gave
himself up to a sensuous genius, to his faculty for Not a few of these qualities meet in Mr.
interpreting nature; and he died of consumption Arnold. Certainly he has the taste, and the
at twenty-five. Wordsworth, Scott, and Keats knowledge, the freedom from dull preposses
have left admirable works; far more solid and sions, the readiness to recognise merit, and is
complete works than those which Byron and far above all bias from any personal motive
Shelley have left. But their works have this de whatever. But we are not quite so sure
fect;—they do not belong to that which is the about the “soul exempt from pride,” or the
main current of the literature of modern epochs,
they do not apply modern ideas to life; they “humanly severe.” Mr. Arnold, indeed, is
constitute, therefore, minor currents, and all very strong on the necessity for urbanity in
other literary work of our day, however popu criticism; and in his essay on the Influence of
lar, which has the same defect, also constitutes Academies, condemns more than one English
but a minor current. Byron and Shelley will be critic for undue vehemence. But those who
long remembered, long after the inadequacy of love justice rather than mercy, will gladly
their actual work is clearly recognised, for learn that, with Mr. Arnold as with Dr. New
their passionate, their Titanic effort to flow
in the main stream of modern literature; their man, urbanity does not by any means involve
names will be greater than their writings; stat gentleness. It is not too much to say that the
magni nominis umbra.” tone of his lectures on Homer was in some in
stances quite insulting; and how lasting is
It would be too strong to call the critique on the pain inflicted by this polished venom, is
Heine disappointing, yet we may say that its shown by a letter addressed but the other
very excellence makes us wish there were day to the Dean of Canterbury by one of
more of it. Some of his best poetry is trans the least of the victims, the Rev. Ichabod
lated by Mr. Arnold into prose—into pure Wright, in every line of which wrath against
and beautiful prose certainly; but still we Mr. Arnold is seen struggling with imperfect
thus lose the grace, the nameless charm, the powers of expression. To show how evil of
divine light; and a writer who is himself a this sort begets evil, and how unbecoming
poet might, we think, have attempted a me and discreditable to literature are the results,
trical rendering. Moreover, this paper, we will quote a passage from Mr. Wright's
though, like all the rest, rich in subtle obser letter, where, finding prose fail him, he gives
vation and suggestive thoughts, as an esti vent to his emotions in strains of sarcastic
mate of Heine is insufficient. We are told Verse :
distinctly enough what he was, but we get no “Condemned by himself—refuted by himself

idea of what he did. We have no full pic —alas for his late "Io Triumphe, when visions
ture of his life, of the influences which made of glory flitted across his soul, and exalted him
him the strange and wild writer he was; we in his rapt imagination to a throne inferior only:
to that of Homer himself! And you, Mr. Dean, nature was to be the measure of Mr. Dis
will I am sure now that he lies, ‘uāyas us ort
raeli's impertinence. As if such outrages
vavva6sts, allow me once more to indulge my upon the amenity of literature, to say nothing
tancy in an imaginary soliloquy, reminding us of of the courtesies in use among gentlemen,
the reverses incident to humanity, from which
even a Professor is not exempt. were not the utterest Philistinism; as if ur
banity consisted only in the avoidance of ve
“Alas! how my throne is tottering and shaking hemence, but gave all allowance to cruel and
beneath me!
Methought I had slain all my foes,—Pope, contemptuous insolence. Foppery of this sort
Cowper, and Newman; only makes the man who indulges in it ridi
But ah! there they stand, like the ghosts of culous—a consideration which may have
the children of Banquo; more weight with Mr. Arnold than graver
And up from the ground, not the worse for remonstrances.
my dagger, again springs It is but fair, however, to add that, with
To haunt me, that wretch Wright, who dares the exception of the Preface, the tone of this
now to beard and defy me,—
Exulting that I, the guardian and friend of the book presents a pleasant contrast to the tone
Muses, of the “Lectures”—though the manner in
Have penned lines so vile, that even the Times which Mr. Kinglake is disposed of shows how
who befriends me, an aggravated case of Philistinism must be
Is beggared to scan them, and bids me go back treated; “on the breast of the huge Missis
to my Gradus. sippi of falsehood called history, a foam-bell
O cursed Hexameters—ye upon whom I once more or less is of no consequence.”
counted
To wake up immortal, unique Translator of Nor do we quite recognise as a leading
characteristic in Mr. Arnold that he is “mo
Homer,
I would ye had never been cherished and destly bold,” though herein also he improves
nursed in my bosom! with age and experience. Formerly his arro
Ye vipers, ye sting me! Disgraced is the chair gance astonished even the Saturday Review;
that I sit in; now, however, while far from observing the
And Oxford laments that her Muses have lost
their protector.”
precept to “speak, though sure, with seeming
diffidence,” he offends less than he did. We
-
True, in his last words on Homer, Mr. wish we could add that a similar improve
Arnold expressed regret that his “vivacities ment is observable in another of Mr. Arnold's
of expression” should have offended Mr. New faults—the fault of affectation. This is a
man; and in the preface of this volume he fault very prevalent among us now; and it is
expresses a similar regret with regard to Mr. one peculiarly unbecoming in a critic who
Wright. But no apologies can atone for aims at recalling our literature to some per
these so-called “vivacities.” A tardy and ception of classic purity and dignity. Can *
half-contemptuous expression of regret can anything be worse than the affectation of the
never do away with a rankling sense of insult. following passage from the Preface—com
An injury may be forgiven; but an insult bined, too, with a straining after humour
gives a feeling of degradation which, until it which is very dismal:—
is revenged, makes forgiveness impossible. In
truth, Mr. Arnold's love for “vivacity” is ex “But there is the coming east wind! there is
treme. On this score he defends Mr. Dis the tone of the future!—I hope it is grave enough
for even the Guardian;–the earnest, prosaic,
raeli's late speech at Oxford—that wonderful practical, austerely literal future! Yes, the
specimen of the tone of Pharisee and the world will soon be the Philistines; and then,
spirit of the Sadducee, combined with the with every voice not of thunder, silenced, and
grossest clap-trap of modern Philistinism, the whole earth filled and ennobled every morn
and is almost indignant that any one should ing by the magnificent roaring of the young
condemn the notorious outburst against “ne lions of the Daily Telegraph, we shall all yawn
bulous professors, who, if they could only in one another's faces with the dismallest, the
succeed in obtaining a perpetual study of their most unimpeachable gravity. No more vivacity
then my hexameters, and dogmatism, and scoffs
writings, would go far to realize that eternity at the Divorce Court, will all have been put
of punishment which they object to,” or ex down; I shall be quite crest-fallen. But does
press surprise at the taste of the Bishop of Mr. Wright imagine that there will be any more
Oxford and his clergy, who welcomed the place, in that world, for his heroic blank verse
"clever and unworthy sneer with “continued Homer than for my paradoxes? If he does, he
kaughter;” nay, on the assumption that Mr. deceives himself, and knows little of the Palatine
'Maurice was alluded to, he “cannot doubt that Library of the future. A plain edifice, like the
Mr. Maurice himself, full of culture and ur British College of Health enlarged: inside, a
light, bleak room, with a few statues; Dagon in
banity as he is, would be the first to pronounce the centre, with our English Caabah, or Palla
it a very smart saying, and to laugh at it good dium of enlightenment, the hare's stomach;
humouredly.” As if Mr. Maurice's good around a few leading friends of humanity or fa
thers of British philosophy;—Goliath, the great friends will find it hard to defend. He owes
Bentham, Presbyter Anglicanus, our intellectual this not only to his own reputation, he owes
deliverer Mr. James Clay, and . . . yes! with it also to the hopes of doing good to litera
the embarrassed air of a late convert, the Editor
of the Saturday Review. Many a shrewd nip ture, which he is justly entitled to entertain.
has he in old days given to the Philistines, this Why should he give occasion for triumph to
editor; many a bad half-hour has he made them the sons of the Philistines?
pass; but in his old age he has mended his What, then, are these hopes? or, in other
courses, and declares that his heart has always words, what benefits can be expected to come
been in the right place, and that he is at bottom, from sound criticism ? Mr. Arnold, as we have
however appearances may have been against seen, claims for it high and useful functions,
him, staunch for Goliath and ‘the most logical as the servant and pioneer of the creative
nation in the whole world.' Then for the book
shelves. There will be found on them a mono faculty, discovering, or at least rousing into
graph by Mr. Lowe on the literature of the ancient activity the ideas with which that faculty
Scythians, to revenge them for the iniquitous must work. Besides this, and below this, it
neglect with which the Greeks treated them; exercises a more direct influence—a corrective
there will be Demosthenes, because he was like influence. And this it does on the general
Mr. Spurgeon; but, else, from all the lumber of public as well as on writers; with the former,
antiquity they will be free. Everything they insisting on correctness of opinion, with the
contain will be modern, intelligible, improv
ing; Joyce's Scientific Dialogues, Old Hum latter, on correctness of production. “In
phrey, Bentham's Deontology, Little Dorrit, France,” says M. Sainte-Beuve, as quoted by
Mangnall's Questions, The Wide Wide World, Mr. Arnold, “the first consideration for us is
D'Iffanger's Speeches, Beecher's Sermons;—a not whether we are amused or pleased by a
library, in short, the fruit of a happy marriage work of art or mind, nor is it whether we
between the profound philosophic reflection of are touched by it. What we seek above all
Mr. Clay, and the healthy natural taste of In to learn is, whether we were right in being
spector Tanner.” amused with it, and in applauding it, and in
One form of affectation, frequent with Mr. being moved by it?” Mr. Arnold may well
Arnold, is specially objectionable, we mean call these words “remarkable;” they throw
the inappropriate use of scriptural phraseo a flood of light over the whole doctrine of
logy. Thus he took as a motto for his “Last criticism. How clearly they expose the mere
words,” multi, qui persequuntur me, et tribu folly of what we hear every day around us
lant me; a testimoniis non declinavi, to those with regard to works of art of all kinds—“It
who laugh at the grand style, he “repeats, may not be very good, but I like it:” the
with compassionate sorrow, the gospel words, people who thus speak, seeming to think
‘Ye shall die in your sins;” and he illustrates that their unreasoning caprices are criticism,
the uncertainty of literary success by quoting, never dreaming that if a thing is not good,
“many are called, but few are chosen.” We they should strive not to like it—that they
assure Mr. Arnold that this sort of thing are bound, had they any intellectual con
cannot fail to offend; and, perhaps, he will be science, first to ascertain whether a work of art
not less moved by the consideration that is good or not, and that liking or disliking
people will probably accuse him of having should follow the results of that endeavour,
caught the trick of it from Mr. Carlyle, not precede or be independent of it. No one
though certainly Mr. Carlyle is never so dis who studied the French pictures in the Ex
tasteful in his allusions. hibition of 1861 will dispute the truth of M.
We confess that even Mr. Arnold's egotism Sainte-Beuve's words. For such a study must
and arrogance has for our minds we know have satisfied any one that Frenchmen can
not what curious charm; but we cannot feel with truth claim for their artists a pre-emi
assured that other readers will feel the same: nence in good taste, and such pre-eminence
and we therefore regret these and such-like can only be attained by those who approach
blemishes, exactly in proportion as we es these matters in the spirit which the great
timate highly the services which a writer critic ascribes to his countrymen. To seek
like Mr. Arnold is capable of rendering to above all to see whether we are right in being
English literature. As we ventured to tell amused or moved ; if this rule could be im
him when commenting on his Lectures, a pressed on the public, what an advance would
censor so outspoken, and who judges by so be made, from what blunders would art and
high a standard, is sure to provoke bitter op literature be preserved ! We should no longer
position. Many will be impatient of his cul have people lauding the commonplace of
tivated criticism. Many will be abashed by Trollope as an artistic representation of life,
his usual good sense and moderation. He, or mistaking for humour that gross carica
more than most men, should be careful to ture by which Mr. Dickens is pulling down
afford no vantage-ground of attack to his his reputation; or, in a different style of art,
enemies, to show no weakness which his letting foolish weakness rise in the heart and
gather to the eyes—over deathbeds according critic who praises carelessly, recklessly, is
to the popular novel, or before such pictures guilty of a grievous offence against the true
as Mr. O'Neil's “Eastward Ho!:” they would interests of literature.
feel rather that they were wrong in allowing Of our eccentricities Mr. Arnold gives
their feelings to be stirred by unreality and some examples, showing how they strike the
false taste, that it was their duty to resist any minds of French critics. The examples he
such clap-trap appeals to sources of deep and selects are the Jashar of the late Mr. Donald
real emotion. And so these sources of emo son, and Mr. Forster's Life of Mahomet. It
tion would be opened to us more freely; and, may be that both Mr. Donaldson and Mr.
in the intellectual as in the moral world, Forster have been guilty of extravagance,
seeking what is right only, we should find yet it would have been well had Mr. Arnold
most surely the highest pleasure and the selected more eminent offenders. In literary,
truest beauty. as in political rebellions, the great leaders
On writers, again, it is the function of cri should be first left for punishment. Nor are
ticism to impress moderation-sanity both in there wanting men of mark who have sinned
thought and expression. It is as an aid to grievously against literary law. Mr. Carlyle,
criticism in discharging this function that during the latter portion of his career, has
Mr. Arnold thinks an academy would be of impaired his reputation, and diminished his
value—at once supplying a standard of judg influence, by plunging into every sort of ec
ment and forming a court of appeal. We centricity both of thought and style. And a
think he overrates the utility of such an in man, even more prominently before the pub
stitution. It might, and probably would do lic than Mr. Carlyle, has wandered into ex
something for the form, but we cannot share travagancies yet wilder, and that on one of
Mr. Arnold's expectations of what it would do Mr. Arnold's favourite subjects. It seems to
for the matter of our literature. We can see us very unaccountable that, in his lectures on
how it might cure “notes of provincialism” Homer, Mr. Arnold should have passed with
in expression; but how could it affect notes out notice the uncontrolled eccentricities of
of provincialism arising from poverty of Mr. Gladstone, and the amazing meanings
thought? An academy might have had which he tortured from the poet. And this
power to chasten the style of Burke, but we is not only unaccountable but much to be
doubt if it could ever have made a profound regretted. The reception given to Mr. Glad
moralist of Addison. At all events, English stone's bulky volumes might be cited as one
criticism must be content to labour without of the strongest instances of the insufficiency
such aid. And the work to be done, at least of English criticism. Every newspaper and
in our day, is mainly a work of correction. periodical in the country, except, if our me
Hence the common remark, that it is the mory serve us right, the Times and the Scots
duty of the critic to welcome merit rather man, joined in the chorus of unreasoning and
than discover faults, is not true. Ben Jonson exaggerated praise. Especially no depths of
puts it: “Some do say critics are a kind of prostration could be too deep for the Satur
tinkers, that make more faults than they day Review. Now Mr. Gladstone violated
mend ordinarily.” Now, of course, criticism every law which Mr. Arnold regards. His
must not make faults, but we maintain that book showed neither moderation nor sanity,
its first duty is to detect and expose them. nor even good taste—as in the famous com
The truth is, that the above remark applies parison of Minerva to the electric telegraph.
only to the productions of the highest genius. It is against such a parrot-cry as this that
In everything below this there are errors Mr. Arnold's testimony would be of especial
which cannot be left unchecked, or still worse, value. Such a critic as he is renders his
included in a gush of undiscriminating praise, fitting service not in holding up small men
if sound literature is to be fostered, prejudices to ridicule, but in exposing the errors of
and bad taste abated. To the duty of labour great men. But though we cannot quite
ing for this end, the pleasure of praising must forgive him for not having shown Mr.
always be postponed; and, as has been said Gladstone's Homer in its true light, he
more than once already, that duty was never yet deserves some praise for having in this
more incumbent on the critic than at the preface at least indicated, for the first time,
present day. Eccentricities, false estimates, so far as we know, the truth as regards
and every sort of extravagance in style are Lord Derby's Homer: “I admire its fresh
rife among us. The common limitation of ness, its manliness, its simplicity; although,
the word “art” to painting exclusively, is perhaps, if one looks for the charm of Homer,
- - - - - |
itself a sign, if any sign were needed, of how for his play of a divine light, ... Professor
utterly inartistic our literature is. In such a Pepper must go on, I cannot.”
state of matters unjust censure is as nothing; In the work of resisting false estimates,
real merit will struggle through : but the criticism will find plenty of occupation in
Scotland. Partly from our noisy nationality, Were the writer in the Cornhill to set about
partly from the want of general cultivation, collecting a few “samples” of fine Scotch, he
and the consequent absence of good taste, might produce an amusing and most asto
this fault is very prevalent among us. Indeed, nishing paper. This may be partly ascribed
Scotland at the present day, fallen from her to the popularity of writers like the late
high literary estate, is in many respects, in Professor Wilson, a man of undoubted genius,
her narrowness, in her inaccessibility to great but of a wild and unregulated genius, and in
ideas, in her vehement self-assertion, a very whose writings the influence of severe culti
Philistia. But at all times Scotchmen have vation is hardly ever to be traced—an unfor
been given to over-estimate and over-praise tunate popularity, in that it has led weaker
Scotchmen in a manner which works much men to imitate what is not susceptible, nor,
evil. In the lowest point of view, this does indeed, deserving of imitation. These ad
no lasting good to the praised themselves, for miring mimics have caught the faults only of
other tribunals are less partial, nay, may be the original—in the well-known words of
led into excess of severity by this excess of Johnson, they have “the nodosities of the
praise; while, in any other point of view, it oak, without its strength; the contortions of
does direct harm, hindering real advance the Sibyl without her inspiration.” But the
ment, obscuring both from ourselves and main source of this vice, as of the former, is
from others the knowledge of the truth. the want, so general and unhappily so in
Thus we find the late Francis Horner, a creasing, of a familiarity with the best models,
sedate man of a well-balanced mind, placing especially of those which antiquity has left
Dugald Stewart on a level with “the first of us. And this leads us to an objection occa
those who know,” and predicting that his sionally urged against Mr. Arnold's critical
“writings will live as long as those of Cicero point of view. He is sometimes spoken of
and Plato, and will go down to distant times as an upholder of the classical as opposed to
with their works.” Here we have a “note the Romantic style, and in a sense he is so,
of provincialism” which jars upon us rudely. Thus he cannot yield to the dogma frequently
Thus to class Cicero with Plato in the same announced now-a-days, that “the poet who
rank as philosophers shows a culpable care would really fix the public attention must
lessness almost amounting to indifference to leave the exhausted past, and draw his sub
truth; but to set Dugald Stewart there also, jects from matters of present import, and
is to treat the critical spirit as altogether a therefore both of interest and novelty.” He
thing of naught, and, though this is a less believes, on the contrary, that the best ma
matter, to run the risk of depriving him terials for poetry are to be found not in
of the reputation which is justly his. situations and incidents in themselves mean
Again, Lord Jeffrey—for it is better in such and disagreeable, however they may be ele
a matter as this to take examples from the vated by the power of the imagination, but
past—was beyond doubt an accomplished rather in events and ideas in themselves
man, and a brilliant writer. But if we com grand and beautiful, possessing an immediate
pare him with such a critic as M. Sainte dignity and interest, irrespective of the force
Beuve, or if we read Mr. Arnold's compari of association; and, so far, he holds with the
son of him with Joubert, we can hardly fail classicists. He believes, further, that distance
to see that it would be more becoming if the from ourselves, either in time or idea, tends
terms in which his merits are often extolled to bestow this immediate dignity and inter
among us were to suffer some abatement. est, while nearness to ourselves tends to take
The third tendency which it is the ap it away. Poetry, according to his idea,
pointed duty of criticism to resist, namely, should approach, as with the most classic of
fine writing, is also a peculiarly northern the great poets it did approach, to sculpture,
vice. It is a tendency at present extending at once in natural beauty of subject, and in
itself, like some pestilent weed, over all Eng perfection of form. Yet he is far from con
lish literature: a writer on this subject in the fining poetry to classical themes in the strict
Cornhill * could select his “samples of fine sense of the word. He does not so limit his
English" not only from Tupper and Rey own choice. Most of his largest poems come
molds' Miscellany, but also from the Times, from very different sources—from Northern
the Literary Gazette, and the Edinburgh and mythology, from Eastern legend, from the
Quarterly Reviews / But in Scotland the cycle of Arthurian romance. His view, in
vice is almost universal. It is to be found in short, is, that all noble subjects are fitting for
our books and our newspapers, it is rampant poetry, only that the more distant the sub
in our pulpit, it intrudes, when opportunity ject the more likely it is to possess this ele
offers, even upon the dignity of our bench. ment of nobility, not having been exposed to
the vulgarizing influences of familiarity. In
* Vol. iii. p. 205. this point of view Macbeth becomes as clas
sical as Agamemnon—the Weird Sisters, favour a witness whose testimony can never
“withered and wild in their attire,” as clas be otherwise than acceptable, and who cer
sical as the awful Eumenides—Una, with her tainly had no love for Latin and Greek in ex
lion, as classical as Antigone or Electra. We cess, Sydney Smith:—“Whatever, therefore,
believe Mr. Arnold to be right in his theory. our conjectures may be, we cannot be so sure
Despite such successes as those of Words that the best modern writers can afford us as
worth or of Tennyson, we suspect that what good models as the ancients: the moderns
is so glibly called “the poetry of every-day have been well taught by their masters; but
life,” will generally prove a very sorry affair. the time is hardly yet come when the neces
The poet is indeed, as is often said, the inter sity for such instruction no longer exists.” It
preter of his age, but he is so indirectly, by is a thing of some moment just at present, that
allusion, by general tone, by his point of the value of the ancient writers should have
view, not directly by depicting the common found so powerful an advocate as Mr. Arnold
life of people round about him. No great —a man eminently qualified to form an opi
poet has done this—not even Shakspeare, the nion on the matter, and not less capable of up
most universal of all. Not in this way have holding it.
the highest peaks of Helicon been scaled. This subject naturally leads the mind to
Aspects of life so different from those familiar Oxford, on which nothing has ever been
to us as to seem of another world—or, it written more beautiful than the following
may be, other worlds altogether, creations of passage—in itself no unfavourable example of
imagination or of faith; such are the fit and the grace of Mr. Arnold's style:—
chosen materials of the highest poetry. See “No; we are all seekers still: seekers often
ing that the “poetry of every-day life theory” make mistakes, and I wish mine to redound to
has found a supporter so acute as the late my own discredit only, and not to touch Oxford.
Mr. Brimley in his essay on Tennyson, we Beautiful city' so venerable, so lovely, so un
are glad to find it opposed by Mr. Arnold. ravaged by the fierce intellectual life of our cen
But while it would be incorrect to call Mr. tury, so serene !
Arnold a disciple of the classic style, as the ‘There are our young barbarians, all at play.”
expression is employed by Schlegel, no man And yet, steeped in sentiment as she lies,
can have a truer appreciation of classical spreading her garments to the moonlight, and .
literature, or value a familiarity with it more whispering from her towers the last enchant
highly. Men, he says, who often enjoy com ments of the Middle Age, who will deny that
merce with the ancients, seem to him “like Oxford, by her ineffable charm, keeps ever call
persons who have had a very weighty and ing us near to the true goal of all of us, to the
impressive experience, they are more truly ideal, to perfection,-to beauty, in a word, which
is only truth seen from another side?—nearer,
than others under the empire of facts, and perhaps, than all the science of Tübingen. Adora
more independent of the language current ble dreamer, whose heart has been so romantic |
among those with whom they live.” Now, who hast given thyself so prodigally, given thy
no one can reproach Mr. Arnold with admir self to sides and to heroes not mine, only never
ing the ancient beyond due measure, because to the Philistines | home of lost causes, and for
of ignorance of modern literature. He but saken beliefs, and unpopular names, and impos
adds another to the many instances which sible loyalties! What example could ever so in
spire us to keep down the Philistine in ourselves,
show that it is the most accomplished and what teacher could ever so save us from that
most cultivated men who most value the cul
bondage to which we are all prone, that bondage
tivation of antiquity. It is the want of this which Goethe, in those incomparable lines on
cultivation more than any other cause, which the death of Schiller, makes it his friend's highest
fosters, especially among us Scotch, those praise (and nobly did Schiller deserve the praise)
sins of eccentricity, and over-estimates, and to have left miles out of sight behind him :—the
fine writing, on which we have already re bondage of was uns alle bindigt, DAs GEMEINE 2
marked. Criticism can do much to restrain She will forgive me, even if I have unwittingly
drawn upon her a shot or two aimed at her un
these things, but the discipline which the worthy son ; for she is generous, and the cause
study of the classics gives can do far more; in which I fight is, after all, hers. Apparitions
nay, without such discipline we may not hope of a day, what is our puny warfare against the
for any such criticism. It is very idle to Philistines, compared with the warfare which
quote Shakspeare with his “little Latin and this Queen of Romance has been waging against
less Greek;” we are speaking now of ordinary them for centuries, and will wage atter we are
mortals, of men who write from intelligence gone?”
and understanding, not of the divine sons of Readers who have accompanied us thus far
genius. It is impossible, within this range, do not need to be told that, in our judgment,
to rate too highly the importance of a know Mr. Arnold's little volume is a work at once
ledge of the classics as a regulating and cor- of sterling merit and of great value. That
rective influence. Here we can cite in our he may be, as indeed we believe him to be,
1865. The Holy Roman Empire.
wrong in many of his practical results—such pire, and the history of the nations which fell
as his admiration for academies, and his choice asunder from it, are alike certain to be mis
of English hexameters as a vehicle for ren conceived. Unless viewed in the light of the
dering Homer—is a thing of no real moment. Imperial theory, the whole history of Ger
The virtue of his teaching consists in the ex many, Italy, and Burgundy becomes an inex
cellence of the standard he sets up, and in plicable riddle. The struggle of Hildebrand
the soundness of the principles he applies. and Henry loses half its meaning, the whole
The more widely he is read, the greater the position of the Swabian Emperors becomes
influence he obtains, the brighter the pros an insoluble puzzle, the most elaborate prose
pects of our literature. And it is because of and the most impassioned verse of Dante
this high estimate of Mr. Arnold's labours sink into purposeless gibberish, if we do not
that we have dwelt more fully on those points fully realize that, in the mind of all contem
where we differ from him than on those where porary Europe, the Hohenstaufen were the
we agree with or yield to him; and, would direct and lawful successors of the Julii.
that we were not forced to add, that it is also How Germany, once the most united state of
because of this estimate that we regret deeply Western Europe, gradually changed from a
the foppery, the arrogance, the affectation compact and vigorous kingdom into one of
which marred the beauty of the lectures on the laxest of confederations, can never be un
Homer, which, in the preface to these essays, derstood unless we trace how the German
moves a sorrowful laughter, and which ap kingdom was crushed and broken to pieces
pears rarely indeed, yet too often, disfiguring beneath the weight of the loftier diadem
the essays themselves, lingering like a subtle which rested on the brow of its kings.
poison. With these weaknesses Mr. Arnold Those misrepresentations of all European
has done, and yet will do, much ; but, with history with which French historians and
out them, how much more! Admiring him French politicians are apt to deceive the un
as we do, we can forgive him; but how can wary can never be fully exposed, except by a
he forgive himself? thorough acquaintance with the true position
and true nationality of those Teutonic Kings
and Caesars, whom the Gaul is so apt to look
upon as his countrymen and not as his mas
ters. The relations between Eastern and
Western Europe can never be taken in, un
less we fully realize the true nature of those
ART. VII.—The Holy Roman Empire. By rival Empires, each of which asserted and
JAMES BRYCE, B.A. Oxford, 1864. believed itself to be the one true and lawful
possessor of the heritage of ancient Rome.
It may seem a hard saying, but it is one We see our way but feebly through the long
which the facts fully bear out, that hardly struggle between the East and the West,
one student in ten of mediaeval history really between Christendom and Islam, unless we
grasps that one key to the whole subject fully grasp the position of the Caesar, the
without which mediaeval history is simply an chief of Christendom, and the Caliph, the
unintelligible chaos. That key is no other chief of Islam; unless we see, in the com
than the continued existence of the Roman plex inter-penetration of the divided Empire
Empire. As long as people are taught to and the divided Caliphate, at once what the
believe that the Empire came to an end in theory of Christian and of Moslem was, and
the year 476, a true understanding of the how utterly those theories failed to be carried
next thousand years becomes utterly impossi out in all their fulness. In a word, as we
ble. No man can understand either the poli began by saying, the history of the Empire is
tics or the literature of that whole period, the key to the whole history of mediaeval
unless he constantly bears in mind that, in Europe, and it is a key which as yet is found
the ideas of the men of those days, the Ro in far fewer hands than it ought to be.
man Empire, the Empire of Augustus, Con The immediate cause of the failure of most
stantine, and Justinian, was not a thing of historical students to realize the paramount
the past but a thing of the present. With importance of the Imperial history, is of
out grasping the mediaeval theory of the Em course to be found in the fact that hardly
pire, it is impossible fully to grasp the theory any of the books from which students draw
and the career of the Papacy. Without un their knowledge give to the history of the Em
derstanding the position of the Empire, it is pire its proper prominence. This is indeed
impossible rightly to understand the origin little more than a truism. The question is,
and development of the various European how it comes to pass that even able and well
States. Without much an understanding, the informed writers have failed to bring forward
history of the nations which clave to the Em this most important portion of history as it
*
94 The Holy Roman Empire. March,
should be brought forward. The causes, we drawn to a history which is actually antago
think, are tolerably obvious. nistic to the history of the Empire. France,
First, our own national history has been so long the rival of England, and for that
less affected by the history of the Empire cause so long the ally of Scotland, is the
than that of any other European country. country with which, next to their own, most
Britain, Spain, and Sweden, in their insular British readers are most familiar. Now it is
and peninsular positions, were the parts of certain that no one who learns French history
Europe over which the Imperial influence at the hands of Frenchmen can ever under
stand the history of the Empire aright. The
was slightest, and of the three, that influence
was even slighter over Britain than it was whole history of France, strictly so called,
over Spain, and hardly greater than it was the history of the Parisian kings, has been
over Sweden. Of direct connexion with the for six hundred years one long tale of aggran
Empire, England had very little, and Scot dizement. at the expense of the Empire.
land still less. The external history of Eng From the annexation of Lyons to the annexa
land does indeed ever and anon touch 'the tion of Savoy, all have been acts of one great
history of the Empire, in the way in which drama, a drama of which the devastation of
the history of every European state must ever the Palatinate, the seizure of Strassburg in
and anon touch the history of every other time of peace, the tyranny of the first Buona
state. Once or twice in a century we come parte over the whole German nation, are fa
across an Emperor as a friend or as an ene miliar and characteristic incidents. French
my, in one case as a possible suzerain. As history consists mainly of a record of wrongs
England supplied the spiritual Rome with a inflicted on the later and feebler Empire, pre
single. Pope, so she supplied the temporal faced by a cool appropriation of the glories
Rome with a single King, a King who never of the Empire in the days of its early great
visited his capital or received the crown and ness. In official and popular French belief,
title of Augustus. But the whole internal two great German dynasties, who held
history of England, and the greater part of modern France as a subject province, are
its external history, went on pretty much as conveniently converted into national French
if there had been no Holy Roman Empire at men. The greatest of German Kings, the
all. Our one moment of most intimate con first of German Caesars, Charles, the Lord of
nexion with the Empire brings out most fully Rome and Aachen, is strangely turned about
how slight, compared with that of other into a French Emperor of the West, the pre
nations, our usual connexion with the Em cursor of either Buonaparte. The ancient
pire was. Every reader of English history landmarks of European geography are wiped
knows the name of Richard, Earl of Cornwall out, the names of the most famous European
and King of the Romans, and knows the part cities are mutilated or barbarized, in order to
which he played in the internal politics of throw some colour of right and antiquity
England. But very few readers, and we sus over the results of six hundred years of in
pect by no means all writers, of English his trigue and violence. French history, as it is
tory seem to have any clear notion what a commonly presented to Englishmen, exists
King of the Romans was. On Scotland in only through a systematic misrepresentation
deed the Roman Empire has had, in one of Imperial history. Till all French in
way, a most important internal influence, fluences are wholly cast aside and trampled
through the authority which Scottish law under foot, the true history of the Holy Ro
yers, in such marked contrast to those of man Empire can never be understood.
England, have for so long a time attached to Thirdly, It seems not unlikely that the
the Roman law. But this is simply because righteous and generous sympathy which we
Scottish lawyers or lawgivers chose it to be all feel towards regenerate ltaly has tended
so; on the actual events of Scottish history, somewhat to obscure the true character of the
external and internal, the Empire and its Empire. So many Austrian Archdukes were
rulers have had even less influence than they elected Kings of Germany and Emperors of
have had on those of England. As, then, our the Romans, that people have gradually come
own national history can be written and un to identify the House of Austria and the
derstood with very little reference to the Roman Empire. Nothing is more common
Holy Roman Empire, British readers lie un than to see the title of “Emperor of Austria,”
der a strong temptation to undervalue the the most monstrous invention of modern di
importance of the Holy Roman Empire in plomacy, carried back into the last century,
the general history of the world. and even earlier. Even Sir Walter Scott in
Secondly, When British readers get beyond some of his novels, Anne of Geierstein for
the limits of their own island, not only is instance, seems to have had great difficulty
their attention not commonly drawn to the in triumphing over a notion that every Em
history of the Empire, but it is commonly peror must have been Duke of Austria, and
1865. The Holy Roman Empire, 95
that every Duke of Austria must have been selves that own island, at least, was always
Emperor. We have seen Frederick Barba exempted from the sway of the universal
rossa set down as an Austrian because he was sovereign. But all this should not lead us
an Emperor; we have seen the Leopold of at all to underrate the paramount importance
Morgarten and the Leopold of Sempach ex of the Imperial idea. A belief may be false,
alted into Emperors because they were Aus absurd, unreal, mischievous, as we please;
trians. People thus learn to identify two but this in no way touches the historical im
things, than which no two can be more un portance of such belief. Christians believe
like, and to look on the ancient reality with that the leading idea of Mohammedanism is
the eyes with which they rightly look on the a grievous error; Protestants believe that
modern counterfeit. The dislike which every the leading idea of the Papacy is a grievous
generous mind feels towards the oppressors error; but no one argues that either Mo
of modern Italy is thus transferred to that hammedanism or the Papacy has therefore
earlier Empire which, always in theory and been without influence on the fate of the
often in practice, was as much Italian as Ger world, or that any historical student can
man. As Charles the Great becomes the safely neglect the history of one or the other,
forerunner of Buonaparte, so Frederick the merely because he looks on them as erroneous
beloved of Lodi, and Frederick the native beliefs. In fact, the deadlier the error the
King of Palermo, and Otto, the dream of more important are the results of an error
whose short life was to reign as a true Roman which is accepted by large masses of men.
Caesar in the Eternal City, all are popularly It may be very wrong to believe that Mo
looked upon as forerunners of Francis Joseph, hammed was the Prophet of God; but the
perhaps of Philip the Second.* The Austrian fact that millions of men have so believed
delusion, no less than the French delusion, has changed the destinies of a large portion
must be utterly cast aside by every one who of the world. It may be very wrong to be
would understand what Charles and Otto lieve that St. Peter was the Prince of the
and Henry and Frederick really were. Apostles, and that the Bishop of Rome is St.
Lastly, Even among those who better know Peter's successor, but the fact that millions
the facts of the case, and who better under of men have so believed and do so believe,
stand the leading idea of the mediaeval Em has affected the course of all European his
pire, there is a certain tendency to underrate tory and politics down to this day. In these
the importance of the Imperial history, on cases no one attempts to deny the import
the ground that the mediaeval Empire was ance of the facts; no one holds that either
throughout an unreality, if not an imposture. Mohammedan or Papal history can safely be
We fully admit the utter unreality of the po neglected. So it should be with the history
sition of Francis the Second, Emperor-Elect of of the mediaeval Empire. The Imperial
the Romans, King of Germany and Jerusalem; idea may have been unreal, absurd, mischie
we fully admit that Charles the Great himself vous; but it is not therefore the less import
was not a Roman Emperor in exactly the ant. Men did believe in it; perhaps they
same sense as Vespasian or Trajan. We were wrong to believe in it; but the fact
may freely grant that the Imperial idea was that they did believe in it affected the whole
never fully carried out, and that it was by history of the world for many ages. It may
no means for the interest of the world have been foolish to believe that the German
that it should be carried out. We may King was necessarily Roman Emperor, and
wonder at the belief of the ages which held, that the Roman Emperor was necessarily
as undoubted and eternal truths, first, that it Lord of the World. But men did believe
was a matter of right that there should be it; and the fact of their believing it changed
an universal monarch of the world; secondly, the whole face of Europe. It might have
that that universal monarchy belonged, no been much wiser if the German Kings had
less of eternal right, to the Roman Emperor, been content to be real German Kings, and
the successor of Augustus; and, thirdly, that had not striven after the shadowy majesty
the German King, the choice of the German of Roman Emperors. But, as a matter of fact,
Electors, was the undoubted Roman Caesar, they did so act; it was not in human nature
and therefore, of eternal right, Lord of the for men in their position to act otherwise;
World. This belief seems to us very strange, and the fact that they did so act entailed the
but it was the belief of Dante. We rejoice most important consequences upon their own
that this scheme of universal dominion was and upon every neighbouring realm. If the
never practically carried out; we pride our history of the Empire is to be set down
* We have seen in a popular work, the words
purely as the history of error and folly, it
should be remembered that the history of
"The Emperor Philip the Second.” The reasoning error and folly forms by far the largest part
is irresistible: Philip's father was an Emperor;
how could Philip himself fail to be an Emperor too? of the history of mankind.
Now we are far from admitting that the the matter in the same spirit. But they
history of the Empire is purely a part of the have dealt with it only incidentally, or have
history of human folly, though we may be treated of particular portions only. Mr. Bryce
obliged to admit that it is a part of the his himself points to various forerunners of this
tory of human error. The idea of the Em kind among his sources of information. Still
pire, the idea of an universal Christian mo the ground, as a whole, was untouched, and
narchy, not interfering with the local inde Mr. Bryce has the credit of being the first
pendence of particular kingdoms and com to give to the British public a complete view
monwealths, but placing Caesar Augustus, of the great political idea of the middle ages.
the chosen and anointed chief of Christen Mr. Bryce's book is of course not a history,
dom, as the common guide and father of all but an essay; he has not attempted so hope
—such an idea is as noble and captivating as less a task as to narrate the fates of the Em
it is impracticable. It is an idea which has pire and its attendant kingdoms within the
commended itself to some of the noblest space of a single thin volume. But no one
spirits that the world has seen. It was the must confound Mr. Bryce's Arnold Essay
idea for which Frederick struggled with far with the common run of prize compositions.
from a merely selfish aim. It was the idea Mr. Bryce's book, if it be not a bull to say so,
to which the early revivers of scientific juris has been written since it gained the histori
prudence clung as to the one foundation of cal prize at Oxford. “It is right,” he tells
order and legal government throughout the us, “to state that this Essay has been greatly
world. It was the great principle which changed and enlarged since it was composed
acted as the guiding spirit of the prose, the for the Arnold Prize.” Any one who knows
verse, and the life of Dante. To men of anything of prize essays could have told as
that time, living amid the perpetual strife of much by the light of nature. It is hardly
small principalities and commonwealths, the possible that any mere academic exercise
vision of an universal empire of law and could have displayed the depth of thought,
right shone with an alluring brightness, the thoroughness of research, the familiarity
which we, accustomed to a system of national with a whole learning of a very recondite
governments and international relations, can kind, which stand revealed in every page of
hardly understand. But be the worth of the this volume. The merits of the book are so
idea what it may, its practical influence on palpably due in the main to this later revi
the history of Christendom can hardly be sion, that we could almost wish that the words
overrated. The Empire may have been a Arnold Prize Essay were removed from the
shadow, but it was a shadow to which men title-page.
were for ages ready to devote their thoughts, Of the Essay itself, in its present form, we
their pens, and their swords. The results can hardly trust ourselves to speak all our
were none the less practical because the ob thoughts. Men naturally and rightly look
ject was unattainable. We repeat that, with some suspicion on criticism which
without a full understanding of the mediae speaks of a novice in language which is sel
'val conception of the Empire, without a full dom deserved except by a veteran. But it
grasp of the way in which that conception is only in such language that we can utter
influenced men's minds and actions from the our honest conviction with regard to the
eighth century to the fourteenth, the greater merits of the volume before us. Mr. Bryce's
and more important part of the mediaeval Essay may seem ephemeral in form, but it is
history remains an insoluble riddle. not ephemeral in substance. He has, in
Knowing then, as we do, the unspeakable truth, by a single youthful effort placed him
importance of right views of the Empire to self on a level with men who have given
a true understanding of mediaeval history, their lives to historical study. Like the
and being unable, as we are, to lay our hand young Opuntian in Pindar—
upon any other book in the English tongue
olov £v Mapabiovt, ov
which gives so clear and thorough an Aaffets dyevstov,
account of the whole matter, it is with
Aévsv ćytova repeašvrápov.
no common delight that we welcome the
appearance of the small but remarkable Mr. Bryce's Essay must be placed in the
volume whose name we have placed at the same rank, and must be judged by the same
head of this article. It is, as far as we standard, as the most voluminous works of
know, the first complete and connected view professed historians. He has done for his
of the mediaeval Empire which has ever been toric literature a service as great as any of
given to British readers. It would not be theirs.
difficult to point out portions of various his Mr. Bryce's great merit is the clear and
torical works, papers in various reviews and thorough way in which he sets forth what
collections of essays, which have dealt with the mediaeval conception of the Empire
1865. The Holy Roman Empire, 97
really was, and especially that religious sentiwithin his own sphere. Each ruler is bound
ment which so strangely came to attach itself to the other by the closest ties, Caesar is
to the power which had once been special the Advocate of the Roman Church, bound
representative of heathen pride and persecu to defend her by the temporal arm against all
tion. This is a part of the subject which we temporal enemies. The Pontiff, on the other
have never before seen set forth with the hand, though the Caesar holds his rank not of
same power and fulness. For, of course, in him, but by an independent Divine Commis
combating the vulgar error that the Roman sion, has the lofty privilege of personally ad
Empire came historically to an end in 476, mitting the Lord of the World to his high
though Mr. Bryce is doing excellent service office of hallowing the Lord's Anointed, and
to the cause of truth, he is not putting forth of making him in some sort a partaker in the
any new discovery. Thus much Sir Francis mysterious privileges of the priesthood. The
Palgrave has already established for the sway alike of Caesar and of Pontiff is abso
West, and Mr. Finlay for the East. The lutely universal; it is local, in so far as Rome
Eastern side of the subject, one to which we is its chosen seat; but it is in no way national;
ourselves called special attention just ten it is not confined to Italy, or Germany, or
years ago,” is, we cannot but think, some Europe; to each alike, in his own sphere,
what neglected by Mr. Bryce, as perhaps, on God has given the heathen for his inheri
the other hand, the Western side is by Mr. tance, and the utmost parts of the earth for
Finlay. Sir Francis Palgrave and Mr. Bryce his possession. And each of these lofty
have to deal with the same side of the sub offices is absolutely open to every baptized
ject, bnt they look at it with somewhat dif man; each alike is purely elective; each is
ferent eyes. With Mr. Bryce indeed the open to merit in any rank of life or in any
Empire is his main, or rather sole, subject, corner of Christendom. While smaller of.
while the contributions of Sir Francis to Im fices were closely confined by local or aristo
perial history, valuable as they are, have cratic restrictions, the throne of Augustus
come out incidentally in dealing with matters and the chair of Peter were, in theory at
not immediately connected with the Empire. least, open to the ambition of every man of
Sir Francis again concerns himself mainly orthodox belief. Even in the darkest times of
with those outward forms and institutions aristocratic exclusiveness, no one dared to lay
which show that the Empire did not for down as a principle that the Roman Emperor
mally die. Mr. Bryce has more to do with the need be of princely or noble ancestry. Free
theory of the Empire itself, and with the dom of birth–Roman citizenship, in short,
various shapes through which it passed from to clothe mediaeval ideas in classical words—
Caius Julius Caesar Octavianus to Francis the was all that was needed. Each power as a
Second of Lorraine. This he has done in so Divine Vicar upon earth, rises alike above
complete and admirable a manner that we all small considerations of race or birthplace.
trust that the essay is only the precursor of a The Lord of the World has all mankind
narrative. We trust that Mr. Bryce may alike for the objects of his paternal rule; the
one day give us a history of the mediaeval successor of St. Peter welcomes all alike,
Roman Empire worthy to be placed by the from the east and from the west, from the
side of Dean Milman's history of the mediae north and from the south, within the one uni
val Roman Church. versal fold over which he has the commis
sion to bind and to loose, to remit and to re
The theory of the mediaeval Empire is tain.
that of an universal Christian monarchy. The Here is a conception as magnificent as it
Roman Empire and the Catholic Church are was impracticable. No wonder indeed that
two aspects of one society, a society ordained such a theory fascinated men's minds for ages,
by the Divine will to spread itself over the and that in such a cause they were willing to
whole world. Of this society, Rome is spend and to be spent. That it never was
marked out by Divine decree as the predes. carried out, history tells us at the first glance.
tined capital, the chief seat alike of spiritual It is evident that neither the Roman Pontiff
and of temporal rule. At the head of this nor the Roman Caesar ever extended their
society, in its temporal character as an Em common sway over the whole of the world,
pire, stands the temporal chief of Christen or even over the whole of Christendom. And
dom, the Roman Caesar. At its head, in its the two powers, which were in theory de
spiritual character as a Church, stands the signed to work in harmony, appear, for the
spiritual chief of Christendom, the Roman most part, in real history as the bitterest ri
Pontiff Caesar and Pontiff alike rule by vals. Still no theory, as a theory, can be
Divine right, each as God's immediate Vicar more magnificent. But how did such a
theory arise? What is the Roman Empire
* North British Review, Feb. 1855 (vol. xxii.). and the Roman Emperor? At the two ends
VOL. XLII. -
98 | The Holy Roman Empire, March,
of their existence those words express ideas as be noticed is the absolute want of nationality
removed from one another as either of them in the Empire. To this characteristic of the
is from the theory which Otto the Third and Roman dominion, we once called attention in
Gregory the Fifth did for a moment carry out the article on the historical works of Mr.
in practice. At the one end of the chain we Finlay, to which we have already referred.
see the heathen magistrate of a heathen com But, in this lack of nationality, the Roman
monwealth, carefully avoiding all royal titles Empire does but continue the Roman Re
and royal insignia, associating on terms of public. The Roman Republic was intensely
equality with other distinguished citizens, but local; every association gathered round the
carefully grasping the reality of absolute one centre, the city of Rome; but it was less
power by the stealthy process of uniting in national than any other commonwealth in all
his own person a variety of offices hitherto history. It grew, in fact, by gradually extend
deemed inconsistent with one another. Such ing its franchise over Latium, Italy, and the
was the first Roman Emperor, and in his days whole Mediterranean world. The edict of
the Roman Pontiff as yet was not. The last Caracalla, whatever were its motives, did but
Roman Emperor was a German King, whose put the finishing touch to the work begun by
German Kingdom was almost as imaginary the mythical Romulus in his league with the
as his Roman Empire. He was a mighty po Sabine Tatius. From the Ocean to the Eu
tentate indeed, but mighty only through the phrates, the civilized world was now Roman
possession of hereditary or conquered realms, in name, and from the Ocean to Mount Tau
which mostly lay beyond the limits of either rus it was Roman in feeling. Mr. Bryce, we
Roman or German dominion. He was adorned think, overrates the distinct nationality of the
with all the titles, and surrounded withall the Greeks of this age, and underrates that of
external homage, which could befit either Ger Syria and Egypt, provinces which never really
man King or Roman Emperor. But with the became either Roman or Greek. Then came,
local Rome he had no farther connexion, no under Diocletian and Constantine, the trans
farther authority or influence over it, than formation of the Empire into something like
might belong to any other Catholic prince an avowed royalty—we can hardly say an
of equal power. The Roman Emperor no avowed monarchy, seeing that the system of
longer claimed any shadow of jurisdiction Diocletian involved the simultaneous reign of
in his ancient capital; and even in his more than one Emperor. Under this system
German realm, his position had sunk to too the Old Rome ceased to be the seat of
that of the president of one of the laxest government. Milan and Nikomédeia became
of federal bodies. The Lord of the World, imperial cities, till Constantine made a better
the temporal head of Christendom, retain and more permanent choice than all, in his
ed nothing but a barren precedence over New Rome by the Bosporus.
other princes, which other princes were not With Constantine, too, comes in a new
always ready to admit. His position, Roman, element more important than all. Hitherto
German, and oecumenical, was, as the event we have indeed had a Roman Empire, but it
proved, utterly unreal and precarious, ready has as yet had no claim whatever, in a Chris
to fall in pieces at the first touch of a vigorous tian sense, to the epithet of Holy. Hitherto
assailant. Such were Caius Julius Caesar Oc Rome and her princes have been the enemies
tavianus, the first, and Francis the Second, of the Faith, drunken with the blood of the
the last, of the Roman Emperors. Each is saints. But from the conversion of Constan
equally removed from the Roman Emperor of tine onwards, the epithet, though not yet
the true mediaeval theory. How, then, did formally given, was, in truth, practically de
the same title, in theory denoting through served. ome and Christianity formed so
the whole period one unchanged office, come close an alliance, that, in at least one portion
to be attached at different times to personages of the Empire, the names Roman and Chris
so widely unlike each other? We will, under tian became synonymous.* Emperors presid
Mr. Bryce's guidance, run briefly through ed in the councils of the Church; Christian
the various stages through which the grand ecclesiastics obtained the rank of high tempo
theory of the Christian Empire arose and fell. ral dignitaries; orthodoxy and loyalty, heresy
Mr. Bryce properly begins at the begin and treason, became almost convertible terms.
ning. He starts with a sketch of the state of Christianity, in fact, became the religion of
things under the old Roman Empire, the old the Roman Empire, universal within its
dominion of the Roman Commonwealth un limits, but making hardly any progress be
der her nominal magistrates and practical
sovereigns, the Emperors of the Julian, Clau * The Greek, mediaeval and modern, down to
the late classical revival, was indifferently called
dian, and other imperial houses, down to the "Potato, and Xploriavés. "EXAnv, as in the New
changes introduced first by Diocletian, and Testament, expressed only the Paganism of a past
then by Constantine. The chief point here to age.
1865. The Holy Roman Empire. 90
yond them. And so it is to this day. Chris never beforgotten, and Mr. Bryce calls all due
tianity still remains all but exclusively the attention to the fact, that the event of the
religion of Europe and European colonies, year 476, so often mistaken for a fall of the
that is, of those nations which either formed Roman Empire, was, in its form, a reunion of
part of the Roman Empire, or came within the Western Empire to the Eastern. Here
the range of Rome's civilizing influence.” again, nothing is easier than to say that this
Thus the Empire, which once had been the is an unreal, unpractical view. It is an ob
bitterest foe of the gospel, now became in vious thing to argue that Italy was not re
separably connected with its profession. The united to the East, but that the Roman
heathen sanctity which had once hedged in dominion was destroyed altogether; that the
the Emperor was now exchanged for a supremacy of the Eastern Emperors in Italy
sanctity of another kind. The high Pontiff was merely nominal, and the pretended re
of pagan Rome passed by easy steps into the union of the Empire merely an excuse to save
Anointed of the Lord, the temporal chief of their foolish pride. Be it so; but, as we said
Christendom. -
before on the general subject, when words and

The Empire then, and the Emperor, thus forms, however unreal in themselves, exercise
become Holy; but yet the Empire, even in a practical influence on men's actions, they
the East, was not a Caliphate. The succes cease to be unreal. The majesty of Rome
sor of Mohammed inherited alike the tempo still lived in men's minds; the Roman Em
ral and the spiritual functions of the Prophet. peror, the Roman Consuls, the Roman Senate
In the Mohammedan system, Church and and People, still existed. Odoacer and Theo
State needed not to be united, because they doric might reign as national kings over their
had never been distinct. But closely as the own people;” but the Roman population of
Roman Empire and the Christian Church be Italy ch:ted themselves into the belief that
came united, one might almost say identified, the barbarian King was merely a lieutenant
traces still remained of the days when they of the absent emperor. Such a belief might
had been distinct and hostile bodies. The be a delusion, but it was a living belief, and
internal organization of the Church, the gra it did not always remain a delusion. When
dations of its hierarchy, the rights of bishops Belisarius, in the year of his consulship, land
and of councils, had grown up nearly to per ed in Italy, he appeared to the Roman popu
fection before the Empire became Christian. lation, not as a foreign conqueror, but as a
The constitution of the Church was a kind deliverer come to restore them to their natu
of theocratic democracy. The bishop's com ral relation to their lawful sovereign. And
mission was divine, proceeding neither from as Mr. Bryce truly observes, unless we re
the prince nor from the people; but it was member that the line of Emperors never
the popular voice, and not the voice of the ceased, that from 476 to 800 the Byzantine
priesthood alone, which marked out the per Caesar was always in theory, often in practice,
son on whom that divine commission should recognised as the lawful lord of Rome and
be bestowed. Of such an organization the Italy, it is impossible rightly to understand
Emperor might become the patron, the pro the true significance of the assumption of the
tector, the external ruler, but he could not Empire by Charles the Great:
strictly become the head. The spiritual Almost the only defect of any consequence
power thus remained something in close alli in Mr. Bryce's work is that he seems hardly
ance with the temporal, but still something to realize the importance, in any theory of
distinct. The two were never so completely the Empire, alike of the Eastern Empire and
fused together in the Imperial idea, as they of the Eastern Church. He shows neither
were in the idea of the Caliphate. In the ignorance, nor concealment, nor even miscon
East, the priesthood became subservient; in ception of the facts. But he hardly gives
the West it became independent, and at last
hostile. But in either case it was distinct.
* Mr. Bryce, otherwise most accurate in his ac
Whether Emperors deposed Patriarchs or count of these events, repeats the common state.
Popes excommunicated Emperors, the Pontiff ment that Odoacer assumed the title of “King of
and the Emperor were two distinct persons. Italy.” We know of no ancient authority for this
statement, and it is most unlikely in itself. Terri
In the Mohammedan system, the Caliph is torial titles were not in use till some ages later, and
Pontiff and Emperor in one. no one would be so unlikely to assume one of this
From the time of Constantine, Constanti kind as one who professed himself to be an im
nople, the New Rome, became the chief seat perial lieutenant. -
of empire; towards the end of the fifth cen + Mr. Bryce remarks that, in the Middle Ages,
tury it became the only seat. It should the Western Emperors of the fifth century seem to
have been quite forgotten. The lists of emperors
from Augustus to Maximilian or Rudolf or Ferdi
* See North British Review, August, 1855 (vol. nand, always go on uninterruptedly in the Eastern
xxxiii.). line from Theodosius to Constantine the Sixth.
100 The Holy Roman Empire. - March,
the facts their full prominence. The truth is, against the ancient Churches of the East.
that the existence of Eastern Christendom, as There was at least a pretext for saying that
it is the great stumbling-block of the Papal the Church of Constantinople had been re
theory, is also the great stumbling-block of conciled to the Church of Rome, and had
the Imperial theory. Ingenious men might again fallen away. Such a theory could
theorize about the two lights and the two hardly have been put forth in the days of the
swords, and argue whether of the twain were great Macedonian Emperors, when the new
the brighter and the stronger. They might Rome and not the Old, was still mistress of the
debate whether the Pope held of the Empe Mediterranean, and when a large portion of
ror, or the Emperor of the Pope; but it was the Italian peninsula still owed allegiance to
agreed on both sides that there could be only the Eastern and not to the Western Caesar.
one Pope and one Emperor. These magnifi Mr. Bryce does not forget these things; but
cent theories of the Church and the Empire we cannot think that he gives them all
were in truth set aside by the fact that a the prominence which they certainly de
large portion of Christendom, that portion, Sel"We.
too, which could most truly claim to repre From the accession of Charles the Great
sent unchanged the earliest traditions both onwards, Mr. Bryce is thoroughly at home.
of the Church and of the Empire, recognised During the whole of the eighth century, the
no Pope at all, and recognised a rival Em Imperial power in Italy had been gradually
peror. It is impossible to deny that, as far waning. Lombard invasions had narrowed
as uninterrupted political succession went, it the boundary of the Imperial province, and
was the Eastern and not the Western Empe the Iconoclast controversy had shaken the
ror who was the lineal heir of the old Caesars. loyalty of the Imperial subjects. The Bishop
The act which placed Charles the Great on of Rome had stood forth as the champion
the imperial throne was strictly a revolt, a alike of orthodoxy and of nationality, and the
justifiable revolt, it might be, but still a re practical rule of the city had been transferred
volt. It was in the East and in the East to the Frankish King. Still the tie was not
alone, that the Imperial titles and Imperial formally severed; the image and superscrip
traditions—in a word, the whole political heri tion of Caesar still appeared on the coin of
tage of Rome—continued absolutely unbrok his Western capital, and Pippin and Charles
en down to the days of the Frank Conquest. ruled, like Odoacer, by no higher title than
The Greek prince whom, as Mr. Finlay says, that of Patrician. At last the accession of
the Crusaders hurled from the Theodosian Eirēnē filled up the measure of Western in
column, was a truer successor of Augustus dignation. The throne of Augustus could not
than was Frederick Barbarossa. The East be lawfully filled by a woman, least of all by
ern Church too presented even a more prac. a woman who raised herself to power by the
tical answer to the claims of the Western deposition and blinding of her own child.
Pontiff, than the Eastern Empire did to the The throne was vacant; the Christian world
| claims of the Western Caesar. The univer could not remain without an Emperor;” the
sal dominion of either was a theory, and Senate and People of the Old Rome had too
only a theory, as long as their dominion long submitted to the dictation of the New ;
reached not to the world's end, not to the Eu they asserted their dormant rights, and chose
phrates, but only to the Hadriatic. Alike in their Patrician Charles, not as the founder of
the days of Otto and in the days of Dante, a new empire, not as the restorer of a fallen
the most unchanged portion of the Roman empire, but as the lawful successor of their
world still refuses to acknowledge the sway last lawful sovereign, the injured Constan
of either the Western Caesar or the Western tine the Sixth. In Mr. Bryce's words:—
Pontiff." In truth, the elaborate theories of
* Chron. Moissiac, A. 801 (Pertz Mon. Hist.
the mediaeval Empire were not propounded, Germ. i. 505, “Cum enim apud Romam nunc prae
and could not with any decency have been fatus Imperator, delati quidam sunt ad eum,
propounded, as long as the Eastern Church dicentes quod apud Graecos nomen Imperatoris ces
and Empire retained their old position. sasset, et femina apud eos nomen Imperii, teneret,
When Dante wrote, an Emperor of the Ro Herena nomine, quae filium suum Imperatorum
mans still reigned at Constantinople, but he fraude captum, oculosernit, et sibi nomen Imperii
usurpavit, ut Atalia in libro Regni legitur fecisse,
had sunk to be simply one amidst a crowd audito Leo Papa et omnis conventus episcoporum
of Eastern princes, Greek and Frank. By et sacerdotum seu abbatum, et senatus Francorum
that time too there had begun to be some et omnes majores natu, Romanorum, cum reliquo
ground for bringing the charge of schism Christiano populo consilium habuerunt, ut ipsum
Carolum, Regem Francorum, Imperatorem nomi
nare deberent, qui Romam matrem Imperii tenebat,
# * Dante, De Monarchid, iii. 10. Scindere impe ubi semper Caesares et Imperatores sedere soliti
rium esset destruere ipsum, consistente imperio in fuerunt; et ne pagani insultarent Christianis, si Im
unitate monarchiae universalis. peratoris nomen apud Christianos cessasset.”
1865. The Holy Roman Empire. *
101
“Later jurists labour to distinguish the power sight of all he placed upon the brow of the bar
of Charles as Roman Emperor from that which barian chieftain the dialem of the Caesars, then
he held already as king of the Franks and their bent in obeisance before him, the church rang
subject allies: they insist that his coronation to the shout of the multitude, again free, again
gave him the capital only, that it is absurd to the lords and centre of the world, ‘Karolo Au
talk of a Roman Empire in regions whither the gusto a Deo coronato magno et pacifico Im
eagles had never flown. In such expressions peratori Romanorum vita et victoria. In that
there seems to lurk either confusion or miscon shout, echoed by the Franks without, was pro
ception. It was not the sovereignty of the city nounced the union, so long in preparation, so
that Charles obtained in 800: that his father mighty in its consequences, of the Roman and
had already held as patrician and he had con the Teuton, of the memories and the civilisation
stantly exercised in the same capacity : it was of the South with the fresh energy of the North,
the headship of the world, believed to appertain and from that moment modern history begins.”
of right to the lawful Roman Emperor, whether
he reigned on the Bosporus, the Tiber, or the Thus was accomplished that revolution on
Rhine. which, in the West at least, no man had
A new title was not invented to serve
the Pope's ambitious ends and gratify Frankish hitherto ventured. As yet no man of avowed
vanity, but the act of 364, and again of 476, Barbarian blood had ventured to assume the
was rescinded. The Empire became again what Imperial rank. Alaric, Ricimer, Chlodwig,
it had been before Diocletian, the place of the
Theodoric, Pippin himself, had never dared .
deposed Constantine VI. being legally filled up by
a new Emperor, chosen by the people of the im to style themselves Emperors of the Romans.
perial city, and crowned by their bishop. And They might be Kings of their own people,
and Roman Consuls or Patricians, they might
hence in all the annals of the time and of many
create or depose Emperors, but the Empire
succeeding centuries, Charles, sixty-eighth from
Augustus, succeeds without a break to Constan itself was beyond them. But now a man of
tine sixty-seventh.” Teutonic blood and speech was, by the elec
Of the memorable scene of Christmas Day, tion of the Old Rome, placed on her Imperial
800, we will also transcribe Mr. Bryce's bril throne. The Frankish '
became a Roman
liant picture: Caesar. And what should never be forgotten,
“At length the Frankish host entered Rome. he claimed, after his Imperial coronation, to
The Pope's cause was heard; his innocence al reign not only as King but as Caesar over the
ready vindicated by a miracle, was pronounced whole of his dominions. Those who had
by the Patrician in full synod; his accusers con already sworn allegiance to the King were
demned in his stead. Charles remained in the now called on afresh to swear allegiance to
city for some weeks; and on Christmas Day, the Emperor. Thus was the dominion of
A.D. 800, he heard mass in the basilica of St.
Rome and her Emperor again formally ex
Peter. On the spot where now the gigantic tended alike over large provinces which had
dome of Bramante and Michael Angelo towers
over the buildings of the modern city—the spot been wrested from the Empire, and over vast
which tradition had hallowed as that of the regions which the older Caesars had never
Apostle's martyrdom, Constantine the Great had possessed. The Roman eagle was now re
erected the oldest and the stateliest temple of placed on the banks of the Ebro, and planted
Christian Rome. Nothing could be less like than for the first time on the banks of the Eider
was this basilica to those northern cathedrals, When Germany swore allegiance to the new
shadowy, fantastic, irregular, crowded with pil Augustus, the defeat of Varus might be
lars, fringed all round by clustering shrines and thought to be avenged by the hands of one
chapels, which are to most of us the types of
mediaeval architecture. In its plan and decora who, in blood and speech and manners, was
the true successor of Arminius. If Greece
tions, in the spacious sunny hall, the roof plain
as that of a Greek temple, the long rows of led captive her Roman conqueror, Rome now
Corinthian columns, the vivid mosaics on its still more effectually led captive the Barba
walls, in its brightness, its sternness, its sim. rian who strove to conceal, even from him
plicity, it had preserved every feature of Roman self, the fact that he had conquered her.
art, and had remained a perfect expression of All this, it is easy to say, was mere unreali
the Roman character. From the transept, a
flight of steps led up to the high altar under ty and delusion. It is easy to argue that
neath the great atch, the arch of triumph as it Charles was not a Roman Emperor in the
was called: behind, in the semicircular apse, sat same sense as Augustus or even as Augustu
the clergy, rising tier above tier around its lus. With what right could he be called the
walls; in the midst, high above the rest, and successor of Constantine the Sixth, when the
looking down past the altar over the multitude, dominions of the two princes had hardly a
was placed the bishop's throne, itself the curule square mile of ground in common, while the
chair of some forgotten magistrate. From that Byzantine succession continued undisturbed,
chair the Pope now rose, as the reading of the
Gospel ended, advanced to where Charles, who and bore sway even over some portions of
had exclianged his simple Frankish dress for the Italy itself? Charles, it may be argued, was
sandals and the chlamys of a Roman patrician, simply a Teutonic king, who satisfied a mere
knelt in prayer by the high altar, and as in the prejudice on the part of a portion of his sub
jects, by assuming an empty title which lord of all Western Christendom. The East
neither extended his rule over new domi was indeed ruled by a second Caesar, who
nions nor increased his prerogative within the might, according to circumstances, be looked
old. on either as an Imperial rival, a Tetricus or a
All this, no doubt, is true; it is all obvious Carausius, or as an Imperial colleague, a
enough to us at the distance of a thousand Valens or an Arcadius. But the West was
years. But it was not obvious to men at the all his own. He ruled, and, after his Impe
time. And, as men's actions are governed, rial coronation, he ruled distinctly as Roman
not by what, with further knowledge, they Augustus, over all the lands from the Ocean
might have thought, but by what they actual and the Ebro to the Elbe and the Theiss.
ly did know and think, the assumption of the His frontiers were surrounded, as the frontiers
Imperial rank by Charles was neither unreal of Rome were in ancient times, by a string of
nor illusory, because it led to important prac allied and tributary states, the antitypes of
tical results. In the eyes of all Charles's the Massinissas and the Herods. In such a
Italian subjects, probably in the eyes of many dominion as this, the mere Frankish nation
of his Gaulish subjects, the assumption of the ality might well seem to be lost; Frank,
Roman title made all the difference between Gaul, Burgundian, Italian, might seem to be
legitimate and illegitimate dominion. The alike subjects of Caesar, or, if they better liked
King of the Franks was a Barbarian con the title, citizens of Rome. Of course this
£ or at best a Barbarian deliverer; in appearance of universal dominion was delu
the Emperor of the Romans men beheld the sive; but it was only in human nature that
restorer of lawful and orderly government, men should, at the time, be deluded by it.
after a long and violent interruption. Even But such an Empire as this needed the
in the eyes of his own Germans, Charles arm of Charles the Great himself to support
Augustus became, in some vague way, greater it. One hardly knows whether it was in wis
and holier than Charles the mere Frankish dom or in folly, because he saw not the con
king, and in their exaltation of their prince, sequences or because he saw that the conse
the nation felt itself exalted also. The form quences were unavoidable, that Charles sanc
of words did not as yet exist, but the West tioned the principle of a division of his do
now saw again a Holy Roman Empire, and it minions among his sons. The Empire was
was now a “Holy Roman Empire of the Ger still to be one and indivisible, but the Em
man Nation.” peror was to reign only as the superior lord
This truth, however, was not as yet legally over several Kings of his own house. Under
acknowledged; indeed it did not as yet exist Charles himself, his sons had reigned as kings
in all its practical fulness. Charles was in over Italy and Aquitaine, and he had found
deed a German king; but the possession of them ever his loyal vicegerents. Possibly
the Imperial crown by a German king did not he hardly foresaw that the submission willing
identify the Imperial crown with the German ly yielded to a father, and such a father,
nation in the same way that it did from the would not be so willingly yielded to a brother,
time of Otto the Great onward. The differ an uncle, or perhaps a distant cousin. Possi
ence between the position of Charles and bly he saw that no hand but his own could
that of Otto is this: Otto was indeed the most keep his dominions together; that it was bet
powerful king of the West, but he was not ter to make the best of a sad necessity; that
the only king. The Imperial crown was an it was something to secure a nominal and
nexed to the distinct local kingdom of the theoretical unity in the vassalage of all the
Eastern Franks, when it might conceivably kings to the imperial head of the family.
have been annexed to the kingdom of the Anyhow, he had precedents enough, Roman
Burgundians, or even to the kingdom of the and Frankish. He was only treading in the
Western Franks. There thus arose, from steps of Chlodwig and of Pippin, and he may
Otto onwards, a distinct connexion between well have thought that he was treading in
the Roman Empire and Germany as a dis the steps of Diocletian, Constantine, and
tinct country and nation, one country and Theodosius. At all events, from the death
nation out of several possible competitors. of Lewis the Pious, or rather from the death
But Charles was far more than all this: he of Charles himself, a state of division begins:
was not only the most powerful king, but he Kings and Emperors rise and fall; the Em
was in some sense the only king. He might pire is sometimes nominally, always practi
claim to be Lord of the World in a truer cally, in abeyance. For one moment, under
sense than any Emperor after his son, in as Charles the Fat, nearly the whole Empire is
true a sense as any Emperor since Theodosius. reunited; but, with his deposition in 888, the
Setting aside our own island, which passed Eastern and the Western Franks, Francia
almost for another world, Charles was actually Teutonica and Francia Latina—in modern
either the immediate sovereign or the suzerain language, Germany and France—are sepa
rated for ever. Germany, West France, Bur pire in its last shape, that Mr. Bryce stops to
gundy, Italy, become distinct kingdoms, ruled review the imperial theory as it was under
for the most part by kings not of the blood stood in the Middle Ages. What that theory
of the Great Charles. Through the first half was we have already tried to set forth; but
of the ninth century, whenever there was an it should be borne in mind that the theory
Emperor at all, instead of being Lord of the grew in clearness and fulness, and moreover
World, he was at most a King of Italy, with that people became the more inclined to
a very feeble hold indeed even on his penin theorize about an ideal Empire the more they
sular kingdom. saw the actual Empire depart from their own
Then came the revival under Otto the theories. One may doubt whether Otto the
Great, the foundation of the Roman Empire Great or any man of his time could have set
under its latest form. The kingdoms of Ger forth the imperial creed in the distinct and
many and Italy were now united, and their elaborate shape into which it was thrown by
common king, though he did not as yet assume Dante. Still the essential elements of the
the title, was, from the moment of his coro theory existed from the beginning. It was
nation at Aachen,Roman Emperor-Elect, “Rex held, from the days of Otto, that the eternal
Romanorum in Caesarem promovendus.” Once fitness of things required an universal tempo
only, on the extinction of the direct line of ral, and an universal spiritual, chief of Chris
the Ottos, did Italy again strive to establish tendom; that those chiefs were to be looked
a real national king. Though Kings of Italy for in the Roman Emperor and the Roman
were once or twice elected in later times in Pontiff; lastly, that the true Roman Emperor
opposition to the reigning King or Emperor, was the German King. No Emperor was
they were discontented or rebellious princes ever so thoroughly imbued with these notions
of the imperial house, who certainly had no as Otto the Third, who seems to have serious
mind to confine their rule to Italy, if they ly intended to make Rome, in fact as well as
could extend it over Germany and Burgundy in name, the seat of his Empire, and thence
also. From the days of Otto, the principle to rule the world by the help of a Pontiff
was gradually established that the chosen like-minded with himself. Of the schemes, or
King of Germany acquired, as such, a right rather the visions, of this wonderful young
to the royal crowns of Italy and Burgundy,” prince, so sadly cut off, in the days of his
and to the imperial crown of Rome. He was brightest promise, Mr. Bryce gives us an elo
not Emperor till he had been crowned at quent picture:—
Rome by the Roman Pontiff, but he, and no
other, had a right to become Emperor. This “Otto III.'s reign cannot pass unnoticed:
was a state of things very different from the short, sad, full of bright promise never fulfilled.
His mother was the Greek princess Theophano;
Empire of the first Caesars, very different his preceptor, the illustrious Gerbert: through
from the Empire of Charles, but it was still the one he felt himself connected with the old
more widely different from the “phantom Empire, and had imbibed the absolutism of By
Empire,” to use Mr. Bryce's words, of Guido zantium: by the other be had been reared in the
and Berenger. The union of three out of dream of a renovated Rome, with her memories
the four kingdoms into which the dominions turned to realities. To accomplish that reno
vation, who so fit as he who with the vigorous
of Charles had split, made the Empire, if not blood of the Teutonic conqueror inherited the
an universal monarchy, yet a power which venerable rights of Constantinople? It was his
had as yet no rival in Western Europe. France design, now that the solemn millennial era of the
—modern, Celtic, Capetian, Parisian France founding of Christianity had arrived, to renew
—looked exceedingly like a revolted province, the majesty of the city and make her again the
wrongfully separated from the body of the capital of a world-embracing Empire, victorious
Empire and from the sway of the successor as Trajan's, despotic as Justinian's, holy as Con
of Charles. States of which the old Caesars stantine's. His young and visionary mind was
too much a 'i by the gorgeous fancies it cre
had never heard, Denmark, Bohemia, Poland, ated to see the world as it was: Germany rude,
Hungary, owed a homage more or less prac Italy unquiet, Rome corrupt and faithless. . . .
tical, to the Saxon, Frankish, or Swabian With his tutor on Peter's chair to second or di
Augustus. The Holy Roman Empire had rect him, Otto laboured in his great project in a
now assumed essentially the same form which spirit almost mystic. He had an intense religious
it retained down to 1806; another distinct belief in the Emperor's duties to the world—in
step had been taken towards making it the his proclamation he calls himself 'Servant of the
Apostles, ‘Servant of Jesus Christ'—together
special heritage of the German nation. with the ambitious antiquarianism of a fiery
It is at this point, the beginning of the Em imagination, kindled by the memorials of the
* After the acquisition of the kingdom of Bur glory and power he represented. . . . How far
gundy in 1032. ' Bryce has an important note these brilliant and far-reaching plans were ca
on the various uses of the word Burgundy, the pable of realization, had their author lived to
most fluctuating and perplexing name in history. attempt it, can be but guessed at. It is reason
able to suppose that whatever power he might of the World, not as a direct ruler, like the
have gained in the South he would have lost in old Caesars, but as an universal suzerain, of
the North. Dwelling rarely in Germany, and in whom local kings and dukes and common
mind more a Greek than a Teuton, he reined in wealth might hold as his vassals, while he
the fierce barons with no such tight hand as his
grandfather had been wont to do, he neglected himself held his Empire immediately of God
alone. There can be no doubt that in Ger
the schemes of northern conquest, he released the
Polish dukes from the obligation of tribute. But many the effect of the union of the Kingdom
all, save that those plans were his, is now no with the Empire was the weakening and the
more than conjecture, for Otto III., ‘the wonder final destruction of the royal power. The
of the world, as his own generation called him, Germany of the Ottos and the Henries, divid
died childless on the threshold of manhood; ed and turbulent as it seems when compared
the victim, if we may trust a story of the time, with modern centralized states, was actually
of the revenge of Stephania, widow of Crescen
tius, who ensnared him by her beauty, and slew the most united power in Western Europe,
him by a lingering poison. They carried him incomparably more united than contemporary
across the Alps with laments whose echoes England or France. The whole later history
sound faintly yet from the pages of monkish of Germany is simply a history of the steps
chroniclers, and buried him in the choir of the by which this once united realm fell to pieces.
basilica at Aachen some twenty paces from the The King gradually lost all real power, and
tomb of Charles the Great beneath the central
dome. Two years had not passed since on his
# he remained to the last surrounded by a
malo of outward reverence beyond all other
last journey to Rome, he had opened that tomb, kings. The full examination of the causes
had gazed on the great Emperor, sitting on a
marble throne, robed and crowned, with the of these phenomena belongs to German his
Gospel-book open before him; and there, touch tory. But it cannot be doubted that the
ing the dead hand, unclasping from the neck its chief cause of all was the fact that the
golden cross, had taken, as it were, an investi German King was also Roman Emperor. It
ture of Empire from his Frankish forerunner. was not only that their Italian claims and
Short as was his life and few his acts, Otto III.is in titles led the German Kings into never-end
one respect more memorable than any who went
before or came after him. None save he desired ing Italian wars, to the neglect of true Ger
to make the seven-hilled city again the seat of man interests. This outward and palpable
$ominion, reducing Germany and Lombardy and cause had doubtless a good deal to do with
Greece to their rightful place of subject provinces. the matter; but this was by no means all.
No one else so forgot the present to live in the The true causes lie deeper. The Emperor,
light of the ancient order: no other soul was so Lord of the World, became, like the supreme
possessed by that fervid mysticism, and that deities of some mythologies, too great to
reverence for the glories of the past, whereon act with effect as the local king of a popu
rested the idea of the mediaeval Empire.”
lar kingdom. His local kingship was for
Mr. Bryce comments at some length on gotten. The Emperors strove to merge their
the union in the same person of the incongru kingship in the Empire, and they did merge
ous functions of German King and Roman it in the Empire, though in an opposite way
Emperor — from that which they had intended. They
“No two systems can be more unlike than would reign as Emperors and not as Kings,
those whose headship became thus vested in one meaning to reign as Emperors with more
person: the one centralized, the other local; the absolute and undisputed power. They did
one resting on a sublime theory, the other the reign as Emperors and not as Kings, because
rude offspring of anarchy; the one gathering all the imperial power was found to be prac
power into the hands of an irresponsible mo tically far less effective than the royal power.
narch, the other limiting his rights, and author
izing resistance to his commands: the one de The Emperor, Lord of the World, exercised
manding the equality of all citizens as creatures only a most vague and nominal supremacy
equal before heaven, the other bound up with an beyond the limits of his own kingdoms;
aristocracy the proudest, and in its gradations of why, now that he reigned as Caesar rather
rank the most exact that Europe bad ever than as King, should Caesar claim any more
seen.” *
effective authority over Germany, Burgundy,
He then goes on to show how the two con and Italy, than he did over Gaul, or Spain, or
ceptions were fused into a third different Britain? He was Emperor alike in all realms;
from either; how the Emperor-King strove why should his jurisdiction, nominal in one,
to merge his Kingship in his Empire; how be any more practical in another? Thus,
the titles of German royalty were dropped for because their suzerain was of greater dignity
ages, so that Caesar was held to rule as Caesar than all other suzerains, did the vassal princes
no less in Germany than in Italy; how again, of Germany obtain a more complete inde
by a natural interchange of thought, the idea pendence than the vassal princes of any other
of the Empire became mingled with feudal realm. Again, the Empire was in its own
notions; how the Emperor became a Lord nature elective. Mere kingdoms or duchies,
mere local sovereignties, might pass from fa. of Austria. From Charles the Fifth onwards,
ther to son like private estates; but the Em the Roman Emperor was again a mighty
pire, the chieftainship of Christendom, the prince, but his might was neither as Roman
temporal vicarship of God upon earth, could Emperor nor as German King. The Empe
not be exposed to the chances of hereditary ror-King, with his Kingdom and Empire,
succession; it must remain as the loftiest of sank, as we have already said, to be the pre
prizes, the fitting object of ambition for the sident of one of the laxest of federal bodies.
worthiest of Roman citizens, that is, now, for Thus it was that the acquisition of the im
all baptized men above the rank of a serf. perial dignity crushed and broke up the an
The practical effect of this splendid theory cient kingdom of the Eastern Franks. Yet
was that, while the crowns of England and the influence of that splendid possession was
France became hereditary, the crown of Ger not wholly destructive. It preserved in the
many, as inseparable from the Empire, be very act of weakening. The Imperial idea
came purely elective." Then followed the was like the ivy which first makes a wall
consequences which, in any but a very early ruinous, and then preserves it from falling.
state of society, are sure to follow on the The Empire in every way lessened the real
establishment of a purely elective £ power and influence of the £ but it
Each Emperor, uncertain whether he would insured its existence. We may be sure that
be able to transmit his dignity to his son, any other kingdom whose King retained so
thought more of the aggrandizement of his little real authority as the King of Germany,
family than of maintaining the dignity of his would have fallen asunder far sooner than
crown. Escheated or forfeited fiefs, which Germany did. But the King of Germany
in France would have gone to swell the royal was also the Roman Emperor; as such he
domain, were employed in Germany to pro was surrounded by an atmosphere of vague
vide principalities for children whose succes majesty beyond all other kings; he was the
sion to anything higher was uncertain. The object of a mysterious reverence, which did
election of each Emperor was commonly pur not at all hinder his vassals from robbing him
chased by concessions to the Electors, and if of all effectual prerogatives, but which alto
an Emperor was so lucky as to procure the gether hindered them from formally abolish
election of his son as King of the Romans ing his office. The Roman Empire, as far
during his lifetime, that special favour was as any real power or dignity was concerned,
£ by further concessions still. The was buried in the grave of Frederick the
mpire sank to such a degree of poverty, Wonder of the World. “But its ghost lin
that it became absolutely necessary to elect gered on for five hundred and fifty years.
a prince whose hereditary dominions were Caesar survived the Interregnum; he sur
large enough to enable him to maintain his vived the Golden Bull; he survived the Re
imperial rank. Such princes made their he formation; he survived the Peace of West
reditary dominions their first object, and re £ The Roman Emperors, powerful as
treated altogether to their hereditary capitals, eads of the Austrian House, became, as
sometimes beyond the limits of Roman or Kings and Caesars, almost as vain a pageant
German dominion. Italy fell away, Burgun as a Merovingian King or an Abasside Ca
dy was gradually swallowed up by France. liph of Egypt. The temporal head of Chris
The Holy Roman Empire was cut down to a tendom saw half of his own kingdom fall
German kingdom, whose very royalty was away into heresy. He saw his vassals, great
little more than a pageant. As if in some and small, assume all the rights of indepen
desperate hope of reviving the royal author dent sovereigns. He saw cities and provinces
ity, Maximilian re-assumed the royal title,t fall away one by one, some assuming perfect
almost forgotten since the days of Otto. The republican independence," some swallowed
Roman Empire and the German Kingdom up by royal or revolutionary France. But
became practically hereditary in the House the frail bark which carried Caesar and his
fortunes still kept on its course amid so many
* Of course the old Teutonic law, in Germany contending blasts. It was only when the
and everywhere else, was election out of one royal magic spell of the name of Empire was dis
family, but in England and France the hereditary solved by the rise of upstart and rival Em
element in this system grew at the expense of the perors, that the fabric at last gave way. The
elective, while in Germany the process was re
versed. -
assumption of the Imperial title by the Mus
+ The old titles, “{Rex Orientalium Francorum,” covite was the first step, but this alone did
etc., were gradually dropped under the Ottos. but little. The Russian Empire might be
Henceforth the Emperor, though crowned at
Aachen and sometimes at Arles, took no title but * The Confederations of Switzerland and the
“Imperator" or “Rex Romanorum.” Maximilian United Provinces, whose independence of the Em
restored the ancient style under the form of “Rex £ ractically established long before, was not
Germaniae,” “König in Germanien." ormally recognised till 1648.
looked upon as in some vague way repre volted against their renegade overlord, and
senting the Empire of Byzantium, or its sov found a willing protector west of the Rhine.
ereign might be spoken of as an Emperor The Roman Empire and the German King
according to that rough analogy which con dom was now no more; the foreign Emperor
fers the imperial title on the barbaric princesdeclared that he did not recognise its exist
of China and Morocco. It was not till a rival ence;" and its own imperial chief proclaimed
appeared close on its own ground, that the the final dissolution of the creation of Augus
Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation tus, Charles, and Otto, in a document in
fell utterly asunder. Side by side with the which, after the formal enumeration of his
Emperor of the Romans suddenly arose an own now degraded titles, the name of Rome
“Emperor of the French,” giving himself does not occur.f
out, with consummate but plausible impu We have thus hurried through a period of
dence, as the true successor of the Great more than eight hundred years, the revolu
Charles. The Kingdom of Italy, almost for tions of which are set forth by Mr. Bryce
gotten since the days of the Hohenstaufen, with singular clearness and power. He
arose again to place a new diadem on the brings forth in its due prominence the
same presumptuous brow. A King of Rome, great reign of Henry the Third, the mo
a title unheard of since the days of Tarquin, ment when the Empire reached its high
next appeared, as if to mock the long line of est pitch of real power. This was fol
German “Reges Romanorum.” The assump lowed by the struggles between the spiri
tion of the Imperial title by Buonaparte was tual and temporal powers under his son
met by Francis the Second in a way which and grandson, which showed how vain
showed that he must almost have forgotten was the theory which expected the Ro
his own existence. He, the King of Ger man Caesar and the Roman Pontiff to pull
many and Roman Emperor-Elect, could find together in harmony. But Mr. Bryce's
no better means to put himself on a level with highest enthusiasm centres round the great
the Corsican usurper, than to add to his style House of Swabia. He gives us a bril
the monstrous, ludicrous, and meaningless liant picture of the reign of Frederick Bar
addition of “Hereditary Emperor of Aus barossa, into whose real character and posi
tria.” An hereditary Emperor of Lichten tion we need hardly say that he fully enters.
stein would have seemed no greater absurdity On the reign of his grandson, “Fridericus
in the eyes of Charles or Otto or Frederick. stupor mundi et innovator mirabilis,” Mr.
When it had come to this, it was time that Bryce is less full and less eloquent than
the old titles of Rome and Germany should we should have expected, but he clearly
£ away. As the elective King had made points out the importance of his reign as
imself an hereditary Emperor, Dukes and an epoch in Imperial history, and marks
Electors thought they had an equal right to out beldly the fact that “with Frederick
make £ hereditary Kings. Their fell the Empire.” The Empire, in short,
new-fangled Majesties and Highnesses re from Rudolf onwards, is a revival, some
thing analogous to the Empire of the Pa
* “Erbkaiser von Oesterreich,” as distinguished
from “Erwählter Römischer Kaiser.” This, as Mr. laiologoi at Constantinople. Internal dis
Bryce remarks, besides its absurdity in other ways, organization had done in the Western Em
implies a complete forgetfulness of the meaning of pire what foreign conquest had done in
the word “Erwählter.” The title of “Erwählter the Eastern. Rudolf, Adolf, Albert, were
Römischer Kaiser,” “Romanorum Imperator elec mere German kings; they never crossed the
tus,” was introduced by Maximilian, under Papal Alps to assume either the golden crown of
sanction, to express what hitherto had been ex
pressed ' “Rex Romanorum in Caesarem promo Rome or the iron crown of Monza. With
vendus,” that is, a prince elected at Frankfurt and Henry the Seventh we reach a new period, or
crowned at Aachen (latterly crowned at Frank rather his reign is like a few years trans
furt also), but not yet Emperor, because not yet ported onwards from an earlier time. The
crowned at Rome by the Pope. This was the con
dition of all the Emperors since Charles the Fifth,
none of whom were crowned by the Pope. They * See the addition made by Buonaparte to the
were therefore only “Emperors-elect,” just like a Act of Confederation of the Rhine: “Sa Majesté
bishop-elect, one that is chosen, but not yet conse . . . ne reconnoit plus l'existence de la constitu
crated. But when Erbkaiser could be opposed to tion Germanique.”
“Erwählter Kaiser,” it was clear that people fan t The form used throughout is "deutsches
cied that Erwählter meant not “elect," but elective, Reich.” But the titles run as of old, “Erwählter
as opposed to hereditary. In short, Francis the Römischer Kaiser,” “König in Germanien,” etc.,
Second seems to have altogether forgotten who and only the new-fashioned “Erbkaiser von Oester
what he was. reich" is thrust in between them. Even the “zu
In the Peace of Presburg, in 1805, the Emperor allen Zeiten Mehrer des Reichs,” the old ludicrous
is called throughout “Emperor d'Allemagne et mistranslation of “semper Augustus” is not left out
d'Autriche,” in the heading, “Kaiser von Oester in the document which proclaims the Empire to
*...],”
reich" only. - - - - - | have come to an end. ****
revival of classical learning had given a re were possessed by the belief that all things con
vived impulse to the Imperial idea, just as tinued as they were from the beginning that no
the revival of the Civil Law had done at an chasm never to be recrossed lay between them
earlier time. Of the ideas with which men and that ancient world to which they had not
ceased to look back. We who are centuries re
then looked upon the Empire, Dante, in his moved, can see that there had passed a great
work De Monarchiá, is the great exponent. and wonderful change upon thought, and art,
It must not be thought for a moment that and literature, and politics, and society itself; a
Dante's subject is monarchy, in the common change whose best illustration is to be found in
sense of the word, royal government as op the process whereby there arose out of the primi
£ to aristocracy or democracy. With tive basilica the Romanesque cathedral, and from
it in turn the endless varieties of the Gothic.
im monarchia is synonymous with imperium.
But so gradual was the change, that each gene
There may be many kings and princes, but ration felt it passing over them no more than a
there is only one monarch, one universal man feels that perpetual transformation by
chief, the Roman Emperor. He proves elabo which his body is renewed from year to year;
rately, in the peculiar style of reasoning cur while the few who had learning enough to study
rent in that age, that an universal monarch is antiquity through its contemporary records,
necessary, that the Roman Emperor is of were prevented by the utter want of criticism
right the universal monarch, that the Em and of that which we call historical feeling, from
peror does not hold his crown of the Pope, seeing how prodigious was the contrast between
themselves and those whom they admired.
but immediately of God alone. But he has There is nothing more modern than the critical
not a word of argument to show that the spirit which dwells upon the difference between
German King is really the Roman Emperor; the minds of men in one age and in another;
that is assumed as a matter of course; there which endeavours to make each age its own in
was no need to prove, because nobody doubt terpreter, and judge what it did or produced by
ed, that whatever belonged of right to Au a relative standard. . . . And thus, when we
gustus Caesar belonged of right to his legiti remember that the notion of progress and de
mate successor, Harry of Luxemburg. On velopment, and of change as the necessary con
dition thereof, was unwelcome or unknown in
this branch of the argument—one which, to mediaeval times, we may better understand,
our notions, stood quite as much in need of though we do not cease to wonder, how men,
proof as any of the others—Dante does not never doubting that the political system of anti
vouchsafe a single line. The illusion survived quity had descended to them, modified indeed
untouched. In Mr. Bryce's words:— yet in substance the same, should have believed
that the Frank, the Saxon, and the Suabian,
“The offices of the imperial household, insti ruled all Europe by a right which seems to us
tuted by Constantine the Great, were attached not less fantastic than that fabled charter where
to the noblest families of Germany. The Em by Alexander the Great bequeathed his Empire,
peror and Empress, before their coronation at to the Slavic race for the love of Roxalana."
Rome, were lodged in the chambers called those
of Augustus and Livia; a bare sword was borne We have not room to follow Mr. Bryce
before them by the praetorian prefect; their pro through all the stages of the later German
cessions were adorned by the standards, eagles, history, when the Empire had lost all Roman
wolves, and dragons, which had figured in the
train of Hadrian or Theodosius. The constant and imperial character, when the Emperor
title of the Emperor himself, according to the was again a mere German King, or rather a
style introduced by Probus, was "semper Augus mere president of a German Confederation.
tus, or “perpetuus Augustus, which erring ety The steps by which Germany sank from a
mology translated ‘at all times increaser of the kingdom into a confederation have an inter
Empire. [Zu allen Zeiten Mehrer des Reichs.] est of their own, but it is one which more
The pontificatus maximus of his predecessors was closely touches federal than imperial history.
supposed to be preserved by his admission as a
canon of St. Peter's at Rome and St. Mary's at Germany is, as far as we know, the only
Aachen. Annalists invariably number the place example of a Confederation which arose, not
of each sovereign from Augustus downwards, out of the union of elements before distinct,
The notion of an uninterrupted succession, which but out of the dissolution of a formerly exist
moves the stranger's wondering smile as he sees ing kingdom. From the Peace of West
ranged round the magnificent Golden Hall of phalia—we might almost say from the Inter
Augsburg the portraits of the Caesars, laurelled, regnum onwards—the imperial historian has
helmeted, and periwigged, from the conqueror little more to do than to watch the strange
of Gaul to the partitioner of Poland, was to those and blind affection with which men clave to
generations not an article of faith only because
its denial was inconceivable.” the mere name of what had once been great
and glorious. And yet we have seen that
The philosophy of the matter Mr. Bryce even that name was not without its practical
explains in a brilliant passage:– effect. If, in Mr. Bryce's emphatic words,
“In truth, through all that period which we “the German Kingdom broke down beneath
call the Dark and Middle Ages men's minds the weight of the Roman Empire,” it was
108 John Leech. March,
certainly the name of the Roman Empire modern Austria, the truth is that this dispute
which hindered the severed pieces from alto about the worth of the old system has no bear
gether flying asunder. And the recollection ing upon them at all. The day of imperial
greatness was already past when Rudolf of the
of the Empire works still in modern politics,
first Hapsburg reached the throne; while during
though we fear more for evil than for good.
Patriotic Germans indeed look back with a what may be called the Austrian period, from
Maximilian to Francis II., the Holy Empire was
sigh to the days when Germany was great to Germany a mere clog and incumbrance, which
and united under her Ottos and her Henries, the unhappy nation bore, because she knew not
but these are remembrances of the Kingdom how to £ of it. The Germans are wel
rather than of the Empire. The memory of come to appeal to the old Empire to prove that
the Empire is mainly used in modern times they were once a united people. Nor is there
to prop up the position of the two upstart any harm in their comparing the politics of the
twelfth century with those of the nineteenth,
£ which now venture to profane the although to argue from the one to the other
mperial title. Because Gaul was once a seems to betray a want of historical judgment.
German province, the Lord of Paris would But the one thing which is wholly absurd is to
have us believe that the successor of Charles make Francis Joseph of Austria the successor
is to be found among a people who in the of Frederick of Hohenstaufen, and justify the
days of the great Emperor had no national most sordid and ungenial of modern despotisms
being. Because certain Austrian Dukes were by the example of the mirror of mediaeval chi
chosen Roman Emperors, we are called upon, valry, the noblest creation of mediaeval thought.”
sometimes to condemn the great Frederick
as a forerunner of Francis Joseph, sometimes
to justify Francis Joseph as a successor of
the great Frederick. We will wind up
with the fervid and eloquent comments of
Mr. Bryce on this latter head. A more ART. VIII.—1. Etchings and Sketchings.
vigorous denunciation of the great Austrian By A. PEN, Esq. * -
imposture we have seldom come across— 2. Sketches Contributed to Bell's Life.

3. The Fiddle-Faddle Fashion Book.
“Austria has indeed, in some things, but too
faithfully reproduced the policy of the Saxon and 4. Parody in Lithograph of Mulready's
Suabian Caesars. Like her, they oppressed and Post-office Envelope.
insulted the Italian people: but it was in the 5. The Children of the Mobility.
defence of rights which the Italians themselves 6. The Comic Latin Grammar. By PER
admitted. Like her, they lusted after a do CEVAL LEIGH, Illustrated by LBECH.
minion over the races on their borders, but that 7. The Comic English Grammar. By
dominion was to them a means of spreading the same.
civilisation and religion in savage countries, not
of pampering upon their revenues a hated court 8. Bentley's Miscellany. For many years.
and aristocracy. Like her, they strove to main Profuse Illustrations.
tain a strong government at home, but they did 9. The Marchioness de Brinvilliers. By
it when a strong government was the first of ALBERT SMITH and LEECH.
political blessings. Like her, they gathered and 10. The Adventures of Jack Ledbury. By
maintained vast armies; but those armies were ALBERT SMITH and LEECH.
composed of knights and barons who lived for
war alone, not of peasants torn away from use . Blaine's Encyclopaedia of Rural Sports.
ful labour and condemned to the cruel task of . Ballads. By BoN GUALTIER.
perpetuating their own bondage by crushing the . Puck on Pegasus.
aspirations of another nationality. They sinned . The Militiaman Abroad.
grievously, no doubt, but they sinned in the dim . Christopher Tadpole.
twilight of a half-barbarous age, not in the noon . Paul's Dashes of American Humour.
day blaze of modern civilisation. The enthusiasm 17. Seeley’s Porcelain Tower.
for mediaeval faith and simplicity which was so 18. Christmas Numbers of the London Il
fervid some years ago, has run its course, and is lustrated News.
not likely soon to revive. He who reads the
history of the Middle Ages will not deny that 19. The Quizziology of the British Drama.
its heroes, even the best of them, were in some By G. A. A'BECKETT.
respects little better than savages. But when 20. The Story of a Feather. By Douglas
he approaches more recent times, and sees how, JERRoLD.
during the last three hundred years, kings have 21. Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures.
dealt with their subjects, and with each other, 22. Life of a Foxhound. By JoHN MILLs.
he will forget the ferocity of the Middle Ages, 23. Crock of Gold, etc.
in horror at the heartlessness, the treachery, the 24. Colin Clink.
injustice all the more odious because it sometimes
wears the mask of legality, which disgraces the 25. The Book of British Song.
annals of the military monarchies of Europe. 26. Stanley Thorn.
With regard, however, to the pretensions of 27. Jack Hinton.
1865. John Leech. 109
*
28. Punch's Pocket-Book. Up to 1864. Jean Paul, who says it is the opposite of the
Etchings and small woodcuts. sublime, the infinitely great, and is therefore
29. Douglas Jerrold's Collected Works. the infinitely little; and Kant, who gives it
30. The Earlier Volumes of Once a Week. as the sudden conversion into nothing of a
31. Jack Brag. By THEoDoRE Hook. long raised and highly-wrought expectation;
32. Journey to Pau. By Hon. ERSKINE many have been the attempts to unsphere
MURRAY. the spirit of a joke and make it tell its secret;
33. The Month. By ALBERT SMITH. but we agree with our excellent and judicious
34. The Rising Generation : A Series of friend Quinctilian, that its ratio is at best
Twelve Large Coloured Plates. anceps. There is a certain robust felicity
35. The Comic Cocker. about old Hobbes's saying, that “it is a sud
36. Young Troublesome. den glory, or sense of eminency above others or
37. The Comic History of England. Etch our former selves.” There is no doubt at least
ings and woodcuts. about the suddenness and the glory; all true
38. The Comic History of Rome. Etchings laughter must be involuntary, must come and
and woodcuts. go as it lists, must take us and shake us
39. Handley Cross. heartily and by surprise. No man can laugh
40. Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour. any more than he can sneeze at will, and he
41. Ask Mamma. has nearly as little to do with its ending—it
42. Plain or Ringlets. dies out, disdaining to be killed. He may
43. Mr. Facey Romford's Hounds. grin and guffaw, because these are worked
44. A Little Tour in Ireland. By an Oxo by muscles under the dominion of volition,
Illan. but your diaphragm, the midriff, into which
45. Master Jacky in Love: A Sequel to your joker pokes his elbow, he is the great
Young Troublesome. organ of genuine laughter and the sudden
46. The Christmas Carol. By CHARLEs glory, and he as you all know, when made
DICKENs. absurd by hiccup, is masterless as the
47. The Cricket on the Hearth. By CHARLEs wind, “untamable as flies;” therefore is he
DICKENs. called by the grave Haller, nobilissimus post
48. The Chimes. By CHARLEs DICKENs. cor musculus; for ladies and gentlemen,
49. Punch from 1841. your heart is only a (often very) hollow
muscle. If you wish to know what is done
IF man is made to mourn, he also, poor fellow ! in your interior when you laugh, here it is
and without doubt therefore, is made to laugh. from Dr. Carpenter. He classes it along
He needs it all, and he begets it. For human with sobbing and hiccup, and says: “In it
nature may say of herself in the words of the the muscles of expiration are in convulsive
ballad, “Werena my heart licht, I wad die.” movement, more or less violent, and send out
Man is the only animal that laughs; it is as the breath in a series of jerks, the glottis be
peculiar to him as his chin and his hippo. ing open,” the glottis being the little chink at
campus minor.” The perception of a joke, the top of the windpipe.
the smile, the sense of the ludicrous, the quiet As to the mental impression on the senso
laugh, the roar of laughter, are all our own; rium that sets these jerks agoing, and arches
and we may be laughed as well as tickled to that noble muscle, we, as already said, think
death, as in the story of the French nun of it may be left to a specific sense of its own,
mature years, who, during a vehement fit of and that laughter is the effect and very often
laughter, was observed by her sisters to sit the cause of the laughable, and therefore of
suddenly still and look very “gash” (like the itself—a definition which has the merit of
Laird of Garscaddent), this being considered being self-contained. But is it not well that
a farther part of the joke, when they found we are made to laugh, that, from the first
she was elsewhere. sleepy gleam moving like sunshine over an
In books, old and new, there is no end of infant's cheek, to the cheery and feeble chirrup
philosophizing upon the ludicrous and its of his great-grandfather by the fireside, we
cause; from Aristotle, who says it is some error laugh at the laughable, when the depths of
in truth or propriety, but at the same time our strange nature are dappled and rippled,
neither painful nor pernicious; and Cicero, or tossed into wildest laughter by anything,
who defines it as that which, without impro so that it be droll, just as we shudder when
priety, notes and exposes an impropriety; to soused with cold water—because we can't
help it.
* No other animal has a chin proper, and it is But we are drifting into disquisition and
a comfort, in its own small way, that Mr. Huxle
has not yet found the lesser sea-horse in our grand must beware. What is it to us or the public
father's £ that the pneumogastric and phrenic nerves
+ Vide Dean Ramsay's Reminiscences. are the telegraphs from their head-quarters
**
in the brain to this same midriff—that if cut, laughs right out, loud and strong, may be a
there would be an end of our funny messages, question as hard to answer as the why he
and of a good deal more; that the musculus curls up his nose when tickled with a straw,
nobilissimus, if wounded in its feelings from or sneezes when he looks at the sun; but it
without or from within, takes to outrageous is not hard to be thankful for the joke, and
laughter of the dreariest sort; that if any for the tickle, and for the sneeze. Our busi
thing goes wrong at the central thalami, as ness rather is now gratefully to acknowledge
they are called, of these nerves, the vehicles the singular genius, the great personal and
of will and feeling, they too make sad fools of artistic worth of one of our best masters of
themselves by sending down absurd, incohe “heart-casing mirth,” than to discourse upon
rent telegrams “at lairge"? the why and how he makes us laugh so
One might be diffuse upon the various ways pleasantly, so wholesomely and well,—and to
in which laughter seizes upon and deals with deplore along with all his friends (who has
mankind; how it excruciates some, making not in him lost a friend?), his sudden and
them look and yell as if caught in a trap. irreparable loss. It was as if something per
How a man takes to crowing #. a cock, or sonal to every one was gone; as if a fruit we
as if under permanent hooping-cough, ending all ate and rejoiced in had vanished for ever;
his series of explosions victoriously with his a something good and cheery, and to be
well-known “clarion wild and shrill.” How thankful for, which came every week as sure
provocative of laughter such a musical per as Thursday—never to come again. Our
formance always is to his friends, leading only return to him for all his unfailing good
them to lay snares for him. We knew an ness and cheer, is the memory of the heart,
excellent man—a country doctor—who, if and he has it if any man in the British
wanted in the village, might be traced out empire has. The noble, honest, kindly, dili
by his convivial crow. It was droll to ob gent, sound-hearted, modest, and manly John
serve him resisting internally and on the sly Leech—the very incarnation in look, charac
the beginnings of his bravura ; how it always ter, and work of the best in an Englishman.
prevailed. How another friend, huge, learned, As there is and has always been, since we
and wise, whom laughter seizes and rends, is had letters or art of our own, a rich abound
made desperate, and at times ends in crash ing power and sense of humour and of fun in
ing his chair, and concluding his burst on its the English nature; so ever since that same
ruins, and on the floor. In houses where he nature was pleased to divert and express it
is familiar, a special chair is set for him, self and its jokes in art as well as in books,
braced with iron for the stress. we have had no lack of depicters of the droll,
Then one might discourse on the uses of the odd, the terrible, and the queer. Hogarth
laughter as a muscular exercise; on its draw is the first and greatest of them all, the great
ing into action lazy muscles, supernumeraries, est master inh is own terrible via the world
which get off easily under ordinary circum has ever seen. If you want to know his
stances; how much good the convulsive suc worth and the exquisite beauty of his colour
cussion of the whole man does to his chylo ing, study his pictures, and possess his prints,
poietic and other viscera; how it laughs to and read Charles Lamb on his genius. Then
scorn care and malaise of all kinds; how it came the savage Gillray, strong and coarse
makes you cry without sorrow, and ache as Churchill, the very Tipton Slasher of poli
every inch of you without wrong done to tical caricature; then we had Bunbury, Row
any one; how it clears the liver, enlivens the landson, and Woodward, more violent than
spleen, and makes the very cockles of the strong, more odd than droll, and often more
heart to tingle. By the bye, what are these disgusting than either. Smirke, with his
cockles of tradition, but the columnae carneae, delicate, pure, pleasant humour, as seen in
that pull away at the valves, and keep all his plates to Don Quixote, which are not un
things tight? worthy of that marvellous book, the most
But ' should we trouble ourselves and deeply and exquisitely humorous piece of
you with either the physiology or the phi genius in all literature; then Edwin Land
losophy of laughter, when all that anybody seer's Monkeyana, forgotten by, and we fear
needs to say or to hear, is said, so as to make unknown to many, so wickedly funny, so aw
all after saying hopeless and needless, by fully human, as almost to convert us to Mr.
Sidney Smith, in his two chapters on Wit and Huxley's pedigree—The Duel, for instance.
Humour, in his Notes of Lectures on Moral Then we had Henry Alken in the Hunting
Philosophy Why it is that when any Field, and poor Heath, the ex-Captain of
one—except possibly Mr. Tupper-hears for Dragoons, facile and profuse, unscrupulous
the first time, that wisest of wits' joke to his and clever. Then the greatest since Hogarth,
doctor, when told by him to “take a walk on though limited in range and tending to ex
an empty stomach;”—“on whose?”—he cess, George Cruickshank, who happily still
lives and plies his matchless needle; it would hand man. Fancy a number of Punch with
take an entire paper to expound his keen, out Leech's picture! What would you give
penetrating power, his moral intensity, his for it?” This was said ten years ago. How
gift of wild grimace, the dexterity and super much more true it is now ! We don't need
subtlety of his etching, its firm and delicate to fancy it any longer! And yet, doubtless,
lines. Then came poor short-lived tragical nature is already preparing some one else—
Seymour, whom Thackeray wished to suc she is for ever filling her horn—whom we
ceed as artist to Pickwick; he embodied shall never think better, or in his own way,
Pickwick as did “Phiz,”—Hablot Browne,— half so good, but who like him will be, let us
Messrs. Quilp and Pecksniff, and Micky trust, new and true, modest and good; let us,
Free, and whose steeple-chasing Irish cock meanwhile, rest and be thankful, and look
tails we all know and relish ; but his manner back on the past. We'll move on by and
is too much for him and for us, and his ideas bye—“to fresh fields and pastures new”—
are neither deep nor copious, hence everlast we suppose, and hope.
ing and weak repetitions of himself. Kenny We are not going to give a biography, or
Meadows, with more genius, especially for a studied appraisement of this great artist,—
fiends and all eldritch fancies, and still more that has been already well done in the Corn
mannerism. Sibson and Hood, whose draw hill,—and we trust the mighty “J. O.” who
ings were quaint and queer enough, but his knew him and loved him as a brother, and
words better and queerer. Thackeray, very whose strong and fine hand—its truth, nicety,
great, answering wonderfully his own idea. and power, we think we recognise in an ad
We wonder that his Snobs and Modern mirable short notice of Leech as one of the
Novelists and miscellaneous papers were ever “Men of Mark,” in the London Journal of
published without his own cuts. What May 31, 1862—may employ his leisure in
would Mrs. Perkins' Ball be without The giving us a memorial of his friend. No one
Mulligan, as the spread-eagle, frantic and could do it better, not even the judicious
glorious, doing the mazurka, without Miss Tom Taylor, and it is worth his while,
Bunyon, and them all; and the good little to go down the great stream side by side
Nightingale, singing “Home, Sweet Home” with such a man. All that we shall now
to that young, premature brute Hewlett, in do is to give some particulars, not, so far
Dr. Birch. But we have already recorded as we know, given to the public, and end
our estimate of Mr. Thackeray's worth as an with a few selected woodcuts from Punch
artist;" and all his drolleries and quaint bits illustrative of his various moods and gifts—
of himself—his comic melancholy, his wist for which we are indebted to the kindness of
ful children, his terrific soldans in the early Messrs. Bradbury and Evans,”—two men to
Punches. They should all be collected,— whom and to whose noble generosity and
wherever he escapes from his pen to his pen enterprise we owe it that Punch is what he
cil, they should never be divorced. Then is; men who have made their relation to
Doyle, with his wealth of dainty phantasies, him and to his staff of writers and artists, a
his glamourie, his wonderful power of ex labour of love; dealing in everything, from
pressing the weird and uncanny, his fairies the quality of the paper up to the genius,
and goblins, his enchanted castles and maid with truly disinterested liberality; and who,
ens, his plump caracolling pony chargers, his to give only one instance, must have given
charm of colour and of unearthly beauty in Mr. Leech, during his twenty-three years'
his water-colours. No one is more thoroughly connexion with them, upwards of £40,000,
himself and alone than Doyle. We need —money richly deserved, and well won, for
only name his father, “H. B.,” the master of no money could pay in full what he was to
gentlemanly, political satire-as Gillray was them and to us; but still, not the less ho
of brutal. Tenniel we still have, excellent, nourable to them than to him.f
careful, and often strong and effective; but * The cost of re-engraving these cuts is alto
more an artist and a draughtsman than a gether too great to allow of their being published
genius or a humourist. in our reprint.—[AM. £
John Leech is different from all these, and, + When the history of the rise and progress of
Punch comes to be written, it will be found that
taken as a whole, surpasses them all, even the Weekly Dinner has been one of the chief things
Cruickshank, and seats himself next, though which contributed to its success. Almost from the
below, William Hogarth. Well might foundation of that journal it has been the habit of
Thackeray, in his delightful notice of his the contributors every Wednesday to dine together.
friend and fellow-Carthusian in the Quarterly, In the winter months, the dinner is usually held in
the front room of the first floor of No. 11, Bouverie
say, “There is no blinking the fact, that in Street, Whitefriars,-the business offices of the
Mr. Punch's Cabinet John Leech is the right proprietors, Messrs. Bradbury and Evans. Some
times these dinners are held at the Bedford Hotel,
* North British Review, Feb. 1864. Covent Garden. During the summer months, it is
I 12 John Leech. March,
John Leech, we believe remotely of Irish This was said in full consciousness of what is
extraction, was a thoroughly London boy, involved in advising such a step. His father
though never one whit of a Cockney in na wisely, doubtless, thought otherwise, and put
ture or look. He was born in 1817, being him to the medical profession at St. Bartholo
thus six years younger than Thackeray, both mew's, under Mr. Stanley. He was very
of them Charterhouse boys. We rejoice to near being sent to Edinburgh, and appren
learn that Lord Russell has, in the kindest ticed to Sir George Ballingall. If he had
way, given to Mr. Leech's eldest boy a pre come to us then, he would have found one
sentation to this famous school, where the student, since famous, with whom he would
best men of London birth have so long had have cordialized : Edward, afterwards Pro
their training, as Brougham and Jeffrey, fessor Forbes, who to his other great gifts
Scott and Cockburn, had at the Edinburgh added that of drawing, especially of all
High School. This gift of our Foreign Minis sorts of wild, fanciful, elfish pleasantries
ter is twice blessed, and is an act the coun and freaks, most original and ethereal—and
try may well thank him for. the specimens of which, in their many strange
When between six and seven years of age, resting-places, it would be worth the while
some of Leech's drawings were seen by the to reproduce in a volume. Leech soon be
great Flaxman, and, after carefully looking at came known among his fellow-students for
them and the boy, he said, “That boy must his lifelike, keen, but always good-natured
be an artist; he will be nothing else or less.” caricatures; he was for ever drawing. He
never had any regular art-lessons, but his
customary to have ten or twelve dinners at places medical studies furnished him with a know
in the neighbourhood of London, Greenwich, Rich ledge of the structure and proportions of the
mond, Blackwall, etc. And once a year they at
tend the annual dinner of the firm, at which com human form, which gives such reality to his
drawing; and he never parades his know
ositors, readers, printers, machinemen, clerks, etc.
ine. This dinner is called the “Way Goose,” and ledge, or is its slave; he values expression
is often referred to in Punch.
At the weekly dinner, the contents of the forth
ever above mere form, never falsifying, but
coming number of Punch are discussed. When often neglecting, or rather subordinating, the
the cloth is removed, and dessert is laid on the ta latter to the former.
ble, the first question put by the editor is, “What This intense realism and insight, this pure
shall the Cartoon be 7" intense power of observation it is that makes
During the lifetimes of Jerrold and Thackeray,
the discussions after dinner ran very high, owing to the Greek sculptors so infinitely above the
Roman.
the constitutional antipathy existing between these
two. Jerrold being the oldest, as well as the noisi We believe the Greeks knew nothing of
est, generally came off victorious. In these rows what was under the skin—it was considered
it required all the suavity of Mark Lemon (and he profane to open the human body and dis
has a great deal of that quality) to calm the storm; sect it; but they studied form and action
his award always being final.
The third edition of Wednesday's Sun is gene with that keen, sure, unforgetting, loving
rally brought in to give the latest intelligence, so eye, that purely realistic faculty, which
as to bring the Cartoon down to the latest date. probably they, as a race, had in more ex
On the Thursday morning following, the editor quisite perfection than any other people be
calls at the houses of the artists to see what is being
done. On Friday night all copy is delivered and fore or since. Objective truth they read, and
put into type, and at two o'clock on Saturday could repeat as from a book. The Romans,
proofs are revised, the forms made up, and with with their hardy, penetrating, audacious
the last movement of the engine, the whole of the nature—rerum Domini--wanted to know
type is placed under the press, which cannot be not only what appears, but what is, and what
moved until the Monday morning, when the steam
is again up. This precaution is taken to prevent makes appear. They had no misgivings or
waggish tricks on t'. part of practical joking com shyness at cutting into and laying bare their
positors. dead fellows, as little as they had in killing
At these dinners none but those connected with
the staff proper are permitted to attend; the onl
them or being themselves killed; and as so
occasional exceptions, we believe, have been Sir often happens, their strength was their weak
Joseph Paxton, Mr. Layard, the present Foreign ness, their pride their fall. They must needs
Under-Secretary, Charles Dickens, and Charles show off their knowledge and their muscles,
Dickens, junior. As an illustration of the benefit and therefore they made their statues as if
arising from these meetings, we may mention that without skin, and put on as violent and often
Jerrold always used to say, “It is no use any of us
quarrelling, because next Wednesday must come impossible action as ever did Buonarotti.
round with its dinner, when we will all have to Compare the Laocoon and his boys (small
shake hands again.” By means of these meetings, men, rather) with the Elgin marbles; the
the discussions arising on all questions helped both riders on the frieze so comely in their going,
caricaturist and wit to take a broad view of things,
as well as enabled the editor to get his team to so lissome; their skin slipping sweetly over
draw well together, and give a uniformity of tone their muscles; their modestly representing
to all the contributions. not of what they know, but of what they see.
In John Leech and Tenniel you see some meat, out of the strong that there comes
thing of the same contrast; the one knows forth sweetness. In the letter we refer to,
more than he needs, and shows it accord which is well worth reading, there is a good
ingly; the other knowing by instinct, or from remark, that Leech had no mere minutiae,
good sense, that drawing has only to do with as Turner had none; everything was subor
appearances, with things that may be seen, dinated to the main purpose he had, but he
not with things that may be known, drew had exquisite finesse and delicacy when it
merely what he saw, but then with what an was that he wanted. Look at his drawing
inevitable, concentrated eye and hand he did of our “Jocund Morn,” from the boots to
draw that! This made him so pre-eminent the swallows. His pencil work on wood was
in reproducing the expression of action—es marvellous for freedom and loveliness.
pecially intense and rapid action. - No know The bent of his genius and external causes
ledge of what muscles were acting, and what made him, when about seventeen, give up the
are their attachments, etc., could teach a man study of medicine and go in stoutly and for
how a horse trots, or how he gathers himself life for art. His diligence was amazing, as
up to leap, or how a broken-backed cab witnessed by the list we give, by no means
horse would lie and look, or even how Mr. perfect, of his works; in Bentley they are in
Briggs—excellent soul — when returning multitudes; and in Punch alone, up to 1862,
home, gently and copiously ebriose from Ep there are more than three thousand separate
som on his donkey, would sway about on his drawings! with hardly the vestige of a re
podgy legs, when instructing his amazed and petition; it may be the same tune, but it is
ancient groom and friend as to putting up a new variation. In nothing is his realistic
and rubbing down——the mare. But observa power more seen than in those delightful re
tion such as the Greeks had, that dxp18sia or cords of his own holidays in Punch. A
accuracy—carefulness, as they called it—it geologist will tell you the exact structure of
enabled Leech to do all this to the life. that rock in the Tay at Campsie Linn, where
All through his course, more and more, he Mr. Briggs is carrying out that huge salmon
fed upon nature, and he had his reward in in his arms, tenderly and safely, as if it were
having perpetually at hand her freshness, her his first-born. All his seascapes—Scarbo
variety, her endlessness. There is a plea rough, Folkestone, Biarritz, etc., etc.—any
sant illustration of this given in a letter in one who has been there does not need to be
Notes and Queries for November 5, 1864:— told their names, and, as we have already
“On one occasion he and I were riding to said, his men are as native as his rocks, his
town in an omnibus, when an elderly gentle bathers at Boulogne and Biarritz, his game
man, in a very peculiar dress, and with very keepers and gillies in Blair-Athole and Loch
marked features, stepped into the vehicle, and aber—you have seen them there, the very
sat down immediately in front of us. He men; Duncan Roy is one of them; and
stared so hard and made such wry faces at those men and women at Galway, in the
us, that I could hardly refrain from laughter. Claddich, they are liker than themselves,
My discomfiture was almost completed when more Irish than the Irish. In this respect
Leech suddenly exclaimed, “By the way, his foreigners are wonderful, one of the rarest
did Prendergast ever show you that extraor artistic achievements. Thackeray also could
dinary account which has been lately for draw a foreigner,-as witness that dreary
warded to him?” and, producing his note woman outworker in the Kickleburys. Mr.
book, added, “Just run your eye up that Frith can’t. Then as to dress; this was one
column, and tell me what you can make of of the things Leech very early mastered
it?' The page was blank ; but two minutes and knew the meaning and power of,
afterwards the features of that strange old and it is worth mastering, for in it,
gentleman gaping at us were reflected with the dress, is much of the man, both
life-like fidelity upon it.” There is humour given and received. To see this, look at
in the choice of the word “Prendergast.” almost his first large drawing in Punch, two
This is the true way to nurse invention, to months after it started, called “Foreign Af
preen and let grow imagination's wings, on fairs.” Look, too, at what is still one of his
which she soars forth into the ideal, “sailing richest works, with all the fervour and abun
with supreme dominion through the azure dance, the very dew of his youth,—The Comic
depths of air.” It is the man who takes in, Latin Grammar. Look at the dress of Me
who can give out. The man who does not nelaus, who threatens to give poor Helen, his
do the one, soon takes to spinning his own wife, “a good hiding.” Look at his droll
fancies out of his interior, like a spider, and etchings and woodcuts for the otherwise tire
he snares himself at last as well as his vic somely brilliant Comic Histories, by Gilbert
tims. It is the bee that makes honey, and it A'Beckett, with their too much puns.
is out of the eater that there comes forth Deech was singularly modest, both as a man
Vol. XLII, N–8
and as an artist. This came by nature, and soul, to make every reader a poet, every on
was indicative of the harmony and sweetness looker an artist, every listener eloquent and
of his essence; but doubtless the perpetual tuneful, so be it that they have the seeing
going to nature, and drawing out of her ful eye, the hearing ear, the loving and under
ness, kept him humble, as well as made him standing heart. *
rich, made him, what every man of sense and As is well known this exhibition took Lon
£ must be, conscious of his own strength; don captive. It was the most extraordinary
ut before the great mother he was simple record by drawing, of the manners and cus
and loving, attentive to her lessons, as a toms and dress of a people, ever produced.
child, for ever learning and doing. It was full “from morn to dewy eve,” and as
This honesty and modesty were curiously full of mirth; at times this made it like a
brought out when he was, after much per theatre convulsed as one man by the vis.
suasion, induced to make the coloured draw comica of one man. The laughter of special,
ings for that exhibition which was such a often family groups, broke out opposite each
splendid success, bringing in nearly £5000. drawing, spread contagiously effervescing
Nothing could induce him to do what was throughout, lulling and waxing again and
wanted, call them paintings. “They are again like waves of the sea. From his re
mere sketches,” he said, “and very crude serve, pride, and nicety, Leech could never
sketches too, and I have no wish to be made be got to go when any one was in the room;
a laughing-stock by calling them what they he had an especial horror of being what he
are not.” Here was at once modesty and called “caught and talked at by enthusiastic
honest pride, or rather that truthfulness which people.” It is worth mentioning here, as it
lay at the root of his character, and was also shows his true literary turn as a humourist,
its “bright consummate flower,” and he and adds greatly to the completeness of his
went further than this, in having printed in drawings and of his genius, that all the funny,
the Catalogue the following words:—“These witty, and often most felicitous titles and
sketches have no claim to be regarded or wordings of all sorts were written by himself;
tested as finished pictures. It is impossible he was most particular about this.
for any one to know the fact better than Ido. One day a sporting nobleman visited the
They have no pretensions to a higher name gallery with his huntsman, whose naive and
£"IL.
I have given them—SKETCHES IN knowing criticisms greatly amused his master.
At last, coming to one of the favourite hunt
We have had, by the kindness of Mr. ing pictures, he said, “Ah! my Lord, nothin'
John Heugh, their possessor, the privilege of but a party as knows 'osses cud have draw’d
having beside us for some time two of the them ere 'unters.” The origin and means of
best of those coloured sketches, and we feel these sketches in oil is curious. Mr. Leech
at once the candour and accuracy of their au had often been asked to undertake works of
thor's title. It is quite touching the unac this character, but he had for so many years
customedness, the boyish, anxious, laborious been accustomed to draw with the pencil,
workmanship of the practised hand that had and that only on small blocks, that he had
done so much, so rapidly and perfectly in little confidence in his ability to draw on a
another style. They do not make us regret large scale. The idea originated with Mr.
much that he did not earlier devote himself Mark Lemon, his friend and colleague, who
to painting proper, because then what would saw that by a new invention—a beautiful
have become of these 3000 cuts in Punch 9 piece of machinery—the impression of a block
But he shows, especially, true powers of land in Punch, being first taken on a sheet of in
scape painting, a pure and deep sense of dis dia-rubber, might be enlarged; when, by a
tance, translucency, and colour, and the lithographic process, the copy thus got could
power of gleams and shadows on water. His be transferred to the stone, and impressions
girls are lovelier without colour—have, in printed upon a large sheet of canvas. Having
deed, “to the eye and prospect of the soul,” thus obtained an outline groundwork con
a more exquisite bloom, the bloom within the sisting of his own lines enlarged some eight
skin, the brightness in the dark eye, all more times the area of the original block, Leech
expressed than in those actually coloured. proceeded to colour these. His knowledge
So it often is; give enough to set the looker of the manipulation of oil colours was very
on a painting imagining, realizing, bringing slight, and it was under the guidance of his
up “the shows of things to the desires of the friend, John Everett Millais, that his first at
mind,” and no one but the highest painter tempts were made, and crude enough they
can paint like that. This is the true office of were. He used a kind of transparent colour
the masters of all the ideal arts, to evoke, as which allowed the coarse lines of the enlarge
did the rising sun on Memnon, the sleeping ment to show through, so that the produc
beauty and music and melody of another's tion presented the appearance of indifferent
lithographs, slightly tinted. In a short time, a little amusing and curious for a student of man
however, he obtained great mastery over oil ners to note the difference between the two sati
colour, and instead of allowing the thick rists—perhaps between the societies which they
fatty lines of printer's ink to remain on the describe. Leech's England is a country peopled
canvas, he, by the use of turpentine, removed by noble elderly squires, riding large-boned
the ink, particularly with regard to the lines horses, followed across country by lovely beings
of the most gorgeous proportions, by respectful re
of the face and figure. These he redrew with tainers, by gallant little boys emulating the cour
his own hand in a fine and delicate manner. age and pluck of the sire. The joke is the pre
To this he added a delicacy of finish, parti cocious courage of the child, his gallantry as he
cularly in flesh colour, which greatly enhanced charges at his fences, his coolness as he eyes the
the value and beauty of his later works. To any glass of port or tells grandpapa that he likes his
one acquainted with these sketches, we may champagne dry. How does Gavarni represent
gentleman
mention for illustration of these remarks, No. the family-father, the sire, the old in
his country, the civilized country? Paterfami
65 in the Catalogue. This work presents all lias, in a dyed wig and whiskers, is leering by the
the incompleteness and crudity of his early side of Mademoiselle Coralie on her sofa in the
style. The picture represents Piscator seated Rue de Bréda; Paterfamilias, with a mask and a
on a wooden fence on a raw morning in a nose half-a-yard long, is hobbling after her at
pelting shower of rain, the lines necessary to the ball. The enfant terrible is making Papa
give the effect of a leaden atmosphere being and Mamma alike ridiculous by showing us Mam
very numerous and close. The works which ma's lover, who is lurking behind the screen. A
thousand volumes are written protesting against
illustrated his later style are best shown in the seventh commandment. The old man is for
Nos. 36 and 41. In the framing of these ever hunting after the young woman, the wife is
sketches he persisted in leaving a margin of for ever cheating the husband. The fun of the
white canvas somewhat after the manner of old comedy never seems to end in France; and
water-colour sketches. we have the word of their own satirists, novelists,
Of all art satirists none have such a per painters of society, that it is being played from
vading sense and power of girlish and ripe day to day.
“In the works of that barbarian artist Ho
womanly beauty as Leech. Hogarth alone, garth, the subject which affords such playful
as in his Poor Poet's Wife, comes near him. sport to the civilized Frenchman is stigmatized
There is a genuine domesticity about his as a fearful crime, and is visited by a ghastly re
scenes that could come only from a man who tribution. The English savage never thinks of
was much at his own fireside, and in the nur such a crime as funny, and a hundred years after
sery when baby was washed. You see he is Hogarth, our modern ‘painter of mankind' still
himself "paterfamilias, with no Bohemian retains his barbarous modesty, is tender with
taint or raffish turn. children, decorous before women, has never once
What he draws he has
thought that he had a right or calling to wound
seen. What he asks you to live in and laugh the modesty of either.
at and with, he has laughed at and lived in. “Mr. Leech surveys society from the gentle
It is this wholesomeness, and, to use the right man's point of view. In old days, when Mr. Jer
word, this goodness, that makes Leech more rold lived and wrote for that celebrated peri
than a drawer of funny pictures, more even odical, he took the other side: he looked up at
than a great artist.” It makes him a teacher the rich and great with a fierce, sarcastic as
and an example of virtue in its widest sense,pect, and a threatening posture; and his outcry
from that of manliness to the sweet devotion or challenge was—‘Ye rich and great, look out!
We, the people, are as good as you. Have a
of woman, and the loving, open mouth and care, ye priests, wallowing on the tithe pig, and
eyes of parvula on your knee. How differ rolling in carriages and four; yelandlords, grind
ent is the same class of art in France you ing the poor; ye vulgar fine ladies bullying
dare not let your wife or girls see their innocent governesses, and what not, — we
Leech; he is not for our virgins and boys. will expose your vulgarity, we will put down
Hear what Thackeray says on this point:— your oppression, we will vindicate the nobility
of our common nature, and so forth. A great
“Now, while Mr. Leech has been making his deal is to be said on the Jerrold side; a great
comments upon our society and manners, one of deal was said; perhaps even a great deal too
the wittiest and keenest observers has been giv much. It is not a little curious to speculate
ing a description of his own country of France, upon the works of these two famous contributors
in a thousand brilliant pages, and it is a task not of Punch, these two “preachers, as the phrase
is. ‘Woe to you, you tyrant and heartless
oppressor of the poor! calls out Jerrold as
* It is honourable to the regular art of this coun Dives's carriage rolls by. “Beware of the time
try that many of its best men early recognised in when your bloated coachman shall be hurled from
Leech a true brother. Millais and Elmore and
others were his constant friends; and we know his box, when your gilded flunkey shall be cast
that more than twelve years ago Mr. Harvey, now to the earth from his perch, and your pampered
the perspicacious # of the Royal Scottish horses shall run away with you and your vulgar
Academy, wished to make Leech an Thackeray wife and smash you into ruin. The other phi
honorary members of that body. losopher looks at Dives and his cavalcade in his
I 16 John Leech. Maleh,
own peculiar manner. He admires the horses, dear gents is to laugh. To watch them looking
and copies with the most curious felicity their at their own portraits in this pleasant gallery
form and action. The footman's calves and pow will be no small part of the exhibition; and
der, the coachman's red face and floss wig, the as we can all go and see our neighbours carica
over - dressed lady and plethoric gentleman tured here, it is just possible that our neighbours
in the carriage, he depicts with the happiest may find some smart likenesses of their neigh
strokes; and if there is a pretty girl and a rosy bours in these brilliant, life-like, goodnatured
child on the back seat, he takes them up ten sketches in oil.”-Times, June 21, 1862.
derly' and touches them with a hand that has a
caress in it. This artist is very tender towards We could not resist giving this long ex
all the little people. It is hard to say whether tract. What perfe&tion of thought and word!
he loves boys or girls most—those delightful It is, alas! a draught of wine we can no more
little men on their ponies in the hunting fields, get; the vine is gone. What flavour in his
those charming little Lady Adas flirting at the “dear prisoned spirit of the impassioned
juvenile ball; or Tom the butcher's boy, on the
slide; or ragged little Emily pulling the go-cart grape l’” What a bouquet / Why is not
freighted with Elizarann and her doll. Steele, everything that hand ever wrote, reproduced :
Fielding, Goldsmith, Dickens are similarly tender shall we ever again be regaled with such
in their pictures of children. “We may be bar oenanthic acid and ether?—the volatile es
barians, Monsieur , but even the savages are sences by which a wine is itself and none
occasionally kind to their papooses. When are other—its flower and bloom; the reason why
the holidays? Mothers of families ought to come Chambertin is not Sherry, and Sauterne
to this exhibition and bring the children. Then neither. Our scientific friends will remember
there are the full-grown young ladies—the very
full-grown young ladies—dancing in the ball that these same delicate acids and oils are
room, or reposing by the sea-shore—the men compounds of the lightest of all bodies, hy
can peep at whole seraglios of these beauties for drogen, and the brightest when concentrated
the moderate charge of one shilling, and bring in the diamond, carbon; and these in the
away their charming likenesses in the illustrated same proportion as sugar ! Moreover, this
catalogue (two-and-six). In the ‘Mermaids' ethereal oil and acid of wine, what we may
Haunt, for example, there is a siren combing
her golden locks, and another dark-eyed witch call its genius, never exceeds a forty-thou
actually sketching you as you look at her, whom sandth part of the wine! the elevating powers
Ulysses could not resist. To walk by the side of the fragrant Burgundies are supposed to
of the much-sounding sea and come upon such be more due to this essence than to its
a bevy of beautics as this, what bliss for a man amount of alcohol. Thackeray, Jeremy Tay
or a painter! The mermaids in that haunt, lor, Charles Lamb, old Fuller, Sydney Smith,
haunt the beholder for hours after. Where is
the shore on which those creatures were sketch
Ruskin, each have the felicity of a specific
ed? The sly catalogue does not tell us.
oenanthic acid and oil—a bouquet of his own;
“The outdoor sketcher will not fail to re others' wines are fruity or dry or brandied, or
mark the excellent fidelity with which Mr. “from the Cape,” or from the gooseberry, as
Leech draws the back-grounds of his little pic the case may be. For common household use
tures. The homely landscape, the sea, the win commend us to the stout home-brewed from
ter wood by which the huntsmen ride, the light the Swift, Defoe, Cobbet, and Southey taps.
and clouds, the birds floating over head, are in Much has been said about the annoyance
dicated by a few strokes which show the artist's which organ-grinding caused to Leech, but
untiring watchfulness and love of nature. He is
a natural truthteller, and indulges in no flights of there were other things which also gave him
fancy, as Hogarth was before him. He speaks great annoyance, and amongst these was his
his mind out quite honestly, like a thorough grievance against the wood-engravers.
Briton. He loves horses, dogs, river and field His drawings on the polished and chalked
sports. He loves home and children, that you surface of the wood-block were beautiful to
can see. He holds Frenchmen in light esteem. look at. Great admiration has been bestowed
A bloated “Mosoo" walking Leicester Square, upon the delicacy and artistic feeling shown
with a huge cigar and a little hat, with ‘billard” in the wood-blocks as they appeared in
and ‘estaminet' written on his flaccid face—is
a favourite study with him; the unshaven jowl, Punch, but any one who saw these ex
the waist tied with a string, the boots which quisite little gems as they came from his
pad the Quadrant pavement, this dingy and dis hands would scarcely recognise the same
reputable being exercises a fascination over Mr. things when they appeared in print in
Punch's favourite artist. We trace, too, in his Punch. When he had finished one of his
works a prejudice against the Hebrew nation, blocks, he would show it to his friends and
against the natives of an island much celebrated
for its verdure and its wrongs; these are lament say, “Look at this, and watch for its appear
able prejudices indeed, but what man is without ance in Punch.” Sometimes he would point
his own 7 No man has ever depicted the little to a little beauty in a landscape, and call
‘Snob’ with such a delightful touch. Leech ing particular attention to it, would say that
fondles and dandles this creature as he does probably all his fine little touches would be
the children. To remember one or two of those “cut away,” in a still more literal sense than
that in which he uses the word in his drawing. He is almost always on the right
address. side-sometimes, like his great chief Mr.
-
When, however, we come to consider th Punch, not on the popular one.

circumstances and pressure under which From the wonderful fidelity with which he
these blocks were almost always engraved, rendered the cabmen and gamins of London,
the wonder will be that they were so perfect. we might suppose he had them into his
The blocks upon which he drew were com room to sit to him as studies. He never did
posed of small squares, fastened together at this; he liked actions better than states. He
the back, so that when the drawing was com was perpetually taking notes of all he saw ;
pleted on the block, it was unscrewed, and but this was the whole, and a great one.
the various pieces handed over to a number With this, and with his own vivid memory
of engravers, each having a square inch or and bright informing spirit, he did it all. One
two of landscape, figure, or face, as the case thing we may be pardoned for alluding to as
might be, not knowing what proportion of illustrative of his art. His wife, who was
light and shade each piece bore to the whole. every way worthy of him, and without whom
Had these blocks been carefully and he was scarce ever seen at any place of pub
thoughtfully engraved by one hand, and then lic amusement, was very beautiful; and the
been printed by the hand instead of the appearance of those lovely English maidens
steam press, we might have seen some of we all so delight in, with their short fore
the finesse and beauty which the drawing heads, arch looks, and dark laughing eyes,
showed before it was “cut away.” their innocence and esprit, dates from about
There was nothing that was so great a his marriage. They are all, as it were, after.
mark of the gentleness of his nature as his her, —her sisters; and as she grew more ma
steady abstinence from personality. His cor tronly, she may still be traced in her mature
respondence was large, and a perusal of it comeliness and motherly charms. Much of
only shows how careful he must have been, his sketches and their dramatic point are
to have shunned the many traps that were personal experience, as in “Mr. Briggs has a
laid for him to make him a partisan in per Slate off his House, and the Consequences.”
sonal quarrels. Some of the most wonder He was not, as indeed might be expected,
ful suggestions were forwarded to him, but what is called a funny man. Such a man
he had a most keen scent for everything in was Albert Smith, whose absolute levity and
the shape of personality. - funniness became ponderous, serious, and
We need do little more than allude to the dreary, the crackling of thorns under the
singular purity and good taste manifested in pot. Leech had melancholy in his nature,
everything he drew or wrote. We do not especially in his latter years, when the strain
know any finer instance of blamelessness in of incessant production and work made his
art or literature, such perfect delicacy and fine organization super-sensitive and appre
cleanness of mind,—nothing coarse, -nothing hensive of coming evil. It was about a year
having the slightest taint of indecency,– before his death, when in the hunting field,.
no double entendre,—no laughing at virtue,— that he first felt that terrible breast-pang, the
no glorifying or glozing of vice,—nothing to last agony of which killed him, as he fell into
make any one of his own lovely girls blush, his father's arms; while a child's party, such
or his own handsome face hide itself. This as he had often been inspired by, and given
gentleness and thorough gentlemanliness to us, was in the house. Probably he had
pervades all his works. They are done by by some strain, or sudden muscular exertion,
a man you would take into your family and injured the mechanism of his heart. We all
to your heart at once. To go over his four remember the shock of his death: how every
volumes of Pictures of Life and Character is one felt bereaved,—felt poorer,—felt some
not only a wholesome pleasure and diversion: thing gone that nothing could replace,—
it is a liberal education. And then he is not some one that no one else could follow.
the least of a soft or goody man, no small What we owe to him of wholesome, hearty
sentimentalism or petit maitre work: he is a mirth and pleasure, and of something better,
man and an Englishman to the backbone; good as they are, than either—purity, affec
who rode and fished as if that were his chief tion, pluck, humour, kindliness, good humour,
business, took his fences fearlessly, quietly, good feeling, good breeding, the love of na
and mercifully, and knew how to run his ture, of one another, of truth—the joys of
salmon and land him. He was what is bet children, the loveliness of our homely Eng
ter still, a public-spirited man; a keen, hear lish fields, with their sunsets and village
ty. earnest politician, with strong convictions, spires, their glimpses into the pure infinite
a Liberal deserving the name. His political beyond—the sea and all its fulness, its waves
pencillings are as full of good, energetic poli “curling their monstrous heads and hanging
tics, as they are of strong portraiture and them,” their crisping smiles on the sunlit
sands—all that variety of nature and of man is impossible, from the size of our page, to
which is only less infinite than its Maker; give any of the larger, and often more com
something of this, and of that mysterious plete and dramatic drawings. We hope ours
uality called humour, that fragrance and will send everybody to the volumes them
£ of the soul, which God has given us selves. There should immediately be made,
to cheer our lot, to help us to “take heart so long as it is possible, a complete collection
and hope, and steer right onward,” to have of his works, and a noble monument to in
our joke, that lets us laugh at and make dustry and honest work, as well as genius and
game of ourselves when we have little else goodness, it would be.
to laugh at or play with—of that which gives * :: * * * * sk
us when we will the silver lining of the cloud,
and paints a rainbow on the darkened sky out We end as we began, by being thankful
of our own “troublous tears;”—something for our gift of laughter, and for our makers
of all these has this great and simple-heart of the same, for the pleasant joke, for the
ed, hard-working artist given to us and to mirth that heals and heartens, and never
our children, as a joy and a possession for wounds, that assuages and diverts. This, like
ever. Let us be grateful to him, let us give all else, is a gift from the Supreme Giver—to
him our best honour, affection, and regard. be used as not abused—to be kept in its
Mr. Leech was tall, strongly but delicately proper place, neither despised nor estimated
made, graceful, long-limbed, with a grave, and cultivated overmuch; for it has its perils
handsome face, a sensitive, gentle mouth, but as well as its pleasures, and it is not always,
a mouth that could be “set,” deep, penetrat as in this case, on the side of truth and virtue,
ing eyes, an open, high, and broad forehead, modesty and sense. If you wish to know
exquisitely modelled. He looked like his from a master of the art what are the dangers
works—nimble, vigorous, and gentle; open, of giving one's-self too much up to the comic
and yet reserved; seeing everything, saying view of things, how it demoralizes the whole
not much; capable of heartiest mirth, but man, read what we have already earnestly
generally quiet. Once at one of John Parry's commended to you, Sydney Smith's two lec
wonderful performances, “Mrs. Roseleaf's Tea tures, in which there is something quite
arty,” when the whole house was in roars, pathetic in the earnestness with which he
eech's rich laughter was heard topping them speaks of the snares and the degradations
all. There are, as far as we know, only two that mere wit, comicality, and waggery bring
photographs of him: one—very beautiful, upon the best of men. We end with his
like a perfect English gentleman—by Silvey; concluding words:—
the other more robust and homely, but very
good, by Caldesi. We hope there is a por “I have talked of the danger of wit and hu
trait of him by his devoted friend Millais, mour: I do not mean by that to enter into
whose experience and thoughts of his worth commonplace declamation against faculties be
as a man and as an artist one would give a cause they are dangerous;-wit is dangerous,
good deal to have. eloquence is dangerous, a talent for observation
When Thackeray wrote the notice of his is dangerous, everything is dangerous that has
sketches in The Times, Leech was hugely efficacy and vigour for its characteristics; no
delighted—rejoiced in it like a child, and thing is safe but mediocrity. The business is, in
conducting the understanding well, to risk some
said, “That's like putting £1000 in my thing; to aim at uniting things that are com
pocket.” With all the temptations he had monly incompatible. The meaning of an extra
to Club life, he never went to the Garrick to ordinary man is, that he is eight men, not one
spend the evenings, except on the Saturdays, man; that he has as much wit as if he had no
which he never missed. On Sunday after sense, and as much sense as if he had no wit;
noons, in summer, Thackeray and he might that his conduct is as judicious as if he were the
often be seen regaling themselves with their dullest of human beings, and his imagination as
brilliant as if he were irretrievably ruined. But
fellow-creatures in the Zoological Gardens, when wit is combined with sense and informa
and making their own queer observations, to tion; when it is softened by benevolence, and
which, doubtless, we are indebted for our restrained by strong principle; when it is in the
baby hippopotamus and many another four hands of a man who can use it and despise it,
footed joke. He never would go to houses who can be witty and something much better
where he knew he was asked only to be seen than witty, who loves honour, justice, decency,
good-nature, morality, and religion, ten thousand
and trotted out. He was not a frequenter of times
Mrs. Leo Hunter's at homes. better than wit;—wit is then a beautiful
and delightful part of our nature. There is no
more interesting spectacle than to see the effects
We now give a few typical woodcuts.” It of wit upon the different characters of men;
than to observe it expanding caution, relaxing
* See Am. Publishers' note, page 111. dignity, unfreezing coldness, -teaching age, and
care, and pain, to smile,—extorting reluctant innocent wit and humour like this, is surely the
gleams of pleasure from melancholy, and charm flavour of the mind / Man could direct his
ing even the pangs of grief. It is pleasant to ways by plain reason, and support his life by
observe how it penetrates through the coldness tasteless food ; but God has given us wit, and
and awkwardness of society, gradually bringing flavour, and brightness, and laughter, and per
men nearer together, and, like the combined fumes, to enliven the days of man's pilgrimage,
force of wine and oil, giving every man a glad and to ‘charm his pained steps over the burning
heart and a shining countenance. Genuine and marle.’”
* THE
NORTH BRITISH REVIEW.

No. LXXXIV.
FO R J U NE, 1865.
ART. I.—Friedrich August Wolf in seinem classical literature can expand it, and equally
Verhältnisse zum Schulwesen und zur impossible, in the application of that litera
Pädagogik dargestellt. Von Prof. Dr. ture to its purpose, to find any better exam
J. F. J. ARNOLDT. 2 Bde, 8vo. Braun ple of method than that of Wolf.
schweig, 1861–2. It would require a volume to do justice to
what Wolf was and effected in this function.
F. A. WoLF is known to us in this country, We can pretend to do no more than direct
if at all, in connexion with a certain theory the reader's attention to it in the following
of the origin of the Homeric poems. Here brief outline of his life and labours. In do
is a German life of him, in two volumes, in ing this, we shall have recourse, besides
which that authorship is barely alluded to. Wolf's own remains, which have never been
Professor Arnoldt treats of Wolf as a teacher collected, to an older biography, written by
exclusively. If sectional biography be defen his son-in-law, Körte. It is by no means a
sible at all, Professor Arnoldt needs no apowell-written book, but it is naive, simple, un
logy for bringing forward Wolf in this capa affected, real. Above all, it is a living book,
city. Wolf was eminently the professor; a natural account of a man by another man.
very secondarily the writer. Everything that Professor Arnoldt's book, on the other hand,
he wrote, even his famous Prolegomena to is written by a Prussian official. It is not in
Homer, was thrown upon paper under some any spoken language, but in that written dia
casual inducement. He # no elaborate lect which is current in Prussian bureaux.
work; nothing with which he was himself All imagination, all colouring, all individu
satisfied. His editions were prepared for the ality is expelled from these dreary sentences,
use of his classes. On the other hand, it was which average ten lines each, and of which
he who created, and who himself gave the we feel sure that no English or French read
first example of that enthusiasm for philolo ers would ever get through ten pages with
gical studies, which for sixty years—two ge out nausea.
nerations—has been the quickening life of
German education. Wolf seized, more com FRIEDRICH AUGUST WolF was born in.
pletely than any one, since the first teachers 1759, in the same year as Porson, of whom
of the Renaissance, that side of classical stu Wolf himself has noted that his birth was
dies by which they are qualified, more com: (Lit. An. iii. 285) exactly 200 years after
pletely than any other studies, to form and that of Casaubon. His father was in very
inspire the opening mind. Equally removed humble circumstances. He was village
from the grammatical pedantry of the old schoolmaster and organist of Hainrode, a lit
schoolmaster, and the superficial schön-geiste tle village at the foot of the Harz, not far
rei of the French Lyceum, Wolf, at once ac from Nordhausen. He was afterwards pro
curate and genial, struck out a new and ori. moted to be assistant-teacher in the girls'
ginal path. Wolf is the true author of school at Nordhausen, the highest preferment
modern classical culture. It appears to us he ever reached. But in the Harz, poverty
impossible to find any other material of men was not a synonyme for demoralization. The
tal cultivation which can expand the soul as housekeeping of the poor schoolmaster was
WOL. XLII. N-9
122 F. A. "Wolf. June,
exemplary. The tone of the family was quiet, the assistant-masters. Not one of them who
high minded, and aimed at good-breeding. had the honour of teaching, or misteaching,
Of his mother, Wolf always spoke with ten F. A. Wolf, but is handed down to posterity
der affection. To her he owed the awaken at full-length for what he accomplished or
ing of his intellectual life. She it was who what he neglected. Poor old Rector Fabri
had taught him to aim high. He never for cius, intrepidly teaching Greek grammar on
got her delight with him, when to the ques the verge of seventy, and solemnly admo
tion—what he would like to be the child nishing his boys to avoid “nefandas libidines,
stammered out, a “a superdent” (superin et linguas novicias,” was really learned in
tendent, i. e., “a bishop”). He often quoted literary history. His successor in the rec
her favourite axioms: “Poor! no one is poor torate, Hake, is described as a first-rate
but the devil; this is why people say, “Poor teacher, but was cut off at thirty-eight by a
devil!’” She would not hear of good dispo complaint brought on by over-study. Of
sition unless where the conduct was also him Wolf always spoke with gratitude for
good: “Neighbour's cow is well-disposed, but what he had learned of him in the few months
gives no milk.” The schoolmaster had also he was under him. The next rector, Albert,
his proverbial philosophy. The secret of was an ignoramus. The best thing he could
happiness, he thought, might be communi do was what he did,—shut up the school for
cated in half a dozen axioms: “Take thank months together. Wolf now fell into bad
fully whatever Providence sends;” “Nihilad hands, or what seemed so. The young
nos,” “Optationes tabes sunt animi,” charac music-master was fast, if not dissipated, but
terize the mild wisdom of the much-enduring also variously accomplished, a union of quali
German. *
ties fascinating to a boy of fifteen, eager to
The father had had a little education; learn everything, and know life. Comrading
enough to make him ardently desire it for with him, Wolf, it seems, fell into bad habits.
his son. He was so impatient to begin, But they cannot have been very bad, as we
that before the infant was two years old, it find nothing specified worse than loafing,
knew a large number of Latin words, and and playing practical jokes on the rector,
had acquired a sort of notion of declension whose incapacity for his post was notorious
and conjugation. By the time he was eight in the city. We suppose the spirits and
years old, the boy had learnt Latin enough precocity of the boy were too much for the
to read an easy writer, the rudiments kleinstädter, in whose eyes the music-master,
of Greek and French; could sing and play Frankenstein, was a veritable rip, a “cantor
the piano. His memory was as remarkable Tigellius.” When the schoolmaster's son
as Porson's. At this age he could retain forsook Greek for French, his ruin must have
from ten to fifteen lines on hearing them been half accomplished. These frolics, how
once read over. The father tried on him a ever, left no trace in Wolf's later life, unless so
variety of experiments which Wolf long far as they may have contributed, together with
afterwards recognised in Quintilian. But his own native vein of humour, to save him
his ordinary way was the simple way: con from starching into a Prussian martinet. In
tinued reading aloud with distinct utterance Wolf the man was never extinguished under
and exact pronunciation, learning by heart the Doctor. He himself always maintained
and repeating, combined with mental arith that he owed much to the cynical precentor,
metic. The removal to Nordhausen brought whom he called “a rough diamond.” Frank
a grammar school within reach. Nordhausen enstein knew little Latin and Greek, but he
is now a Prussian town with a manufacturing was a good French scholar, and could read
population of 16,000. It was then a quiet Italian, Spanish, Dutch, and English. Under
Imperial city, within its own walls, and with his auspices Wolf took up French and Italian
perhaps not half that number of inhabitants. together; pushed these with his characteris
But it had its grammar school, the stepping tic impetuosity as far as to read Molière and
stone for the very poorest of its citizens to the the Jerusalem Delivered, and then began
university and the world. Young Wolf rapidly Spanish. As Frankenstein's housekeeper
passed through all the forms to the top of had mislaid the Spanish dictionary in her
the school. At twelve, he had learnt all the lodger's bed, Wolf was obliged to get
Latin and Greek his masters here could teach.
through Don Quixote with help of a Dutch
They would teach nothing else. The best translation, thus pulling a pair of sculls.
of them, Hake, finding the boy reading Dictionaries were not to be had at the Nord
Wieland's Musarion, snatched the book from hausen stationer's. Frankenstein had to lend
his hands, not because it was a bad book, his pupil his own wretched Italian vocabulary;
but because it was written in German. Of and as he could only part with it for a short
this Nordhausen we know all about the time, Wolf set to work and copied out all the
head-masters, the second-masters, and down to words to which neither Latin nor French
1865. P. A. Wolf. 123
would help him. He got the loan of a book which he had not time to read, he
‘Bailey' for one month, wrote out one-third, committed the title to memory, and ran over
and committed the rest to memory. He the preface and table of contents. In this
found a Jew in the city to teach him the way he laid the foundation of his extensive
rudiments of Hebrew grammar, and then knowledge of the literature of Philology.
threw himself with all his might into music, An instinct of good sense kept him in his
learning five or six instruments, and studying youth to the best authors, and in their
general bass, as if he had been designed, like proper order. As his horizon widened, his
his younger brother Theodore, for the musi ambition to exhaust it grew. He used to
cal profession. He took dancing lessons, look back with a shudder at what he exacted
and of course fell in love, not with any of from his constitution in those two years, be
the young ladies—little girls, and beneath. tween school and university. He would sit
the notice of a man of sixteen—but with a up the whole night in a room without a
charming widow who superintended the stove, his feet in a pan of cold water, and
class. -
one of his eyes bound up to rest the other.

Such was Wolf's idle time, in Nordhausen It was high time that this suicidal process
eyes. It was not long before he began to should cease, when, in April 1777, it was
think so himself. He returned with more brought to a close by his removal to the
zest than ever to classics. Having fared so university.
ill in the way of teachers, he resolved, like
Scaliger, to begin again, and be his own GöttingEN, 1777–1779.—He had already
teacher. Had his tutors been better, there been to Göttingen, trudging from Nordhausen
was something in Wolf's nature which would on foot, in March of the previous year, to
not be taught. He thought it some pecu secure a lodging and make the necessary
liarity of his mind that he never could bear arrangements. The second journey he had
a teacher three days together. He was still the luxury of an Einspanner to carry his
nominally at school. But the masters con clothes and books, and might himself mount
nived at his absence, judging, like Gibbon's on the top when tired. Though they left
Magdalen tutors, that his time would be Nordhausen at dawn, it was dark before they
better employed elsewhere. He always reached the last village, where they had to
maintained that the character is formed be put up for the night. Wolf's first act on
tween twelve and fifteen. Of himself he said, entering Göttingen was to recruit himself
that all that he afterwards became he was at with a good sleep, after which he set out to
thirteen. Certainly the bent his studies now be matriculated. Wolf insisted on being
took was that which they afterwards obeyed. inscribed in the fmatriculation book as “Stu
He resolved to devote himself to classics, dent of Philology.” The pro-rector, Bal
and drew out an extensive scheme of self dinger, an M.D. of some celebrity, laughed
education. An idea possessed him that, at the absurdity, and informed him that
owing to the incompetency of his masters, he there was no such faculty. Medicine, Law,
had been fundamentally mistaught. What Arts, and Theology were the four faculties;
if all he had been told as history should turn if he wanted (God forbid he should ) to be.
out mere fable? Beginning again with come a schoolmaster, the way was to enter
the declensions, he read with new eyes the as student of Theology. Wolf, with his
Latin and Greek classics, some carefully, habitual obstinacy, refused to see the force
others more cursorily; learnt by heart whole of this. He meant to study Philology, and
books of Homer, much of the Tragedians did not intend to study Theology; why
and Cicero, and went through the whole of should he be called what he was not? The
Scapula and Faber's Thesaurus. He early pro-rector gave up the point, and Wolf was
saw how important it is to know in what books actually inscribed as “Student of Philology,”
required information is to be looked for. He the first instance, not only at Göttingen, but
had long exhausted the scanty school library, at any university. That matriculation was
of which he exercised, as by natural right, an epoch in German education.
the guardianship. He borrowed of the two After the pro-rector came the rector. This
ministers and the physician, the only persons was no other than Heyne, already at the
in the Imperial free city who had books. In height of his celebrity, and all-powerful in
Ilfeld, a neighbouring town, he found, be the university. Wolf had waited on Heyne
sides another school library, a collection of the year before, bringing a letter of introduc
books belonging to one of the masters, tion. Heyne had received the awkward
Leopold, who had edited some lives of Plu youth with his habitual discourtesy. Heyne,
tarch. From his frequent visits here, him who was in fact overwhelmed with more
self and his mother would return home both business than he could get through, always
loaded with books. When he got hold of a had the air of grudging the minutes he gave
124 J7. A. Wolf. \ June,
to those he had to see officially. You saw examined him, nor ascertained his point of
that he was wishing the whole time that you proficiency, nor showed any inclination to
would go. He hastily glanced at the letter, interest himself in his reading in any way.
and £ young Wolf, who had been stupid Heyne's indifference made a deep impression
enough to advise him to study “what he upon Wolf. It is true, indeed, that it read
called Philology?" Wolf blundered out that him a useful lesson. When he became Pro
this was the only study that had ever had fessor, he made it a rule never to send a stu
any attraction for him. “Attraction I but it dent away without seeing him, and giving
is not one of the university studies at all ! him his best attention. However pressed by
You must be either theologian or jurist, and business, however pre-occupied with literary
then you may give a little time by the way research, he regarded a call from a pupil as
to classics, if you find you have leisure. a first claim on his time; this too at Halle,
That's the way I did?" Wolf was struck surrounded by students whose poverty made
dumb at hearing the great philologian, whose them importunate, while Heyne had to do
name was awful through all the schools of with the better-bred and better-to-do Hano
North Germany, slight his own art, and verians. Wolf took care not to inflict upon
repel a would-be disciple. Recovering him his own pupils the discomforts which Heyne's
self, he explained that “he looked not for slight had entailed upon himself. So far,
bread, but for fame. Not that he was well Heyne had unintentionally done him a service.
off, but that his liking for classical studies But from this first interview all the relations
was so strong, he was ready to make sacri of scholar and teacher received an unhappy
fices to gratify it. Were it only on account bias, from which they never recovered, and
of the greater intellectual freedom, he vastly which exercised an important influence on
preferred these studies to Theology. No Wolf's whole career.
philologian was branded as a heretic for Before leaving the Professor's apartment,
holding singular opinions.” . For an instant Wolf entered his name for a private course
Heyne was surprised out of his official re on the Iliad. This was then Heyne's crack
serve, and exclaimed, “Freedom where is lecture. He was known to be preparing an
freedom to be found if this life? The young edition of Homer which was to drive out of
must obey; and, in after life, let alone our the field all others: not an impossible enter
superiors, there is always the public usurping prise, seeing that Ernesti's revision of Clarke
an authority over our actions. As for classi was in possession. Wolf came to this course
cal studies they are the straight road to with the overstrained anticipations of a
starvation. At this moment lie on my desk freshman. He took pains, which freshmen
letters from rectors and correctors (head and do not always take, in preparing for it. He
second masters of grammar schools), who tell noted all the books cited in the introductory
me that they would be glad to be hanged, lecture, assembled them round him, and
from actual destitution. Not all the learning spent often twenty hours in preparation for
in the world can get a thaler out of the a single lecture. The result was, that at the
purses of school committees. Professors in end of five weeks, and the first book of the
the classical department are but a little Iliad, Wolf absented himself. He was dis
better paid. There are about four—at appointed. The lecturer's commentary
most six—good chairs of Philology in Ger seemed to him superficial. Heyne said of
many.” The young aspirant modestly sug himself that he prelected as “a dog drinks
gested that one of those six he destined for from the Nile.” There was a “hesitation—
himself. After this there was nothing left what seemed to Wolf a helplessness—in his
for Heyne but to laugh. He took a friendly method.” “We might read so and so, but
leave of the future Professor of Philology, it is better, perhaps, to keep the old read
kindly intimating that any lectures of his for ing.” “Emendation is a hazardous game!”
which Wolf entered his name should cost **&n any one explain that?” Wolf's deser
him nothing. tion could not escape even the short-sighted
Heyne had not forgotten this conversation Heyne. He had his revenge on the deserter.
when Wolf came before him the second time. Next semester Heyne announced a course on
After a little demur the “Studiosus Philo Pindar. The obscurities of Pindar particu
logiae” of the matriculation book was suffered larly stimulated Wolf, who had long ex
to pass. But when Wolf would have en hausted the little light that the commen
tered into some explanations about himself, tators—Schmid, to wit, and Benedict—could
Heyne abruptly wished him good-day, and afford. He attended to give in his name.
retreated into his study. He left the youth, “This,” said Heyne, “is a private course, to
of whom he must have seen that he required which only advanced students are to be ad
and deserved advice and guidance in no ordi mitted.”. Wolf indignantly demanded to be
mary degree, without either. He neither examined. Heyne took no notice of this,
1865. F. A. Wolf. 125
but declined to take his name. Some time knocked at his door. He himself was as
afterwards, Heyne, who was placable, offered sparing in his visits to others. He was never
Wolf a nomination to his philological semi even present at a students' drinking bout, till
nary, on condition of sending in the usual at Halle, after he had become Professor. His
written exercise. Wolf retaliated by neither Nordhausen attachment, though not an en
giving in the exercise nor taking notice gagement, preserved him from vulgar temp
of the offer. This headstrong temper clung tation, and he had not the entrée of a single
to Wolf through life. What made his house in the town. During the whole three
conduct on this occasion more foolish, was, years of his university life £ had no female
that Heyne's voice was all-powerful with the society. His books were all in all to him.
Hanoverian Government, and that a Göttin The weekly batch which he drew from the
gen student could not carry with him into public library must be got through in the
the world any better recommendation than time. Recreations he had none. We are
to have been one of Heyne's seminarists. not surprised to hear that at the end of his first
To the Nordhausen boy, Göttingen had ear he was prostrated by a severe attack of
meant Heyne. If he could not learn from illness. The skill of Baldinger and Weiss
Heyne, what could he learn from such poor saved his life, and a visit to his native air
creatures as Vollborth, Suchfort, Kulenkamp, recruited him. But he had learnt a lesson,
a pastor, who, however, lectured upon Sopho and from this time forward his lamp was al
cles? They lived upon fragments of Heyne, ways extinguished by midnight.
carried off years before in their Heften. It In later life, and in a published letter,
is true that Göttingen contained Michaelis, Wolf did not hesitate to ascribe the irregu
and Walch, and Meiners, and Blumenbach. larity of his studies at the university to
Wolf attended regularly or irregularly, and Heyne's neglect of him. With Wolf's after
admired the learning of Walch, and the cri career before us, we cannot help thinking
tical method of Michaelis. But they did that his own headstrong and self-willed
not teach classics. He gradually withdrew character had at least as much to do with it.
from the class-rooms altogether. The first In the result it was as well. Since Gibbon,
day of a new course would see him there who took to Magdalen “a stock of learning
diligently taking down all the authorities which might have puzzled a doctor,” so ex
which on such occasions the lecturer would traordinary a student had perhaps never
recite and criticise. Armed with this biblio entered a university. Not that Göttingen,
graphical fist he hurried to the library, car in 1777, had sunk to the level of Oxford in
ried off, by favour of one of the sub-librarians, 1754. Even Wolf might at eighteen have
a basket-load of books, and shut himself in learnt from a less than Heyne. Heyne was
his room till he had gone through them. essentially a dull, wooden man,—a pigtail
The marks of a “reading man” in a Ger professor after all. But there was life within,
man university are the number of the courses if you could break through to it. Heyne
he undertakes, the regularity with which he had an apprehension of antiquity as a real
attends to the hour, and the diligence with world. Without any originality of view
which his pen follows the Professor's voice. himself, he had the skill to adapt the sug
Wolf despised Heften, and even to give his gestions of more philosophical modern
attention to a speaker for an hour was irk minds to the ancient world. He mediated
some to him. But if he was little seen in between the ancient and the modern world.
the Auditorium, he was never to be found in He did not invent historical science, but he
the streets, the Kneipe, or the Conditorei. first applied it, as it was supplied to him by
He gave up lectures to save time. Of this others, to antiquity. Before him the mytho
he was so great an economist that he logy of Greece and Rome was a farrago of
rudged the time spent in walking from one nursery tales. He at least led the way to an
£ to another, in dressing, but especially intelligent interpretation of it. To have .
in hair-dressing. This last he put a stop to been near Heyne, to have caught his points
at the end of the first week. He had his of view, would have been of great service to
hair cut short, and replaced the pigtail by a Wolf. That Wolf did learn from Heyne,
perruque, in defiance of the singularity, thus that he did get from him, not directly but
saving himself the hours wasted in waiting indirectly, all that Heyne was capable of
upon the friseur. He simplified his dressing giving him, appears to us highly probable.
—of washing, of course there is no mention Most of us learn through our sympathies.
—till he could boast that the operation cost But there are natures who also learn through,
him three minutes out of his day. His ac their antipathies, natures which acquire from
uaintances were many, but he, contracted that which they resist. Wolf did not want
£ or no intimacies. He had no leisure for drilling in the technical part of scholarship,
friendship. . It was rare that a comrade a part which was Heyne's weakest side. He
*
126 F. A. Wolf. June,
wanted insight, method, suggestions of mean by the offer. Heyne, however, contrived to
ing, drift, and purpose. His keen ear, on mortify him by requiring of him a trial les
the watch for every whisper, collected we do son. The pretext of this was, that the ap
not doubt by other methods as much of this pointment rested with the Ilfeld masters. It
sort as he could have got from attending did so formally. But it was well known that
Heyne with the utmost diligence. Wolf Heyne's recommendation was a command,
himself admitted that he had learned from and that he repeatedly sent his own semina
Heyne. He would have been more liberal rists to fill vacancies without further cere
in his acknowledgments had it not been ne mony. A letter from Heyne to the head
cessary for him to defend himself against master of Ilfeld has been discovered in the
Heyne's claim to have suggested his Homeric school archives there, which leaves no doubt
theories. . This claim Wolf indignantly re as to Heyne's feeling towards Wolf:—
jected. But, putting the Homeric theory
aside, we say that Heyne contributed to form has“30th August, 1779.— . . Herr Wolf ...
capacity, but I don’t like him. We must
Wolf. The process, indeed, was not that of not go by that in this case. I have told him
docile attendance in a lecture-room, but rude that he goes to Ilfeld to give a probationary les
collision, perhaps necessary to sharpen the son, and that he is not to think that he has got
attention of a defiant and unreceptive mind the place. I beg you will put him to a severe
such as that of Wolf. Wolf was quite capa trial, and specially to test him on the point of
ble of nursing his resentments, and sacrific docility. Set him a passage in Greek and ano
ing comfort to brooding over the wounds of ther besides,
in Latin to put a class through, and let
pride. But the restlessness of his faculties him, correct an exercise which you have
dictated to your boys.”
would not allow him to miss any notions
which might be floating in his neighbourhood. Wolf was fully alive to the affront con
Negligent as he was of lectures, Wolf carried trived for him, but had the good sense to
away from Göttingen all that for his pur submit. He was of course appointed, but
oscs was to be learnt there. , only to the second of two assistant-master
The Professors, however shut up in their ships which were vacant at the same time.
Fachstudien, could not but remark the pre On 29th October, 1779, he went through the
sence of such a phenomenal student. They ceremony of induction into his new post.
did so, but without understanding the phe There is a “report” to Heyne upon his les
nomenon. Indeed, looked at from the dons' son; “report” on that report by Heyne to
side, there was so much presumption and the department at Hanover; “rescript” of
self-conceit—the commonest of all pheno minister ordering Wolf's installation; “deed”
mena—that they may be pardoned for not of installation, four pages in length; exe
having looked beyond. How must the great cution of deed by Wolf; finally, ceremony
Heyne have been ruffled, when going one of “induction” to office,—which office is
morning to the library for the literature il that of fourth master in a school of forty
lustrative of the Latin classic on which he boys. Surely the paper-lust of a German
was going to lecture, he found the whole bureau is satiated | Not at all! there is yet
apparatus criticus to that author swept clean the “report” of the induction ceremonial,
out of the shelves! Who could have got chronicling with faithful prolixity how the
the books? There was only one person who new collaborator was introduced at 10 A.M.
knew his way to them. This was Wolf, into the great class-room, where the assem
who, in his usual odd way of following a lec bled school was addressed by Director Meis
ture without attending it, was reading ahead ner,-here abstract of Director's discourse,—
of Heyne's course on Latin literature; re whereupon the pupils promised fealty to
versing the usual practice, and being present Wolf; how, between eleven and twelve, he
in spirit, not in the flesh. He was an un was led round the rooms and introduced to
canny inmate of a comfortable university. each boarder singly; how, at twelve, they
Still more so when he began to give lectures sat down to table; how, after dinner, they
as a private tutor, and got considerable classes. took him to the music-lesson, etc. All these
They were glad to get rid of him. This documents are still to be seen in the archives
Heyne managed. Though not a seminarist, at Ilfeld or Hanover.
Heyne made him the offer of a place in the ILFELD AND OsTERoDE, 1779–1783.—We
Government school at Ilfeld, of which Heyne will not be betrayed by our authorities into
was curator. This school was a select gram a detailed account of Wolf's school life.
mar school of the higher class; not a local Two points only must be noticed. The
gymnasium, but a grammar school on the proportion of masters to boys was libe
English system, where about forty boys were ral, consequently none of the masters were
boarded. Places in it were much coveted, overwhelmed with work. Much time was
and Wolf was at once pleased and surprised thus left to Wolf for his own studies. Ho
1865. F. A. Wolf. 127
mer—here we see Heyne's influence—had meeting. Then the Doctor triumphed. At

occupied him much at Göttingen. It con other times, we find Meisner whining to
tinued to do so; and it was at Ilfeld that Heyne: “I know not how I am to carry on
his ideas on the composition of the Homeric the directorate, when it comes to such a pass
poems took root in his mind. He had some that the young people are grasping at all the
negotiation with a publisher at Berlin about power! I must beg that my authority may
a volume of “Homeric Researches” which be upheld, as is very needful.”
he projected. It fortunately came to nothing Wolf had already, at twenty-two, out
then. He had already begun to work upon grown a subordinate sphere, when, in the
Plato, and contemplated an “Introduction” autumn of 1781, he was promoted, in the
to Plato for the use of students. This was most unexpected way, to an independent
also dropped. But he actually published an post. He happened to see an advertisement
edition of the Symposium (Leipz. 1782). in a newspaper, already three months old,
It is remarkable for having notes and preface that the municipality at Osterode, in the
in German, being one of the earliest exam Harz, would shortly proceed to the election
ples of this innovation. But we are not to of a head-master at their grammar school.
infer that Wolf deliberately approved the Within an hour, Wolf was in a vehicle on
fashion which soon set in. He had an un the road to Osterode. He found on arrival
avowed object in his experiment. The great that the place was as good as promised to
Friedrich's Letter to his Minister Von Zed one Krause, a private tutor at Göttingen.
litz, in 1779, had sounded like the call of a Wolf, not to be daunted, got leave to deliver
trumpet through all the schools of North a trial lesson, and so captivated the electors,
Germany. Wherever there was found a man with the Superintendent at their head, that
of ambition or of zeal, his secret hope and they threw poor Krause overboard, and pro
rayer was to receive a call to Prussia. ceeded to elect Wolf unanimously. There
What Wolf's secret thoughts were, may be was a momentary hitch, owing to the High
gathered not only from the allusion in the Consistory in Hanover exacting a theological
Preface to “the philosopher on the throne examination, to which Wolf declined to sub
and his enlightened minister,” from the com mit. This was got over. The promotion to
pliment to Gedike, at that time all-powerful be Rector of Osterode school, with its 700
with Von Zedlitz, but from the character of thalers a year and house, was the more
the innovation, which aims at that “logical welcome to Wolf, as he had recently en
analysis of the matter” on which the “Let gaged himself with Sophia Hüpeden, daugh
ter” had laid such peculiar stress. ter of a Justiz-amtmann at Neustadt. In
Besides the Symposium, Wolf printed an March, 1782, he was settled at Osterode with
edition for school use of Lillo's Fatal Curi his bride. In August, 1783, he left it for
osity, with a short account of the author's Halle. In that short interval he had re
life in English. A copy of this would be a organized a school fallen to decay during the
bibliographical curiosity, since all the efforts rectorate of his blind and aged predecessor,
of Wolf's biographer to recover one have who had been thirty years in office, restored
been unsuccessful. But these were the di. its credit in the neighbourhood, and so en
vertisements of his leisure. Wolf was never hanced his own reputation that two offers of
the writer. And though a prodigious reader, better schools came to him before the end of
he threw now an undiminished energy into the year. One of these, that of Gera, with
his school work. He soon became the life a salary of 900 thalers, and a seat in the
of Ilfeld. He reformed more than one mal Consistory, was a highly desirable offer. To
practice in the school, and yet contrived to Gera he would have gone, when, just at the
keep on good terms with his colleagues. He moment, came the much-desired call to a
even improved his footing with Heyne. We Prussian university. The Symposium had
can easily understand that he had frequent hit the mark. It had been brought under
collision with the Director. Meisner was a the notice of Von Zedlitz. Inquiries had
personage irritably jealous of his authority, been made at Göttingen and at Ilfeld, and of
and here was the youngest of his staff con Reiz in Leipzig, and in spite of an unfavoura
tinually throwing him into the shade. Noth ble reply from Heyne, a call had been sent
ing could have withstood Wolf's ascendency to a chair of “Philology and Pädagogik”
had his judgment been equal to his force of in the University of Halle. This sounds
character. He was ever and anon putting excellent; but alas, the parsimony of the
himself in the wrong from neglect of official great King! who wanted good professors,
etiquettes. He would bring a complaint di but thought they ought to be had very cheap;
rectly before a college meeting, instead of only 300 thalers could be allowed for “Phi
lodging it with the Director, whose place it lology and Pädagogik.” Only £45 a year
was, by the statutes, to bring it before the and no house! The curate, mentioned by
128 r
F. A. Wolf. June,
Bishop Blomfield in one of his pamphlets, of the press, and the penetrative propagand
who advertised to teach “the Greek lan of French literature. The call for school re
guage, according to the method of the late form had spread widely over the north of
Professor Porson, in six lessons, for one Europe, but nowhere had it met with a
guinea,” could hardly have undersold one of readier response than in North Germany.
Friedrich's professors. Its representatives here were that advanced
No prudent man, about to become a father, section of reformers, of whom Basedow is
would have decided as Wolf did. He de the best known. Men of strong character
cided for Prussia, every way, purse includ and of eccentric career, these reformers who
ed,—wisely, as the event showed. But his surrounded Basedow were seldom on suffi
decision was most disinterested at the time. ciently good terms with consistories to be pre
A Prussian university then had other in sentable to public schools, even by so liberal
ducements more attractive even than pay; a government as that of Friedrich II. They
and first-rate men are more willing to starve were therefore obliged to attempt their reform
than an inferior class, for these inducements. from without, by setting up an institution
The fault was not with Von Zedlitz, who did of their own—the Philanthropinum at Des
what he could; but the purse-strings were sau. Their programme was a radical reform
held so tight by the King that money was of the methods hitherto used. Education
not to be got. Even to build the new libra was no longer to bear the stamp of the con
ry at Halle he must squeeze the funds out of vent. We must follow nature in everything,
the sum allowed for the professors. “You and let the child grow. Education of the
have my thanks,” wrote Von Zedlitz to Wolf, head is everything, for the road to the heart
“for preferring Halle to Gera; the greater is through the head. What is taught must
resort of men of learning, the concourse of be realities. Languages are only to be learnt
hearers, and liberty of thought, may in some for the matters to which they are the key.
measure compensate you for the sacrifice.” There is so much in the modern world worth
How are things changed since 1783! knowing, that all superfluities must be re
HALLE, 1783–1806.—Wolf had never lost trenched from our course to find room for
an opportunity or wasted an hour. Here he the essential. All dead languages, however
was, at twenty-four, with a learned reputa curious their literature, belong to the super
tion, a secured position, and a career openedfluous. All teaching should i. by intuition.
before him, such as other men hope to ob Learning should be made agreeable to the
tain at forty. The twenty-three years spent child. Man is by nature good. God, the
at Halle were bright, happy, and genial. Almighty Father, loves all his children.
He had an occupation in which he delighted, The love of man is natural to man; chil
into which he threw himself heart £ soul. dren should be trained through love. They
He had the satisfaction of doing a great and should regard themselves as citizens of the
growing work, of breathing a new life, not world. Such were the principles of the re
only into Halle, but into all the Protestant formers.
universities of Germany. Gesner, Ernesti, In Prussia, with which we have more par
and Heyne, had indeed been pioneers of the ticularly to do, the views and efforts even of
road, but the impulse to movement on it this more extreme party were looked on with
came from Wolf. Like all great men and a certain degree of approbation. Von Zed
great movements, neither would have been litz, the enlightened Cultus-minister of
what they were but that the time was come Friedrich II, was quite willing to introduce
for them. into Prussia what was good in their plans.
In 1783 two tendencies were in conflict He sent Schütz, one of the Halle professors,
in German education—an old and a new. to Dessau to inquire and report. The re
The innovators were of that school of which port was not favourable. But the breaking
Locke was the philosopher and Rousseau the up of the establishment at Dessau, in the
prophet. They loudly denounced the waste latter years of the seventh decennium (Base
of youthful years and freshness on the pe dow withdrew in 1778), was for education,
dantic methods of the grammar schools, the says Schlosser, “what the dispersion at Babel
confinement of instruction within the narrow was for civilisation in Asia.” The Dessau
orbit of the dead languages and theology, teachers carried their ideas with them into
and called for a modern education for mo every country. Trapp was brought.to Halle.
dern life. On the other hand, the schools and A new professorship, that of Pädagogik, was
universities were in possession, and, in the created expressly for him, and a kind of
name of orthodoxy, clung with fierce tena training-school—Erziehung's—institut,--re
city to Latin and Greek. The modern cently erected, was committed to his guid
party had the advantage of having with ance.
them the sympathies of the age, the power Halle was not an unpromising soil for the
1865. F. A. Wolf. 129
experiment. It was a new university. was to be a school for breeding masters of

Founded in 1696, it had not a tap-root run grammar schools, and humanistic studies
ning deep into the classical revival of the were to form a chief part of its curriculum.
sixteenth century. It had itself originated Niemeyer was to give the classical instruc
in a certain reforming movement. Not in tion; Trapp was to lecture on the art of
the movement for the reform of education, teaching (Pädagogik).
which had not yet begun, but in that move Trapp turned out an entire failure. Suc
ment for the regeneration of Protestantism, cessful at Dessau, in a school with boys, he
which was afterwards known by the name of was useless as a lecturer in a university. The
Pietism. Halle was the Pietist university, reason of this is simple. He was a zealous
and had shared the vicissitudes of that reli empiric, and not well-grounded in any branch
gious movement with which it had been of knowledge. He found that he had mis
associated. Pietism had begun as a life, had taken his vocation, and, in the third year of
stiffened into a doctrine, and was dying out his experiment, withdrew to Hamburg, to
in the shape of a party. Its principle of life take charge of a school. When Trapp re
was fled, but its tenacity of existence re signed, Von Zedlitz wrote to the King that
mained. The theological faculty at Halle he did not consider the loss irreparable, and
had sunk into being what the theological fa that he was already in treaty “with an able
culties at the older universities had long man in the Electorate of Hanover.” This
been,—merely the gate to the ministry. The was Wolf, who came to Halle to succeed
three-year course was curtailed to two years, Trapp. “Do your best,” wrote Von Zedlitz,
and only the barely necessary lectures given “to remove from Halle the only reproach to
or attended. But the faculty of Theology which it is open,—that it is not a school of
was the gate, not only to the ministry, but Philology.” This was what his patron in
also to the scholastic profession. The mas tended, and he himself understood his call in
ters of the middle schools, and in great part this sense. -
also of the grammar schools, qualified for Wolf's opening semester disappointed the
their posts in Theology. It was necessary, expectations of himself no less than his
therefore, that Latin and Greek should be friends. It seemed likely that he would turn
taught even to theological students. And out, like Trapp, a mistake, only on the other
accordingly classical lectures were given in side. Trapp knew nothing. Wolf found
the theological Seminarium by professors of no himself lecturing above the heads of his pu
mean merit, e.g., by Christian Gottfried Schütz, pils. He had thrown all his energy and
and by the young Niemeyer. At the same science into his lectures, but met no response.
time that Trapp was appointed Professor of He found himself without sympathy, with
Pädagogik (1779), Niemeyer was named In out appreciation, without a class. He fell
spector of the Seminarium, and charged into profound discouragement. He had for
with the classical teaching in it. Trapp was gotten that Halle was not Göttingen, where
not only a disciple of the new movement, but the labours of Gesner and Heyne, in a course
himself one of the Philanthropinists. Nie of years, had slowly created a school of
meyer was neither. A Halle man by birth classical taste and research. The ground re
and connexion, and a great-grandson of quired preparing for a crop. What was the
Francke, Niemeyer belonged by nature to “science of the ancient world”—Alterthums
Pietism. A pupil of Semler and Nösselt, he wissenschaft—to the sons of Saxon peasants,
was drawn by education towards a more libe who came to the University only to qualify
ral school of thought. But though a theo for places where, as pastors or schoolmasters,
logical professor, Niemeyer's interests were they might earn a livelihood, and lead an
educational. He threw himself with all his easy existence? Biester, Von Zedlitz's se
power into the effort now making to raise the cretary, consoled him by reminding him
character of the teacher. The schools had “that Heyne had experienced the same in
been taught by the clergy. School-teaching difference when he first began at Göttingen.
was a temporary occupation engaged in by a He must persevere; sound, thorough teach
young theologian till he could get a parish. ing would make its way in the end. The
The very first step must be to make it an in state of things he described in the University
dependent profession, with its own prospects was a serious evil, and to check it would be
and rewards, and above all, with its proper a signal service.” Another friend gave him
training. He who was to teach must first some advice very necessary in his narrow
learn what he was to teach, and not qualify circumstances. “I am sure that Von Zedlitz
for the office by learning something else. If means you well, and intends to increase your
he was to teach classics he must learn classics, salary. But take my advice, and keep your
not theology. On this principle the train self always well informed of the exact state
ing-institute at Halle was to be managed. It of the University chest. When you come
to know the esprit de corps in Halle, you will present schools. The master delivers lec
find that for every 150 thalers that become tures, and the boys ape the manners of stu
vacant, there are 150 claimants. Let it be dents. There is a clear line of demarcation
known at once among your colleagues that between school instruction and university in
the first vacant 150 thalers are promised to struction, which ought never to be over
you, and that you only accepted the call on stepped. The characteristic of university
that understanding. Ministers have short instruction may be denoted by the word
memories, no blame to them. Luckily they “science:” wissenschaft. I call all teaching
do not take it amiss to be reminded of one's scientific which is systematically laid out and
existence. Do not forget this. Lastly, if followed up to its original source, e.g., a
you wish to have a friend in Biester, send knowledge of classical antiquity is scientific,
him a paper for his monthly, and decline when the remains of antiquity are connect
payment.” Another friend added some use edly studied in the original languages.
ful hints on the personnel of the University. School teaching, on the other hand, is di
He ought to be extremely reserved at first rected to the memory and imagination. It
on coming into a place where the other pro must be preparatory to, not anticipatory of
fessors were mostly so much his seniors, and the university.
where the feeling towards the training-insti How are well-prepared schoolmasters to
tute, towards the Minister himself, and his be got for our schools? How, that is, are able
educational theories, was so various. He young men to be got to take the trouble of
should be on his guard against Semler—an educating themselves as schoolmasters?
incautious man, and a strong anti-Zedlitzian. Partly by exterior inducements, by better
Nösselt would be no friend, as his object was payment, and higher distinction—honor et
gently to push Niemeyer. He would find premium,--not only by raising the stipends
the concerts of the bookseller Gebauer a generally, but by occasional presents to de
good neutral-ground, where much might be serving men. Wolf always passes more
picked up under cover of the piano. Let lightly over this head than we should expect,
them call you close at first. Time will justify seeing that inadequate payment was, and
your behaviour as no more than prudent. still is, a Prussian schoolmaster's first griev
Thus encouraged, Wolf resolved to perse ance. We must remember that he was a
vere. He threw up the training-school, of professor, i.e., a paid servant of Government,
which he saw at once that he, at least, could and lived through evil times, when a murmur
make nothing, and laid himself out for philo was “sedition.” The omission in part may
logical teaching exclusively. To conquer in fairly be ascribed to his own disinterested
difference, to cure apathy, and to inspire new ness. But he does recur to it from time to
life into classical teaching, was to be his work. time, as in his half-ironical “Instructions to
In a very few years he succeeded; entirely Schoolmasters:” “Be always in good health,
changed the spirit of the University of Halle, and know how to fast courageously whenever
and through it of all the higher education in necessary.” By exterior rewards, then, but
Germany, waking in schools and universities not by them only. The first condition of a
an enthusiasm for ancient literature, second good teacher is that he should be a teacher,
only to that of the Revival in the sixteenth and nothing else; that he should be trained
century. From this, in fact, comes in great as a teacher, and not brought up to some
part both the direction and the force which other profession. In a word, the schools will
have ever since been impressed on secondary never be better as long as the schoolmasters
education in Germany. If we would explore are theologians by profession. The theolo
the secret of the superiority of their classical gical course in a university, with its smatter
training, we must go back to its source, to ing of classics, is about as good a prepara
the principles and practice developed at tion for a classical master as a course of feudal
Halle by F. A. Wolf. A very summary no law would be. Examinations may be better
tice is all that can be attempted here. than no test of fitness at all, but they are in
sufficient tests of fitness for office. You
If we wish to raise the universities from must train your masters under your own eye.
their present torpor, we must begin by rais No regulations can make good schools; we
ing the schools. The only way of raising must have men. Even training cannot do
the schools is to send them better-prepared all. To the making a successful teacher
schoolmasters. School reform means school there belongs a special charisma. No man
master reform. When the masters are better should dedicate himself to the profession who
able to teach, the scholars will come better does not feel a special vocation to it. A zeal
prepared to the university. Not that uni for his occupation, a love for youth, a genu
versity studies should be anticipated at ine, deeply-seated, religious devotion to the
school. There is too much of this in our service of the young, can alone, make the
1865. F. A. Wolf. 131
toilsome occupation of school-teacher en These languages, Latin especially, had been

durable. regarded as introductory to the professions;
In pursuance of this principle, Wolf, in as qualification for the study of Law or
1786, prevailed upon the Chancellor of the Theology. This was the meanest view that
University, Von Hoffman, to erect a phi could be taken of the subject. Again, the
lological seminarium. This was an institu languages had been regarded as the road to
tion parallel to the theological seminarium, the literature; and the literature was sup
and intended for the special training of posed to constitute what was called “learn
classical teachers, as that was for divines. ing.” This was a traditional superstition.
The “exterior” inducements were not great: There had, indeed, been a time when this
a “bourse,” or exhibition of 40 thalers, tena was really the fact. In the fifteenth and six
ble for two years. Wolf, as inspector, had teenth centuries, the works of the ancients
100 thalers. As the total number of semi were regarded not only as masterpieces of
narists was limited to twenty-four, the total art, but as the storehouse of all knowledge.
cost of an establishment which exercised so. Education consisted then in appropriating
vast an influence on education was about their thoughts. All the sciences were to be
£180 a year. Forty thalers may have been founded upon the principles they had laid
not unwelcome to an indigent Halle student. down. The history of the ancient world was
Still in the fact that sixty candidates offered the only school of the politician or the
themselves for the first examination, we see diplomatist. These views were true and fruit
evidence that Wolf's teaching had already, # in their day. They could be no longer
in the third year, begun to tell. No one was either. The sciences had attained such a
eligible till he had completed his first year development, that any school handbook con
of residence, though any student of any tained more truths of this sort than all the
faculty might be present at the seminary lec writings of antiquity. As vehicles of thought,
tures. As it was a new experiment, the the modern languages had superseded Latin.
original regulations were very simple, and in Nor, again, did the use of Philology lie in
practice were being continually altered or tracing the past history of science. True,
added to. Indeed, scarce a semester passed there were dark corners in the sciences,
without some modification being suggested which could be illuminated by a knowledge
by experience. When, in 1810, Wolf was of their past. But this was only a special
asked for a sketch of his method, he could application of their knowledge, not that
only say that it so happened that the prac which conferred on it its universal value.
tice of the philological seminarium had never To find this value we must rise to a higher
been reduced to written rules. Perhaps this elevation. Classical learning might be com
was not so purely accidental. Wolf's ten pared to a vast mountain-range, of which
dencies were autocratic. He was very jea the successive peaks offer wider and wider
lous of interference, even by authority. When prospects. On each of these summits men
once the Department of Education (Ober had been inclined, at various periods in the
schulcollegium) ventured to suggest that the history of learning, to rest as at the end of
instruction given in the seminary might be their journey. The toil of reaching many
made more popular, Wolf immediately sent of these heights was often well repaid, but
in his resignation. As inspector, he was they were not the top. The time was now
bound to send in his report every half-year, come when we might comprehend PHI
but it was rarely forthcoming till he had Lology as a whole, as no longer subsidiary
been several times admonished of his duty. to other studies, as a science in itself, having
He would allow no sub-tutor in the seminary its own end. He would propose to define
but pupils of his own training; young men this end as “knowledge of human nature as
like J. L. Thilo, or Immanuel Bekker, en exhibited in antiquity.” The expression
tirely devoted to his views. The seminary seems to have been supplied by Wilhelm von
thus was not only Wolf's creation, but was Humboldt (Humboldt to Wolf, Werke v.
wholly controlled and inspired by him. 18). It is largely developed by Wolf. When
The material inducement to Philology as we speak of “knowing human nature,” we
a profession being so meagre, Wolf insisted naturally think of that empirical worldly
craft which is got by much mixing with
that in the subject itself lay an all-sufficient
inducement. He had known many an ardent men. In our definition, the expression bears
young man to whom it was compensation the full sense of the words: the study of
enough, for starving pay, that he would be man's nature with its original forces and
always engaged with the very study, which, qualities, and the modification which varied
were he rich, he would have made his occu circumstances impose on those forms. This
pation. What was this study? Not the knowledge cannot be got from life. To get
acquisition of the Greek and Latin languages. it we must have our eye continually directed
132 JF. A. Wolf. June,
upon some great nation, and follow the edu milk. He was fond of quoting that sentence
cation of that nation through all its succes of Aristotle, where he is explaining why
sive stages. We must study a community, £ing should form a part of all liberal edu
not individuals. And what, in the knowledge cation.* “Recte studet qui sibi et vitae
of individuals, the study of some great man's studet” should be our motto. Liberal studies
biography is for us, that, in the knowledge followed in an illiberal spirit sink below any
of humanity, is done for us by the history of mechanical art in worth. It should be our
some highly cultivated nation. This is a constant endeavour to keep alive in our own
knowledge which cannot be communicated bosoms a love for study. In reading with
by teaching. In this respect it is like Phi. the fear of examination (Eramenscheu) be
losophy; it grows up in the mind as the fore our eyes, this is impossible. “Perverse
result of long-continued occupation with the studere qui examinibus studeant.”
object. It is a constantly growing picture Making classical study thus comprehen
of a national existence, to which we are sive, and fixing its aim thus high, Wolf de
insensibly adding fresh traits. To create scended in practice to the minutiae of ground
and preserve our conception of a full and ing. He regarded all university instruction
harmonious national life, requires our most as, at most, introducing the learner to the
strenuous mental effort; nothing less, in subject; teaching him to find his own way
short, than the devotion of our whole will in it. He would not load his pupils with
and attention. The sources from which this the outpouring of his own learning. He
conception is to be drawn are threefold—1. aimed at infusing his own spirit into them,
The written remains; 2. The works of art; that, entering into fresh combinations in new
and, 3. Other remains, such as buildings, personalities, it might strike out fresh and
inscriptions, coins, implements, weapons, etc. rich results for science. He refused, indeed,
To map out in detail the manifold sections unprepared students in the seminarium, re
into which this complex study branches, was quiring every one to bring with him a com
the object of a special course, called in Ger
petent knowledge of Greek and Latin. The
man university language, “Encyclopaedia of student must rise up to the instruction, not
Philology.” There is in print one draft of the instruction descend to him. He looked
such a course (Museum der Alterthumswis to the energy of the individual as the source
senschaft, i. 1), which, as dating in 1807, of his progress. In the seminary, all the
may be presumed to be in the form which work was done by the pupils themselves.
Wolf finally approved. It has been trans The inspector presided and directed, like the
lated into French; but it is almost unknown moderator in the old universities, but did
in this country, though we find that George not lecture. The exercises (Uebungen) were
Bancroft, the American historian, had pro of three kinds: interpretation, disputation,
jected an English translation, which, how teaching a school-class. On an “interpreta
ever, he did not execute. In it Wolf mar tion” day, the student whose turn it was
shals the whole contents of Philology into undertook not merely to render, or “con
six introductory, and eighteen material divi. strue” his author, but to support his inter
sions. The six introductory disciplines pre pretation by reasons. He was bound to
pare the student for entering within the show that he had used the best that com
circle of historical and real knowledge con mentators offered, but that he had, by reflec
tained in the other eighteen branches. These tion and comparison, made it his own. The
eighteen antiquarian sciences are themselves interpretation was to be strictly of the sense,
*
so many means, which, united, conduct to no exposition of the beauties, of the passage;
the contemplation of antiquity. This end, not aesthetical, but grammatical. When ne
this epopteia, or actual admission to the cessary only it might be critical of the text,
mysteries, is none other than that knowledge e.g., emendation is an admissible way of
of which we have already spoken—the meeting a difficulty in Martial, not so in
knowledge of man in the ancient world, as Virgil. “You are to imagine you have be
exhibited in an eminent organic common life. fore you the head form in a grammar school.”
This attainment is the final reward of the Though only one, or two at most, students
true student. It is in his constant endeavour were to be put on in the hour, yet every one
to grasp this many-sidedness of thought and was to prepare himself as fully as if it were
feeling that consists his progress, his self-cul his turn to interpret. The whole exercise
ture. As a condition of this higher culture was to be gone through in Latin, except
on the student's part, Wolf insisted on a when Wolf directed German, of which occa
feeling for the ideal. He resisted with all sions he never gave notice beforehand. A
his power that mean habit of thought, by
which he was surrounded in Halle, of looking * Tö £nrêiv ravraxod, rö Xpñaipov fixtara āppérret
at learning as the cow that kept the family in rot, txsv6foots.–Polit. viii. 3.
i *
1865. P. A. Wolf. 133
whole paragraph of connected meaning was had prospered, and administered praise or
to be taken at once. The main drift to be blame accordingly. By practice only, he
first stated in few words. Then to pass to was ever insisting, and not by theoretical
the secondary propositions; then to the rules, can one learn to teach. It is just like
words which were to be explained singly. any other art. One cannot learn to make
This method to be strictly adhered to, to shoes by drawing them with chalk on the
avoid confusion in the train of thought. The wall, without leather.
seminarist whose turn it was to interpret re The seminarium was one instrument, si
presented the professor for the time. When lently efficacious, by which Wolf raised
the interpreter got on tolerably, Wolf would classical studies in Germany. His public
allow him to proceed to the end of the hour lectures were the more brilliant and popular
without interrupting him once. But if he instrument of his success. In his Encyclo
perceived in the performer assumption, self pädie he sketched a comprehensive scheme
conceit, or a tendency to shirk difficulties, of philological research; he was prepared
his interference and correction were inces himself to give striking examples of original
sant. Many a seminarist who had incurred treatment in a great variety of the subjects
this fate, deservedly or undeservedly, “will into which he had partitioned it. He lec
remember as long as he lives,” says Schulz, tured, independently of the seminarium,
“the agony of such an hour” (Erinnerungen fourteen hours a week in summer, and
von F. A. Wolf, Berlin, 1836). The dis seventeen in the winter semester. He con
putations, also in Latin, were viva voce, but sidered two lectures a day a proper average
not extemporaneous. The respondent, who for a professor. Whoever attempts to read
chose his own opponent, had eight days' three hours, he would say, sinks into a mere
notice of his theme. They were to collect Heftleser. During the twenty-three years
all the matter they could on the subject he was at Halle, he seems to have read at
from books, and then arrange it in writing. least fifty different courses. Of these, many
The opponent must select for attack main were interpretations of classical authors.
points, not errors of expression or trivial Among the authors read we find the Iliad.
matters. He was not to linger pertinaciously This course was the most frequently re
on one weak point, but to pass on to the next. peated; ten times during the twenty-three
Two hours per week were allotted to inter years, i.e., every second year, for it was begun
pretation. Disputations were held at inter in 1785. The Odyssey was given three
vals of perhaps six weeks. Wolf was far times; the Homeric Hymns once. We find
from disapproving some vehemence in these besides the Greek dramatists, Hesiod, Theog
contests, and thought a disputant should take nis, Pindar, Aristophanes, Herodotus, Demos
in good part all that passed. Only, they thenes, and AEschines, Plato, Xenophon,
must not come to blows, arguments too Lucian, Longinus. Aristotle only occurs
hard. Acrimony of feeling should not be once, and that the Poetics; the Gospels
shown, such amenities as “quisquis talia (Matthew and Mark) once. The usual Latin
blateratest taxandus” were improper; the authors were also read. The subjects to
individual should never be attacked. So which separate courses of original lectures
long as disputant and opponent kept to the were devoted, were as follows:–1. Encyclo
point, Wolf, as moderator, hardly interfered paedia of Philology; 2. History of Greek
at all. It was generally a sign of dissatisfac Literature; each of these nine times re
tion when he broke in on the dispute in peated; 3. History of Latin Literature, five
German; though even Wolf had days on times; 4. Roman Antiquities, seven times;
which Latin would not come fluently from 5. Survey of Ancient History, six times;
his tongue. Not only the disputations, but 6. Greek Antiquities, six times; 7. Compo
all the exercises in the seminary, were open sition generally; 8. Latin Composition; 9.
to the public, and were in fact attended History of Philology; 10. Principles of His
regularly by all the classical students. The tory; 11. General Introduction to Plato's
school-lessons were given by the seminarists writings; 12. Introduction to reading of
twice a week, in one of the schools of the Homer; 13. Numismatics; 14. Ancient Geo
Francke Institute, one in the first form, graphy; 15. Ancient Painting. He never
where a Greek poet was read; the other in printed any of these lectures; indeed, he did
the third, in Latin syntax. Before going not write them out at length. He inserted
into the lesson, Wolf would give minute in the Jena Literary Gazette a prohibition
directions how to conduct it. The first les of any attempt to publish any of them under
son in each semester he gave himself, in the his name. They would be misrepresenta
presence of the seminarists. After that he tions, he said; not intentionally, but because
left them to go on alone. But he took care suggestions thrown out orally have a freedom
to be privately informed how the lessons which cannot belong to a formal written
statement. But many copies were in circu cate knowledge, but to stimulate. Full of
lation from the students' note-books, of which knowledge as he was, he would only suggest,
four or five have since been printed. None point out how and when a subject could be
of these, say his pupils, give more than a dis studied. Hence the impossibility of setting
tant notion of his incomparable manners. down his lectures in black and white. Ile
Sparks struck from his anvil flew into every did not enunciate truths, but starting from
part of Germany, and beyond it; and may be some far-off point already established, ar
found, says Bernhardy (Griech. Lit. i. 168), ranged the extant material, examined the
in the most remote corners. He disapproved evidence as in open court, and so, after a full
the mechanical note-taking of the German hearing of both sides, allowed the result to
lecture-rooms, though he would occasionally establish itself before the mental eye. One
dictate a sentence to be taken down, when bust, and one only, ornamented his lecture
he wished it to be thought over. Nor would room, that of Lessing. This was symbolical
he ever dictate translation, a favourite refuge of the spirit which breathed through all he
of the lazy, but preferred to distribute sheets said, the spirit of critical inquiry, which ad
of a printed version. His lectures were all heres precisely to the evidence, which dis
prepared, but all extempore; a few notes criminates with truth-loving care the certain
only before him. Occasionally, overtaken from the probable, and scrupulously marks
by the hour, he had to come before his class the exact shade of probability.
quite unprepared; and they never thought In a new course he would define the aim
him more fresh and genial than at those of the particular study in hand, mark the
times. All voices are united as to the power point from which it should be begun, and
and impressiveness of his delivery. Carl von then indicate the books and other materials
Rauner, who heard him in 1803, speaks of from which help was to be got. He gene
the peculiar spell which his vast learning, rally gave a brief chronological outline of the
keen criticism, and ardent interest in his sub literature, assigning his time, place, and value
ject threw round the hearer. Goethe, on a to every labourer in the field, in few and
visit to Wolf in 1805, prevailed upon one of telling words. He marked the gaps and
the daughters to conceal him, more than blanks in any province of learned investiga
once, behind the hangings during a lecture. tion, suggesting them as undiscovered tracts
The poet has £ in his own untrans to the enterprise of the young scholar. In
latable words (Tag und Jahres Hefte, 1805), interpretation lectures he would begin very
that his expectations were fulfilled by “the slowly, dwelling long on short portions, and
spontaneous deliverance of a full mind, a re grammatically analysing at length. He
velation issuing from a thorough knowledge, treated the class as beginners requiring to be
and diffusing itself over the audience with initiated gradually. As the semester ad
spirit, taste, and freedom.” Bernhardy says vanced the pace was quickened, and more
it rather resembled clever and witty conver was directed to be read at home. He would
sation than formal teaching. Even grown have each writer illustrated only by himself
up men would fain have put themselves to or contemporary writers. He laid great
school to him; as Jacobs (the editor of the stress on translation, insisting on the idiom
Anthologia), who, after he was master of the of the language into which the translation
school at Gotha, formed a plan for going to was being made. He recommended that a
Halle for a year to hear Wolf. Pupils, who verbal translation should be made the basis,
became professors in their turn, even copied and gradually improved upon till a new
his singularities—his rapid movements from whole was produced. He would take for
the door to the desk, his constant hemming, his text-book the author to whom his own
his immovable look fixed on the text-book studies were directed, whether he was edit
before him. The “wit” of which Bernhardy ing or reviewing, e.g., he lectured on the
speaks is not to be understood of small jokes, Homeric Hymns on occasion of Ilgen's edi
intended to raise a laugh along the benches. tion (1796). This he found contributed to
This he despised, as a man who is rich in throw a fresh interest into the lectures.
jewels does not forge small coin. It was
rather a vein of lively thought running To estimate the effort of a single mind, in
through all he uttered. “Les hommes n'ont proposing an aim thus lofty for classical
jamais montré plus d'esprit, que lorsqu'ils ont studies, and in pushing them with so much
badiné” found its exemplification in Wolf. vigour, we must remember that it was at the
The examples by which he would illustrate very crisis when the philanthropists seemed
a rule were not merely striking, they were almost to have grasped their victory. They
of that sort which impress themselves for had succeeded in discrediting the study of
ever upon the memory. the ancient languages, in general opinion, for
His aim in lecturing was not to communi the first time since the Renaissance. A re
1865. F. A. "Wolf. . 135
form of the grammar schools on their prin personages displayed upon a remote histori
ciples seemed imminent. Wolf represents the cal stage, but intimate friends whom we have
reaction against the new realism. His love known and esteemed and loved. The ban
for the investigation of antiquity was one ishment of this ideal from German schools
impulse; but an antagonism to the prevalent would be the greater mistake, inasmuch as
views on education was also ever present. there is a peculiar affinity between the Greek
The presumption and ignorance of the phi and the Teutonic mind. Wolf appeals to
Goethe (Dedication to Museum), “May your
lanthropists irritated him; their growing
opularity alarmed him. He would not powerful aid be exerted to save our country
ave conceived so completely his ideal of from the sacrilegious hands which - would
human culture as based on the traditions of tear from it the palladium of ancient learn
the Greek world, had it not been brought ing! Be it in our language, be it in our
out in sharp contrast with the school of use. blood, I know not, but no people of the
ful knowledge. Even in 1786, the tone in modern world has fallen so readily in
which he speaks of humane studies is one of as we have with the tone of Greek poetry
despondency. Alluding to the promise and oratory. We are not deterred from ap
afforded by a young pupil, he writes, “This proaching the shrines of these heroes by the
is the only kind of solace left for us, who strange forms with which they surround
are occupied with matters which are in little themselves; we alone have never attempted
esteem with the public. Every day sees the to beautify their simplicity, to drape over
prospects of these studies become more and their indelicacies.”
more clouded. The new hierophants now Wolf's writings cannot be treated on their
abroad desire to preserve their disciples from merits. They were strictly a part of his pro
all tinge of literature, else they would no fessional activity. He was eminently a
longer command their devotion.” As time teacher, not a writer. Everything he wrote,
goes on the danger passes away, and Wolf's or projected writing, not excepting the cele
language becomes more hopeful. He is not brated Prolegomena, was an occasional pub
less strenuous in denouncing the main prin lication arising out of some call or suggestion
ciple of the innovators,—“education in of his public teaching. Of this kind he
knowledge of the useful;” but he is forward printed not a little; and for one book which
to welcome what is true and good in their he achieved he projected twenty. We shall
doctrines. He spoke highly of the early only mention a few among these to which
forerunners of Philanthropinism, Comenius particular interest attaches. In 1778 he
and Locke. Of Rousseau's Emile he said it added “Remarks,” and promised an Appen
contained many good hints, especially on the dix to a translation of Harris's Hermes. But
treatment of the early years of infancy and the second volume, which should have con
childhood. Even Trapp's “Pädagogik” he tained Wolf's dissertation, never appeared.
praises, as offering many practical observa In the next year, he was reading Demos
tions on mental training. He condemned thenes, from the point of view of Attic law.
all running down of science, and favoured He had hitherto relied on second-hand
attempts of the modern eclectics, e.g., Nie authorities for this branch, and was deter
meyer (Grundsätze der Erziehung), to adopt mined to do so no longer. As he read, the
as much as was practicable from the philan wish grew up to show in a single specimen
thropists. how the mass of material, collected by the
Notwithstanding, he brings out in later industry of ages, on Demosthenes, should be
years, with increasing emphasis, the educa dealt with by an editor. It so happened
tional idea which had been steadily growing that at this time a scheme was on foot for a
more distinct to him. This is the pure collective publication of Greek classics. Körte,
Greek ideal; as he defines it in 1807, a Wolf's excellent biographer, confounds (Körte,
purely human education, and elevation of all i. 252) this with another plan, promoted or
the powers of mind and soul to a beautiful patronised by Ruhnken, for a series of Latin
harmony of the inner and outer man, the classics. The Greek series was to be under
#7xxxios raiósia of the ancients. As long the editorship of C. G. Schütz, then editor
as there exists in the world a generation who of the Jena Literary Gazette. Both pro
make this elevation their aim, so long will jects were of that comprehensive character
they turn to the ancients for instruc which rising scholars, in the exuberance of
tion and encouragement in prosecuting their powers, have formed, and will continue
it. The simplicity, the dignity, the grand to form, in each generation,-projects of
comprehensive spirit of their works, will ever which the wrecks lie about us in our
make them a source from which the human libraries, in vain warning future adventurers
soul will draw perpetual youth. Those of their certain fate. Of the two schemes
grand old Greek characters are to us not with which Wolf was connected, neither, as
136 . F. A. Wolf. June,
far as we know, produced any fruit, beyond down by some auditor, hints that Wolf had
the Leptines, which Wolf brought out in allowed himself great latitude in this lecture,
1789. He intended his edition for advanced with an eye to enlivening the afternoon, and
readers—not for schools. He would not that he would by no means have stood to all
have any classic read in his schools which it that he had said. Yet the extracts of the
required much antiquarian knowledge to course which Orelli published (at the end of
understand. Wolf's material having been his edition, Turici, 1829) are rich in keen
appropriated by all succeeding editors, has remark on the force of words and phrases,
become pretty well known in this country in from which others besides beginners may
our schools and universities, though not in learn much. Wolf himself had no thought
its original shape. A better known book of publishing these Scholia, as we truly call
among us, Böckh's Public Economy of them. What he edited was the text only;
Athens, owed its suggestion directly to an “egregia recensio,” in Orelli's judgment,
Wolf's Leptines. The books both of Wolf of a book, in which after all Bentley had
and his pupil are not antiquarian books, but done for it, still lingered (and even yet lin
are penetrated by that tacit reference to the ger) not a few corruptions.
conditions of modern society, in which Wolf The Prolegomena to Homer (1795) had
first led the way. The Leptines, at the time the same casual origin. The work to which
of its appearance, excited the attention of the he owed European fame was written without
learned world. It drew a complimentary premeditation, or the least anticipation of
letter from Heyne, who characteristically such a result. The Francke press, finding
gives himself, the air of knowing all that their school-Homer exhausted, asked Wolf
Wolf has to say, and therefore approving all to revise the text for a new edition. For
he has said. The Leptines enjoyed that im twenty years he had had Homer, and the
munity from censure which is often accorded problem of the Homeric text, before him.
to first publications. Not, indeed, that it Homeric criticism was an untouched soil.
needed indulgence, unless it were for the The scholars of the seventeenth century, who
warmth of its outbreaks against Reiske, the had tampered with every author, had held
last editor of Demosthenes. Even these aloof from Homer as from sacred ground.
were forgiven to a young scholar, who, from The text was a mere “vulgate,” formed by
a truer critical stand-point, condemned the continued reprinting with accumulating er
system of arbitrary emendation in which the rors from the Venetian or Florentine editions.
editors of the eighteenth century indulged. Clarke, whose name is a byword among
We may remember that Porson felt bound school-boys, but who really possessed more
to speak with no less severity of Reiske on metrical skill than any preceding editor, had
this ground. In the lapse of time, Wolf done good service in expelling some of the
himself detected his own errors, and twenty more gross of these errors. Ernesti made
seven years afterwards (1816) advertised a (1759) improvements on Clarke, and this
corrected edition, “ab erroribus olim com text (Ernesti-Clarkianus) was in complete
missis purgatior.” But this too remained possession of the field. No principle guided
among unfulfilled projects. the editors. It was taken for granted that
A similar fate awaited the Variae Lectiones
the ordinary canons of editing applied
of Muretus, and the Select Dialogues of Lu straight away to the Homeric text. Nor
cian. Of each of these undertakings Wolf would it have been easy for any one, who
brought out a Wol. I, and there dropped had not seen the Venetian Scholia, to have
them. In 1792 he revised the text of Herodi discovered that it was not so. The Venetian
an for the Francke press. It was too hurried Scholia were published by Willoison in 1788,
ly done; he was extremely dissatisfied with and were immediately read with eagerness.
his recension, and was always talking of an Yet no scholar, Heyne least of all, saw in
improved edition, but never put a hand to it. them what Wolf saw in them,—the true
An edition of the Tusculan Disputations, in principle on which the text must be consti
the same year, arose again out of the class tuted. Even as late as 1803, we find Elms
room. He thought this treatise much bet ley laying it down (Ed. Rev. vol. ii. p. 314)
ter fitted for beginners than the Offices, that “the plan which is adopted by the gene
which, however, had established themselves rality of enlightened editors” is the right
by preference in the schools. Wolf had an one, and commending Heyne for having fol
afternoon lecture on the “Tusculans,” which lowed it.” The history of the Homeric text
was rather a favourite of his. It was pro
bably attended by the younger students, and * This error still lingers. Dindorf calls his Ho
he himself may have regarded it as a relaxa Inmer “Adoptimorum librorum fidem expressa "1
any sense of the words “best manuscripts,” the
tion after other collegia, which required pre “Marc. 454,” must be the best, and this Dindorf
paration. Orelli, who has a copy as taken has not collated. . -
1865. F. A. Wolf. 137
opened Wolf's eyes to the fact that the Ho had early struck root in Wolf's mind, and
meric text is a unique case; that here we found it congenial soil. In 1779, while still
cannot make it our object to approximate a student at Göttingen, he had written for
our book to the book as it came from the Heyne an exercise, which had defended some
hands of the author, and that the only thing heretical paradox on Homer. In the follow
left for us is to choose one among the Alex ing year he offered Nicolai, the Berlin pub
andrian texts as our norma. He was thus lisher, a dissertation “On the Origin of the
prepared to undertake, for a mere school Homeric Poems.” Seeing that the disserta
edition, a revolution in the text of Homer, tion was unwritten, and the projector a youth
the extent and merits of which were only of one-and-twenty, we cannot say that Nico
slowly appreciated after a lapse of years. lai was unwise in declining the offer. The
As there was to be no exegetical commen thought, banished for a time, occurred again
tary, nor notes of any kind, Wolf's emenda and again, as his studies ranged more widely
tions ran the risk of being overlooked, or re over classical antiquity. # as his ideas
jected as wanton, without some justification. gained in distinctness, they appeared to him
his he proposed to provide in a preface, the to lose in probability. The ardour of youth
original intention of which was simply to ful discovery was gradually tempered by a
give an account of his method of dealing sense of the doubtfulness of all conclusions
with the text. This bearing of the Prole on a point of such high antiquity. In this
gomena should ever be borne in mind in read state of mind he happened to meet with the
ing them. The Wolfian hypothesis has been notion in a flimsy French book, Perrault,
treated in this country as a mere wanton para Parallèle des Anciens et des Modernes, 1690.
dox, the amusement of the vacant hours of Disgusted at finding himself in such bad,
a perverse ingenuity. It was really only an company, he fell back at once on the tradi
attempt to sketch the history of the text, tional belief. He endeavoured with all his
with the purpose of showing the principle might to establish this opinion by evidence.
on which that text must necessarily be ar Even after he had recurred to his original
ranged. view, he continued for twelve years to assume
The material was all at hand. He had in his public lectures the received origin of
long been in the habit of making a note of the poems. Thus it was, that once embarked
all he met with in his reading that bore on on the question of the text of Homer, he
this favourite topic. His notes were mostly found it impossible to quit it in few words.
on single sheets, or scraps of paper. When So the Preface grew into the Prolegomena,
anything was to be written, these memoranda and the Prolegomena into a volume. He
were gone through and winnowed. The had begun printing at once, as if it were to
views over which he was meditating were al cost him but a few days' writing. The whole
ways present to him; he had but to mar was composed with the printer at his heels—
shal his proofs and illustrations. In the in his lectures and other official duties going on
stance of Homer, this material was unusually all the while. “The Fair (Leipzig) hurries
abundant. The ideas to which he was now a man like death !” he wrote on one proof
going to give birth had been maturing for sheet. Marks of this haste are apparent
twenty years. A great deal has been writ enough in the Prolegomena.
ten on the question of Wolf's originality. If we measure the Prolegomena by the
He had seen Wood's Essay on the Original impression produced by them on the course
Genius of Homer; for though the essay had of classical learning, we shall be unable to
only “crept out to the extent of seven name any other single work whose influence
copies” at home, one of those seven had is to be compared to theirs. It was no mo
found its way to Germany, and a translation mentary diversion, but an abiding impulse.
had appeared at Frankfort (1773), before the “Ingens philologiae emendatio,” Böckh once
book was actually published in England. (in 1834) ascribed to the Prolegomena. He
Casaubon's hint, and Bentley's more confi might have said they had inaugurated a new
dent assertion, were both known to him. epoch in Philology. Paradoxes startle, die
On the other hand, Vico was not known to out, and are forgotten. The Prolegomena
him, even in 1795. But it is unnecessary to turned critical inquiry into a new direction,
turn over the moderns in search of a prompt which it has ever since obeyed. They first
er; Wolf has said nothing which is not em taught scholars that the resources of Greek
bodied in the well-known passage of Jose and Latin were not exhausted when the lan
phus (Cont. Apion, i. 2), which is quoted guages were learned, but that the languages
everywhere, and which is itself the expression were but a step to an almost unexplored field
of a fact which was known to all the critics of investigation. If, on the other hand, we
of the Ptolemaic age. Be this as it may, measure the Prolegomena by the standard of
whoever was the suggester, the suggestion the best critical essays which modern learn
WOL. XLII. N-10
138 J7. A. Wolf. June,
ing has given us, we shall not be able to ception which the Prolegomena experienced
place them in the highest rank. This is ow on their publication.
ing in part to a crudity of style, a fault not un Wolf had wished to confine the discussion
common in great extempore orators. “Each of his views to the learned world. With
step,” writes Körte, “is firm; each word of this intention he wrote in Latin, and ob
exact precision. The Latin is that of a man stinately resisted all the proposals made him
who thinks out his expression; it is at once for any German version of his argument. In
his own and genuinely Roman.” But the spite of his precautions, however, the little
excellent biographer is carried here far be literary journals were very soon up in arms.
yond the mark by his enthusiasm. Haste The readers of Homer, or who wished to
has, it appears to us, interfered greatly with pass for such, were shocked, and pained, and
clearness of style. But beyond this, there distressed by this impious attempt to take
is undeniably a crudity of conception. This their Homer from them. It was but a part
defect was inevitable. The Homeric problem of the jacobinical crusade against everything
was too complicated to be capable of being which our fathers had believed, every name
thought out by the first mind which grap which they had held in honour. The clamour
pled with it. The question has been wrought affected Wolf little, if at all. The public
out with much greater precision and fulness was not then such a many-headed monster
of detail since by Lachmann, Lehrs, Nitzsch, as it has since become; it had not so many
Lauer, Hermann, Köchly, La Roche; and to throats to scream with. Wolf waited to hear
their writings, inferior as they are in grasp what the learned world would say. In Hol
and genius to Wolf, the young scholar who land, which held then the first place in learn
intends to study Homer must now have re ing, in England, in France, not a single voice
course. As a discussion of the special ques was raised on his side. Willoison declared
tion, the Prolegomena have passed into ob the book a “literary impiety,” and is said to
livion. The book is laid aside. The author's have regretted the publication of the Scholia,
name stands out brighter than ever, as we which had placed arms in the hands of the
come more closely to discern how vast was German critic. Sainte-Croix, who, by cour
the step he made on the way towards a true tesy, took rank among the learned, refuted
conception of the early times of Greek his Wolf without reading his book. Fauriel,
tory. Niebuhr has been accused by Blum indeed, at a later time, transplanted the
(Einleitung in Rom's alte Geschichte) of dis Wolfian idea to French soil; but in 1795 he
ingenuousness in not mentioning Wolf's Pro was only twenty-two. In England, Elmsley,
legomena as having suggested his idea, that in 1813, could only count “ten men who
the early history of Rome was founded on really study the minutiae of Greek.”—(Life of
poems. There is no disingenuousness in the Blomfield, i. 12.) Of that number Elmsley
case. The fact is, that the leading ideas of himself was confessedly among the first.
Wolf's Prolegomena were of that character But Elmsley, in 1795, was only twenty-two.
that they became at once, with all their con Even ten years later, when he wrote his re
sequences, the common property, not of scho view of Heyne's Homer (Ed. Rev., July,
lars only, but of all the world. The concep 1803), he betrays a weakness as a Homeric
tion we all have of popular poetry seems scholar, which seems out of proportion to his
to us so self-evident, that our difficulty is to strength when put forth on the dramatists.
understand that it was not always possessed. Though Wolf's historical criticism found no
It requires an effort to remember that for favour in the English universities, yet, by
ages even scholars applied the same measure some process which we have not traced (was
to Virgil and Tasso as to Homer; that they it by Porson's advice?), nearly all his emen
confounded the artificial imitation with the dations were adopted in the Oxford Homer
£ product of the creative imagination. (called the Grenville) of 1800, though it
ven on the more special question of the was pretended by the editors that they were
origin of the Homeric poems, whatever there corrections made from the collation of MSS.
may be to retrench in Wolf's arguments, his Ruhnken, then at the head of European
main proposition has maintained itself un philologists, to whom the Prolegomena were
shaken. His views have been continually dedicated, felt himself uncomfortably shaken
gaining ground; and as Nitzsch himself be in his habitual notions, but was too old to
fore his death became a convert, we may catch the new point of view on which con
safely say that no scholar will again find him viction depended. -
self able to embrace the unitarian hypothe If Wolf got no assent from the scholars,
Sls.
he got, at least, nothing but bare contra
We have a curious proof of this double diction. The thorough investigation of the
character of the Wolfian ideas—viz, their subject could not take place till a generation
originality and their obviousness, in the re of younger men arose, trained in the very
1865. F. A. Wolf. 139
ideas which Wolf's own teaching set afloat. succeeded in preserving in his German ver.
Wolf had been long removed from the scene Slon. -
before anything worthy of the name of a Of all the poets, by far the most import
counter argument appeared. ant to Wolf was the opinion of Goethe.
Besides the learned, there was another Goethe, too, had caught the Homeric fever
class whose judgment on the subject Wolf which Voss had originated. The images of
valued, and to whose consideration he had the cycle were fermenting in his mind with
expressly recommended it. These were the such vehemence that he meditated an origi
poets. Their verdict was not, on the whole, nal epic, to be called the Achilleis. At W#
favourable. Wilhelm von Humboldt indeed helm von Humboldt's recommendation, he
sympathized and approved. He undertook read the Prolegomena, and re-read the Iliad
to read the whole of Homer through again, thereupon. He felt himself deeply stirred
to test the hypothesis of the Prolegomena by by the suggestive pages. He was carried
his own impressions. Wieland, with radical away by the brilliant speculation which
levity, is said to have congratulated the seemed opened here on the history of genius
world that “we were now rid of one super and poetic fiction. The theory of a collec
stition more;” but for himself appears to tive Homer, he wrote to Schiller, “is favour
have gone on believing in the unity. Flax able to my present scheme, as lending a
man, to whom Lord Spencer had shown the modern bard a title to claim for himself a
Prolegomena on their appearance, gave his place among the Homeridae.” This is the
cordial approval, and endeavoured to spread “broad road” which his epigram cele
the Wolfian notions in the two English brates:—
universities. Nor was his conviction that
of a moment, for in 1804 he writes to a “Erst die Gesundheit des Mannes der endlich
vom Namen Homeros
friend:—
Kühn uns befreiend, uns auch ruft in die vol
lere Bahn l'' -
“A perfection of arts and manufactures, as

described in the Odyssey, is not to be found in
countries without money or commerce. The In the spring of 1796, he sent Wolf a
Alexandrian critics could well supply these em. copy of Wilhelm Meister. In the letter
belishments, yet what they have done seems which accompanied the gift, he said, “Per
wonderfully cautious. The succession of critical haps you will soon have from me the an
hands through which these poems have passed, nouncement of an epic poem, in which I do
must naturally give them a sort of homogeneous not conceal how much I am indebted to that
surface which we judge by, rather than the nice conviction you have so firmly implanted in
agreement of inornate parts, in supposing they my mind.” Before long, however, Goethe re
were the production of one man. The Prole
gomena strongly enforce the following truth, turned to a faith in the unity, and this for
that human excellence in art and science is the the very same reason which had made him a
accumulated labour of ages.” convert to the rhapsodic origin—conformity
with his own subjective state of mind. He
Flaxman's opinion, as this extract shows, had embraced the new notions because they
must be taken in the character of the artist, seemed to “resolve the two epics back into
not of the critic, though his acquaintance the original poetic ocean, out of which I may
with what has been said on Homer must draw at pleasure.” He returned to the old
have been great, if it be true that he had con faith when the Achilleis was given up. He
sulted more than two thousand works during found the cyclic material no longer plastic
the composition of his Outlines. Schiller, for his purposes. Goethe's palinode is sung
like Walter Scott, set aside the rhapsodic in the lines headed “Homer wieder Homer.”
origin of the poems without a hearing, as —(Werke, ii. p. 335.) The date would be
“necessarily barbarous.” From Voss, least curious; but as Goethe's works are printed at
of all, was assent to be expected. Voss had present, absolutely without editorial super
just achieved the triumph of making Homer intendence, we have not the means of fixing
the public property of German readers. it.
Through Voss's translations, Homer was at While the ruck of critics and poets were
this moment (1795) the rage. Voss could running down the Prolegomena as heretical
not admit that he had anything to learn novelties, a far more considerable adversary
about his poet. His very position forced him came forward with an insinuation of the
to head the cry against the Wolfian heresies. opposite kind. If there was one among the
Voss, indeed, was probably a sincere believer. poets who might have been expected to give
For it was precisely that uniform tone of sim a hearty welcome to the Wolfian ideas—one,
plicity and nature which distinguishes the too, whose recommendation of them would
Homeric poetry from all artificial W'. have been all-powerful with the outside world
—it was Herder. Herder's services to litera
it was precisely this tone which Voss
140 * F. A. Wolf. June,
ture, great in many directions, had been in dox, but could not bear to have his originality
none more conspicuous than in the light he called in question.
had been the first to throw on the origin Herder might possess the ear of the pub
of poetical fiction. Taking up a hint first lic, but among the learned he counted for
thrown out by a far greater man-Lessing nothing. It was notorious that he possessed
Herder had enforced and popularized the neither the linguistic nor the historical
distinction between natural and artificial knowledge requisite to form an opinion on
»oetry. These discussions, and the esta the question. He was, in short, the modern
£nt of the critical principle which reviewer, and accomplished in all its arts,
Herder brought forward, were the proximate for, if we may believe Garve, he had not
cause of that revolution in poetical taste even read the Prolegomena when he wrote
which took place in Germany and England his paper in the Horen. Wolf would have
at the close of the last century. Immediate done better, as he himself acknowledged
ly after bringing out the Prolegomena, Wolf afterwards, to have taken no notice of Her
had paid a visit to Jena and Weimar, and der's impertinence. The case was different
had there enjoyed the society of Goethe, of with Heyne. Wolf wrote to Heyne com
Wilhelm von Humboldt, and of Wieland, plaining of Herder's behaviour, and begging
but had perceived, or imagined, that Herder Heyne, should he think fit, to review the
had held aloof from him. A German is al Prolegomena in the Göttingen Gelehrte
ways ready to imagine that he is being cut; Anzeige, to put the Homeric question fully
but in this instance it was not mere German before the public, going, as fully as could be
susceptibility. On Wolf's return to Halle, done in a periodical, into the arguments for
he saw in the Horen, then the leading criti and against the hypothesis. Heyne had
cal monthly, a paper headed “Homer, Time's already written his notice. It is contained
Favourite.” The anonymous author of the in the number for 21st November, 1795. In
essay gave himself a supercilious air of over it Heyne had coolly treated the Prolegomena
hauling, from a priori ground, the conclu as the “first fruit of the unexampled labours
sions which Wolf had worked out, with of Willoison.” He had gone on to say that
modest hesitancy, on the ground of history. the case had always seemed to him a ver
The writer dropped the remark by the way, simple one; that he had always held Wolf's
that the rhapsodic origin of the Homeric views in his lectures, from which he even
poems had been long known to himself; that intimated that Wolf had originally derived
he had been long accustomed to regard them. That there might be no mistake,
Homer, like Thot and Hermes, as a constel Heyne returned to the charge in the next
lation of lesser stars; that, when a boy, he number for 19th December.
had discovered the distinct authorship of the Wolf hated controversy, as calling him
Iliad and the Odyssey; that when travelling, away from his proper pursuits. But it was im
not long before, in Italy, he had casual possible, he thought, to let this challenge pass.
ly met with the newly-published Venetian If any hesitation remained, it was removed
Scholia, and had been astonished to find the by a long letter he received from Heyne,
suspicions of his childhood so strikingly con dated 23d February, 1796, and which pro
firmed. In all this we have nothing more fessed to be an answer to Wolf's letter of the
than the omniscient trick of the modern preceding November. In this letter, Heyne
weekly reviewer, who has learned all he makes a cold compliment to Wolf on the
affects to know from the book he is running extent of his researches; but he adds imme
down—a trick become so vulgarized that we diately, “so many years as I have occupied
hardly now understand Wolf's indignation. myself with Homer, it would be difficult to
We certainly should never take his mode of say anything that would be new to me.” He
defence by replying to such a critique. This goes on to say that these ideas had early
he did by inserting a paragraph in the Jena presented themselves to him as matter of
Literary Gazette for October, begging the course, for indeed they had occurred to many
public not to decide, on such insufficient other readers of Homer. How early he had
grounds as the Horen offered, a question of entertained these thoughts he could not say,
complicated historical evidence; and promis but at least as early as he had read Macpher
ing a German reproduction of the Prolego son's Ossian. He could not say what were
mena by a friend.’ The public laughed at his opinions as far back as 1779. Did not
the advertisement, and believed Herder, remember the essay on the subject which
pending the appearance of the friend's book, Wolf had sent in to him in that year. Re
which never appeared. The advertisement collected that he had talked with Herder on
only showed that Herder had found the the subject in 1770. His own object in
author's weak side. Wolf had been silent editing Homer (Heyne's Homer did not ap
while run down as a teacher of heretical para pear until 1802) was different—interpretative
1865. F. A. Wolf. 141
merely. Had he had more leisure he might Ruhnken, were an act of rebellion against a
have engaged in the historical inquiry as lawfully constituted sovereign, an altogether
Wolf had done. Wolf was fortunate in not monstrous product, the work of one who
having his time so broken in upon by inces had been an ill-conditioned student, but who
sant official calls. Wolf had spoken first might have caught up some good notions
got the start of him. He gladly renounced from Heyne's lectures. Heyne, we doubt
the honours of priority in his favour. Only not, honestly believed himself the original
let the truth be spoken by whom was of parent of anything there might be good in
little consequence. That had always been the Prolegomena. A letter of Heyne's has
his way £. His own temperament, since been produced, of date 1790, in which,
too, was different from Wolf's. Things ap writing to Zoega, he speaks of the rhapsodic
peared certain to some people which looked origin of the Homeric poems, and says that
doubtful to others. No matter! There were “it cannot be established by historical evi
many roads to heaven. Let each go his own. dence.” The fact is of no moment which
Throughout the letter, which is long and em ever way it be decided. Whether Heyne
barrassed, Heyne does not repeat the charge had previously rejected or received the rhap
of plagiarism. But he does not withdraw it. sodic origin, the originality of the Prolego
The utmost concession he makes is, “Had mena remains the same. They are there to
you come earlier to an understanding with speak for themselves. Heyne contributed as
me, my article in the Anzeige would have much to them as Perrault or Wood. It is
been expressed differently in my secondary the whole conception, not the single hypo
particulars. Not that I ever say what I do thesis, which belongs to Wolf His modern
not think; but what I say may be variously ' of critical inquiry separates him from
modified in expression.” eyne, as it does from Gesner, Ernesti, and
Such a letter was not likely to conciliate the other German scholars of that century.
Wolf. He now resolved to make no reply The Prolegomena had the fate of all inno
to Heyne except in print. This he did in a vating books. Their real influence lay far
pamphlet published in 1797, called Letters below the superficial questions agitated in the
to Heyne. This pamphlet we only know contemporary controversy. That influence
through Körte's account, who says it is a was silent and gradual, and was not fully felt
model of polemical elegance. The general till near a generation later, till Niebuhr and
merits of the controversy are obvious enough. Ottfried Müller. Even in 1804 (Preface to
As occupant of a leading chair in the wealth the Göschen Homer), Wolf could say of
iest and most frequented of the German uni himself that “he had few readers save those
versities, and manager of one of the most who had read to misrepresent.”
considerable literary reviews, Heyne, even Whatever disgust this reception of the
had he been a man of ordinary learning, Prolegomena may have occasioned Wolf, it
must have possessed great weight in the did not divert him from Homer. He pro
academical world. But Heyne's learning jected two simultaneous editions of the text,
was not ordinary. He had been for years one to be accompanied with a commentary.
considered to stand at the head of classical There was to be a volume of introduction,
learning in Germany; to have in Europe no and a volume of notes. One edition, with
superior but Ruhnken. Without originality out commentary or notes, was all there was
or philosophical power, without any grasp of ever executed. It is the Göschen Homer
the ancient world, without any real sense for (1804), and is remarkable for a beauty of
scientifically historic inquiry, he had suc execution little regarded at that time, or any
ceeded, by the adoption of hints thrown out time, in Germany, and for correctness. Wolf
by Lessing or by Winckelmann, in £ a. boasts in the Preface to the Iliad that the
novelty to his notes on classical books. He two volumes do not contain a single printer's
became the popular editor of school classics, error. This exactness was attained (by
and Heyne's editions were reprinted with Schäfer's help) in spite of repeated altera
awidity in Holland and England. His merits tions of the adopted reading, such as almost
as a commentator are great, because the drove the publisher to despair. While the
best commentator is the man who best adapts book was printing, Wolf was not merely
what others have struck out. The conside correcting the proof, but changing the read
ration which a conjuncture of favouring cir ing again and again. He would hear no
cumstances had procured him, was far be. thing of commercial objections, but insisted
yond his real philological capacity. He had upon ever new revises till he was quite sa
come to be thought—indeed, to think him tisfied that further improvement was impos
self—the undoubted source of all the phi sible.
lological activity in Germany. Wolf's Pro Our notice of Wolf's publication during
legomena, dedicated not to him, but to the Halle period must be concluded by barely
mentioning the Four Orations of Cicero “the pains, the anxiety, the finish he was
(1801), in which he established, by an ex wont to bestow on what he wrote.” He
haustive inquiry, the suspicion of their genu never satisfied himself with anything he put
ineness, first broached by Markland. In on paper. His translation of the first hun
the Preface to this volume, he hinted that dred lines of the Odyssey cost him so much
there remained among the Ciceronian ora thought, that when the publishers pressed
tions still another speech which was really a him to complete it, he said he would only
rhetorician's production. He wished to have do it for a ducat a line. That was the cost
the amusement of seeing on what speech the of the time. The “pride” of which Böckh
guessers would pitch. But he did not make speaks, was that of one who would not as
them wait long, for in the next year came he could, because he could not as he would.
out his Oratio pro Marcello (1802). Körte He was not “piger scribendi ferre laborem,”
relates a curious episode in the history of but too solicitous “scribendi recte.” Besides
Wolfian criticism. Boissonade, who was that, he had a genial enjoyment in his own
strongly against Wolf on the Homeric ques pursuits, which never allowed him to regard
tion, pronounced for him against the pseudo his stores as mere material to be produced in
Cicero, and wrote a précis of the argument print. He realized in himself Goethe's axiom,
of the Marcellina for the Journal des Débats. that “the man who has life in him feels
It was declined, on the ground that the himself to be here for his own sake, not for
Débats was on principle against innovation. the public.” His dissatisfaction with his
The oration had passed for ages as Cicero's; own productions was mingled with a con
and this journal, said the editor, “will not tempt—at a later time, too pronounced—for
swerve from the principles of Rollin and the the public. “Does the public,” he asks, “by
University of Paris, who never contested the buying our books, or oftener by leaving them
authorship of these speeches.” This, which unbought, imagine it acquires a right to
we have on the best authority, that of Bast, complain that they are not finished? A much
who was in intimate relations with Boisson better ground of complaint would be, that an
ade, is probably the correct version of the author had neglected to make his own mind
story told by Won Gieslen, a literary Dane, complete '" With such feelings, we may
who was in Paris in 1806, that a journal rather wonder at the amount which he
refused a notice of Wolf's essay because “the actually achieved, and the still larger amount
Academy had declared the Oration ‘Pro he projected writing. He was never, during
Marcello genuine.” the Halle period, without some laborious
The reader of anything that Wolf pub editing on hand, while three or four more
lished during the Halle period will judge it schemes were floating in his imagination.
amiss, if he does not bear in mind all through Each subject in succession engaged him
the subordinate relation in which it stands to vividly, and engrossed him wholly for the
his oral teaching. With Wolf the written time. As soon as the first interest was over,
work was ever only a makeshift, only in his creative faculty was exhausted. Hence,
tended to supplement the spoken word. of what he did publish, so much is unfinished.
When he had to write he felt in fetters. “A The Prolegomena themselves are a frag
printed exposition,” he complains, “wants the ment; the second, or technical part, was
freedom one has in speaking.”—(Lit. Anal. never written. Nor, though he lived twenty
iv. 387.) Markland, he thinks, would have years after the publication of the Preface of
done still greater things than he has, if in 1804, did he ever return to the Homeric
stead of that scrupulosity which suggested question again. Friedländer has suggested
to him misgivings where others could see no this was because he feared to find his belief
cause for them, he had come into collision in his own conclusions shaken; and "De
with other minds as a public teacher; a Quincey says, “he had raised a ghost he
remark this, founded on the fact that Mark could not lay.” But it was the habit of his
land had refused the Regius Professorship of mind. “The gods,” he used to say, “take
Greek. But Wolf forgot, or did not know, no more account of the promises of authors
that a Greek Professor in the English uni than they do of lovers' vows.” If they did,
versities did not “teach,” that there was, in Wolf would have a heavy account to settle;
fact, no public teaching in those seminaries, for the titles and contents of his unwritten
which decently shrouded the incompetency books fill many pages in Körte's Life. Among
of their tutors in the privacy of a private other things, he wished to recall all his
apartment. To Wolf the pen was detest editions, and reissue them in corrected recen
able. He wrote with great labour, polished sions." Especially the Herodian and the
indefatigably, and drove his publishers to
despair by his never-ended corrections. ** Quanta cura, quam anxia, quam subtiliter
Böckh, who had been his pupil, testifies to W. solitus sit quae scribebat pensitare.”
1865. F. A. Wolf. 143
Hesiod—notwithstanding Gaisford's favour him for his comradeship, and admiring his
able opinion of the latter—tormented him conversation, they paid the reverential hom
with the remembrance of their imperfections. age of devoted pupils to his mental superi
ority and surpassing attainments. Everything
Wolf, then, must ever be looked upon as about Wolf was real and sound. He re
the teacher, not the writer. Even in 1796, quired no “nimbus.” He hated all affecta
at the height of his literary reputation, and tion. “He left donnishness,” he would say,
full of Homeric schemes, he wrote of himself “to others whose learned rubbish required
to Ruhnken, “Docendo aliquanto plus quam setting off.” “Wornehmthun bleibe denen
scribendo delector.” The life of academical überlassen, die ihrem gelehrten Jammer
teacher satisfied his whole nature. From the damit ausstaffiren müssen.” The enthusiasm
moment this occupation was taken from him, he excited in Halle is testified on all hands.
he lost his equilibrium, and never was the It was not confined to the pupils of his own
same man again. A student once ventured department. Escher, Professor of Interna
to ask him if he really meant to deliver a tional Law at Zurich, told Nüssli that the
course of lectures of which he had given greatest help he had ever had in his profes
notice on “the black board ” “To be sure,” sional studies had been Wolf's philological
was the answer, “lecturing is necessary to my lectures. Wolf indeed always distinguished
digestion '" His joy was in teaching, to be between his “pupils” and his “hearers.”
among his pupils, whether in or out of the When the latter left his class to go over to
class-room. Their delight in hearing him their own faculty, he did not lose sight of
equalled his. Long after he had ceased to them, calling them jokingly, “degeneres bona
be Professor, and only four years before his rum artium.” Among his own pupils, again,
death, on a tour in Switzerland, a number of he distinguished those who, as he said, “car
old pupils collected round him—he had a ried the thing farther.” But three of his
particular liking for the Swiss students—and seminarists were especially dear to him,
nothing would serve them but that Wolf Heindorf, Immanuel Bekker, and August
must give them a lecture on a passage in the Böckh. Heindorf, a born Berliner, came
Odyssey, just to reproduce old times. Heyne's recommended to him in 1794, by Spalding.
bad manner with the students had left a deep Wolf from the very first took kindly to the
impression on Wolf. He felt strongly the affectionate youth, who, on his part, sur
necessity of friendly sympathy between stu rendered his whole being with the blind de
dent and professor. He encouraged the votion of an idolater. Wolf became not
young men to bring their difficulties to him. merely his teacher, but replaced to him his
If they were shy of coming to him, he would father, whom he had lost. Heindorf's ta
visit them in their lodgings. He opened to lents were not above the average, but his in
them his house and even his library, though dustry was extraordinary, and his disposition
he occasionally paid heavily for this liberality. singly directed towards the good and the
Hanhart, in his Recollections of his teacher, beautiful. These qualities promoted his in
says that he has more than once known Wolf tellectual growth, to the astonishment of his
rebuy his own books at a book-stall, where former tutors, who, when he returned home
they had been turned into money by the ras after leaving the University, said that “Wolf
cally borrower. He made excursions with had awoke in him what they never thought
them in the vacation ; he took them to the was there.” Wolf had set him on Plato as
theatre when the Weimar corps—Goethe's a congenial study. Among Wolf's thousand
corps—came to Lauchstedt. He generally projects, an edition of Plato was one: this
gave a farewell supper to those pupils who was about 1797. Not that he contemplated,
were leaving the University. Though he he said, a satisfactory edition—“justa editio.”
bore himself among them as an old comrade This was a thing to dream of, but it would
rather than a superior, he never forfeited their require a couple of generations to produce it.
respect. His witty and clever talk fascinated (As this was about 1797, the predicted edi
them, while his power of sarcasm kept them tion is now, 1865, a little overdue.) Mean
in awe. Though his supper-parties sometimes time, preliminary work might be done
towards it. This was the origin of Heindorf's
did not break up till after midnight, they did
not lose their character of intellectual re Plato, of which the first volume is dedicated
unions. The students knew that he disap to Wolf, “ea qua parentem filius prosequilur
proved excess, and that he had more than pietate.”
once severely condemned their drinking-bouts
in his semestral addresses." Besides liking commentando et scribendo pericula, non per com
potationes, ganeas, aleam et lustra, neque adeo per
aquas amoenas vicini agri (Passendorf £)
* “Modo hoc memineritis per assiduitatem lec viam ducere ad sanctam sapientiam.”—F. A. W.
tionis et auditionis per propriarum virium in ap. Arnoldt, i. 131. -
/

Heindorf, in his turn, prepared Immanuel of Semler's many weaknesses, Wolf remained
Bekker for the university, and sent him up attached to him to the last, when his old
in 1803. The feminine and mystic nature of friends fell off. He published a short account
Heindorf had clung with tender abandonment of Semler's last days. And when Semler
to the master's side. Bekker's hardy tem died, in 1791, Wolf, as pro-rector, issued the
er had more powerful attractions for Wolf. official invitation to his public funeral, in
W' soon discovered that the indomitable which he did not omit to speak of him as
perseverance of this soul of iron shrank from “verum, bonum, ac decens unice curans.”
no labour, was to be daunted by no difficul Wilhelm von Humboldt, writing to Wolf
ties. Bearing all the while the extreme of (Werke, v. 90), condoles with him over his
overty with stoical impassibility, young isolation in Halle. But if Wolf was uncom
£ threw himself upon the classics with fortable with his colleagues, he was compen
the whole force of a character determined to sated by a yearly enlarging circle of distant
conquer. As the teacher raised his demands, friends. These friends £, him only by his
the pupil rose to meet them. No task could geniality and enthusiasm for knowledge, not
be proposed to him which he did not accom by his difficult temper and haughty disdain
plish, nay, exceed. This was exactly the of pretenders to learning. The impression
stuff which Wolf had long been looking for, able mind of Wilhelm von Humboldt, athirst
out of which to build a philologian. Before for acquisition, and keenly alive to every
Bekker was twenty-one, Wolf had got him movement of ideas, yielded at the first contact
placed near himself, as Inspector of the semi to the fascination of Wolf's bold and original
nary and Repetent in the university. speculation. Von Humboldt, who had mar
Wolf's relations with the students seem to ried a Miss Dacheroeden, had become early
have been more agreeable than those with acquainted with Wolf under her father's roof,
his colleagues at Halle. This is no more at Erfurt. He entered keenly into Wolf's
than a conjecture, which we cannot verify “Homeric Researches,” read Homer inces
without examination of his correspondence, santly with Madame von Humboldt, and
# unpublished. His son-in-law passes light seemed given up for the time to classical, an
y over this point; a fact in itself suspicious. tiquity, under the guidance of this new mas
Arnoldt, as usual, offers no light. The cha ter. From his literary retirement at Tezel he
racter of the man, his after conduct in Berlin, maintained a correspondence with Wolf,
where this character asserted itself without whose occasional answers he piously preserved
stint, make it certain that he was difficult to in a splendidly bound album, lettered “Wol
get on with. That overweening ascendency fiana.” In vacation, Wolf visited him at his
which was gratified by the homage of pupils, country seat, and saw him oftener when
met with constant checks from equals. That Humboldt came to settle at Jena. Nothing
irritation was left behind in Wolf's mind can be further from the
truth than to say that
from this source may be gathered from some Wilhelm von Humboldt was superficial. He
casual expressions. In a letter, e.g., of 1807, sought to get to the bottom of every subject
after he had left Halle, he is giving his reasons he approached. But such was the eager
for declining a professorship in the new foun mobility of his intelligence, that he grasped
dation of Berlin: “When one has been doing at a field of knowledge such as only superfi
one's best in a university for twenty-two cial men ordinarily attempt to cover. He
years, one has had enough of the bitternesses did not flit to and fro sipping each flower
and jealousies of colleagueship” (so hatman alternately, but everything had its turn.
die Bitterkeiten einer neidischen Collegen While it was in vogue it was all in all. Con
schaft zur Genuge genossen). Great allow tact with Wolf threw him upon Greek an
ance may be made for his position in Halle, tiquity as if he had found a life pursuit. He
thoroughly disinterested and great-natured, came in contact with Schiller, and Schiller
surrounded by smaller men, with a keen sense drew him away into poetry and aesthetics.
of their personal interests, and only half a But though Homer was forgotten Wolf was
heart in their profession. Of the corps of not. When he became minister, Von Hum
professors, Semler is the only one with whom boldt had no object more at heart than to
we find Wolf in hearty friendship. This in give Wolf an eminentsphere of labour; nor did
timacy was founded upon congenial senti he ever drop the tone of humble deference in
ments. The two had in common the same which his earliest letters were written.
love of truth and unshackled inquiry, the same Even the imperial soul of Goethe had been
zeal of critical research. Semler's years—he moved for a moment, as we have seen, by the
was born in 1725-removed all thought of magnetic storm of Homeric investigation.
rivalry. He welcomed in the young professor The personal intercourse of Wolf and Goethe
a colleague of scientific zeal in the middle of was continued to its subsidence. In 1805,
a world of academical tradesmen. In spite Wolf spent some enjoyable days on a visit at
1865. F. A. Wolf. 145
Weimar. Goethe came once (at least) to lin, must have brought him many visitors.
Halle to visit Wolf, and has left on record And to the disposition to be hospitable,
his testimony to the instruction he derived which he had always had, were now added
from Wolf's conversation. In the summer the means. His salary for the new Professor
of 1797, only a year before Ruhnken's death, ships had been gradually raised to 2100
Wolf made a journey to Holland expressly to thalers, exclusive of fees. Besides this he
see Ruhnken. He was accompanied by his had a pension as foreign member of the Berlin
daughter, Joanna, and a pupil named Ochs Academy, which had grown from 200 to 900
ner, afterwards professor at Zurich. Ochsner thalers. Altogether, his situation at Halle
ought to have performed the duty of reporter was one with which he may well have felt
on this interesting occasion. As he did not, thoroughly satisfied. That he did so feel, his
we cannot deny that Wolf's translation of his repeated refusals to accept the calls which
name, ixvmpic, is appropriate. On an article poured in from all quarters, are sufficient
of Wolf's, written twenty years afterwards proof. Some of these invitations were set
(de David. Ruhnkenii celebri quodam reperto aside at once; others not without much self
literario-Lit. Anal., ii. 515), a charge has conflict and consultation with friends. One,
been founded against Wolf of turning against to Leyden, was especially tempting. The
Ruhnken dead, whom living he had honoured. curators offered him a chair of “Greek Lam
The charge is brought by Bake, in his preface guage and "Antiquities,” vacated by Luzac's
to the Apsines, which he edited for the Ox involuntary resignation. The fame of Ley
ford press. “Wolf,” says Bake (a Dutchman ‘den—Ruhnken was still living—the wealth
and a '' “lacerated the memory of of its libraries and literary appliances, exer
the dead with ighly unbecoming and un cised a powerful attraction, Wolf took time
called-for sarcasm.” Any one but a Dutch to consider, and set his daughters to learn
man can see, by looking at the paper in Dutch, Voss, whom he had consulted, wrote
question in the Analecta, that Wolf is jesting. to him, “Ruhnken's letter is quite affecting.
It never would have occurred to Wolf, who But were I the invited, I should act upon the
had so much of the kind to answer for him old saying, “he who sits comfortable should
self, to make a serious accusation against any sit still.' I should stay where I was, and
man that he had not written something he had | write to Berlin to demand a rise of 1000
said in print he intended to write. And of thalers in my salary.” On the other hand,
Ruhnken we could prove, were it necessary, Spalding, who confessed that he did not
that Wolf always expressed himself with the know what patriotism was, strongly urged
reverence every scholar feels for one of the his acceptance. The confusion of political
eatest names in classical learning. affairs in Holland, and the great expensive
In the list of Wolf's correspondents are ness of Leyden, seemed to have been the de
two English names, Butler and Falconer, but termining motives to his refusal. It turned
their letters are not published. One glimpse out fortunately; for Luzac, who had appealed
we obtain of him directly from an English against the curators to the States-General, got
source, but not during the Halle period. In his professorship back again. An invitation
the summer of 1813, E. W. Blomfield, then to Copenhagen, to be Director-in-Chief of
fellow of Emanuel, paid a visit to Prussia, Secondary Instruction in Denmark, with a
which had been long closed to English tra salary of 1800 thalers, Wolf actually ac
vellers. One of the first objects of his tour cepted. This fell through, owing to some
was to acquaint himself with the state of tracasseries, which Körte cannot explain. In
German scholarship, for which he was quali the great intellectual move in Bavaria, in the
fied by a knowledge of the language, then a first years of the century, Wolf was not over
rare accomplishment. On his return he sent looked. Hegel was induced to leave Jena for
a few notes of what he had learned to the Nürnburg, and the magnificent offer was
Museum Criticum. They are meagreenough. made to Wolf of a seat in the Academy of
But we may gather from them that Blomfield Sciences at Munich, with a pension of 4500
had become aware of the fact, probably not florins, and next to nothing to do but to
understood in this country before, that F. A. write what he liked.
Wolf occupied, in the opinion of his country Wolf decided notwithstanding to remain at
men, the highest place in classical philology. Halle, little dreaming of the impending
–(Mus. Crit. i. 274; ii. 524.) catastrophe which was to sweep away pro
The list of his correspondents is so large, fessors, students, and university in one com
that we should be inclined to think that Wolf mon ruin. He declined the Munich call in
had too much, rather than too little of this 1805. In August, 1806, Prussia declared
kind of intercourse on his hands. The cen war against Napoleon. It took Napoleon
tral situation of Halle, too, close to Jena and just six weeks to annihilate the Prussian army.
Leipzig, conveniently near Weimar and Ber The valley of the Saale became the theatre
of the short and decisive campaign. Halle BERLIN, 1807–1824.—Goethe at this criti
was occupied by one of the main Prussian cal moment came forward with advice. It
corps. Wolf had full opportunity of seeing was, as Goethe's advice usually was, the very
what the swaggering patriots were like. It best that could have been given. “Use this
is remarkable that Hegel at Jena, and Wolf enforced leisure to write.” Unfortunately,
at Halle, both foresaw what would inevitably like most good advice, it was particularly un
happen, while every one around them was alatable. During the winter indeed of
exulting in the assurance of an easy victory. 1806–7, Wolf occupied himself, per otia
Wolf incurred for the moment great obloquy Gallica, as he said, with his Encyclopädie.
on account of his “unpatriotic” sentiments. To this leisure we probably owe the grand
One of his colleagues sent his little boy to fragment with which the Museum der
him every morning with some great news, Alterthumswissenschaft opens. But early in
adding on one occasion, “The Prussians are the spring he left for Berlin, which became
conquering, and will conquer!” “My lad,” his residence from this time forward. The
said Wolf, “you have not learnt your tenses; prospect at first was gloomy. He was reduced
the Prussians are conquering, have conquered, from affluence to poverty, from a settled oc
and will conquer.” But Wolf was overruled. cupation, which had become necessary for
The University threw itself passionately into him, to an uncertain expectation. A roomy
the anti-Gallican movement. In’spite of his house and garden was ill exchanged for a
opposition, it joined the town of Halle in an lodging in a noisy street (No. 10 Dorotheen
appeal for a subscription for clothing for a strasse), where the partitions were so thin
Prussian regiment. This appeal, couched in that what went on in the next room was
terms which Wolf thought highly unbecom necessarily heard. But this was only tempo
ing a university, was circulated in the papers, rary. As Prussia slowly recovered from the
and, of course, fell into the hands of the enemy. blow of Jena, the prospect brightened. The
On the morning of the 17th October, impelled policy of the Government was to compensate
by curiosity to see war, Wolf had gone out their country for its loss of territory by urg
early into the quarters of Duke Eugene of ing its moral and intellectual development.
Würtemberg before the town. He immedi A university was to be created at Berlin,
ately perceived that something was wrong, and to be filled with celebrities drawn from
retired hastily, and barricaded his house. By every part of Germany. Wilhelm von Hum
11 A.M. the French were in the town. Wolf, boldt was in the Ministry of Education. Un
alone in his house with his daughter and der these circumstances, not only would there
a kitchen-maid, awaited their fate. More be a place for Wolf, but it was certain that
than one attempt was made to force an en one of the foremost places would be laid at
trance, in vain. Order was speedily restored, his feet. He was only forty-eight, in the
thanks to the excellence of French discipline, possession of sound health, and the full vigour
and the regular quartering parties began to of his faculties, and here was opening to him
go round. Several applicants were sent the prospect of a more brilliant career upon a
away. At last they committed themselves wider theatre. A reign of intellect was be
to a sapeur whose manner Wolf thought ing inaugurated in Berlin. At Halle ho had
promising. Notwithstanding his blood-stained had a hard struggle to create an appreciation
and fire-eating appearance, he behaved with for his subject in a confined circle. Now, the
such courtesy to the young lady, that he was most intellectual capital in Europe was waiting
installed in Wolf's lecture-room. She asked to catch instruction from his lips. The man
him where the Emperor was, “L’Empereur, who when young had never lost a chance,
mademoiselle, ou il est? il estici, il est là, il now threw away a certainty of success.
est partout!” We are not going to write in detail the
Thus fortunately escaped individual peril, sad history of the wilfulness of genius. We
Wolf was necessarily involved in the general shall invoke no muse to sing the wrath of
proscription which the university had brought this Achilles. The truth, however, ought to
upon itself. On 20th October, an order of be told for the sake of the lesson which it
the day, issued by General Ménard, the com conveys. Wolf had no self-knowledge. Far
manding officer, suspended the lectures, and from having the perfectly-poised self-estimate
sent all the students to their homes with of Goethe, he had not even the ordinary
French passes. A stroke of the pen thus de judgment of average men of the world.
prived Wolf at once of his means of subsist Long accustomed to feel himself the first
ence and his occupation. It was a mysterious man in a village, he thought he was to con
crisis, such as happens in few lives. From tinue to hold the same place in Berlin. Im
this moment forward nothing would go pulsive and enthusiastic, his vanity and am
straight with him. He had fallen out with bition ran away with him. He would not
fortune, and was never reconciled with her. have a professorship. Well, he would have
1865. F. A. Wolf. 147
a professorship, but would not be tied to the Director, you have a rank above a Staats
duties of it like the other professors. He rath; as member of the Department, you
would hold his seat and position in the have equal rank with the Staatsråthe, with
Academy, but he would not be bound by out their burdensome duties.” Wolf suffer
the same obligations as the other academi ed himself to be named Director of the Dele
cians. This coquetry with duties which he gacy, a delegacy which consisted of men so
could perform better than any one else, was distinguished as L. Spalding, Schleiermacher,
because he secretly wished to be intrusted Tralles, Bernhardi, and Erman. But hardly
with functions which he could not perform had he entered upon his new duties than he
at all. He wanted to enter the Government, withdrew from them. He would not resign,
of course in the department of Education. but he would not act. He retired to his
He secretly wished this, but would not say house, and, like Lord Chatham in the inn at
so. Von Humboldt divined his wish, and Marlborough, declared that the state of his
endeavoured to gratify it. He met with health did not allow him to attend the sit
great opposition from influential persons, tings. In truth, there was disease of body.
from all around. It was unprecedented, and An obstinate ague hung about him all the
might be inconvenient to introduce into a summer of 1809 and the following winter,
department a man of fifty, not bred to the and a constant disorder or dissatisfaction of
civil service; above all, a man who, like mind, discontent with himself, with his cir
Wolf, had ideas of his own. Von Humboldt cumstances, with everybody around him.
persisted. It was, in his eyes, of such im His gathering spleen was vented promiscu
portance to have Wolf's aid in organizing ously upon institutions, arrangements, per
the superior instruction, that all other con sons. Yet there was greatness of mind even
siderations ought to give way. He prevail in his forwardness. There was always truth
ed. We suspect he employed his personal in his criticisms, even when most ill-timed or
influence with the King on this occasion. ill-judged in the measure of their severity.
An exceptional place was created for Wolf, In his personal censures he never conde
in order to give play to his knowledge and scended to petty spite, though he might be
experience on classical training. He was harsh, and, as in the case of Heindorf, even
named Director of the scientific Delegacy of cruel. He was prolific in throwing out ideas
the Department of Public Instruction, be of what might be done, all of them admirable,
sides being a member of the Department but he himself would be the first to thwart
itself. But this did not please Wolf. No any attempt to realize them. IIe wanted to
thing would have pleased him except being have a philological Seminar on the same
absolute. He did not understand being plan as that with which he had worked such
member of a consultative board. He had no wonders at Halle, but on a larger scale. A
deference for the opinions of others. He philological seminary was established. But
wanted to override his colleagues in the de one of the provisions in its statutes displeased
partment, as he had overridden his colleagues him, and he declined to have anything to do
at Halle. He spurned at official etiquette. with it.
In this miserable display of fractiousness and Wolf had now had rope enough, and he
vanity, Von Humboldt displayed himself had completely succeeded in strangling his
truly magnanimous. Superior to all petty own reputation. The patience of the offi
considerations, he waived all affronts, and cials was exhausted. But the Philistines
overlooked all irregularities, for the sake of were now strong enough to turn upon Sam
preserving to the State Wolf's talents. Wolf, son and bind him. Upon one point they
not knowing what he wanted, or what was were determined: not to have so impractica
good for him, like a child, was crying to be ble a man as a colleague in any department
Staatsrath. He complained, most unjustly, of administration. The only thing that
that Von Stein would have made him Staats could be done with him was to make him
rath, and that Von Humboldt stood in his lecture. He was fit for nothing but to be a
way. “Do you know what it is, my dear professor. So it ended in the very thing
fellow,” was Humboldt's soothing reply, “to which in his first pride he had most disdain
be Staatsrath in a Department? If you did, ed, in his going back to his old work of
you would not desire it. Ask Süvern, if he lecturing, and being tied up by a stringent
has been able to do a single thing on his own regulation to deliver his lectures or be mulct
account this whole summer. You would be ed of his stipend. The triumph of the red
overwhelmed with writing and official busi tapists was complete. Their predictions were
ness. I have created for you a position in verified to the letter. Wolf's wilfulness fur
which you are at hand to give your advice. nished the bureaux with a convincing proof
You have nothing to do, and yet are secure of their creed, that the man of ideas is an
of your salary, however little you do. As inferior being, not to be trusted with the real
business of life. Blissful Beamtenthum may for the use of schools. Literature, too, had
long point a moral from Wolf's history. We ceased to be a healthy occupation, and be
can easily forgive him for having wrecked come but another material for embroiling
his own prospects. It is more difficult to him with his friends. His insupportable
et over the injury he has done the cause, by peremptoriness alienated them one by one.
£ furnished in his conduct so signal a He engaged with Buttmann to start a new
confirmation of the popular prejudice as to classical journal, the Museum der Alterthums
the unpractical character of learning. wissenschaft. But with Wolf copartnership
Thus ignominiously ended Wolf's adminis was impossible. His associates must be his
trative career. It might have been speedily slaves, or at best his tools. He led off in the
forgotten, if he had returned with concen first number of the Museum with a masterly
trated strength to that field of philological paper, and then retired in dudgeon. He
research in which he was able to assert his would have nothing more to do with it.
uncontested supremacy. He did at last con We are involuntarily reminded of the scenes
descend to lecture; but his charm was fled. between Hegel and Varnhagen von Ense on
He never could get fairly into the swing the committee of redaction of the Berliner
again. The spring of that incomparable Jahrbücher. Hegel, too, was domineering
teaching talent was broken. He became and pertinacious—“tyrannized,” to use a
irregular and careless, and his class-rooms Berlin expression, and had more than once
emptied. He had hearers, but no pupils nearly ruined the enterprise. But Hegel
more. He was himself no longer the same knew how to be beaten, and to yield, and
man. “What was become of the Halle continued to the last to lend a hearty sup
wolf?. Eaten up by the Berlin wolf,” said port to the periodical of his school. Wolf
the wits of the wine-cellars. A spirit of con quarrelled with Buttmann; he quarrelled also
tradiction, of universal negation, seized him, with the gentle and submissive Heindorf.
which disgusted even the unexclusive Goethe. Heindorf's offence was the heinous one of
He writes to Zelter, 28th August, 1816, after having edited Plato. Finding that the mas
Wolf had been on a visit to him:— ter went on promising and did nothing to
wards the edition, Heindorf ventured on an
“It has come to pass that Wolf now contra edition of his own, humbly professing that it
dicts not only everything one says, but denies was only a stop-gap till the edition should
everything that exists. It drives one positively make its appearance. For this Wolf fell
to despair, however one may be prepared for
the kind of thing. This preposterous temper upon him with savage ferocity, the more
grows upon him, and makes his society, which cruel because Heindorf was known to be
might be so instructive, intolerable. One even dying, “Cechagrin philosophe est un pew
catches the craze one's self; and I find myself trop sauvage.” This onfall called forth a
saying before him the very opposite of what I violent invective, in a pamphlet said to be
really think. One can see, however, what an the joint production of Buttmann, Schleier
effective teacher this man must have been in
earlier times, when he was as positive as he now
macher, Schneider, Niebuhr, and Böckh, in
is negative.” which Wolf's arrogance was retorted with
insult, and his “literary bankruptcy” exposed
Become powerless in the professor's chair, to scorn and contempt. It was not well
it might be supposed that he would have done, notwithstanding the constellation of
taken refuge in the press, and devoted his names connected with it; so at least Zelter
splendid leisure to the execution of some of reported to Goethe-(Zelter to Goethe, 20th
#. thousand projects of editing and writing October, 1816.) Yet, taken together with
which his fertile imagination suggested. He the odium accumulated on all sides, it pro
did very little of this kind in the seventeen duced an evident impression. He pretended
years of his Berlin life, and that little not his not to have read it, and refused to answer it
best; for the Darstellung der Alterthums on that ground—“Weil ich solche Art Wische
wissenschaft, though published in this period, nicht zu lesen aflege.” He became more
was written earlier. The Analecta, published and more withdrawn; the “distinguished
in 1816, show here and there rays of light Eremite,” Schleiermacher nicknamed him.
such as Wolf's genius alone could have flash Zelter describes him as rather subdued by
ed forth; but these are momentary and fitful the universal howl. “You would be vastly
gleams. Of any sustained effort he seems to amused if you could see the Isegrimm just
have become incapable. The Plato, adver now. There are a few who take his part;
tised with much pomp, went no farther than but he is abused and run down to such a
a title-page full of promises; for the edition degree that he cannot help feeling a little
of the Phaedo (1811), and that of the uneasiness. He looks like washed leather,
Euthyphro, Apology, and Crito (1820), did and puts up with a good deal that would
not belong to the Plato, but were only texts have been once intolerable to him.”—(Zelter
1865, F. A. Wolf. 149
to Goethe, ii. 328.) The dedication of the from Avignon in one day, though he had to
Analecta is the outpouring of a sore and get up at three A.M. to do it. Arrived at
wounded egotism; out of place in the front Marseilles, on the very next day he would go
of a volume of classical criticism, but a out to see the town. A fearful mistral (19th
curious page of mental revelation. Even in July) could not keep him within doors. He
the middle of a critical article—one on would bathe, and would drink not much
Horace—he cannot restrain himself from wine, but quantities of iced-water, and eat
outbreaks such as this:–“ . . . . even if it confitures. Diarrhoea and other dangerous
had been otherwise worth the while of a symptoms set in, which he met with more
scholar such as Lambinus to vex himself to baths and more iced-water. On the 8th Au
death about the misrendering of a couple of gust he died. He was buried in classic
words, when there is so much besides in this ground—the old Phocaean Massilia. All at
world out of joint.” The punishment he tempts to discover, in 1852, the site of his
inflicted on Schleiermacher for his share in grave in the cemetery, were fruitless. Instead
the pamphlet is given with much better tem. of a monument on the site, a marble bust, by
per—almost with Porson's quietness. It Heidel, was placed to his memory by the
consisted in printing a single sentence of the Association of German Philologians in the
Phaedo side by side with Schleiermacher's aula of the University of Halle.
German version, marking the errors—almost In personal appearance Wolf had an im
as many as there are words—by italics. posing, dignified, somewhat imperious air.
Schleiermacher's weakness as translator of He was slightly above the middle size, broad
Plato could not be more severely exposed. shouldered, deep-chested; hands and feet
well proportioned. A capacious forehead,
For this lamentable displacement of genius prominent eye-brow, searching blue eye, com
there was to be no remedy, but the final bined to express keenness and force of mind. .
remedy of all. Wolf's health had been The lips betrayed the interplay of good
gradually giving way for some time. In humour and raillery, without any trace of the
1822 he had a serious attack of illness. He cynicism which unhappily appeared in his
celebrated his birth-day, 15th February, 1824, conduct at one period of his life. For in Wolf
with the presentiment that it was the last. the social man was rarely disturbed by the
His physician ordered a southern climate, crosses which vexed the existence of the pub
and recommended Nice. On applying for lic man. In his life-career he was a disap.
the necessary leave of absence, the answer pointed man; and his deliberate views of
was that it would be granted on the usual men and things were soured by his disap
condition,—the withdrawal of half the sala pointment. But in social life his powerful
ry. This was to deprive him of the means nature resumed its sway; his intellect then
of going at all, for Wolf had saved nothing. retained, of the griefs of the Professor, only
But by a direct application to the King, the a caustic tinge, which gave poignancy to his
special indulgence of leave of absence on full wit. He must, we think, have been a diffi
pay was obtained. So certain did he make cult person to live with, as are all men of
that his petition would be granted, that he precise habits, and prodigious attention in
had started without waiting for an answer, organizing detail. He was separated from
and the leave, together with his passport, his wife in 1802, by mutual consent, she
overtook him at Frankfort. He left Berlin taking the eldest and youngest daughter,
on 14th April, saying, “I will either return Wolf the second, Wilhelmina, afterwards
strong and sound, or lay my bones in classic married to W. Körte, Wolf's biographer.
soil.” He took the route of Strasburg and Körte, who is evidently on his father-in-law's
Lyons, having friends or pupils to see at al side, says that Wolf's friends approved of the
most every place he stopped at. He halted separation. We should like to hear the wo
a week at the country-seat of the Faure men's account of the matter, to apply Syd
family at St. Peray, where everything was ney Smith's well-known saying. ' domes
done that could contribute to soothe and tic unhappiness it is idle for persons outside
cheer the visibly declining strength, addi to judge; though Körte is not reserved,
tionally tried by the heat and hurry of a scarcely delicate, in the revelations which he
rapid journey. At Montpellier he was still permits himself. Wolf must have been a .
able to go about and see everything. His petty tyrant, exacting, without being harsh
own imprudent management of himself pre or inconsiderate. He was, e.g., so avaricious
cipitated the catastrophe. At Cette he in of his time that he would make his appoint
sisted on bathing in the sea, that he might ments to minutes, and he expected others to
feel the Mediterranean. Impatient to get to be punctual to the moment, while he refused
the end of his journey, he would not be himself to be bound by his own engagement.
diverted from going through to Marseilles He expected cleanliness and order in the
150 The New Gold Mines and Prices. June,
house, and yet was habitually careless in his works were his pupils, and, directly or indi
own person. He had been trained when rectly, through them the whole school of
young in habits of rigid economy; he had German philologians of the nineteenth cen
in his nature a disposition to expensive fur tury. -
nishings. Instead of balancing each other,

these opposite inclinations alternately ruled
him, and led to laughable contradictions in
conduct. His household seldom had enough
of the necessary, often an abundance of the ART. II.—1. The History of Prices. By
superfluous. He liked the society of women; THoMAs TookE, Esq., and W. NewMARCH,
with clever or educated women, the sarcasm Esq. 1857.
of his wit, and the despotism of his temper, 2. La Question de l'Or. Par E. LAvAs
was laid aside, or merged in the deep sym SEUR. 1858.
pathies of his nature which they brought out. 3. The Probable Fall in the Value of Gold.
With these he never over-stepped the line By M. CHEvALIER. Translated by R.
which separates raillery from sneer. His CoBDEN, Esq. 1859.
memory was inexhaustible in traits of cha 4. A Serious Fall in the Value of Gold As
racter and anecdotes of the persons he had certained. By W. STANLEY JEvoNs, Esq.
lived with ; especially of the originals which 1863.
university life in the old time tended to pro 5. The Drain of Silver to the East. By
duce. He never gave himself airs on the W. NAssAU LREs, Esq. 1864.
strength of his reputation; persons were 6. The Economy of Capital, or, Gold and
known to have been with him months at a Trade. By R. H. PATTERson, Esq. 1865.
time without finding out that they had to do 7. Principles of Political Economy. By
with one of the most learned men of the day. JoHN STUART MILL, Esq. Sixth Edition.
Yet at times he would express his personal 1865.
feelings with an emphasis which shocked 8. Commercial Reports of Her Majesty's
weaker natures. He used to chuckle im Consuls. -
mensely over Bentley's striking out as spuri 9. The Economist.

ous the line of Terence, “adversus nemini,
nunquam preponens se illis.” His hatred of On the discovery of the new gold mines,
affectation was conspicuous in either direc under the name of the Gold Question, an
tion. He would not assume to be what he economical inquiry, unconnected with party
was not; nor would he affect modesty. The politics, for the first time gained the ear of
conversation once turned in his presence on the public at large. Yet public interest has
a German dictionary of great pretensions, been languid, in comparison with the real
which was in high favour. Wolf showed, importance of the monetary problems in
giving examples, that it was nothing beyond volved. The chief reason for this is perhaps
one of the ordinary second-hand compila the diffusion of an opinion that the effect of
tions. The lady of the house, thinking to the increase of money upon prices practically
disarm the severity of the critic, said, among concerns persons alone whose pecuniary in
other things, “And you cannot think, Pro comes are fixed; an opinion which would be
fessor, what a #h esteem the author has for sufficiently true if prices were everywhere
you.” “Well,” was the reply, “for his uniformly affected, and with respect to all
opinion of me my man has good reason; things alike. But the fact is, that the scale
his lexicon is not the less a scrubby book on of relative incomes, and of relative prices, in
that account.” He hated letter-writing, but different places, and with respect to different
when he did write, wrote carefully. The commodities, has been so altered, that the
letters of female correspondents he would old level of profits in different employments,
keep for months open on his desk among his and the old rates of expenditure in different
papers, and read them over and over again. situations, have been permanently disturbed,
Other letters he left for years unanswered. and new elements must be imported into all
There is a vast collection of letters in the calculations respecting the best markets to
Berlin library, but they are entirely letters to buy and sell in, the cost of living in different
Wolf. Of his own letters a few are pub localities, the out-goings and returns in dif
lished in the Schütz collection. They turn ferent trades, and the rates of interest which
on personal affairs, and are biographically of different investments will yield. Those who
great interest, but do not enter on classical omit to take these new elements into account
topics. None of Wolf's books convey an may find that their expenses, both as pro
impression of what he was. His letters, if ducers and consumers, are largely increased,
they could be recovered, and if there were while the prices of their own productions are
enough of them, might do so. His greatest not higher than formerly; or they may find
1865. The New Gold Mines and Prices. 151
themselves buyers in markets in which prices buy and sell in them, how they are affected
have unexpectedly and enormously risen, and by the greater amount of money in the
sellers where they have risen in no such pro world; and statistical averages of prices in
portion; or again, they may miss invest general are not only fallacious in principle,
ments which would yield extraordinary gain. but misleading in practice. The additional
The British farmer complains that while la money has been unequally distributed by the
bour and many of the requisites of produc balance of trade to different countries, and
tion are dearer, he gets no more money than very unequally shared by different classes in
formerly for his wheat, and the migration of the countries receiving it; again, it has been
population from the country to the towns, spent by the classes receiving it, not upon all
and the production of animal food instead of commodities alike, but unequally, and the
corn, are among the results of changes in supply of some things upon which there has
relative prices at home. Most writers on the been an additional expenditure has increased
effects of the Mines have confined their ob very much more than that of others. More
servations to changes in prices at home. The over, a low range of prices is raised more by
truth, however, is, that changes in prices a given addition to money than a high one,
abroad are of equal importance even to Eng which is one reason why the change has
lishmen, not for the purpose of theoretical been greatest in places once remarkable for
instruction alone, but even with a view to their cheapness.” And from what has been
pecuniary saving and gain. Every day peo said, it is plain that a change in comparative
ple are making speculations and entering in incomes and prices would have been caused
to transactions—in emigration, in foreign by the new gold alone, since it would increase
trade, and in foreign loans and undertakings the incomes and expenditures only of the
—the prudence of which depends upon the classes, beginning with the miners, to whose
movements of prices abroad. Great under hands it successively came. But the new
takings by Englishmen abroad in fact have gold has by no means been the only new
been based upon estimates which have proved agency at work; an altered distribution of
fallacious, because they made no sufficient money through the world has been brought
allowance for the effects of an extraordiuary about by more general and permanent causes.
increase of money in remote places. Chair And at a time like the present—a time of
men of Indian Railway and Irrigation Com doubtful markets and hesitating trade—it is
panies, for example, have reported in London peculiarly desirable to lay hold of the funda
that the rise of prices in India had falsified mental causes at work, because, although the
all their calculations, and entailed the heaviest fortunes of individuals here and there may
losses on contractors. Nor is it in produc depend on the momentary condition of things,
tion alone that the unequal alteration of prices to the bulk of society the permanent agen
has made itself felt, for consumers have been cies which prevail in the end, and the per
very differently affected, according to the manent rates they tend to establish, are the
place of their residence and the things they objects of greatest importance. Commerce
are accustomed to use. The class of British and enterprise may pause and falter for a
holders of fixed incomes, who have really few weeks or months; a transitory disturb
been the chief sufferers from the increase of ance originating in America may possibly
money in other hands than their own, are agitate all markets; but such possibilities
not fundholders and Government servants in only make it of greater importance to know
Great Britain, who are generally placed first what to look forward to afterwards, and to
in dissertations on the subject, but military distinguish between permanent and tempo
and civil servants of the Crown in India, who rary changes of prices, and of the profits of
are confronted by a rise of prices to which
there has been nothing similar in England * The greatest effect on low prices of an addi
since the reign of Elizabeth. Even in Eng tional sum of money is a matter of considerable
land itself, consumers are differently affected, practical importance, which may be illustrated in
this way. Let us suppose, and the supposition is
according to their class of life and habits, not very wide of the facts, that the price of com
and the localities they live in. To the agri mon labour was formerly 1s. 6d. a day in England,
cultural labourer the price of grain is the and 1d, a day in India, and that the increased
chief matter, and grain is cheap; he suffers demand for labour has added a sixpence to the
rate of daily wages in both countries, raising the
comparatively little from the dearness of but rate from 1s 6d. to 2s. in England, and from 1d.
ter and meat, and nothing from the dearness to 7d. in parts of India. Wages would then have
of service, now pressing so hard on the poorer risen 33 per cent. in England, and 600 per cent in
gentry and tradesmen, especially in the parts India;
three
and whereas a contractor could only hire
men in England for the sum with which he
of the country where such things used to be could formerly have hired four, in India he could
cheapest. It depends entirely on the locali only hire one man for the sum with which he
ties men buy and sellin, and the things they could formerly have hired six.
production in each place and with respect to metallic, in which each region excels, to seat
each sort of thing. every industry in the £ best adapted for
The general principle determining the dis it, and to apply the skill and capital of old
tribution of the precious metals is, that money countries more productively in remote places
is spent by those who receive it on the things with great natural resources. “The first phe
they want most for production or consump nomenon,” Mr. Patterson observes, “attend
tion, and in the places where those things ant upon the gold discoveries, has been the
can be procured at the smallest expense. To great emigration—the transfer of large masses
buy in the cheapest and sell in the dearest of population from the old seats to new ones,
market is the policy of trade; and a combi the vast and sudden spread of civilized man
nation of causes has latterly given, and is con kind over the earth. The countries where
tinually giving, buyers, on the one hand, ac these gold-beds have been found are in the
cess to cheaper places of production for many utmost ends of the earth, regions the most
commodities, and the sellers of the produce isolated from the seats of civilisation. Of all
of such places, on the other hand, easier ac spots on the globe, California was the farthest
cess to the markets where their value is removed from the highways of enterprise.
greatest. But this necessarily leads to a Not a road to it was to be found on the map
change in the seats of production and in rela of the traveller; not a route to it was laid
tive prices, the tendency being always towards down in the charts of the mariner. Austra
the production of everything in the places lia was, if possible, a still more isolated quar
within reach where its cost of production is ter of the globe.” This migration to the re
least, and towards an equality in the prices mote regions of the new gold is not, however,
of portable goods over the area of cheaper a singular and isolated movement of industry.
and closer commercial intercommunication. We shall find, on the contrary, that the key
Producers in particular occupations and par to the principal permanent changes in prices
ticular places, accordingly, have not only ob which have followed the path of the new gold
tained no share in the new treasure, getting through the world, is to be found in the fact
no additional custom either from the mining that remoteness is no longer the obstacle it
countries or from the countries these deal was to the best territorial division of labour,
with, but have even found the demand for and that buried natural riches, and neglected
their produce decreasing, and transferred to local capabilities, are obtaining, in a thousand
other localities; and capital and industry are directions at once, a value proportionate rather
in a course of migration, not only because ex to their actual quality than to their nearness to
traordinary profits are offered in new regions market, and attracting capital and skill by high
and new employments, but also because ordi profits to their development. For the same
nary profits are no longer to be made in old reason, and by the same aids to industrial en
places and old employments. terprise which have brought miners and mer
The great gold movement itself—that is to chants to cheaper places for gold, cheaper
say, the production and distribution of the places for the production and purchase of many
new gold—is only a part of a much larger other things have been contemporaneously
movement, resulting from the new facilities found, and the distribution of the new gold and
of producing many things, gold among the its effects upon prices have been very different
number, in cheaper places than formerly, from what they would have been, had the
and disposing of them more readily in the fertility of the new mines been the only
places where their value is highest, and the altered condition of international trade. The
enterprise with which such facilities are be general principle which regulates the distri
ing turned to account. The mines of Califor bution of money through the world is, as we
nia and Australia, for which older mines have said, that those who receive it naturally
were forsaken,” are only a particular class of spend it on the things they want most, and in
new sources of production from which the the places where such things can be had
markets of this world are being supplied, and cheapest; but they have of late years obtained
their rapid development is only a particular access to markets not formerly within reach,
instance of the energy with which cheaper and much of the new money has been ab
and better sources of supply are sought and sorbed in new regions, and in circulation of
developed. The bent of the industrial and produce not before in the market. The
commercial movement of our times is, above world may at present be divided into three
all things, to discover and put to profitable classes of regions: first, those in which prices
use the special resources, metallic and non were formerly highest; in the second place,
those in which the new movements of trade
* “The product of gold in the Atlantic States
has fallen off since the discoveries of gold in Cali have already raised prices towards the level
fornia.”—Preliminary Report on the Eighth Census prevailing in the former regions; and, thirdly,
of the United States, p. 63. the places not yet within the influence of the
1865. The New Gold Mines and Prices. * 153
new means of commercial intercommunica countries was not only partial, but only par
tion. The first and second class of regions tially caused by the new gold. In the face of
may be said to be fast merging into one, with a rapidly increasing population, there was an
. pecuniary rates approaching to equality, actual decrease in the supply of labour and
while the third class is also, in numerous di many of the necessaries of life. Farms and
rections, on the point of assimilation. A per pastoral settlements were forsaken; the crops
manent change is thus taking place in the in many places were lost for want of hands;
conditions which govern comparative prices all building ceased in Melbourne at the very
in different markets, and one the more worthy time that crowds were arriving; and the ves
of notice, since in the earlier years after the sels coming from Europe were too full of
discovery of the new mines, there was, both emigrants to have room for considerable car
in the gold countries themselves, and in the goes. So far too as the rise of prices was
chief markets of Europe, an abnormal, and, really caused by the increase of gold, and not
in a great measure, temporary elevation of by the scarcity of commodities, it should
prices, which, although not in reality princi be taken into account that a great part of the
pally due to the increase of gold, led to mis gold current at first came not from the new
taken conclusions respecting its real effects. but from the old mines of the world, brought by
The first rise of prices in California and immigrants who did not come empty-handed,
Australia, from w: M. Chevalier and other and who were driven to spend a good deal
eminent writers were led to apprehend a pro of old money before they could make any
portionate fall in the value of money through new, or even get to the mines. Hence the
out Europe, was, in fact, as Mr. Newmarch first fall in the value of money in the gold
has shown,” both temporary in degree and countries was in a great measure due to a
partial in extent; those things alone rising in temporary and abnormal condition of things,
price which were in demand with the classes and not to the fertility of the mines. In 1854,
whose pecuniary incomes were increased. prices in Victoria were already much lower
While, for instance, the coarser sorts of cloth than during the two years before, and the fol
ing adapted to life at the diggings were fetch lowing table of prices, published by the
ing extraordinary prices, the best quality of Registrar-General of the colony, shows their
cloth was for a time altogether unsaleable. continuous descent in subsequent years:—
Moreover, the early rise in prices in the gold
ESTIMATED WEEKLY EXPENDITURE OF AN ARTISAN, HIS WIFE, AND THREE CHILDREN.
1854. 1857. 1861.
Bread, 28 lbs., . . . . • 30 12 6 £0 6 8: £0 5 3
Beef or mutton, 21 lbs., • • - 0 15 9 0 12 3 0 6 10
Potatoes, 21 lbs., . • - - 0 5 10} 0 2 10} 0 1 0
Flour, 5 lbs., • - • - 0 2 2 0 1 2+ 0 1 0
Tea, 1 lb., . . - - - 0 2 0 0 2 6 0 2 9
Sugar, 6 lbs., . • * * 0 8 0 0 2 6 0 2 3
Soap, 3 lbs., . • - - - 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 9
Candles, 2 lbs., - - 0 1 6 | ** 0 1 4 0 1 2
Milk, 7 pints, • - 0 7 0 - 0 3 6 0 2 4
Butter, 2 lbs., • • 0 9 0 0 5 6 0 3 0
Firewood, 4 of ton, • • • 0 12 6 0 6 0 0 4 0
Water, 1 load, . • • - • • 0 10 0 0 5 0 0 2 0
Rent of cottage, per week, . • • • 2 0 0 0 10 0 0 6 0
Clothing, • - • • • - 0 15 0 0 10 0 0 6. 0
School fees, . . . . . . . 0 3 0 0 3 0 0 3 0
- £7 0 84 £3 13 43 £2 7 4
The reader will perceive in these figures a of prices one year with another since their
proof of the error of a method by which some discovery. An average of prices for a suc
writers have attempted to measure the per cession of years hides the material point
manent effect of the new mines on the value whether prices have continuously risen, or on
of money-that, namely, of taking an average the contrary have latterly fallen,-a point of
great practical importance, since, as already
* History of Prices, vol. vi. A endix. observed, the general movement of prices has
VOL. XLII. -11
been very different in different places. As an trast with the previous table of prices at Vic
illustration of this we beg attention to the toria:
following table of prices at Bilbao, in con
1854." 1860. 1864.
Mutton, per lb., . • 4.0 0 2+ £0 0 4} | £0 0

Beef, do., . • - - • 0 0 23 0 0 4 5d. to 8d.
Weal, do., • * 0 0 34 0 0 8 8d. to 10d.
Butter, do., . • • • 0 0 5 0 0 94 0 1 3
Eggs, per dozen, . • • 0 0 34 0 0 71 0 0 10
Bread, per lb., . • • - • 0 0 1 0 0 2 0 0 2
Common wine, two quarts, . • • 0 0 73 0 1 3+ 0 0 10
Rent, . • • • • • • £15 to £20. £50 to £80. £30 to £80.
It is evident, from a comparison of the two world, created by the knowledge and enter
tables, that persons intending to trade with prise of our times, as well as by its better
or settle at either Melbourne or Bilbao, would means of locomotion. Wherever these causes
make a serious mistake in averaging prices have acted may be seen the equalization of
one year with another. The average would prices, the disappearance of comparative
give a range more than three times too high cheapness, the opening up of new markets
at one of the places, and nearly three times for the special capabilities of each place and
too low at the other. Prices in Australia in its inhabitants, and the rupture of ancient
the first years after the derangement of in bonds of local dependence, of which Dr.
dustry by the mines, and prices in Spain be Johnson saw, eighty years ago, almost the
fore the new gold had found entrance, are so beginning in England. It is curious to ob
far from affording a basis for calculations serve how writers, at places the most remote
respecting the future probable value of money, from each other, fall naturally into the use of
that they ought rather to be excluded from the the very same words in describing the changes,
estimate. The contrast, however, between the taking place under their eyes. Of Bilbao,
descending movement of prices at one place, the British Consul four years ago, when prices
and their ascending movement at the other, had not reached their subsequent pitch, re
indicates an important practical distinction. ported—“The cost of living has risen enor
The causes which raised prices so high in mously; and Bilbao, from being one of the
Australia from 1852 to 1854 were in a great cheapest towns in Europe, has become a com
measure transitory and local; but those paratively dear place.” From Yokohama, in
which have raised them in Spain are funda Japan, the Consul writes:—“From being one
mental and permanent in their character, and of the cheapest places in the East, it has be
extend in their operations over the whole area come second only to Shanghae in expensive
of commercial intercommunication. Mr. ness.” And from Alexandria we hear :
Windham has left the following note of Dr. “Egypt, which a few years ago was one of
Johnson's conversation on the effect of turn the cheapest countries, is fast rising to the
pike-roads in England:—“Every place com Indian scale of prices.”
municating with every other. Before, there The rising prices in such places indicate, it
were cheap places and dear places; now, all should be particularly observed, not a mere
refuges are destroyed for elegant and genteel fall in the local value of money, but a rise in
poverty. Disunion of families by furnishing the general as well as in the pecuniary value
a market for each man's ability, and destroy of their produce. If all the cattle in the
ing the dependence of one man upon ano pastures of South America could be carried
ther.” The train of consequences described rapidly and cheaply to Europe, their value in
in these sentences has with extraordinary money might be more than decupled; but,
rapidity followed the recent increase in the the change would not be a depreciation of
communication between distant parts of the money; for, on the contrary, money would
have found an additional demand. Less than
** Prices in 1854 were the average prices of a long
period anterior. The very high price of wine in a generation ago, the Landes of the Gironde
1860 was in part occasioned by scarcity; not so were a pestilential waste, covering 800,000
with the other articles. The harvests have beenhectares, and valued at 900,000 francs on the
# and although bread was at the same price at whole, or three francs a hectare on the ave
ilbao in 1864 as in 1860, in consequence of railway
communication with the interior, its price rose in rage. Partly by being brought nearer to
the interior between those years. markets by railways, partly by the mere
fact of their capabilities becoming known, which is a fact of immense political signifi
partly by drainage and cultivation, and partly, cance in our times—is not only that access to
no doubt, through the general increase of them is easier, and employment in them is
money in France, the price of the Landes has greater, but that railways are making the
risen in the extraordinary manner described country as dear as the town. M. About
in the British Consul's report, and more in recommends the country to the poor for its
detail by M. About, who relates that the to healthfulness and beauty as well as for econo
bacco crop of a single hectare was lately sold my; but modern means of locomotion, and
for more than a thousand francs, and that the the movement of, which they are both cause
wood alone, on a plot of 500 hectares only and effect, tend to give all the advantages of
partly in plantation, will in less than twenty each place a pecuniary value in proportion to
years be worth a million francs, being more their real utility and rarity, and to turn them
than the worth of the whole territory of the to the utmost commercial account, thus find
Landes about the time that the mines of Cali ing new markets for the produce of the mines
fornia were discovered. M. About adds:— in the Pyrenees and the Alps. The same
“This enormous territory, which did not fig general tendency towards the commercial
ure for a million francs when I was at college, development of the natural wealth of such
will be worth six hundred millions in 1894.” regions, which led to the production of the
In the same work from which these figures new gold, governs its distribution and effect
are taken,* M. About graphically describes upon prices. Buyers on the one hand, and
some of the causes of the enormous advance sellers on the other, have gained, and are
in prices in Paris. It denotes, he observes, constantly gaining, access to new markets.
that Paris has become the metropolis of the The necessary consequence is to bring money
business as well as of the fashion of the in unusual abundance to places where prices
Continent; and rents are trebled because were formerly low, and on the other hand, to
shops and hotels are crowded, and Paris is a bring the cheap produce of such places to the
city frequented by the rich. So far as it goes, markets previously dearest, and to counteract
this description is true, though it fails to more or less in the latter the fall in the value
allow both for the immense influx of gold of gold which the increase in its quantity
shown in the official accounts of the foreign would otherwise have produced. And thus
commerce of France, and for the expenditure it is that stationary prices of commodities in
in the metropolis of vast sums lent to the general are the best marks of prosperity in
Government from the old hoards of the people. one class of localities, namely, those in which
But we must differ entirely from M. About money has always abounded, and where cheap
where he says that while Paris has become a ness indicates improvement in production at
place only for the rich, there remains, and home, and access to cheaper places of pro
will always remain, a refuge for poverty in duction abroad; while, in another class of
the country. “If the rise of prices in Paris localities, rising prices indicate improved
terrifies you, there is the railway; it not only means of exportation, better markets, and in
brings people to Paris, but takes them away. ducements for the ingress of capital and skill
Live in the country.” We affirm, on the con as well as money. For the rate of profit on
trary, that just because the railway brings capital and skill employed in the development
people and things from the metropolis as well of their resources, and bringing their produce
as to it, it brings metropolitan riches and cheaply to market, is in proportion to the in
prices into the country, and far more effec crease of the quantity and price of the pro
tively than the old turnpike-road realizes Dr. duce. If people can sell for £100 what cost
Johnson's opinion of the results of easy them but £50, their profit in money is 100
communication between place and place: cent.; and the high profits and interest lat
“Before, there were cheap places and dear terly yielded on capital employed in foreign
places; now, all refuges are destroyed for trade and investments has arisen mainly from
elegant and genteel poverty.” The price of obtaining a share in the rising pecuniary
eggs a few years ago at Bayonne was six or value of the productions of regions whose
seven sous a dozen; now you will not get as commercial situation has been improved.
good a dozen for fourteen; and the price of This movement certainly tends to destroy the
boarding in a pension at the same place has refuges of poverty, but it tends on the other
exactly doubled in the same period. In for hand to destroy poverty itself by “furnishing
merly less accessible places than Bayonne, a market for each man's ability.” It brings
the change in the cost of subsistence has been with it hardship to those whose condition is
greater; and one cause of the concentration stationary, but it makes the condition of many
of the population of Europe in large towns— progressive. A few years before Dr. John
son's remarks on the effect of roads, Gold
* Le Progrès, 1864. smith made those excursions through the
*
156 The New Gold Mines, and Prices, June,

country which resulted in the poem of the to the well-being of the labouring classes. In
Leserted Village, in which the features of the mining countries themselves, he observes
the landscape, and something of personal that labouring men were the first to receive
incident, were drawn from his native village the gold, and the price of labour rose before
in Ireland; but the picture of the intrusion that of commodities; the latter rising only
of the wealth of towns and “trade's unfeeling in consequence of the increased expenditure
train” into remote parts of the country, was of the laboutring class. But in countries like
taken from England. The poet saw only the England and France, the new treasure was
privation to the parson, who “remote from first received in exchange for commodities;
towns” had been passing rich at forty the price of which consequently, according
pounds a year, and the sorrowful side of the to this able writer, rose before labour; high
migration of the peasantry; Dr. Johnson saw profits preceded increased wages; the manu
also the market opened for each man's capa facturer, the merchant, and the farmer were
city by the union of localities, and the libera gainers, but the labouring classes were losers.
tion of individuals from hereditary restraints This, he says, is a repetition of what happen
and family dependence. This is exactly the ed in the sixteenth century after the influx of
movement which a philosophical jurist has money from the mines of America, when the
pronounced to be the chief characteristic of labourers incessantly complained of the insuf
progressive societies. Their movement is ficiency of their wages. Happily, however,
uniform, says Mr. Maine, in the substitution the historical parallel fails, for wages in the
of the commercial principle of contract for sixteenth century were kept down by law;
the ancient family bond as the principle which and the modern changes in production and
associates men, and the amalgamation of iso trade, of which the new gold is only an in
lated original groups into larger communities stance, tend rather to lower than to raise the
connected by local proximity.” This theory. price of corn in England and the districts of
is equally true of the economic and of the France in which it was formerly dearest.
legal and political framework of civilized so “As commerce extends,” says Mr. Mill, “and
ciety; the migration of labour to new fields ignorant attempts to restrain it by tariffs be
of employment, and of capital and wealth into come obsolete, commodities tend more and
the inmost recesses of the country or remoter more to be produced in the places in which
regions, and of both money and commodities their production can be carried on at least
to new markets, are incidents of the better expense of labour and capital to mankind.”
division of labour in which it results, by which We get corn from America and Russia for
the majority of men must be gainers; and the the same reason that we get gold from Cali
working of the new gold mines is only a par fornia and Australia, instead of from our own
ticular instance of a rapid development of the rivers and mountains—although there is gold
natural resources of each place, which must in every stream that flows and on the side of
result in a vast increase of the aggregate of nearly every hill—namely, that we seek the
human wealth, although involving loss to par cheapest places for everything, and have access
ticular classes. Considerable misapprehen to cheaper places than formerly for many
sion has arisen with respect to the effects of things, corn and gold included. Bad har
the new gold, by attributing to it changes in vests, the Russian war, and speculation, and
prices due mainly to different causes. . M. not the cheapness of gold, were the chief
Levasseur, for example, concluded in 1857 causes of the dearness of corn, and of several
that the mines had caused a monetary revo other important commodities, in England and
lution in Western Europe very unfavourable France from 1853 to 1857. We have here
another example of the error of measuring
* Maine's Ancient Law, pp. 168–70, and 132. permanent prices by averages of foregoing
The following passage furnishes an interesting il years, without regard to their ultimate range,
lustration of the combined social and economic
results of the closer contiguity of places: “Les and the permanent or temporary character of
the causes of a rise. It is on the reasons for
chemins de feront trouvé en France une très-grande
inégalité dans le salaire de la main d'oeuvre; ils le prices, and not on mere prices themselves,
font progressivement disparaitre. Jes chemins de that producers should found calculations for
fer français ont en outre donné au territoire plus the future; and a farmer would be greatly in
d'homogénéité. Les distances étaient grandes, les
moyens de communication limités. Le marché error in taking the price of corn from 1853 to
voisin était le seul régulateur, et alors se produi 1857 as a safe basis for calculating the future
saient des différences de prix considérables. On ne profit and loss of its growth. The harvest of
consommait dans, la compagne que ce que l'on 1858 was almost the worst for a century
produisait sur place, de la une nourriture peu
variée et insuffisante parcela méme. On était done throughout Western Europe; that of 1855
Breton, Gascon, Normand, Picard, Lorrain, Alsa was very deficient; that of 1856 was under
cen, Provençal."-Les Chemins de Fer en 1862, et an average, while the war with Russia still
1863. Par Eugène Flachat, pp. 77-8. farther shortened supply and added to the
cost of importation; and the scarcity of corn, tends, as we have seen, to the production of
and not the abundance of money, was the everything, money included, in the cheapest
cause of the sufferings of the labouring classes accessible places, and its sale in the dearest
during the period. The relative price of la accessible markets, and hence to equalize
bour and bread in both countries has really prices approximately in cheap and dear mar
undergone an alteration in favour of those kets brought closer together, thereby raising
who purchase the latter by the sale of the considerably the price of each class of com
former. Thus in France, while corn has con modities, in the places connected, in which it
siderably fallen, money wages have greatly was previously lowest, and, on the contrary,
advanced both in country and town, and the counteracting the effect of the increase of
advance has been constant. In 1860, the money in those in which it was previously
average of wages in Paris was 4f 55c., and is highest. The price of corn has accordingly
now computed at 5f.; and the pay of agricul risen in many distant places nearly to its level
tural labour in the country around Bordeaux in England; but in England its level has not
has risen in the same time from 40 to 50 sous been raised. But just as the improvement in
a day. In the United Kingdom, money wages communication is not the same between all
have also considerably risen;” and the rise parts of the world alike, and the equalization
in the price of animal food, though greater of prices is not universal for any commodities,
in remote rural districts than in the large so the improvement is not equal for all classes
towns, and considerably greater on the ave of commodities alike; and the price of com
rage than is shown in any statistics on the modities such as fresh butter and meat, which
subject, but little affects the bulk of the rural are portable only for a limited distance, has
population, since agricultural labourers have been equalized over a much smaller area than
never been accustomed to consume much of that of corn. The cheaper places to which
it. In towns, on the other hand, money London has access for fresh animal food, are
wages have risen fully as much as the price only the remoter parts of the kingdom itself
of meat, the rise of which is, in fact, mainly and the nearest parts of the Continent. Im
due to an increased expenditure of the work provements in communication produce an
ing population; and accordingly it is pork, approximation to equality in the prices of
and the inferior qualities of mutton and beef, portable goods only in proportion to their
which have risen most. The very causes portability, and hence a double change in
which tend to raise wages and to cheapen relative prices ensues. In the first place, the
corn, tea, sugar, and clothing, evidently tend prices of easily portable articles approach to
to raise the price of animal food, by leaving a level in cheap and dear markets; but, se
the bulk of the people more to expend on it; condly, as all things are not equally portable,
it being a thing of which there are not the a change is produced not only in comparative
same means of increasing the supply as of prices in different places, but in the compara
clothing and corn. We cannot indeed ex tive prices of different commodities; and both
empt the owners of land from blame in re changes result in a disturbance of the profits
spect to the dearness of meat and dairy of different occupations, and a change in the
produce, since the uncertain duration of tenure places of different industries. The same
has been, along with some unfavourable general cause tends to raise the price of meat
seasons, an obstacle to the increase of the at Athlone almost to the price it fetches in
domestic supply, on which its price must London, and to lower the price of corn in
chiefly depend. But the change in the rela London almost to its price at Odessa. And
tive prices of corn and fresh animal food, and the consequence is, that since labour and
the change in husbandry it is leading to, are capital desert the occupations in which money
mainly to be traced to the general movement returns are declining and stationary, for those
of commerce, which it is the endeavour of in which they are increasing, the production
this article to explain, and which is one cer of animal food is taking the place of the pro
tainly far from injurious to the labouring duction of corn in this kingdom, and shep
classes in its general results. The movement herds are increasing, and agricultural labour
ers decreasing in number.”
* “Wages in husbandry are notoriously advanc
ing. . In Aberdeenshire, the wages of ploughmen * The number of shepherds returned at the last
in 1849 were £16 with board and lodging; in 1859, Census, was more than double the number enume
£22 with board and lodging. In Northumberland, rated in 1851. From the statistics of the Metropoli
wages which ten years ago amounted to 12s. week tan Cattle Market, it has however been supposed
ly are now 15s. In Oxfordshire, carters and shep that the number of cattle and sheep in the United
herds find their wages advanced from 8s. and 10s. Kingdom has not increased. This supposition is
to 12s. and 14s. In Cornwall, wages have risen entirely inconsistent with the notoriously increased
from 8s. and 98 to 10s, and 12s.”—Economist, Jan. consumption of meat by the poorer elasses, the
21, 1860. The article contains several additional reat attention to the production of stock, and the
proofs of the rise in wages. increase of shepherds. The probability seems to be
But this internal change in our industrial the increase of money in India, and of Eng
economy, is a small part of the change in lish capital engaged in its foreign commerce
the territorial division of labour which the or internal improvement, as a fortuitous and
changes in relative prices in the world of transitory event, or, on the contrary, as the
commerce are producing. For the very result of permanent causes, which, upon the
same reasons that the price of meat has one hand, are continually investing with ad
risen in England, but not that of corn, and ditional value the capabilities and produc
that the former has risen more in the re tions of places circumstanced like India, and,
moter parts of the country than in the capi on the other hand, are finding food and ma
tal, and again, that the change in prices is terials from the cheapest accessible quarters
producing the changes in the occupations of for countries like England, and new and re
the people just stated, prices in general have munerative employment for their accumulated
rapidly risen in many foreign countries, and capital and skill.
British industry and capital have been at That the stream of the precious metals to
tracted from domestic to foreign employ India, and the rise of prices ensuing, are not
ment. The pecuniary value of the produce solely or mainly attributable to the payments
of cheap places, rises in proportion as they for cotton caused by the American war, is
are brought within reach of the best mar clear from the facts that the bulk of the
kets; and capital employed in the improve treasure was imported before 1861, and that
ment of their commercial situation, the de the balance of imports of specie above ex
velopment of their resources, and the trans ports reached fifteen and a half millions
port of their produce, obtains an extraordinary sterling in the year 1859–60, and has not
profit from sharing in the increase of its since reached twenty millions a year as the average
money value. If, for example, a cwt. of goods the war. It is an error to suppose we . .
is worth £1 at one place, and only 5s at a have paid the new cotton countries sums of
distance for want of communication, a rail money proportioned to the price of cotton in
way company making the line of connexion our markets, part of which has gone to our
may charge more for the carriage of goods, own merchants and carriers, and part has
and buy the land and unskilled labour they been paid in our own manufactures. The
require for its construction very much cheaper balance of trade is always considerably more
than if prices were near an equality already. in our favour than appears in the official re
The great rise of prices in India and the ports of the value of our imports and exports
enormous growth of its trade are regarded respectively. We are ourselves the chief
by many as passing results of the American carriers both of our exports and imports, and
war. And it is desirable, with reference to foreign countries really pay more for our ex
the future not only of India but of many ports, and we pay them less for our imports
other places under the same economic con than appears by our Custom-house valuation,
ditions, or which will soon be brought under since we receive ourselves a great part of the
them, and also with reference to the future freight of cargoes both outwards and in
outlets both for English capital and enter wards, and of the mercantile profit on the
prise, and the produce of the new mines, to exchange. The balance of trade, however,
ascertain whether we ought really to regard has been largely in favour of India for many
years past, and the rise of prices was ante
that cattle from abroad have to a considerable ex rior to the war. In a speech in Calcutta, in
tent taken the place of British animals in the Lon February, 1860, Mr. Wilson, after referring
don market, and a larger proportion of British to the rapid growth of Indian commerce, ob
animals than formerly are sold in ' great towns
and in country markets. Mr. Jevons observes, in served: “It is notorious how much the price
his new work on the Coal Question, p. 188: “An of all country produce has increased of late
excellent example of the changes which are going years, in consequence of the demand for
on throughout the most parts of Great Britain is exportation. I am thankful to know that
furnished by certain statistics of the parish of Bel
lingham, in Northumberland, communicated by the the benefits thus conferred by our commerce
Rev. W. H. Charlton to the British Association at upon the land have extended in no slight de
Newcastle in 1863. Comparing the condition of gree to the labourer. It is no exaggeration
the parish in 1838 and in 1863, it is shown that the to say that the rate of wages has risen in
acres of land, under the plough had been nearly
halved, being reduced from 1852 to 800 acres. many districts twofold, and in some three
The area of wheat had been reduced to one-fifth, fold, during the last few years. In the face
from 200 acres to 40; while those of oats were de of evidence of this kind, can any one doubt
creased from 400 to 300 acres. The number of that all classes in India are in a state of
grazing cattle, on the other hand, had been multi prosperity, unparalleled at any former
plied thirteenfold, from 50 to 660 head, and the time * * *
sheep had increased from 5102 head to 9910 head.
Such changes must be expected to continue until * Economist, March 31, 1860. The following
£
only the richest of our lands has wheat.” Table of prices of the chief articles of daily con
A very different view of the matter has lat not many weeks a March 4, 1865), con
terly been taken by several writers, who re tained the following explanation of the rise
gard the rise in the price of all Indian pro of prices in that Presidency: “The rise in
duce as a calamity to India resulting from the price of provisions has succeeded a gene
the growth of cotton for Europe instead of ral rise in the price of labour, skilled and
food for the natives. The real increase in unskilled. Men engaged in mercantile pur
the cultivation of cotton in India has, how suits, from the lowest ryots and coolies, have
ever, been immensely exaggerated on the one been making money, and this has caused
hand, and the increase in the cultivation of everything to be dear to those whose salaries
crops for native consumption in numerous were fixed in the good old times. Mutton is
districts, has on the other hand been left out not dear solely because pasturage and grain
of sight. Our import of cotton from Bom are more costly, but because it has been eaten
bay, Madras, and Bengal, amounted in 1860 very much more largely. People took to it
to 570,000 bales, and in 1864 to 1,398,000, as soon as they could afford it. It has often
but the bales in 1864 were considerably been thought that religious prejudices among
lighter than in 1860, and a great part of the natives would always preserve animal
their contents was not an additional growth, food for the Englishman at a cheap rate.
but cotton withdrawn from native manufac But religious prejudices succumb under the
ture and the markets of China. And there influence of rupees, as they are dispelled by
is copious evidence, that except in particular the light which rupees throw on the ques
and exceptional localities, the dearness of tion.”
food has not arisen from scarcity. In one of It is true that in particular places the
the principal new cotton districts—the Nag dearness of the necessaries of life is partly
pore country, in the lake region of which the result of a failure of the crops, and is so
300,000 acres were under cotton—Mr. Tem far a misfortune; and in Bombay the late
ple's report on the trade and resources of the exorbitant prices of cotton have really led to
Central Provinces of India for 1863-4, states a diminished production of food, and to a
that “agricultural produce abounds of all de rise of general prices which cannot be re
scriptions common to India.” General Mans garded as entirely of a durable or beneficial
field, in his Minute on the Currency of India, character. But taking the upward move
March 8, 1864, observes: “One great reason ment of prices over India as a whole, we
of the rise of prices in all descriptions of cannot consider it as otherwise than both
food, is the greater disposition to consume. beneficial and durable, and as being, like the
The people, being richer, actually eat more rise of prices in the Landes of the Gironde
than they did in the days of their poverty. and at St. Nazaire,” the result of a perma
Great tracts of land which for ages had...lain nent improvement in commercial position,
waste, are being daily brought into cultiva and in the means of turning to profitable
tion.” In the Papers relating to a Gold Cur account the great natural resources of the
rency in India, lately published by order of country and industrial powers of the people.
the House of Commons, there is a Memo In a speech at the opening of a railway two
randum by the Board of Revenue at Madras years ago, Sir Bartle Frere, the remarkably
which states: “Agriculture is extending able Governor of Bombay, said:—
everywhere. There is a great demand for “We all know what vast sums, chiefly of
cotton, and indeed for every product of the English capital, have of late years been spent in
field. Prices are at the same time exceed this country. Let us consider for one moment
ingly high.” And the Madras Athenaeum, what has been the effect of giving a fair day's
sumption in the “Statement showing the Material and Moral Progress of India for 1860-61, pursuant to
Act 21 and 22 Wict. c. 10, sec. 53,” s ows the great rise of prices in Bengal before the cotton drain
•
began: -
1849. 1859. March 1861.

R. A. R. A. R. A. B. A. R. A. B. A
1 2 to 1 4 1 11 to 2 2 2 6 to 2 7
1 7 to 1 0 2 2 to 2 12 2 8 to 2 9 ...
0 7 to 0 1 1 2 to 1 4 | . . ... . ..
15 8 to 21 8 23 8 to 27 8 28 to 28 18
6 12 to 7 0 9 4 to 9 6 17 0 to 28 8
Tobacco, .................. 2 10 to 6 0 5 0 to 5 8 48 8 to 6
* St. Nazaire, a small fishing-town seven years since, has attained a prodigious development, equal
to any American city. France, a short time since, did not possess a commercial port over an extent
of 560 miles of coast washed by the Atlantic. The manufactures of that part of France were
consequently placed in a disadvantageous position in consequence of having no sea-port whence to
ship their produce. The population has kept pace with the traffic. The value of ground has risen
with the population. Ground sold formerly for sixpence the square yard is now worth almost
£8.”—Times, April 29, 1865.
wages for a fair day's labour. As a rule, this labour was really less productive in that pro
was unknown before the railway period. Not portion, but because his means of exporting
only were wages in most parts of the country the produce were greatly inferior. The price
fixed by usage and authority, rather than by theof Indian cotton may decline; Bombay may
natural laws of demand and supply, but the pri
cease to be England's principal cotton field;
vilege of labour was in general restricted to par
ticular spots, and nothing like the power of yet may it be safely predicted that the capa
taking labour to the best market practically ex bilities of India and its people for numerous
isted. The result was that the condition of the other productions are such that, with the
labourer was wretched in the extreme, and Gov means of exportation henceforward at their
ernment could do little to raise him above the
command, prices in the three Presidencies
status of a serf of the soil. All this has now. will never subside to their former beggarly
changed, and for the first time in history the
Indian coolie finds that he has in his power of level, but, on the contrary, will tend to ap
labour a valuable possession, which, if he uses it proximate nearer to the range of prices pre
right, will give him something better than a vailing in Western Europe. Future candi
mere subsistence. As a general rule, the la dates for appointments and undertakers of
bourer works far harder and better, and acquires industrial enterprises in India, would do well
new and more civilized wants in proportion to to include this result of the improved com
the wages he receives.” mercial situation of India in their calcula
The whole population of India by no means tions.
indeed immediately shares in the gains arising The monetary future of India has a more
from access to better markets and the ingress general practical importance for Englishmen.
of European inventions, which on the con Mr. Fawcett sagaciously remarked two years
trary tend to deprive some classes of their ago, that the question of a future depreciation
former means of subsistence. “The native of money in England, supposing the increase
handloom is collapsing in every part of India. in the supplies from the mines to continue, is
The best wares of English manufacture are substantially a question as to the continuance
getting possession of the market, and in the of the drain of the precious metals to the
form of utensils for cooking, eating, and East. We would expand Mr. Fawcett's
drinking, are passing from luxuries into ne proposition into the wider one, that it is a
cessaries. Even Cheshire salt is supplied at question as to the continued absorption of
prices which is obtaining for it a wide field of money in places in all quarters of the world,
consumption in Northern India.” This is including Europe itself, in which the amount
part of the general change in the relative. hitherto current has not been in proportion
profits of different occupations, and the seats to their powers of production. India is only
of different industries attending the altered a representative of a large class of localities,
distribution of money, produced by closer in whose industrial resources are providing new
ternational commerce and the tendency of all markets for the produce of the mines. In
things to be bought and produced in the India itself, the Governor of Bombay observes
cheapest and sold in the dearest places. in a Minute recommending a gold currency,
Europe can now manufacture cheaper than “Great quantities of silver absorbed in remote
Asia, which was once the manufacturer for parts of the country go to furnish a currency
Europe; the steel of Sheffield has supplanted where no general medium of exchange before
that of Damascus; and the looms of Asia existed. £ can be no doubt rupees are
Minor and India are constantly decreasing in now found in hundreds of small bazaars where
number. The same cause, however, which all trade used to be conducted by barter.”
diminishes the earnings of Hindoo weavers The following passages from the excellent
increases the money incomes of the Hindoo treatise of Mr. Lees are worthy of quotation
population as a whole; for in proportion as on this subject:—
they are enabled to buy and sell in the best “There is a point in the affairs of nations
markets, they get better prices for the nume when prices rise so high that imports and ex
rous productions in which they excel. Mr. ports are equalized. India is approaching that
Senior pointed out that the comparative point. At the same time, India is yet, in regard
number of ounces of silver or gold the Indian
and the Englishman can earn in a year de
pends on the comparative productiveness of p. *9. Papers relating to a Gold Currency for India,
In page 89 of these Papers the following
their industry in cxportable commodities. passage occurs:—“Partly owing to the change
But an Indian labourer earned, when Mr. from a native to a European form of government,
Senior wrote, only a ninth of the money partly to the substitution of money for barter in
earned by an English one, not because his remote districts, but chiefly to the general increase
of prices and wages, and the vastly augmented
**
amount and numbers of transactions, the require
7 Papers relating to a Gold Currency for India, #.
elt.”
of India
for coin are only beginning to be
p. 74.
to her supply of the precious metals, a long way that, while in some counties the farmers were
off that point at which she will be in a position paying ruinous prices for fodder, in others,
to deal with European countries on equal terms. hay, straw, turnips, mangolds, and carrots
. . . Estimating the amount of gold and silver
circulating in coin in Great Britain at £80,000, were selling at much the usual rates.” But
000, and the population at 30,000,000, and esti these are inequalities which cannot continue;
mating the currency of India at an equal amount, and the fact of their present existence enables
and the population at 180,000,000, India is capa us to foresee in a great measure the future
ble of absorbing silver (or gold) to the amount of movements of money and prices, and the
£400,000,000 for the purposes of currency alone. most profitable places for the investment of
Nor have we reached this end. The ever-on
ward moving wave of civilisation will surely not
capital. Knowing the places where prices
will rise as soon as their resources are turned
stop short at the confines of British India.
Arabia, Persia, and other neighbouring territo to account, and their markets frequented, the
ries, Burmah, Cochin China, Siam, have all to capitalist knows places in which he can get a
claim their fair share of the precious metals; and large return for the expense of assisting to
#
ow.
interior of Central Asia is one day to fol develop these resources, or carry the produce
to the best buyers. For example, a conside
Adam Smith has observed that the diffi rable part of the enormous prices paid in
culties of land traffic are such that commerce Europe for cotton imported from the East,
settles first on the borders of seas and rivers, has really been received by our own mer
and is long before it penetrates into the inland chants; and the fact serves to explain the
parts even of the most opulent and mercantile discrepancy between our own official ac
countries. And notwithstanding the im counts of the value of our imports from India,
mense improvement in the means of land and those of India itself as to the value of its
carriage, it is still true, not only of Asia but exports to us. And the enormous profits
even of the most civilized countries in Europe, which have been made of late years in our
that there are inland districts in which prices foreign trade, and upon various investments
are far below the surrounding level, because of capital in regions the pecuniary value of
they cannot or do not sell in the best markets, whose produce has rapidly risen, is one prin
or on the same terms as their neighbours. cipal cause of the high rates of interest, latterly
While some French writers expatiate on the prevailing. A high rate of interest, like a high
rise of prices in the parts of France intersected scale of prices, may arise from several causes.
by railways, others complain that in a country It may arise from a scarcity of capital, a great
whose institutions are intended to favour demand on the part of unproductive borrow
equality, the railways promoted by Govern ers, or high profits which enable producers to
ment have created a shocking inequality in borrow on liberal terms to the lender. Gov
local incomes and prices, by giving some ernments may pay a high interest out of taxes,
places the power of transporting their produce but mercantile men can only pay it out of
cheaply to the capital, while others are not profits, and the maximum of profit fixes the
nearer to good markets than before railways maximum permanent rate of interest in trade.
were invented. A railway map of the world Mr. Mill is of opinion that the new mines
enables any one to predict that prices must have tended to lower the rate of interest.
rise greatly and soon in a vast number “The masses of the precious metals which
of places. However obvious the remark, it are constantly arriving from the gold coun
is one of great practical importance in trade, tries are, it may be said, wholly added to the
speculation, emigration, the purchase of land, funds that supply the loan market. So great
and industrial enterprises of a hundred dif. an additional capital tends to depress inter
ferent kinds, that the price of labour and pro est.”f And there can be no doubt that a
duce will eventually rise wherever the soil is great portion of the new gold received in this
productive, and the means of locomotion are country did at first enter the loan market,
defective; and will rapidly rise wherever and tended to make interest low. The sub
those means are suddenly and greatly im sequent distribution of the precious metals,
|: But physical obstacles to traffic are however, seems to us to have tended in the
y no means the only causes of low prices; opposite direction. Money spent, for example,
ignorance is often the mountain to be removed, in improving the Landes, in building at Bil
and it is one which still divides England itself bao or St. Nazaire, in cultivating cotton in
into regions with different monetary rates. Egypt, and cotton, tea, oil-seed, and other
Mainly from the want of agricultural statistics, productions in India, and in carrying such
the differences in the wages of farm-labourers, productions to the markets of Europe, has
the profits of small shopkeepers, and the reproduced itself with extraordinary profit,
prices of produce in different counties are sur Daily News, November 19, 1864. . . ."
prising. An excellent authority on this sub + Principles of Political Economy, sixth edition,
ject drew attention last winter to the fact chap. 23.
at higher than ordinary interest.” In the The same economical movement has
future distribution of the precious metals, in brought petroleum”—to take one of the
like manner, over markets in which prices latest examples of the redemption of wealth
will rise—thereby investing with considerable from the regions of waste—and the new
pecuniary value resources which now have gold into the market, and the former is a
scarce any pecuniary value at all—we may new demand for the latter. In every ne
reasonably foresee a source of high profit and glected or undervalued resource in the natu
interest for a long time to come. The very ral world or in human capacity, there is a
spirit of mingled economy and enterprise, profitable investment for money, and com
which adds to the quantity of capital in the mercial enterprise is constantly finding fresh
loan market, by attracting hitherto unem employment for money, both in the purchase
ployed funds from the hoard, the till, and the of new articles of value, and in higher prices
private account at the bank, tends to provide for things of which the value is enhanced by
more profitable employment for the capital improvement. Speaking of the non-valeurs
seeking investment. “It is,” in Mr. Patter (a term for which we have no exact English
son's words, “the utilisation of hitherto use equivalent) which still abound even in the
less things which peculiarly characterizes our most civilized countries, M. About remarks
times. It is the utilisation of neglected re that among them should be classed not only
sources, the accumulation and concentrated things absolutely wasted and worthless from
appliance of a thousand forces ofsaving, which neglect, but also things whose value is only
is the basis of our extending power. We are partially realized, like land under corn which
economizing our money like everything else; would fetch more under grass. Such things
and this economy of capital, almost as much M. About designates as non-valeurs relatives,
as the new gold mines, is the agency which is including among them all the insufficiently
£ to commerce its enormous expansion.” exercised powers of humanity. An entire
n the production of gold in mines utterly half of the French nation, he adds—the
valueless less than a generation ago and now whole female sex—belongs to the category of
worth twenty millions a year—in the recla non-valeurs relatives. But if women were
mation of waste lands and waste substances enabled, by both custom and law, to realize
at home and abroad—in trade with new mar the full worth of their powers, the higher
kets and industrial enterprise in new regions prices their industry would obtain would de
-in the collection and subsequent diffusion note, not a fall in the value of money, but a
of formerly unemployed money, the same rise in the value of women. So the increase
principle is operative throughout; a principle in the money earnings of coolies and ryots
on which we may rely to find profitable use in India, and fellahs in Egypt, denotes not a
for the fresh produce of the mines, and for the mere doubling or trebling of counters of pay
savings of our incomes for an indefinite period. ment, but an elevation of the commercial
status of two nations. There is thus an im
* In a pamphlet lately published on Banks and portant distinction between the significance
Bank Management, Mr. Stirling attributes the high of a rise of prices at Calcutta and in Lon
rate of interest in 1863 and 1864 to an £
nary demand in each of those years for capital, to don; in the £ it signifies generally either
the amount of 400 millions, the items of which he a scarcity of commodities or a depreciation
makes up as follows:– “Increased cost of cotton, of money, but in the former it signifies trade
40 millions; demand of limited liabilities, 110 mil
on better terms with the world, as well as a
lions; increased ordinary expenditure of the Go change in the local value of money.
vernments of England and France, 50 millions;
European loans, 50 millions; American war expen. The question whether the new mines have
diture, 150 millions; total annual exceptional de lowered the value of money in England is
mand, 400 millions.” The first three of these items one the more difficult to answer with pre
seem to us to be greatly exaggerated. No such cision, since, in addition to the absence of
sum was really withdrawn for cotton in the first
instance, a great portion having been paid for perfect statistics, causes, such as bad seasons
roundabout by exports of our own manufactures at and the Russian and American wars, have
higher prices, both our exports and imports having temporarily affected the prices of great classes
latterly been set down at higher figures in money. of goods. Setting aside these disturbances,
Again, the Economist estimates the sums actually the truth seems to be, that while, on the one
raised by the new companies in the two last years hand, such important commodities as corn,
together, at a less amount than 40 millions. And
the increase in the ordinary expenditure of the Gov.
* “Though petroleum has been but four years
ernments of England and France has not, we are an article of commerce, it has already assumed
convinced, been as great as the increase of the ag the second place among the exports of the United
gregate incomes and tax-paying ability of the two States, and now ranks next to breadstuffs. In 1860
nations, and has therefore not trespassed upon scarcely any was exported; last year the exports
*apital. The American war and the European amounted to 32,000,000 gallons, while the domes
loans have no doubt made a considerable additional tie consumption was even greater.”-Times, April
demand on the loan market. 27, 1865. -
'' and coal” are cheaper than formerly, cially designed to provide, at a comparatively
and the wholesale prices of textile manufac small cost, the additional money required by
tures, although higher than during the de the increased trade of India, and its Govern
pression of trade for some years before 1851, ment to have resolved to defeat the economy
remained nearly stationary from that year of nature. In contending, however, for all
until the American war, -on the other hand, possible economy in the monetary system of
the prices of animal food, of land, and of India and every other country, we cannot
£ manufactures have considerably risen; adopt the opinion Mr. Patterson appears to
and the result would appear to be, that in entertain, that the economy might be carried
wholesale trade the general value of money so far as to dispense with the cost of metallic
was not sensibly altered in England before currencies altogether. Coin is better fitted
the American war. But, speaking of retail for rough work and for the labourer's pocket
prices, into which higher rents, wages, and than bank-notes. It cannot, like paper, be
prices of animal food more or less enter, we eaten by ants in the East, and is safer from
should say that the cost of subsistence is de water and fire. Nor cah, we conceive that a
cidedly greater to all classes, except agricul currency would be safe from depreciation by
tural labourers, whose chief expenditure is excess, unless based upon things possessing
on bread, sugar, and tea; and that fixed in intrinsic value like silver and gold. Mr.
comes by no means buy as much as they Patterson argues that the value of money
used, especially in remote parts of the coun depends simply on its conventional use and
try. We believe, too, with an eminent acceptance. But limitation of supply is in
economist, that the real rise of prices to con all cases an indispensable condition of value;
sumers is partially disguised in a deteriorated and the history of assignats in France, and
'' of many things. The disguises which greenbacks in America, shows that negotia
the fact that people are really given less for bility does not constitute the determining
their money may assume, are numberless. element of the value of a currency.” And
For example, the prices were the same at taking this view of the monetary use and
the bathing establishments of Biarritz last importance of the precious metals, it seems
autumn as in former years, but the visitor to be a question worth considering, whether
could often get nothing but a wet and dirty the future supplies are likely to be sufficient
bathing-dress for his sous. French gloves, to supply money enough for the rapid pro
again, are not only dearer than formerly, but gress of the backward parts of the world,
seem made in order to tear; and both in and the immense developments their re
England and France, washerwomen are apt sources seem sure to obtain. Mr. Maine has
to spoil linen how for the prices at which remarked that investigators of the differences
they used formerly to dress it. between stationary and £ societies
But the effects of the new mines upon must, at the outset, realize clearly the fact
prices are far less obscurely and far more * Mr. Bonamy Price says in a recent article:
satisfactorily discernible in countries like “The peculiarity of this commodity (gold) consists
India, where they have directly or indirectly only in this, that every man agrees to take it in
furnished the means of raising the remune exchange for his goods. The general consent to
ration of industry, and circulating produce make gold the medium of exchange constitutes
the precise demand for gold, just as the general
which had formerly little or no circulation. consent to make shoes of leather constitutes the
The result of this influx of money into India demand for leather.” But the social compact to
is by no means merely the trouble of carry wear shoes does not determine what they are
ing and counting more coins to do the same worth; that depends on the supply of leather and
business as formerly; and so far as there has competent shoemakers. The public consents to
take shillings as well as sovereigns, but it is not
been such a result, it might have been in a their consent that makes a sovereign worth twenty
great measure avoided had the Government shillings, which it would not be if gold were as
allowed gold to pass current as money. By easy to get as silver. So the public may consent
the exclusion of gold, India has been obliged to take pieces of paper for coins, but how many
to fetch a much bulkier material for its cur must be given for a horse or a cow or a loaf de
pends on the comparative scarcity of each. We
rency from a far greater distance, and to in make this comment merely to illustrate the prin
cur an unnecessary loss, first, on the freight ciple that the value of money depends on its rarity,
from abroad; next, on the coinage.at the and not on convention and custom, for we confess
we do not see the drift of Mr. Price's arguments.
mint; thirdly, on the carriage through the He refutes some fallacies of the old mercantile
country; and fourthly, on the wear and tear school which hardly required fresh refutation, and
of so many more new coins. The great which are not supported by any of the writers on
mines of Australia seem to have been spe currency he refers to. But he by no means makes
it clear whether he objects only to the particular
* Average shipping price of Newcastle coal— rovisions of the Bank Charter Act, or to a metal
1841, 10s. 6d. per ton; 1850, 9s. 6d.; 1860, 9s— #. standard altogether, and to Sir Robert Peel's
The Coal Question, by W. S. Jevons, Esq., page 61. definition of a pound.
164 Three Women of Letters. June,
that the stationary condition of the human ears to come; and that when to this is
race is the rule, the progressive the excep added the produce of the rich mines of Ne
tion; and when this reflection was made, the vada, Idaho, Arizona, and Oregon, there can
condition of the greater part of Asia and of be no doubt that the total increase will be
Northern Africa might even have justified very great. This anticipation seems con
the proposition that a retrograde condition firmed by the fact that the exports of trea
of the human race was the rule. In the sure from San Francisco in the fiscal year
wildest regions frequented by the nomad ending in June, 1864, amounted to the value
hordes of Central Asia, the traveller dis of 51,264,023 dols.; the larger proportion
covers the vestiges of former cultivation being in the latter half of the period, and
and wealth. But he can now perceive in the entire sum being considerably greater
such regions that while he stands on the than in any other year since 1856. From
grave of an old civilisation he stands also on Mexico and South America great additional
the borders of a new one. It seems certain, supplies may also be expected. Of Peru the
at least as regards Asia, which contains the British Consul says—“Peru is one vast mine
bulk of the human race, that not only the which the hand of man has only hitherto
stationary, but the retrograde communities scratched.” To the produce of the mines
will become progressive—will be reached by must further be added the vast sums that
roads, railways, river navigation, and West the progress of commerce will restore to cir
ern commerce, and obtain the aid of Western culation from the hoards of Asia and Europe,
capital and skill. And it seems equally cer which, even in such places as Lapland, are
tain that the pecuniary value of their pro great. Large sums of Norwegian money are
duce will immensely increase; and they will said by Mr. Laing, in his Journal of a Resi
need vast quantities of coin for its circula dence in Norway, to have disappeared in
tion; and that the question is one of im Lapland; the wealthiest Laplanders having
portance, whether coin enough for the pur always been accustomed to live, like the
pose will be easily obtained. The steady poorest, on the produce of their reindeer,
decline in the produce of the gold-fields of and to bury the money coming to them from
Victoria, from 2,761,528 ounces in 1857 to Norway in places where their heirs often fail
1,557,397 ounces in 1864, might seem at to discover it. -
first to justify a doubt on the subject; and The movement we have discussed is one
the existence of a great gold region near the which tends to bring all buried and neglected
sources of the Nile, on which some writers riches to light; and we anticipate from it
have reckoned, is in Sir Roderick Murchi both an ample provision of money and an in
son's opinion contravened by the evidence of creasing demand for it.
Captain Speke respecting the geological
structure of the country. But the decline
in the production of gold in Victoria has
arisen rather from the migration of miners
to New South Wales and New Zealand than
from a diminishing fertility of the mines. In ART. III.—1. Memoirs, Miscellanies, and
fact, the gold-fields of Victoria yielded more Letters of the late Lucy Aikin. Edited by
in proportion to the number of labourers in P. H. LE BREToN. Longmans, 1864.
1864 than in either of the previous years; 2. Fugitive Verses. By JoANNA BAILLIE.
97,942 miners obtaining 1,702,460 oz. in Moxon, 1864.
1862; *,292 obtaining 1,578,079 oz. in 3. Selections from the Letters of Caroline
1863; and 83,394 obtaining 1,557,397 oz. Frances Cornwallis. London: Trübner
in 1864. And in 1857, when the gold yield and Co., 1864.
of Victoria reached its maximum, that of
New South Wales only amounted to the IT cannot be doubted that a marked differ
value of £674,470; whereas it has been ence in the relations of the female sex to the
more than three times as much on the literary culture of the day, as compared with
average for the last three years." From the the state of things two generations back, is
Western States of North America, again, the one result of the intellectual march of the pre
supply of the precious metals seems likely sent century. Female authorship is far more
to increase. In a recent report, the British common than it was, is far more enterprising
Consul at San Francisco states it as his be than it was ; it is more business-like, and has
lief that even in California the production of less of the flutter of self-consciousness; while,
the precious metals will increase for many by a natural consequence, it attracts far less
* In some of the districts of the Australian of special notice and compliment than it for
mines the yield has lately fallen off, but solely by merly did. For we must not overstate the
reason of the scarcity of water, not of gold. case as regards the discouragement which the
1865. Three Women of Letters. 165
woman of letters is generally supposed to have we should look in vain in the lucubrations of
received from the ruling sex. Ladies who the most renowned female students of that
belonged to a favoured clique were sure, in day:-poor Mrs. Elstob, already referred to,
olden times as well as now, of credit and re whose Anglo-Saxon researches really were
nown. Poor Mrs. Elstob, one of the first Sax worth something, never attained worldly re
on scholars of her day, could indeed pine in pute. The conclusiohs they draw from their
drudgery and obscurity, but Mrs. Montagu, own investigations into the wellsprings of
Mrs. Elizabeth Carter, Fanny Burney, with a knowledge are mostly moralizings of a general
select circle of attendant nymphs great in the cast, trite and jejune we should now say; but
minor morals, were praised up to and beyond then it is fair to remember that there was a
their deserts; and though “F. B.” confined very '' and prevailing bent among all
herself to novel-writing, a department in which thinkers, shallow and deep, towards moral
women have always been allowed certain and metaphysical didactics in that age, and
chartered rights, and Mrs. Chapone and Miss the “Rambler” himself could utter pompous
Talbot were strictly feminine in their aspira platitudes sometimes.
tions, yet the authoress of the Essay on Shak But to revert to our argument. Allowing
speare, and the translator of Epictetus, boldly that a change had taken place in the intel
trenched on ground which, in those days at lectual position of the weaker sex, between
all events, masculine intellects considered ex the era of Addison and that of Johnson, there
clusively their own. When angry, it is true, has assuredly been a change also no less dis
Johnson could speak hard words of Mrs. Mon tinctly perceptible in its position between
tagu's Latin and Greek; but the wonderful Johnson's days and our own, and one that
feat of translating Epictetus seems to have has been proceeding at a vastly accelerated
placed Mrs. Carter on a pedestal which even pace within the last five-and-thirty years.
the surly dictator did not grudge her, though The date of the Reform Bill, though it seems
possibly her discreet backwardness in expos but as yesterday to many still in the full vi
ing her acquirements to the ordeal of conver gour of life, carries us back to an antiquated
sation may have had something to do with world in many respects; in this among
his indulgence. “My old friend Mrs. Carter,” others. The literary atmosphere was still re
he said, “could make a pudding as well as verberating with the echoes of the poetry and
translate Epictetus from the Greek, and work romance which had glorified the long years
a handkerchief as well as compose a poem.” of European strife and agitation. But Byron
. . . “He thought, however,” adds Boswell, was in his recent grave; Scott was wielding
“that she was too reserved in conversation with a paralysed hand the pen that had fas
upon subjects she was so eminently able to cinated the heads and hearts of his genera
converse upon, which was occasioned by her tion; Southey had written the last of his
modesty and fear of giving offence.” epics, and people had almost ceased to read
No doubt, in the middle of the eighteenth them. Wordsworth was the poet of the day;
century, the women of the upper classes were, but his admirers were comparatively few and
taken as a whole, more rational and capable select. His muse was placid and meditative;
beings than they had been in the days of the the shout of the Forum was to be raised in
Spectator. In one of the conversations re honour of other deities than those of Parnas
corded by Fanny Burney, we find Dr. John sus. Science, education for the masses, politi
son expressing in strong terms his sense of cal enfranchisement, became the prevailing
the advance made within his own recollection. topics in men's mouths. Sentiment yielded'
“He told them he well remembered when a to utility, the illusions of chivalry to hard
woman who could spell a common letter was material progress. A certain scarcely dis
regarded as all-accomplished; but now they guised superciliousness in the tone hitherto
vied with the men in everything.” Still we assumed towards science by men who had
cannot turn over the familiar correspondence been brought up in the poetical and histori
of the miniature Sapphos and Hypatias of cal cultivation of the Georgian era, now gave
Johnson's time, without discerning how way to a much more respectful appreciation
strongly the consciousness of special merit of her claims. The old prejudices against
worked within them. We see it in the os the 'ologies rapidly disappeared. The classi
tentatious modesty which is sometimes more fication of plants and stones, hitherto in the
significant than braggart boasting; we see it polite world looked upon as little more than
in the little pedantries of style and allusion an elegant diversion for idle hours, assumed
with which they trick out the merest com a more serious significance as means towards
monplace of sentiment. For real scholarlike unlocking creation's mysteries. The history
appreciation of the subjects they deal with, of the earth's formation was becoming a sub
ject to be feared, indeed, in the eyes of many,
* Diary of Madame D'Arblay, vol. i. p. 277. but no longer to be despised. .
It was from about this same epoch, as we backwards; most reluctant to display, yet
take it, that the term “blue-stocking,” first proudly conscious of possessing, capacities of
applied in the Johnsonian society to ladies of insight and of reasoning far beyond the limits
literary pretension or acquirement, began to usually assigned to her sex.
grow obsolete. In the intensified zest and Miss Aikin's career challenges observation
value for practical and scientific knowledge first, for her literary character belongs to an
which now set in, the world came to forget older chapter of the period than that of Miss
its prejudices of sex as well as of caste, and to Cornwallis. She had by a few years too the
prize any contribution to the current stock of priority of age. Miss Aikin may be said, to
information for what it was worth. This, at use Sir Nathaniel's phrase in Love's Labour's
least, was the tendency of things; but, as al Lost, to have “eat paper” and “drunk ink.”
ways happens, the force of new principles from her earliest years. Her intellectual
began to be felt long before they effectually training was derived from the Presbyterian
leavened the general mass of opinion; and it society of the last century, that section of it
was not for many a year after the Society for which had left Calvinism behind, and had
the “Diffusion of Useful Knowledge,” and accepted Socinianism as its doctrinal creed,
the “Library of Entertaining” ditto, and and which was characterized by a great zeal
Penny Magazines, and Mrs. Marcet's Popular and ardour for mental progress, and a sove
Conversations on Science, and Miss Marti reign contempt for ancient bigotry, 1781
neau's Tales illustrative of the Principles of was the year of her birth. Her father was
Political Economy, had instructed the minds Dr. Aikin, a physician first practising at War
of the new generation, that the authoress rington, then at Yarmouth, subsequently
who ventured on any ground save that of fib residing at Stoke-Newington, where he gave
tion or mild ethical rede, ceased to be regard himself up to literary avocations, and edited
ed by a considerable portion of society as the Annual Register, the Monthly Magazine,
something of an unfeminine intruder, a and another literary journal of the day, called
“blue,” and a pretender, probably superficial the Athenaeum, and was part author of the
and certainly presumptuous. Biographical Dictionary, afterwards publish
Our reflections on this subject have been ed by Dr. Enfield. A very favourite work for
prompted by two publications of the past juveniles, not yet forgotten, called Evenings
year: the Memoir and Letters of Miss Aik at Home, was also his composition, in con
in, and the Letters of Miss Cornwallis. Both junction with his accomplished sister, Mrs.
these ladies died within the last seven years; Barbauld, who, to a noted capacity for in
both lived through the period of which we structing the young, added herself also lite
have been speaking; and both reflected very rary and poetical talent of a very refined
distinctly, in the tone of their minds and the order, and was in all respects a most admirable
bent of their studies, the character of that woman. Miss Aikin's friends and relations all
period in its successive stages of development. round were literary in their tastes and reputa
Circumstances and natural disposition, how tions,—the Roscoes of Liverpool, the Taylors
ever, had affixed considerable differences of Norwich, the Enfields, the Kerricks,—
between them. The one, long known to the worthy names all in the annals of the pen.
world as a historical writer of some preten She was only in her seventeenth year when
sion, and a friend and correspondent of seve she took up the family trick of writing. Her
ral eminent literary characters of her day, father's editorial functions gave her easy access
had outlived her maximum of reputation; to reviews and magazines; and occasional
and that reputation had been perhaps a little verses, essays, and translations were the first
enhanced by the odour of “blue” notoriety flights of her ambition. The decided bent of
still attaching to petticoated authors when her mind, however, was towards history; and
she began to write. The other was entirely her first publication of any consequence was
unknown to the world till death cancelled the Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth,
the obligation of secrecy, and revealed her as which appeared in 1819, and drew on her no
the writer of some anonymous works of more small degree of attention. It may indeed be
original thought and more varied range of fairly considered a noteworthy book of its
matter than even clever women have in gene time. It had merits of its own, in a lively,
ral proved themselves able to command— intelligent, impartial style of narrative, and
a recluse shrinking from observation, not pos was, we believe, the first of those works of
sessing any influential connexion in the world historical gossip which Miss Strickland's in
of letters, working patiently, earnestly, with defatigable labours have since made so fami
deep convictions, against the surface-current liar to the public, and to which Walter Scott's
of her times, taking up a place with the pio novels no doubt contributed a powerful im
neers of new thought, even when old times pulse. But it should be remembered, and
and associations beckoned her powerfully Miss Aikin must have the credit due from
*
-
the fact, that she began to contemplate her in the young, her pleasant conversation re
work in 1814, before even the first of the garding times and people gone by.
Waverley Novels had appeared; years before And her acquaintance had been among
Kenilworth had set the world mad about the honoured of the earth. In London she
Queen Bess and the Earl of Leicester. “I had mixed in some of the best Whig society
intend,” she says, writing at that date to her of the day. Mackintosh, Hallam, Rogers,
brother, “to collect all the notices I can of Malthus, Sir H. Holland, are all names of
the manners of the age, the state of literature, more or less frequent occurrence in her let
arts, etc., which I shall interweave, as well as ters; and under her modest roof at Hamp
I am able, with the biographies of the Queen, stead, choice table-talk might often have been
and the other eminent characters of her time, heard from men of literary and legal mark.
binding all together with as slender a thread Thither Wishaw, the lawyer, the friend of
of political history as will serve to keep other Lord Lansdowne, the somewhat Johnsonian
matters in their places.” So that the pla oracle of his coterie, and Professor Smyth of
giarism of topic, if any, was the other way. Cambridge, often found their way to discuss
Miss Aikin could not have been set on the with her the questions of the hour, or some
track of Elizabethan gossip by any historical interesting topic of history or belles-lettres;
fiction of Walter Scott's, but Scott may have and a fourth in such reunions would often be
been induced by Miss Aikin's book to think her valued friend and occasional correspon
of Kenilworth as a subject. dent, himself a resident at Hampstead, Mr.
To the Memoir of Queen Elizabeth succeed J. L. Mallet, son of Mallet du Pan, the
ed those of James I., in 1822, and of Charles Genevese, whose political services to the
I., in 1833. Miss Aikin felt no vocation for French monarchy at the beginning of the
continuing her historical labours into the times first Revolution are matter of history. Both
of the Protectorate and the Restoration. The on his father's account and on his own, Mr.
stern aspect of the principles at issue seems Mallet was well known to the Whig society
to have frightened her from the first, the of the day, and though a man, of retired
profligacy of the times from the last. Her habits, was a keen observer of passing events,
long hesitation as to a subject suited to her and one whose judgment and courtesy gave
taste and capacity, finally resulted in her his opinions great weight with all who pos
compiling the Life of Addison, which she sessed his acquaintance.” With friends such
published in 1843. This work was less suc as these, whether on the field of politics or
cessful than her former ones. Perhaps, as literature, the shrewd little hostess knew well
she herself seemed to suspect, the vigour how to bear her part in discussion: for in
and elasticity of her powers had been suffered conversation she was practised and fluent;
to decay through leisure and delicate health, her memory was well stored; she was an
and the easily allowed interruptions of social able reasoner, an intelligent listener, and a
life; and, not least, through the distractions pleasant retailer of anecdote. -
of an age of busy thought and change, that test The heyday of Miss Aikin's reputation
of true intellectual metal, when the stronger chanced to fall during the stirring times of
or the more dogmatic minds find stimulating the Roman Catholic Relief Bill and the Re
material for thought and utterance, but those form Bill,—times when Tories began to look
that are at once too feeble for self-support, and gloomy, and Liberals in politics and educa
too wide for bigotry, are apt to subside into tion were radiant with joy for the good days
a hesitating but genial receptivity, interested coming. Her friends were almost exclusively
in all aspects of life and history, but partly among the Whig and Radical portion of the
on that very account without those strong community; but her own opinions, or rather
convictions or prepossessions which consti feelings—for she was fully inclined herself to
tute the life of authorship. A severe review. make the distinction—did not go very far on
of this work by Macaulay, which appeared in the popular side. Nay, in some moods, her
the Edinburgh, must have given the finishing historical and antiquarian tastes seem half to
touch to any lingering self-flattery of the have made a Tory of her. -
authoress that her literary genius was still in “Women are natural aristocrats,” she says in
bloom. Of this criticism, neither the editor one of her letters; “and many a reproach have
of the Memoir, nor any of Miss Aikin's pub: I sustained from my father for what he called
lished letters, make any mention; but she my ‘odi profanum vulgus. The rude manners,
never wrote again; and when she died in trenchant tone, and barbarous slang of the or
the January of last year, at the age of eighty dinary Radicals, as well as the selfish ends and
two, she had long stepped back from observa * Some passages from a MS. Diary of Political
tion, and was missed only by those who knew Events, kept by Mr. J. L. Mallet, have £ to
her worth in private life, her warm family the public in the recent Life of Sir James Graham,
affection, her acute intelligence, her interest by Torrens M’Cullagh.
168 Three Women of Letters, June,
gross knavery which many of them strive to way Dr. Channing's influence over her mind
conceal under professions of zeal for all the best is very conspicuous. He was, like her, a
interests of mankind, are so inexpressibly dis Unitarian, but one of a much more spiritual
gusting to me, that in some moods I have wished tone and temper than had prevailed among
to be divided from them far as pole from pole.
On the other hand, the captivating manners of the sectarians of Stoke-Newington. Brought
the aristocracy, the splendour which surrounds up, as she had been, in a coterie where
them, the taste for heraldry and pedigree which strictly utilitarian views of life prevailed, and
I have picked up in the course of my studies, accustomed to a somewhat contemptuous es
and the flattering attentions which my writings timate of all mystic tendencies, Dr. Chan
have sometimes procured me from them, are ning's exalted piety and personal sense of the
strong bribes on the side of ancient privilege; unseen were to her as a new revelation of
but, as I said before, I have fought and con man's nature and requirements. Writing to
quered; and I confess that ‘the greatest good
of the greatest number” is what alone is en him in 1831, she pours out, with all the en
titled to consideration, however unpoetical the thusiasm of female discipleship, her gratitude
phrase and the pedantic sect of which it is the for the benefits which she was conscious of
watchword.”—P. 220. having derived from his teaching.
This naive confession of political faith oc “I was never duly sensible,” she says, “till
curs in a letter to Dr. Channing, the Ameri your writings made me so, of the transcendent
can sage, with whom, in her middle life, she beauty and sublimity of Christian morals; nor
entered on an epistolary correspondence did I submit my heart and temper to their chas
which lasted for sixteen years, and her share of tening and meliorating influences. . . . Under
the notion of a generous zeal for freedom, truth,
which constitutes by far the most interesting and virtue, I cherished a set of prejudices and
half of the present volume. It ranges over antipathies which placed beyond the pale of my
an agreeable variety of topics, -religion and charity not the few, but the many, the mass of
politics, however, being the most prominent; my compatriots. I shudder now to think how
and as one of the writer's main purposes was good a hater I was in the days of my youth.
to keep Dr. Channing au fait of opinions and Time and reflection, a wider range of acquain
events in England, these letters are interest tance, and a calmer state of the public mind,
mitigated by degrees my bigotry; but I really
ing, as reminding us of discussions long knew not what it was to open my heart to the
gone by, and of views and notions whose human race until I had drunk deeply into the
truth or importance time has since tested. spirit of your writings. * -
But we see from them clearly that the age “Neither was my intercourse with my Crea
was marching too fast for Miss Aikin. The tor such as to satisfy fully the wants of the soul.
republican theories that were wafted back to I had doubts and scruples, as I have before
her across the Atlantic, she was impelled at intimated, respecting prayer, which weighed
first by her devoted reverence for Dr. Chan heavily on my spirit. In times of the most
racking anxiety, the bitterest grief, I offered,
ning to accept, harmonizing them as best she I dared to offer, nothing but the folded arms of
might with her national and personal pre resignation—submission rather. So often had I -
possessions; but her mind got wearied and heard, and from the lips of some whom I greatly
confused as newer and more advanced views respected, the axiom, as it was represented, that
of social and political matters opened up no evil could exist in the creation of a perfectly
around her; and though too intelligent, not benevolent Being, if he were also omnipotent,
to be interested by them, and too liberal by that my reliance on Providence was dreadfully
shaken by a vague notion of a system of things
all the traditions of her life to wish to lag by which Deity itself was limited. How you
behind while others pressed on, it is very have dispossessed me of this wretched idea #.
evident that she by no means relished on the not well know; but it is gone. I feel, I feel
whole the turn things were taking. Thus she that He can and will bless me, even by means
complains of the influx of popular literature :. 248.
what seem at present evil and suffering.”
created by Lord Brougham's education move
ment, and regrets, almost as poignantly as This was an education of the soul which
S. T. Coleridge could have done, the declin may well have made Miss Aikin esteem Dr.
ing taste for high philosophy and poetry. Channing's influence as one of the memora
Of the agitation for women's rights she was bilia of her life. Still we cannot repress a
eminently distrustful; and though at first she smile sometimes at the truly feminine excess
expresses herself cautiously on the subject, of laudation bestowed by this grateful dis
her condemnation of Harriet Martineau and ciple on her “guide, philosopher, and friend,”
her strong-minded proceedings, becomes, as she entitles him, and are tempted to con
after a time, very pronounced. Though a clude that the excellent divine must have
Dissenter herself, and ready enough to join had a pretty strong digestion for the sugar
in party sneers at the Church of England, plums of friendship. She assures him of the
yet, when a question of action occurs, she impression his teaching is calculated to pro
evinces no destructive tendencies. In one duce on women in particular, and tries to
*
lure him to the neighbourhood of the English ter five-and-thirty years ago? Memory
metropolis by an enumeration of the many tempts us; but we must not allow ourselves
distinguished admirers of her own sex he to dally at the banquets where wits and au
would find prepared to greet him there. thors of every type and degree of celebrity
The home of Miss Aikin's middle life, were wont to cluster round the head of the
from her father's death in 1822 to 1843, greatest publishing house in London; nor in
was at Hampstead, not then, as it is now, a the trim gardens, where noble and learned
closely connected suburb of London, but a chiefs of the law would lounge in rustic ease
suburban village, having an independent under the hospitable auspices of their brother
life of its own, fed indeed more or less from of the bench; nor in the modest retreat,
the great metropolitan reservoir of intelli where sons of science loved to assemble and
gence and fashion, but still possessing its own hear lessons of experience from the greatest
organization, its own centres, and its own in surgeon of the day. Before one quiet home
terests. Her description of Hampstead thir only we would linger for a moment, one un
ty years ago may have an interest for those pretending red brick house of ancient date,
who like to trace in local vicissitudes the on the summit of the steep hill which lifts the
working of that visitor to the breezy table-land of the heath,
“Ever-whirling wheel of change, and where Campbell, Rogers, Crabbe, Sothe
The which all mortal things doth sway.” by, Byron's wife and his daughter “Ada,”
Lord Jeffrey, John Richardson, nay, the Great
“Several circumstances,” she writes in 1833, Magician himself, were frequent guests; for
“render society here peculiarly easy and plea Joanna Baillie, the inmate of that house, was
sant. In many respects the place unites the
advantages, and escapes the evils, both of Lon one who stands out conspicuously in Miss
don and the provincial towns. It is near Aikin's pages as an object of her love and
enough to allow its inhabitants to partake in reverence; and we are the more induced to
the society, the amusements, and the accommo make allusion to her here because she hap
dation of the capital, as freely as even the dissi pens to furnish us, rather appositely, with a
pated could desire; whilst it affords pure air, female type of that older cultivation, the cul
lovely scenery, and retired and beautiful walks; tivation of the Georgian era, or rather of the
and because every one is supposed to have a
London set of friends, neighbours do not think pre-Waterloo era, at which in our introduc
it necessary, as in the provinces, to force their tory remarks we glanced. Joanna Baillie
acquaintance on you. Of local sóciety you may was one of the numerous poetic nurslings
have much, little, or none, as you please; and whom “Caledonia, stern and wild,” had the
with a little, which is very good, you may asso merit of fostering at the close of the last
ciate on the easiest terms; then the summer century; and though for more than half her
brings an influx of Londoners, who are often life a resident in or near London, and familiar
genteel and agreeable people, and pleasingly vary with its best society, she never bated her na
the scene. Such is Hampstead.”—P. 277.
tional prepossessions, nor lost the dialect of
Such was Hampstead; but the giant her fatherland. Her earliest years were led
spread of population and building has worked in all the freedom of Scottish country life.
a significant change within the limits of a She was a fresh “out-door” maiden, scram
generation. The heath, the groves, the fields, bling barefoot over burns and heather, loving
the gardens of Hampstead; its quaint red to listen to all nature's sounds, and to watch
brick mansions of Stuart or Nassau date, its all nature's sights. It was not till her ele
later brown and yellow edifices of Hanove venth year that she could learn to read. Then
rian respectability, its still more modern her favourite studies were among the story
stone or plaster villas, with their well-kept tellers and the poets; and her favourite
lawns and dainty flower-beds; the variety of thoughts as she grew up were of the workings
hill and valley, the broad breezy terrace, the and emotions of the human heart. Her first
outlook to the vast city and St. Paul's dome dramas were published in 1798; her last
rising mysteriously through its everlasting nearly forty years later. The altered taste
smoke on the one side, and to Harrow on the of the age was evident in the different recep
Hill, with its conspicuous steeple, on the tion accorded to them. De Montfort and its
other; these, though not untouched by mu companions ran out five editions within eight
tability’s “cruel sport,” may still in their years. It was the reviving enthusiasm for
general features remain as in the days when Shakspeare and the drama generally that
Miss Aikin tried to tempt Dr. Channing to wafted Miss Baillie to £ Her pure
its heights. But where is the free village life? and beautiful language, her delicate pathos,
where are the retired haunts? and above all, her great command over a few chords in the
where are the familiar social gatherings equal complex harmonies of man's nature, were her
in variety or in intellectual quality to those well-merited title to the world's applause.
which certain Hampstead homes could mus Scott, who made her acquaintance in 1806,
WOL. XLII. N–12
at once found in her a congenial spirit, and, The description is a true one. We remem
as time proved, an enduring friend. His let ber this sweet lady in her long evening of
ters to her, published in his Life by Lock life. Her heart seemed wrapt in family af.
hart, are £ to be among the most fection, in household usefulness, in kindly in
charming he ever wrote. Of her genius he terest for her friends, most tender always for
was an ardent admirer, and was the means of the young and helpless. No picture of her
first introducing her conceptions to the his is complete without that of her life-long com
trionic talent of Siddons in 1810, at Edin panion and admiring elder sister, Agnes, the
burgh, when he writes with delight of the tears quaint, clever old lady, whose warm heart,
and praises called forth by the representation shrewd sense of humour, and rich mines of le
of the Family Legend. But as acting pieces gendary lore and national anecdote, helped in
her plays were never permanently successful, no small degree to fascinate the favoured
and the dramas published in 1836, though guests at that fireside. We know nothing
full of real poetic power, and favoured with a more delightful in domestic poetry of the real
good deal of laudatory criticism at the time, istic sort, than the Birthday Lines which Jo
created none of the enthusiasm of former days anna addressed to this faithful companion
when both were advanced down the vale of
in a reading public which had then turned to
other fashions of literature for amusement. life —
Miss Aikin's recollections of this gifted lady,“Dear Agnes, gleam'd with joy and dash'd
written when she herself was old, are a with tears,
very generous and pleasing tribute of friend. O'er us have glided almost sixty years,
ship. Since we on Bothwell's bonnybraes were seen
By those whose eyes long closed in death have
i." It has been my privilege,” she says, “to been,
have had more or less personal acquaintance Two tiny imps, who scarcely stoop'd to gather
with almost every literary woman of cele The slender harebell on the purple heather;
brity who adorned English society from the No taller than the foxglove's spiky stem;
latter years of the last century nearly to the That dew of morning sheds with silvery gem.
present time, and there was scarcely one of the Then every butterfly that crossed our view
number in whose society I did not find much to With joyful shout was greeted as it flew,
interest me; but of all these, excepting of course And moth, and lady-bird, and beetle bright,
Mrs. Barbauld from the comparison, Joanna In sheeny gold, were each a wondrous sight.
Baillie made by far the deepest impression upon Then as we paddled barefoot, side by side,
me. Her genius was surpassing, her character Among the sunny shallows of the Clyde,
the most endearing and exalted. . . She was the Minnows or spotted parr with twinkling fin
only person I have ever known towards whomSwimming in mazy rings the pool within,
A thrill # gladness through our bosoms sent,
fifty years of close acquaintance, while they con
tinually deepened my affection, wore away Seen in the power of early wonderment.
nothing of my reverence. A long perspective to my mind appears,
“So little was she fitted or disposed for in Looking behind me to that line of years,
tellectual display, that it was seldom that her And yet through every stage I still can trace
genius shone out with its full lustre in conversa Thy vision'd form, from childhood's morning
tion; but I have seen her powerful eye kindle grace
with all a poet's fire, while her language rose for To woman's early bloom, changing—how soon!--
a few moments to the height of some “great To the expressive glow of woman's noon;
argument. Her deep knowledge of the human And now to what thou art, in comely age,
heart also would at times break loose from the
Active and ardent. Let what will engage
habitual cautiousness, and I have then thought Thy present moment, whether hopeful seeds
that if she was not the most candid and benevo
In garden-plat thou sow, or noxious weeds
lent, she would be one of the most formidable of From the fair flower remove, or ancient lore
observers. Nothing escaped her, and there was In chronicle or legend rare explore,
much humour in her quiet touches. . .
“No one would ever have taken her for a Or on the parlour hearth with kitten play,
married woman. An innocent and maiden grace Stroking
its tabby sides, or take thy way
still hovered over her to the end of her old
To gain with hasty steps some cottage door,
On helpful errand to the neighbouring poor,
age. It was one of her peculiar charms, and Active and ardent to my fancy's eye,
often brought to my mind the line addressed to Thou still art.young in spite of time gone by.
the vowed Isabella in Measure for Measure, ‘I Though oft of patience brief and temper keen,
hold you for a thing enskied and saintly.” If Well may it please me, in life's latter scene,
there were ever human creature ‘pure in the last To think what now thou art and long to me
recesses of the soul, it was surely this meek, this hast been "*
pious, this noble-minded, and nobly-gifted wo.
man, who, after attaining her ninetieth year,”
carried with her to the grave the love, the reve And Hampstead society, five-and-thirty years
rence, the regrets of all who had ever enjoyed
the privilege of her society.”—Pp. 7, 11. * Joanna Baillie died in 1851. Agnes survived
her sister many years, and was believed to be up
* Rather too advanced an estimate, we believe. wards of a hundred when she died.
ago, presents us with another point of contact were not thirty years ago the common battle
for the purposes of our present survey; for in cry that they have since become. The few
a villa a few yards distant from the home of who made a stir about them were women of
Joanna Baillie, a not unfrequent visitor, exceptional notoriety: flighty lecturers, like
about the year 1830, was Caroline Frances Frances Wright, or systematic radicals, like
Cornwallis, whose name, scarcely known to Harriet Martineau. Miss Cornwallis was a
the world of authorship till the recent publi very different person from either of these.
cation of her Letters, stands third on our list. She was by education and taste a conservative
She was daughter of the Rev. W. Cornwallis, in politics, and though, as life went on, her
rector of Wittersham in the county of Kent, opinions on most subjects assumed a very libe
representative of a younger branch of the ral complexion, she always based them on a
ancient family which owned the late Marquis philosophic vantage-ground of her own, and
Cornwallis as its head. The literary career to the last disliked the so-called reforming
of this lady, and her expressed opinions, show party in the State, and their political connex.
in a striking manner the effect which the old ions. How strongly she felt on this subject
fashionedjealousy and distrust of female think of woman's intellect and position the whole
ers tended to produce on one assuredly of the tenor of her correspondence bespeaks. “No
most vigorous female intellects of her time; thing distressed her more,” says the editor of
while she is herself also an eminent example the volume before us, “than to be told (as of
of the increased depth and solidity of which course she was told) that she was an excep
a woman's thought was capable. Too earnest tion, and that her own attainments afforded
and profoundly sensitive to content herself no argument in support of the opinion, she
with merely adapting her powers to the pre so strenuously held upon the natural equality
vailing current of taste, too self contained and of intellect in the two sexes. She considered
retired in her circumstances, and perhaps in that women were themselves in great measure
her inclinations, to be borne into public to blame for the prevalence of a state of opi
notice by the applauses of a coterie, Miss nion which cramped intellectual development
Cornwallis, in her isolated independence, read,and withheld civil rights; and hence she be
thought, and wrote, with the powers of a mas lieved that every individual woman who
culine mind, on topics which few masculine showed herself capable of handling great and
minds could have handled with clearer logic important questions, was contributing some
or more sound information. But it was her thing towards the future admission of the
firm conviction that a fairer consideration right of the whole sex to higher culture
would be secured for her productions by pre and greater freedom.” Into the general ar
senting them to the public on their own mer gument on this delicate question it is no part
its, without confessing the secret of her sex; of our business here to thrust ourselves. We
and of the many who read and profited by would merely allude to one or two considera
the clever manuals entitled Small Books on tions which appear to us to have had too little
Great Subjects, which appeared on Picker weight in the reflections of Miss Cornwallis,
ing's counters between the years 1842 and and of others who share her views to their
1854, none, we venture to affirm, save the full extent. Even if woman's intellect could
few chosen friends who were behind the be proved, as satisfactorily as she thought it
scenes, had a suspicion that the author of could, equal in natural capacity to that of
nearly the whole series was a woman; and a man—to the triumphant refutation of Arch
woman, moreover, of secluded life, feeble bishop Whately's dictum about the exception
health, and no influential literary connexion. ally creative genius of the Miss Thwaites who
It was certainly not from any distrust of her invented the soda-water—the question still
own powers either as an individual or as a remains, Would it be desirable, not on grounds
woman that Miss Cornwallis shrank from of capacity—for capacity has really little to
publicity. One main motive of her intellec do with it; a clever woman is no doubt a
tual exertions, as she always asserted, was to better judge of most things than a stupid man
vindicate the natural equality of her sex with —but on grounds of social harmony and ex
the other; to prove, by what she considered pediency, that the legal fence-work between
irresistible logic, that if woman's intellect was the sexes should be altogether levelled? For
not naturally inferior to that of man, the the distinctions upon which that fence-work
same rights were due to her in society, law, rests, are not, be it remembered, arbitrary
and politics; that if education only made the distinctions, as those between man and man;
difference, then women ought to cast frivolity they are distinctions of nature's making,
away, and be educated up to the level of men. whereby the physical weakness of one sex
This was indeed the cherished idea of her life; points out its dependence on the physical
one to which she clung with all the pertinaci. strength of the other, and seems to bar the
ty of an enthusiast. The “Rights of Women” law of competition, save in exceptional cases.
172 Three Women of Letters. •
June,
Again, to compare the “emancipation” of with him; sought no amusement, no dress;

women with the emancipation of slaves, as concealed my own grief under a gay exterior,
an act of justice, is surely a fallacy in ano and lived as if there had been no gaieties in the
world. I plunged into books as a resource, and
ther respect. In the sphere of domestic as a fountain whence I could draw refreshment
influence women may exercise, and always for a weary spirit. . . . Thus bodily and men
have exercised, a power of their own, to which
tal suffering combined to make my youth unlike
slaves can never pretend; and the more highly
other people's. I think, nevertheless, if I had
they cultivate their reasoning powers, and been thrown a little more into society, that my
mind would not have broken down my body so
the more widely they extend their knowledge,
the more effective and beneficial may that much, and I might have felt less of the unnatu
ral tadium vitae which at times made it a bur
influence become, though, unhappily, history den almost too heavy to be borne.”—Pp. 267,
shows that it has not always depended on 268. -
such creditable causes. Nay, some might be

disposed to cite against Miss Cornwallis her The mind which, at so early an age, could
own favourite instance in plea of woman's brace itself to such firm resolves, was as
enfranchisement, as proving that if she can suredly of no common order. The extent
do so much as an unobserved, irresponsible and variety of her studies, as recorded in
agent, there is the less need to drag her forth the correspondence for several succeeding
into the fields of public conflict. years of her life, was something amazing.
But while she liked to astonish her friends
“It is useless,” she says, “to inquire what
women have published, unless you could inquire by the avowal of her multifarious excursions
also what they have done privately which men into the realms of knowledge, she protested
have the credit of. It was a chance that told us against too high an estimate being formed of
who was the composer of Pericles' Oration. her conquests therein, and warmly deprecated
She was reproached as the author of his policy the unenviable notoriety attaching to the
also ; yet his policy was most able. She raised
her second husband to eminence also as an ora
character of a “learned £
tor and politician; and it is probable that there “I believe,” she wrote on one occasion,
has been many an Aspasia that the world “you, like many more of my friends, overrate
knows nothing of, who has enjoyed in quiet the my attainments a good deal, owing to this fancy
fame of him she loved, and cared not for her of mine for smatterings of knowledge. I think
own.” they afford more pleasure than swallowing down
one great stiff science, horns and all, like the
Much of the peculiarity and independence boa-constrictor, and lying choked with it for
of Miss Cornwallis's views and character is half one's life; but after all, for use they avail
attributable to the circumstances of her life. but little.”—P. 57.
She stood to a very great extent alone in The taedium vitae, however, was too for
the world. Her only sister married and midable a ghost to be laid by study. More
died young, leaving her to be the sole com over, ill health interfered with her powers of
panion of her parents as long as they lived, application. There is something very pa
and afterwards the last survivor of her race. thetic in the following description of her
In after years she gave a touching account mental state:
of her early trials, and of the way in which “When health is only to be preserved by
they contributed to the formation of her drawing lines of circumvallation past which
character:— sorrow is not to be allowed to step, it is hardly
“At the period you talk of fifteen and six worth having. The effort to exclude the enemy
teen, I was very miserable; a darling sister wearies more at last than his admission. .
who, though much older, had been everything When I was stronger, I could smother care in
to me, married first, and left me lonely, and extreme application to study: now even that
then, within the year, died; my father broke remedy fails me. But why should I pursue
the tendon of his leg, and was helpless for six such subjects? Bodily pain and mental suffer
months; my mother's health was bad; myself ing will some day have an end; and so I hitch
worn with sorrow and fatigue. I learned not up my load again, and proceed on my way.”
to weep, for it vexed my father to see it; but I
have been told that the first time we, the sur Miss Cornwallis's devotion to learning, at
vivors, appeared at church together, the pa an age when most girls seek the pleasures of
rishioners almost wept to see us so pale, and dress and of the ball-room, did not altogether
worn, and shadow-like. What was the world destroy her attractions for the sex of which
to me then? I only thought of that where I she seemed likely to prove so formidable a
should rejoin what I loved; and then I made rival on its own ground. It was not long
the vow which long years afterwards I found after her sister's death that she received an
written down, that I would forsake all the fol
lies of my age, and be to my father all that she offer of marriage from one destined after
whom he had lost had been, for she was his wards to rank among the distinguished au
right hand. I toiled patiently over his accounts, thors of his day, the historian J. C. L. Sis
walked with him when he could walk, rode mondi. Thirty-six years later, on occasion
of his death, she thus mentions the circumamong his parishioners, which took the shape
stance to one of her correspondents:— of personal insult and ill-treatment. He had
“This year is doomed not to be a gay one to spent many years of earnest self-denying la
me, for I have had the news of my dear old bour in the parish, and his daughter had
friend Sismondi's death—a friend more than for seconded his efforts for its welfare with all
as long as I can remember, for I do not remem the zeal of her ardent nature, and had even
ber the first seeing him. Such a loss is irrepara voluntarily relinquished a considerable por
ble, and as such I must feel it.He had great
ness of mind to get over what few men do; for tion of the inheritance which would have
when disparity of years and other considera been eventually hers, in the endowment of a
tions led me to decline his proffered hand, he school for its poorer inhabitants. The re
continued the same warm friend as ever, and moval from Wittersham, and its cause, ran
never, to his latest hour, ceased to show me kled deeply in her heart, and did not make
every kindness in his power. Such a friend is her more in charity with the growth of demo
not easily replaced, and can never be forgotten. cratic principles in the country at large. In
He is one more added to the list of those whose
number makes me feel more a denizen of the
after times, when writing to a friend on the
next world than of this. My only comfort is subject of certain attacks on the clergy in
the trying to make myself worthy of them, that which the Examiner newspaper had been in
in God's good time I may be found fit to enjoy dulging, she thus points with the sting of
the society of ‘just men male perfect; and in personal recollection her indignant defence
this hope I trudge on upon my weary pilgrimage of the class of which her father had been a
patiently and quietly.”—P. 233. member:—
A letter of the rejected suitor's on the “There is no man who spends his time in
occasion, which has been preserved, writ more anxious exertion than a conscientious cler
ten in imperfect English, shows how highly gyman. There is no fame, no reward to spur
he rated the mental excellencies of his be him on, for his preferment comes before his du
loved: ty. He spends his life in a country village per
haps, or at any rate wherever he may be cast,
“Tell her,” he wrote to Mrs. Cornwallis, “tell without a chance or an expectation of any fur
her I will work incessantly till I have reached ther emolument; and what he has is generally
such a reputation as she may derive some vanity a modicum which requires economy to live on
from my past address, while always shall I be it and appear like a gentleman. His duties lie
proud of having raised my wishes to her, though among the poor and the sick, whom he has to
unsuccessfully. . . . Do not think the wish un instruct and comfort; with the rich he must
reasonable, however. . . . Those dreams are mix as their equal, and by his example and con
now vanished, but the more aérial was their na duct mend them if he can, and this must be
ture, the more have they left after them a true done silently and quietly, or it is unavailing. A
endearment for yourself and your daughter. man who has thus given up his life to his fellow
She cannot be a foreigner to me: it was not she creatures hopes, perhaps—it is human to do so
who has refused me, it was the war, -the dis —that some approbation, some esteem from his
tance of seas and lands, the nature itself of fellow-men as well as his God, may follow his
things. She has not refused me for a friend, a honest and noiseless course; and he finds him
half-brother, and that I hope to remain.” self stigmatized—as indeed his great Master was
Disparity of years he does not himself before him—‘as a glutton and a wine-bibber, a
reckon among the causes of her refusal; and grasping, avaricious being, who cares not who
seeing he was but thirteen years older than suffers if he be enriched. Is it not the way to
make men worthless if they are allowed no sort
herself, this was probably a very minor con of credit for their virtues? I knew one on
sideration. But her resolute devotion to her
whom all this vituperation was heaped till his
parents at this time has already been noticed, gray head"was bent in sorrow to the grave; yet
and no doubt the idea of a foreign connexion his youth had been innocent, his manhood spent
was altogether repugnant to her feelings. in ministering to all the wants and woes of his
The friendship between Sismondi and herself poor neighbours; his old age was hunted down
was kept up by a frequent epistolary corre by the Cobbettites, and such as Mr. Fonblanque
spondence. Her own letters to the historian would set on if he could. He was carried to
his grave in the place which had been the scene
seem not to be extant; but many of those of his quiet and useful life, and then the delu
which he wrote to her are given, as an ap sion was over. A weeping population rushed
pendix, in the present volume. They range forth to meet the last remains of the man whose
freely over various topics of literature and worth they then knew, when they had lost him /
sentiment, often expressing opinions very op I only wish Mr. F. had been there to see it.”—
posite to those she entertained, yet every Pp. 211, 212.
where evincing his profound respect for her The mortification and distress she expe
character and attainments, and a spirit of rienced at this epoch, together with other
tender solicitude for her welfare. causes, seem to have had a serious effect on
In 1822 Mr. Cornwallis was compelled to her already very delicate health. After
leave Wittersham on account of disaffection struggling with severe illness for some time,
she resolved on trying the effect of a winter ...And her warm and generous interest in the
abroad, and accepted the offer of her faith welfare of her self-chosen pupils seems to
ful friend Sismondi to place at her disposal a have been requited with no ordinary strength
country-house belonging to himself in the of attachment on their part. Her older
neighbourhood of Pescia. friends and correspondents, with the excep
fier Italian life was a new experience of ex tion of Sismondi and John Hookham Frere,"
istence to Miss Cornwallis. She was now forty were not, as far as we can find, people of
years of age; her mind was cultivated up to the high literary note. Her opinions were her
highest pitch; her memory stored with facts own, the fruit of vast reading, close thought,
and ideas; her imagination open to every and perhaps, we may add, of too little argu
new impression from without; her eagerness ment with those who were her equals or su
for knowledge insatiable. To one so circum periors in attainment. Her old friend Sis
stanced, the elemental glow of a southern mondi, however, was wont to express his
climate—which soothes the fibres and braces dissent from her conclusions pretty freely;
the nervous system long depressed by the and even when the adjustment of woman's
chill damps of the north, and by the gnaw true position in the world was the subject of
ings of mental and bodily pain-works like discussion, did not allow his deference for
inspiration itself. Every new object, every Miss Cornwallis, nor his appreciation of her
unaccustomed sound, the little traits of do high capacities, to modify his conclusions as
mestic life, the living accents of a language to the female type of character in general.
hitherto only known in books, the realization “The qualities of the heart,” he says, “are
of scenes viewed as yet only by picture or those by which above all others you have the
description, the awaking each morning to advantage over us. . . . Called on your part to
the anticipation of unwonted impressions, give being to men, I ascribe very little import
the reviewing at evening a new treasure of ance to the truth or falsity of the scientific no
ideas and sympathies,—all this, blended tions you may implant in them during their first
with the unusual sense of physical ease and years: I ascribe infinite importance to the sen
timents you may develop in them. God pre
elasticity, seems to expand the limits of the serve the children of mothers who would fain
soul, and endue it with heightened life and be men! For such there would be no more
power. Long years afterwards Miss Corn youth, no more enthusiasm, no more self-devo
wallis used to revert to her Italian life as the tion, perhaps no more compassion.”f
happiest period of her existence. Her let Another subject which she had much at
ters are more genial, more playful, more self heart, and on which also Sismondi differed
forgetting at this time than at any other; from her, was her theory of Christianity.
while her remarks on Italian life and man
Her grand panacea for remedying the sins
ners evince a spirit of observation singularly and follies of the age was the combination of
keen and discriminating, and a vivid feeling religion with philosophy,—the establishing
for the picturesque in life and nature. She the conviction that divine revelation was
remained in Italy a year and a half on this simply and solely an authoritative enforce
occasion. Subsequently, in 1829–30, she ment of those moral truths which reason,
spent another winter there. under the most favourable circumstances,
During Miss Cornwallis's first absence in might discover for itself; of which, at all
Italy her father died. Mrs. Cornwallis sur events, when presented to its contemplation
vived till 1836. She was a woman, to judge in the teaching of Scripture, it was the sole
from the eulogiums of Sismondi, as well as and sufficient test. All theological dogmas
from the recollections of surviving friends, of which could not be meted to the require
considerable personal attractions, and no or ments of man's natural conscience and under
dinary powers of mind. But in religious
matters she inclined to the straitest sect of standing, she held to be the aftergrowth of
the Evangelicals; and from the views of this * There are no letters in the “Selections” to
party her daughter totally and most empha J. H. Frere himself, but many to his sister and
tically dissented. others of his family, and several references to his
Miss Cornwallis continued to reside in her conversation and opinions on literary '
native county of Kent all the remainder of + “Les qualités du coeur sont celles parlesquelles
avant toutes les autres vous l'emportez sur nous.
her life, which, in spite of frequent and alarm . . Appelée pour votre part à faire des hommes,
ing attacks of illness and pain, was protracted je ne mets que fort peu d'importance aux notions
to the age of seventy-one. She mixed little vraies ou fausses de science que vous pourriez im
in general society; but she took delight in planter en eux durant leurs premières années; £
forming the minds of younger people, and mets une infinie aux sentimens que vous dévelop.
pez en eux. Dieu garde les enfans de meres qui
doing her best to shame her own sex, more seroient hommes; il ny auroit plus de jeunesse
especially, out of the frivolities with which poureux, plus d'enthousiasme, plus de dévouement,
the female character is liable to be beset. peut-être plus de pitié.”
human invention, superinduced upon the pure Always eager in the pursuit of truth, Miss
theology of the first two centuries. For, in Cornwallis hailed with vivid interest the first
the ante-Nicene Fathers and Apologists, in utterances of that school of Biblical Criticism
the lives and deaths of a Polycarp, a Justin, which students of German theology were be
a Clement, and a Tertullian, in their simple ginning to extend into England, and of
profession of devotion to the person and ex which Dean Milman's History of the Jews
ample of the Saviour, unaccompanied by any was, we believe, the earliest sample in a popu
doctrinal statements as to the mode and con lar style laid before the British public. This
ditions of salvation, she believed the only certainly implied no small courage, and a very
reliable interpretations of Christ's mission rare spirit of investigation in a woman, and
were to be recognised. She did not admit one brought up, be it remembered, not like
the supposition that a subsequent necessity Miss Aikin in a school of latitudinarian Dis
for doctrinal statement might arise out of the sent, but in a strictly evangelical and other
wayward, often vicious, misrepresentations of wise orthodox world of opinion, and herself
men; that, as the echoes of the first Christian craving for the confirmation and assurance of
teachers faded from men's ears, and the first that religious faith which was often the only
love began to wax cold, some safeguards thing that saved her morbid temperament
might be needed to prevent religion from de from despondency. But where truth led, or
generating, under the influence of sensual seemed to lead, she never shrank from fol
prepossessions or capricious fancies, into wild lowing, nor was she one who could ever rest
superstition or wilder antinomianism. content with half convictions on so momen
Sismondi, in replying to his friend's argu tous a subject. Though her strong belief in
ment on behalf of primitive Christianity, thus the person and character of Christ, as por
eloquently maintains the superior excellence trayed in the Gospels, rendered her proof
and beauty of some of its later developments, against the seductions of Strauss's theory, the
and sees, in its varied adaptation to the re conclusions of Ewald and Bunsen met in
quirements of mankind at different periods great measure with her cordial assent; and
and under different aspects of civilisation, the at a time when they were little talked of in
most convincing proof of its divine authority. England, we find her already familiar with
He writes in February, 1840:— those aspects of Neology which have since
“I would look for Christianity rather in what introduced terror and division into the Eng
it has become than in what it was at its origin. lish Church; have made old foes draw to
Whatever may have been those revelations and gether in the dread of a common danger, and
that divinity over which the long course of ages have been made a cause of opprobrium, often
and the influence of human passion have spread misplaced and excessive, for the impugners,
a veil, Christianity is the richer by all the pious of whatever degree, of traditional orthodoxy.
meditations, all the researches into the human
heart, all the purest and most beautiful senti But then, again, with the odd eclecticism
ments with which the love of God has inspired which she managed to preserve in her opi
man during successive centuries, and by all the nions, she combined this latitudinarianism as
experience afforded by times of prosperity and to doctrine with High Church ' in
adversity, of barbarism and of civilisation. Such ecclesiastical matters, and seems even to have
as it is preached in the purest of the Reformed thought there was divine sanction for the
Churches, Christianity is the finest embodiment doctrine of apostolic succession. “By princi
of doctrines and moral teaching which exists. It ple and rational conviction of the advantage,”
is there that I love to contemplate it, and that,
"like all things entrusted to men by God, I hope she writes, “I am an Episcopalian. I believe
and believe it will attain still greater develop it was the order of government established, if
ment and perfection. Whilst all the endeavours not by Christ himself, at least by his imme
we make to return backwards, to seize hold of diate successors; and I do not feel satisfied
it in monuments which themselves have not
been exempt from alteration, and which each pendant une longue suite de siècles, et avec toute
succeeding age changes more and more by its l'expérience que donnent des tems de prosperité et
own interpretations, seem to me to have no d'adversité, de barbarie, et de civilisation. Tel
other effect than that of diminishing its beauty qu'il est préché dans les églises réformées les plus
and its utility.” * pures, il estle plus beau corps de doctrines et
£ moral qui existe. C'est là que
j'aime à le voir, et que comme toutes les choses
*“Je vais chercher le Christianisme plutót dans confiées aux hommes par la divinité, j'espère et je
ce qu'il est devenu que dans ce qu'il étoit à son crois qu'il se développera et se perfectionnera en
origine, Quelles qu'aient été les révélations et la core. Tandis que tous les efforts qu'on fait pour
divinité sur lesquelles le long cours des àges et retourner en arrière, pour lesaisir dans des monu
l'influence des passions humaines ont étendu un mens qui n'ont point été exempts d'altération, et
voile, le Christianisme s'est enrichi de toutes les que chaque siècle a changé et change encore par
méditations pieuses, de toutes les études sur le coeur ses interprétations, me semble n'avoir d'autre effet
humain, de tout ce que l'amour de la divinité a in ' de lui Öter de sa beauté et de son utilité.”
spiré aux hommes de plus beau et de plus pur, p. 480, 481.
176 | Three Women of Letters. \ June,
that we have the same claims to his promises, The morbid tendency which this confession
as attached to the sacraments, when adminis indicates was no doubt the secret of much of
tered by unauthorized persons, save when her unhappiness, as well as of her sometimes
Episcopal ordination has been unattainable.” wayward talent and temper. She is de
She objected to Dissent on moral grounds scribed, by those who remember her person
also, as tending to weaken the sense of bro al appearance, as tall and largely built, with
therhood among Christians; while for the marked features, a sarcastic expression of
same reason, as we have seen, she would have countenance, and a decided manner. Her
levelled the outworks of formula which tend heart was benevolent and quick to feel for
to isolate the National Church from so large suffering and distress, and she concealed be
a proportion of the nation itself. It is a little neath a rugged surface a most feminine
curious, in a correspondence which turns so yearning for sympathy and affection. Gene
much upon religious topics, and is carried on rous and warm-hearted, incapable of mean
through the whole period of the Tractarian ness or hypocrisy herself, impatient of doubt
movement, to find so little reference to that or compromise, she made little allowance for
particular conflict of views which was for the shortcomings or hesitation of others;
many years by far the most stirring episode nor could she placidly recognise in the moral
in the history of our Church, and of which constitution of the world that interweaving
Miss Aikin's gossiping letters to Dr. Chan of truth with error, that complexity, in the
ning are continually relating, superficially “colours of good and evil,” which from of
enough, the progress and purport. Miss old has baffled the wisest philosophy of man,
Cornwallis's discussions, indeed, seem to fit and which revelation itself does not profess
in to the polemics of our present time far to explain. The struggle to carry reason's
more than into the prevailing polemics of the powers beyond their allotted province cost
days to which they belong. The fact seems her, as she confesses, hours of agony. There
to be that the questions as between the is something very touching in her admission
Evangelical party and the Puseyites, or be. of defeat, and in her strong assertion of the
tween the “high and dry” and the Pusey religious faith which, whatever its exact tex
ites, or even as between the “Broad Church” ture or hue may have been, kept her from
of Arnold and Whately and the Puseyites, despair; nay, more than that, animated her
had comparatively little interest for her. to the last moment of her life with sincere
Her opinions pointed to a different stage of trust in a world to come, and a longing de
liberalism from that of any parties to this par sire to better the condition of her fellow
*
ticular strife. -
creatures in this.
Even those most inclined to condemn her
sceptical audacity on doctrinal points, cannot all “The childlike confidence with which, when
else that we had thought stable fails us, we
deny that her convictions were honest, and throw ourselves on that great power whose ex
her religious feelings very fervent and sin istence and attributes become clearer the more
cere. “God knows,” she said in 1846, when all other things appear uncertain, is surely the
speaking of the series of books she was thenframe of mind which our Saviour inculcated, and
publishing, “I never put pen to paper on which is most becoming the creature of his will;
these momentous subjects without bending in and to this frame of mind I truly believe that the
humble prayer that I might be guided my most decided scepticism does lead. Human pas
sions are roused in the progress of controversy,
self, and be enabled to guide others, to that
and ridicule is resorted to when we are angered
true wisdom, without which all learning is by opposition or wearied by folly; but I believe
but as sounding brass.” that in the silence of this chamber the man be
There was another subject on which Miss comes the creature, feels his own bounded pow
Cornwallis held strong opinions at variance ers, and throws himself with the utmost pros
tration of spirit at the feet of that Power in
with those commonly received. One of her
Small Books was on “Man’s Power over whose hands he feels that he is.”—P. 168.
“It is easy to write or to say, with our Arti
Himself to Prevent or Control Insanity.” So cles, that God is “without parts or passions;”
impressed was she with the belief that such but to feel it is, I am well convinced, the most
control was possible, that she strongly object difficult task our nature has; and the way in
ed to the legislation which is based on the which my own health sinks under the stretch of
assumption of the madman's irresponsibility; mind occasioned by such contemplation, shows
and in the hot arguments which in conversa that God has been merciful in giving us more
tion she would maintain on this point, she tangible objects to lay hold on. So convinced,
used, as we have heard, to adduce herself as indeed, am I that it is impossible to be well with
such things always in one's head, that I would
an instance of the power of self-restraint. But abandon these studies if I could, and plunge into
or the exercise of strong resolution, she said, active life, satisfied to do my duty as well as I
she was firmly convinced she should more could, and leave the rest to God's mercy. But
than once have lost the balance of her mind. in utter loneliness the mind turns inward to
search into its own nature and prospects; and not say that it is impossible. Now I am so far
this research shakes the mortal case shrewdly. revived that I can write, propped up with pil
Few can comprehend this, and I who feel it can lows, in my easy-chair. But, as I have said al
hardly describe; but I certainly feel that those ready, it is in the hands of God; and if an easy
who eat largely of the tree of knowledge will mind and pleasure in the thought, rather than
surely die, and that soon. . . . I sometimes dread of death, can keep fever down, and give
doubt if my course of studies and thinking af the constitution a chance of rallying, why, I
fords happiness; gratification of no ordinary kind have that chance. . . . If death comes, I shall
attends it sometimes, but it is only sometimes, receive it as a boon and a blessing; if not, I shall
and there are many hours of weariness, when brace myself again for my pilgrimage, and see
the exhausted mind lies prostrate under the how much more I can do that may be useful
painful sense of its own littleness. . . I am whilst I stay here.”—P.247.
not a bit well; head aching continually, and
every breath of wind makes me shiver, but the Poetical composition was one of her re
sword has worn out the scabbard, and it is too sources, especially in those moods of depres
late now to mend it, so I must go on as I can. sion to which she so often alludes. The
I could find in my heart to do as I did once verses printed in this volume are almost all
when a child, and sit down by my bedside and of a sombre, melancholy cast. They have re
cry, nobody could tell why. I got a dose of ference chiefly to personal emotion, and evince
physic for my pains then, and it cured me of reflection and sensibility rather than high
crying for ever; but I should fancy my brains imaginative power. Among them are many
were none the better for that force done to ma
ture, and I rather envy those who can open translations from German, a language in which
their eye-sluices and let off a little of that “peril she became a proficient long before it was
ous stuff which weighs upon the heart.”—P. usual to find English ladies at all acquainted
169. with it. But not only was Miss Cornwallis
She said herself, that the gloom of the soul familiar with what we now call the ordinary
was never so deep with her after her experi modern tongues, she was skilled also in the
ence of life in Italy, as before she “broke dead languages, Hebrew as well as Latin and
prison;” and that the sense of happiness she Greek; and not only was she well read in the
was then conscious of as proving to her that philosophy, poetry, and history of all cultivat
happiness was at least a possibility, prevented ed ages, but she was versed likewise in many
her from being ever again overwhelmed by abstruse sciences. When in Italy she made
the sense of present ennui. Still, existence a study of Medicine and Anatomy. Chemis
had no charms to make her love it; and try, and the phenomena of Electricity, occu
every access of sickness seems to have been pied much of her attention. Yet with all this
welcomed by her in the hope that it might she was an adept in woman's accomplish
prove a dismissal from the world and its per ments too; was a skilful musician, both vocal
plexities. and instrumental, could paintin water-colours
To one of her friends she begins a letter and draw caricatures; could model in wax,
thus, in 1841:– and sometimes even, like Mrs. Carter, conde
scended to make a cap or pudding.” Igno
“The glow is bright in the evening sky, rance, whether in man or woman, was in her
And the evening star is fair; estimation, as she was never tired of enforc
The buds are breaking,
The flowers are waking, ing, the great bane of human existence, and
And sweet is the fresh spring air. intellectual progress the one sure road to
moral happiness and improvement.
“But there is a brighter glow to come, From the time she conceived the idea of
And an hour more fair than this; publishing the Small Books, her reading and
When, though friends are weeping, writing ardour became hotter than ever. It
The body lies sleeping, was indeed no child's play to condense and
And the spirit breathes free in bliss.
popularize the lessons of philosophy and sci
“This may be a sort of answer to your inqui ence, riot into the form of mere manuals for
ries, my dearest Anna, for I would not that you reference, but into treatises calling out and
should hear of illness in any other tone. . . . suggesting the higher functions of generaliza
I begin to feel the confident hope that my affairs tion with reference to the moral and spiritual
with this world are drawing to a close. How
happy this hope has made me I cannot make you dispensations of creative wisdom. -
comprehend; but at no moment of my life do I “Now I will tell you what I have been about,”
recollect to have felt so exhilarated.”—P. 228. she writes to one of her coadjutors, in 1843.
“In the first place, I got up Chemistry, of which
And again, a year or two after, when the I did not know a great deal before, and wrote the
breaking of an abscess on the lungs had
brought her very near the grave: * We write some of these personal particulars
from the recollections of friends, for the published
“I cannot, things being as they are, entertain volume of her letters gives but scant information
any great expectation of recovery, though I do of the biographical sort.
‘Introduction to Practical Organic Chemistry;' learning, the impartiality, the good-sense,
then came the table of a Lecture on Insanity. and the liberality of the unknown author.
... and this required no small research; and Her own consciousness, however, that many
this is nearly done. And then I have been read of her convictions were at variance with the
ing for one tract on Greek Philosophy, and have
got through about two sheets of that, at odd opinions of the world around her, on points
times working at the Greek language, and so I on which opinion is peculiarly sensitive, and
have taken an Oration of Demosthenes to put the dislike of giving offence, on the one hand,
into literal English, and back again into Greek; or of hearing her views scoffed at as a mere
besides which I have been reading and theoriz woman's notions on the other, kept her firm
ing about AEschylus Prometheus Vinctus, with in the resolution of concealing her author
Cudworth's Intellectual System, and Brucker's
ship as long as she should live. But she left
History of Philosophy, and Diogenes Laertius with her editor—one of her attached female
and Athenagoras, for the Orphic Theology.
Now, if ever one might be excused for not writ disciples, as we believe, and the domestic
ing to one's friends under a press of business, I companion of her later years—the charge of
think I have that excuse to offer. . . . In the lifting the veil after her death, and making
midst of this I have been quite happy and well; known any particulars of her literary life and
not a moment, even at meal times, was unem correspondence that might have an interest
ployed; my books, paper, and pens were beside
me, and I ate with my left hand, and wrote with for the public at large. We cannot but wish
myright, and never even thought whether I was this charge had been carried out a little more
alone. I think that this is the secret of being fully; that a few more particulars, at least,
happy—the having always some engrossing sub had been given as to the society in which
ject to occupy the mind.”—P. 237. Miss Cornwallis mixed, and the means which
she possessed for acquiring that very wide and
The works by which Miss Cornwallis has varied knowledge which was the cherished
established her claim to a dignified place in delight of her life. In the earlier portion of
the ranks of female authorship, are—“Peri the correspondence, we hear of mornings
cles, a Tale of Athens in the 83d Olympiad,” ' in reading at the British Museum, but
of which Dr. Hawtrey, the late Head Master there is no distinct record of any residence in
and Provost of Eton, said he had “never met the metropolis. Her letters are all dated from
with any work of fiction on a classical subject the country; almost all from her quiet homes
which united so much valuable information
in Kent. A slight connexion and old heredi
to so interesting a story;” fifteen entirely, tary friendship with the '. of John Hook
and four more partially, of the Small Books ham Frere, the accomplished author of
on Great Subjects, embracing the topics of Whistlecraft, and friend of Canning, afforded
Physiology, Metaphysics, Jurisprudence, Che her, as it would seem, some of the pleasantest
mistry, Greek Philosophy, Grammar, History, opportunities of enjoying varied intellectual
and Social Science; a Prize Essay on Juve | converse. At one time of her life, she was,
nile Delinquency, published by Smith and as we have before said, a not unfrequent guest
Elder in 1853; five articles contributed to at Hampstead, where one of Mr. Frere's bro
the Westminster Review, on social and other thers had his home, and here she met many
subjects; and one or two to Fraser's Maga cultivated and distinguished men; among
zine, on Naval Education. -
others S. T. Coleridge, who, as she records,

The Small Books were received with great sat by her at dinner on one occasion, and
favour at the time of their publication, both charmed her by his conversation. He talked
in England and in America. Second and of the sense of immortality in man, and of its
third editions were called for; “and,” says universality, which, in his opinion, caused it
the editor of Miss Cornwallis's letters, “it was to partake of the nature of what we call in
in a spirit of triumph in which no mean or stinct in animals. “The only time I ever .
personal feeling had place, that she delighted saw Lord Byron, he said, “he pointed to a
to remark how ‘through the long series no man in a state of brutal intoxication, and ask
hostile criticism had discovered a misrepre edif I thought that a proof of an immortal
sentation or a mistake.’” In those of her
nature.’ ‘Your inquiry, my Lord, is, I an
books which treated of the history of Chris swered; and so it was; it was the natural
tianity, her method was to dwell with empha instinct shrinking with abhorrence from the
sis on the simple affirmations to which she degradation of the soul.” “Such conversa
firmly held, but not to provoke controversy tion,” adds Miss Cornwallis, “at a dinner
or shock prejudice by drawing conclusions, party is not common, and I was much pleas
which, she nevertheless believed, congenial ed with my place.”—P. 49.
readers would not fail to discover for them
Miss Cornwallis died in January, 1858.
selves. So it was that, with few exceptions, The published correspondence ends in No
the critics of the press passed by the element
vember, 1856, and we have no record of the
of “unsoundness,” and united in praising the concluding period of her life; but from the
list of her writings it appears that her pen no restless desire to remedy the evils of a
was active up to within a few months of her world immersed in sin and error. She writes
decease, and that one of the latest subjects of the things and persons around her with
that occupied her was the reform of the laws the taste and discrimination, but also with
respecting the property of married women, something of the gossiping minuteness of a
which she had the satisfaction of seeing car De Sevigné. And her personal appearance,
ried through both Houses of Parliament the slight, pale, fragile, insignificant but for dark
year before she died. intelligent eyes and a bright smile which
And here we must claim a moment's pause sometimes illumined the pensiveness of her
for a comparison, which the recent publica countenance,—how different is this too from
tion of a supplemental volume of the letters the outward aspect which we have heard as
of Eugénie de Guérin has suggested to us, be cribed to the English lady philosopher. Fami
tween two female intellects of the nineteenth ly affections and a sense of duty kept Eugénie
century, the one of the English Protestant, de Guérin in the world, but natural inclina
the other of the French Romanist type. We tion would have consigned her to a cloister.
lay stress upon the first term in this qualifica Miss Cornwallis, as we have had occasion to
tion, for it is evident to us that national, as remark, was repelled from the amenities of
well as ecclesiastical influences, had their social intercourse by the angularity of her own
share in the mental development of each of nature, by dislike of notoriety as a “learned
these gifted ladies. In Caroline Cornwallis lady,” and by the want of natural objects for
we see Protestantism resolving itself into Ra her softer affections; certainly not from the
tionalism;, in Eugénie de Guérin we see sense that the soul's perfection could best be
Catholicism tending to Mysticism; yet, even attained by recluse meditation. On this sub
with the uncompromising appeal to reason ject hear her emphatic protest against the
as the verifying faculty which limited Miss pietism of Wilberforce:—
Cornwallis's theoretical faith, we still discern “Wilberforce mistook his road (led away by
the workings of that deep sense of unseen the speciousness of the religious party he attach
realities which, amid all varieties of belief ed himself to), and strove to “meditate' when he
and disbelief, has ever been found brooding ought to have thought. He wasted precious
over the Teutonic mind, and enduring the time in writing down good resolutions and self
contemplative, often gloomy intellect of the reproaches for doing less than he ought, yet
seems to have overlooked the fact that all his
North, with its highest modes of imagination; writing and meditation was the cause of his
while the pious meditations of the French doing little. Thought, happily for us, is very
lady are woven over the framework of a re rapid; and if we were really determined to
fined sentimentality, which, under other inspi think when we ought to do so, with the full
ration, might have afforded garniture for a powers of our reason, five minutes would gene
novel of Balzac or George Sand. The earth rally despatch the business, and well too; for the
ly love and tenderness for friends, brother, mind, already well stored with knowledge and
accustomed to close application, can bring its
home, and nature, in which Eugénie's soul powers to bear on any given subject at a mo
was steeped, mingled with and led on to her ment's notice with thorough effect. To set
devout life-consecration to a Higher Power. apart hours for thinking is mere indolence, and
She felt the sense of bliss to consist in close has much the same effect on the mind that a
confiding trust and self-abnegation; and for diet of weak broth would have on the body: it
the full contentment of such yearnings as enfeebles and unfits it for any vigorous effort.
hers, she could find no satisfying object save At fifty-two, Wilberforce complains that his
such as dogmatic Christian doctrine afforded memory is failing. He himself attributes it to
her. She ' no impulse for questioning or having suffered his thoughts to be too desultory,
and I have no doubt he was right; his water
searching into the grounds of things. Her gruel ‘meditations” had taken from him the
gentle marvel at life's mysteries was easily power of grasping rapidly and firmly the objects
quelled by the dictates of faith; and she was brought before him; for I have invariably seen
content to accept her Church's view of what among my acquaintance that the powers of the
religion is, and to see beauty in all its forms, mind failed the earliest in those who applied the
least.”—P. 197.
though, with her innate purity and elevation
of soul, it was its spirit and not its form to And here our remarks draw to an end. It
which she really clung. Those portions of so happens that the three clever women with
Mlle. de Guérin's writings which do not de whose memorials we have been occupying
rive their whole interest from the self.com ourselves, take up their position respectively
munings of her faith and love, charm us chiefly in the three departments into which the ge
by the minute and graphic touches of life and nius of ages and the genius of individuals are
nature with which they abound. But in her said to be alike distributable. Poetry, Nar
small details there is no attempt at philoso rative, and Philosophy or Science, have been
phy or generalization, no quickness to probe, by turns the favourite forms of human thought
180 England and Norway in the Eleventh Century. June,
since men began to think. In the present ships, and wasted the south coast as he went.
century they would seem to have each come Brihtric sailed after him with 180 ships, and
in for their share in giving the prevalent di boasted that he would bring the traitor back
rection to the public taste. The quality of quick or dead: but a great storm arose, the
imagination was certainly predominant in the ships were dashed against each other, and
days to which Joanna Baillie properly be driven on shore in a shattered state. Then
longed, the days of the great minstrels—of Wulfnoth fell on them, and burned Brihtric's
Scott, Byron, Campbell, Southey. It was at ships. When the news came to the King, he
History's shrine that Lucy Aikin paid her and his “witan” were reft of counsel. They
devotions, in company with, at however re were all as “unready” as their lord; and the
spectful a distance, Hallam, Mackintosh, and end of that great armament was that every
Sismondi. Philosophy claimed Caroline man went to his home, and England was as
Cornwallis as her own,—the critical philoso defenceless as ever, when Thorkell the Tall
phy which the new impulses of the time had came with his “huge hostile host,” after
brought from the German universities, and Lammas-tide, to revenge his brother Sigvald's
which is making its familiar home in the death, who had fallen in the massacre of St.
minds of the present generation. All honour Brice's Day. But we have to deal with
be to the triad . They had neither of them Wulfnoth rather than Ethelred and his evil
cause to be ashamed of the place assigned to counsel. The noble “Child” went into exile,
their productions on the shelves of contempo and took with him his son Godwin, then
rary literature. With whatever differences probably a boy. We hear little more of the
of taste or ability, they each in their several father. His name, which together with those
way helped to vindicate woman's right to the of the false brothers Brihtric and Edric, is
franchise of the human intellect, and have af. before found in Anglo-Saxon charters, appears
forded man opportunity to show that the old no more; but it is probable that he threw in
days of jealousy and derisive compliment are his lot with King Sweyn Forkbeard and his
at an end, and that the pretensions of a pré mighty son Canute, with whom Earl Godwin,
cieuse ridicule would be as unmeaning in this or Godwinus Dux, soon rose to high rank."
latter half of the nineteenth century as were As early as the year 1018, we find him sign
the fantastic pedantries of La Mancha's knight ing Canute's charters; and the year after,
among the working-day realities of the age of when Canute, having laid all England under
Cervantes. his feet, and being firmly seated on the Danish
throne by the death of his brother Harold,
made an expedition to Jomsborg, on the east
coast of the Baltic, Godwin, at the head of a
band of English troops, so distinguished him
ART. IV.—1. Det Norske Folks Historie. self that the English were ever afterwards held
P. A. MUNCH. Wols. i. ii. iii. Christiania, by Canute as good as the Danes, and their
1852–55. young leader was rewarded by the hand of
2. Den Danske Erobring af England og Nor Githa, the King's cousin, and sister of Ulf
mandiet. J. J. A. WoRSAAE. Copenhagen, Jarl, who had married Astritha, the great
Gyldendalske Boghhandling, 1863. King's sister. All through Canute's reign his
3. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Edited by Saxon favourite kept his love,' and at his
BENJAMIN THoRPE, for the Master of the
Rolls. London, Longmans, 1861. 2 vols. * It is clear, from the unfailing evidence of con
4. Lives of Edward the Confessor. Edited the father'sdeeds,
temporary that whatever might have been
fate, the son returned and was recon
by H. R. LUARD, M.A., for the Master of ciled to Ethelred, for in the will of Athelstan
the Rolls. London, Longmans, 1858. Atheling occurs the following passage:—“And I
grant to Godwin Wulfnod's son the land at Comp
THE reign of Edward the Confessor in Eng ton, which his father before had;” and in all likeli
hood he is the “Godwin minister” who signs seve
land was really the rule of Earl Godwin and ral of Ethelred's later charters. But from the
his sons. The foundations of the fortune of very outset of Canute's reign there can be no doubt
that family had been laid in exile. Already, of Godwin's power.
in the year 1009, in the reign of Ethelred the The writer of the most interesting contempo
Unready, Brihtric, the brother of the arch rary life of Edward the Confessor—first printed by
Mr. Luard for the Master of the Rolls,—a man who
traitor Edric Streon, had slandered Wulfnoth well knew the King, as well as Earl Godwin and
the “Child,” a noble Thane of the South his sons and daughter—thus describes Earl God
Saxons, to his weak-minded master; and that win's character and position in Canute's reign:—
“This Godwin, as he was wary in counsel, so also
too at the very moment when a mighty fleet in warlike matters had he been proved by the King
was gathered together to meet a threatened as most valiant. Besides, for the evenness of his
invasion of the Danes. The result was that temper, he was in the greatest favour with every
Wulfnoth went into banishment, with twenty one as well as the King; a man matchless for the
1865. England and Norway in the Eleventh Century. 181
death, in 1035, we find Godwin and his But before she went, if we may believe one
friends standing by Emma and her son Hardi MS. of the Saxon Chronicle,” Godwin had
canute, rather than by Harold Harefoot, done a deed of blood which was noteworthy
Canute's son by a Saxon concubine, and thus even in that bloody age. In the year 1036,
espousing the Danish rather than the Saxon “the harmless Atheling” Alfred, Ethelred's
side. But when Hardicanute loitered in Den elder son by Emma, tried to make his way to
mark, and lost time in settling his quarrel his mother at Winchester, but Earl Godwin,
with Magnus of Norway, the Danish Thing according to this MS., “would not suffer it,
mannalid—the Varangians of the Danish nor other men, who had great power in this
dynasty in England—had their way. From land; for the voice of the people was then
the first they had sided with Harold, who was much for Harold, though it was unrightful.
on the spot, rather than with his brother, who But Godwin hindered him and threw him into
was abroad. They thought that if a crown prison, and his followers he scattered, and
was worth having it was worth seeking, and some cruelly killed. . . . Never wasa bloodier
as they went England went. Hardicanute's deed done in this land since the Danes came
party lost ground. Emma was banished to and here took up free quarters.”f . It is re
Flanders by her rival's son, and Godwin went markable that this foul deed is laid to God
over to Harold's side.
* This is Cotton. Tib. B. i. Cotton. Tib. B. iv.
constancy with which he girded himself to work, leaves out Godwin's name altogether and imputes
and accessible to all, with a cheerful and ready the crime to Harold Harefoot.
good-will. But when certain sufficient affairs of + Thorpe, in his edition of the Anglo-Saxon
state had recalled the King to his own nation—for Chronicle, has here made a ridiculous mistransla
in his absence some had thrown off his yoke and tion. The Saxon words are “her frith namon,”
made them ready to rebellion—Godwin clung to which he renders “here made peace.” That the
him on his whole journey as his constant compa Danes came into England to make peace, or that
nion. Here the King had more opportunity of ob they made it when here, is startling in itself, and
serving, in the example of this great chief his fore much more so coming after the story of such a deed
sight, his endurance of toil, and his skill in warfare. of blood. But the words mean nothing of the
He saw also how deep-seated was his gift of speech, kind. They correspond exactly to “free quarters,”
and felt, if he could bind such a man to himself —a place where they could store up their booty in
more closely by some fitting gift, what a gain it peace, holding it with a strong hand against all
would be to him in governing his newly won king comers; where they could, in short, have an asylum.
dom of England. Having proved him, therefore, a But, alas, there are many mistakes in this edition.
little longer, he made him one of his councillors and We shall find another when we speak of the said
£ him his cousin to wife. Whence, too, when Godwin's career. Take another, just before this
e returned to England, having set all things on a story of the harmless Atheling. When Canute
right footing in his Danish kingdom, he (Godwin) died, one of the MS. of the Chronicle, Laud. Bodl.
is made by the King an earl, dux, and the King's 636, says, “tha lithsmen on Lunden gecuron Harold,”
spokesman (bajulus), or president of the Council. which Mr. Thorpe translates “the lithsmen of Lon
Nor when he had attained so great a dignity was don chose Harold,” adding in a note to “lithsmen,”
he puffed up, but to all good men, to the best of his “ sailors, from lith, a ship.” Now it so happens
ability, proved himself a father; for he did not now that these lithsmen" do not come from lith, a ship,
throw off that gentleness of spirit which he had nor were they sailors, nor were they sailors of Lon
learned from his boyhood up, but cultivated it as don. They were the soldiers of the “Thingman
a natural gift, by continually practising it both to nalid,” whose quarters were in London. We shall
his inferiors and his equals. Whosoever did wrong, have to speak of them more at length. Again,
from him what was lawful and right was £ having thus mistaken the '' of the word
exacted. For which reason he was looked on b “lithsmen,” a little farther on he finds the word
all the sons of his country in the light of a father “huscarl,” in the passage where the same MS. says,
rather than a lord. From such a sire, sons and that Emma-AElfgifu, Canute's widow, sat at Win
daughters were born not unworthy of their origin, chester “mid tha's cynges huscarlum hyra suna,"
for they were remarkable as inheriting both their with the king's housecarles, her sons; here Mr.
father's and their mother's honesty, and in bringing Thorpe has another note to “huscarlum,” as fol:
them up Godwin paid special attention to instruct. lows: “The Danish body-guard, though retained
ing them in those arts, by which he prepared in till the time of the Conquest.” But here again he
these his children, both a bulwark and a delight to is quite wrong. The king's housecarles were the
the nation. So long as the aforesaid King Canute king's private body-guard, the rank and file, as it
reigned, he, Godwin, flourished in his Court as first were, of his “hird,” “hired" or comitatus. They
among the great chiefs of the kingdom, and by were in no sense a national militia or condottieri,
reason of his fairness, all agreed in thinking, that as the Thingmannalid were. This is plain from
what he was for writing should be written, what many passages in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle itself,
he was for cancelling should be cancelled.” but in none more so than the account of the North
There can be no doubt, from the precedence given umbrian rising against Tostig, where Cott. Tib. B.
to Godwin in almost all Canute's charters, that he i., says, “All the thanes in Yorkshire fared to York,
was in the highest rank. In a very little while and slew there Earl Tostig's housecarles.” “Tos
after Canute's conquest of the kingdom, we find tiges earles huskarlas tharofslogon,” where the pa
him signing and continuing to sign next after the rallel passage in Cott,Tib. B. iv. runs “ofslogon his
King, and that before Earl Eric, Earl Hacon, the (Tostiges earles) hiredmen ealle,” where it will be
sons of Earl Hacon of Norway, and also before Earl seen that “huskarlas” and “hiredmenn” are used
Ulf, the King's cousin and brother-in-law. as equivalent terms.
win's charge by a single manuscript, and that because Sweyn, the son of Canute's sister,
the same which, when he sickened shortly now openly became a pretender to that crown;
before his death and afterwards recovered,” and because for years the strife between Den
proceeded to say, with a monkish whine, “but mark and Norway never left those kingdoms
he made too little atonement for those goods a moment's breathing-time to think of Eng
of God which he had from many holy places.” land. For Godwin the change was great,
For three years and a half Godwin stood by because his nephew by marriage, Sweyn, was
Harold Harefoot till the young king died now first favourite for the Danish throne;
suddenly, March 17, 1040, at Oxford. Then because his foreign lords being now dead and
messengers were sent to Emma and Hardi gone, he might hope to be master in England;
canute at Bruges in Flanders. They lost lit and because he foresaw from Edward’s child
tle time in coming to England. One of Har ish character that he could govern the coun
dicanute's first acts was to have his half try as he chose in the king's name. For
brother's body dug up from the grave, and Edward the change was greatest of all. We
east into a marsh by the Thames' side, whence have already seen from the Confessor's meek
it was taken by his friends and buried in the letter to Magnus the Good what a life of
church of St. Clement Danes, just outside trouble he had led, ever nearest and ever
Temple Bar-the church, no doubt, of the farthest from the throne; next in right and
Thingmannalid, crowning the ridge of the most distant in deed. Even his own mother
Strand, at the very verge of the city. His seems to have turned against him, and, at
next was to lay heavy taxes on the people. any rate, to have been fonder of her children
He recalled his other half-brother Edward, by the second marriage. She preferred the
Emma's son, from Normandy, and treache drunken revengeful Hardicanute to the gen
rously slew Eadulf, Earl of Northumbria, hav tle Edward. But the day of retribution soon
ing broken the word which he had pledged, came, for shortly after Edward was crowned
—to let him come and go in peace. The at Winchester; then by the advice of Earl
vacant earldom was given to a famous man, Godwin and Earl Leofric and Earl Siward, he
Sigurd Björn's son, the Earl Siward of rode unawares on “the Lady,” and despoiled
-Shakespeare. When the people of Worces her of all the precious things that she owned,
tershire rose and slew two of his housecarles which were not to be told; and he did this,
who demanded the king's taxes, Hardicanute “for that she was erst very hard to the king
wasted their shire with fire and sword, and her son, and did less for him than he would
finally, having reigned a little less than two before he was king, and afterwards too, and
years, during which, as the old Chronicle so they left her sitting there.” Another MS.
says, “he never did one kingly thing,” he fell of the Chronicle says, that Edward “caused
smitten with a stroke at a drinking-bout at the boundaries of all the land that his mother
Lambeth, and after a dreadful struggle, spoke owned to be ridden as belonging to him, and
never a word, but died and departed. “And he took from her all that she owned in gold
all the folk then chose Edward, and took him and in silver and in unspeakable things; for
for their king, as was his rightful due.” that she held those things too fast as against
And now came a great change for England, him before.”
for Godwin, and for Edward. For England, Many suppose that we know naught of
because the royal race of Canute had died the men and women of that distant age. To
out; because Denmark was claimed by Mag them the Saxons before the Conquest are as
nus by virtue of the treaty of the Burnt Isles; the Patriarchs before the Flood-mere names
and shadows, not at all creatures of flesh and
* Here again we have a mistranslation, as it blood. Yet here is the very portrait and
seems. The words which we have rendered “re counterpart of Edward the Confessor, drawn
covered” are “eft gewyrpte,” which Mr. Thorpe to the life by one who had often seen him,
renders “re-embarked;” the whole passage ac and who has described both his person and
cording to him, being, “Godwin then sickened his character with a master's hand:—“And
shortly after he landed and re-embarked.” Instead
of going back to his ship when he sickened with a that we may not pass over the form and
sudden attack, the words merely mean that he fashion of the man, his person was most fair,
came back to himself, or recovered. He had in of moderate height, remarkable for the
fact a kind of fit or stroke, probably of the same milky whiteness of his hair and beard, with
nature as that which carried him off so suddenly a
few months afterwards; and it is plain that the a full face and rosy skin; his hands thin and
monkish chronicler, in what follows, is warning all snow-white, with long transparent fingers.
robbers of holy places, among whom he reckoned As to all the rest of his body, a kingly man
Earl Godwin, to take an example of Godwin's fate, without spot or blemish. He was cheerful,
who, though once warned by a sudden stroke of
sickness, from which he quickly recovered, did not and yet of constant gravity. As he walked,
make reparation for the property which he had he turned his eyes on the ground; and yet
taken from the Church. he was most pleasantly affable to every man.
If any good reason roused an emotion of the and with tranquil mind was a worshipper of
mind, he seemed to be terrible as a lion; but Christ before the eyes of all." Most rarely,
he was not wont to show his wrath by abuse. unless he was asked a question, did he say a
To all who asked aught of him, he either word to any one during service. The pomp
ve with kindness or refused with kindness; of royal apparel with which he was surround
so that his kind refusal often seemed as much ed by the care of the Queen, he used silently
as the largest gift. In public he showed and sparingly, and with no pleasure of the
himself thoroughly king and lord; in private heart, nor did he care aught if he were
he treated his followers as his fellows, though served with less state and cost. Not that he
he never forgot what was due to his royal was not grateful for the attention of the
rank. Impressing on his bishops their duty Queen when shown in such matters, but often
to act in God's cause, and enjoining his spoke of it with a certain kindliness to some
worldly judges and the lawyers of his Court of his intimate friends. To the poor and weak
to give righteous judgment; plucking up he condescended with much mercy, and spent
unjust laws and enacting just ones, with wise much in their support, not only day by day
counsel he gladdened all Britain, over which, at his own Court, but in very many parts of
by God's grace and by hereditary right, a his kingdom.” The Queen herself was first
pious prince ruled paramount.” Thus wrote and foremost in every good work. A pat
one who knew Edward well; and if he had tern wife, according to this writer, whose
written no more, we might have thought meekness and modesty were such that when,
his praise a mere panegyric. But having “as by custom and royal right, her seat was
sketched the outlines of his strength, he ever placed by the King's side, she chose
throws in shadows which mark the weakness rather, save when in church or at the royal
of the Confessor's character. Edward was board, to sit at his feet until he perchance
only strong when he looked up towards stretched out his arm, or by a motion of his
heaven. When his eyes were bent on earth, hand invited, and even forced her to sit by
he was weak as a child. Strong in word him.” -
and theory and good resolution, he was feeble And now what was this England of the
and vacillating in deed and practice. Being eleventh century over which Edward was
what the Germans call “a fair soul,” and called to rule? It had been wasted by the
such characters are ever fairest on paper, constant wars in Ethelred's days, but for
Edward stood in need of some master mind nearly twenty years the land had peace in
ever at his side to keep his footsteps straight. Canute's time, and with peace came plenty,
First his mother Emma, then Godwin, then which neither Harold Harefoot's wilfulness,
nor the sottishness of Hardicanute, had
for a little while his Norman priests and re
latives, then Godwin again for a moment, time to destroy. The main feature of the
lastly Harold,—these were the King's keep country it is impossible to mistake. The
ers so long as Edward lived. For the rest land was pretty equally divided between
“this most gracious king spent his life in rest Danes and Saxons. The Danish element,
and quiet, and passed the greatest part of his which before the time of Ethelred had been
time among the woods and groves in the firmly established north of the Humber, and
sport of hunting; for as soon as he was set which even so early as Alfred's time had
free from divine service, to which he heartily taken root in East Anglia, had advanced
turned his attention with daily devotion, he with rapid strides into Mercia or the Mid
for the most part sported with his hawks, or lands during the “unready” King's reign,
harked forward his packs of hounds with a and a line which ran through England, near
cheer. In these things, or in things like ly at Rugby or Northampton, now marked
them, he sometimes spent the whole day; their furthest settlements. There in the
and in these things alone, by his natural Danelagh, the land of Danish law, the great
turn, did he seem to take any worldly plea owners of land and their little courts or fol
sure.” To monks and abbots, especially to lowings claimed to be ruled by Scandinavian
those who came from beyond the sea, and laws and customs, while the rest of the king
who he knew served God more strictly and dom clung to their West Saxon codes. That
devoutly than his own ecclesiastics, he was was pretty much the state of things when
munificent to a fault, and on them his charity Canute made England his own. With him
flowed in a continual stream during his came, of course, a fresh infusion of foreign
whole reign. He was ever holding up these blood, and that not only into the old Dane
foreigners to his own people as a pattern, for lagh, but all over the country, as the King
he thought monastic rules were not nearly granted to this or that warrior so many hides
severe enough in the Anglo-Saxon Church. or manses of land. But Canute did more
“Often in church he stood upright with than conquer England: he gave a new code
lamb-like gentleness, ‘agniná nansuetudine,' of laws for Danes and Saxons alike, and these
are the bad laws which Edward is described seldom to have stayed in towns for any
as plucking out to restore the old West length of time. London and Oxford, and,
Saxon code, which, in after years, in the time above all others, Winchester, the true West
of the stern Norway tyranny, were called the Saxon capital, were visited on State occa
laws of Edward the Confessor. These were sions; Oxford and London to meet the Witan
the laws, too, on behalf of which the whole or Great Council, and Winchester for their
north rose against Tostig in the last year of coronations, and their burial; but in general
Edward the Confessor. With regard to the our Saxon forefathers, true to their old Ger
tenure of land, it was divided between the man feelings, were fonder of the woods and
King, the freeman, and the Church. Of fields than of walled towns. For the most
course, after the Danish conquest, the posses part they spent their life in war or hunting;
sions of the King were great as compared and even the priest-ridden Edward, as we
with either those of the freemen or the have seen, cared alone of earthly amuse
Church. Much that was before owned by ments for the excitement of the chase. Most
both had fallen to the Crown by confiscation, of the towns in these days were overshadow
or by failure of heirs, cut off by the sword of ed by a monastery, as Canterbury, Exeter,
war. In all times of the Anglo-Saxon king Winchester, Petersborough; but York and
dom, the king, besides his royal domains, Lincoln and Leicester and Derby and Stam
seems to have possessed or exercised the ford, and, above all, London, were looked on,
right of granting common lands by charter and looked on themselves, pretty much as
to individuals. The Codex Diplomaticus of free cities; the first five being the strong
Mr. Kemble is filled with such grants, and holds of the Danish settlers, while London
Canute was not slow to follow the example almost boasted of no nationality at all. Ever
of the Anglo-Saxon monarchs. He found since the days of Ethelred, it had been the
the Church weak and wasted; stripped of its headquarters of a band of mercenary soldiers,
lands, its dues, and its position; the churches the famous Thingmannalid, whose origin,
had in many cases been burnt, and their fortunes, and position, we must briefly de
sacred books, furniture, plate, and vestments, scribe.
sacked and plundered. He left it strong, for Towards the end of the tenth century, pro
he was neither before nor behind his age. bably about the year 980, Björn, from his un
He was not half-heathen, as his ancestors ruly temper nicknamed Styrbjörn, or “Strife
had been, nor free-thinking as those of later bear,” the nephew of Eric “Winfight,” King
times. Where his father Sweyn and his of Sweden, had fled from that country, and
Viking hordes had destroyed, Canute re founded a free state at Jomsborg, on the east
stored and rebuilt. When he died, England coast of the Baltic, on what was then Wen
had more ministers than ever, and her dish or Sclavonic land. The site of this fa
Church was richly endowed. Well and mous asylum of freebooters must be sought
worthily then did the great king sleep in his near Wollen in Pomerania. For more than
splendid tomb in the “Old Minster” at Win half a century this fastness was a thorn in
chester, which we now call the Cathedral, the flesh to every neighbouring country.
till Cromwell's “Ironsides”—another fashion Styrbjörn and his freebooters were well
of men in their faith than that Edmund known in the north and east of Europe, and
“Ironside” with whom Canute contended– when the “Strifebear” was cut off in battle
scattered his bones to the winds. The free in Sweden, the leadership of the company fell
men lived, whether they were Dane or to Sigvald, the son of a Scanian Earl named
Saxon, all over the country on their own Strut-Harold, who shared his command with
lands. The lowest owning a thrall or two, his two brothers, Thorkell the Tall and He
the highest imitating the King's example in ming. Harold Gormson, indeed, then king of
having a following of armed men at his back; Denmark, the great Canute's grandfather,
but all, high and low, bound to obey the who had great influence at Jomsborg, seems
King's call to serve under his banner by sea to have intended the leadership for Thorgils
or land against a common enemy, to build Cracklelegs, Styrbjörn's young son by Harold's
fortifications where they were wanted, and, sister Thyra, but the election went against
though last not least in everyday life, to him, and Sigvald was chosen chief. That fa
make and mend roads and build and repair mous company may be best compared to
bridges on the king's highway. The Kings those bodies of condottieri or free lancers who
themselves lived, so to speak, all over the in after times took service under this or that
land. They passed from farm to farm, from king for the sake of pay or plunder, who
grange to grange, of their domains, and when were bound to him by the tie of implicit obe
they had eaten up the stores of grain, and dience so long as the time of their service
hérds of cattle, garnered and gathered in lasted, and so long as he fulfilled his bargain,
one, they passed on to another. They seem but who among themselves were bound man
to man by certain rules as brothers in arms; isted under the leadership of Sigvald's bro
and who, both in garrison and in the field, thers, Thorkell the Tall, and Heming. To
kept up of their own free will the strictest them it was a bounden duty to avenge their
discipline. The Sagas have handed down to brother; and though their vengeance was
us most of the clauses of the Code by which delayed, it came at last. In August, 1009,
the Vikings of Jomsborg were governed, and came Thorkell the Tall with his "huge hos
here are some of them : #. man could be cho tile host,” as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle calls
sen a member of the company who was more it, which for two years ravaged the land,
than fifty or less than eighteen years old. No and at last made peace with Ethelred, after
man was worthy of the brotherhood who having been paid the enormous sum of 48,000
yielded in fight to a man his match in pounds of gold. But this was not all. True
strength or in arms. Every man who was ad to his condottieri principles, Thorkell not only
mitted swore to revenge all the rest as his made peace with Ethelred, but became his
brother. No one was to bear tales against or man, as it was called. He entered into his
to backbite any of the band. No one was to service with a great part of his host, and was
spread news but the captain himself. Were ready to defend the land against all comers,
it ever found that one who had been chosen on the condition that the force was to be well
had aforetime slain the father, or brother, or fed, clothed, and paid. From this agreement,
kinsman of any of the band, the blood feud “Gething,” these mercenary troops were call
was to drop, and the quarrel to be settled by ed “Thingmenn,” and the whole band Thing
the captain's award. No woman was to be mannalid, that is, the band who had made a
suffered to be brought into the fastness, nor solemn bargain with the King, and were now
could any of the band be more than three his mercenary soldiers. They became the
nights away without the captain's leave. No King of England's Warangians, just as those
man could claim as his own any part of the at Byzantium were the Emperor's. This
spoil; it was all to be thrown together, and force had two head-quarters in England, a
then divided into equal shares by the captain. fortress in the city of London, and another,
No man was to dare to utter a single word Slesswick, now Sloswick, in Nottinghamshire,
that gave witness of fear, and no man was to and besides Thorkell, his brother Heming,
flinch for pain. All differences among the and Eilif, Thorgils Cracklelegs' son, were:
brothers in arms were to be made up by the their leaders. Thus the great body of the
captain. Kinship or friendship were to have free lances of Jomsborg was transplanted to
no voice in choosing the companions. And England, there to form the terrible Thing
lastly, if any broke-these rules, he was punish mannalid, which, with little interruption, was
ed without respect to person by instant ex kept '' every English king from Ethelred
pulsion from the band. to the Norman Conquest. A few words will
Such were the chief rules of this famous suffice to tell their story till Edward the Con
Free Company. With their fortunes and mis fessor's accession. They seem to have served
fortunes we have nothing here to do, except Ethelred faithfully till 1015, when, after King
to say that their fate was that of all such Sweyn Forkbeard's death, Ethelred, with the
bands; they fell because their laws were too cunning of incapacity, thought the time was.
hard to keep, and because their rules were come for getting rid at once of his protectors
often infringed. But they are interesting to and of the Danegelt, or sum which was paid
England, because, when the fortune of Joms to maintain them. He tried, therefore, ano
borg began to wane, and when the band, re ther massacre, and actually succeeded in
solved into its original elements, left their falling by treachery on both the quarters of
fastness to harry other lands, Earl Sigvald, the Thingmenn at one and the same time,
about the year 1001, sailed for England, Thus Heming was cut off in Slesswick, the
where he seized the Isle of Wight as free head-quarters in the Danelagh, with most of
£ whence he ravaged the country. his men. Thorkell and Eilif more fortunate,
he unready Ethelred was only too ready to fought their way out of London and down
make peace, by which he agreed to pay the the river, and escaped to Denmark. There
Danes 24,000 pounds of gold, and supply them Thorkell, who arrived with nine ships, offer
with quarters and provisions. The invaders ed his services to King Canute, and strongly
seem to have reposed in fancied security; for urged him to conquer England. When the
the next year, 1002, came the massacre of conquest was over, Thorkell remained as cap
St. Brice's Day, November 13, when every tain of the Thingmenn, and after his fall Ca
Dane in the south of England was butchered, nute gave them new laws and new captains,
young and old, man and woman alike. There among whom was his nephew Björn, the son,
can be no doubt that Earl Sigvald fell with of Earl Ulf, who again was the son of Thor
the rest. But though Jomsborg was not gils Cracklelegs, thus keeping the succession
what Jomsborg had been, the band still ex to the command of these offshoots from
VOL. XLII. N–13
186 England and Norway in the Eleventh Century. . . June,
Jomsborg in the family of the founder of and a warm love for all that was English.
the Free Company. So the famous band re To say that he had an eye to his own interest,
mained through Canute's reign and his sons' is only to say that he was an ambitious man.
reign till the days of Edward; but so long as Of course he had an eye to his own interest.
they remained fast seated in their castle of He would have been blind if he had not.
London, London must have been to all in But his interest and that of England were
tents and purposes the city of the Thing identical. Had he sought his own interest
menn, and therefore, as regarded either the alone, he might have set aside the childish
King or the rest of the country, virtually in king, striven to be king himself, and so
dependent. brought about a convulsion. So long as Ed
One great blot still remained: a large ward lived, a strong hand was needed at the
part of the lowest class were slaves. Every helm to keep the vessel of the State straight;
freeman and owner of land seems to have to guard it against being invaded by hostile
had several, and though the Church, with a hosts in open warfare, or worse still, from
perseverance which does it all honour, was being boarded by stealth by foreign priests.
incessant in preaching the duty of manumis Both these services Godwin rendered at great
sion, and though the wills are full of bequests risk to himself, and so long as his interest
of freedom on the part of freemen to their only lay in being ambitious enough to wish
thralls, the very frequency of those injunctions to be the first Englishman, and most constant
and bequests proves how large a class of the enemy of foreign aggression, either by lay or
community were still unfree. For the rest, churchmen, no one has a right to say an ill
except when war wasted them, the people, word against Earl Godwin. The success of
, free and bond alike, were probably happy his policy is best shown by the inveterate
enough. England was the land of corn and hate with which his memory was assailed by
ale, of fine clothes and good arms, of vessels Norman scribes, and by the idle stories spread
of silver and vessels of gold. There was in after times by ecclesiastics as to his awful
Church plate in abundance, and many a gold end. That hate, and these fables, are best
hilted sword, or axe, with haft inlaid with sil confuted by the praise which contemporary
ver, many a golden bowl, and many a mas writers bestowed on his character, and by the
sive highly-wrought drinking-horn is be silence of the same authorities as to the in
queathed by the Anglo-Saxon wills. The ventions of his posthumous enemies.
feeling that remains on the mind after read In 1043, Godwin married Edward to his
ing the rich store of wills, and deeds and daughter Eadgitha, and for more than ten
charters that have been spared, is that though years governed both the kingdom and his
the state of society was what we should call son-in-law. His sons as well as his daughter
rude, it was not nearly so wretched as it were now grown men; in one of Edward's
must have been in Norman times. The dan charters of 1044, Godwin and all his sons,
ger of all classes rather was that they shouldexcept Wulfnoth the youngest, are found as
sink Church and Throne and people alike in witnesses, and after that year one or other of
to sottishness and dulness, for on the whole them constantly appears.” As for Godwin
the Anglo-Saxons were a slow sluggish peo himself it may almost be said that he signed
ple in Edward the Confessor's time. The every Saxon charter from 1016, when his
constant Danish wars and actual Danish set name certainly first appears, to the year
tlements had greatly shattered their national 1053-4, so close was he at the elbow of
feeling, the Church was too fond of ease, and every English king on state occasions.
thought too little of its duties, the King was Strong in himself, in his daughter, who
weak and childish, and few of the great chiefs seems to have had a will of her own, and
were of pure Saxon blood. England in Ed
ward's time was ripe for reform or revolution. * Supposing Godwin to have been married to
Had the lot fallen to Godwin and his sons, it Githa in 1019–20, after Canute's expedition to
Jomsborg, Harold and his elder children would
might have been reform, for they were all have been about twenty years old in 1043. If
striving spirits, and their half-Danish blood Harold were born in 1020, he would have been
coursed warmly through their veins; but forty-six at the Conquest. -
He who knows best sent revolution instead + This appears both from the account of her
of reform, and who shall doubt that what He character given in the Life of Edward the Confes
sor, referred to above, and also from a charter
did was best for England? granted by Edward in 1060. This was a grant
It was over such a kingdom and such a confirming the vill of Fiskerton in Lincolnshire to
king that Earl Godwin was now called to the great Abbey, at Burgh, now known as Peter
rule. He seems to have done his best for borough. It seems that a lady of London, “foemi
na Lundonica,” named Leofgyfa, had given the said
both, and to have been a man, in spite of all vill to the Abbey of Burgh after her death. She
that has been said against him, who had a died on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem: “in via Iero
strong respect for Edward's hereditary right, solymae.” As soon as Leofric, the Abbot of Burgh,
in his sons, no man in England was his ward the Confessor. But though he could
match. His property, too, lying on the south not come, some of his subjects, who thought
and west around Winchester, the centre of that a good time for Vikings was coming,
West Saxon nationality, gave him a great steered for England in 1048 under the com
advantage over his compeers, Leofric of mand of Lothin and Erling." They had
Mercia, and Siward Björn's son of Northum twenty-five ships, and ravaged the south-east
berland, the first of whom had to restrain coast, carrying off immense booty. Being
the headstrong Welsh on the Marches, while repulsed on another part of the coast, the
the other, like an old Viking, and sprung of Vikings sailed for Flanders, where they sold
the true Viking stock, for his grandfather their booty and returned home. But it did
was Thorgils Cracklelegs of Jomsborg, had not yet suit the plans of Harold Hardrada to
enough to do to rule the turbulent spirits of invade England. He was afraid lest King
his own race in the north, and to chastise Edward, or rather lest Earl Godwin and his
Macbeth and Thorfinn in their struggle with sons, should make common, cause with his
the southern Scottish dynasty of Duncan enemy, Sweyn Ulf's son, and send an English
and Malcolm Canmore. While they were force to his help. As politic as he was
doing good service on the outskirts of the brave, he sent at once an embassy to Edward
realm, Godwin and his sons were busy about offering peace and friendship, which Edward
the heart of the kingdom. It was easy for willingly accepted. He was just in time, for
them to combine to crush their foé, and at the heels of his messengers came others
they were ever about the king, lest his ear from King Sweyn praying for help, which he
should fall a prey to evil counsel. Nor must no doubt thought he was sure to get, owing
it be supposed, though the great flood of to the ties of kindred which bound the family
Northern invasion had passed away, that of Godwin to his own. But he reckoned
England even in Edward's time was always without his host. Florence of Worcester,
at rest. Her peace was only comparative. whom Munch has followed, and who is a very
We have seen how Magnus the Good threat trustworthy authority, asserts, indeed, that
ened an invasion after the death of Hardica Godwin proposed at a meeting of the “Wi
nute, and how Edward actually lay at Sand tan” that England should listen to the pray
wich, then the great arsenal of England, on er of King Sweyn, while old Leofric, the
the south-east coast. Whether Magnus Earl of Mercia, opposed him to the utter
would ever have fulfilled his threat, had he most, and led the whole meeting after him,
not had his hands full with Sweyn Ulf's son who, mindful of their ancient grudge against
in Denmark, can never be known. But cer the Danes, would not hear of sending them
tain it is, that he had made no step towards any help. So far Florence, but the Anglo
England before his early death in 1047. Saxon Chronicle says merely in its dry way,
When he died, Harold Sigurdson or Hardra under 1049, “Harold went to Norway when
da inherited his nephew's rights; but even Magnus was dead,” “and he sent for peace
he, bold as he was, was just then in no con hither to this land. And Sweyn of Den
dition to make them good. He, too, had mark also sent and begged King Edward for
enough to do with Sweyn; and, as we have aid. That should be at least fifty ships.
seen, the struggle between the two kingdoms But all the folk said nay.” Then as now,
lasted till 1064, just before the death of Ed England was all for neutrality so far as Den
mark was concerned. In this case we pre
heard of this, he came before the King and proved fer the Chronicle, and for this reason. Though
his claim by proper witnesses: “per idoneos tes there was kinship between King Sweyn and
tes.” The gift seems to have been in the form of a Earl Godwin, there was just then a feud as
nuncupative will—a form of bequest allowed by well. The foes of that family were to be
Anglo-Saxon law. But now came a hitch. Queen
Eadgitha claimed the land as having been intend * The first of these seems to have been a son
ed for her by Leofgyfa, and it was only by using and the other a grandson of the famous Erling
all the influence of the King and her brothers on Skjalgsson of Sole in Norway. Here Mr. Thorpe
the Queen, and by paying twenty marks in gold, makes another egregious blunder, for he turns this
and by giving up the church furniture, valued at Lothin into Olaf Tryggvason's step-father, and
twenty marks more, that Abbot Leofric got the Erling into his brother-in-law; but to do this he
land; the Queen joining the King in confirming it has to go back at least seventy years, for Olaf
to the Abbey by this charter. The words of the Tryggvason fell in the year 1000 at the battle of
original are very curious:—“At regina mea Svoldr, and his step-father married his mother at
Eadgyd cum terram vendicasset, dicendo quod least twenty years before that date. Munch's
hanc sibi eadem foemina decrevisset, idem abbas third volume, in which (p. 167) the true explana
per me et principes meos reginae fratres Haroldum tion of this expedition may be found, was publish
et Tostinum ipsius potentiam flexit; datisque ei in ed in 1855, and Mr. Thorpe's edition of the Anglo
gratiam xx. marcis auri, et ornamentis ecclesiae Saxon Chronicle in 186i. The various MSS. of .
quae ad alias xx marcas apportiantur, terram mo the Chronicle which mention this event place it in
nasterio
*
suo liberrimam et integerriman restituit.” 1046-47.
found in their own house. Sweyn and Tos When this news was spread, Harold and the
tig, first one and then the other, shook it to lithsmen of London, that is the Thingmanna
ruin. In the year 1046, that is three years lid, of which he was captain, came and took
before King Sweyn's messengers came, Sweyn, up his body, and bore it to Winchester, and
Godwin's son, had done a shameful deed by buried it by his uncle King Canute, in the
the Abbess of Lominster. From the conse Old Minster. Thus Sweyn, Godwin's son,
quences of this crime even his father's took vengeance on King Sweyn. As for
mighty influence had been unable to shield himself, he was again outlawed, and fled to
him, and he had been outlawed. The exile Flanders. But though this was the deed of
first turned his steps to his cousin King a niddering, it seems not to have raised the
Sweyn to ask for help. But Sweyn was popular feeling against Sweyn so much as it
powerless to help him, and so far from send ought. The people had long been sick of
ing ships to England, he was forced to send the overbearing behaviour of the lithsmen,
to England for ships a little while after. His and were weighed down by the Danegeld, or
cousin and namesake, who was of a violent yearly tax which they had to pay for the sup
temper, left Denmark in a rage, and as he port of these foreign mercenaries. They
had before thirsted for revenge on those who heard therefore with little regret that one of
had outlawed him in England, he now burn the captains had been cut off by the darling
ed to do some deed that might grieve King son of Godwin; for, like Absalom and other
Sweyn. Whether he went like Tostig in scapeg'aces, Sweyn seems to have increased
after years from Denmark to Norway, and in favour by the very infamy of his crimes.
stirred up Lothin and Erling to sail on their Now too was the time for the politic Godwin
English cruise we know not, but in 1049 we to strike in. The popular voice was against
hear that he was with Baldwin Count of the Thingmannalid, which were now no
Flanders at Bruges, gathering force for re longer needed. By taking a side against the
venge. When he had been outlawed his Danes, and doing away at once with the
£ which were wide, had been given part foreign mercenaries, and the tax by which
ly to his brother Harold, and partly to Björn they were paid, he would grow more popular.
Ulf's son, King Sweyn's brother, who, with His plans were crowned with success; by
another brother, Asbjörn or Osborn, had re the aid of the Bishop of Worcester, Sweyn's
mained in England ever since the days of outlawry was removed in 1050. And in
King Canute, and were captains in the fa the same year the famous Thingmannalid
mous Thingmannalid. So things stood in was gradually disbanded, and sent back to
1049, when King Sweyn sent his messengers Denmark, while Asbjörn, Björn's brother,
for peace. But that Godwin, who loved his and almost every Dane of note in England,
son, resented the treatment which he had except Siward of Northumbria, was sent out
met with from King Sweyn is plain, we of the south of England.
think, first from the refusal of the aid asked, But Godwin had no sooner got rid of the
and secondly by Godwin's conduct after Danes than a new enemy stared him in the
wards. In a word, we think that Godwin face. Edward had spent most of his life in
was angry with his royal kinsman at that Normandy. He loved the customs and lan
time, and would not stir to help him. It guage of his mother's country, and more
was not Leofric alone, but Godwin with him, than all he loved the obedience of its clergy
and in all likelihood before him, that led the to the Romish See. To him the liberties of
popular feeling against Denmark. So things the Anglo-Saxon Church were an abomina
stood till the summer of 1049, when the out tion. If he cared for anything besides hunt
law crossed from Flanders to Bosham in Sus ing, which was his sole worldly amusement,
sex, the chief seat of the family, with seven it was for monks and nuns, for cloisters such
ships, to treat, as he said, for the removal of as that at Bec, and for castles like that at
his outlawry. Both Björn and his brother Rouen. He had always Normans about
Harold refused to give up the share of his him, especially as his priests. In 1048,
lands which each had, but Björn said he was when the See of Canterbury became vacant,
willing to go with him to the King, at Sand he gave it to Robert of Jumièges, whom he
wich, and try to get the ban under which he had made Bishop of London soon after his
lay loosed. Four nights' peace were given coronation, and the See of London he gave
him for this, and so the two cousins went to to William, his chaplain, who was also a
Bosham. But no sooner had they reached Norman. An unhappy Saxon, Spearhafoc
Sweyn's squadron than the unhappy Björn or Sparrowhawk, before Abbot of Abingdon,
was seized by Sweyn's command, and drag had been designated to the See into which
ged on board; the ships set sail at once west William now crept, but the Archbishop had
for Axemouth, and there Sweyn basely slew refused to consecrate him, and Sparrowhawk
him, and buried him deep on the shore. lost both his bishopric and his abbacy, for
while the dispute was pending, the King had by his side, and the weak king fell entirely
thrust into the abbacy his kinsman Rudolf, into the hands of Archbishop Robert and his
one of Saint Olaf's missionary bishops, who Norman priests, who were not slow to work
had followed the Saint from Normandy to Godwin's ruin. The writer of the Confessor's
Norway, and from Norway had been sent to life to which we have so often referred, says
evangelize Iceland, whence, after a stay of outright, that the king, as they were always
nineteen years, he had returned to his native
land in time to follow the fortunes of Edward
£ accusations against Godwin into his
ear, “began to prefer bad counsel to good.”
to England." So, too, Norman barons were The father and his sons came at the appointed
granted lands and castles in England. Supe time, but meanwhile the King's forces had
- rior in arms, in dress, in laws, in religion, and swollen greatly, while those of Godwin little
even in what was then called civilisation, they by little lost heart and melted away. At
ave themselves airs, and were hated accord last, from being equals, he and his children
ingly by the less polished and freer English. stood almost as suppliants. Hostages for
But while these proceedings on the part of his safety, if he came to the meeting, were
Edward were filling the cup of wrath against even denied him, and the end was, that five
the strangers, an unlooked for piece of inso nights were given him and his children to
lence on the part of the hated race filled it flee the land. By this time Archbishop
to overflowing. Count Eustace of Boulogne Robert had quite persuaded the King that
had married the King's sister, and came over Godwin had been really guilty of his brother
to England in 1053 to settle some matters Alfred's murder, and when Godwin asked to
with the King. On his return home he have the King's “peace,” Edward, who, like
forced his way armed into Dover. A quar all weak characters, was subject to outbreaks
rel arose out of an attempt of one of his fol
of wrath, answered at the instigation of his
lowers to quarter himself on one of the priests, that “he could only hope for the
townsmen; the townsmen slew the Norman; King's peace when he restored him his
the Normans slew the householder at his brother alive with all his men, and all the
own hearth. The freemen flew to arms, and goods that had been taken from them either
after about twenty had fallen on either side, alive or dead.” As soon as this message was
Eustace had to fly the town, and betook brought to the great Earl by Bishop Stigand,
himself to the King with a story in which Godwin pushed away the table at which he
all the blame was laid on the men of Dover. sat, mounted his horse, and made his sons
The story is told in different ways, but by mount theirs, and rode for Bosham as hard
the most trustworthy account it seems that as they could. They were just in time, for
Edward lent a willing ear to the tale of his the Archbishop had sent horsemen after
brother-in-law. Godwin, in whose earldom them to cut them off, but failed in his pur
Dover lay, was ordered to chastise the offend se. “So,” says the Chronicle, “Earl God
ers; but he would not obey. On the con win and Earl Sweyn betook them to Bosham,
trary, he and his sons gathered a force, and shoved out their ships and turned them
marched on Gloucester where the King lay, beyond the sea, and sought Baldwin's
and demanded the delivery of Eustace and his ‘peace, and stayed there all the winter.”
followers. On his side the King sent for “And Earl Harold went west to Ireland, and
Godwin's rivals, Leofric of Mercia, and Siward was there that winter in the King's peace at
of Northumberland, who hastened to his aid Dublin. And as soon as this happened,
with the strength of the Midlands and the then the King left the lady, her that was
North. War seemed inevitable; when, by hallowed and wedded to him as his queen,
the good offices of the Witan, a truce was and stripped her of all that she had in gold
agreed on. It was settled that Godwin and and silver, and of all things, and she was
his sons should come and plead their cause handed over to the care of the King's sister,
before a solemn meeting of the Witan at the Abbess of Wherwell; and Ælfgar,
London at the autumnal equinox. Edward Leofric's son, was set over that earldom that
was one of those “adjective” characters that Harold had before.” Just at this critical
cannot stand alone. Godwin had long been time Edward's cousin, the young Duke
his “substantive;” but Godwin was no longer William of Normandy, passed over into
* His original name was Ulf, but, as Hungrvaka England with a great train of followers, no
tells us (chap. 3), it was '' into Rudolf or doubt to exult over the good time which was
Rudu-Ulf, because King Olaf brought him with come for Normans in England. “The
him from Ruda or Rouen. According to Wharton, King,” says the Chronicle, “made him and
Anglia Sacra, i. 176, he remained two years abbot his fellows welcome, as many as he would,
in Abingdon and then died. He was probably
advanced in years, unlike some £ bishops and so they left the realm again.”
now-a-days, before he threw up his see abroad So fell of a sudden this famous family.
and returned to his native land. “It would have seemed wonderful,” says
another MS. of the Chronicle, “to every was melted in the crucibles of those religious
man that was in England, if any man before Vikings who laid Romanism waste in Nor
that had said that it would so happen; for way, and brought the Reformation into the
he, Earl Godwin, had been before exalted to land in the sixteenth century.
that degree as if he ruled the king and all Harold's cruise was quite as successful, and
England. And his sons were earls and the not so bloody. With nine ships he sailed
king's darlings, and his daughter was mar into the Bristol Channel, harrying in Somer
ried and wedded to the king.” But they set, Devon, and Cornwall. Then leaving the
fell only to rise again. Neither Godwin nor Land's End he sailed along the coast to
Harold were likely to let the grass grow un Portland, where he joined his forces to those
der their feet while their foes took their of his father, who had passed over from
lands in England as their own. They were Bruges some time before, and found all the
not the men to cry over spilt milk, but just south-east coast ready to rise. The people
the men to fill the pail afresh. Harold was at least were not of Edward's opinion. God
first afoot. The king who ruled the king win and his sons were everywhere welcome.
dom which the Northmen still held in Dub It added, perhaps, to the ease of their ex
lin was Margad, as the Scandinavian annals ploit that the scapegrace Sweyn was no
call him, or Cachmargach, as the Irish utter longer with them. Smitten with the Jerusa
ed it. The English called him Jemarch. lem fever so common in that age, he had
But whatever his name, he was a bold and gone on a pilgrimage to Palestine, only to
successful Viking. Many a time and oft he die at Constantinople on his return. Godwin
had harried England's coast, sometimes alone, and Harold steered boldly for the Thames,
sometimes in company with our old friends where the King lay outside London to the
Finn Arni's son, Hacon Ivar's son, and Gu west, with his land force and fleet. Forcing
thorm of Ringeness. The last was his their way through the bridge, and hugging
chosen brother in arms, and just at this very the south bank, where their land force was
time between the years 1051–52, Guthorm ready to aid them, they were ready to fall
spent the winter in Dublin, where he met on the King's followers and ships, who clung
the outlawed Harold. In the summer of to the north bank of the Thames, but neither
1054 they all set out on a cruise; Harold side had any wish to fight with their own
was bent on joining his father in Flanders; countrymen for the sake of foreigners. God
but Margad and Guthorm went out merely win was unwilling to fight against his king.
to plunder and waste. Their story is so in The city of London, which was independent
teresting that we must stop to tell it. They even after the Thingmen left it, was rather
won great store of wealth as they ravaged with Godwin than against him. It was now
the shores of England, and at the end of Edward's turn to yield. By the help of Sti
July found themselves in the Menai Straits. gand, Bishop of Winchester, he did so with
Here they resolved to share the spoil, which a good grace. A truce was made, and hos
was mostly in silver. But like the giants in tages were given on both sides. Godwin land
the Niebelungen Tale, they could not agree, ed and cleared himself and his sons from the
and so high did the war of words run that charges made against them, and was there
Margad challenged Guthorm to settle the and then restored to all his rights and lands.
matter by the sword. Guthorm had but five This was the sign for the hated Normans to
ships, while Margad had sixteen. The dif. fly. The Archbishop Robert, the Bishop
ference was great, even if we suppose his five William, and Ulf, Bishop of Dorchester,
to have been taller and stouter than those of who was so ignorant that when he went to
the challenger. But here at least was room the Synod at Vercelli he only escaped having
for prayers to saints, and so the day before his crosier broken by paying a heavy fine—
the fight, it was St. Olaf's eve, the 28th of they and all the rest of the Normans had to
July, Guthorm vowed that he would give the escape as best they might. The Archbishop
saint a tenth of all the booty if he would left his pall behind him, and with his brothers
grant him to win the day. He fought and in affliction only got over to France from
won, slaying Margad and all his men after a Walton on the Naze, by trusting themselves
bloody struggle. Those were not the days in a crazy bark. As a matter of course the
to break a vow. The eleventh century was lady Eadgitha, the Queen, came back to
not that of Erasmus, nor was Guthorm of Court and to the cold honours of Edward's
Ringeness like the pilgrim to Walsingham. bed, as soon as her father and brothers were
He £ his word to the saint, and a crucifix restored to their rights.
of solid silver as tall as Guthorm himself So Godwin and his sons, all except the
bore silent witness at once to his victory and outlaw Sweyn, who ended his days in exile,
his faith. There stood the Holy Rood in were stronger than ever. But there is one
the church of St. Olaf at Drontheim, till it who is stronger than man, and He had given
-
-
Godwin a warning at the very moment of his eldest son, who, in spite of his half-Danish
his triumph. “'Twas on the Monday after blood, was now looked upon by the English
St. Mary's mass, that is on the 14th of Sep as their national champion. Circumstances,
tember, that Earl Godwin and his ships came too, favoured him much. Both Leofric and
to Southwalk, and on the Tuesday they were Siward, his father's rivals, were on the brink
set at one again as here stands before told.of the grave. The latter died in 1057, and
Godwin sickened as soon as he set foot on the former in 1059, though the Chronicle, with
shore, and eftsoons came to himself again.” its usual misreckoning, places these events
Then follows the passage already mentioned: two years earlier. Siward's darling son,
“But he made all too little atonement for Asbjörn, had fallen in battle against Macbeth
those goods of God which he had taken from two years before, and Waltheof his remain
many holy places.” The monkish Chronicler ing child, was but a boy. With Leofric's
evidently looked upon this first seizure as a race it was still worse. Even before his
warning which Godwin had neglected. Per father's death Ælfgar had been outlawed on
haps those ten manses at Polehampton in suspicion of treasonable practices with the
Hampshire, which Canute had given, as we Welsh, with whom he was on friendly terms.
see from one of his charters, dated 1033, “to Against him, too, and his sons Eadwine and
my familiar friend and captain Godwin, for Morcar, Harold could always assert a supe
his tristworthy obedience by which he faith riority, as the champion of Englishmen,
fully seconds me,” but which we know from against those who had leagued themselves
earlier charters had been given to Holy with foreigners and barbarians. The fortune
Church, now raised the wrath of the Chroni of his family was filled to the brim when, on
cler. However that may be, Earl Godwin Siward's death,” the great earldom of North
had short space given him for repentance if umbria became vacant, and room was found
he needed it. In 1053 according to the for Tostig to display his powers of govern
Chronicle, but two years later beyond a ment. Neither the Northumbrians, nor
doubt, that is in 1055, “in this year,” we are King Malcolm, Earl Siward's brother-in
told, “the King was at Winchester at Easter, arms, welcomed Tostig very warmly, but the
and Earl Godwin with him, and Earl Harold, Danish population beyond the Humber were
his son, and Tostig. Then on the second forced to receive him; and as for Malcolm,
day of Easter, Easter Monday, he sat with though he invaded Northumbria, he seems
the King at meat; then suddenly he sank to have been defeated by Tostig, who was a
down by the footstool reft of speech, and of valiant captain, and forced to make peace
all his strength, and then they brought him with Edward at York in 1059. At the same
into the King's bower, and thought that it time he became Tostig's brother-in-arms,
would go over, but it was not so, but so he but, as if to show how little this holy tie
lasted speechless and strengthless all down to availed, the Scottish King took the first
the Thursday, and then gave up his life, and opportunity of Tostig's absence, when, after
he lieth there (at Winchester) in the Old the example of the age, he went on a pil
Minster.” Such is the fullest account con grimage to Rome in 1061, to fall again on
tained in the Chronicle of Earl Godwin's Northumbria with fire and sword, not sparing
death. It is awful enough in its touching in his fury even St. Cuthbert's shrine at
brevity, and we have no need, like the Nor Lindisfarne.
man scribes who made it their duty after the And now Edward was growing old: that
Conquest, to blacken the character of a man
so thoroughly English, by repeating the fic * His death is thus recorded by Henry of Hun
tingdon, who has no doubt faithfully preserved the
tions by which a later age sought to turn his thoroughly Norse features of the stern old Viking's
fearful end into a warning against treason character. The next year, 1055, “Siward,” his
and perjury. The only crime which we see real name was Sigurd—“that stoutest of captains,
laid to his charge was the murder of the felt death hanging over him from a flux. ‘What
a shame, he said, ‘that I should not have been
Atheling Alfred, but of this, as we have al able to die in so many wars, but that I should
ready seen, Harold Harefoot was in all pro have been reserved for the disgrace of a death fit
bability really guilty. only for kine! But at least clothe me with my
After Godwin’s death, all his lands and impenetrable byrnie, gird me with my sword, set
rights passed to Harold his eldest son, and my helm on my head; let me have my shield on
my left arm, put my golden-hafted axe in my
it seemed as if a double portion of his father's right hand, that I, a brave warrior, may die at
power had fallen on Harold. It was no least as a warrior ought. It was done as he said,
secret that the King still loved the Normans, and he breathed his last armed to the teeth.” He
but the people had declared against them, was buried at Galmanbo, in the church which he
and made common cause with Godwin. If had built in honour of St. Olaf, but no heathen
warrior could have been more particular in the
Godwin's character had been open to sus directions thus given for laying out his body in a
picion, no such charge could be made against way worthy of a worshipper of Odin.
192 JEngland and Norway in the Eleventh Century. June,
is to say, he might have been about sixty said to have a will of their own in affairs
years of age.*. His luckily was not a nature of state. His sole worldly care seems to
nor a frame that could reproduce itself. He have been his hawks and dogs. To hunt
had no children by Eadgitha; who then was with them was his great delight. Waiting
to be his heir? So long as a branch of the for the millennium, and eager to make his
old West Saxon line existed, his eyes were peace with God before it came, wondering
naturally turned towards it, and he sent to and rather vexed that it had overstayed its
Hungary for Edward, Edmund Ironside's time by ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, and
son, who had been sent to Sweden by Canute at last sixty years, Edward's great care was
to get him out of the way. From Sweden to endow his Abbey at Westminster, and all
he was sent to Russia, and from Russia he other holy places, with as many lands as he
made his way to Hungary, where he mar could grasp. Let him and his be sure only
ried Agatha, a kinswoman of the Emperor of their inheritance in heaven, for the rest,
Henry the Second. Edward came to Eng such a mere mortal matter as the succession
land, but died almost as soon as he arrived, to the throne of England might be left to
in 1057. The MS. of the Chronicle, and chance; in God's good time it would take
that the one which seems rather hostile to care of itself. But though he did not care,
the House of Godwin, implies that the others did. In all England there was no
Atheling met with foul play. The others one who could compete with Harold, in the
merely mention his sudden death. He left very vigour of his manhood, a bold and for
behind what the Chronicle calls a “fair tunate warrior, the tamer of the Welsh, the
offspring,”—a son, Edgar Atheling, and a owner of enormous possessions as his own
daughter, Margaret. But like Siward's son private property, and stronger still in the
Waltheof, Edgar was a boy, and strong nei. offices which he held under the King; with
ther in body nor mind. At such a time out a rival, and almost without an enemy;
there could be little doubt that he, for a all England were ready to wait till Edward's
while at least, would be out of the succes death to hail Harold as their king. That
sion. Failing him, the Norman annalists was pretty much the state of feeling in Eng
declare that Edward had resolved to make land after the death of Edward Atheling.
his cousin William, their Duke, his heir, But across the Channel there was another
and that they it is that have spread the who cared about England, a prince also in
story of Edgar's physical and mental unfit the prime of manhood, born in 1027, and
ness. In all probability Edward never grap who had hitherto overcome all obstacles, not
pled fairly with the question of the succes only by his indomitable energy and bravery,
sion. He sent for his nephew from Hungary, but by the skill and subtlety with which he
with the view of making him his heir, but knew how to work out his plans by guile, if
when he was cut off he adjourned the ques force failed. In William we see the im
tion, for we must remember that Edward proved Norman type. Just as his subjects,
was one of those characters who, if they the descendants of Rollo the Norse '.
think themselves sure of heaven, are willing had been wonderfully bettered by their cross
to let the world fare as it lists. The crea with the Romance stock, so William himself
tures of circumstance, they can scarcely be and his barons were again an improvement
on the mass of the population. He and his
* Real cases of old age were very rare in those Normans were not only ready to do anything,
times: Canute was called old “hinn gamli,” but but able to do it. They were the best war
he was little, past forty when he died. Siward riors, not the bravest, but the most disciplined
was called old, but he left a son quite a boy. Life
began soon with them. They married soon, led a and tactical of the age. They had better
life of toil and trouble, and if they escaped the arms, better horses, better mail than any
sword, were soon worn out. Even the clergy other race. They were like an army fur
were not long-lived. nished with the Enfield rifle, warring against
+ Here are the words of Cott. Tib. B. iv.:-"In
this'. came Eadward Atheling to England: he another whose only weapon was poor old
was King Edward's brother's son, King Eadmund, Brown Bess. They were better lawyers, for
who was called Ironside for his bravery. This they had grafted the formularies and tradi
Atheling had King Canute sent away to Hungary to tions of Scandinavian custom on the majestic
be betrayed; but he there throve into a good man,
as him God granted and him well became; so that trunk of the old Roman law, and the vitality
he got the Emperor's kinswoman to wife, and by of the stock showed itself in a refinement of
whom a fair offspring he begot; she was hight legislation against which no ruder system
Agatha. We know not for what cause it was could prevail. They scorned houses of wat
done that he might not see his kinsman King Ed. tle and churches of wood, and at their bid
ward. Alas! that was a rueful hap, and a baleful
for all this nation, that he so speedily his life ended, ding strong towers and tall minsters of stone
after he came to England to the unhappiness of rose like magic from the earth. They were
this poor nation.” logical in their attachment to the Roman
See. The Pope owned no more faithful fore he would let Harold go, he made him
children in the world than the Normans of swear on some of those relics in which the
the eleventh century; and they had their age set such great faith, that he would help
reward, for the Pope blessed their banners, William to win the throne of England, that
and sent them relics, dead men's bones, he would cede him the strong castle of
things now to laugh at and lecture on, but Dover, and other fastnesses, pledge his word
then awful realities, for men believed that to marry William's little daughter; after
where the saint's bones lay, there the saint's which he was to have half England as his
spirit also rested, mighty to save his votaries. fief. When this solemn oath was sworn, the
That was the faith and feeling of the age, Saxon earl was let go with every mark of
and the Normans at once acknowledged and honour and splendid gifts. He took his
acted on it. Their system was already at nephew Hacon with him, but Wulfnoth re
work before the surrounding nations had mained behind a pledge of Harold's faith.
thought of following it. They were like The whole story of this visit, and the oath
England in the nineteenth century: fifty upon the relics, is not found in the Anglo
£ before all the rest of the world with Saxon Chronicle. The Normans recount it
er manufactories, and five-and-twenty years at length, and the Scandinavian records men
before them with her railways. They were tion it. We may be certain that the journey
foremost in the race of civilisation and pro took place. The fact is there, but as we look
gress; well started before all the rest had upon it it wears a Norman face. The visit,
thought of running. No wonder, then, that the oath, and the return to England are alone
both won. to be relied on. Yet it strikes us as strange
But fortune proverbially favours the brave. that if Edward really was bent on making
To him that hath she giveth, and from him William his heir, that the two, the one a
that hath not she taketh even that he hath. lover of Normans, and the other a Norman
So it was here. Already in 1051–2, we have born, should not have agreed upon some
seen that William, then scarcely twenty-five written document, of which that age affords
years old, crossed over to England to see his hundreds still extant, by which the kingdom
cousin after Edward had broken with God should have been formally made over to
win. Ingulph, the secretary of William, in William. No such charter has ever been
deed denies that at that visit his master ex hinted at, and failing it, we incline to believe
erted any undue influence on Edward to that Edward's mind was not made up as to
extort a promise from him; but who can tell, his succession till the very day of his death.
no, not even in after times the hired scribe We have said before that the enemies of
of William, what passed between the cousins. Godwin's house sprang from its own bosom.
Certain it is that soon after that visit Edward Sweyn had been the beginning of evil. His
sent Harold’s brother Wulfnoth, and his conduct first gave Edward an excuse for his
nephew, Sweyn's son Hacon, who had been breach with the family. Sweyn was now
given by Godwin as hostages, over to William dead, but a worse foe to the family remained
for safe keeping. When Edward died, Wil behind. This was Tostig, a man capable of
liam asserted they had been sent to him as great things, a brave warrior, a faithful ally,
pledges that the succession to the English and of a generous nature. But he was rest
throne was his. That was the first gift that less and ambitious, always scheming to be
fortune sent him from England. It was but greater than he was; a man who could bear
an earnest of a greater windfall. In 1064 adversity like a hero, but one whose pros
Harold went to Normandy. Various reasons perity was his bane; for he could never be
are given for this journey. He went out for content, so long as one step in life's ladder
a sail and was driven by stress of weather to remained to mount. The characters of the
the Norman coast. He was on his way to two brothers are well drawn by the Anglo
Flanders. He went to work out his brother's Saxon writer, to whom we have been already
release. He was sent, most unlikely of all, so much indebted. He knew them well, calls
by Edward to bring William tidings that Ed them his “dear lords,” and grieved for the
ward had made him his heir. However that loss of both alike. On the death of Godwin,
might be, Harold found himself in France, he says the people were plunged in grief,
first a prisoner in the hands of the Count of mourning for him as the foster-father (nutri
Ponthieu, and afterwards set free by William, cium) both of themselves and the kingdom;
and treated with high favour at his court. “but to his earldom was raised by the royal
That whole winter, 1064–5, the Saxon earl favour his elder son Harold, who was the
passed in Normandy, the honoured guest, but elder also in wisdom, at which the whole
still the prized prisoner, of his host. Wil host of England drew a deep breath of con
liam was not the man to reject the advantage solation: For he excelled in vigour both of
which fortune had thrown in his way. Be mind and body, and stood above all the peo
ple as another Judas Maccabaeus; yea, he fortune with him as well. Both of them
proved himself even a greater friend of his were sometimes so successful in dissembling
country than his father had been, and trod their designs, that those who did not know
in his footsteps by showing long-suffering and them must have thought them the most un
mercy and condescension to well-doers. But certain of men. But to sum up all in one
as for the unruly and thieves and robbers, like sentence, for those who read of their charac
a champion of justice, he threatened them ters, no age and no country has ever reared
with the terror of a lion's heart and counte two mortals of such worth at one and the
nance. . And now that an opportunity same time.”
offers itself, we wish to say something after From this account, which, we may be sure,
the measure of our puny intellect about the was as favourable to Tostig as the writer, who
lives and characters of these two brothers, evidently loved him, could make it, it is plain
which we think we do well to write, as well that while Tostig's was the strong will,
for the purpose of this work, as for the sake often sunk in itself, moody and plotting, and
of an example to be followed by those of then rushing to fulfil it, Harold's was the wise
their posterity who are still to come. Both mind, and more open cheerful temper, which
of them grew up strong, with a very fair and made him the favourite of the King and the
beauteous body, and, as we imagine, with darling of the nation. This fact was enough
equal vigour and equal boldness. But Harold in itself to hurt Tostig's pride. Why was he
the elder was of taller stature, and was more too not England's darling? Why was he
like his sire in his endless toil, watching, and not Godwin's firstborn? Why was he to be
endurance of hunger,-a man of great for ever doomed to stand after and not be
smoothness of temper, and with a readier wit fore his brother? So it was that when
than his brother. He was great in bearing Siward's death made room for him in North
reproaches—no easy thing; and never, as I umbria, his thoughts were distracted by the
think, revenged himself on any of his coun preference which both king and people
trymen. Sometimes he would take counsel showed for his brother Harold. His govern
with any one whom he thought trustworthy; ment too was severe, even when compared
and sometimes he would delay taking counsel with his predecessor's stern rule, and while
till it seemed to some as though his course he punished ill-doers and exterminated rob
were less advantageous to his interest than it bers, it is hinted by the writer most friendly
might have been. But who shall accuse to him that he was sometimes led to hunt
either the one brother or the other, or any them down by the desire to spoil their goods.
one, in short, sprung from such a father as Tostig was in fact an Anglo-Saxon Catiline,
Godwin, and trained in his school and by his “alieni appetens, sui profusus.” At last in
care, of the fault of levity or haste?" But spite of his half-Danish blood, the Northum
Earl Tostig was also a man of grave and wise brians, Northmen and English alike, rose
self-restraint, though he was a little too bitter against him in his absence with the King,
in following up an injury; a man endowed and marched upon York, where his chief
with a manly and unfailing firmness of mind. strength lay. His housecarles and body
It was his wont to weigh the plans he had in £ were slain wherever they could be
his mind for the most part by himself, and to ound, whether Danes or English, and all his
settle their order, surveying them to their treasures, gold, silver, arms, fell a spoil to
very end by due consideration of the subject; the rebels. He was formally outlawed by
and such plans it was not easy to get him to the Thanes, who sent for Morcar, Ælfgar's
impart to any one. Sometimes too he was son, as their Earl. With him at their head,
so wary before he acted, that his deed seemed the whole North began to march south;
to precede his plan, and this habit on the Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, and Lincoln
stage of life often stood him in good stead. shire swelling their ranks as they went. All
When he gave gifts he poured out his bounty the old Danelagh, in short, was up in arms, and
with prodigal munificence. . . . In word and lest it should come to war between North
deed he was well known for his adamantine and South, Edward sent Harold to meet the
steadfastness. . . . Both brothers were very rebels at Northampton, to listen to their
constant in carrying out their undertakings, grievances, and make the best terms he could.
but this one, Tostig, fulfilled his purpose by We have no reason to believe that Harold had
main force; the other, Harold, by wisdom. any grudge against his brother, who seems,
The first in his deeds thought only of work as far as we can judge from the charters, to
ing out his will; the second tried to carry have been constantly at his side abbut the
Court. But Tostig was furious, and openly
* Some sentences of Harold's character are very accused Harold of having stirred up the
corrupt, through the carelessness of the copyist, insurrection against him; a charge which
but there can be no doubt of their general sense. Harold, as the writer of the Confessor's life
1865. England and Norway, in the Eleventh Century. 195
says, with a sad allusion to his oath in Nor accounts both tell rather against Harold; but
mandy over the relics, ad sacramenta nimis it must be borne in mind that the Norwegian
prodigus, answered at once, by an oath at the story was derived in all probability from
altar. Perhaps Tostig, by following the Tostig's descendants, who took root and
Court, and looking after the succession, while throve famously in Norway. Our own opi
he left the government of his province to nion is that Edward, like a weak man, put off
underlings, provoked the Northern Thanes, the question till it was too late to settle it,
and made them demand a change of Earl. and though with his last breath he may, very
But Harold, however much he may have like Elizabeth, have been forced to say some
loved Tostig, was a statesman, which his thing, that something was of little worth.
brother was not; he soon saw that nothing But, besides Edward's wish, there remained
would satisfy the North but a change. The the will of the people, and that seems unani
King therefore yielded. The laws of Canute mously to have set aside the rightful heir,
were renewed, which we may therefore con Edgar Atheling, and to have chosen Harold
clude had been broken by Tostig. Morcar as the only man fit to govern the country.
was appointed Earl of Northumbria, and Tos The writer of the Life—who, it seems
tig, who, unluckily for England, was with the likely, was present, and certainly had heard
King at Britford in Wilts when the outbreak the Queen tell the story of her husband's
took place, and so escaped the fury of his death—gives a most touching account of Ed
people, had to leave England with his wife, ward's last moments. After having been
Judith, Earl Baldwin's daughter, and betake speechless for two days, the Confessor sud
himself to Flanders, to his father-in-law, with denly revived, and prayed for strength to
the few followers who still clung to him. relate a vision. It was granted. Then he
* This happened in the summer and autumn said that two monks, long since dead, whom
of the year 1065. On the 5th January, he had known in youth, had appeared to
1066, the event happened for which so many him, and told him of the wrath of God which
were waiting, and for which some were so was about to fall on England. The chiefs in
well prepared. After having at Christmas Church and State, earls, bishops, abbots, and
consecrated the new Abbey at Westminster, all the clergy, were not what they seemed,
which he had built in honour of St. Peter God's ministers, but the servants of Satan;
and richly endowed, the meek Edward sick. wherefore the whole kingdom was to be
ened and died on the eve of Twelfth Day, wasted by devils with fire and sword. In
and was buried on Twelfth Day in the Abbey. vain he had said, “I will show these things,
“And,” says one MS. of the Chronicle, “Earl by God's will, to the people, and they will
Harold got all the kingdom of England just repent, and God will have mercy and for
as the King granted it him, and also as men give.” “Nay,” was the reply, “they will
chose him thereto, and he was blessed as not repent, nor will God's mercy reach
King on Twelfth Day.” The national re them.” “When, then, will the end of all
cords, therefore, say that Edward granted this misery be '" “When,” was the stern
Harold the kingdom. The Scandinavian answer, “a green tree is hewn asunder in the
authorities go a step farther. * Some of them midst, and the part hewn off is carried three
relate that when Edward felt his end ap acres from the trunk, and when it comes
proaching, he told those around him that back without the help of human hand, and
William was to be his heir. “But,” they go grows again as before, and bears leaves and
on, “when the sickness began to press him fruit, then first will the end of these evils
hard, Harold Godwin’s son was foremost in be.”
all service on the King, as he had been be A doleful dream indeed, and shocking to
fore; and the King had given him the keep all but one who heard it. There was the
ing of all his treasures. . . . It is the story Queen sitting on the ground and warmin
of some men that when Edward was nearly the King's cold feet in her lap, and Harol
come to his last gasp, and when Harold and was by, and his Constable Earl Robert, his
few men besides were by, Harold bowed him cousin, and Stigand, now Archbishop of Can
self over the King and said, ‘I callye all to terbury, and a few more. The one was least
witness that King Edward just now gave me shocked who ought to have felt it most.
the kingdom and all sway in England;’ and Stigand, while all were speechless and aghast
straightway after that the King was lifted at the vision, whispered into Harold's ear,
dead out of the bed.” Snorro Sturluson with “The King is worn out with age and illness;
his critical taste has cut out the passage about he drivels and knows not what he says.”
William, but he has kept the rest. These Evidently a man of sense, and £ very
much as we imagine an English archbishop
* Harold Hardrada's Saga, ch. 112. Snorro would now speak; but in those days quite
Sturluson, ch. 80. before his time, for even the writer inveighs
against him in no measured terms—com was only to rule the land till the true heir of
ains of the wickedness of all orders in the West Saxon line, the young and weak
£ and declares that the Archbishop, minded Edgar Atheling, was of years and
who was evidently still alive when he wrote, discretion to ascend the throne However
“will be very late in repenting, and perhaps that may be, Harold as regent was de facto
never repent at all, when he could dare to king of England, and so long as he could
think that the sainted King, when filled with defy all foreign claimants, might look upon
a prophetic spirit as the reward of his blessed the kingdom as his own.
life, should have merely been raving and And now the base part of Tostig's charac
wandering through age or disease when he ter came out. He only saw his brother on
told his dream.” After relating his vision, the throne; that throne for which in his
the King, seeing that all stood round weep pride he thought himself fully fit. If he
ing, said, “Do not weep for me, but pray could only hurl him from it, no matter how,
God for my soul, and get me leave to go to no matter at what cost of misery to England,
Him. He will not be reconciled with me the dearest wish of his heart would be grati
unless I die, who could not be reconciled fied. It is probable that when smarting
with Himself unless He first died.” Then, under his exile in the winter of 1065, he may
turning to the Queen, who was sitting at his have gone from St. Omer to visit his brother
feet, he spoke to her for the last time: “May in-law, William, and to arrange plans for the
God thank this my bride, according to the ultimate success of William's scheme. But
careful tenderness of her service to me; the death of Edward showed them that no
for she has followed me faithfully, and has time was to be lost if England was to be
ever sat close to my side in the place of a won, for Harold's energy soon gained him
dearest daughter; for which may she obtain the confidence of the people, and his power
from a merciful God a change to bliss eter increased from day to day. One of his first
nal.” Next stretching out his hand to his steps seems to have been the re-establish
“foster-brother ” Harold, “To thee I com ment of the Thingmannalid, and this time as
mend this woman, to take care of with the a pure band of mercenary soldiers mounted
whole realm, that thou mayst serve and at the King's cost and serving at his expense.
honour her as thy mistress and sister with a Besides this, he gave orders at once for fit
faithful service; so that so long as she lives ting out a powerful fleet to lie at Sandwich,
she may not lose her proper honour when I and watch the south-east coast. As soon as
am taken away. I also confide to thy care William heard of Edward's death and
those who have left their native soil for my Harold's accession he sent messengers to
love's sake, and have hitherto served me England to remind Harold of his promises
faithfully, that thou mayst, having taken and oath, and to demand their fulfilment.
them into thy service, if they wish it, defend But Harold refused to be bound by a forced
and keep them; if they do not wish it, let oath, and answered boldly that he would
them return to their own land, with all their hold England as his own. William then
£ Bury me in the monastery hard resolved on an expedition, and summoned
y, and do not hide my death, but tell it his barons to a meeting at Lillebonne, where
everywhere, that all the faithful may pray he told them his plan. They made remon
for me, a sinner.” Then came more last strances, founded on the adventurous nature
words to the weeping Queen; “Be not of the undertaking against a leader so pow
afraid; I shall not die at all, but soon be erful as Harold, and a country so rich and so
quite well by God's mercy.” And then the strong in men and ships. But the Seneschal
pious mystic passed away. After death his William Fitzosborn, at first pretending to be
face was “ruddy as a rose, while his snow on the barons' side, got them to agree to let
white beard shone beneath it like a lily. His him answer for all, and then boldly went
hands, stretched out, were lean and fair and before William and said his barons were
white, and his whole frame seemed as though ready to support him with twice the lawful
it lay composed in sleep.” So died Edward number of men and ships. Though they
the Confessor, according to the account of a one and all protested against this answer, yet
contemporary, and in all likelihood of an William by £ subtle management succeeded
eye-witness, of one who was besides the de in persuading them to fit out a fleet of seven
voted friend of the Queen and all her family. hundredships. Up to this time Tostig was
It is remarkable that in this account no men with him active in his interest; but now he
tion is made of Harold as England's future was to take a more open part. William sent
king. The most that can be made out of to many lands to beg for assistance in his
Edward's last words is that the Queen and enterprise, and amongst the rest he sent an
kingdom were confided to his brother-in-law embassy to Sweyn Ulfson. Who so fit to
as protector and regent. Was it that Harold bear the message as Tostig, the Danish
\
King's first cousin; and who so ready to in drada, whom he found not far off in “the
vade England as the King of that land whose Bay.” To him he made the same offer that
warriors were so renowned, and who had so he first made to Sweyn. He asked for help
often steered to victory in England? Tostig to win back his own in England. “As for
then went to Denmark; but though he went that,” answered Harold, “we Norwegians
to further William's, he really pleaded his care very little about warring in England, if
own cause. As he had promised William we are to have an English leader over us;
to stand by him, so he was prodigal of his and to tell you the truth,” he added, “men
£ to Sweyn. It mattered little to him say you English are not always faithful.”
ow many foreign hosts he brought on Eng “Is it true,” asked Tostig, “as I have heard
land, so his brother Harold was overthrown; men say in England, that King Magnus,
when that happened let the foreigners fight your kinsman, sent men to King Edward,
it out among themselves. In the turmoil with a message to say that King Magnus
between them the chapter of accidents might claimed England as well as Denmark, as his
-
give him what he thought his right, the inheritance, after Hardicanute, as was laid
crown of England. As soon as he saw Sweyn down in their treaty?” “If that were so,”
he told his story, and asked for ships and rejoined the King, “why did King Magnus
men to win back his honour and power in never get the kingdom that he claimed in
England. Sweyn answered by asking him England?” “And why,” was Tostig's taunt
to stay there with him. He would give him ing answer, “have you not won the realm of
a lordship there in Denmark, where he would Denmark, which Magnus held before your
rule in £ and might. “My heart is day?” “Ye Danes,” burst out Harold, “have
set,” was Tostig's answer, “on faring back no need to boast against us Norsemen.
to my own lands in England; but if I can Many houses and homesteads have we burnt
get no help from you for this, then I will belonging to those kinsmen of yours.”
make you another offer; and that is, to bring “Well,” said the Earl, “if you will not an
all the force that I can raise in England to swer my question, I will answer it for you.
join you, if ye will fare thither with the King Magnus held Denmark as his own, be
whole Danish host, as King Canute did your cause all the leaders of the land stood by
mother's brother.” That was a tempting him; but you could not hold it, because all
offer, and we see already how rapidly Wil were against you. King Magnus never
liam's ambassador was melting away in the fought to win England, because the whole
wrathful Earl. What he was now promising people would have Edward as their King.
to Sweyn was just what he had offered a But if you will win England, I will so bring
month before to William. But Sweyn Ulf's it to pass that most of the nobles will aid
son was a wise man. He knew his own you. I lack naught when matched with my
power. He had just ended his seventeen brother Harold but the name of King. But
years' struggle with Norway. His land had all here know there hath never been born in
lost thousands of men and hundreds of ships. these Northern lands a warrior such as thou;
His Denmark was not the Denmark of his and methinks 'tis passing strange that thou
uncle, nor was he the warrior that “Old” shouldst have fought fifteen years for Den
Canute had been. “Kinsman mine,” was his mark, and now wilt not stoop to pick up
answer, “by so much the more am I a less England when it lies at thy feet.” If Tostig
man than King Canute, that I can hardly really made this speech, it proves that he
hold Denmark against the Norsemen. But was a subtle speaker as well as a bold war
Old Canute owned Denmark by inheritance, rior, for he seems first to have taunted Ha
and England by war and conquest, and yet rold into a rage, then to have flattered his
after all it was for a while not at all unlikely vanity, and at last to have convinced him
that he would have lost his life fighting there. that, with his help, the conquest of England
As for Norway, he got it without a battle. was an easy task. The Saga tells us, that
But as for me, I know the measure of my when Harold came to think the matter over,
strength, and I reckon it more after my own he saw that much that Tostig said was true,
weakness than by Canute's valour.” “Well and in a little while the King was eager to
then,” said Tostig, “my errand hither is less invade England. Tostig and he had many
weighty than I thought you, my kinsman, meetings and much talk. The end was, that
would make it for my troubles' sake. Now Tostig acknowledged Harold as his lord and
I must look for friendship in a less likely superior, on condition that he was to have
quarter; and yet perhaps after all I may find half England as a fief. Nor did the tempter
a leader in whose eyes a deed of derring-do leave him till it was a settled thing that
looks not so big as it doth to yours, O King.” King Harold was to come west across the
So they parted not very good friends. sea next summer, with a great fleet. In
*Tostig lost no time in seeking Harold Har those days journeys were long and weari
some; there were no posts, no letters, no When we Thingmen meet in fray

newspapers, no telegrams; news was news Two from one must run away?
indeed, even if it were long coming. As Sure such fainthearts are unfit
soon as Tostig had made sure of Harold, he First in Harold's ship to sit.”
hastened back to Flanders, no doubt saw But this was the last effort either in deed or
William, and told him that he might con verse of the brave old man. His bones were
tinue his armaments with good heart, for a not fated to whiten the field near Stamford
diversion would be made from Norway on Bridge. He died in the spring, and as Ha
the north of England, about the same time rold stood over his grave, he uttered this
that his preparations for falling on the south touching epitaph as he turned away, “Here
were complete. Whether he told William lies one who was of all men most brave and
the whole truth must for ever remain a mys faithful to his liege lord.” The expedition
tery. William probably looked only for an was to set sail from the Solund Isles, for
auxiliary, not a rival, from the North. Just thence the passage to Shetland was shortest.
as Harold Hardrada might not have stirred By little and little the mighty fleet gathered
had he known that, after defeating Harold, itself together at the place of rendezvous;
he would have to fight it out with William. and never, say the Norwegian authorities,
They were both, in fact, in Tostig's hands, was such a fleet sent forth from Norway
and he played them against each other as either before or since, except, perhaps, the
puppets. But Tostig was himself a puppet armament which King Hacon Hacon's son
in the hands of God, who had decreed death carried with him to Scotland two hundred
to the puppet-master and one of his dolls, years afterwards. First and foremost of Ha
while the victory was reserved for the other. rold's captains was Eystein the Gorcock of
But our interest at present is rather with Giske, the trusticst of all his liegemen, to
Harold Hardrada than with Tostig or Wil whom he had promised the hand of his
liam; we therefore follow his fortunes till he daughter Maria. Besides him are named
and Tostig met in England. As soon as Styrkar the new Constable, Frederick the
Tostig was gone, and perhaps before, the se King's banner-bearer, and a bold Icelander,
cret oozed out that the raven banner was Brand, the son of Gunsteinn, who had fled
again to flap its wings, and that the cry all from the north of the island before the in
over Norway would soon be, “Westward ho, solence of Eyjulf, the son of Gudmund the
for England!” When the spring came, Powerful. The great chief, Step-Thorir or
Harold sent round to every district and called Thorir of Steig, the last of the strong gene
out half the levies both of men and ships; ration to whom Kalf and Finn, Arni's sons,
half of the force of the country being all Einar Paunchshaker, and others whom Ha
that was bound to follow the King to for rold had slain or banished belonged, refused
eign warfare. As time wore on, there were to come at the King's command, his excuse
many guesses and doubts as to how the fleet being that he was scared by a bad dream.
would fare; many talked of Harold's doughty To one who knows what names there had
deeds, and thought there was nothing that been and still were in Norway, it seems that
he could not do. Others, again, said that the list of chiefs who went with Harold was
England was a land hard to win,—powerful rather meagre; but this is the way with
and populous. In that land, too, were that tyranny; it can kill, but it cannot make
band called the Thingmannalid, picked war alive again. It may banish, but it cannot
riors from all lands, but most speaking the always restore. One hour of the valorous
Northern tongue; men so bold, that one of Hacon Ivar's son, or of his kinsman Eindridi
them was of more good in a fight than two Einar's son, would have been worth a king's
of the best Norsemen who were about King ransom at Stamford Bridge, but Eindridi was
Harold. Even these birds of ill omen might festering in his early grave, and Hacon a
have remembered the proverb of their race, thriving Earl in Sweden. Still we cannot
which says, “An apple does not fall far frombut believe that the flower of the land, both
the tree.” If these chosen men came from high and low,—all that the Danish wars and
the North, why should not the North, the the King's red hand had spared,—went with
mother of warriors, send out others as good Harold, for when the whole fleet was mus
from her loins? When the veteran Ulf, tered at the Solund Isles, it numbered 240
Harold's companion at Constantinople, who fighting ships, besides small cutters and trans
had striven with him against the scaly cro ports. Of these 150 were furnished by the
codile in the dark and dismal dungeon, his freemen's levies, or “almenning,” the rest
most faithful friend, and now his “Consta belonged either to the King or his Thanes.
ble,” heard such talk, he burst out into song: The amount of land force and sailors could
“What is this, O lady pale! not have been less than 20,000,—a most im
Young, I heard another tale; posing armament for an expedition by sea
from any country in any age. During the antess; in one hand she held a hatchet,
King's absence, his eldest son Magnus was and in the other a trough, and he thought
to rule the land, and before he went the he could see every ship in the fleet at once,
men of Drontheim acknowledged him as and, lo! on every ship's prow was perched
King. The second son Olaf went with his a raven. Then the giantess chanted:–
father, and so did his old queen, Elizabeth, “Westward Ho with noise and rattle
who it seems in later years '' returned to Rushes on the King to battle;
his Court. Her two daughters, Maria and Helter-skelter, hurry-scurry,
Ingigerda, also went. Thora, Harold's second 'Tis for me they waste and worry:
queen, the mare for whom he fought so Soon my ravens' darling brood
Will batten on their dainty food,
stoutly at Nizza, was left behind. A bishop, Titbits torn from sailors stricken;
of whose name we are ignorant, also went Where I am disasters thicken:
on board, and then the freight, doomed for Where I am disasters thicken.”
the most part to speedy destruction, was full. Then there was another man named Thord,
When all was ready for sea, the King per
formed a solemn ceremony, quite in keeping and as he lay in that ship that was next the
with the age, and a fitting parallel to Wil King's, he too dreamed a dream. He thought
liam's wretched relics, on which he had made he saw Harold's fleet make the English coast,
Harold swear. Harold went to the shrine and there drawn up on the shore he saw a
of his brother St. Olaf, unlocked it, and mighty host, and each side made ready for
clipped the hair and nails of the royal mar battle, and there were many banners aloft;
but before the host of the enemy rode a huge
tyr. This pious but somewhat needless pro giantess;
cess had been begun by Magnus, who kept had a man's her steed was a wolf, and that wolf
corse in his maw, and blood
the key of the shrine himself, and was in the
habit of performing it every year. Whether streamed from his jaws; but as soon as the
Harold followed his example with the same wolf had swallowed the man, the giantess
threw him another and another, and another,
regularity is not known. In all likelihood
and he gulped them all down; and the giant
he now did it once for all, having seen quite ess also chanted:–
enough of his brother's remains; for when
the ceremony was over, he locked up the “The Ogre bride that scatters ruin
shrine and coffin, and cast the keys either Kens the King's misfortunes brewing;
What avails his fame in field,
into the river or into the sea; by which If she shows her blood red shield !
Munch reasonably thinks he meant to show Lo! she plies the monster's maw,
that he thought the shrine had been opened Piling flesh 'twixt either jaw,
quite often enough. What he saw of the Till from out her loathsome store
body, no doubt, convinced him that the repu All his fangs are red with gore:
tation of the saint might suffer as the Pa All his fangs are red with gore.”
tron of Norway, if every one saw and knew Nay, the King himself began to dream, and
that he was not able to preserve his own re his vision was that he was north at Dron
mains from corruption. - theim, and he thought his brother Saint Olaf
Harold now steered with the ships which came to him and chanted these verses:—
made up his own suite from Drontheim to “I, the King so stout in story,
the place of muster, where he had still to Famous for all time to come,
wait some time before the whole fleet was Battles won and fell with glory,
ready. And now, as was natural, while men Fell a Saint, and stayed at home.
waited in idleness, and the bustle of prepara But this fleet to ruin wending,
tion was over, not a few began to reflect on Rends my soul with grief unending,
the magnitude and risk of the venture on Doomed to death and heaven-hated;
which they were about to embark. The Ogre-steeds" will soon be sated.”
faint-hearted began to mutter and whisper, When an army begins to dream and do
and as that was an age in which dreams and nothing, the sooner it is up and doing the
visions had their votaries, many a shadow of better. Harold was too good a soldier to stay
evil to come passed across the sleeping war a day longer than was needful under such
riors’ minds. There was no ill-feeling against circumstances; and we cannot but admire the
Harold. It was a feeling of despair, not of constancy and courage of men who, believing
mutiny; they felt that they were doomed in such portents, and firmly convinced that
by day, and by night they dreamt that they glimpses of the future were often granted in
were doomed. So on board the King's own sleep, could still, in the face of such ill-boding
ship there was a man named Gurth, and he visions, steadily carry out their purpose and
dreamed a dream. He thought he was sail for England, to what they must have felt
standing on the King's ship, and looked to
wards an isle, and there he saw a huge gi * Wolves.
sure would be their common grave. A He had wrought mischief enough, and he
Roman army and a Roman general would might wait for others to fulfil the wickedness
have returned to Drontheim under such a which he had devised. He found perhaps,
warning of evil to come. too, that he was not so strong in England as
Now let us return to Tostig and briefly in his pride he had weened. At any rate he
describe his doings in the interval between could do nothing till his allies landed either
the winter when he saw Harold in Norway, south or north. But at this time whatever
and September when they met in England. dealings he may have had with William in the
In England, too, the public feeling was ill at spring, he seems to have made up his mind to
ease. It was well known that Tostig was throw in his lot altogether with Harold Har
hovering about the coast eager to do harm; drada, and to make common cause with him
that William was fitting out an enormous as soon as he landed. As for his brother Ha
expedition: and we can scarcely doubt that rold, as soon as his fleet assembled he went
some intelligence of what was to be looked with it to the Isle of Wight, where it lay the
for from Norway, had not reached England. whole summer, and guarded the south-east
No doubt there were dreams and warnings coast in combination with the land force of the
there as well as in Norway, and to crown the district. But in those days it was difficult to
superstitions of the people there appeared a feed a host after getting it together. After
comet as an omen of misfortune, on the 24th remaining till September the provisions
of April. Soon after it was first seen Tostig began to run short, and it was no longer pos
began hostilities by crossing over with all the sible to keep the sea. Harold then sent the
ships he could collect on to the Isle of Wight, land-force to their homes, and ordered the
and exacting money and provisions from the ships to sail for London, whither they arrived,
inhabitants. From the Isle of Wight he sailed though some were lost in a storm. All this
along the coast to Sandwich, harrying as he while William was waiting for a wind, and
went. But Harold, whose fleet was hardly thinking perhaps that Heaven had abandoned
ready, now hastened with it to Sandwich, to him; but Providence was helping him though
give his brother battle. Tostig was not strong he was upbraiding it, for when a fair wind
enough to put the issue to the sword. He fled came at last, and he was able to sail, he found
before Harold, having pressed as many of the the English coast unguarded. He was
ships and their crews, the so-called “Butse 'u'a three weeks. Had he come
karle” or “Busscarles,” that is to say, the sail three weeks sooner, Harold's fleet might have
ors who served in the “Busses” or ships of met him, given him battle, and defeated him.
burthen, into his service, and carried them off We left Harold Hardrada at the Solund
whether they would or no. With this force Isles on the eve of sailing. At last, about
he made for the east coast, and showed him the 1st of September, all was ready. So long
self off Yorkshire, sailing up the Humber and had the laggards delayed him. A rattling
ravaging the Lincolnshire shore. But Edwin breeze bore him over to Shetland, and,
and Morcar were on the watch for him, and without making any stay there, he pushed on
drove him off. Then the sailors whom he had for the Orkneys, whither a portion of his
pressed availed themselves of the strait in fleet had already arrived. Hence he took
which he was, and made off with their ships, with him the joint Earls Paul and Erland,
so that he was left with only twelve snakes or and a large force gathered not only from
war-galleys, with which he betook himself to Orkney and Shetland, but from Man and
King Malcolm, who of old had become his the Western Isles. One of the kings in
brother-in-arms, but who in spite of that had Ireland is also said to have followed Harold,
cruelly wasted his earldom when he was away whose combined fleet, when it sailed from
on his Roman pilgrimage. Now, however, Orkney, is reckoned at 360 fighting ships,
he received Tostig kindly, gave him free quar besides transports, which swelled his force in
ters and provisions for himself and his men. ships to little less than a thousand, and in
Munch seeks the reason of this change of feel men to at least 30,000 men. In Orkney were
ing in the fact that Malcolm had just married left Queen Elizabeth and her daughters, and
Earl Thorfin of Orkney's widow, the famous now the fleet steered for Northumberland.
Ingeborg, Kalf Arni's son's sister, by which Off the Tyne, Tostig joined it, and did homage
alliance the Scottish King may have become to Harold as his liege lord. Sailing along
Northern in feeling; but in all likelihood the the Yorkshire coast, they landed in Cleveland,
reason of Malcolm's kindness may be found in or more properly Cliffland, and took hestages
the fact that Tostig, now an exile, was Eng from the people; next they made for Scar
land's enemy, and at that time all the enemies borough, where the burghers tried to defend
of England were welcome in Scotland. After the town, but the Northmen climbed the
this rather weak attempt to hamper Harold, steep scar on which the Norman castle now
Tostig refrained from acting any longer alone. stands, and, looking down into the burgh,
threw lighted fagots into it, which soon set was saved, and fled. As is 1ecorded in
the houses in a blaze. Then the townsmen Harolds-stikka :—
#' and swore fealty to Hardrada. In
ike manner all the sea-coast was subdued to
“Fallen they lay .
Deep down in fen, i.
the Humber's mouth. Sailing up the Hum Waltheof's followers,
ber with little opposition, he passed up the Weapon y-smitten,
Ouse as far as Riccal, a place about eight So that Norwegians,
English miles below York. Here he landed, War-loving wights,
Waded the water
and left his ships, and marched towards York On corses alone.” < *
along the river-bank. The Earls Edwin and
Morcar, who had gathered an imposing force, This signal defeat took place on Wednesday
were not slow to meet him, and the two the 20th of September. The pursuit lasted
till the remnants of the Earl's army got safe
armies met at Fulford, a village not two miles into York; but they were slain in numbers
from the city. Harold, like askilful tactician,
close under the walls. Marianus Scotus, a
drew up his forces so that his left, which was contemporary authority, reckons the number
also the strongest wing, leant on the river, of slain at a thousand
and the other, which was the weakest, on a laymen and one hun
swamp which lay on the right, along which site dred clergy. According to Bromton,” the
of this battle was well known three hun
ran a deep dyke filled with water. The Earls
came down along the river-bank with all Roman dred years afterwards. York itself, with its
their force. Harold's banner, the famous walls, was too strong to be taken at
a rush. Harold therefore reduced the coun
Landeyda, or “waster of lands,” fluttered on
the left wing, and the Earls threw themselves try round, and pitched his camp at a strong
on both wings. The result of their first on position near Stamford Bridge, which lies
slaught was a success. The Saxons under about seven English miles east of York, on
Earl Morcar attacked Harold's right with such the river Derwent. Here Tostig's help came
fury, that the Northmen who leant on the into play. He knew the country well, and
dyke, gave way, and the English pressed on the leading men in each district, and it was
no doubt by his advice that it was settled
after them, for they thought that the foe had that deputies from the whole shire should
made up their minds to fly. But when Harold
saw his men yielding their ground along the meet at Stamford Bridge on a given day, to
dyke, he caused the trumpets to sound for give hostages for their good conduct to Ha
an onslaught, and made a charge with all rold, and thus secure his good-will and pro
the left-wing upon the English in his front, tection. The burghers inside the city soon
for while Morcar threw himself on the right, heard of this, and, not to be behindhand,
Edwin and young Waltheof had advanced sent messengers to the King's camp to treat
for a capitulation. Harold, who was now in
against the left. The charge was made with
high
a vigour that nothing could withstand. Ed had taken spirits, and who thought that his power
win's division was routed with great slaughter, fast hold of England, was willing
enough, and
and fled up the river-bank towards York, leav was agreed onSunday the 24th of September
as the day on which the terms
ing ghastly tokens of the fight behind them on of the surrender were to be settled. On that
the field, in heaps of slain and rills of blood. day, therefore, Harold, either with the whole
“Far and wide upon the plain, or part of his army, marched under the city
Food of wolf and bloody rain, walls, and held a meeting outside the city
Mingled all at once were found, with the burghers. At this meeting the
While the Vikings cleared the ground.” town's people bound themselves to find food
Having thus made short work of Edwin and for his army and to give five hundred hos
Waltheof, Harold faced half about, and threw tages as a pledge for good behaviour. These
himself upon Morcar's flank, who, in his Tostig chose, and we may be sure he selected
pursuit of the right wing, soon found those whose rank and position best fitted
himself between the Norwegians and the them to bind the rest. At the same time, as
Edwin and Morcar seem to have withdrawn
dyke. His fate was worse than that of his
brother. If the English had before fallen by from the city, and the Saxon cause in York
tens, they now fell by hundreds. Those shire was now at the lowest ebb, many waver
who escaped the sword were driven across of ers came in and joined the army of Harold
their own free will. These are the men
the dyke into the morass, which was so glut
ted with slain, that the Norwegians walked so common in every age who are ever ready
over it dryshod in pursuit of the English. to swell the ranks of the winning side, and
Among those that perished the Norwegians to whom fortune, with all their after-sight,
reckoned Morcar himself, but this was a mis sometimes brings stunning lessons. -
take, as we know from other accounts that he * Bromton in Twysden, p. 959.

WOL. XLII. N-14
"And now everything smiled on Harold. and bring him to battle. With him came
He and Tostig were certainly within the walls that redoubtable Thingmannalid, which was
of York on that Sunday, and we may con now at least amounted body, and with them
jecture took it formally into their possession, came also the king's body-guard, and gather
though it does not appear that the great ing strength as he went, he was followed by
body of the host ever entered the city. But the flower of the midland-levies. It is not
next day, on the Monday, there was to be likely that the force on the south-east coast
another solemn “Thing” or meeting, this which had been out so long to no purpose
time inside the city walls, when Harold was to during the summer, was called out again to
appoint new governors of the city, and deal march north. Thus it was that what with
out honours and rewards to those who, with his own body-guard, the Thingmannalid, and
Tostig at his elbow, he knew would be most the levies of the counties through which he
likely to do him good service. At the same passed, Harold Godwin's son reached Tad
time, his full peace and love was announced easter with great speed on Sunday morning,
to all the men of Northumbria, if they while his namesake and his brother were
would make common cause with Harold and still in York. Here he halted to muster his
Tostig, and follow them to the conquest of force and set it in array, and no doubt in the
the South. That night Harold would not course of that day his adherents in York
spend in York—a further proof, if any were and probably the remembrance of Tostig's
needed, that as yet the city was only formally tyranny was not yet worn out, and where he
his own. In the afternoon he withdrew, as had one follower Harold had thousands
was his wont, to his ships, proud and happy were well aware that their king was ready to
no doubt at the ease with which he had relieve them with a mighty host. However
hitherto fulfilled his purpose. He and his that might be, Harold Hardrada and Tostig
men could sleep with light hearts, for was had scarcely left the city when King Harold
not York and all Northumbria their own? Godwin's son entered it and lay there that
Yet beneath this seeming good-will in night, keeping strict watch and ward over
York lurked guile and treachery. We know the gates lest any inkling of his arrival
not what dreams Harold may have had that should be borne to the enemy's ships. This
Sunday night. Perhaps he was too weary scheme seems to have been completely suc
and excited to have any. But now was the cessful, and it speaks strongly for the ill-will
time for the “Fylgia,” the guardian spirit of borne by the people to the invader, that the
his race, to have warned him; if dreams fact of the march of a body of troops,
were ever any good. But Harold was “fey,” amounting to tens of thousands, should have
and “fey men nothing can further,” says the been kept a secret even for one night, when
roverb. Yet Tostig, wary as he was, might Qui Eburaci in autumno plus quam mille laicorum
£ warned him that Harold Godwin's son centosque presbíterorum bello occidit de Anglis.
was a dangerous foe, and that he was not Araldus vero. rex Anglorum cum septem acibus
likely to lose Northumbria without a strug (aciebus) belli statim pervenit, et cum Araldum
gle. Though they had not lost much time *mparatum absque loricis et ceteris ejusden rei in
venisset, bello occidit, mense Octobri Willihelmus
since they landed on the Wednesday, they vero quiet Bastart cum Francis intrant interim
had been off the Yorkshire coast for days. Anglos; quicum statim belio occidisset Araldum
Those landings in Cleveland, and that blaze regem Anglorum regit Anglos, Hoe anno cometae
which they had lighted in Scarborough, had stella visa est.” With regard to the large force
been a warning and a beacon to his brother, raised on these occasions, it must be remembered
that military service “fyrth" was the bounden duty
who, now that his fleet could no longer hold of every freeman. It formed the third of those
the sea, and William had not come, was inevitable duties for which no commutation was
ready for any enterprise. As soon as he allowed, and from which no class, not even the
clergy, were exempt. The two others were the
heard that his Norwegian namesake was off building and repairing of bridges, and the con
the English coast, he marched night and day struction offortifications: All together, they were
with seven bands of troops" to meet him, called “communis labor,” “generale incommodum,”
or “trinoda necessitas.” Whenever the King called,
* There can be no doubt of this. Marianus the owners of land were bound to follow him
Scotus, born in Ireland in 1028, and who died a against the common enemy, and thus even if Ha
monk at Maintz in 1082-8, has this entry in his rold had only left London with his own body
contemporary Chronicle, of which a splendid edi. guard and housecarles, together with the Thing
tion by Waitz, founded on a MS, partly in the auto mannalid, and raised the country as he went, he
raph of Marianus, at present in the Vatican, is to must have had a great force at his back by the
# found in Pertz. Collection, vol. v., "1066.– time he reached York. In the same way, after de
Hetvardus rex Anglorum plus 30 annis regnans, feating the Danes, and while he marched south
obiit in natale Domini. Araldus sibi-successit. again to meet William, he would not only have
Araldus autem, quiet Arbach (Harfagr?) vocaba started from York with a large force, but as he
tur, rex Nordmannorum minus mille navibus venit marched from London to Hastings he would have
mense Septembri, Anglicam terram regnaturus. raised Surrey, Kent, and Sussex as he went.
two mighty hosts lay within a few miles of could this be? Harold halted his men at
each other. once, sent for Tostig and asked what this
And now the fatal morning dawned. Early body of men might be who rode to meet
on Monday the 25th of September, Harold them. “If I must speak my mind,” said the
Hardrada was up and stirring. Before he Earl, “I think them likeliest to be foes, but
went to York he had to go to Stamford still maybe they are some of my kinsfolk and
Bridge to secure the hostages, which were to friends, who are coming to seek your friend
meet him there from the whole province. It ship and favour, and to yield instead faith
has been asked why the hostages were not and following.” “Let us wait awhile,” an
delivered in York, and why he went at least swered the King; “we shall soon see what
a round of fifteen miles before entering the they are.”
city. But it must be remembered that the They had not to wait long, as the nearer
arrangements as to the hostages had been they came the greater their number seemed
made before York made signs of surrender. to grow, and when one looked at them their
In distant parts of Northumbria it could not spears were as a mass of bristling icicles, that
be known that York had yielded; all that glistened in the sunbeams. When there was
was known was, that all who wished for the no longer any doubt, Tostig said, “Lord
Norwegian King's peace, and the terrible King, take now good counsel and wise coun
Tostig's peace, were to send hostages to sel, for there is no hiding it any longer.
Stamford Bridge. Perhaps, in our ignorance These are foes, and take my word for it, the
of many particulars of those times, the bridge King himself leads yonder host.” “And
over the Derwent, where the Romans had what counsel hast thou to give?” was Harold's
built a strong “station” on the great north answer. “First and foremost,” answered
ern road, might have been a well-known Tostig, “let us turn about with all speed and
solemn place of meeting, and hostages would make for our ships, to reach our arms and
hardly have been hostages unless they had friends, and let us then withstand them with
been formally delivered at that venerable all our might and main; and if we cannot
spot. It is not unlikely also that Harold, as rout them, let our ships be our shield, for in
the right bank of the Ouse was in the hands them these horsemen will have no hold on
of his enemies, had sent his ships lower us.” This was sound and good counsel, and
down the stream to the junction of Ouse and had Harold not been “fey,” he might have
Derwent, in which case he would not have listened to it, but his bold spirit was unused
had to make so great a round; but wherever to turn, and he could not brook the thought
his ships were, and for whatever reason, it is that his foemen should tell that Harold
certain that he marched from his ships that Sigurd's son had fled for fear from before
Monday morning to Stamford Bridge. them. But says the Saga, “All men say that
But, as though he were going to triumph was the best and readiest counsel that Earl
and not to battle, he went with only two Tostig first gave, when they saw the hostile
thirds of his force, one-third being left be host, to turn back to their ships; but because
hind under his son Olaf, the Earls of Orkney, none can further a man that is fey, they got
and Eystein the Gorcock, on the last of skathe from the rashness of the king. “Not
whom the command really rested. It was a so,” was Harold's reply to Tostig's good
lovely autumn day, and the sun, as it can be counsel. “I will try another plan. I will
sometimes in England, was blazing hot. The set our fleetest steeds under three of our bold
Norwegians, king and all, all “twice fey,” as fellows, and they shall ride as hard as they
they were going on a peaceful errand, would can and tell our men what is about to befall
not take their defensive armour. Even the
us; they will soon come to our help; for
King left his darling “Emma,” his supple these Englishmen will still have a hard tussle
byrnie, which clung to him like a “nurse,” ere they bring our heads low.” Have your
behind him, and like the rest went merrily own way, Lord,” said Tostig, “in this as in
on his way with shield and helm and sword, all else. I am not so much more eager to fl
or axe or spear or bow. So they marched than any other man, because I felt bound
without the least thought of danger till they when I was asked for it to say what I thought
reached Stamford Bridge. We hear nothing best to do.” First Harold made them set up
of the hostages, and perhaps Harold saw his banner, the Waster of Lands, borne by
nothing of them. But whether they came the faithful Frederick, and then he set his
or not, we know that Harold and his host host in array. . First he drew them up in a
had crossed the bridge, and got a little way long but not deep line, and then he bowed
beyond it, when all at once they saw the dust back the ends till they touched, so that the
whirling in the wind some way off, and shape of his array was a large close ring, with
among the dun eddy the blink of glistening an even front on all sides, shield locked,
shields and byrnies gleamed out. What against shield, with a bit of the rim lapping
-
204
*
England and Norway in the Eleventh Century. June,
over to the left. He knew that cavalry were Northumberland as thine own; nay, rather
wont to run a tilt at their enemy, and then than that thou shouldst not cleave to him, he
to fall back again, time after time, and that will give thee a third of all this kingdom.”
was why he chose that array. Had he lived “This is another kind of offer,” said Tostig,
in our days, he could not have thrown his “than that warfare and insult which I had
infantry, for he had few horsemen in his last winter. Had this been offered then,
host, into a hollow square with greater judg many a man would now be alive who is dead
ment. The King's body-guard, all picked and gone, and it would stand better with the
men, were to take their stand under his ban might of England's King. But now, if I take
ner within the hollow ring, and there, too, this bidding, what will my brother Harold
were to be the bowmen. Inside it, too, but offer to the King of Norway for his pains?”
apart, under a banner of his own, stood Tos “He has said something about that too,”
tig and his body-guard. He was to watch answers the horseman, “and what he will
the ring, and throw himself wherever any grant to King Harold Sigurd's son of Eng
part of it might be hard pressed. But those lish earth, is the space of seven feet and even
who stood outside in the array must fix the a little more, as he is said to be taller than
butts of their spears into the ground, and turn most other men.” “Go back,” said Tostig,
the heads towards the breasts of each horse “and bid my brother King Harold busk him
man who charged; those who stood in the to battle; the Norwegians shall have another
next rank must aim their spear-heads at the tale to tell him than that Earl Tostig parted
breasts of their horses, and mind and keep from Norway's King when he rushed into the
their points so straight that the onslaught thick of battle and warred in England. No!
might fail. Above all things, they were to we will all rather take one and the same
be steady, and take heed that the ring and counsel: to die with glory, or to win England
the array were not broken. with victory.”
Meantime the Saxon host drew nearer and So the horsemen turned about, and rode
nearer. It was, indeed, King Harold God back to the Saxon host. Then King Harold
win's son, with a force reckoned at twofold said to the Earl, “Who was this glibtongued
that of Hardrada; a gallant army both of man?” ... “”Twas Harold Godwin's son my
horse and foot. As they were still a little brother,” answered the Earl. “Too long
way off, but when all that passed between hath this been hidden from us,” burst out the
the hosts could well be seen, Harold Har King. “They had come so nigh our com
drada rode round his array to scan whether pany, that yon Harold ought never to have
it was drawn up to his mind. He was been able to boast of our men's death !”
mounted on a black horse, with a white blaze “You speak sooth,” was Tostig's noble retort.
on his forehead; and as he rode, his charger “It was an unwary step of such a leader,
stumbled and fell under his huge rider, throw and I saw well enough that it might have
ing him off forwards. That was a bad omen, been as you say. Then we had been two
but he had wit enough to turn it off by quot very different princes; he came to offer me
ing a well-known proverb which says, “A peace and great power, and I should have
fall is luck, if men are on a journey.” Harold been his baneman, had I told whom he was.
Godwin's son saw what had befallen the tall But I did as I did, because I would sooner suf
man on the black horse, and asked one of the fer death at my brother's hands than deal him
Norsemen, of which there were many in his his death-blow, if it must come to that.”
army, “Know any of you that tall man yon Harold Hardrada spoke no more to Tostig,
der, with the blue mantle and the gallant but turned away, and said to his followers,
helm, who just now fell from his horse?” “That was a nimble little man, but he stood
“'Tis the Northmen's king,” was the answer. well up in his stirrups.” With these words,
“A tall man and a proper man indeed,” said he went inside his array of shields, and as he
Harold; “but yet 'tis likeliest that his luck went he sang—
hath now left him.”
“Onward we go
Soon after, twenty horsemen, who were In battle array,
clad in byrnies, and whose horses' chests Byrnieless meeting *
were also covered with armour, dashed out Blue steel to-day:
from the Saxon ranks, and rode up to the Bright helms are blinking,
Norwegian army. Then one of them called But Emma I lack;
Our war-weeds lie wasted
out, “Is Earl Tostig in this host?” “There
Down by the sea-wrack.”
is no denying it,” was Tostig's answer; “here
he is, if you wish to find him.” Then the But Harold was a most critical skald, as we
horseman went on: “Harold thy brother have seen, and these verses, in the old simple
sends thee his greeting and this message: metre, were not to his mind. “No,” he said,
Thou shalt have peace and safety, and own “that was a badly made song; I must
sing another better,” and with that he by man. Nor were the footmen idle, for
sang they showered darts and arrows on their an
“Come! each warrior to the field; tagonists, who were overwhelmed on all sides.
Never creep behind your shield! But when Harold Hardrada saw his men fall
Where the onslaught rageth highest fast, he rushed into the very thickest of the
Odin's arm is ever nighest: fray, and tried with his huge strength to re
She, the maid that winneth battles," store by prodigies of valour the fortunes of
Bade me bear my head on high,
Where on brainpan sword-blade rattles, the day. Gathering a few chosen followers
There to win the day or die.” around him under his banner, he stood fore
When Harold ceased, Thiodolf his skald took most in the front of battle, cutting his way
onward through the Saxon combatants by
up the strain, and chanted— swift strokes on either hand, against which
“Though the King himself should fall— neither helm nor hauberk was of any avail.
God forfend—but God knows all
Never flying with disgrace Death or ghastly wounds were the lot of all
Will I leave his royal race; whom Harold's sword could reach, and to use
For the sun in upper air the graphic words of the Saga, “He strode
tNever shone on fairer pair; through his enemies as though he were wafted
Noble eaglets, breathing ire, on the wind.” All about him thought the
Worthy to avenge their sire.” English could never abide such a fearful on
Just before the battle began, Brand Gun slaught—tha t they must turn and fly. But
came
steinn's son, the Icelander, who alone of all now the wretched end of so much life
the King's body-guard had not left his byrnie and energy. As he stood thus bravely fight
behind him, pulled off his shirt of mail and ing, a stray arrow smote the Norwegian King
offered it to the King. But Harold would in the throat under the chin. The gigantic
not hear of it. “Thou art a brave fellow,” frame tottered, a rush of blood spurted out of
his "'t' and Harold Sigurd's son fell dead
he said, “but keep thy byrnie for thyself.”
And now the battle began with a charge of to earth. "He had got his seven feet of Eng
the Saxon cavalry on the serried ranks of the lish earth sooner than he thought, and to him
Norwegians. But brave as they were they who an hour or two ago would not have been
could do nothing against that bristling array satisfied with aught else than all England,
of spears. Round and round they rode to spy these few feet were more than enough.
Most of those who had followed him in the
out a weak spot in that ring of close-locked
shields. They could not even reach the Nor charge fell round about him, among the rest
wegians with their weapons, while horses fell the brave Brand, whose byrnie thus stood
and threw their riders, and many a saddle him in little stead. The rest retired beneath
was emptied by the bitter shafts launched at the banner Landeyda, which still flapped its
them by the bowmen within the ring. At raven wings aloft though its lord and master
last they gave up the attack, and rode sullen was dead. But the battle did not die with
ly back. Thus far Harold's tactics had served Harold. The loss of their King only mad
him well, the issue of the first onslaught was dened the Norwegians, and the battle raged
all on his side; and so little harm had been with the wildest fury. Tostig, whose con
done to him and his men, that even if the duct this day might have redeemed the sins
charge had been renewed, he might have of a whole life, as soon as he heard that
kept his enemy at bay till the reserve had Harold was slain, and saw his banner still
come up from the ships. But this battle, ac fluttering, flew to where it was, stood under
cepted in the rashness of the leader, was lost it, and egged on the warriors to revenge their
by the foolhardiness of his men. Harold's King.
tactics, in fact, were before his age. They But flesh and blood are only capable of a
were too good for the discipline of his troops. certain amount of exertion, and as the battle
As soon as the Norwegians saw the Saxon had lasted long, both sides began to flag, and
horse riding away, without waiting to see at last the fight died away altogether, each
whether it was a retreat or a feint, they broke host holding its ground, and taking breath for
the rule which of all others they had been a fresh struggle, grimly eyeing the foe. This
ordered to keep. They broke their ranks, breathing-time Harold Godwin's son used in
unloosed the magic ring which had hitherto £ to put an end to the conflict, by offer
been their safety, and rushed in pursuit of ing the Norwegians, as well as Tostig, peace
their foemen. Harold Godwin's son now saw and safety. But it was too late. Though
that the game was in his hands; he charged they knew their hopeless state, the Norwe
at once with all his cavalry on the confused gians one and all shouted out that they would
mass of the enemy, and rode them down man sooner fall all dead, one across the other, than
make any terms with Englishmen. With
* The Valkyrie. that they raised their battle-cry afresh, and
fell on the foe for the second time. Tostig brave and ready man. He had the luck to
still led them bravely on, but at last he too catch a horse, on which he rode towards the
fell in the thickest of the fight, and all seem fleet, sword in hand and helmet on head, but
ed over. with no clothing save his shirt and drawers;
Not so; just at the last moment, up came for in the heat of battle he had thrown away
the long looked-for relief from the ships, under the rest of his attire. But as the sun fell the
Eystein the Gorcock. Both he and his men evening grew cold, and it got colder still
wore their byrnies, but the haste with which when a strong breeze got up. Styrkar was
they had marched along that hot afternoon in a fair way to freeze when he met a peasant
made them scarce fit for battle. However, driving a cart, who was clad in a long and
at it they went with a will. Eystein seized well-stuffed coat of sheep-skin. “Wilt thou
Landeyda, and bore it bravely on. At first sell me thy skin-coat, husbandman?” asked
their eagerness to revenge their King and Styrkar. “Not to thee, if I know it,” was
companions made them forget the toil of the answer; “thou art a Norwegian, I know
their march; and their first onslaught in this thee by thy tongue.” “Well,” answered
third battle was so violent that they well-nigh Styrkar, “if I am a Norwegian, what wilt
put the Saxons to flight. This was known in thou do?” “I will kill thee,” was the clown's
after times as “the Gorcock's Bout,” after reply; “what a pity, now, that I haven't a
their valiant leader. But at last toil and weapon at hand.” “Oh !” said Styrkar, “but
heat, and the superior numbers of the Sax if thou canst not kill me, let us see if I can
ons, who much overmatched them, told terri kill thee,” and with that he brandished his
bly on the thin ranks of the Norwegians. sword, and gave him such a stroke across his
Many too fell and died without a blow, slain neck that off spun his head. Then Styrkar,
y sheer wrath and weariness. And so the stripped him of his coat of skin, put it on,
valiant Eystein was cut off, with most of his jumped on his horse, and rode down to the
men, and Harold Godwin's son could call the strand.
day his own. The battle had lasted from the So triumphed Harold Godwin's son over
forenoon till late in the afternoon, and then his foes. His victory was complete. By far
what was left of Harold Hardrada's host the greatest part of the Norwegian host,
turned and fled for the ships, hotly pursued their King, and almost every one of his great
by the Saxons, who, even before they crossed chiefs, and though last, not least, that unruly
the bridge, overtook them, and drove many spirit, his brother Tostig, had fallen that day.
to meet their death by drowning in the Der For generations, the field of battle was white
went. Yet at the bridge they seem to have with unburied bones. The victory was dearly
made a stand, where a few brave men held it bought, for many Saxons, high and low, had
against the Saxon host till their flying com fallen; but what matter; it was a brilliant
panions had got a fair start for the fleet. victory, and such victories are not won with
When all had got over, it was held, to his out blood.
immortal honour, by a nameless Norwegian Nor were the Saxons satisfied with having
who, standing there on the narrow bridge, driven the enemy off the field. They fol
kept it against the whole Saxon host, more lowed them hotly to their ships, aud destroy
than forty of whom fell by his hand. Against ed so many of them that there were few left.
his good byrnie neither javelins nor arrows The writer of the Life of Edward the Confes
availed anything, and at last, in admiration at sor, who cannot bring himself to write fully
his prowess, the Saxons offered him peace; of the struggle between his two Lords Harold
but he only smiled disdainfully, and conti and Tostig for fear of hurting the feelings of
nued his defence till three o'clock in the after their sister, his patroness, only alludes to the
noon. Then one of the Saxons launched a battle at Stamford Bridge; but he does so in
boat, and slipped down the stream under the words full of meaning as to the utter defeat
bridge, and there, through the chinks in the of the foe. “Who shall sing,” he says, “of
planks, he thrust up a spear under the gal vast Humber swelling like a raging sea as
lant man's coat of mail into his entrails, and the namesake Kings met; or how the waves
so slew him. That man saved many lives, of the sea were red with barbarian blood for
but his own name is lost. many a mile, while the North wept at the
After the leaders were slain, and the array direful deed?” Who shall describe “the
thoroughly broken, all that was left for those Ouse forbidden to flow by corpses?” So
who were still alive was to make the best of
their way to their ships. One by one they * Here are the original lines, for sometimes the
writer of this interesting Life breaks into verse:
stole back in the dusk of that September day “Quis canet aequoreo vastam fervore tumentem
to find a fleet with scarce a man to guard it. Humbram congressum regibus aequivocis?
Among the few chiefs who outlived that Sanguine barbarico per milia multa marinos
bloody day was Styrkar the Constable, a Tinxisse fluctus, flente Polo facinus.”
. . also one text of the Saxon Chronicle: “On gathered a great host, and came against him
that day there was very stout fighting on at the hoar apple-tree, and William came
both sides. There was slain Harold Har upon him unaware, ere his men were set in
fager [Hardrada], and Earl Tostig also; and array. But the King for all that, fought
the Northmen, those of them that were left, stiffly against him, with those men who would
took to flight, and the English behind them stand by him, and there was great slaughter
hotly slew them, until some of them came to on either side. There was slain King Harold
their ships; some were drowned and some and Earl Leofwin, his brother, and Earl
were burned, and so perished in divers ways Gurth his brother, and many other good
that there was little of them left; and the men, and the French were masters of the
English were masters of the field of carnage. battle-field, as God granted them for the sins
Then the King gave ‘peace’ to Olaf the son of the people.”* So fell on the day of St.
of the Northmen's King, and to their Bishop, Calixtus, : 14th, King Harold God
and to the Earl of £ and to all those win's son, and there no doubt fell with him
who were left on board the ships; and then the flower of the Anglo-Saxon soldiery. No
they fared up to our King, and swore oaths nation could have withstood such slaughter
that they would ever keep peace and friend. of its bravest sons, as befell England twice
ship towards this land, and the King let them within three weeks in that fatal autumn of
fare home with twenty-four ships.” They 1066. The English loss in those two battles,
came with almost a thousand ships great and the first at Stamford Bridge on the 25th of
small, and they left with twenty-four. Too September, and the last at Hastings, on the
truly had the dismal visions of the night 14th of October, cannot be reckoned at less
been fulfilled. The wolf and raven had got than fifty thousand men; but even then the
ten a banquet such as few kings had ever nation might have rallied had it not been for
spread for them. Could any lesson be more that unlucky arrow which smote our Harold
striking than that taught to all intending in the eye, just as his gigantic namesake had
Vikings in Norway by the sight of these fallen by a stray shaft in the throat. As it
twenty-four ships sailing into the port which was, they had no leader; they were as sheep
they had so lately left, then a little squadron, without a shepherd, and after waiting in vain
but now the last remnant of a mighty armada? for a chief, they sulkily submitted to the
Even the body of their King they left behind Conqueror, who was too wise to drive them
them, and there it lay in English earth till to desperation till he had them more com
some time after, when King Olaf sent Skuli, pletely in his power. On the contrary, he
the son of Tostig, to beg his father's body swore on Midwinter Day, when Archbishop
from William the Conqueror. Ealdred crowned and consecrated him in
After chasing the fugitives to their ships, Westminster Abbey, that he would be a kind
Harold returned to York to celebrate his tri lord to them, and “govern this nation as well
umph. The battle of Stamford Bridge had as any king before him had best done, if they
been fought on a Monday, three clear days would be faithful to him.” +
before £. Day; and while he was
* This is the text of the Chronicle, as given in
busy burying his dead and counting his spoil, Cotton. Tib. B. iv. The “hoar apple-tree” where
among which was that huge weight of gold Harold mustered his men, was evidently some
which Harold Hardrada brought with him venerable tree, grey with years, and well known
from the East — a treasure so weighty that as a landmark.
twelve strong men could scarcely lift it—a + The following Genealogical Tables, which are
messenger, who had spurred in hot haste for the most part taken from Munch, will serve to
show the alliances and kinships which existed be
from Sussex, brought Harold word that on tween the ruling families of the three Scandina
Michaelmas Eve, September 28th, William vian nations. It will also be seen that they often
of Normandy had landed at Pevensea with intermarried with Russian and English princes and
60,000 valiant men. What follows is best princesses. It is curious to see how Tostig's son
Skuli founded a great family in Norway; while
told in the simple words of the Anglo-Saxon Harold Godwin's son's daughter Gytha became the
Chronicle :—“Then came Earl William of ancestress of Russian Grand-Dukes. We are also
Normandy into Pevensea on Michaelmas justified in supposing that Wulfnoth the “Child."
Eve, and as soon as ever they got over, they was of Royal descent; for that title, like Enfant de
built a castle at the port of Hastings. Then France, was only bestowed on those who claimed kin
ship with the ruling race in England. It is this title
this was told to King Harold, and then he “Child” to which Edward the Confessor alludes in
his letter to Magnus the Good, when he says that
And a little further on his only title was “that of a swain of noble birth.”
This letter is only known to us from the Scandina
“Vel Wusam vetitam corporibus fluere,”— vian Sagas, and the writer has evidently translated
where Mr. Luard reads “busam vetitum,” and the Saxon “cild” by its Norse equivalent, “swein."
where the ignorant scribe has mistaken the Anglo But if Godwin could claim kinship with the Kin
Saxon v for a b. of Wessex, his sons were doubly royal. Their
But our purpose here has been to write and though that title still clings to his name .
not so much of Harold Godwin's son, or his in history, his people acknowledged after his
enemy William, as of Harold Hardrada and death the greatness and firmness of his cha
his invasion. Luckier than his namesake, he racter, which procured them the peace for
left his kingdom to his children, and the which Norway was famous in the days of
Norway which he had wooed and won so his son Olaf the Quiet. Some time after the
sternly, enjoyed after his death unwonted battle of Stamford Bridge, most probably in
£ In securing her that blessing, Harold the year 1069, when William was more
ardrada had the greatest share. He com firmly seated on his new throne, and the
£ what Saint Olaf had only begun, and peaceful policy of King Olaf was well ascer
he succeeded where his half-brother failed. tained, messages of friendship passed between
He broke the haughty spirit of the chiefs by England and Norway, and then it was that
his iron will, and stamped out the sparks of Skuli, the son of Tostig, who was called King
that unbridled liberty, which, if uncontrolled, Olaf's foster-child, was sent from Norway to
would have made all government impossible. ask the Conqueror for Harold Hardrada's
Though called “The Stern” in his lifetime, body. The prayer was granted, and then all
mother Gytha's grandfather, Styrbjörn, was a Swedish prince, and her grandmother Thyra was sister of
Harold Bluetooth, King of Denmark, Though they were not legitimate heirs to the English crown so
long as Edgar Atheling was alive, they were still of the blood-royal of England on their father's side,
while on their mother's they were akin to the kings both of Sweden and Denmark. An additional
proof of what modern German jurists would call them, ebenbürtigkeit, may be found in the fact that a
Grand-Duke of Russia chose his wife from their family, when its fortune was at the lowest ebb —
RAGNAR LODBROK'S TREE IN SWEDEN AND DENMARK.
RAGNAR ": d. about 890.
Björn Ironside, km. of Sweden. Sigurd Snake-eye, kiss of Denmark.
Eric, King of Sweden. Hardicanute, the Dane King.
Aunund or Emund, King in Upsal. Gorm (Gudrum) the Old, d. 936.
Eric Emundson, d. about 906. "Harold Bluetooth. d. Nov. 1,986;
m. Gyrida, Styrbjorn's sister, in Jomsborg.
Björn, the Old, d. about 956, sworn Forkbārā, a Feb. 8, 1914:
| m. (1.) Gunnhild (2.) Sigrida, the Haughty,
| I daughter of Boleslav. widow of Eric Winfight,
Olaf Eric Winfight (Sigrsall), King of Sweden.
King of Sweden and
Denmark, d. 995: m. Sigrida, Canute the Old, Astrida, ". of
the Haughty. d. Nov. 11, 1085 * - Earl Ulf.
- - *m. (1.) Emma. (2.) Alflva.
Björn or Styrbjörn, “Strife- Olaf Bosom King (Skotko- | |
ear," Lord of Jomsborg, nung) or Lap King, d. 1021. I | - #
d. 985; m. to Thyra, daughter Hardicanute, Sweyn, Harold Harefoot,
of Harold Bluetooth. d. 1042. d. 1086. d. 1040.
Thorgils Crackleleg
(Sprakalegg.) | I |
| Astrida. m. to Aunund Jacob, Ingigerda. m. to
| | | Saint Olaf. King of Sweden, Jaroslav, Grand
Earl Ulf, d. 1027; Gyda; m. to Earl Björn. | 1052. Duke of
£ to : *: # Ea | Ulfhilda. Russia.
weyn Fork- ngian rl Sigurd of -
beard's daughter. N'd

(Shakspeare's
Siward), d. 1057.
|
Sweyn Ukon.
King of Björn, * Asbjörn.
Denmark; m. several times, by Sweyn God
and at last to Elizabeth, win's son, 1049.
Harold Hardrada's widow.
THE ANGLO-SAXON TREE.
ETHELRED THE UNRRADY, d. 1016: Wulfnoth the Child.

m. Emma ".
Normandy. Earl Godwin d. 1055; m. Griha or Gida, Earl Ulf's sister.
- |
| |
Edmund Ironside, * Confessor, *: H." s". Earl * Gurth. Wulf.
d. 1016. King. m. to the King, d. 1066. d. 1066; noth.
k 1042-Jan. 1066. Confessor. m. to Judith
Edward Atheling. Gytha: of Flanders.
| No children. 7m. to |
* * V#, Skuli.
E.
dgar Atheling. £r. - ran
Duke of Numerous
in Scotland, 1093. Russia. descendants
in Norway.
1865. JPopular Religious Literature. 209
that was left of that bold and politic prince ART. V.—1. Heaven our Home. Edinburgh.
was disinterred, put on board ship at Grims 2. Life in Heaven. By the same Author.
by, borne to Norway, and at last buried at 3. Meet for Heaven. Do.
Drontheim. But if his heart was with his 4. Our Companions in Glory. By the Rev.
treasure after death, his spirit must have J. M. KILLEN, Author of “Our Friends in
lingered in England, for it is expressly said Heaven.” Edinburgh.
that all that huge hoard of gold for which he 5. Tracts. By the Rev. C. B. TAYLER. Re
had toiled so hard became the spoil of the ligious Tract Society.
Conqueror. Harold Hardrada was fifty-one 6. Tracts. By the Rev. J. C. RYLE.
years old when he fell. He was still fair of 7. The Barham Tracts. By the Rev. AsH
face and strong of body, of most majestic ToN OxENDoN. London.
mien, to which his enormous stature con 8. The Earnest Communicant. Do. do.
His hair and beard 9. The Pathway of Safety.
tributed not a little. Do. do.
were light-brown; his hands and feet, though
large, were well made. He, too, like his ALL human things are still, in a certain
nephew Magnus, and like the meek Confes sense, if not quite in the Pythagorean, “re
sor, was “a royal man,” and, like his nephew, solvable by numbers.” If we would under
he had but one blemish, in that one of his stand the great motive powers of any age, if
eyebrows was higher upon his brow than the we would know how our fellow-men at any
other. So there at Drontheim those tall given period of time have been used to live,
bones were laid by the side of St. Olaf, and and feel, and act, we must have recourse to
Norway had rest for seven-and-twenty years. statistics—the “old lamp,” rusty and unat
furt. tractive-looking, which, when brighter guides
would fail us, can lead us through many an
THE YOUNGLING TREE IN NORWAY.
HALFDAN WHITELEGs, d. 710.

|
Eystein Fret, d. about 736.
Halfdan the Mild, King of Westfold, d. about 780.
Godfred, King of Westfold, d. 810.
Halfdan the Black, King in Agdir, Westfold, etc.. d. 890.
Harold Fairhair d'. hinn Harfagri).
| |
m. (1.) Ragnhilda (3) Svanhilda. (4.) Ahma. *
(5.)
$ Jutland.
Eric *. Olaf King in
“the *: , 934.
Björn the Chap
man, King in
s' Hacon the Good,
King of Norway, Westfold, d. 927. mihn.

d. 950; m. Goun Tryggvi King in of Norway, d. 961.
hilda. #
the Bay, d. 968. Godred, kins
of Sigurd s: King
| Westfold, d. 963. n Ringerike,
d. 965, Harold Olaf Tryggvason, d d. 1018.
Grayfell, King King of Nor- Harold Graenski, |
of Norway. way, d. 1000. d. 995. Harold Hardrada
| (Hinn Hardradi),
Olaf the Saint. d. 1066.
King of Norway, |
d. 1030. *. (' Eliza
| eth.
| | (2.) to Thora.
m, (1.) Alfhilda, (2.) Astrida,
Saxon Slave Girl. daughter of Olaf,
p King.
Magnus the Good, |
King of Norway Ulfhilda.
6:”
T H E R U S S I A N T R E E.
RUrio THE WikiNG.
via": d. 1015.
Jaroslav, 1054; m to Ingigerda, Olaf the Bosomking's daughter, in Sweden.
Elizabeth : Ellisif. Vladimir, d. 1052. Wsevolof, Grand bat. in Russia,

d. 1093.
| |
m. 1. *** 2. about 1067, to Vladimir, 1125; m. to Gytha,
Hardrada. Sweyn, Ulf's son daughter of King Harold,
| King of Denmark. Godwin's son.
Inglgerda and Maria. | Mstilaf or Hank b. 1075, Grand
Thorgils, Prince in
Russia. Duke, 1125, 1132.
210 Popular Religious Literature. June,
intricate passage of thought, and admitus into the Pilgrim missed in the first outstart of his
many a richly stored chamber of feeling. If immortal journey, hard to find, apt to be ob
to know the number of marriages taking place scured. Man upon such a path is thankful
within a certain year leads us to an estimate for small helps, glad of the glowworm's ray, of
of the existing amount of national prosperity, the rushlight in some distant cottage. And
so from the number and character of books in the very titles of the books now before us,
sold within any given period, may we predi. we may discern the voice of our common hu
cate that period's leading tendencies. For to manity, which says:—“Who will show us
few books, as to few men, is it given to com any good?”—of humanity, which “can recog.
mand the age they appearin. Of the myriads nise, even in an age of material prosperity
which have their “run,” and are read by those like our present one, that this desired good,
who run along with them, it may be safely this coveted gladness, is not to be sought for
affirmed that they are carried onwards less by in the increase of corn and wine and oil, were
strength of inward impetus, than by force of these never so abundant, but to be found in
outward stress and pressure. “The wind had the deepened sense of God's goodness, in the
bound them up within its wings;” and, by clearer revelation of his Spiritual Presence:”
fixing our eyes upon their flight, we may learn “Lord, lift Thou up the light of thy counte
what way the wind is now setting, Viewing nanee upon us.” -
things in this light, we may find sermons and Literature of this class, it is evident, must
stories in advertisements, and discover a deep not be measured by the canons of ordinary
significance in the announcements now greet criticism. Schiller has told us that a direct
ing us from the cover of every periodical:object in writing is fatal to a work of high
imagination; but of books like these the aim
HEAVEN oUR HoMR, 89,000 copies. is the very life, and soul, and strength; but
MEET For HEAVEN, by the Author of “Heaven
our Home,” 23,000 copies. for it they would not have been written at all,
LIFE IN HEAVEN, Do., 15,000. so that the question of their claims and merits
is chiefly one of fitness and acceptability.
Thus, even in our work-day world, wherein These are books written to a certain end ; do
it is often hard enough to find the meat whichthey meet it? They are addressed to a given
perishes, in our modern scientific world, which
area of intelligence; do they tell within that
furnishes so many popular treatises on As. area? Do they, in short, hit their mark or
tronomy, it seems that there is a great num miss it? And while we keep these distinc
ber of persons who do not so entirely live by tions in view, we must none the less bear in
bread alone, but that a book about Heaven mind that the poem or story addressed to the
will interest them !
uneducated or partially educated mind, with
Let us make every reasonable deduction a directly religious purpose, has its own pecu
from the enormous sale of books of a decid liar standard of excellence, even of perfection,
edly religious character; let us allow for the and that this standard has been reached, not
certainty of Sunday coming once in every only by masters of popular writing like Bun
week, and bringing with it £ of leisure yan and De Foe, but in days more near our
which passes over more comfortably with a own, and by voices whose slenderer compass
book in the hand than without one; let us has been so truly pitched within their own li
concede that many of these books are read up mits, as to have awakened deep vibrations.
on the opus operatum principle by simple: It would be easy, for instance, within the
minded persons to whom one “good book” is, range of lyric narrative, to find a poem which,
in a true and literal sense, “as good as ano considered as a poem, surpasses Mrs. Sewell's
ther, if not better;” let us even grant that in popular ballad, “Mother's last Words;”
many places these books are probably not hard to find one so completely answering the
read at all, but that the prettily bound, gilt end for which it was written, so fraught with
edged volume, given as a parting memento, the secret of true pathos—that which grows
or sent as a far-off remembrancer, is kept out of the very nature of the things it deals
thenceforth by its owner as a sort of literary with, the pathos that is entangled and involved
and spiritual amulet, to be looked at rather in life, the sadness of the streets, that comes
than looked into; let us allow for all this, and across us in the cracked tones of the ballad
we shall still find, in the hold which religious singer, in the bare feet of the forsaken child.
literature has upon the less educated portion We have seen a class of adult criminals so
of the community, the revelation of a deep sunk in the strange apathy habitual to those
and true devotional instinct. Man loves his in whom the moral sense has lain even from
home, and loves to hear about the way to it, the infancy as an unquickened germ; so stolid
ath which the vulture's eye hath not known.
he steps to Heaven, though marked out '. * See, as of kindred merit, a colliery tale in verse,
God himself, have been ever like those whic Perils in the Mine, by Francis Wilbraham.
1865. -
Popular Religious Literature. 211
and indifferent, that the voice of instruction it; it is a mode of viewing things which may
and warning seem to pass through them to the easily degenerate into a sort of elaborate tri
blank wall beyond; we have seen such a class fling, yet in skilful hands it is capable of hu
roused, interested, awakened to life, to intel mour, tenderness, and allegoric point, and is
ligence, to affection, through the mere read evidently rich in the same power of detecting
ing aloud of this simple little story. We have the close yet obscure affinities between natu
known them follow its course with eager, at ral and moral life which makes the strength
tentive eyes, with broken exclamations, with of our most famous essayists, which gives the
sobs, with floods of tears, as if there lay with charm to our most sweetly moralizing old
in it some spell, with power to restore them, English songs.
were it but for a moment, to their share in all But with a yet stronger hold on the popu
that is most holy and tender in our common lar heart than these, and filling a far wider
nature. -
space in it, comes the religious story of fami

Popular religious literature has then its true liar life, of which the narrative is, as it were,
rovince, its lowly, its enduring triumphs. It the woof and web, out of which, with more
is something surely to win entrance into or less of skill, the moral is thrown like the
hearts at which Shakspeare would knock in pattern in damask or brocade. It is perhaps
vain, something to be the treasure of the poor scarcely possible to over-estimate the attrac
man's little shelf, the solace of his heavily tion of such stories for the partially educated
burdened heart; to be, as is the case with mind, to overstate the charm of finding the
more than one of these that we could men attention powerfully engaged, the hidden
tion, the only book, except the One Book, for springs of feeling touched, dormant sensibili
which the dying care. It is something to be ties awakened, the heart, the memory, the
printed out in large text-hand, as we have seen imagination taken captive in turn, and not
the hymn, “I lay my sins on Jesus,” and let go until each has been blessed. In the
firmly pinned upon the pillow of a dying fac last generation, Mrs. Hannah More and Mrs.
tory woman, “so that she might be sure it Trimmer were unrivalled in a homely and
was always there,”—even as a hand holding persuasive mode of story, or sometimes nere
out a leaf from the Tree of Life, as a light dialogue writing, which struck home some re
held out by Christ himself above the dark, ligious truth, or some point of cottage eco
thickly closing waters. nomy, as straight as the arrow labelled “for
So that, if in the generality of the works Philip's right eye.” Of the same date, and
now before us we are struck by a prevailing of kindred excellence, were some tracts, also
flatness, monotony, and want of feature, it is by a lady, which enforced an important
not because the literature they belong to lacks branch of social science, connecting the du
its undying classics, and these of various ties of Saturday with the privileges of Sun
modes of excellence. First, and never with day, in two admirable stories, now perhaps
out its charms for minds of a certain order, forgotten, called The Last and the First Day
comes the direct religious allegory, of which of the Week. Then, as belonging to a more
the Pilgrim's Progress is the immortal re spiritual and also more poetic region, came
resentative; then, closely allied with the al Leigh Richmond's still unforgotten Annals of
egory, and awakening the same sort of inter the Poor, a work, in its own line, of genius,
est, though by a less sustained and artificial where clear expositions of evangelical truth
method, comes an order of writing in which are set into sweet and simple narratives,
we know no such master as a writer, who, which in their turn are framed in descri
under the signature of Old Humphrey, fur tions of the beautiful scenery of the Isle
nished the Religious Tract Society with a of Wight," exquisitely harmonized in tone
number of beautiful little volumes, stored with and £ with the human interest of the
“hints, observations, thoughts for the thought stories. We know few passages more pa
ful, etc.” The secret of this mode of writing thetic than the visit of the good clergyman
is a very simple one, enabling its possessor to to the young cottager, where he finds the
turn every passing incident to some moral dying little girl asleep, with her hand lying
and spiritual capital; it lays all the events of on the open Bible, her finger pointing to the
life under contribution—a paper of flower words, “Lord, remember me when thou
seeds, a passing regiment of soldiers, some comest into thy kingdom;” or few scenes more
chance observation overheard in the streets, touching than her last affectionate parting
such as, “So he died poor after all,” the far with this, her soul's beloved friend and teacher;
off sound of the woodman's stroke—every her sudden, sweet reply when asked by him
thing furnishes its contingent. Here the sub in the course of a religious conversation,
ject is taken up as if it were a little child set * This scenery is also associated with Adams's
upon the knee, caressed and played with till beautiful and touching allegory, The Old Man's
its very heart is coaxed, perhaps teazed out of | Home.
212 Fopular Religious Literature. June,
“What is the meaning of the word gospel? often, we may say, its transposition out of the
* Good news.
* Good news for whom?
words of the Bible into language as far re
“For wicked sinners, sir. moved from that used in ordinary life as it is
“Who sends this good news for wicked sin from that “large utterance” upon which our
ners? great English writers have set their enduring
“The Lord Almighty. impress of power and beauty. And as we
“And who brings this good news? glance over this wide, yet barren region, we
“Sir, you brought it to me.” cannot help asking, whether the well-inten
These books are, however, of the past, as far tioned persons, through whose agency the
as such books can belong to it; in the present press and Post-office are now flooded with
day, first, or we should rather say, as far as tracts, intended to awaken the ignorant
our own experience goes, alone in this walk and hardened—the people who thrust these
comes the venerable C. B. Tayler. To turn missives underneath doors, or deal them about
from the ordinary range of religious tracts to like cards in second and third class railway
one of his, is like meeting with a living flower carriages—do not altogether overrate the
in a hortus siccus, or seeing the handwriting effect of reading of any kind upon the class
of a beloved friend greet us from among a in question. People who read seldom, and
bundle of circulars. In these stories, the with difficulty, take in so little of what they
deep and intricate spiritual processes of read, that all experienced teachers of the
awakening, repentance, and the turning of poor are accustomed to read aloud to them
the whole heart to God, are so connected whatever they wish to enforce and to explain.
with our present life, and its familiar aspects We have heard a tolerably intelligent adult
of good and evil, that as the narrative goes class read verse by verse some part of the
on they seem to be disengaged from it, touch Sermon on the Mount, or one of the simpler
after touch, as naturally as the flower unfolds Parables, with fixed and even painful atten
from its sheath. Mr. Tayler is at home with tion, who, when examined upon what they
the poor man's heart and hearth-stone; great had been reading, were unable to give any
in “interior” pictures; he can not only by rational account of it, or even to answer the
a few strokes bring before us the farm-house, simplest question connected with it; they
with “all things in order stored,” the com had, in fact, been construing the lesson, so
fortable cottage, the public-house, and the
gin-palace, but admit us to what is passing
engaged with the but £ familiar types
before them, that they had never bestowed a
within the minds of their inmates and fre thought upon the thing they signified, or
quenters; he can show us those deep things entered into the sense of what they had been
of man's heart and spirit, which it is given reading. It is idle, therefore, to attribute, as
to few to look into, to still fewer to portray. many of these tracts do, amazing results to
Three of the most perfect of his stories, the casual reading of a tract by some lost
“The Bar of Iron,” “The Wessel of Gold,” and abandoned sinner. It is by “livin
and “The Password,” are represented as epistles” only, speaking through the eye '
being true in their leading facts; but even voice and soul, that such hearts are ever
were it not so, they have a wider, even a reached. Judging from all we have known and
universal, truth to boast of —they are true to observed, we should say that there is nothing
nature. The excellence of these tracts, as of for which such people (or indeed people inge
all that in literature is really admirable, is of neral) care so little as for a tract. Like good
a nature too inwrought and intimate to admit advice, the offer of it involves something of
of an easy separation from the whole to which the impertinence connected with the assump
it belongs. tion of a certain moral superiority, while its
No extracts, indeed, can give any adequate very appearance creates an unfavourable pre
idea of the charm and simplicity of Mr. Tay possession, as being neither pleasant to the
ler's writing; of the firm and tender hand eye, nor, except in a few rare cases, good for
with which he searches the deep original food, nor to be desired to make one wise. It
wound of our humanity— costs nothing to the giver, and bestows no
“With gentle force soliciting the dart.” pleasure on the receiver, because it shows
Stories like his are, as we have heard the nothing of love, or care, or individual selec
word pronounced by some of their readers, tion. We have seen very hardened women
“tracks,” leading surely into many a humble usefulness to the tracts and small religious books of
heart. We have yet to consider what may the Rev. Ashton Oxendon. They are clear, simple,
be called the tract proper, the page or few and evangelic, holding out the great truths of sal
vation with a firm grasp, drawing the reader's
pages of warning, exhortation, or direct ex heart towards them, as with a loving voice and
position of some passage of Scripture; * too hand. Mr. Oxendon has also the great merit of
writing in short sentences, short, like the Lacedae
*In this department we know nothing equal in monian swords, yet reaching to the heart.
1865. Popular Religious Literature. 213
overjoyed and tearful on receiving some forth and see them no longer rolling in their
pretty trifle as a parting remembrance from several orbits in which they have revolved. The
the lady who had been instructing them. angels of God, and the saints who will then be
in glory, will look forth and see the orbit dark
We have known such things as a pin-cushion, and deserted along which the bright sun once
needle-book, or small religious picture, trea travelled, while the poor sun himself is lying in
sured for years by such people, kept perhaps the grave of the original nothingness out of
only as a charm, but still kept through many which he arose, when at God's call he made his
long and evil wanderings, when a tract would appearance on the stage of existence, and took
probably have been torn up before they left his assigned place among the works of God's
the cell of their prison. hands. The maiden moon, in her quiet, pale
This is a digression, yet one which, it may serenity, which for nearly six thousand years
has been reflecting the sun's light, and has been
be hoped, will be pardoned for the sake of gliding along in her orbit, through the sky
its intimate connexion with the subject in amidst the music of the spheres,—that moon,
hand. It is not, however, the ignorant and which has so long, to the imaginations of the
hardened, but a more cultivated and spiritual poets of earth, appeared to be one of the bright
ly advanced class of readers, that are addressed est gems that gleam and sparkle upon the crown
in the books we now turn to. If our ears, that encircles the brow of old Night, will one day
be looked for and anxiously inquired after by the
in the region of the tract proper, have been countless assemblies who stand before the throne
unsoothed by of God; but she will have disappeared for ever.
“Aught of oaten stop or pastoral charm;” The stars are one day to fall from the firmament,
if we have thought that, under a literary and strew the plains of annihilation. This
earth, upon the surface of which so many of
aspect, all was barren, we shall see, in the the human family are living, in the bosom of
books now before us, Heaven our Home, Life which so many of the dead are now sleeping, is
in Heaven, and Meet for Heaven, the desert one day to melt, dissolve, and disappear, like
blossom into a strange luxuriance of words, snow from one of its mountain-summits when
as astounding, looked upon merely as a feat, the sudden thaw descends upon it. Say not,
as is any that legerdemain can boast of, and sceptic, that this cannot be."—(Life in Heaven,
the mere contemplation of which leaves the p. 10.) -
reader very much in the state of the honest Let no one wonder, after this specimen of
citizen in the Spectator, who, supping at amplification, that we should have three books
Vauxhall, saw the waiter cover his plate with upon the same subject. Why not three hun
slices of ham, without increasing the weight dred? What can be woven by the ell and
of it by half an ounce! There is something yard, may be easily made to extend over the
positively magical in the way in which, in mile and acre. Easy writing, however, it is
these books, words are piled upon words and well known, may prove uncommonly hard
sentences, after the manner of a nest of Ja reading. “What a tedious sermon Mr.
panese boxes, involved within each other has preached,” was an observation once made
without being in any way connected. Here on a Sunday's homeward walk, “and what a
the most everyday ideas are clothed in such
grandiloquent '' that we think that long one; I thought he never was coming to
an end?” “On the contrary,” was the more
they must be often, like Fuller's yeoman on critical rejoinder, “the end surprised me
a gala-day, “blushing at their own bravery;” greatly; there seemed no reason why it
and the most familiar truths are made to pass should not have gone on for ever.” Every
through a series of transformations under true composition, it is evident, contains with
which they must sometimes forget their own in itself the hint and prophecy of comple
origin and lineage. We are all, for instance, tion; its end is foreseen in its beginning.
acquainted with a certain sublime passage, But in such writing as we are now concerned
which tells us that upon a day known only with, there is no centre, no sequence, no prin
unto the Lord, “the heavens shall pass away ciple of natural cohesion; its architecture is
with a great noise, and the elements shall like that of a feverish dream, a complication
melt with fervent heat, the earth also and
the works that are therein shall be burned of never-ending stairs and galleries that lead
to nothing. And the subject of the books
up;” but let us listen to an improvement in question is, for such a style, a very happily
upon St. Peter:— chosen one, for the possibilities of heaven are
“The heavens are to be dissolved, the visible at once unbounded and undefined, leaving
heavens, the sun, the planets, the stars; these room for the hazarding of wide conjectures.
are one day, like the gas-lamps throughout the First, as to its geographical position, or, to
streets of a city when the morning sun looks out
upon its awakening inhabitants, to be blown out speak more euphuistically, “the exact locali
by the breath of Him whose omnific (!) word ty which heaven occupies in the great pavi
gave them existence. They will one day be lion of space,”we are told that “the Scriptures
missed, when the inhabitants of heaven look do not attempt to define to us the exact
*
region where it is situated; indeed,” the rich man weltering in a sea of liquid flame; the
author adds, with becoming diffidence, “I roaring and unquenchable flames of damnation
am not sure that they could have done so, on are blazing around him. He deliberately, and
account of the difficulties, familiar to the as a free agent, chose his eternal portion. I
hear his cry for help. Oh! it is a terrible
childish mind, introduced by the Copernican thought that even a God of mercy, whose love
system, which would make it, like Australia, is so great, and whose compassions are infinite,
at one time above our heads, at another be who has all power in his own hand, and can do
neath our feet.”—(Heaven our Home, p. 11.) as he will, cannot listen to his cries, cannot send
A little further on he tells us that those who him help, and cannot save him now.”
are in heaven possess a knowledge of it in It is but justice, however, to say that this
dependently of the descriptions of the Bible!! somewhat austere passage stands alone in the
a fortunate circumstance for these blessed three books in question; their tone, as re
spirits, as in another place it is stated, as an gards feeling, is kindly, Christian, and expan
absolute certainty, “that the redeemed from sive; they contain nothing to wound the
earth have left their Bibles behind them.” moral instinct, or to make the heart rise up
We have all seen old-fashioned maps, in which in sudden wrath; in this respect strongly and
the large blank spaces left in the interior of favourably contrasting with the general tone
Africa and other unexplored regions are re and feature of the class of literature they be
lieved by the drawing of a lion, an elephant, long to. In most books which are at once
or “a salvage man.” This hint has not been “popular” and “religious,” the crudity of
lost sight of in the present volumes, where theological speculation is so utterly shorn of
the vacuum left by the absence of specific data that harmonizing medium through which
with regard to a country from which no tra. spirits more comprehensive and hearts more
veller has yet returned, is filled, from time to tender have been used to contemplate the
time, by long imaginary conversations, first, things that the angels desire to look into,
between Jacob and Rachel, “two seemingly that to take up a tract is to be at once re
much attached saints;” between David and moved to some point, perhaps the very one
Jonathan; between Paul and Onesimus; for which Archimedes sighed, equidistant
broken sometimes by a rather diffuse mono from heaven and earth-how far from either
logue from some less sociable spirit, or pass it would be indeed hard to say!—where
ing, through the addition of a third, into earth, with all its warm and loving interests,
what would have been called in the last cen seems to have dwindled to a remote speck,
tury, “a conversation picture.” We are thus without our feeling ourselves one degree
introduced to Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, to nearer heaven. To say that these writings
Abraham, Job, and Lazarus (of the parable). show no sense of the beauty and glory of
And a little farther on we find Newton, God's visible creation, of the excellence of hu
Locke, and Bacon “seated in calm serenity man reason, of the worth and sweetness of
and interesting discourse," and next, as a con human affection, of the mystery, sadness, and
cluding triad, Milton, Cowper, and Pollok. complexity of this our mortal life upon earth,
Selection is indeed difficult amid “the barba. is to say little. Their want of sympathy with
ric gold and gems" with which these dis Man, even as regards the outward and mani
courses are strewn, Cowper, speaking of his fest trials of our common lot, their inability
former melancholy, says, “The horror of to enter into life's deeper perplexities, its
deep darkness descended upon me, which ap more searching temptations, its obscurer suf.
peared like the plumed hearse of a lost eter ferings; their imbecile ignorance of all that
nity, followed by all the stars of heaven in in our complex nature goes to make up the
black, and moving slowly and solemnly to springs of human motive and action, are so
wards me.” Here Abraham, seated with his palpable, as to have made us, in some cases,
friends under overarching trees, their eyes almost doubt as to whether they have been
again and again directed towards the great written by men at all; they bear not Caesar's
abyss that is stretching before them and be. image, nor his superscription, rather that of a
neath, remarks: steel pen, self-guided,—so grating is all, so
“Is it not the arrangement of a particular pro metallic, harsh, as if coming through “scran
vidence that has led God to place yonder awful nel pipes,” within which the still, sad music
hell full in the view of this glorious heaven? of humanity has never penetrated.
Jor the sight of what the lost are enduring makes The Rev. Mr. Killen, in Our Companions
the praises of heaven louder and sweeter. This in Glory (page 184), informs us upon what,
sight also is one of the subordinate means by to less learned persons, appear rather slender
which the inhabitants of heaven are established
critical data, that the children whom Jesus
in their eternal righteousness and obedience.
It is in the Lord Jesus, our new covenant Head, took up in his arms and blessed, were the
that we are to be supremely established here in children of believing parents:
the covenant of our God for ever, I see the “Christ does not say, "Suffer little children,”
-
1865. . JPopular Religious Literature. 215
but “Suffer THE little children, that is, such perseverance. It troubles him to find (page
little children, “to come to me and forbid THEM 199)—
not. The little children of His believing people,
then, are those of whom He speaks, and of them “That some should argue that God spared
alone. In Matt. xviii. 14, our Lord is pleased Nineveh solely on account of the hundred and
to assure us that “It is not the will of your Fa twenty thousand children it contained, when
ther which is in heaven that one of THESE little Jonah makes mention also of ‘much cattle' as
ones should perish.' What may be His pleasure a reason for that lenity; and the mention of the
with regard to the children of others He tells cattle is of itself sufficient to show the absurdity
us not; but of the children of His people He of drawing any conclusion from such a declara
most emphatically declares that ‘OF such is the tion with regard to the futurity of the creatures
kingdom of God.’” there spoken of Some,” he adds, “have
brought forward the case of the child whom
The Word of God contains some severe Uriah's wife bore to David as a proof of the
and awful denunciations against such persons salvation of all infants. Such must surely have
as shall at any time alter or pervert its ever forgotten that, notwithstanding the melancholy
lasting simplicity. We know not how these (!!) circumstances connected with its birth, yet
may be more surely incurred than by such a that child was the child of a true believer, and
wicked and unscriptural limitation of the bless is therefore an illustration of the truth, not that
all children are saved, but that the deceased in
ing, pronounced not upon this or that child, fants of believers are saved, in virtue of the
but upon Childhood itself, by Him who, “be gracious covenant God has established with
holding its innocency,” was pleased to make their parents, and notwithstanding the occa
that innocency a type of the regeneration sionally aggravated (l) sins of their parents
which is man's regained Paradise, and to say, themselves.'
“Except ye become as little children, ye shall The writer, however, who can speak of
in no case enter the kingdom of heaven.” adultery and murder in terms of such careful
“Some excellent persons,” the same author mitigation, reserves his severity for an offence
remarks further, “maintain that all children are committed by less conscious and responsible
saved, and deduce from the general benevolence agents. It is the being born into the world,
of the Deity, an argument to the effect that the and not what we may do when once in it,
punishment of little children is quite repugnant which, according to this theologian's view of
to the nature of Him whose very name is LovE.
What, however, is truly worthy of a Deity who the divine system of morality, constitutes the
is most holy and just as well as good, must be chief, original transgression, the “great of
determined, not so much by our fancies on the fence” for which all infants, saving the elect
subject, as by solemn and indisputable facts. ed few, are to be “punished.”
Now, is it not an awful fact that God has often “Let us not, then, be deluded for a moment
punished little children? Were not multitudes by the error that intants are poor little innocent
of infants drowned in the flood? Were not
creatures. So far from this being the case, we
little children burned with their parents in fire are assured that “they go astray as soon as they
and brimstone when God overthrew the cities
are born, speaking lies. [We have seen, alas,
of the plain? Did not a righteous and holy God in a day too fertile of them, many ‘Infant Phe
order the infants, as well as the adults, of the nomenons, but not one of this exact species, able
Canaanitish nations to be slaughtered by the to walk and talk so very soon!] Their mere in
Israelites? In the days of Ezekiel, when God fancy is no evidence of their purity, or security
determined to punish Jerusalem for her sins, was for their safety, for embryo wickedness is there;
not His command, ‘Slay utterly old men and they may not bave had time to commit any sin
young, both maids and LITTLE CHILDREN and ful acts, but they are partakers of a sinful nature,
women'? (Ez k. ix. 6.) If we see God thus Nor need it be argued that it would be unjust
punishing parent and child indiscriminately in in God to destroy these infant sinners. It would
this world, who dare blame him—seeing both be no such thing. As the offspring of a rebel
are depraved and fallen—should He, carrying subject, and as creatures who are themselves
out the same principle, think proper to punish
them in the world to come? All are children depraved by nature and rebellious at heart, Je
hovah might righteously consign them to hope
of wrath, and all, therefore, might righteously less misery; for as surely as the ferocity of the
be made amenable to punishment. ' State
tiger exists in embryo in its newly-born off
these things, however, not for the purpose of spring, so does deep depravity lie embedded in
saying what God actually does with the children the nature of every babe, and time alone is re
of the wicked in eternity—whether he punishes, quired for its manifestations in actual transgres:
saves, or annihilates them—but merely to show sion. As an order to root out and destroy all
what He might justly do, and to point out the the poisonous and pernicious members of the
danger of dogmatizing on so dark and difficult, a forest might be rightfully carried into effect on
theme.”
the youngest as well as the oldest individuals of
In spite, however, of this acknowledged the vegetable world, so the condemnation of
difficulty, the reverend gentleman continues Heaven against our race might justly have been
to labour his point with strong instance and have executed upon the entire of our species, so as to
embraced in its fell swoop the youngest
*The italics and small capitals so in the original. sprigs and buds, as well as the most fully de
f
veloped branches of the tree of our fallen hu a false and distorted view of the Divine cha
manity.” racter; and in the second of lowering the
Enough, however, of these atrocities. A standard of Christian morality through the
paper like the present affords little opening presentation of an utterly meagre and inade
for the consideration of the deep mysteries quate conception of Christianity itself.
which underlie all such questions as that of Now, the first of these charges, if we are
universal infant salvation; little space for the able to prove it to be a substantial one, in
inquiry as to how completely in the case of volves surely no light offence. Not long
those who die before they commit actual ago, we read an affecting account of how a
transgression, the hereditary taint of our na poor youth, blind and deaf-and-dumb from
ture may be considered to be taken away, so his birth, aided by the infinite perseverance
that when looked for it shall be found no of a kind teacher, had passed through a slow
more, by Him who in that nature once of. acquaintanceship with outward objects into
fered himself as a full, perfect, and sufficient the gradual conception of a great cause of
sacrifice, satisfaction, and oblation for the causes. This teacher was one night alarmed
sins of the whole world. Nor need we be by an unusual noise, and hastening to his
stow much comment upon the perverted logic pupil's room, heard, from his dark bed-side,
which would found upon the fact that the the strange heart-moving sound of a loud,
innocent suffer with the guilty in this world, uncouth voice, expressing over and over
an argument for their being punished (for again, “I am thinking of God; I am think
being innocent) in the after one, when the ing of God.” We are not set down as was
admitted fact that in a broken and disor this poor boy in the midst of a blank unin
ganized system they do so suffer, has fur telligible world, “without form and void,”
nished men like Butler and Paley with a to feel after God, if haply we may find him.
strong inferential evidence in favour of a Yet what “we think about God,” what idea
future all-compensating existence in a world each one of us, in the deep and ground of
“wherein dwelleth righteousness.” his heart forms to himself of the great Power
We are, however, as we have said, con who has called him out of nothing into con
sidering these writings less under a theo scious life and responsible action, must be to
logical than under a literary and human every rational being the most important of
aspect, and, looking at the foregoing extracts all ideas, a thought which influences every
in this view, we would especially dwell upon other thought. “The worth and excellency
their prevailing want of humanity, and their of a soul,” says Scougall, “is to be judged
utter deadness of sensibility to whatever is ten of by the object of its love,” and the charac
der and pitiful. We would draw attention to ter of worship and of worshipper alike, will
this, and also to a tone and manner of writ be ever found to depend upon the supposed
ing unspeakably coarse and flippant, we would attributes of the Being worshipped. It is
even say jeering, peculiar to this description the altar which sanctifies the gold; it is the
of religious tract, because they are class fea Object and not the sentiment of belief which
tures, marking more or less strongly our has power to purify and elevate the soul of
cheap devotional literature as a whole. the believer, and even the frankincense of
Looking at such books as literature, we faith and adoration, the costliest incense
should simply say with Dante— which can ascend from the spirit and the
soul of man, possesses no inherent virtue to
“Non ragionam di lor, ma guarda e passa.” save it from turning to its own decay. If
Their authors, considered as writers, have we turn to olden times, the average Greek
little, it is evident, to be answerable for; not seems to have been more religious than the
to them has been committed any ray or frac average Christian, his whole public and pri
tion of the vision and the faculty divine. Of vate life being so interpenetrated by a sense
insight, tenderness, of the charm that can of relation to the gods, that few transactions
allure attention, of the power that can en or events in either were unconsecrated by
chain it, they are alike guiltless; they are prayer. Every father of a family exercised
not in a literary sense accountable for even the office of a priest in his own house; yet
the keeping of the one talent; it is as teach Plato tells us that men who had private al
ers only that their true responsibilities begin; tars and sanctuaries grew more hardened in
and it is as teachers, as the self-constituted iniquity and all kinds of vice, by reason of
guides of the pious and unlettered poor, that the prayers and sacrifices through which
we have to lay to their charge more weighty they there believed themselves able to ap
offences than any which can be committed pease and propitiate the gods. And to come
inst taste or sensibility. It is in this pro to days more near our own, the Breton
vince that we hold them self-condemned, in wrecker, who asks for a “good shipwreck,”
the first place, of setting before their readers the superstitious peasant, who hangs up his
1865, Popular Religious Literature. * 217
votive offering in the chapel of our Lady of be removed and the other kindled ere the omni
Hatred, pray, it is probable, as sincerely as potent—the independent, can proceed in the exe
they pray erringly; even the poor African, cution of His purposes, is absurd. ‘If thou be
the most materialistic of all idolaters, be righteous, what givest thou Him? or what re
ceiveth He of thine hand?' (Job xxxv. 7.) Yet,
lieves in his fetish, his thing of brass or wood He ‘waiteth to be gracious. Why?
or iron; and of each one of these we may Not because He is under any obligation to
say, that “even as he thinketh in his heart, wait.—No such obligation exists. The law
so is he.” The heart grows up, the heart makes no provision for the thunderbolts of di
declines towards its Ideal, and the level of vine vengeance being averted from the man who
the worshipper's moral stature may always violates it, and truth cannot utter a single con
be taken from the standard at which his sideration that ought to impede the descent of
adoration is fixed. No greater injury can the curse now hanging over you, ready to ex
plode. On the contrary, the law saith, ‘The
then be inflicted on humanity than that of soul that sinneth it shall die. Justice said, ‘Cut
darkening or lowering its conception of that him down, why cumbereth he the ground?”
which is Divine; and foremost among the You cannot affirm that the law is aught but
blessings which we owe to Revelation, must good, or that justice demands what it has no
we place that of having raised and fixed the right to require. You cannot put your finger on
idea of God, of having shown us plainly of a single promise that you should be mercifully
the Father, a Father coming out to meet us. dealt with by God in your unbelief—yet, “He
waiteth to be gracious. Why?
The gospel in the person of Jesus Christ, “Not because he is unable to execute the pun
and in the deep utterances of the Holy Spirit, ishment you deserve.—See Proverbs xi. 21, 31;
has made known to us the mind and nature Job xxxiv. 22; Ezekiel xxii. i4. These passages
of God; it has set fellowship with this nature abundantly prove that “power belongeth unto
before us as the highest attainment of which God," power to repay vengeance to His enemies.
our own nature is capable; it has made eternal You surely do not doubt this. Think of the an
gels “reserved in chains under darkness to the
life to consist in the knowledge of God; it jndgment of the great day. Listen to the wail
has placed spiritual blessedness even here in of woe as it rises from human lips quivering in
a “partaking of the Divine nature;” it has the agonies of eternity, ‘I am tormented in this
given to faith its needed object, to love its flame!’ and then confess that though you have
ever-during stay in communion with a Being been spared till now, it is not because he whom
infinite not only in power but in goodness.you have offended has been at a loss for means
And what is there in the tracts now before to render you as miserable as you have made
us to answer to the idea of that which the yourself sinful—oh no! At his rebuke the earth
heart claims, which the gospel responds to, melteth trembleth.’ “As smoke is driven away, as wax
before the fire, so he could cause you to
the idea of one who “is a just God, and yet perish in his presence, yet he waiteth to be gra
a Saviour?”
cious,—why? because, my reader, you cannot
The following extract is from a tract taken be happy without his favour.”
*
up accidentally. It is marked, “The Week
ly Tract, No. 393,” and headed— True it is that God, who knoweth all
“GoD WAITING. things, knows that we must love him before
“Therefore will the Lord wait that he may be gracious
even He can make us happy. He cannot, so
unto you."—IsA. xxx. 18. to speak, bless us except in Himself. There
“What a marvel of patience—what a miracle fore he says, “Give me thine heart.” True
of kindness—what a mystery of love do these it is that God seeks our love for our sake,
but no less true is it that he seeks it for his
words indicate! Jehovah waiteth, my reader,
that He may be gracious to you. Why should own. He has in that which he seeks a de
He thus wait? light, a satisfaction, inseparable from his very
“ Not because he cannot do without your re nature. And what is there in all that has
concaliation to Him.—He is the ever-blessed— been revealed to us of that nature to warrant
the ever-happy God. He was so through a past the writer of the above passage in his insolent
etermity when you had no existence, and it can
not, therefore, be imagined that the joys of His and unfeeling certainty that God has no need
being are suspended on the movements of one of you to make him happy; or to induce the
whose “foundation is in the dust, and who is belief that he is indifferent to the loving alle
‘crushed before the moth. He could destroy giance of the weakest among the souls he
our world. He could remove all the systems gave his only beloved Son to save? Why
that people the universe. He could dispense should we imagine that the infinite blessed
with the existence of the myriads of angels that ness of the Creator is not positively enhanced
with songs encircle His throne." He could wheel by the happiness of the creature, or suppose
all creation into the gulf of absolute nothingness,
and the infinite resources of His own blessedness that when the angels rejoice over the return
be unimpaired. He can, therefore, do without ing sinner the Great Father of spirits and of
gou. To suppose that your frown is so awful— men is unmoved? “He that loveth not
that your smile is so desirable, that the one must knoweth not God.” The absence of love in
VOL. XLII. N–15
218 *
Popular Religious Literature. June,
these writings is something wonderful.” The we not all on E Father? Hath not one God
word, used in some strange and altogether created us?” and also another inspired pen
non-natural sense, may be often met with in man who, tracing the earthly genealogy of
these writings, but of the thing itself, of love our blessed Saviour, stops not till he leads it
in its outward manifestations of pity, tender back to “ADAM which was THE SoN of
ness, and good-will; of love in its inner es God.” And even Mr. Ryle, it seems, is
sence as the bond of mutual fitness and reci haunted by some recollection of St. Paul and
procal delight, we find in them no trace of the certain poet quoted by him with ap
whatever. Their language, in speaking of proval, who, speaking of his own heathen
the Almighty, is not the language of affec nation, had said, “We also are his offspring,”
tion, rather that of servility, orientalism; the for he adds, “that God, in a certain sense, is
very feelings, it is true, which a Being such the universal Father of all mankind, I do not
as they portray is calculated to inspire, for pretend to deny. He is the great First Cause
their whole teaching tends to connect God of all things; the sonship which we have by
with the idea of power only; their delight is creation is one which belongs to stones,
to represent him as irresponsible; a Being beasts, or even to the devils, as much as to
who is accountable to none, who may do what us.”
he will with his own creature. But what In the same tract Mr. Ryle informs us that
should we think of an earthly king, or of a Scripture tells us that God out of Christ is a
human parent, who placed the allegiance due consuming fire, and this, while we ask what
to him upon this ground, so daringly attri there is in the text or context of the passage
buted to him who indeed delights in mercy, in Hebrews to authorize the interpolation of
but whose primal attribute is justice? “A the three words in italics, leads us to consider
sceptre of righteousness, O God, is the scep the strange antagonism in which these writ
tre of thy kingdom.” God is not only the ings place the First and Second Persons of
most morally responsible, but we will even dare the Blessed Trinity, by their continual habit
to say the most morally limited of beings, of representing Jesus Christ as more favour
limited by the infinity of his own perfection; ably disposed towards mankind, more pla
bound within its self drawn circle, he cannot cable, more easily entreated than God himself.
will that which is evil or unjust. “With And yet Scripture, in more than one passage
God,” says St. Anselm, “there is no freedom of terrific import, speaks of “the wrath of
except to do that which is expedient and the Lamb,” and bids us “kiss the Son lest he
fitting.” He is a debtor both to himself and be angry.” What error can be more shock
to his world, responsible to man for that idea ing than that of separating the natures of God
of absolute justice, goodness, and truth, which and Christ; and why, we may justly ask,
he has himself laid so deep within the human was Jesus so different from other men,—so
soul, and to which the idea of his creature so wise, so tolerant, so loving,-except through
inalienably cleaves, that could the soul by being God? It was because he was God that
force or fraud be driven off this strong an he was all for which even as man we adore
chorage, God, it may be truly said, would him. *
lose even more than man. But all that gives And it is certain, though it may seem a
man, as a being born into a state involving bold word for a Christian to utter, that even
tremendous disabilities, a claim upon the the Person and Merits of Christ may be made
Being who called him into it, a Being who objects of idolatry, unless we learn to look to
knows whereof we are made, all that consti a point of real contact between our souls and
tutes the wide, universal fatherhood of God, him, and aspire, however humbly, to union
these writers do not so much ignore as dis with him, as the partaking of an essential
claim. “No man,” says the Rev. J. C. Ryle, goodness unto which, except through such
“has a natural right to God as his father; it union, man can never attain.
is a vile heresy to say that, he has,”—a Of such an inspiration, the highest of which
heresy in which we must include the prophet human nature is capable, these writings show
Malachi, who, making a Divine Fatherhood little trace; nor do they betray, it appears to
co-extensive with creation itself, says, “Have us, any deep appreciation of moral evil, or of
* Wonderful, when we consider that their au that inherent opposition to God, which needed
thors have read the Bible, or at least some parts of to be “taken away,” at so great a cost.
it, for it has often struck us as a singular circum Their conception of sin is shallow, as of
stance, that nearly all the quotations in these harsh something in its nature indifferent to God; it
and gloomy tracts are from the Epistles. The Epis is treated merely as a debt to be cancelled,
tles! which, taken in their wholeness, are a sort of a removable quantity. Neither as regards
gospel within the gospel, most tender and catholic
of all, containing less of denunciation and severity Christian morals do these writings show any
than any other part of the Sacred Book.
t Tract, Plain Speaking, No. 50. * Luke i. 38.
1865, Popular Religious Literature, 219
perception of that awful truth, “To whom ye the class to which these writings are address
yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ed, righteousness of any kind has little in
ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin deed to answer for. The moral standard of
unto death, or of obedience unto righteous the humbler orders of men is generally la
ness.”* mentably low and defective, and the majority
Of faith, without explaining what it is, of professing believers are too deeply sunk in
they speak much ; of repentance little; of sensuality, ungodliness, and spiritual apathy,
the power of habit, of the influence of the af. to be in much danger from any error of a
fections, those strong auxiliary forces of the speculative kind.
soul, upon whose direction the issue of its It is only those who are familiar with the
great conflict so often depends, they seem to poor, and able to enter into their modes of
know absolutely nothing. In many of these thinking and feeling, who are able to esti
tracts, effort is, not merely discouraged but mate the fearful evil wrought by omitting to
condemned; as long as you are “striving,”? draw a clear line between sin inherent in
endeavouring after such light as you possess man's nature, natural to both saint and sin
to please God, you must be wrong,—a person ner, and vice," the habitual, constant yield
not so much to be pitied, as put down by ing to its promptings. We are all sinners
those who are more enlightened. In all of by nature, and as such beloved and redeemed
them there is an entire silence as to the scrip by Christ; but we are not all vicious, neither,
turally declared fact, that while we are saved as such, continuing and delighting in sin,
by Christ, we are judged by things done in can we be accepted by the Father in Him.
the body, There is not in one of them, any The minds of the uneducated are slow and
recognition of the great abiding principles undiscriminating. There is something in
of natural duty. All persons who have not their structure which naturally tends to con
attained to saving faith in Christ, who are fusion; but under a teaching like this, with
not able to say, what no man except through out any moral shading, it becomes “worse
the power of the Holy Ghost can say effectu confounded.” Not long ago, a working man,
ally, that Jesus is his Lord, his hope, his all, of apparently respectable character, died sud
are treated as being on the same level. The denly under circumstances which brought
thousands of poor men who, falling short of conduct of the worst kind to light. Some
this, are yet sober, honest, industrious, and little time after his death, his widow, calling
God-fearing, tenderly cherishing their wives, upon a lady who had been intimately inter
and affectionately loving their children, are ested in the family, closed some remarks
represented as being as far out of God's fa upon her husband's short illness, with the
vour as are the thousands of poor men who usual pious formulary, “But at any rate,
in this professedly Christian country beat ma'am, he's happy now.” “I am glad, Mrs.
their wives, starve their children, spend their ,” said the lady gravely, “to hear you
earnings over women as vile as themselves, say so; it makes me hope there has been no
and delight in blasphemy and drunkenness. truth in certain reports, that it has made me
Nay, it seems to us that the preference in sorry to hear.” “Truth, ma'am !” she re
point of eligibility as candidates for the king turned quickly, “every word true, and many a
dom of heaven is always given inferentially sore heart it has given me.” “Then,” re
to these latter worthies. turned her friend, “as William was never
John Bunyan, in a tract! which it is sure sensible after his first becoming ill, or able
ly unwise in the Dublin Tract Society to pub to seek God's pardon for his great sin, how
lish, as they have done, without guard or can you feel so sure that he is happy now?”
comment, tells us, with certainly far less than The poor woman had her answer ready, yet
his usual scriptural accuracy, that “Jesus there was something affecting in the be
Christ in his lifetime left the best and turned wildered look with which she said, “Well,
to the worst !!” Physicians get no name for ma'am, of course, William was a great
picking out thistles, or laying plasters on sinner, but then we're all sinners; and
scratches; they must cure some desperate aren't we told Jesus Christ died to save
cases. It is the dry wood which burns best; sinners?”
“grace takes occasion by the vileness of the But are we told that Jesus Christ died
man to shine more.” And we are assured to save impenitent, unreturning sinners?—
by Mr. Ryle that “where open sin slays its sinners who not only come to him for peace,t
thousands, self-righteousness slays its tens of just as they are, but intend to remain with
thousands.” Yet the truth remains, that in him just as they are, forgetting that there is
* Romans vi. 16. no peace to the wicked? To see the highest
# See a tract, Should I not Strive # or, The Poor * See on this subject an admirable sermon by
Man's Deceiver. Adolphe Monod.
# Bunyan's Glad Tidings for Sinners. + See Christian Spectator, February 1860
result of a teaching which “preaches Christ” pardon a little ill,” and to shut one's eyes
as an antidote to the conscience, and sets to the manifest wound done to the simpli
forth faith in Christ without enforcing its city and sincerity which belongs to fine spi
grand scriptural correlative, “repentance to ritual consciousness by the present tendency
wards God,” we need only be familiar with to make a sort of capital out of every holy
the interior of a jail, and trace its workings effort and every exalted life. There is such
upon a class, upon whose originally feeble a quick vibration through our present social
moral instincts a long series of '' mani life, that the world seems to have become
pulations will sometimes produce an out a gigantic whispering-gallery, catching up
growth too hideous to be mere hypocrisy. and re-echoing every sound, even those
Among such persons we shall meet with a which are most intimate and sacred, so that
simulated mode of talking about Christ, the word spoken in the deepest secrecy be
which bears the same relation to real faith in tween a man and his friend, between the
him, that hysteria does to a real malady; it spirit and its Redeemer, is literally pro
counterfeits, mocks it, has no root within the claimed on the house-top Yet this, surely,
system, and yet it is real, because it is of the is a tendency which, in all things connect
nature of possession, a devil that no human ed with the kingdom which cometh not
agency seems able to cast forth. Of such as with observation, we shall do well- to resist
these are the fourfold murderers who die in rather than to yield to, or it will be the
the apparent fulness of every evangelic grace, harder for Christian men and women to at
except repentance; who depart “forgiving tain to the breadth and stature of simpler
everybody who has ever injured them '" who ages, when the spiritual building of a holy
step cheerfully off the plank, expressing their life was able to grow up like the olden Tem
entire confidence in “Jesus,” and their long ple, without that noise of axes and hammers
ing to be with him. For they within whom that is now so bewildering. “Christ's hum
this spirit has once entered will die as they ble man loveth not praise.”* How quiet,
have lived, “treacherous, lewd, malignant,” yet austerely heroic, were the lives of our
ready to proclaim themselves “the chief of Saxon and Celtic apostles!—of men like Bo
sinners,” yet jealous and resentful of any spe niface, Cuthbert, and Columba, at once the
cific charge of criminality; eager to pro evangelizers and civilizers of the rude hea
claim that they have sinned against their then world, within whose darkness they were
Saviour, and have brought him to a pain as lights burning, and shining only because
ful death, but nott by word or tear ex they burned ! And even now, for those who
pressing regret for their many offences against seek it, there is a life of true simplicity wait
their brethren; callous as to the evil which ing in the thick of our crowded civilisation.
they have wrought in the bodies and the Our manufacturing towns and mining villages
souls of others; unrepentant for sins, of the still afford populous solitudes where men and
least of which the Saviour, whose name and women may labour for Christ, either singly
work they profane, said, “It were good for or in groups, as secretly as the coral insect
such as commit them that they had never works beneath the wave. The world won
been born.” ders at self-devotion, admires it, and forgets
Before drawing this paper to a close, we it; only do not let the press come in
have yet another region to glance into, one Above all, let it keep silence even from
which fills a large space in popular devo good words where the humbler members of
tional literature, we mean the department Christ's family are concerned; they most of
of Christian biography. So much real good all suffer from praise and the publicity it
has been done by the publication of books brings. Is it not, to say the very least, in
like the Life of Hedley Vicars, such a pulse judicious, in The Book and its Missions going
of Christian activity stirred throughout Eng on month after month with a history of the
land by the perusal of works like the Miss work of the Bible-women in London-men
ing Link and Ragged Homes, that for the tioning each of them by name, recounting
sake of a “great good one feels inclined to what each is doing, often in their own words?
* Ibid.
In one of these papers a poor woman is re
presented as saying to her husband, in spiri
# Doyle, lately executed at Chester, for a fright.
ful attempt to murder a woman he lived with (he tual trouble, “Do hear Mrs. W.; she speaks
being a married man), walked to the platform with so plain. You did not understand the mis
these words (his last), “Jesus Christ was led hike a sionary, but she speaks as simple as a child,
lamb to the slaughter; I, like him, offer no resist. and you will be sure to understand.” The
ance; I know that my sins are forgiven me.” good woman goes; the poor man is deeply,
He had eaten and drunk heartily to the last, con
versed of his past life, sung hymns, listened to pray. and, it is believed, permanently affected.
ers and reading, and expressed regret, but certainly
no depth of repentance for his crime. * * Jeremy Taylor.
1865. *
Symbolism in Christian Art. 221
The wife exclaims, in simple triumph, “Didn't lectual stature, to humble itself to that which
I tell you that God would make Mrs. W. a is in man. We must be prepared to see its
blessing to you?”. The Bible-woman, it is grand ideal outlines concealed beneath much
true, repeats this with an apology, and refers that is ordinary and mediocre. Christian
the change in the husband's feelings rather commonplace will endure while the world
to the work of the Spirit, in answer to the lasts; but there are limits even to Christian
faithful prayers of the wife, than to her own commonplace, and we consider that charity,
influence. Still she does repeat it; it is which in this region has endured all things,
written and published; at what loss to all is now entitled to hope all things in the way
parties concerned, should they ever read it, of improvement.
it would be hard to state. And what, we There are certain rare and beautiful fea
may ask, is more offensive to a just spiritual tures in the present age of the world, which
discrimination than the set disclaimers con secular literature has not been slow to catch
tinually inscribed in these records, such as, up and reflect. There are few poems or
“I do humbly thank God for condescending stories now written which do not betray
to use me as an instrument, however unwor some sympathy with the generous aspirations
thy; the work, however, is His; not by might with which so many hearts are now familiar,
nor by power?” etc. What need of these the exalted aims to which so many lives are
ostentatious statements? Who that is ac now directed. In originality, genius, and
quainted with the A B C of Christianity does power, the literature of our present day
not know that all work is and must be of probably falls short of that of some great in
God? What need to compliment the Al tellectual eras; in tenderness, humanity,
mighty with all praise and all glory, and yet respect for man's moral nature, admiration
to keep back a certain perquisite, the more for it under its more exalted conditions of
surely retained for these very disclaimers ? self-devotion and heroism, reverence for good
There is a tone and colouring about most ness under its humbler aspects, sympathy
of the statements of Christian benevolent with the family affections, delight in God's
work, that seems very far removed from that visible creation, it rises far above that of any
of the sober daylight of actual experience in former age. And when we return from
dealing with human nature, that great and literature to the social life it is connected
stubborn fact; a fervid glow that must often, with, when we see all that is passing around
we think, make the heart of many righteous us, the ameliorating influences that are conti
labourers in the Lord's vineyard sad, under nually yet silently at work, the mighty enter
the certainty of having no such brilliant prises that grow out of them,--while there
statistics to offer. We do not say that the is so much among us that is confessedly
statements set-forth in the reports continually Christian, we feel deeply persuaded that the
given to the world are not true in themselves; literature which is so professedly, has need
but we are sure that they are often calculated to march with the marching order, and that
to give a false impression of what Christian its present status, as regards theology, intel
work really is. Their fault is the same one lect, and feeling, is unworthy of our present
which pervades modern religious biography: aims, unworthy even of our attainments,
a want of simplicity, a tendency to strain whether as Christians or as men.
and pressure, which misses, through that
very effort, the true greatness of a Christian
life. In taking up any such book, we seem
to see, not the picture of a Christian, but a
Christian sitting for his picture, with a great
deal, as is usual in portraiture, put in for the ART. WI.—1. The History of our Lord as
occasion, and a great deal obviously left out. Exemplified in Works of Art. Com
In such records, the simplicity, the sweet menced by the Late Mrs. JAMEsoN;
ness of a holy life, a life hid with Christ in Continued and completed by LADY
God, is gone. Letters, diaries, are given to EAstLAKE.. In 2 vols. London, 1864.
the public; all is laid bare, obtruded. Yet 2. Christian Iconography; or, The History
human nature has disappeared; we look in of Christian Art in the Middle Ages.
vain for By M. DIDRON. Translated by E. J.
“This friend of ours who lives in God, MILLINGTON, London: Bohn, 1851.
The human-hearted man we loved.”
IN Mr. Holman Hunt's picture of the
After all, as we said at first, literature of a Finding of the Saviour in the Temple, no
devotional class must not be judged of by figure has been more severely criticised than
the ordinary standard. It is the glory of that of the youthful Jesus. Many persons,
Christianity to condescend to a limited intel partly because they forget the limits which
*
*
222 Symbolism in Christian Art. June,
the painter can never pass, and perhaps more his meaning became absolutely necessary,
because they want the clear vision to see unless he at once abandoned his functions as
what he has expressed, have declared them a teacher. Accordingly, in many early
selves ill content with the inadequate repre works of art, especially of the Eastern
sentation of that Divine countenance. But Church, the figures are identified by their
they have most loudly condemned the bright names; but long after this practice had died
red hair, so bright, and raised so high around out, it remained customary to distinguish
the head, as to form an almost self-luminous them by certain signs. Thus our Saviour is
halo. It has not allayed their dissatisfaction distinguished by the cross; either the cross
to be told that this was a compromise of the of the passion, heavy and strong, or the
claims of modern naturalism, on the one resurrection cross, formed of two light
hand, and mediaeval symbolism on the other, transverse bars, often carrying a flag. He is
a compromise effected by such an arrange also identified by the stigmata on hands and
ment of a natural feature as would suggest feet and side; or by a mantle folded round
the nimbus or "glory of the old masters. Him, and held so as to display the wound in
They resent the obtrusion of any mere con the side; or He is surrounded by the symbols
ventionalism into the representation of so of the four evangelists,—the angel, the lion,
sacred an incident. Yet the fact remains, the ox, and the eagle; or He bears a book,
that a painter, painting for the British public, sometimes closed, but often open, and with
has considered it due to himself and his sub one of the following texts written upon it:
ject to brave these criticisms, and to go as “Peace be with you;” “I am the way, the
far as, in these days, and in a historical pic truth, and the life;” “I am the light of the
ture, he may towards the employment of a world;” “I am the resurrection;” “He who
conventional symbol of mediaeval times. hath seen me hath seen the Father;” “I and
This of itself raises a presumption that the Father are one;” “In the beginning was
something may be said on behalf of mediaeval the Word.” Saints likewise had their appro
symbolism on principle. And in fact it priate marks, familiar enough to identify
enters so largely into the composition of them by. This identification by means of
many of our most precious art treasures, recognised signs, which was required for pur
which cannot be understood without some poses of instruction, was rendered the more
acquaintance with it, that it may not be use necessary by the habitual neglect of truth in
less to devote a few pages to the discussion the accessories which distinguished the
of its place in art, and to a consideration of ancient painters. In Italian art we find all
some of its more prominent features and cha the scenes of the sacred story placed in
racteristics. Italian landscapes or among Italian buildings,
Christian art was at first applied solely to enacted by figures in Italian costume, and
purposes of decoration. A painting was not often tinctured with a certain infusion of
painted nor was a statue chiselled to be a Italian habits and manners. The same
treasure in itself, wherever it might be. It charge, if charge it be, may be brought
always implied the existence of something to against the Christian art of Holland, and
be decorated. Hence the walls of churches indeed of every country. The practice arose,
and of monasteries, and illuminated manu no doubt, from ignorance; but one result of
scripts, are for many centuries the great re it was to make more than ever needful a
positories of Christian art. The earliest system of signs which would give the key to
specimens of it consist of frescoes on the the artist's meaning.
|
walls and ceilings of the Catacombs, and bas Identification, however, is not the most
reliefs on the sarcophagi lying there. Its important end and object of symbolism.
earliest object was the utilisation of vacant The painter's intention, in a picture of the
spaces, and opportunities of decoration for apostle Peter, for example, is not to say,
the purpose of religious instruction. This “This is Peter;" it is to express his thoughts
object was attained by representations which concerning Peter. His aim is not simply to
at once conveyed a meaning to the eye. suggest the idea of that apostle to the spec
The Good Shepherd reminded every beholder tator's mind, but to declare his conception of
of our Lord's teachings. The story of Jonah his character, and of the emotions which
was recognized as typical of the resurrection, moved him, or the thoughts which burned
that corner-stone of the Christian faith. No within him. For this it is of course necessary
subjects are more frequent in the Catacombs that the spectator should know for whom
than these, and they taught the lesson with the figure is meant; but as art advanced it
out any explanation. But little variety of became easier to secure this object without
idea was to be obtained within the range of any such cumbrous device as writing the
works so readily intelligible; and when the name over the head; and when the higher
artist passed beyond its bounds, some clue to aim was once satisfied, anything which merely
1865. Symbolism in Christian Art. 223
served the purpose of identification was dicate that the person decorated with it was
foreign to the object of the picture. It will living at the time the work was executed, and
be readily seen, however, that many of the it is often of great value in fixing the date of
characteristic insignia of Christ above men manuscripts and works of art in which it oc
tioned do more than identify. The cross curs. It is occasionally, however, applied to
and the stigmata speak aloud of His sacrifice; an image of the Divine Being, either alone,
the evangelists proclaim the diffusion of His or in combination with some other form of
gospel; the texts have each of them its own nimbus. It then indicates the ever-living God.
significance. So it is with the signs of the In the Eastern Church, the use of the
saints. And a symbol was in use which, not nimbus is more frequent than in Western
being in any way subservient to the end of art; but it has a much less precise meaning.
identification, simply expresses some thought It seems to claim consideration, not only on
of the artist concerning his subject. This the ground of sanctity, but of eminence of
was the nimbus, or glory; and its variety of other kinds. It is applied to saints, and to
meanings well illustrates the real uses of many persons who are not saints, -to kings,
symbolism. statesmen, and warriors. It frequently signi
It is used, both in painting and sculpture, fies power, and it is withheld from beings
as a sign not of office but of character; and destitute of this title to admiration. Thus,
its various forms indicate different personal in a miniature of the twelfth century, the
qualities, just as the crown, according to the Beast with seven heads (Rev. xiii. 1–3) wears
style of its ornaments, marks a king, duke, a nimbus on six of them, but the seventh,
marquis, earl, or baron. It sometimes encir which is “as it were wounded to death,” is
cles the head; sometimes the whole body. without it. And even Satan has it in 'a
In the former case, it commonly has the name miniature of the tenth century.
of nimbus; in the latter that of aureole, and There are no varieties of form used to in
the combination of the two is called a glory; dicate these different meanings, but some
but this use of the words is not universally times a moral intention is conveyed in the
current. *
colour. Thus, in a fresco of the Last Supper
The aureole varies somewhat in form, but in a small church at Athens, Judas, in virtue
it is most commonly oval. Its meaning, of his apostleship, has a nimbus; but while
however, does not change with its shape. It the nimbus of the other apostles is of some
always indicates high eminence, and is gene bright colour, white, green, or golden yellow,
rally applied to Divine persons. Angels that of Judas is black.
are not adorned with it, and saints rarely be In the East, as in the West, the cruciform
fore the golden age of art; but the Virgin and the triangular nimbus are marks of divi
has it much earlier. nity, and this intention is made the more clear
The nimbus proper has a great variety of by inscribing on three branches of the cross
shapes and of meanings. In the Latin (the fourth branch being concealed by the
Church it always indicates sanctity, though head), or at the three angles of the triangle,
some forms of it have a further significance. the letters O Q N, this being the name which
Its commonest shape is that of a circular disc. God gave Himself when He spoke to Moses
If the disc is intersected by transverse bars, from the burning bush, 'Eyá, siu, O'QN :
it is a mark of divinity. It is then called “I am that I AM.”
the cruciform nimbus, and is applied even to The glory has no peculiar signification.
the emblems sometimes used to represent the When the aureole is combined with any form
Divine persons. Thus the Father was, in of the nimbus, it simply intensifies the mean
early art, represented by a hand; and in a ing of the latter, whatever that may be.
miniature of the ninth century, this symbol The nimbus is never seen on the sarcophagi,
is surrounded by the cruciform nimbus. The the most ancient of Christian monuments;
Son often appears in the form of a Lamb; and it did not come into constant use in the
and the Lamb is decorated with the same West till the eighth and ninth centuries. It
exclusive mark. The Holy Spirit, who is died out in the sixteenth century. It was
generally figured as a dove, is distinguished first applied to the Divine persons and the
by the same sign. On the other hand, the apostles, and was retained by them after other
Virgin Mary, in spite of all the Mariolatry of personages had lost it. The aureole came
both the Eastern and Western Churches, into use later than the nimbus; it was always
never possesses this peculiar mark of divinity. used less, and ceased to be applied earlier.
Other forms of the nimbus are the triangle The use of the nimbus is, however, far
and the square. When it is triangular it has older than Christianity. It appears on Hin
the same exclusive application as the cruci doo monuments of the most remote antiquity.
form nimbus, and symbolizes the Trinity. The Hindoo goddess Maya is surrounded by
The square nimbus was, in Italy, used to in a semi-aureole of light, and from the top of
her head-dress and the neighbourhood of her symbolism. Mr. Herbert's recent picture in
temples, issue groups of stronger rays. The one of the committee-rooms of the House of
coincidence of this decoration with the Lords illustrates this. When Moses came
Christian cruciform nimbus may be acciden down from Mount Sinai, his face shone with
tal. It occurs likewise in Roman sculpture so much brightness that Aaron and the
and painting. The Emperor Trajan appears children of Israel were afraid to come near.
with it on the Arch of Constantine; in the This brightness could only be represented,
paintings found at Herculaneum, it adorns without recourse to symbolism, by throwing
Circe as she appears to Ulysses; and there the rest of the picture into deep shadow, and
are many examples of it in the Virgil of the thus defeating the artist's intention of showing
Vatican. the people in the glare of an Eastern midday,
Hence its origin is involved in some ob and with the blue depth of the rocky valleys
scurity; but a consideration of its various stretching far behind them. The same object
changes of form leads to the conclusion that is attained, without this sacrifice, by a con
it was originally meant to indicate light issu ventional representation of light on Moses's
ing from the head. The importance attached countenance.” And even where no necessity
to an appearance of that kind, in remote times, of this kind arises, the painter still has reason
as an augury of good, appears in many classi to use these indirect means of expression.
cal legends. It is illustrated in the Second Art is no longer devoted to the sacred
Book of the AEneid by the flame descending mission to which it was dedicated in earlier
upon the head of the young Iulus, which centuries of the Christian era; and it is hard
Anchises, versed in oriental symbolism, saw for us now to understand that the expression
with joy, and which proved to be an augury of devout feeling was the first object of the
of good, though the other bystanders were religious artist. But, if it were so, he was
alarmed at the apparition:— justified in availing himself of every means
“Eccelevis summo de vertice visus Iuli of expression, even at the sacrifice of some
pictorial proprieties (as they are now held).
Fundere lumen apex, tactuque innoxia molles
Lambere flamma comas, et circum tempora It is, moreover, a mistake to suppose that this
pasci. abandonment of realism was peculiar to the
Nos pavidi trepidare metu, crinemque flagran mediaeval symbolist; it is characteristic of all
tem
Excutere, et sanctos restinguere fontibusignes.”
high art, from the earliest times till now. It
is true that in the present day the alphabet
If this be its origin, its appropriateness for of our symbolism must be natural, not con
the purpose with which it is used in Christian ventional; but the painter is still in antago
art is obvious. The cruciform nimbus pro nism with the principle of rigid naturalism if
bably derived its meaning from being first. he introduces natural objects, because they
applied to Christ. By adorning the Divine are emblematical, and not for their own sake,
Person in scenes in the gospel history, it came or because their presence in the scene he is
to have its signification of divinity, and was depicting is probable.
then applied with the same meaning to the This natural symbolism (if we may be al
other Persons of the Trinity. But the special lowed to use the expression) is employed with
force of some of the forms of the nimbus great effect in one of the most striking pic
seems to be fixed on them arbitrarily. tures in the present Exhibition of the Royal
These details illustrate the remark that the Academy, -Mr. Millais's Parable of the Tares.
object of symbolism is to assist the painter in The field is well watered by a brook which
communicating his thoughts concerning the bounds its farther side, and the young blades
scene he is depicting and the persons who of the wheat are just appearing above ground.
act in it. It is dark, but a rift in the thick-folded clouds
It is objected, however, that he moves out shows the lurid light left in the sky after a
of his province when he resorts to these stormy sunset, and a light still more lurid
means; that his business is to represent inci glares from the eyes of a hyena prowling in
dents as they happened, and, if he cannot the darkness, and of two serpents that crawl
ascertain the actual details, to abstain at least near the feet of the “enemy,” a wicked-look
from violating probability. A nimbus, it is
urged, was never seen round the head of * That is, by two horn-like rays of light issuing
from the forehead . The origin of the sign is sin.
Christ or His apostles, or the holy women, as gular. In the Vulgate his face is described as
they moved upon earth, and the painter is “faciem cornutam,” which must have been intend
guilty of an impertinence who introduces ed to signify, “surrounded by horn-shaped radia
them into his picture. tions of light.” But the close literalism of the
It might perhaps be sufficient to reply that artist has very commonly fixed on the forehead of
Moses a pair of horns like those of an ox!—See
the artist is sometimes compelled by pictorial Aistory of our Lord by Mrs. Jameson and Lady
necessity itself to have recourse to the use of Eastlake, vol. i. pp. 171, 172.
ing old Jew, who, with a strong swing of the it is much more like our Lord when He said
arm, is scattering the tares far and wide. to His disciples, “Let not your heart be
The light from the sky is reflected from the troubled: . . . Peace I leave with you; my
brook with a greener and almost livid hue, peace I give unto you,” than when “being in
and falling full on his face, draws the first atan agony, He prayed more earnestly, and
tention to its intense malignity of expression. His sweat was as it were great drops of blood
It cannot be urged that there is no symbol falling down to the ground.”
ism, for surely two serpents and a hyena are The real meaning of the scene is not even
more than the average allowance of evil suggested by Bellini's picture. Rembrandt
beasts which might be expected to attend a has an etching of the same subject, for which
man's steps at night in a cultivated field in the reader may be referred to Mrs. Jameson
Palestine. The painter's object was to re and Lady Eastlake's recent work. The
present an enemy sowing tares; and, instead buildings of Jerusalem are roughly sketched
of trusting only to the malignity of the in the background; in front, the forms of the
countenance, he aided himself in the expres sleeping apostles are barely indicated. Above
sion of his meaning by the use of symbolical them is the figure of the Saviour. He has
accessories.” lifted His hands in prayer, but at the mo
Perhaps, however, the symbolical signifi. ment chosen by the artist His whole frame
cance of accessories in themselves natural will seems about to give way; the hands, still
appear clearer on a comparison of two clasped, are beginning to drop, the head falls
pictures of the same subject. Nothing more a little on one side, and a few simple lines of
solemn has ever been attempted by art than the face are full of unutterable woe. The
the representation of our Lord in the garden brow is rigid; the eyes firmly closed against
of Gethsemane. The mystery of that awful any impression from without; the mouth
hour has been variously conceived by differ drawn into a death-like stiffness. It would
ent artists, and their thoughts have been ex be a relief even to see those fixed lips trem
pressed with the help of conventional signs, ble, but they cannot. The crowd who are to
and without it. To our modern eyes, pictures make Him captive issue from the city gate.
whose meaning is not dependent on such aid Heavy clouds behind mass themselves in the
will seem the most appropriate. One of the shape of the cross, and the moon, far up in
most noted is that by Giovanni Bellini in the the sky, half hides her face behind them, as if
National Gallery. In the distance is the fearing to look on. Something far greater
“multitude with swords and staves” coming than the fear of pain or the prospect of death
over the Cedron. The three apostles lie is required to account for this intensity of suf
asleep at the foot of a little hillock in the fering. It is the burden of the world's sin
calm evening air. Every object is distinct, which bows Him down, and which seems as
but the brightness of the day has gone, and if it would crush Him, but for the angel, who
all across the sky there is a with strong arms, and with a look of the
“Mournful light most fervent sympathy, bears up the sinking
That broods above the fallen sun.” frame. There is no noise or tumult, no vio
At the top of the hillock our Saviour kneels; lent wringing of the hands; all the scene is
His form dark against the glow of the west. quiet and subdued, majestic in its solemn
His figure is firm, and the body erect. His stillness, but the more terribly poignant and
head is thrown a little back, and His eyes to the quick.
No one can doubt that Rembrandt's is the
are raised towards the angel who appears in
the deep blue of the upper sky bearing the truer conception. If the object of art be
cup. His look is sad, with the sadness of to please, such a subject may not be legiti
one who is about to close a troubled life, and mate, but it is a commentary on the sacred
to bid farewell to his dearest friends. But text which we should all do well to ponder.
Regarding the two pictures, however, as
* The picture obviously is not open to any ob works of art, and applying them to the illus
jection as an attempt to “paint a parable." The tration of our subject, they suggest the ques
story of a parable may be painted as well as any tion why Bellini placed the scene under a
other story, and there is no attempt to paint its pensive evening sky, and Rembrandt in fitful
teaching; for we cannot think that the suggestion moonlight? Not for historical reasons, for
of fiery wings which some critics have found in the
curved rift in the clouds, or of cloven feet in the though it is clear that Bellini was historically
broad and ill-shapen feet of the man, was intended untrue, it is not equally clear that Rem
by the artist. Greek art, on the other hand, is in brandt was historically true. But each of
the extreme of this error.In pictures of the same them chose his accessories, because they were
parable in Eastern Churches, angels appear con
ducting the orthodox into paradise, and devils in harmony with the ground tone of feeling
binding heretics with chains, and leading them of his picture, accessories which themselves
down into hell. prompted the emotions which he desired to
kindle, and make the mind of the spectator only of the painter, but of the people also,
more impressible with the ideas which he in the scenes of Scripture history were pictured
tended to impart. This, however, means just as if they had been enacted by persons
l nothing more nor less than that they obeyed of their own time and country. But this
that law of unity of feeling which governs disadvantage was not a very important one.
every true work of art, whether the subject Faith and love, doubt and hope, penitence and
be historical or ideal, whether it be a land humility, are in no way dependent on any ac
scape or a portrait, or an incident of human cessories of costume or of landscape. It is the
interest. deep spiritual meaning of the scene, not its
This law is obeyed in poetry as well as in appearance to the eye of the flesh, which the
painting. A recent poem furnishes an apt painter desired to seize, and this he was able
illustration, in the description of Enoch Ar to do, however his figures were clad, and
den's approach to his old home, where he is whatever skies were above them. Indeed,
to learn the dreadful calamity which darkens anything which by its novelty or curiosity
the remainder of his days: diverted the attention from the central
“But homeward-home—what home? had he thought of the picture and its spiritual mean
a home? ing, would have been a hindrance rather than
His home, he walk'd. Bright was that after a help to the spectator, while his understand
noon, ing was assisted by the special significance of
Sunny but chill; till, drawn through either the symbols. So long, then, as art retained
chasm, its single aim of spiritual expression, this un
Where either haven open'd on the deeps, truth in the accessories was excusable, if not
Roll'd a sea-haze and 'whelm'd the world in
ray : positively to be preferred to an accuracy of
Cut ' # length of highway on before, detail, which would have caught the eye and
detained the attention.
And left but narrow breadth to left and right
Of wither'd holt or tilth or pasturage. But this singleness of aim was gradually
On the nigh-naked tree the Robin piped lost. The object of the artist ceased to be
Disconsolate, and thro' the dripping haze simply to express. It began to be limited by
The dead weight of the dead leaf bore it down: a condition: to express by means of the beau
Thicker the drizzle grew, deeper the gloom; tiful, just as in more modern times a new
Last, as it seem’d, a great mist-blotted light
Flared on him, and he came upon the place.” condition has been imposed upon it, namely,
expression by means of the natural and proba
Observe how the key-note of feeling which ble. The change was inevitable. Love of
this symbolism is so aptly fitted to strength beauty is the passion of the artist. It
en, is struck in the first line— is present with him in all that he does.
“But homeward-home—what home? had he At length it becomes the object of his pur
a home?
suit, and that more and more exclusively,
His home, he walk'd.” while the expression of religious feeling
Thus it was no more the poet's aim than gradually loses its place as the predominant
the artist's to represent a scene by what was motive. And so we find that the fifteenth
actually or probably visible in it. The poet and sixteenth centuries, although they pro
as well as the artist chose his accessories with duced the greatest works of art the world has
the view of deepening the impression of his ever seen, and are distinguished by the finest
central idea. And it is immaterial whether combinations of colour, the most noble flow
the subject be purely imaginary or historical, ing lines, the freest play of muscle, and the
if, in the latter case, history is silent as to the most perfect symmetry and proportion in ar
accessories. rangement, are yet characterized by frequent
The same limit, however, was not observed poverty of thought and coldness and unfitness
by the ancient painter. His object was to of feeling. It is not that the subjects of
express spiritual feeling, and to stir the sym Christian art are unworthy of the highest
pathy of the beholder. For this end he skill, or incapable of repaying the noblest ef.
might legitimately employ many means which forts of genius; but spiritual insight, a true
the modern painter would reject. The single imaginative sympathy with saints and mar
ness of this aim also permitted him to reject tyrs, an ardent and penetrating comprehen
much that the modern painter feels bound to sion of the scenes of the sacred story, are not
observe. The glaring untruth of the acces. to be attained without the most strenuous
sories in a mediaeval picture, which is so sur and undivided effort. And if the whole of a
prising on a first acquaintance with ancient man's strength be put forth, as in fact it was,
art, was no doubt mainly due to ignorance. in the production of the highest aesthetic ex
The painters of those times knew little of the cellences, and the acquisition and the use of
landscapes and costumes and manpers of the greatest mechanical skill, it is inevitable
Eastern countries. In the imagination not that the other object should beless strenuous
ly pursued and less successfully accomplish Sometimes the hand is entirely open, indi
ed. cating the act of bestowing; but it is more
It is only by the total rejection of the frequently displayed in the act of blessing,
theory of imitation, and by admission of the This is expressed in the Western Church by
principle that the artist's true aim is to ex the extension of the thumb and the first two
press his thoughts concerning his subject, fingers only. In the Eastern Church the
that the way can be prepared for any repre sign was more complicated. The ordinary
sentation of the invisible, or indeed any pic way of writing the name of Jesus Christ in
torial expression of thought about God. Sub Greek paintings is I-C* X-C;" the first and
jects of this kind require the greatest delicacy last letters of each name; and in the act of
and reverence in treatment, in order not to blessing, the fingers are bent as nearly as
offend by their profanity. It was long before possible into the form of those letters; the
God the Father was ever represented in fore-finger extended, as I; the middle finger
human form; and it is most interesting to curved, as C; the thumb crossed upon the
trace the gradual movement of art from the third finger, to make X; and the little finger
reverence of her earlier periods to the daring curved into another C.
imagination, we may even say the audacity, It was not till the thirteenth century that
of her noon-day splendour. the artist departed from the reverential sym
We cannot wonder at the apparent reluc. bolism of the hand; but he did not at once
tance with which she has ventured on repre advance to a delineation of the full figure.
sentations of the Divine Father. We are At first the face only, then the bust, and at
told that God made man in His own image, last, but still rarely, the entire frame is
but the reverence of early art dared not represented. The artist's meaning is some
make God in the image of man. With God times indicated by a sign or inscription. If
the Son it was otherwise, for since He con it is not, it is, at this period, difficult to pro
descended to assume human flesh there nounce certainly whether the Father or the
was no impiety in representing Him as He Son is the subject intended. This is partly
once appeared to the eyes of men. John of because the Son appears very frequently,
Damascus, in the second of his famous Ora especially in Eastern art, in scenes in which
tions against Iconoclasm, expresses the feel we should have expected to see the Father
ing on the part entertained by the Church represented; and partly because the Father
in the eighth century, or that section of it and the Son were at that time made to ap--
which retained its love for pictures and pear of the same age and of similar features.
images. “We should be in error,” he says, Indeed, it seemed probable that when first
“if we were to make an image of the invisi the artist ventured on a delineation of God
ble God, since that which is not of bodily the Father in human form, he appropriated
nature, nor visible, and possesses neither out for that purpose the then recognised image
line nor shape, cannot be painted. We of the Son. Afterwards, when men had be
should be doing what is impious, if we come a little accustomed to the audacity of
thought that images of men made by our the idea, a special character is assigned to
hands were gods and paid them divine the lineaments of the Father. This process,
honours as gods. We admit, however, too, was a gradual one. At first the only
nothing of this kind. But since God, in his distinction was in more strongly marked fea
ineffable goodness, put on the flesh and tures, apparently indicative of greater energy,
appeared in the flesh on earth, and moved and then in a difference of years, such as is
among men; since He took upon Him our suggested by the human relation of father
nature and the gross fabric of a material and son. Had the liberty of the artist's
frame, and likewise the form and colour of imagination never overpassed these limits
flesh, we do no wrong when we make his we should have had little reason to com
image.” A human form is offered by Scrip plain. Whatever interpretation we may put *
ture to the artist who wishes to represent on the words, “God made man in his own
the Son of God. But the scriptural idea of image,” it is probable that the artist felt that
Jehovah was a Being whose face no man they sanctioned representations such as those
might look upon and live. He was made we have just mentioned. But there was no
known to man by His acts. It was not the such justification for images of the Divine
face, the visible presence, but the hand of Being decorated with the signs of human,
the Lord doing justice and mercy which men rank and dignity, with the imperial purple,
were permitted to behold. Hence, in art, or pontifical tiara, or kingly crown; and these
the presence of the Divine Father is, up to violations of good taste, to give them no
the twelfth century, indicated exclusively by worse name, are frequent in the sixteenth *
a hand, frequently with rays of light issuing

from it. *
* The old form of Sigma.
"century. Sometimes the desire of the artist act of creation is declared in the Nicene
to press as much of his reverence as possible Creed, as well as in various passages of Holy
into symbols of earthly dignity is grotesquely Scripture, to have been the Son, the Word
displayed. In the stained-glass windows of of God. The Angel of the Lord, who ap
St. Martin-ès-Vignes at Troyes, the Father is pears in so many scenes of the Old Testament,
represented in Papal costume, but the tiara was considered to be the Son. Moreover,
is composed not of three but of five crowns. from the earliest ages, the worship of a
To this quaint exaggeration of Papal dignity “crucified God” must have been such a rock
is added a certain infusion of kingly state, of offence to unbelievers, as to have given
for all the crowns are decorated with floria rise to a habit in the Church of asserting in
tions and fleurs-de-lis, like those of the every way, in art, as well as by the tongue
French kings. This work belongs to the and the pen, that the Crucified One whom
close of the sixteenth century. they worshipped was God indeed.
At all times, however, representations of | These considerations appear to us to fur
the Father have been very few, compared nish the true reason why the representation
with those of the Son. The causes of this of the Father so slowly comes into the prac
rarity are amply discussed by M. Didron. tice of art. But M. Didron thinks other
He summarizes them as follows:– wise. He says, “It was rather a feeling of
“The first of these causes was probably the resentment, a sentiment of hostility to
hatred felt by the Gnostics for God the father; strength and violence, by which art, was
the second, the dread which prevailed amongst deterred from attempting any representation
the followers of Christ lest they should appear of God the Father.”
to recall the idea of Jupiter, or to offer a pagan We could not accept the conclusion that
idol to the adoration of ignorant Christians; the art bore this testimony to the thoughts of
third, that identical resemblance between the
Father and the Son, which various texts of men about God without regret. And the
Holy Scripture appear to intimate; the fourth, phenomenon so long survived the Gnosticism
the incarnation of the Son, who is the Speech of which M. Didron considers it a symptom,
or Word of the Father; the fifth, the absence that nothing but the most conclusive evi
of any visible manifestation of Jehovah, a fact dence in art itself can support his position.
which is confirmed by various texts of Scrip Since, however, he argues the point labo
ture; the sixth and last, the difficulty all artists riously and with some ingenuity, we feel
must have felt in imagining or executing so bound to suggest considerations which affect
awful and sublime an image.”
the cogency of his reasoning.
The second of these causes was far from The grounds upon which his conclusion
imaginary. The character of Jupiter Tonans, rests are the following:—First, That the
the highest ideal of majesty and might, Son, and even the Virgin, are put in the
could hardly fail to be adopted, or more or place of the Father; secondly, that the rank
less nearly approached by an artist who assigned to Him in early Christian monu
wished to embody the idea of deity in traits ments is not always the most honourable;
which would clearly not be mistaken for and, thirdly, that the part assigned to Him
those of the Eternal Son. But a much more is occasionally undignified, and even cruel.
active cause of the rarity of these representa The examples adduced by M. Didron in
tions was, no doubt, the inability of which support of the last proposition do not appear
all men must have been conscious to make to sustain it. On the capital of a pillar in
any human form look divine. This task was Notre Dame du Port, at Clermont, God is
not imposed upon them in representing the represented as striking the guilty Adam with
Son, since we know that many men could his clenched hand. How wanting in the
look upon Him, as He appeared among them, sense of what is fitting in such representations
without recognising in Him anything more the artist was, is shown by another figure in
than mortal; but never, in all the course of the same group,-that of an angel who seizes
sacred history, was Jehovah seen by the eye the offender by the beard and plucks it out.
of man. There were many occasions on Again, in a manuscript adorned with minia
which His words were heard, or His angel tures, God is represented as expelling Adam
appeared; but the visible presence ofJehovah and Eve from the garden with bow and ar
on earth is never recorded, and the idea, in row—a “motive” probably suggested by the
deed, is distinctly contradicted. No man Homeric scene of Apollo taking vengeance
had seen God at any time. on the Greeks. Such instances, however,
*The difficulty, however, might have been prove nothing; for unworthy conceptions are
overcome, but for the fitness with which the not confined to any single sphere of art.
Eternal Son may be represented as the No subject, however it may possess the ima
Divine actor in almost all the scenes depicted gination or captivate the affections of men,
by art. The immediate agent in the great is wholly exempt from liability to inadequate,
and even improper treatment. That in Father, represented in one case by the hand,
stances are to be found in which the Divine in another by the face, is placed at the apex
Father has been represented in such a man of the arch, on the exterior cordon of the
ner as to shock the feelings, does not prove vaulting, “where it is exposed to all the inju
that art has done this “ of malice afore ries of rain and wind; while mere angels are
thought.” Her true sentiments are rather placed in the inner cordons, and sheltered
to be seen in the fear and trembling with from the action of the weather;” and “God
which she has approached the subject, and the Son, on the contrary, is placed in the in
the hesitating hand with which she has indi terior, carefully protected from the effects of
cated that awful Presence. rain and wind.” He adduces no case in which
The only other examples cited by M. the Father is placed on the left when He
Didron are in a Psalter in the Imperial Li might have been on the right; in the lower
brary at Paris, of the close of the twelfth part when he might have been on the upper;
century, in which the Deity is often repre or in the circumference when he might have
sented as holding in His hands a bow and been in the centre; and we should draw
arrows, spear, or sword. He gives a wood an inference the very reverse of M. Didron's,
cut of one of them in which the bow and from the fact that these reverential symbols
arrows and sword appear. This belongs to are placed in the most conspicuous position—
the 18th Psalm, and is relieved from the the highest point of the exterior cordon, be
charge of an irreverent intention by its apt hind and below which all the other cordons
illustration of the sacred text—a literal ren rançre.
dering of imagery very common among the The most serious of M.Didron's arguments,
miniaturists— however, is that the Son, and even the Virgin,
“Yea, he sent out his arrows and
them. . . .
: are often substituted for the Father in art.
He appears to us, in his eagerness to esta
He teacheth my hands to war, so that a bow of blish his point, somewhat to overstate the fre
steel is broken by mine arms. quency with which the Son is placed in posi
Tho' girded
attle;
me with strength unto the tions which we should have expected to see
occupied by representations of the Father.
It is God that avength me, and subdueth the £ £ the practice was a com
people unto me. | mon one, we need not infer from it the exist
With the view of illustrating his second ence of any such sentiment of hostility as M.
proposition, that the rank assigned to God | Didron supposes. It was natural that the
the Father in early Christian monuments is imagination of the artist should be more readi
frequently not very honourable, M. Didron ly drawn to the figure of the Son; and it is
gives the following rules as to the arrange- not unnatural that his very anxiety to avoid
ment of figures in art:- anything that might shock the devoutest
1. The left hand is inferior to the right. feeling, should lead him to represent the
Christ is represented enthroned, with the Father in the form of Him “who is the image
tables of the law resting on the ark of the of the invisible God.” “He that hath seen
covenant on His left, and the books written me hath seen the Father.” “I and my
by His apostles on an altar on His right. Father are one.” He felt that such words as:
2. The lower part is less honourable than these gave a sanction to the substitution; and
the upper. he hoped thereby to approach nearer to such
3. The centre is more honourable than the a representation of the Father as would com
circumference. mend itself to the love and reverence of all
In the vaulting of a cathedral, or the field beholders, than he could if he attempted what
of a rose-window, the centre is assigned to he knew must end in failure, a pictorial re
God or the Virgin Mary. Then come the presentation of “the Eternal, Immortal, Invisi
different orders of angels, followed by the ble.”
various ranks of saints. The order of the That the Virgin was ever admitted to the
heavenly-hierarchy is for the most part fixed, place of the Father, in art, would certainly be
but the exceptions to it curiously illustrate a significant discovery; but we do not think
the present rule. Thus martyrs generally it can be made out. M. Didron's evidence of
rank next to apostles, and take precedence of it is this: In the Eastern Church the forms
confessors; but in the Cathedral of Notre of art are stereotyped, and there have long
Dame at Paris, where most honour was paid existed manuscripts of instructions to the
to intellectual services done to the Church, painter for the representation of every scene
confessors take precedence of martyrs. of their religious art. For the subject of
In applying these rules to his argument, M. Moses and the burning bush, the following
Didron brings in evidence the Cathedral of directions are given: “Moses untying his
Notre Dame at Paris, and points out that the sandals; around him, sheep; in front, a
burning bush, in the midst and on the top of make that prominent. There is a legend at
which is the Virgin holding her Child; near tached to the Church of Notre Dame de
her an angel looks towards Moses. On the l'Epine at Châlons, which is curiously illustra
other side of the bush Moses appears standin tive of this. On the Eve of the Annunciation,
with one hand extended, and holding a r in one of the years of the fourteenth century,
with the other.” These directions have been some shepherds, tending their flocks near Châ
obeyed not only in the East, but even in the lons, just before nightfall, saw a white thorn
West, where Byzantine influence has pre bush shining with a strange light; the shep
vailed. They are followed in a sculpture on herds, and it seems their flocks too, ran to
the northern gateway at Chartres; in a paint wards it, and there arose from the midst of the
ing on wood wrongly attributed to King bush, which seemed to be in flames, a small
Réné; in miniatures in the Speculum Hu statue of Mary holding Jesus in her arms. The
manae Salvationis and other MSS.; in tapestry church was built on the spot where the bush
in the cathedral of Rheims, and elsewhere. It grew, to commemorate the event. It is said
is clearly, therefore, a matter of some import that the identical statue is there still; and at
ance to discover their meaning. If this be the end of the apse there is a painted window,
a representation of God in the form of the representing the bush in flames and Mary in
Virgin, it is an effort of audacious profanity, the midst. The townspeople at Châlons, the
without parallel in art; for M. Didron has no peasants, the shepherds, and even the sheep,
other argument. -
are on their knees before the bush.
The sacred text shows us that for the pic In the porch of the great church at the
torial representation of the event, the image Monastery of Chilindari, on Mount Athos,
of no Divine person is required:—“And the there is a fresco representing Gideon squeez
Angel of the Lord appeared unto him (Moses) ing his fleece; and in the fleece, just as in the
in” a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush; miraculous thorn of Châlons, there appears a
and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned small image of the Virgin, white as the fleece
with fire, and the bush was not consumed. itself. It cannot be urged that the Virgin is
And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and here substituted for the Divine Being.
see this great sight, why the bush is not It may be thought strange that in the pic
burnt” (Exod. iii. 2, 3). It is clear from ture of the type, the thing typified should be
these words that Moses saw no angel, nothing painted. We might have expected that
but the flame and the bush; and the voice familiarity with the intention of these typical
came from the midst of the bush. Why, forms would have made any explanation of
then, does the Virgin appear here at all, so them unnecessary; just as by the sign of the
many hundred years before her birth ? The lamb, the fish, or the cross, Christ was under
explanation of this difficulty is suggested by stood, God the Father by the hand, or the
the inscription under the picture attributed to Holy Spirit by the dove; so we might have
King René: “Rubrum quem viderat Moyses thought that this doctrine would have been
incombustum, conservatam agnovimus tuam more appropriately taught by representa
laudabilem Virginitatem, Sancta Dei Gene tions of the burning bush, of Aaron's rod or
trix.” There are verses to the same effect on of Gideon's fleece, alone, than by the pictorial
the tapestry of Rheims. The bush which presence of the Virgin herself. But with the
was in flames without being consumed was in Greeks it was not so. They are ever reaching
the Greek Church held to be a type, and even forward, even in art, from the sign to the thing
a proof, of the dogma that the mother of our signified, And this tendency of theirs is
Lord was a virgin mother. Aaron's rod and aided by their habit of personification of ab
Gideon's fleece were regarded as having a simi stract ideas. A Greek MS. of the ninth cen
lar significance. tury, in the Imperial Library at Paris, fur
If the intention had been to delineate the nishes some curious instances of this. There
historical scene, and the Virgin had been put is a picture of Nathan before David; but the
in the place of the Deity, she would in all historical fact yields in importance to the
probability have held a scroll containing the ideal significance of the scene, and instead of
words which Moses heard from the bush. But leaving the beholder to draw his own lesson,
there is no scroll proceeding either from the an allegorical figure, recognised by her name,
flame or from the hand of the Angel. The his Metanoia, written above, teaches the lesson of
torical bearings of the scene are to the eye of penitence by her bowed head and tearful eye,
the Greek Church so completely lost in its and the sobs rising in her throat. So while
typical import, that everything is sacrificed to he tends his flocks on the slopes around
Bethlehem, we are not allowed to forget the
* That is, in the form, not, in the midst, of a heavenly presence that is with him; as he
flame. The appearance was that of a flame, the
actual presence that of the Angel. This is clear sings his divine songs, a figure of the melody
from what follows. which Heaven had put in his heart sits by
his side; as he smites the lion and the bear, It should be observed, however, that in re
the might with which Heaven nerves his arm presentations of the Trinity, if the Three
stands with encouraging gesture behind. So Persons are not of the same age, the Son or
it is in the Greek representations of the para the Spirit, or both, are younger than the Fa
bles; and here the principle is often stretched ther; never the reverse. In this case the
even further; for not only is the interpreta idea of the filiation of the Son and the pro
tion of the parable brought prominently into cession of the Spirit, is suggested; if there is
the picture, but the parable itself (as that of no difference in years, the equality and co
the tares, referred to above), so far as it ap eternity of the Three Persons of the Trinity.
peals to the imagination, is often wholly ex There is frequently found a very £
cluded. able literal rendering of a prophecy of Isaiah,
We are compelled, then, to dissent from in the representation of Christ surrounded by
Mr. Didron's conclusion that art displays any seven doves, sometimes one of them only,
thing like hostility towards the First Person sometimes all of them having the nimbus.
of the Trinity. There is abundant reason to These represent the seven spirits which, it
explain the rarity of these representations has been believed, were signified by the words
without resorting to any such painful suppo of the prophecy, “The Spirit of the Lord
sition. Indeed the testimony of art seems to shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and
lead to the opposite conclusion. It shows understanding, the spirit of counsel and
that the name of the Father has been hal
lowed. It has been named with fear certain
might, the spirit of £ and piety;
and the fear of the Lord shall fill him.”
ly, but with no unloving fear. The fault If there has been any hesitation or cold
which we have to find is rather that of over ness in the representation of the other per
familiarity in dealing with so awful a subject. sons of the Trinity, this appears in the strong
The obstacles which checked the pictorial est light by contrast with the abundantly
representation of God the Father, for so many frequent, and, if we may so say, the affec
centuries, existed, though with a lower degree tionate treatment of the subject of Christ the
of force, in the case of the Holy Spirit. For Son. The story of His life furnishes the
although He never appears in person to man most important subjects of Christian paint
in all sacred history, nevertheless Scripture ing and sculpture; but art has ventured to
provides a symbol which art could not reject. depict scenes which the human eye has
Hence at every period of Christian art a never beheld: the Word creating the world,
white dove has been the recognised represen speaking to men, inspiring prophets; the
tative of the Divine Spirit—white to indicate Son taking counsel '' the Father, sent on
the light, which is in art a perpetual attribute His mission to the earth, descending into
of Deity. There is, however, a curious ex Hades, rising from the tomb, returning again
ception to this rule in the case of a manu to the skies, welcomed at the right hand of
script of the thirteenth century. Here the the Father, and at length appearing as the
Spirit of God, moving upon the face of the Judge of all mankind. -
waters before the creation of light, is painted In all these scenes our Lord appears in art
as black as the formless earth. A French in human form. It is, however, worthy of
miniature of the same period represents the remark that the same ancient reverence
Spirit as the breath (rvauga) of the other which indicated the presence of the Father
Divine Persons. The Father and the Son by a hand, and that of the Holy Spirit by a
sit opposite to one another. The Spirit, in dove, likewise forbade any realistic represen
the form of a dove, hovers between with ex
tended wings, their tips touching the lips of * Isaiah xi. 2, 3.—So in the Septuagint and the
each figure, “proceeding from the Father Vulgate. Our version is slightly different: “The
and the Son” like breath. Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, ... ... the
spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord;
The Third Person of the Trinity is depict and shall make him of quick understanding in the
ed as a dove, not only on all occasions in fear of the Lord.” Our version follows the Hebrew
history on which He has assumed that form, in repeating the expression, “The fear of the
but also in representations of the day of Pen Lord.” This word is in the Septuagint translated
tecost, The dove likewise appears hovering first clotAsia, and then poffos deos, while pietas and
timor Domini represent it in the Vulgate. Except
over the heads of prophets, and even of in this point, the Septuagint and the Vulgate are
saints of post-apostolic times. closer to the Hebrew in their rendering of the pas
Up to the tenth century, the Third Per sage than our version. The variation may have
son of the Trinity was indicated by this sign arisen from a desire to make up the perfect num
ber, Seven. Its adoption in art was probably not
only; but from that time forward He is also independent of its consistency with the text of the
represented in human form,-at first, as a Apocalypse, which describes “the Lamb, having
man of mature years only, but afterwards in seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven
every stage of life from infancy to old age. spirits of God.”
tation of the Son, even when He wore human to it with the finger. And whatever the
flesh. Hence during the first ten centuries surroundings may be, it is adorned with the
He appears in ideal form, youthful and beard. cruciform nimbus, and it often bears the re
less. Like the ever young gods of Greece, surrection cross. The Lamb of the Apoca
years and sorrow make no impression on lypse is different. Its distinguishing marks
Him. He appears thus, not only when seat are the seven horns and seven eyes; and
ed at the Father's right hand, or when per whatever the position of the Lamb may be,
forming some great act of Divine power, but they are so placed that all of them may be
in the scenes of His humiliation and death, visible. Thus, in a French miniature of the
and even on the cross. This notion of the thirteenth century, there is an apocalyptic
ideal perfection of the youthful form is illus. Lamb with its side to the spectator. The
trated by a bas-relief of the translation of seven horns are in a row at the top of the
Elijah on one of the ancient sarcophagi. head; one eye is in the ordinary position,
The venerable prophet, as he rises to heaven and the six others are in two rows down the
in the chariot of fire, and leaves earth and all same side of the neck. Below them all, at
its painful weariness below, is represented the side of the chest, is the wound of the
young and smooth of cheek. So was our spear, with blood streaming from it.
Saviour. The practice, however, began to There were many other ways of represent
die out in the eleventh century; and during ing Christ, but it is unnecessary to make
the period of transition the works of the further allusion to them, as they are fully and
same artist sometimes show the different admirably set forth in the recent work of
meaning attached to the two styles of repre Mrs. Jameson and Lady Eastlake.
sentation. The two following subjects, from All these details, however, show that the
the carved ivory covers of a manuscript, fur productions of the Christian artist make a
nish an example. On one side, our Saviour strong claim on our attention of a nature col
is on the cross, suffering mortal pains, and lateral to their purpose, and in a great mea
bending towards His mother, who, with the sure independent of their value as examples
apostle John, stands below. His divinity is of art. Art has done much more than please
declared by iconographic signs, and the sun and purify the aesthetic faculties of men.
and moon are represented as bowing before The works of the painter and the sculptor,
Him, but He is still suffering mortal sorrow, the enamellist and the miniaturist, form a
and accordingly He is represented as a man most valuable historical record. There is no
of middle age, worn and wounded. On the careful statement of doctrine, no ill concealed
other side, He is already victorious over desire to place a cherished ' in the
death and the grave; He sits on a throne in most favourable light. The teaching is un
the midst of an aureole, with the symbols of conscious, unconscious as the revelation of
the four evangelists round Him. His right the habits and civilisation of remote periods,
hand is lifted in benediction; in the left is a which is made to us in their language. Me
scroll; and a book rests on His knees. Here, diaeval art bears witness to changes in the
therefore, He appears youthful and beardless, minds of men from gladness to gloom, from
and with no marks of weariness or woe. reverence to audacity, or from faith to skep
After the twelfth century, the youthful ticism, just as the boulders on the lower Alps
form is very rare. The face of Christ be testify to the enormous glaciers which once
comes more sad; He has now made ac covered their sides. But her glory is in the
quaintance with grief. Happier incidents instruction which she has given, and which
are rarely sought by the artist; and while she still gives to the devout. She preaches
He is represented in the scenes of His sharp sermons to the eye more eloquent than those
est suffering on earth as the Man of Sorrows, which are heard with the ear. And by giv
He appears in the skies as the Judge of all ing heed to these lessons, we may appropri
mankind, the Rex tremendae Majestatis of the ate to our own use the united conceptions of
Lies Irae. successive ages of the Church, and thus
Notwithstanding the natural attraction to arrive at a more complete comprehension of
the human form in representations of the every incident of sacred story, and a more
Second Person of the Trinity, art has admit thorough appreciation of the moving thoughts
ted other signs also into her service. Ac and feelings of men, who, while they were of
cording to the symbolism of the Mosaic law, like passions with ourselves, yet attained an
by the descriptions of the Prophets, by the eminence of piety and vigour of faith which
declaration of the Baptist, and in the ima seem to place them beyond our reach. If
£ of the Apocalypse, Christ was the these things be so, the works of the mediae
amb of God; and this symbol of a lamb is val masters, whatever may be said of their
in very frequent use in art. It is often borne conventionalism or their unrealism, cannot
in the arms of the Baptist, who always points be unworthy of a patient study.
1865. State and Prospects of Italy. 233
ART. VII.—1. Discorso del Senatore Mar consequences that will flow from the measure
chese Gualterio nella seduta del 2 Dicembre that has been ventured upon. Is this an ex
1864, sul Progetto de Legge per il tras ercise of legitimate effort, imposing none but
Jerimento della Capitale a Firenze. Fa a wholesome strain on the body politic, and
vale & Cie. therefore conduciveto its progressin strength?
2. La Translation de la Capitale et la Con Or is this one of those premature acts of in
vention du 15 Septembre. Discours du dulgence, that, being beyond the years of this
Chevalier Bon-compagni. Turin, 1864. body politic, are mere acts of precocious
license which must open the door to a burst
THERE are events in a people's history which of wild excesses, that cannot but drain the
bear upon their face the features of capital constitution, and hurry the youthful system
turning points, as strikingly as in an indi into an early decline? This is the question
vidual's life certain years are stamped with which people have been eagerly canvassing,
the indelibly impressive marks of epochs. and which, in our turn, we propose to con
The instinctive effect of both is alike on those sider in this paper. By plucking the seat of
who experience them. On finding itself in government out of Piedmont, and pitching
the actual presence of such moments of it in Tuscany, has Italy gained or lost in her
weight, the mind is forcibly impelled to pause powers for coping with the difficulties and
and ponder—to look back inquiringly at the dangers inherent in the task she has taken
extent of ground that has been travelled over, in hand of consolidating her political confor
and then to consider anxiously what may re mation ? Does a careful survey of the ele
main to be encountered in the future. $: ments at work in the Peninsula, warrant the
pregnant instances irresistibly suggest taking inference that this measure has been produc
a survey; for by no other process than that tive of a disturbance of forces that will
of measuring the relative strength of the materially weaken the capacity of the Italians
difficulties already contended against, and of to master those obstacles which they must
the force already brought to bear thereon, master, if they are to succeed in securing the
can we obtain some trustworthy clues to the final establishment of their country, by its
perplexities that may be anticipated, and to being calculated to foment intestine passion,
the probabilities of their being successfully which will break up that remarkable and
dealt with. In presence of a future that spontaneous unity of action that has been
darkly advances forcing on us a deep feeling hitherto so astonishing a feature in the
of its weightiness, it is impossible not to turn Italian revolution ? In short, does Italy
for guidance to the lights of experience and wear merely the false mask of progress, be
practical facts. It is at a moment inviting hind which there is gathering a tainted mass
such review—a moment plainly marking the of decomposing virus, which will infallibly
sharp passage between two most important inundate the whole system, and thus destroy
periods in her political life—that Italy has a union which is too recent to have any
arrived, by the transfer of the seat of Go cohesive force of its own
vernment away from the city and the pro It would be a work of pure supererogation
vince that served as the cradle for her to dilate upon the foundation there is for "
national infancy. As long as Italy continues ascribing real gravity to the situation pro
to exist as one State, the step so taken must duced by the sudden changes that have been
prove a memorable era in her destinies and decreed in Italy. The very child that runs
her progress, marking the stride made from can read the signs of seriousness upon the
the sprawling condition of babydom into the aspect of affairs, and experience the sensation
organic shape assumed by boyhood growing of being under an atmosphere heavy with
strong. Italy has entered upon her teens weighty contingencies. We have no need
a term in life exposed to many perils, fraught to be told that the position of the moment is
with many risks. What then are the chances felt to be attended with anxieties; what we
that Italy will survive the dangers that she would care to be informed of is the exact
has thus made herself liable to encounter ? nature of the perils that inspire anxiety,
The question is one which every person must whether they are created by the new organi
be asking himself who takes the remotest zation just adopted, or are of an old origin;
interest in the politics of our times; for how and if so, then whether there be ground for
ever varied are the sympathies of men in the assuming that the force of these perils will
reat interests at stake, all acknowledge the derive intensity from the political conditions
talian revolution to be the most startling that have been inaugurated by the dethrone
event of our day, and all therefore watch its ment of Piedmont and the Piedmontese
course intently from their point of view. On from the proud position which they have
all sides, therefore, speculation has been in heretofore held in the hierarchy of Italian
tensely stimulated to estimate the practical provincialisms. The dangers which Italy
VOL. XLII. N–16
234 *
State and Prospects of Italy. June,
has cause to apprehend are of two distinct to religious scruples. Within these catego
sources. With the one kind we are not ries lie the real difficulties which the Italian
called upon to occupy ourselves. It com unitarians cannot avoid having to contend
rises the dangers that can descend upon against. All else is accidental, and not of
taly from abroad. By their nature these do native growth; but these, in so far as they
not admit being reduced to certainties and exist, spring out of the natural conditions of
necessities, for they depend on conditions the subject-matter under treatment; and
always liable to accidental modifications, and those who have undertaken to deal with this,
especially on the exercise of a prudence which must make up their minds that they will have
can dissipate in an incalculable degree menac to deal with these difficulties. Let us exa
ing elements of this order. There is no mine then their nature, and see how far the
absolute necessity that Italy must come in transfer from Turin to Florence of the seat
collision with Austria within a given time, of Government can affect them, either for
and still less is there an absolute necessity better or worse.
why Austria must fall upon Italy, unless she
be imprudently provoked to do so by the I. The jealous feelings supposed to animate
latter. Dangers under this head cannot the many ancient and proud municipalities
therefore be considered as absolute and una of Italy, have been all along paraded, by
voidable. Rashness can conjure these up, those who are averse to the unification of
while one individual's adroitness is often that country, as the rock whereon that pro
enough to get rid of them. Not so is it with ject must go to wreck. It is certain that the
angry elements dwelling within the system. past history of Italy would seem to justify
No expenditure of dexterity will contrive to such an opinion. But the facts of the last
avoid ultimate collision with elements of five years have signally confuted these sinister
antagonism and dissension that have once prognostications, so as not only to inflict
taken root in the body. Either the constitu bitter disappointment on the enemies of an
tion must silently absorb and throw these off, united Italy, but to surprise even those who
or there must ensue violent throes and crises. were disposed to rely on an improved politi
One or the other must happen, for it is an cal feeling in the people. Still, it was the
indispensable condition of existence to opinion of many persons that the concord
grapple with the unwholesomeness that may and hearty acquiescence in the new order of
be lodged within the system. This must be things, which have so remarkably distin
got rid of, or in its turn it will ruin the con guished the proceedings of the Italians since
stitution. Should it therefore appear that the 1859, was not of an enduring nature, inas
state of things created by the recent changes much as it rested on a sense of provisional
in Italy has swollen inward elements of oppo necessity. The dread of impending Austrian
sition in the country, and lowered the force restoration was supposed to be the sole
for grappling with these, then we should motive which for the moment made the
have to conclude that the chances for the populations pull together cordially until they
consolidation of a large Italian State have felt themselves relieved from the detested
been impaired by what has happened. contingency; while the general ''
The internal elements of opposition where in a Government vested in the House of
with the unitarian movement in Italy cannot Savoy, and seated in Piedmont, was assumed
fail to have to deal, and which, as internal, to be due only to a sense that the situation
are necessarily exposed to be affected by a of the moment imperatively commanded
measure of strictly internal bearing, may be strength to be husbanded and recruited, in
classed under the following heads:—I. Local order to accomplish national independence
feelings of provincial and municipal jealousies. by plucking Rome out of the grasp of priest
II. The outlawry in the Neapolitan provinces. ly rule. According to this view, the unita
III. The Roman problem, which must be rian feeling is essentially ephemeral and
subdivided into a narrow question of mere deceptive in its nature, proceeding from cal
local aptitude, confined solely to a considera culation inspired by political craft. The Union
tion of practical difficulties, in the way of was represented as merely a means adopted
providing an appropriate establishment for towards an end, this end being the establish
two distinct authorities within one city; and ment of free government in Italy—the
into a religious question of wide range, di emancipation from foreign rule. This goal
rectly connected with the grave problem of once attained, then the feelings, now sup
the relations which should exist between posed to be suppressed artfully, but with pain
Church and State—with the peculiar inter ful effort, would burst forth with irresistible
ests involved by the Pope's unique position, force, and the pent-up passions of municipal
and affecting in countless ways the many pride, of provincial susceptibilities, now fret
chords in the human heart which are attached ting at the curb set upon them, would run
*
their free course, and constitute a federal tion made for the nation by its statesmen was
Italy. It may be fearlessly asserted that not only ratified by the bulk of the people,
nothing could ever have been invented to ap but in spite of incidents specially calculated
ply a more crucial test to this theory of angrily to foment a sense of local pride, no sound of
chafing local feelings ready to burst forth protest could be extracted £ some mischiev
on the first occasion, than the circumstances ous agitators from the communities, whose
which attended the removal of the capital natural feelings might have been expected to
from Turin to Florence. There was not a be particularly predisposed to wounded sus
circumstance wanting that could provoke and ceptibility. In our opinion, it is difficult to
stimulate the peculiar irritation which we over-estimate the political self restraint which
were asked to believe existed so largely. In was shown by the Italians on this occasion,
the first place, the people were taken quite and especially by the Liberal party in the
aback by the announced measure. Thus it city of Naples. Also, amongst the repeated
came on them not only without preparation, disappointments which the Reactionists have
but under conditions to give a shock to feel met with, none has been bitterer than what
ings they had been stimulated to cherish. they experienced in the signal failure at this
Rome as the metropolis, had become the conjuncture of the anticipations they had so
accepted cry of all Italian Liberals, the cur confidently indulged in. What then hap
rent formula of all political parties in the pened at Naples deliberately, on reflection,
Peninsula. In the £ gaze on Rome as and amidst the most powerful incentives to
the point on which to march, public attention dash wildly along a course of disaffected irri
had utterly lost sight of the possibility of tation, is an example of calm £
previously removing from Turin to some in a critical moment, pregnant with instruc
other spot the seat of Government. There tion, and meriting serious consideration.
fore, when the surprise occurred, it came, in The town of Naples was undisguisedly
a manner, to dash a sudden sensation of hostile to the administration. The shrill
chilling disappointment over excited feelings, tongue of stricture rang loudly and vehement
and at the same time directly to provoke an ly in all classes against the men and the
outburst of dormant rivalries and jealousies. measures of Government. The spirit of op
For to the claims of Rome all Italian popu position luxuriated in a chorus of biting com
lations had in a concert proclaimed their plaint at the incapacity, the follies, the clique
deference; but no public feeling had been temper of those who had been governing
awakened in regard to the pre-eminence of Naples for Victor Emmanuel. £ had
any other city; and what could be more gone so far, that on a recent occasion it was
natural—when the stereotyped programme enough for a man to have received a well
was to be unexpectedly departed from—than deserved reprimand at the hands of his official
that some discussions should arise amongst superiors to make him an object of popularity
the many illustrious cities with which Italy —a favourite candidate. Go where you
is studded, as to the superiority of their indi would in Naples amongst Liberals, and you
vidual claims and position for metropolis ? could not escape hearing long indictments
Surely there never could be a subject more against the mismanagement of which the new
legitimately calculated to inspire at least governors were guilty. Moreover, in Naples
some debate. For were there not, at all it is no secret that the revolution had been
events, the two splendid cities of Milan and the work of a minority, a minority superior
Naples—the one illustrious with proud asso in intelligence and energy, but still weak
ciations, the other still palpitating with the when counted by heads in the mass of the
fresh self sacrifice of its royal rank, which population, and now, it might have been
not only might have been expected to dis anticipated, still further weakened by division;
pute the title of Florence to precedence, but while the Reactionists were supposed to have
were in recognized possession of such strik grown in strength by organization, and by
ing eminence, and of such natural advan defections through dissatisfaction at the pro
tages, as to bring their names of a necessity at ceedings of Government. Nor can it be
once to mind, when it became a question of denied that the apparent temper of Naples
pitching upon an appropriate site for a new did seem to warrant an outburst of angry
capital? Every existing circumstance thus feeling. Most certainly the opposition to the
seemed to concur against the possibility of a administration was so general, that the trium
selection under the most favourable condi phant return of extreme politicians at the
tions being acquiesced in cordially by the communal elections took no one by surprise.
nation, much more so when this selection And yet in this city, seemingly brimful of
was arrived at without the nation being con intense disaffection, flowing over with
sulted, and in the always unpopular mystery clamorous complaint, beset by noisy dema
of a diplomatic transaction. Yet the selec gogues, and played upon by plotting in
236 -
State and Prospects of Italy. June,
triguers, the sudden announcement that the over Italy there is a powerful element of re
men whose administrative incapacities were action against the introduced form of unifica
bitterly reviled every day, had determined in tion amongst the very instruments that had
secret council to elevate Florence to the promoted its establishment, and which is
prominent station amongst Italian cities, was panting to exhibit its formidable strength;
received with cordial and confirmed assent by for it is notorious that Naples (we mean the
all who advocated the cause of Italian revo city) is emphatically the weak spot of Italy,
lution. The effect produced by the tidings where faction and intrigue luxuriate in rank
of the municipal irritation at Turin was mar. est growth, where, partly from natural licen
vellous. Instantly it had been learned that tiousness of tongue, partly from the real
at Turin the people had been hurried into mistakes committed by the administration,
lamentable demonstrations of anger at the complaint and dissatisfaction have been most
transfer of the capital, then, as if sobered by rife, and where, consequently, it is admitted
a cold shiver of alarm for the safety of a on all hands that we must look for the most
dear object, all those politicians who on the decided elements of disaffection and reaction in
day before had been hotly fighting with each the Peninsula. If therefore, at a conjuncture
other, but who concurred in a heart-felt when every circumstance conspired to make
aversion to Bourbon reaction, dropped their a display of such elements safe and easy, no
party cries and party purposes, and, declaring serious symptom of a wish to see their work
that the moment demanded union amongst undone has been manifested at Naples
all who really wished to see Italy one, pub amongst the parties that carried through the
licly co-operated together to make an impres revolution, we shall be justified in setting
sive demonstration in this sense. The result down as a baseless delusion, the notion of a
was a memorable gathering, by public call, strong impulse to return back upon the past.
of as many thousands as could press within being ready to explode in those other por
the winter theatre of the Villa Reale, who tions of Italy which have never been supposed
were addressed, in the same strain of earnest to have contracted a spirit of irritation at all
moderation, by men so far asunder in ordi equal in active intensity to that which has
nary politics as the Conservative Settembrini been confidently assumed to animate the in
and the fiery Radical Nicotera. Not a word habitants of the city of Naples. In presence
was breathed that day which was marked of these facts we are warranted, therefore,
with an accent of discord or wounded sus in setting down as an exaggeration the asser
ceptibility. Even Count Ricciardi, who with tion that, in the portions of Italy recently
Quixote-like pertinacity has wearied Parlia united under the sway of Victor Emmanuel,
ment by his interminable advocacy of the there is fermenting a strong and general
claims of Naples for capital, announced that spirit of discontent at the particular process
under the critical circumstances which of fusion to which they have been subjected,
menaced the country, he would sacrifice his and, above all, in rejecting the idea that the
darling hobby. selection of Florence for the capital has had
Now this coalition was not the work of the effect of introducing a powerful element
surprise operating through the contagious of fresh irritation.
iutoxication of enthusiastic transports. It But if we thus have grounds for disbeliev
was the result of reflection and wise instinct ing in the existence of an active current of
on the part of men who had acquired practi reaction against their own work, in the popu
cal experience, and retained a warm and in lations of those provinces that gave them
telligent love for the great cause they had selves recently to the House of Savoy, can
originally embarked in, in the midst of the we hesitate to admit that a new danger has
party contests into which many of them, as been created for the unity of Italy, by the
for instance, Nicotera, have plunged so deeply declared rupture of that ancient loyalty
and so eagerly. What happened on this which bound the people of Piedmont to
occasion afforded conclusive evidence that their sovereign, and put at the service of the
the minority which brought about the trans Italians an invaluable element of matured
formation in Naples, and may be said by a discipline and soldierlike force? It would
coup de main to have imposed a new orga be absurd to deny that the rapid success
nzation, held firmly together to protect their which attended the transformation of Italy,
work in a critical moment, and sank all the has been mainly due to the effective organi
differences which appeared to divide them so zation and manly qualities of the Pied
widely amongst themselves the instant they montese. It would be as absurd to deny
were aware of a risk menacing seriously the that a serious danger might be apprehended
creation they had contributed to produce. from the awakening of an active spirit of
It appears to us that here we have a com disaffection to the Italian monarchy in the
plete confutation of the assertion that all populations of ancient Piedmont. If the
transfer of the seat of Government away deepen into treason. What'we anticipate is,
from Turin has been really productive of an that for some time this aristocracy will stand
intense feeling of irritation, that will make angrily aloof from the Court, as it has often
the Piedmontese as generally and actively done before, only that its sulkiness, instead of
disloyal as the Highlanders once were to the wearing the expression of a simply political,
House of Hanover, or the Catalonians to the will contract that of a territorial complexion.
King of Spain, then, undoubtedly, a very The aristocracy will try to make its private
grave danger has been called into existence. spleen figure as the representative of an indig
What has happened at Turin is indeed very nant Piedmont, just as formerly the Genoese
much to be deplored, but we are unable to aristocracy affected to represent the wounded
ascribe to it consequences of such magnitude. feelings of the republic by staying away from -
The outburst which occurred was the expres the Court of Turin. Yet the little Piedmont
sion of the specifically Piedmontese aristo successfully defied the moody hostility of
cracy, and of a specifically Turinese munici these proud aristocrats; and why should we
palism. Now the old Piedmontese aristo. have reason to anticipate that the Italian
cracy, as a body, has all along stood moodily monarchy will have greater difficulty in deal
aloof from the reforming policy inaugurated ing with the splenetic humours of the Pied
by Charles Albert, and which has ended in montese nobles?
making Victor Emmanuel King of Italy. Probably it will be answered that a valid
The whole revolution has been extremely reason is to be found in the fact that the an
distasteful to its haughty disdain for demo ger of the aristocracy is no longer merely its
cracy, and priest-ridden temper. With some own, but has been shown by events to coin
signal exceptions, the Piedmontese aristocracy cide with the pervading feeling of Piedmont.
has taken no part in promoting the great mea We believe this assumption to rest on the
sures that modified the Constitution of the grave mistake of identifying Turin with
country. In its judgment Count Cavour was Piedmont. In the capital there has been
a demagogue and a renegade from his order. and still is great irritation at the transfer of
Now this aristocracy, which has all along the seat of Government. The irritation, not
gnashed its teeth in anger at every measure astonishing under all circumstances, has been
that has been a step in advance, has again undoubtedly stimulated by the agitating ma
manifested its spirit of opposition—a spirit noeuvres of the aristocratic party, which found
now indeed exhibited in a more violent man a happy field in the consciousness of the
ner than on former occasions, but in itself not Turinese that their city possesses none of
new. Still we are told that the kind of irri the natural advantages which always secured
tation which has seized this body is marked to Florence and Naples the certainty of pros
by a serious feature heretofore wanting. It perity independently of their being the resi
is affirmed that the rage of the Piedmontese dence of Courts. But let us go into the
aristocracy has made them lose their personal other towns of Piedmont, and we shall find
affections for the House of Savoy so entirely, that the same feeling of irritation does not
as to make them ready to engage in active extend to these; a point whereof conclusive
disloyalty. If we were to believe these re proof is afforded by the marked contrast be
presentations, the temper is such, that for the tween their attitude at Turin, and the absence
sake of punishing Victor Emmanuel, every of demonstrations in any one town of Pied
chance of insurrection would be embraced, mont in sympathy with those that occurred
even though it were for the avowed purpose in Turin. The old capital alone has mani
of converting Piedmont into a French de fested passionate anger at what has been de
partment. If this were correct we should creed, but Piedmont at large has not partici
indeed have here to deal with a novel ele pated in these ebullitions. The truth of our
ment, for the Piedmontese nobility has ever assertion is irrefutably established by an
been an essentially soldierly body, which, analysis of the opposition recorded in Par
irrespective of political principles, has never liament to the Convention. Other than
failed on the outbreak of war to evince stout those who, as determined members of the
patriotism. But we are quite at a loss to Radical party, were on principle adverse to
detect any evidence in support of such an every ministerial measure, we find in the op
opinion. The testimony of the past seems position division list of the Deputies hardly
to point conclusively to the contrary inference. any of the men of Piedmontese origin who
The breach between the Crown and the aris have attained to political distinction. In the
tocracy was quite as wide when the Consti Senate, some Piedmontese of eminence, like
tution was granted, and the King surrounded Ponza di San Martino, did indeed protest ve
himself with advisers from the middle classes; hemently against the policy of the measure,
and yet at that time the undisguised discon but the Senate also notoriously comprises
tent of the nobility showed no tendency to many reactionary elements in its parent
238 State and Prospects of Italy. June,
stock, of purely Piedmontese creation. In tan provinces, in their present condition, a
the Lower House, the Piedmontese Deputies, soil infested with brigandage, would be be
who figured as the violent opponents of the yond the limits of this paper, which has for
Convention, were without exception men of its scope circumstances bearing on a particu
no parliamentary standing, and connected lar movement. To understand these circum
with Turin by ties of interest and profession, stances, it is however necessary to define the
like the lawyer Boggio, who made himself moral circumscription within which lies the
the mouthpiece of this municipal clique. It lawlessness that has to be dealt with at pre
is needless to remind the reader that the ma sent in these provinces. We need not know
jority of the Cabinet which defended before all the peculiarities that mark its character,
£ the treaty concluded by its pre but it is indispensable that we should not as
decessors in office, consisted of Piedmontese. cribe to it qualities that are really foreign to
No less significant is the course pursued by its origin. Neapolitan brigandage is thus
M. Rattazzi. M. Rattazzi is a man who has not the manifestation of strong popular im
acquired the position of an influential poli pulses of loyal affection for a dethroned dy
tician. He has gained this by parliamentary nasty. It is a gross misrepresentation to
skill and quickness in debate. He is ambi consider it to proceed from a feeling of ro
tious of office, has held it several times, and mantic devotion for an unfortunate cause, akin
has never shown symptoms of wishing to re to what animated the Wendean royalists, and
tire from political life. Amongst the party made the hearts of the Highlanders thrill with
leaders in Parliament M. Rattazzi has been passion at the name of Stuart. The lawless
looked upon as the representative of a spe ness which infests the Neapolitan provinces
cially Piedmontese complexion of feeling. is in substance of the same order which is
A Piedmontese himself, he has always con met with in Ireland. The political complex
trived to figure as the leading man amongst ion is merely of the surface, as a dye smeared
his immediate countrymen in the House, and on the face, while its real nature is of social
his advent to office has been taken to sig. origin, and, except through the action of arti
nalize antagonism to the great national party ficial stimulant, confines itself to agrarian out
represented by the combination of men who rage. We are firmly convinced that the dis
formed the Minghetti Cabinet, and concluded order, which has afflicted these provinces like
the Convention. Yet M. Rattazzi, though a pestilence, is a thing quite apart from purely
certainly not a politician disposed to omit an political feeling, and quite incapable of being
opportunity of assailing his adversaries, spoke roused to action at the concerted operation
and voted for the Convention; for although of a political rising. The elements in fermen
he is fully aware that his influence has been tation are simply a savage and miserable
mainly due to his connexion as a Piedmont peasantry, grovelling in a state of degraded
ese, and that the value of such connexion ignorance, rendered necessarily vicious by the
will fall considerably by the dethronement of accumulation of bad feeling, contracted in
Piedmont from its exceptional position, his centuries of systematically wretched govern
sagacity instinctively shrank from ruining ments and hard conditions. For the relations
himself in the opinion of Italy by associating between the owner of the soil and the labour
with a mere municipal faction, in opposition ing population, in many portions of the king
to a measure of manifestly imperial interest. dom, have been on a footing to inspire the
We cannot therefore see that there is foun latter with a feeling of bitter hostility against
dation for the opinion that the practical con the former, and it is in the antagonism which
sequences of carrying the seat of Govern has thereby been engendered that resides the
ment to Florence must be disastrous, because whole force that now disturbs the peace of
this measure cannot fail to quicken intestine the Neapolitan provinces.
jealousies amongst the provinces whose re In 1863, a Parliamentary Commission was
cent fusion has produced the Italian king appointed to examine on the spot into the
dom, and to alienate from the House of nature of brigandage. It was composed of
Savoy the affections of its old subjects. men well able to perform the duty they were
charged with. The report drawn up by these
II. Still less are we able to concur in the Commissioners is a most instructive and ex
opinion that an effect of this measure must haustive production, with a telling appendix
be to aggravate the active intensity of those of illustrative facts to the opinions expressed
lawless elements which have produced in the in its body. These judges ascribe, in the
£" provinces a state of chronic bri most decided manner, brigandage to the pas
gandage. To enter upon an inquiry into the sions nourished in the breasts of the peasantry
causes, some moral and of ancient origin, by the miserable conditions in which they
others merely accidental and of yesterday's live. “First amongst the causes leading to
growth, which combine to make the Neapoli brigandage,” we read in the Report, “is the
social condition, the worldly state of the pea proceeded to fill naturally the offices of Syn
sant, which, in the very provinces where bri dic, Councillor, Commandant of the National
gandage has attained largest proportions, is Guard, which were necessarily created on the
most wretched.”* In support of this, the establishment of the present system of local
Commissioners , state two striking facts. administration. Therefore these savage
Wherever the Metayer system prevails in the boors saw nothing in the revolution but the
Neapolitan provinces, there brigandage has exaltation of those whom they particularly
not thriven. In Calabria, where an excep had a grudge against, and lent consequently
tional and quite feudal relationship of cordial an eager ear to the incendiary incentives for
fellow-feeling unites the great landowners falling upon and despoiling these Liberals.”
with their dependents, who here have pre A sore of this social nature can be healed
served the character of retainers, brigandage only by social operations, by a healthy reac
has been equally at a discount. On the other tion in the system. The repressive interven
hand, the districts that have been ravaged by tion of the Central Executive will not be
it, the Capitanata and the Basilicata, are enough to get the better of the evil. Unfor
those where the peasantary are reduced to tunately, in the Neapolitan provinces hither
the lowest level of physical and mental con to, the only active force that has been brought
dition, clad like savages in the skins of goats, systematically against brigandage is the inade
housed in hovels of the meanest structure, quate one of the military. The military is
destitute of all instruction, having no religion an indispensable accessory; but it is hopeless
but that of a fetish-worship, the perfect type to see lawlessness of this special nature extir
of humanity grown wild and utterly given up pated, so long as the middle classes them
to the unbridled instincts of fiery passion. It selves continue, from cowardice, to allow bri
is from individuals of this stamp that the bri gandage to exercise an assured terrorism.
gand bands are recruited, and their actions The Commissioners dwell with much force on
as enrolled bands have corresponded exactly the striking contrast afforded by a few locali
to the impulses which sway them as individu ties where the leading inhabitants and landed
als. They never have attempted any com proprietors, under the influence of a spirited
bined operations approaching to the concep townsman, got up a civil force that boldly
tion of a campaign, but have contented them defied the brigands, and refused to pay atten
selves with committing outrages upon the tion to their threatening demands. The re
property and persons of the leading landown sult was that these communities remained
ers of their immediate district against whom thereafter exempt from the visitations which
they entertained a spite. The war carried were the lot of their more timid neighbours.
on has been a war of agrarian passions, This is the point at which we apprehend that
waged by a fearfully barbarous peasantry the Convention, with its consequences, is
against the men of landed substance. The likely to be felt. There is nothing more la
political colour acquired by their lawless pro mentable than the spectacle of faint-hearted
ceedings, has been derived from the extrane helplessness presented by these Neapolitan
ous circumstance that the Bourbonists availed communities, quietly knocking under to the
themselves of this element of intestine dis threats of a handful of cowardly ruffians, un
order to appear strong before the world. less it be the cause that inspires it. That
Therefore Chiavone, and Nino Nanco, and cause is an inward hollowness of faith in the
Caruso, and the many other leaders of bands, stability of the new Government, simply be
were invested with brevets from King Fran cause it is new. The phantom of restoration
cis, and the outlaws perpetrated depredations, haunts the soul of a Neapolitan who has seen
for the gratification of their personal passions, Governments often blown over, but who has
under the false show of a political purpose, never known a revolution to prove abiding.
and under the sham dress of political parti Go through the country, and unfortunately
sans. At the same time, it happened that * The Commissioners state that Giorgi, a brigand
the class against which the individuals who chief in the Abruzzi, having entered San Germano,
composed the brigand bands were bitterly harangued the country ''': in the market-place
inflamed, was the very one that, in each lo with the following words:—“Francis II. wishes to
cality, was most conspicuously identified with to finish off with these galantuomini,” the name given
all above the labouring class, “who do you so
the new order of things, for it was the middle much harm. He charged me to tell you that he
class—the small landowners—the men of will give you all their houses and goods. Also
property and substance—that groaned in the from the Pope I am charged to bless you and ab
provinces beneath the despotism of the Bour solve you from your sins.” We ourselves have
heard at San Germano much bearing on this sub
bons, undisguisedly rejoiced at the proclama ject. Probably there is no district in which the
tion of the new Government, and immediately relations between the labouring classes and the
owners of the land are marked with more bitter
* Commissione d'Inghiestasul Brigantaggio, p. 9. feelings.
you will find a pervading want of confidence, tee, and the more so, that during the last
a pervading uneasiness of mind, partly of years the most incredible stories had been
Francis II., partly of the French Emperor as systematically circulated by Bourbon agents
the protector of Murat, now in regard to in the provincial circles—peculiarly prone to
some fabulous conceptions of what England swallow fables—about the positive determi
is meditating and now in regard to a won nation of the Emperor Napoleon not to per
derful mare's-nest, in the manufacture of mit Naples to remain attached to the Italian
which every political £ of Europe be kingdom. The result has been to instil a
comes an ingredient, which makes men help new flood of confidence in the present state
less, and tremble with an inconceivable per of things into the hearts of the provincial
turbation at the thought of being called upon populations, which, it is reasonable to ex
publicly to commit themselves, by boldly pect, will contribute to discourage the al
facing the partisans of a cause which still ready languishing force of brigandage. That
looms before the mind of the country with so an evil, taking root in a social sore of long
spectre-like an influence as that of the ex standing, should disappear at once altogether,
pelled Bourbons. “What if they were to is out of the question; but as certainly as its
come back from Rome?” is the question existence is a serious weakness to Italy, so
which nine-tenths of the individuals put to certainly can it be asserted that the moral
themselves who really wish for anything but influences flowing from the Treaty can
their return, when they find themselves in never tend to inflame its noxiousness. The
the predicament of being exposed to take a Government of Victor Emmanuel has gained
step that may publicly separate them further immensely in reality for the Neapolitan pro
from the past, and the impulse will usually vincials since and in virtue of the Conven
be to avoid taking this step from fear of pos tion. Brigandage is now merely sporadic,
sible consequences in the event of a possible with the exception of a few localities; and
restoration. if it has not altogether been stripped of its
It is this want of confidence, the vice be assumed political dress, this is due exclu
gotten by centuries of demoralizing habits, sively to the mischievous influence of the
which has protected brigandage in the Nea country clergy, with whom alone there re
politan provinces. Victor Emmanuel may sides a really active spirit of political hostility
be King for the hour, and an Italian kingdom to the Government. But the consideration
may be proclaimed just now ; but still Fran of this influence comes within the problem
cis II. is close by in Rome, and it is an ugly which lies in the great Roman knot.
thing, as experience has taught, to trust
rashly to the appearances of the moment, and III. We have before said that the Roman
rouse the anger of a possibly restored mo question falls under two aspects, closely hang
narch by imprudent manifestations. The want ing together, yet presenting issues of very dif
of the Neapolitan populations is of moral self ferent magnitudes, the one being confined to
reliance. The classes that at heart loathe the concrete point of certain natural reasons
the thought of Bourbon rule are yet practically inherent to Rome, which are supposed to
postponing the consolidation of the new sys make the Italians hotly bent on being satisfied
tem, as far as this depends on them, by inac with nothing short of the actual installation
tivity, and a faint-hearted dread of obeying of their seat of Government within its walls;
their convictions and coming forward in be and the other comprising an intricate mass of
half of an authority which they are afraid delicate considerations, that have their source
may itself soon fall. It is this temper alone in religious scruples, and in the peculiarly sa
which has enabled a few ruffians to terrorize cred rank which the Pope holds in the eyes
repeatedly a whole district, to a degree which of faithful Roman Catholics. It is manifest
is inconceivable. Now undoubtedly the Con that the measure adopted by the Italian Go
vention has created in the Neapolitan pro vernment affects both these aspects, though in
vinces an impression that the Italian Go different degrees; for upon its frontispiece
vernment is growing in positive strength, for stands conspicuously inscribed the purpose to
what Neapolitans always look to is the ac furnish a pledge for dispelling that angry
tion of foreign Governments. All their revo dread of harsh coercion which is put forward
lutions have come from without; and their by those who in the Court of Rome declare
conception of political vicissitudes is insepa anti-Italian feelings to be a matter of neces
rable from something that comes from a for sity for it, in consequence of the spoliation
eign power. The fact, therefore, of the which is intended. It appears to us that the
Treaty signed with France, accompanied by promise held out bids fair to be kept; and
the transfer of the capital in direct under that already the effect of the measure adopted
standing with France, has affected the Nea by the Italian Government is felt in the re- .
politan mind with the sensation of a guaran. duction of the antagonistic elements which
militated against an understanding with Government could go on from Turin, and that
Rome, in so far, at least, as these elements therefore the actual establishment of it in
existed on the side of the Italians. The cry Rome was not the sine quá non condition it had
that the wants of Italy cannot be satisfied been freely asserted. Hence a change came
without Rome being made the capital, is now gradually over public feeling. The question
uttered with a feeling much modified from of the capital faded in importance before the
the passion of a short while ago; and we note ever growing sense of the danger necessarily
this fact as an indication of the coolness of involved by French occupation of Rome.
mind which the Italians have retained amidst To relieve the country from the political
the excitement of revolution. The change millstone so plainly hung round its neck, be
which we fancy to be working is not at all an gan to appear an object worth every possible
essential change of purpose; it is merely a concession, and this conception spread from
modification of method—the result of experi statesmen into the people. We have no he
ence, that what is really essential can be at sitation in saying that a serious though tacit
tained by other combinations than those ori reaction has taken place in the estimation of
ginally conceived, and at first pursued with what constitutes really essential points for
rather hasty and overweening impetuosity. Italy in the settlement of the Roman question.
But the essential purpose which lay at the The establishment in Rome of the metropolis
heart of Count Cavour, when he struck out the —the enthronement upon the capitol of the
formula of Rome the metropolis of Italy, was representative of the Italian State—is looked
simply to give a pointed expression to the upon at heart as a matter of comparative in
absolute necessity of completing the national significance, if only the Roman population can
structure of Italy, by the emancipation of be got to participate practically in the civil
Rome and the Papal States from the conti advantages enjoyed by their Italian brethren.
nued presence of foreign intervention. This The Italians are far too shrewd a people to
feeling, and this feeling alone, inspired Count be deluded into a belief that there is a serious
Cavour—whose inventive genius darted upon intention to undo, immediately after eighteen
the coincidence between the manifestly pro months, all that has just been done at so much
visional Constitution of an Italy with Turin cóst in Florence, and to renew forth with the
for capital, and the condition of Rome, not scenes of dethronement which have been just
yet delivered from dependence on a strange gone through in Turin. The real feelings of
power—to provide a political formula strik the country are concentrated, not on seeing
ingly expressive of the national want, and cal Victor Emmanuel dwelling in the Quirinal,
culated to furnish a direction to the national but on seeing an end put to a state of things
action. At that time, however, the Italians in virtue of which a foreign power of first-rate
undoubtedly overrated the facility of carrying magnitude is located in the heart of Italy.
through this project. They deluded them. To achieve this capital object we believe that
selves as to the effect which would follow on the temper of the Italian people would readily
their presenting to the French Government a acquiesce in preserving, within specified li
distinct summons to march out of Rome. mits, sovereign rights to the Pope, and is fully
Success had flushed the popular mind with disposed, in accordance with the terms of
impatient irritation at a disappointment, and the Convention, to discountenance violence
had inspired the feeling that, like a second against the Pope. Time and moral influences
Jericho, the walls of Rome must tumble down are now looked to for a solution, the precise
at the blast of national cravings. The plain condition of which no one presumes to be able
spoken representations addressed by Baron to define beforehand, but which it is confi
Ricasoli on the subject to France, indicated dently assumed will come about through pa
a haughty misapprehension of any circum tience and moderation. Citta santa ma citta
stances being of a nature to stand between Italiana was the phrase used by Massimo
the wishes of the Italian people and their im d'Azeglio in his speech on the Convention;
mediate execution by the French Government. and we are disposed to think that he happily
The result was that the Italians experienced gave expression therein to what would satisfy
a sharp rebuff, with which they have had to the genuine feelings of the Italians. During
put up; and they learned then that there the same debate a very remarkable speech
were elements of a serious nature connected was delivered by the Marquis Gualterio which
with the presence of the French in Rome we would consider a note-worthy sign of the
which could not be got rid of by off-hand pro times. The Marquis Gualterio may be taken
ceedings and obstreperous clamour. At the as the special representative of Italian
same time that they got to feel the difficulties unitarianism in its direct connexion with
in the way of what was so important to ob Rome. He was himself a subject of the Pope,
tain—the departure of French forces from and has been already, long before 1859, the
Italian soil; they acquired experience that indefatigable and systematic missionary of
Italianism against the Pontifical Government. fers a means of delivery from foreign occupa
He has ever represented the particular move tion; and with admirable good sense the Ro
ment against the Pope's temporal authority. mans have understood that the simple fact of
To him the question how to deal with Rome delivery from the continued presence of for
has been undisguisedly the question of capital eign intervention is a higher object than the
importance, nor has he been backward to claiming for their city the prerogative of being
counsel resolute measures. He concurred at the Italian metropolis. . If they persevere, as
the time cordially in the sharp policy advo they appear determined to do, in this line of
cated by Baron Ricasoli, who sent him as an public-spirited self-denial, then we believe that
advanced vidette on the Pope's frontier to they will have the merit of guarding Italy
govern Orvieto as Prefect. Yet this man, so against a danger not a whit less serious than
little prone to hidden courses, so well known the weight of Austrian armies. So far, there
for his strong unitarian feelings, at great fore, as the difficulties presented by the Ro
length expressed his conviction that the Con man question turn merely on the supposed
vention should be accepted in good faith; be passion of the Italian people to lodge their
cause, said he, to deal successfully with Rome King in the same city with the Pope, we are
it was indispensable to disarm by a genuinely decidedly of opinion that the effect of the
conciliatory course those cosmopolitan ele Convention has materially contributed to con
ments of Roman Catholic coalition, which in firm a reaction already set in against this as
1850 restored the Pope, and would be impel sumed popular passion.
led to fall afresh on Italy were he to be made It is less clear that this same measure can
the victim of treacherous violence. Now, in have equal effect in smoothing down the other
these words Marquis Gualterio struck a chord and more subtle class of difficulties that sur
which is eminently in accord with the genius round the attempt to bring the Papacy and
of a people so essentially astute as the Ita the Italian State into concord. These consti
lians. The argument was really drawn out tute in our opinion the most serious, or rather
of their hearts. The marvellous self-restraint the only serious, internal difficulties which the
shown by the Italians after Villafranca was Italian unitarians have to contend against, for
mainly due to a lively dread of giving occa they alone of all the elements of opposition
sion to a return of the Austrians by the first conjured up against the new Government,
act of discord. The sense of how much had have a deeper origin than resides in thin strata
been already gained, and of Austrian batta of an artificial creation. It is not to be over
lions being still massed angrily on the banks looked that, amongst the rural population,
of the Mincio, concurred to promote the rapid which is in many parts utterly uneducated,
unification of Italy. We are convinced that there exists a quite superstitious reverence for
if once the French evacuation of the Pope's the clergy, who are therefore in a position to
dominions be happily effectuated, the people's wield a very material influence. Nor is this
shrewd dread of the possible return of such influence of the clergy confined to these lower
occupation will tell powerfully to keep them classes. Hidden and difficult to trace in all
within the limits of prudence. In fact, we its windings, it penetrates stealthily every
have practical evidence for the foundation of where, and secures a directing action particu
this anticipation. The National Committee larly through its hold on women. One can
which clandestinely directs the Liberal party indulge no delusion as to the purposes for
in Rome, has been, we believe, remodelled which the clergy exert the influence they pos
within the last few months. It is now com sess. As a body, they make incessant war against
posed, we are told, of men who are in intimate the national Government. That the Italian
relations with the people, and must conse clergy counts not only many individuals, but
quently be taken to represent especially the even religious confraternities, disposed to take
popular feelings on the subject of the Con another line, we are convinced of, but under
vention. If anywhere, it would be natural present circumstances they cannot assert
that in Rome there should be some irritation at themselves to any good effect. The strict
the terms of an arrangement which does not spirit of discipline of the Romish Church
distinctly contemplate an immediate and abso makes the inferior clergy humbly submissive
lute emancipation from the detested rule of to their superiors, and these have for some
the priests. Yet this is so far from being the years been carefully selected for their virtues
case, that since the publication of the Con of servile deference to every behest from
vention the greatest possible union exists in Rome. As a body, the Italian clergy is
the Liberal part of the Roman population as therefore decidedly hostile to the Italian Go
to the line of action to be pursued. Every vernment, and thus an antagonism has been
kind of provoking demonstration against the produced which is seen every day, and in
Government has been dropped as impolitic. every quarter, creating a state of things which
It is felt on all hands that the Convention of. is seriously embarrassing. It is the opinion
of many persons that this might have been mission named to examine it—a Commission
obviated had the State not omitted the op comprising such leading and Conservative
portunity of conciliating the clergy, which, men as Ricasoli, Giorgini, and Corsi, and
after all, is composed of Italians, in the earlier which recommended considerable modifica
stages of the revolution. There is probably tions—to see how largely the fundamental
some foundation for the idea, that the pro idea of the measure finds favour. We appre
ceedings of the Executive towards the clergy hend that at the coming general election, men
have been calculated to irritate its notoriously may be returned to parliament animated with
sensitive susceptibilities. There was a mo a dangerously excited temper against the
ment when it might have been possible to Church. But should this temper acquire as
detach a considerable portion of the respect cendency in the councils of the nation, then we
able clergy from identifying itself with a fierce much fear that the Italians will find themselves
war, to be waged for the special interests of engaged in a work of terrible labour. For it is
the Court of Rome on the National Govern impossible to separate in Italy questions rela
ment. As matters stand at present the ranks tive to the administrative organization of the
of the ecclesiastical phalanx are closely serried Church from the capital question of the Pope
around the steps of the Pope's throne, and —of the establishment that is to be given
have been carrying out his orders without any him in his capacity of Catholic Primate.
really considerable defections. Other Catholic nations have been able to carry
Thus a state of affairs is created which is out arbitrarily ecclesiastical reforms in their
undeniably grave, as it tends necessarily to Church establishments by themselves, but
widen a dangerous breach. We cannot avoid Italy can never deal with the Church with
perceiving that the persistent hostility de out coming simultaneously into direct collision
clared by the Court of Rome, and waged by with the Papacy itself, and hence with the
the clergy, is productive of a rapidly growing great and manifold interests connected with
irritation in the classes sincerely devoted to this institution. These interests are so rami
the new order of things. Politicians of mark fied, so subtle, and so liable to modification
and temper, representing large sections, who from strange causes, that it is impossible to
formerly spoke disparagingly of the compa define and estimate their force. In having to
ratively insignificant measures adopted by the contend with them, Italy has to contend with
Executive against the clergy as vexatious and elements that escape scientific tests. The an
impolitic, are now disposed to urge such tagonism into which the State has therefore
wholesale operations of coercion as the total got with this dark power—a power which
suppression of religious orders, the arbitrary cannot be summarily expelled with a certainty
redistribution of dioceses by the civil power, of having been finally got rid of by the pro
and the sale of all Church lands. We have cess, while it obstinately refuses to be coaxed
watched this modification of feeling amongst into good fellowship—is rightly a source of
men of moderate opinions, and cannot resist anxiety to prudent politicians.
the impression that it is very prevalent. A It is difficult to detect any speedy prospect
feeling of exasperation is being kindled by of improvement in this unsatisfactory condi
the systematic disloyalty of the clergy; for tion of affairs. The hope to be entertained
bearance is being worn threadbare by conti is, that a reaction may set in against the in
nued friction against an obstinately recalcitrant exorable irritability which has possessed the
priesthood; and astrong belief is arising that Papacy; for as long as Pius IX. lives, we
it is quite useless to employ any other than apprehend that few persons will be sanguine
radical operations to get rid of this malignant enough to think it possible to carry through
element. The influence of this growing feel any reasonable arrangement with Rome.
ing is unmistakably visible in the bill pre There is, however, reason for presuming that
sented by the present Government for the there are in the Church men sufficiently im
suppression of religious corporations and the pressed with the perils that menace the
reorganization of the Church establishment. genuine interests of their religion, by a con
In its present shape, it is out of the question tinuance in the line of conduct adopted by
to fancy that it can ever be accepted by the Pius IX, as to be likely to advocate another
clergy, much less by Rome. £ of its course, should they be legitimately in a posi
clauses for the suppression of sees, for re tion to speak with authority. This could
modelling the boundaries of dioceses, are so only be after the death of the present Pope.
direct an usurpation of the purely spiritual The moving springs of the men who might
authority vested in the Pope, that they must act thus would reside in specially religious
have been introduced with the special view of convictions. It is not likely, therefore, that
bearding it. It is true that the bill is laid the establishment of the capital at Florence
aside for the present. Yet it is enough to will exercise more than a merely indirect
peruse the report of the Parliamentary Com-' influence on their minds. Their thoughts
will run more on the moral condition of the condition of the powers engaged in active
Church than on material guarantees for the operation—to inquire into their steadiness,
temporal power. Indirectly, however, the their temper, their present spirit, as to gaze
establishment of the capital may perhaps tend curiously at subtle elements of an historical
to stimulate their courage to hold out a hand and almost impalpable nature. Let us step
of peace, if a disposition to do so is not other down from contemplating vast forces that
wise checked through the display of some work with the mysterious weight of fated
directly hostile spirit against the Church by antagonisms, and look at the small, sharp,
the representatives of the State. It is in concrete image of man, as in his little self
regard to such important contingencies that he stands grappling with circumstance.
we hail the conciliatory words uttered by a Having gauged how far the elements naturally
man of Gualterio's position and peculiar au and necessarily hostile to a united Italy can
thority, as a noteworthy symptom. The be anticipated to derive strength or weakness
difficulty of the Papacy is the greatest diffi from the important measure of internal reform
culty Italy has to deal with. It is so great a that has been adopted, let us see what ground
difficulty that all the forces of the country there is for apprehending that the Italians
will be required to overcome it. The power will seriously be wanting to themselves at
of religious feeling and of the clergy is for the critical moment.
midable. To overcome this requires more For the first time Italy is about to go
than violence—it requires statesmanship and through the ordeal of a general election, un
certain large concessions. The Convention der circumstances to elicit the political feel
has done somewhat which may help to facili ings of the country free from exaggerated
tate an understanding; but by itself this is impulses, necessarily limited in this direction.
not enough. The understanding, so import The last elections did take place under the
ant to the future of Italy, can be brought action of one of these transports of feeling
about only if the Italian Government steers that give a tyrannical complexion to revolu
its course so that, while asserting its authority tions, and impose silence on dissentients. The
against seditious priests, it refrains from mea country was in the paroxysm of creation;
sures of a persecuting nature that must wound and enthusiasm for unification under the scep
deep rooted religious feelings, and subject the tre of Victor Emmanuel burned with a pas
Church to a species of coercion manifestly sionateness that violently submerged every
trenching upon a sacrilegious invasion of its other feeling, and made it either walk abroad
specific jurisdiction over spiritual matters. in a deceptive mask, or hide itself altogether
We have now surveyed in succession, as far in obscurity. One profession of political
as we can, the effects which the serious mea faith then ran absolutely through the Penin
sure of removing the seat of Government from sula, and to judge by what occurred at those
Turin may be anticipated to exercise directly first elections, Italy seemed the united family
on the great internal difficulties affecting Italy, amongst nations, where all men lived in cor
difficulties inherent in her nature, the fruit of dial harmony, where all men were exactly of
causes seated in the distance of ages, and nei one mind, and all men were devoted to the
ther evoked by the action of the present gene monarchy. We remember how, at the time
ration, nor capable of being exorcised by any when the first Italian Parliament was being
mere adroitness on its part. The difficulties opened, one of the leading £ of the
that have been engaging our attention con country remarked, as he looked at the Depu
stitute, in virtue of an irreversible course of ties thronging into the hall, that the appear
events, as necessarily unavoidable a portion ance of uniformity was too great to be relia
of the task united Italy has to deal with, as ble, still more to be a correct reflex of the
mountains and jungles and torrents constitute country. What was especially remarkable
of the task an explorer has to deal with, who was the entire absence of any representatives
deliberately sets himself to penetrate a new of a Conservative and clerical feeling, for
country in one particular direction. But although in the new provinces the enthusi
besides these difficulties, with which Italy is astic delight at the changes wrought in their
fated to contend by an overwhelming com condition rendered the unpopularity of such
bination of causes beyond control, there may feeling intelligible, yet in the constituencies
be others arising from the special circum of Piedmont proper there had always been
stances and characteristics of the present ge a Conservative and clerical party, which had
neration not less formidable. When therefore formerly returned active representatives to
we have examined the force with which a Parliament, who were ranged under the
particular occurrence is calculated to strike leadership of Count Solaro di Margherita, a
certain distinct elements of opposition, we man of decided ability. The absolute disap
have done but half our work of survey. It is pearance of this party from the House, re
quite as essential to be satisfied about the sulted, therefore, manifestly from one of those
violent revulsions, too extreme to be capable The first of these objects is believed to be
of continuance. It was the effect of being sought to be attained in large part through
stunned; but stunning can last only a certain the instrumentality of the Society of St.
while. On the other hand, the apparent Vincent de Paul—a society devoted avow
conformity of political feelings amongst the edly to works of charity and beneficence,
Deputies immediately split up into factions but which, it is confidently said, are made to
of various kinds, some deriving their com serve as engines for political propagandism.
plexion from merely personal influences, The constitution of this society is indeed
others being stamped with the passionate very remarkable. Although marked with a
features of Mazzinian feelings. Scarcely had religious complexion, the members of the so
Parliament proceeded to business, than ciety are not distinguished by any outward
it was seen that uniformity had come badges of confraternity. The only visible
to an end, and that, besides other divisions, bond of union is that of contribution to a
there was a marked knot of impatient common fund for charities, and of co-opera
Radicals clamouring for wild and foolish pro tion in seeking to administer to the wants of
jects. distressed persons. Men of all classes and of
Now, it is a matter of considerable anxiety all callings are members of this body; with
to many Italian politicians, whether, at the the obligation, as such, to give gratuitously
coming elections, there will not result a seri their professional services to the society when
ous increase to the strength of a party wanted. The lawyer, the physician, the
practically bent on discarding the system on merchant, the man of the world, are thus so
which the country has been administered for many soldiers of different weapons, to be
the last four years. We have heard uneasy employed according to the nature of the ser
misgivings expressed on this score by men vice to be rendered, by the officer in com
entitled to respect. There can be no doubt mand. The range of service is indeed wide.
that the consequences would be incalculably The society by no means confines its activity
grave if a Parliament were to be returned to such labours of relief as are usually un
with a numerically strong and compact pha derstood by works of charity. To bestow
lanx of exaggerated Radicals, while the tem relief in money and kind, to tend the com
perate Liberals were split up into personal forts of sick paupers, to minister, in short, to
factions. Happily, we believe that there is physical wants, is only a small portion of the
every ground for not anticipating such an duties assumed by the brotherhood of St.
untoward result. Yet we are free to confess Vincent de Paul. It aims to exercise a moral
that the impending elections promise to be influence, to heal dissensions, to promote re
attended by the active intervention of ele conciliations, in a word, to play the part of a
ments that were quite out of the field before, sedulous peacemaker and comforter, for ever
and which now are undeniably organized to going round on the watch for an occasion
operate with a systematic vigour against the that may call for interference, and always
£ of temperate unitarians, which has quick to come forward with an effort at as
itherto been in so decided an ascendency. sistance. The society is thus continually
According to the testimony of persons from seeking out persons involved in troubles, no
all parts of Italy, the clerical and reactionary matter of what nature, whom thus it tries to
faction has everywhere of late exhibited an relieve. In doing so, the deputed member
activity manifestly the result of concert. The proceeds, irrespective of any other considera
operations pursued may be classed under tions than that of the most fitting method
three heads: to create a double instrument for the application of remedies. The minis
that can serve at once for organization of the ter of relief appears in no prescribed uniform,
party, and for special agency upon the feel he is dispensed from all obligatory declara
ings of the people; to bring into play means tion of his character. When the case will
of religious coercion for frightening timid not admit of avowed interference, then an
souls from connecting themselves with the emissary is selected who can steal in under
new Government; and to fling at Elections the unsuspicious garb of an old friend, of a
the whole weight of the party into the scale kind-hearted relative, of some seemingly for
of Radical candidates, with the view of swell tuitous good Samaritan, and thus the object
ing the elements of disorder. These tactics in view is smuggled through with covert art.
are capable of demonstration. They have It is evident that such an organization is well
been pursued with the pertinacity peculiar to calculated to render formidable the influence
clerical organization—with that steady, noise of a society, which should be widely spread,
less, mole-like mode of operation which is so and conduct its operations under systematic
admirably fitted to escape observation, and direction. Both these conditions have been
yet to work towards an aim with assiduity most successfully attained by the Society of
that knows no rest. St. Vincent de Paul, which has continued
246 State and Prospects of Italy, June,
rapidly to inundate like a flood every region been observed in localities of a cognate
and community of the Roman Catholic world. nature to the temper existing in the
The foundation of the society dates from Romagna; and everywhere local testimony
about the middle of Louis Philippe's reign, deposes to the fact that with the same activity
and was the work of some young men in which they have shown in dispensing
Paris. With a quickness, all the more charities, the Paolotti have brought to bear
astonishing that it was free from all ostenta on recent occasions all the influence at their
tious circumstances to arrest attention, this disposal to thwart the triumph of moderate
obscure benefit society of Paris established Liberal principles, even to the length of
affiliated offshoots, first all over France, then coalescing practically with Mazzinians.Nor
in neighbouring countries, gradually in every can any one be disposed to doubt the cor
corner of Catholic Europe. All these insti rectness of this charge who has knowledge
tutions remained in close correspondence of Rome and of the language systematically
with the parent society in Paris, which held by the organs of the Jesuit faction in
retained thus the supreme direction of a body that city. The rapid growth of republican
of universal dimensions, dealing with interests passions in Italy, and the certainty of their
of every degree and nature. The parent triumph, is the continual theme of declama
foundation in Paris was in fact the Grand tion, coupled with an undisguised expression
Lodge of a zealous, busy, practical free of confidence that the consummation of this
masonry, that multiplied with the same triumph is to be looked to as the event
mysterious rapidity with which rabbits mul which must bring about the reaction that
tiply in a warren. The Emperor Napoleon's will restore the good estate of Italy, and the
Government found reason to become jealous happy reign of legitimate principles now
of the kind of action which the society aimed trodden under foot. But who is innocent
at exercising in the country. With the enough to fancy that the action of the Paolotti
view of depriving it of the means to wield associations spread over Italy, is not inspired
such influence, the correspondence between and controlled from the board which pre
the different local bodies and the Paris sides over the Society in Rome; and by
Society was prohibited. The object was to whom do we find that Board to be presided
reduce the society to a mere bundle of local over but by Monsignor Borromeo, Maggior
charitable institutions, strictly confined to domo of the Pope, and probably the most
local charitable purposes, and stripped of any devoted tool which the Society of Jesus
formidable organization. We believe that commands amongst the prelates constituting
the measure has quite failed in its intentions. the Pope's household? There is therefore
The Paris Society, it is confidently asserted, conclusive circumstantial evidence that the
still exercises the same prerogatives of grand widely spread and sedulously active Society
mastership as before, only the dependence on of St. Vincent de Paul, is a body of a for
it, from being formal and avowed, has become midable nature, capable of serious political
clandestine, so that the correspondence is influence, commanding very considerable re
now carried on in the shape of private com sources, which are being strenuously and syste
munication. It is beyond denial that the matically expended, partly for the purpose of
influence possessed by the society is vast, constituting a bond to keep sympathies from
and that its influence, as its organization, falling asunder, and partly for the purpose of
presents points of striking analogy to those forging an instrument of active offence.
offered by the Jesuits. It is certain that a In regard to the system of religious coer
close connexion exists between the two cion set in motion to frighten timid souls, the
societies, many of the devotees to the one evidence is still clearer, for it is supported by
being enrolled members of the other. In documentary proofs of undeniable authenti
Italy the spread and activity of the Society city. The mode of operation put in practice
of St. Vincent are particularly great. We is to refuse the sacraments of the Church to
have met with the existence of the Paolotti, those who, either by deed or language in re
as they are popularly called, in every little gard to political events in Italy, have given
country town; and it is very remarkable that offence to the authorities of the Court of
their organization is most distinguished for Rome, as long as they do not profess repent
activity in those districts where political ance for their errors, and take engagements
passions are supposed to be the keenest. In to make them good. The application of this
the Romagna where there is a numerically intimidation has not been left to the instinct
inferior, but resolute and disciplined Maz of individual priests. It has been commanded
zinian faction, there also the Paolotti have in elaborately minute instructions issued se
made themselves be remarked for their extra cretly by the office of the Grand Penitentiary,
ordinary activity, their strenuous assiduity, within whose province such matters lie-in
and their large charities. The same has structions in which every point is specified
with a strictness that exacts implicit execution. ery. Charity and love are the essence of Chris
The scope of these instructions is practically tian virtues, and the Church is an eminently
to excommunicate every person who has ad Christian body, therefore she shrinks from
hered to the new order of things in Italy; imposing upon her sons any duties that may
by withholding the consolations of religion, expose them to personal risk. She does not
and especially absolution in the confessional, demand of her children any heroism, the bold,
from all who will not declare abhorrence of open spirit of broad daylight defiance, which
this order of things, and readiness to co-ope makes bright examples of self-sacrificing de
rate for its destruction. The first of these votion at the risk of life and property; but
instructions was issued in the early period of she prefers to see her interests promoted by
the revolution, when a copy found its way a set of skulking conspirators who creep along
into the Italian press, and was much com with the aid of false oaths, and, as their man
mented upon. liest weapon, understand to use a snare.
In this curious paper, bearing date 10th The instructions so issued were followed
December, 1860, the most stringent and de by an innovation perfectly monstrous. Con
tailed directions were laid down for the guid fessors were not content with imposing a spe
ance of the priests in dealing with certain cial penance on those who stood convicted of
cases of conscience, that were contemplated, connexion with the political authorities deem
with an elaborate expenditure of imaginative ed unholy. They were directed to constitute
faculties, as likely to present themselves. In themselves inquisitors, not into the acts, but
all cases the confessor was commanded to re into the speculative opinions on political mat
gard every act of political adhesion, however ters, of their penitents. During Lent, 1862,
remote or indirect, to the new Government, in Rome, the question came to be addressed
as a sin to be atoned by special expiation, in the confessional to penitents, What they
short of which the penitent must be rigorous thought of the Pope's temporal dominion ?
ly excluded from the spiritual comforts he and absolution was refused to such as either
sought, however complete may have been his declined replying to what they considered a
repentance on other points, however light question affecting a point foreign to religion,
may have been his shortcomings in other or answered in a spirit not in accordance
directions. The expiation to be exacted as with the view that it was a Divine institution.
the condition whereon alone the penitent It is to be expected that our statement will
could be admitted to participate in the con be set down as an Exeter Hall fancy by those
solations of religion, was a solemn engage who make it their business to cry up the
ment to turn at the first favourable opportu Court of Rome. We are prepared to meet
nity against the authority of the Italian Go with hesitation in giving credence to a pro
vernment. To facilitate the acceptance of ceeding so monstrously contrary to precedent,
such an undertaking, the confessors were spe that it inspired many fervent Catholics with
cially instructed that it was sufficient for the horror, and led in Rome to vehement protests
penitent to renounce, in solemn terms, inward from independent minds of unexceptionable
allegiance to the powers, he had bowed to, orthodoxy, who refused indignantly to sub
and that he was distinctly authorized to re mit to so unwarrantable an attempt at extend
serve any act of defection until such time as ing the limits of clerical dictation. The facts
he could perpetrate it without injury to him we allude to are of too private a nature to be
self. By this provision, persons in the ser given in detail, but we stake our credit on
vice of the Italian Government could continue the perfect authenticity of our statement; and
therein with the approbation of their spiritual we know that one of the most eminent mem
advisers, provided they used the opportunities bers of the English Roman Catholic hierar
afforded them by official relations, to betray chy, who then happened to be in Rome, in
their employers. The soldier was told to weighed in unmeasured terms of reprobation
serve on until, in the hour of action, he could against this monstrous proceeding. Since
with impunity inflict a fatal blow by deserting. then the system has not been abandoned. It
The officer was instructed to assume com has only been modified. We believe that it
mands, which then, at the crowning season, he is no longer attempted to impose on all peni
should hand over to those at whose hands he tents, without distinction, this preliminary
had not received them; and the civil function declaration of belief in the Divine necessity
ary was encouraged to steal himself into the of the Pope's temporal power, but only on
confidence of his masters, whose secrets he those whose timid natures point them out as
might then communicate to those who plotted proper subjects to practise intimidation on,
their destruction. The Church taught her or who, for special reasons, are considered to
faithful children that, in her eye, the original deserve having a specific test applied to their
act of treason could best be atoned for by an orthodoxy. The system so inaugurated has
ample counter-draught of systematic treach been followed up consistently throughout
Italy, more or less covertly to suit individual confess and affirm it to be an error, and an
cases, but still with persistent determination. act of audacity, to gainsay the doctrines utter
It appears, however, that not a few Italian ed by the Church, and that without grievous
bishops have acquired experience of the dan sin it is not possible to refuse obedience and
ger that threatens the Church from such a cordial submission to the authority of the
course. We are informed, on authority of Holy See; therefore I respect and conform
the highest kind, that numerous representa. to all the declarations of the same, and particu
tions have quite recently reached the Grand larly to those which regard the temporal do
Penitentiary from Italian bishops, as to the minion of the Sovereign Pontiff, to which the
perilous consequences which attend the sys entire Catholic Episcopate has responded.”
tem they have been commanded to pursue. Almost simultaneously with the date of these
In these representations, the question has been most secret instructions, there appeared a
addressed to Rome, What attitude should be highly significant paragraph in the Corre
adopted on the occasion of the ensuing elec spondance de Rome, a weekly periodical pub
tion ? and the attention of the head of the lished in Rome, and which is directly inspired
Church is particularly invited to the question, with the confidential feelings of the highest
whether the influence of the clergy should authorities. In the number of the 18th
not be directed towards promoting as much February, there was inserted, in type of a
as possible the return of moderate men, who size at once to attract the eye, an announce
would be disposed to confine within a mini ment of practices said to have been set on
mum the organic change in the Church es foot by the Italian ministers to secure, at the
tablishment of Italy. We are assured that coming elections, the support of those who
no formal reply has been yet given to these had preserved their loyalty to their expelled
representations, which, we are informed, are sovereigns. “It is easy to understand,” says
at present being taken into consideration in the Correspondance de Rome, “that the men
the office of the Grand Penitentiary. in power, sensible of the insecurity of the
There are, however, indications of what tenure of life, should resign themselves to im
the reply may be anticipated to be. On the plore the help of the very parties which they
9th and 10th March this year, two strictly plunged in desolation and misery. But we
confidential circulars were issued from that may be assured of an almost absolute absti
office to the bishops. We have had in our nence by these parties at the coming elec
hands the originals, and have now before us tions. Italy, as now constituted, is in the eyes
copies which we have collated with them. of the Church the symbol of revolt against
The one treats of what should be done to lay laws divine and social. No Catholic deserv
men shriving themselves who have been ing that name can then connect himself with
guilty “ of co-operating in the rebellion of the the acts of the Government. In one word,
Papal States, or who have adhered thereto, neither electors nor eligibles are possible in
or in any manner promoted it, whether by the existing state of things.” When one con
deed or by sympathy, or who have given a siders the undisguised tone of authoritative
vote in behalf of the union of Italy under one communication in this paragraph, the marked
king;” while the second refers to the case of conspicuousness of the mode of its insertion,
such priests as have acceded to the “teach and above all, the avowedly intimate con
ings of traitors, and particularly who have nexion between the journal in which it
subscribed petitions for inducing the Roman appeared, and the oracles of the Vatican, we
Pontiff to throw off temporal power, that cannot avoid ascribing special importance to
have been cunningly indited by some rene this publication.
gade from the Church's host.” The sub Nor are we without the evidence of posi
stance of the first is the same as that of the
tive steps taken towards realizing this policy
paper we have already spoken of Absolu of deterring moderate men from identifying
tion is to be granted only if penitents “be themselves in any way with the cause of
inwardly resolved to desert an unjust service, government and order. A gentleman named
as soon as they shall be able to do so without a senator had abstained from taking his seat
danger to their lives, abstaining in the mean from timidity of conscience. He had qualms
while from all acts of hostility against the of conscience about taking a line of conduct
subjects and soldiers of the rightful prince.” openly fulminated against by the head of his
In the other case, that of repentant priests, Church, and so remained away from Turin, a
the bishop is instructed to subject them, be prey to doubt and hesitation. Recently he
fore absolution, to a course of spiritual became troubled in his mind with the feeling
penance, but of a kind not to attract the notice that duty impelled him to go there with the
of the civil authorities, and then to admit view of taking part in the discussion of the
them back to the rights of the priesthood, laws referring to the Church, and trying to
after signing the following declaration —“I avert measures which he contemplated with
"
disapprobation. But, true to his spirit of feel disposed to swell the ranks of temperate
deference towards spiritual authority, he reform and practically support orderly govern
would not charge his conscience with such a ment, or to propel the blind subjects of
step without the sanction of that authority. priestly dictation into actively swelling the
He therefore addressed himself to the Grand Radical force, as the hopeful element of dis
Penitentiary, communicating the grounds solution. It is very intelligible that the fact
which weighed with him in favour of his tak of such a coalition should arrest the attention
ing his seat at this moment, and exerting the of prudent politicians. There can be no
influence at his command to stave off from doubt but that, at the coming elections, we
the Church impending dangers. We are shall see in various localities sharp contests,
positively assured that the answer given him and that, in some constituencies of prominent
was not to trouble himself about attempting rank, the Opposition may probably obtain
to shield the Church by any active interven successes which will be paraded with great
tion in his capacity as senator, but to con flourish. For instance, one must be prepared
tinue the same passive attitude of isolation for the likely return of members hostile to
which he had hitherto preserved. Much Government in the city of Naples, through
might be said about the moral aspect of a want of resolution amongst the temperate
policy, on the part of men who profess to be Liberals, who allow themselves to be paralys
the consecrated guardians of the Church, ed. Leghorn also is a constituency which
which deliberately prefers seeing the interests has always been distinguished by a turbulent
of the Church exposed to violence, to warding leaven, and must be expected to send intem
off that violence by any action which can perate men to Parliament. But that there
temporarily bring them into contact with should be ground for apprehending a con
Italian unitarians. But it is enough for our siderable return of men of this stamp appears
purpose to have supplied the reader with the to us quite unfounded. The compact majori
facts that we have here given. ty in the country is as little disposed to fol
The opposition of the Church is, however, low the rash bidding of foolhardy men, as it
stated by persons worthy of credit, not to be was when it coldly declined to follow the
confined to the policy of isolation, and refu great popular hero Garibaldi on the maden
sal to contaminate itself by association with terprise which ended on the peaks of Aspro
any recognition of the authorities in existence. monte. The attitude of the country on that
It is confidently asserted that, on the occa occasion was decisive of its temper, and no
sion of recent electoral contests, the votes of thing has since occurred to modify this. The
those who represent the inspiration of the dominant feeling which pervades the Italian
priests have been systematically given in people is that of gratitude for what has been
favour of the ultra candidate, or against the won, and an anxious determination not to
one who advocated the temperate spirit of risk its loss. There are constituencies, espe
Government reform. So far as we have been cially in the Southern provinces, which, from
able to satisfy ourselves on the correctness of sheer want of political perspicacity, will allow
this assertion, we are disposed to accept it. themselves to be gulled into the choice of
The local testimony decidedly deposes there indifferent representatives, but we have not
to. For instance, last year there were a the least fear about the selections that will
number of supplementary elections to fill up be made by the vast majority of the nation.
vacancies, one of which, at Ravenna, gave These will be of men who, in essential points,
rise to a warm contest that ended in the re are the advocates of a prudent policy.
turn of the Moderate candidate. Undoubt The next session will open in Florence,
edly the evidence which we gathered on the and it is to be hoped that the political at
spot, from men of standing and ample means mosphere of the new capital will have the
of knowledge, testified distinctly to the active result of imparting to the majority, consisting
exertions of ecclesiastical partisans in support of men who on all capital points concur in
of the Radical candidate. The same occur the advocacy of temperate views, as against
rence is spoken to as having been manifestin the heated impulses of passionate fanatics, a
Tuscany, and we have also met with very more compact parliamentary formation than
distinct evidence to the same purport in some it had in the old Parliament. The real cause
localities in the former kingdom of Naples. of this want of effective organization is the
It is undeniable that, in the most diverse fact that the majority has not been mar
parts of the country, somehow or other, the shalled under the guidance of a natural
same impression has been produced on the leader. The only man who could lay claim
minds of intelligent and trustworthy observ to this high moral position is Baron Ricasoli,
ers, that the active influence of the Church who, for obvious reasons, since his with
is being systematically expended, either to drawal from office, has thought it most con
frighten into passiveness those who would sistent with a severe sense of duty not to put
WOL, XLII. N-17
-
himself prominently forward, except to inter require extraordinary care, while yet its ne
vene as a peacemaker with the full weight of cessities will imperatively impose heavy
his authority in critical moments. There expenditure. At the same time, Italy is
cannot be a nobler example of high-minded engaged in a conflict with Rome and all the
conduct than Baron Ricasoli's action in Par complicated interests which cluster around
liament. The same praise cannot be awarded the Papacy, from which she cannot by any
to the part played by another parliamentary means disentangle herself. It is her inevi
leader, M. Rattazzi. It would be difficult to table lot to fight out this dangerous duel to
define precisely the principles which regulate the end. Heavy as these labours are, we see
this politician's course; but it is unde no reason to infer that the Italian people are
niable that he has a predilection for tor giving way under their weight. We have
tuous ways and for intrigue, and that his been unable to detect the symptoms of reck
parliamentary position relies mainly on his less impatience and disorganization which
Piedmontese connexion. Now here it is are spoken of as existing. In no one instance
where the transfer of the Legislature from of moment has the nation shown itself dis
Turin is confidently expected to exercise a posed to rush into wild ways—even when
wholesome effect, in reducing to their just these were recommended by the appeals of
value those artificial influences of a purely the man who is essentially the People's
sectional origin, which, however intangibly, Hero. To us the persistent sober sense and
pervaded Capital, Court, and Parliament, practical instinct exhibited by the Italian
neutralizing the action of truly national par populations amidst so many circumstances
ties. It is anticipated that in Florence many calculated to intoxicate, is a matter of marvel.
influences will be blighted which luxuriated Of course there exist men of restless, impa-.
in Turin, whereby the obstacles would be tient temperament, and wayward intellects,
removed which have impeded the accession who having passed all their days as conspi
to office of men in whom the nation have rators plotting clandestine expeditions, chafe
real confidence, and those circumstances at the recreant proceedings of in their
which have invested specific interests with a opinion, a hireling administration, and inces
factitious weight be stripped of their import santly are at work on projects of foolhardy
ance. The soil in which these specific interests undertakings against Rome and Venetia.
struck root was that of the Court. It is well When one considers the stimulating phases
known that Victor Emmanuel's personal through which the Italian people has passed,
likings made him peculiarly liable to be we only wonder that this party should be so
worked upon by purely Piedmontese influ small. The bulk of the nation has decidedly
ences. With all the rough bluntness of his separated from it, and has shown a determi
character, and the sound common sense of nation not to be led into foolish courses
his judgment in critical moments, these pre when it allowed the King's Government to
dilections of the King, inflamed as they were
put down Garibaldi with a strong hand at
at Turin, through a thousand channels and Aspromonte. We must, indeed, expect to
by daily contact with ancient connexions, had
hear of intended attempts to fling bands of
entailed, on divers occasions, unfortunate emancipating volunteers into Venetia; but
consequences. It is therefore a happy event we have no apprehension of anything like a
that the Crown has been transferred from a serious movement which the Government
place where it was exposed to influences can have difficulty in controlling. These
which confirmed its individual disposition in attempts will not exceed the insignificant pro
a particular direction, and which threatened portions of abortive deeds by a handful of
ultimately to counteractits national character; excited enthusiasts. Equally unfounded
and in this respect, even those otherwise deplo seems to us to be the impression prevalent
rable incidents may have been beneficial, in some circles, of the rapid strides made by
which had the effect offiring the King's latent republican principles in the country. We
pride against his favourite Piedmontese. are firmly convinced that this is either a
The conclusions at which we arrive, there wilful misrepresentation, deliberately invented
fore, after surveying as accurately as we can by those Reactionists who from Rome are
the position of affairs in Italy, are not un sedulously bent on always defaming Italy, or
favourable to the prospects of the country. else the vain imagination of fanciful intellects.
Not but that there are many and very grave The Republican bugbear is an idle dream.
tasks to be dealt with which can be over The name of Victor Emmanuel has a popular
come only by great prudence and great self. attraction which constitutes a paramount
restraint. We do not indulge in any delu force that penetrates through the whole
sion as to the intrinsic gravity of the country, and brings the idea of the King
problems which the Italians have to solve. home to the breast of the rudest peasant.
The financial condition of the country will The circumstances of this singular power of
popular attraction in the representative of astounding and unexpected incident in the

the Crown is probably the most happy bless firmament of Italian politics could not be
ing that has befallen Italy. By effectively imagined. We confess to have been quite
counteracting the otherwise irresistible force unprepared for the appearance of such a novel
of certain dazzling individuals, it has furnished element in the course of Italian affairs as that
the nation with the inestimable benefit of a of the great Church power stepping forward
steadying guide, and laid the foundation, we to meet, otherwise than in anger, the repre
trust, for a truly national monarchy. Finally, sentative of the revolutionary lay tendencies
it appears to us that the character generally of modern Italy. In this, however, we flatter
displayed by the Italian Legislature has been ourselves not to have been singular. The
highly creditable. With the single excep surprise created at the step taken by the
tion of M. Rattazzi, the stigma of ignoble Pope was universal. Also the first sensation
intrigue has not attached itself to the name on hearing thereof was that of general incre
of any one of the leading politicians. The dulity, which was then followed by a strange
political capacity exhibited may be impugned, variety of hypothetical surmises as to the real
but it cannot be said that its Assembly has causes which had prompted so extraordinary
shown itself deficient in public spirit. The a proceeding. These surmises it is not at all
high influence of Baron Ricasoli—a man so necessary to examine. The precise circum
lofty and so disdainful of all intrigue—is a stances which induced the Pope to adopt his
proof of the temper of the majority. Also startling resolution, and which have attended
the real reason for the support given to the his overtures, constitute matter pregnant with
present administration proceeds from the deep interest, but secondary to the consideration
sense entertained for the integrity of its of the political consequences which can be
members, and from the conviction, that in anticipated from the nature of the altered
the paramount question of the day they mean position in which Church and State must
to act with perfect good faith. When one stand towards each other in Italy after the
considers how often in deliberative assem overtures which have been made by the Pope,
blies, especially in exciting times, adminis even though they should not lead at present
trations have been paralyzed and successively to the conclusion of an understanding. It is
overthrown by combinations growing out of impossible, in our opinion, to put any other
faction and unnatural coalitions, the conduct construction upon the measure adopted by
of the first Italian Parliament will appear, we Pius IX. than that it is the death-warrant of
think, entitled to the praise of having shown the No-surrender policy hitherto broached by
solid qualities in one very important respect. the Papacy. It is very true that the nego
The shrewd good sense of the Italian people, tiations opened with Victor Emmanuel are
quickened by a lively thankfulness at relief distinctly confined to specifically ecclesiasti
from foreign ascendency, and a wholesome cal points, affecting the Church establishment
experience of the positive benefits insured by in the provinces that constitute Victor Em
self-restraint and moderation—that shrewd manuel's kingdom. But do not these ecclesi
good sense which has disappointed so many astical relations with which the Sovereign of
confident anticipations, and has achieved so Rome stands connected, in virtue of his digni
many startling successes, is still existing ty as Pope, constitute precisely the privileges
without any signs of decline. In spite of and prerogatives which endow him politically
all that is loudly advanced by voluble de with a position different from that which was
claimers, we have been unable to lay our the lot of the other Italian princes, and con
hands on any evidence of inward disorgani tribute to furnish him with a power which is
zation, of intestine divisions that threaten to far more difficult to deal with roughly than
break up the firm unity of purpose indispen the power possessed by those princes? It is
sable to the success of the great enterprise precisely from his spiritual and ecclesiastical
which the Italians have to £. We can qualities that the Pope derives his exceptional
see nowhere any really serious symptom of position, and whatever force he can reckon
the people beginning to be untrue to them upon wherewith to thwart the otherwise easy
selves, and so long as we see none such, we onflow of the Italians over his shrunk States.
are not prepared to admit the evident and For what has been all along said is, that the
rapid coming of an Italian cataclysm. Pope cannot put himself into intercourse with
the Italian Government, because the nature of
The preceding pages had scarcely been his authority must absolutely forbid his mak
written, when there came upon us first a slight ing any concession which would amount to
vague rumour, and then a confirmed report, a renunciation of Church principles, while
of distinct and spontaneous advances made to the very fact of having any relations whatever
Victor Emmanuel by Pius IX, which were with Victor Emmanuel must necessarily in
ripening into serious negotiations. A more volve a concession of this nature. Victor
Emmanuel and his Government were habi pendence that must prove superior to what it
tually proclaimed to be the incarnation of that now possesses; equal to the necessities of its
spirit of sheer worldliness which the Papacy position, and therefore having intrinsic merits,
pretended it to be its particular duty to com which sooner or later would recommend its
bat on earth. Now this position has been acceptance to representatives of the interests
entirely abandoned, for the Pope, departing of the Papacy. It was, besides, the convic
from the course he has hitherto pursued in tion of Count Cavour, that to establish any
providing provisionally out of his own authori how relations of intercourse between the King
ty for the wants of the Church in Italy, with of Italy and the Pope, to bring matters to
out taking any notice whatever of the civil the point of at all events opening direct dis
powers in existence, as too impious to be cussions between the two, was a thing in
looked upon; has now treated with these itself of such paramount importance as to be
same powers in reference to the aforesaid worthy of almost any price. For ever he was
wants of the Church, thereby practically vainly on the watch with his keen eye for an
recognising Victor Emmanuel as King of opportunity such as now has been showered
Italy, and releasing the representative of the down upon his successors; for he deeply felt
State from the ban under which he has been that Rome and the Roman question were the
lying. The moment the Pope treats in a real difficulties of Italy, and that every ap
friendly way with a monarch about the choice proach to them was necessarily so much
of individuals for sees in his dominions, it is gained. In the spring of 1861, Count Cavour
self-evident that this monarch can no longer fancied that he might be able to effect his
be regarded by the Pope as an outcast from object. A plenipotentiary was at that time
the pale of the Church. Whatever may be named by him, who was furnished with ela
the differences still existing between them, borate instructions, and was authorized to
the nature of the breach must still be essen concede to the Pope the absolute nomination
tially modified after such relations. We of all bishops in Italy, without any check
have, moreover, good grounds for confidently thereon by the State. But the Court of Rome
stating that the manner in which the Pope was then still obdurate, and Count Cavour's
has proposed to deal in regard to the nomi Plenipotentiary was never admitted to treat.
nation of bishops, amounts practically to a Thus what that great statesman always
most distinct recognition of the Italian king worked to obtain with unrelaxing activity,
dom. He proposed to leave the recommen and what, as proved by his own doings, he
dation of candidates for the vacant sees to the thought worthy of being acquired by a whole
King's Government, without any reservation sale surrender of ancient privileges of the
in regard to the sees in his old provinces. Crown, his successors are not satisfied at
Victor Emmanuel, therefore, would thus prac having offered to them on much cheaper
tically exercise his right of patronage in all terms (for we repeat, that the Pope has pro
portions of his dominions without abatement, posed that Victor Emmanuel should recom
a concession of such vast importance, and in mend the persons to be made bishops), but
volving such vital consequences, that one is they want to impose still further conditions
almost at a loss to understand how the Pope of their own. It is demanded that the bishops
could have brought himself of a sudden to act should take an oath of allegiance to Victor
so liberally. -
Emmanuel, a proceeding quite in accordance
It is therefore strange to learn that the men with ancient custom, but quite at variance
who are in office at Turin should express with the great policy of a free Church in a
themselves not content with this concession, free State, and, moreover, impossible for the
and should be making difficulties about points Pope to allow, without making a concession,
of very small importance, thus acting con not merely in practice (which he is ready to
trary to the spirit in which Count Cavour was do), but also in principle (which he is not
prepared to treat with Rome. That large willing to do). But is it statesmanlike to
iminded statesman felt that a great object was jeopardize the immense political advantages
to be won only by a great policy. To deal that would be secured by a concluded under
with Rome in a narrow and jealous temper standing between King and Pope out of re
he saw was quite beside the requirements of gard for a formula involving so small a mate
the case. Hence he struck out the bold rial guarantee as an oath of allegiance?
policy of a free Church in a free State. He What dynasty has ever been saved by any
meant the Pope to be absolutely independent form of oath ? We have no reason for infer
in everything appertaining to Church matters, ring that the negotiations have been broken
to be entirely emancipated from all interfer off. The Italian Plenipotentiary left Rome
ence on the part of the State. He believed simply because he had conducted matters as
that this scheme offered a guarantee to the far as he was in a condition to conduct them.
Papacy for a condition of dignity and inde If the Italian Government should not insist
on the question of the oath, which the Pope execution of the Convention of the 15th Sep
says very fairly that he cannot impose upon tember. That Convention expressly pur
the bishops in his old provinces, and there ports to be made for the securing of the
fore also not upon bishops in other provinces Pope's safety. Now, if a pretext were to be
wrested from their former sovereigns by the sought for not carrying into execution its
same force of invasion by which he himself capital provision that Rome is to be eva
was dispossessed, then we believe that no sub cuated by the French troops, might that
stantial difficulty remains on any point that pretext not be furnished if, on the Pope's
has been under discussion. Indeed, the Pope making such serious advances, the Italian
has shown himself very good-tempered and Government were to exhibit itself in the
willing during these negotiations. At bot attitude of having refused to concede those
tom he has Italian impulses, and these, long guarantees which would make a reality of
counteracted, are now again for the moment that loudly vaunted free Church which Ita
allowed free scope. lian Liberals have been holding up in the
The indisposition of the Italian Ministers face of the Pope? However strong may be
to waive the oath proceeds from a timid de the Emperor Napoleon's personal predilec
ference to that anti-ecclesiastical irritation tions in favour of Italy, she has enemies
which we have mentioned as being on the enough in France who are eager to thwart
growth amongst Italian Liberals. Neither her progress. Möntalembert has been loud
do the present Ministers, being men of small in declaring his conviction that the free
capacity, understand how to act with firm Church programme has never been meant to
ness, and they thus put themselves often in be more than a blind—that the settled deter
false positions. The vacillating manner in mination of the Italian Liberals is to enslave
which they conducted the Bill for the Re the Pope once they get him separate from
gulation of Religious Communities, exposed foreign support. There is now an oppor
them to the charge of having withdrawn it tunity afforded of satisfactorily confuting this
in obedience to a command from Rome—a confident insinuation, and of facilitating ma
charge for which there is no foundation, the terially, at a most critical moment, a measure
negotiations never having extended to this which, if once carried out, may be confidently
point. But this is quite enough to make said to be the coping set on the structure of
them fear the imputation of being priest an United Italy. For it is a point of para
ridden, and to make them try and recover mount importance that the evacuation of
their reputations by being stubborn on a Rome by French troops contemplated by the
point of popular prejudice. Still, so vast are September Convention be not obstructed;
the consequences to be gained at this mo and how can that evacuation—the darling
ment, and so very great are the perils to be wish of all Italians—be obstructed, if once
laid up in store if these present negotiations the Pope and King of Italy live together on
should fall to the ground, from the Italian footing of practical good-fellowship? Of all
Government insisting on terms which the the astonishing circumstances that have
Pope cannot grant, that we cannot dismiss marked the Italian Revolution, none is so
the hope that the remarkable instinct evinced wonderful as this sudden change on the part
by the Italians, and the straightforward in of Pius IX. Also the responsibility resting
tellect of General La Marmora, will turn to on the shoulders of the present Ministers of
account this precious opportunity for obtain Italy is enormous.
ing a further and material security for the
*
IND EX T0 W 0 L. XLII.
A. Earl Godwin and his family described by a con
AIKIN, Lucy (see Women of Letters); beginning of temporary, 180, 181; the Atheling Alfred, 181;
her career, 166; her “Memoirs of Queen Eliza sketch of Edward's person and character by one
beth,” etc., ib.; her last work, the “Life of Ad who knew him, 182, 183; condition of England
dison,” and review of it by Macaulay, 167; lite in his reign, 183; how Canute found, and left,
rary reunions under her roof at Hampstead, ib.; England, 183, 184; the Thingmannalid, 184;
eorrespondence with Dr. Channing, 168; Hamp the Vikings of Jomsborg, and their rules, 184,
stead thirty years ago, 169; her recollections of 185; the massacre of St. Brice's Day, and its re
Joanna Baillie, 170. sults, 185; slavery in England, 186; Earl God
Art, Christian; see Symbolism. -
win's power in £ ib.; character of his
daughter, Queen Eadgitha, 186, 187; the troubles
B. of Edward's reign, 187; the scapegrace Sweyn,
188; popular feeling against the Danes, ib.; the
BAILLIE, Joanna (see Women of Letters): her home Normans in England, 188, 189; fall of God
at Hampstead and its literary reunions, 169; win and his family, 189; their return from exile,
her friendship with Scott, 169, 170; recollec 190; death of Godwin, 191; who was to be Ed
tions of her by Miss Lucy Aikin, 170; Birthday ward's heir 192; the Normans of the eleventh
Lines by Joanna to Agnes-Baillie, ib. -
century, 192, 193; Harold (Godwin's son) and

Barbauld, Mrs., 166.
William of Normandy, 193; characters of Harold
Blanc, Mont; see Mont Blanc. and Tostig, 194; death of Edward the Confes
Booth’s “Epigrams, Ancient and Modern;” see sor, 195; Edward's doleful dream, ib.; Harold
Epigrams. King of England, 196; Tostig plotting against his
Bryce, James, B.A.; see Roman Empire. brother Harold, 196, 197: he goes to Sweyne
*C. Ulfson and Harold Hardrada, 197; his game
with Harold and William, 197, 198: Harold
CoRNwALLIS, Caroline F. (see Women of Letters): makes ready to sail for England, 198; Gurth's
literary career, 171; her views of women's in dream, 199; other dreams and visions, ib.;
tellect and position, ib.; her early trials, and ominous appearance of a comet, 200; Harold
their influence on her character, 172; descrip sails, ib.; defeats Edwin and Waltheof, 201;
tion of her mental state, ib; receives offer of pitches his camp at Stamford Bridge, ib.; York
marriage from Sismondi, 172, 173; her reply to taken, 202; Harold Godwin's son marches
a newspaper attack on the clergy, 173; first visit thither, ib; Harold Hardrada surprised by his
to Italy, 174; her theory of Christianity, ib.; namesake, 203; parley between the two brothers,
Sismondi's reply to her arguments, 175; her in Tostig and Harold, 204; battle at Stamford
terest in German theology, ib.; objections to Bridge; death of Hardrada, 204, 205; anecdote
Dissent, 176; her opinions on man's power over of Stirkar the Constable, 206; Harold Godwin's
himself to prevent or control insanity, ib.; her son suffers the Norwegians to depart in their
admission of defeat in the struggle to carry the ships, 207; William of Normandy lands at Peven
powers of reason beyond their province, 176, sea, ib.; battle of Hastings, ib.; character of Har
177; extracts from letters written in sickness, drada, 208; Genealogical Tables of the ruling
177; poetical compositions, ib.; linguistic and families of the three Scandinavian nations, 208,
scientific acquirements, ib., her ardour in reading 209; Hardrada's bones brought back to Norway,
and writing, 177, 178; Miss Cornwallis's writ 209.
ings, 178; anecdote of Coleridge and Byron, “Epigrams, Ancient and Modern,” edited by Rev.
ib.; comparison between Eugénie de Guérin and John Booth, 22; how he has executed his task,
Miss Cornwallis, 179; her remarks on the ‘piet ib.; different styles of epigram, 22, 23; charac
ism" of Wilberforce, ib. teristics of epigrammatic composition, 23; Ca
Criticism, Essays in, by Matthew Arnold, 80; his tullus and Martial, ib.; object of the Article, 23,
poetry, 80, 81; characteristics of his essays, 81; 24; Harrington's epigrams, 24; epigrams from
present state of English criticism, 81, 82; want Doddridge, Lyttleton, etc., ib.; John Owen, or
of fixed principles among critics, and its results, Audoenus, a Welsh epigrammatist, 25, 26;the two
82; what criticism should be, ib., George Gilfil Reynoldses, 26, 27; Richard Crashaw, 27; Dr.
lan, ib.; Mr. Arnold's lectures on translating Archibald Pitcairn, ib.; Sannazarius's descrip
Homer, 83; his conception of criticism, 83, 84; tion of Venice, 28; Santeuil's description of
the “Philistines,” 84; Gallicism of Mr. Arnold, the Seine at Paris, ib.; Wavassor and Harder,
85; what criticism can accomplish, 85, 86; notice ib.; other specimens of Latin epigram, 29; speci
of Henrich Heine, 86; development of English mens of French epigrams by various authors, 29,
literature, 86, 87; Pope's picture of a model 30; English epigrams, 31, 32; the proper do
critic, 87; Mr. Wright's reply to Mr. Arnold, main of epigrammatical writing, 32.
87, 88; love for “vivacity,” 88; Mr. Arnold's
affectation, 89; benefits from sound criticism, G.
ib.; criticism should restrain eccentricity, 90; GERMANY, education in, at the close of eighteenth
and false estimates and fine writing, 91; Mr. century, 128 et seq., 130.
Arnold's idea of poetry, ib.; value of ac Gold Question, the : new gold mines and prices,
quaintance with classical literature, 92; pas 150; causes of unequal alteration in prices, 150,
sage exemplifying the grace of Mr. Arnold's 151; effect on low prices of additional new gold,
style, ib., characteristics of his volume, 92, 93. 151; Californian and Australian gold-fields, 152;
E. the general principle which regulates the distri
bution of money, ib.; tables of prices at Victoria
ENGLAND and Norway in the eleventh century: and at Bilbao, 153, 154; effects of improvements
reign of Edward the Confessor in England, 180; in the means of locomotion, 154; prices in Paris,
Index. 255
155; what stationary prices and rising prices position of Mont Blanc with relation to the chain
severally indicate, according to the locality, ib.: of the Alps, ib.; its glaciers, 73; Pierre Martel's
social and economic results of the closer contigu expedition, 73,74; survey of 1842: M. Séné's
ity of places, 155, 156; to what is the dearness model, 74; the Alpine club, 74, 75; the “Gor
of corn, etc., in 1853-57, to be attributed? dian knot,” 75; Mr. A. Adams Reilly, 75, 76;
156; rise in wages, 157; pastoral and agricul glaciers of Argentière, Tour, and Salena, 76; Mr.
tural statistics, ib.; rise of prices in India, both Reilly's survey of 1863, 76, 77; ascents by him
as to provisions and labour, 158–160; moneta in 1864, 78; passes of the great chain, ib.;
future of India, 160, 162, 163; effects of the dif routes of ascent, 79; MM. Maquetin and Bri
ficulties of land trade, 161; to what causes a uet's ascent in 1863, ib.; the Col de Triolet,
high rate of interest may be ascribed, 161, 162; ib.; importance of Mr. Reilly's map to the tour
redemption of wealth from the regions of waste, ist, the geographer, and the geologist, 79, 80.
162; the question as to whether the new mines P.
have lowered the value of money in England,
ib.; peculiarity of gold as a commodity, 163; Philology, scope of 131, 132.
stationary, progressive, and retrograde commu R.
nities, 163, 164; yield of the gold-fields of Vic. Religious Literature:—character of the books ofany
toria, 164; probability of an increase in the sup. given period indicative of its leading tendencies,
ply of the precious metals from the American 209; sermons in advertisements, 210; devotional
continent and elsewhere, ib. instinct revealed in the hold religious literature
H. . has on the less educated, ib.; the true province
HoLY RoMAN EMPIRE; see Roman Empire. of popular religious literature, 211; the religious
I.
allegory, ib.; £ Old Humphrey, ib.; the
religious story, ib.; Hannah More, Mrs. Trimmer,
Iconography, Christian; see Symbolism. Legh Richmond, ib.; Mr. C. B. Tayler's stories,
italy: its state and prospects, 233 et seq.; unifica 212; charm and simplicity of his writing, ib.;
tion of, and questions as to its practical conse religious tracts and the results attributed to
quences, ib ; nature of her dangers, 233, 234; them, 212, 213; books for a more advanced and
internal elements of opposition to the unitarian cultivated class, 213; specimen of an improve
movement, and how affected by the transfer of ment upon St. Peter, ib.; critical remarks on
the capital of Florence, 234; the jealousy of her “Heaven our Home,” 213, 214; Mr. Killen on
municipalities, 234, 235; irritation at Turin, infant salvation, 214, 215; want of humanity
236; demonstrations in Naples, ib.; the Pied and tenderness in our cheap devotional litera
montese aristocracy, 237, 238; Neapolitan out ture, 216; its authors characterized, ib.; illus
lawry, 238; Parliamentary Commission on Bri trations of the false and distorted view given by
gandage, ib.; want of combination among bri them of the Divine Character, 217, 218; the
gands, 239; its agrarian character, ib.; how standard of Christian morality lowered by them,
this evil must be dealt with, 239, 240; the Ro 218, 219; how faith, repentance, power of habit,
man question, 240; the cry for Rome as capital, effort, etc., are viewed, 219; distinction between
241.; religious side of the question, 242; the sin and vice, ib.; evils of “preaching Christ”
Italian clergy, 242, 243; prospects ahead, 243; without enforcing its correlative, “repentance
the approaching general election, 244; activity towards God,” 220; the department of Christian
of the clerical and reactionary faction and its ob biography, ib.; injudiciousness of such publica
jects, 245; society of St. Vincent de Paul, and tions as “The Book and its Missions," 220, 221;
its operations, 245, 246; priestly intimidation, statements of Christian work often calculated to
246; measures taken by the Grand Peni give an erroneous impression, 221; desiderata of
tentiary, 246, 247; priestly action at coming elec professedly Christian literature, ib.
tions, 247; results of ecclesiastical opposi R
tion to Government reform, 248, 249; probable
influence of Florence, 249, 250; anticipated com Roman Empire, mediaeval theory of the 93, 97,
plexion of affairs, 250, 251; the Wegezzi negotia 103; its history the key to the whole history of
tions, 251-254. L. mediaeval Europe, 93; causes of the neglect of
the Imperial history, 93–95; importance of it,
95; the idea of the Empire, 96; merits of Mr.
Leech, John, and his etching, etc., 108 et seq.; the Bryce's Essay, 96, 97; the empire and the
ludicrous and its cause, 109; physiology and phi Church, 97; the first and the last of the Roman
losophy of laughter, 109, 110; Sydney Smith on Emperors, 98; the early Empire, ib.; Rome and
wit and humour, 110; English art-humorists, 110, Christianity, 98, 99; the Empire continued in
111; Leech's place among these, 111; the Punch the East, 99; assumption of the Empire by
dinner, 111, 112; his early life, 1.12; his accu Charles the Great, 100; memorable scene of
racy of eye, 113; abandons the study of medi. Christmas-day A.D. 800, 101; position of Charles,
cine and becomes artist, ib.; his “sketches in
oil,” 114; characteristics of Leech, 114, 115; his 102; division of the Empire, ib.; Otto the Third,
and the Empire under him, 103; union of the
sense of beauty, 115; appreeiation of him by functions of German King and Roman Emperor,
many of our t artists, ib.; Thackeray's cri 104; decline and fall of the Empire, 104, 105;
tique, 115, 116; organ-grinders and wood-en résumé of its history, 105, 106; influence of the
gravers, 116; his purity and good taste, 117; his revival of classical learning on men's ideas of the
olitical pencillings, ib., his rendering of Lon Empire: theory of Dante, 107; the steps by
£ eabmen and gamins, ib.; his personal ap which Germany sank from a kingdom into a
pearance, 118; Sydney Smith on the danger confederation, ib.; the Empire and its modern
of wit and humour, 118, 119. counterfeits, 108.
M S
Mont Blane, topography of the chain of 70; Wind Schools and Schoolmasters, 130.
ham and Pococke's visit to Chamouni, 70, 71; Scottish tourist, rise and progress of 1; definition
other early visitors, 71,72; De Saussure, 72; of the word “tourist,” 1, 2; the Romans in Britain,
256 Index.
3; the Irish Monks, 2,3; the French auxiliaries, drawn from the united conceptions, in art, of
3; Oliver Cromwell, ib.; Richard Franck, 3, 4; successive ages of the Church, ib.
a tourist of Queen Anne's reign, 4, 5; other T
early instances, 5; Daniel De Foe's tour, 5, 6, 8; Tests in English Universities, 54; importance of
Dr. Johnson, 8; the poets and Scottish scenery, the question of University extension and reform,
10, et seq.; James Alves, ib.; Thomas of Ercel ib.; merits of tests and their abstract truth to
doune, ib.; Pierce Gillies, 10, 11; Shakspeare, be distinguished, 55; clerical subscription and
11; old Poem from the Black Book of Taymouth, university subscription quite distinct, ib.; his
11, 12; how the Lowlanders regarded the High tory of the test question, 55, 56; statement of
land reivers, 12; Drummond of Hawthornden, the existing laws both as to universities and as
13, 14: Lord Stirling, 14; “Albania,” an anony to colleges, 56, 57; the university test system
mous piece, ib.; Smollett's ode on Leven Water, tried in three points, 57; true functions of the
ib.; James Thomson and Alexander Ross, 15; university, ib.; moral evils of the test system,
Waterfalls, 15, 16; influence of rivers, 16; the 58; why the test is maintained, 59; it aggra
Don and the Dee, 17; the poet-laureate of the vates religious doubts, 60; and disturbs the re
Tay—“The Muses Threnodie,” by H. Adamson, lation between pupil and tutor, ib.; its effect on
ib.; the Clyde and its cataracts described by the the teachers, ib., grounds on which tests are de
elder John Wilson, 16, 18; Dunkeld, 19; High fended, 61; rights of the Established Church, 62;
land scenery and the influences to which its aspects of the test towards Dissenters, ib.; the
opularity is due, ib; Thomas Pennant, ib; Jane universities national institutions, ib.; religious
axwell, Duchess of Gordon, 19, 20; Robert teaching of the universities, 63, 64; want of har
Burns, 20; Macpherson's Ossian, ib.; Sir Walter mony at Oxford even among Churchmen, 64, 65;
Scott's Lady of the Lake, 20, 21; Patrick Gra supposed practical difficulties in the way of the
ham, discoverer of the Trossachs, 21. removal of tests, 65, 66; compromises:—the de
Spain, various motives for visiting, 32; books on, claration of bona fide membership, 66; permis
33; events on the present reign, 34, 35; the sion of non-Anglican halls, 66,67; Mr. Bouverie's
Constituent Cortes of 1837, 35; regency of Es scheme, 67; parliamentary debates of last session,
partero, 36; his fall, ib.; ministry of Lopez, 37; ib.; true £ of the Church of England, 68;
presidency of Olozaga, ib.; constitution of 1845, prospects of University extension, 68, 69.
37, 38; revolution of 1854, 38; O'Donnell and U
the “Union Liberal,” 39; fall of the O'Donnell
Cabinet in 1863, 40; the present government, University Tests in England; see Tests.
41; the Queen, ib.; constitution of the Cortes, W.
ib.; the administration, 41, 42; criminal law,
42; ministry of interior, ib.; police, charitable Wolf, Friedrich A., Life of, by Dr. Arnoldt, 121;
institutions, lunatic asylums, 42, 43; material parentage and early life, 121, 122; his impetu
revival, 43, 44; finance, 45, 46; war depart osity at school, 122, 123; removal to the Univer
ment: army, 46; navy, ib ; colonies, and fo sity of Göttingen, 123; Philology versus Theology,
reign affairs, 47; present ministry, 47, 48; par. 123, 124; Heyne's treatment of him, 124, 125;
severe illness, and its results, 125; his odd way
ties in Spain, 48; the press, ib.; literature and of following a lecture without attending it, 126;
education, 48,49; schools and universities, 49,
50; religious condition, 50, 51; difficulties to be appointment to an assistant-mastership at Ilfeld,
contended with, 51; question of the dynasty, 52; ib.; promoted to be Rector of Osterode school,
127; invited to a chair in the University of
true policy of Spain, 53; the complete regenera Halle, ib.; educational reform, 128; Trapp an
tion of Spain of great importance to Britain, 54.
Niemeyer, 129; Wolf's opening semester, ib.; his
Symbolism in Christian Art; Holman Hunt's pic despondency and ultimate success, 129, 130;
ture of the Finding of the Saviour in the Temple, schools and schoolmasters, 130; the Philological
221; purposes of the first application of Christ Seminary, 131; classical literature, ib.; scope
ian art, 222; earliest specimens and objects; of £ 131, 132; Wolf's view of Univer
subjects in the Catacombs, ib.; the cross and sity instruction, 132; his method as a teacher,
other marks as means of identification, 223; the 132-134; ideal of classical training, 135; writ
nimbus, its various forms, and their significance, ings of Wolf. ib.; editions of classics, 135, 136;
ib.; Eastern and Western Symbolism, ib.; origin Prolegomena to Homer, 186, 137; impression
of the nimbus, 224; representation of the bright roduced by them on the course of classical
ness on the face of Moses, ib.; Mr. Millais's Pa earning, 137, 138; their reception by the
rable of the Tares, 224, 225; pictures of our learned world, 138; by the poets, 139; Voss and
Lord's agony in Gethsemane by Bellini and Rem Goethe, ib.; Herder's opposition, 139, 140;
brandt, 225; the law of unity of feeling illustra Heyne's notice of the Prolegomena, 140, 141;
ted in Enoch Arden, 226; the object of the publication of Cicero's orations, 142; Wolf's an
ancient painter the expression of spiritual feel tipathy to writing, ib.; his £ habits as a
ing, ib.; but this afterwards limited by a condi professor, 148; eminent pupils, ib.; his relations
tion: to express by means of the beautiful, ib; with his students, 144: William von Humboldt,
representation of the invisible, 227; of the Di ib.; Wolf's friends and correspondents, 14.5;
vine Persons, ib; symbolism of the hand, ib.; Halle catastrophe, 145, 146; Goethe's advice on
afterwards departed from, ib.; causes of the this occasion, 146; removal to Berlin: official
rarity of representation of the Father, 228; this life there, 146, 147; his impracticability, 147; a
subject discussed by M. Didron, 228, 229; ex blighted existence, 148; his insupportable per
amination of Didron's evidence for the argument emptoriness, ib.; approach of the end, 149; his
that, in art, the Virgin sometimes takes the place personal appearance and character, 149, 150.
of the Father, 229, 230; Moses and the Burning Women of Letters: relations of the female sex to
Bush, 230; reasons of dissent from Didron's con literary culture, 164; its position between the
clusion, 231; pictorial representation of the era of Addison and Johnson, and between the
Third Person of the Trinity, ib; variety of the latter and our own, 165; “blue-stockings,” 166;
scenes in which the Son is represented, ib.; other Lucy Aikin, 166–169; Joanna Baillie, 169, 170;
ways of representing Christ, 232; lessons to be Caroline F. Cornwallis, 171-180.
T H E
N 0 RTH BRITISH REWIEW,
SEPT E M BER AND DE C E M BER, 1 S 6 5.
VOLUME XLIII.
' A M E R I C A N E D IT I O N .
N EW Y O R K :
PUBLISIIED BY LEONARD SCOTT & CO.,
38 waLKER STREET, west OF BROADwAY.
1865,
9r California –
--~~~~
. .”
THE
N () R T H B R IT IS II R E VIEW .
No. LXXXV.
F () R S E P T E M BER, 1865.
ART. I.—An Eramination of Sir William of undying interest, which those who have
Hamilton's Philosophy, and of the princi guided thought from the chairs of the Scotch
pal Philosophical Questions discussed in universities have been conspicuously engaged
his Writings. By JoHN STUART MILL. in since David Hume proposed them—an
London: 1865. effort which cannot be long abandoned by
any community without a loss of its intellec
WE cordially welcome this book, in the in tual power.
terest of thought and free discussion every Mr. Mill is now the acknowledged repre
where, but especially in Scotland. Its publi sentative of systematic philosophy in England.
cation marks an epoch in the history of British He is the recognised successor, in this latter
philosophy. The very title must at once part of the nineteenth century, to the intel
bespeak the attention of those in both parts lectual throne occupied in their day by
of the island who read in order to reflect, Hobbes, and Locke, and Hartley, where he
associating as it does the greatest Scotch rules in a spirit of large eclectic moderation,
speculative intellect of the century with the to which Hobbes and Hartley, at any rate,
greatest living English one, in discussions were comparative strangers. Probably no
which, in the end, more than any, regulate other Englishman now living has been so
opinion indirectly, if not directly, in morals, influential, with the most influential portion of
theology, politics, and on the methods of the community, in gravely determining well
scientific research. It is moreover a sign defined conclusions upon the most important
that those who are anywhere seeking for a subjects, and in promoting a strictly scientific
better reasoned conception of this mysterious manner of reaching them. His writings on
life of ours look at present for their nourish logic, political science, and social toleration,
ment with a peculiar expectation to the have been forming a new public opinion in
now fully published logical and metaphysical these last twenty years. Now, for the first
writings of Sir William Hamilton. And in time, he appears as an author in metaphysical
the present lull of philosophy in Scotland, philosophy, giving to the world the results of
which has followed his departure and that of his matured thought, at a time of life which
Professor Ferrier, we, at this northern end of we believe pretty nearly corresponds to that
the island, should be grateful when one so at which Locke produced his “Essay,” Kant
calm and candid as Mr. Mill occupies the his Criticism of Pure Reason, and Hamilton
otherwise vacant place in the Scotch discus his Dissertations on Reid.
sion of ultimate questions that has been Mr. Mill is distinguished by obvious marks
going on for considerably more than a cen from three great men, who may be said pre
tury. It is a place to which, by Mr. Mill's eminently to share with him the distinction
hereditary Scotch connexion, as well as on of educating English mind in this generation.
more important grounds, he is well entitled. Mr. Carlyle, Mr. Tennyson, and Mr. Maurice
His new book is a formidable summons to have in common, each with a marked indi
Scotland to resume, with all the advantages viduality, reflective genius of the suggestive
of its lucid exposition and criticism, that effort or poetical type. Mr. Mill has scientific
to re-think more deeply answers to questions clearness, and a power seldom equalled, of
WOL. XLIII. N-1
2 IMr. Mill's Examination of Sir W. Hamilton's Philosophy. Sept.
presenting transparently revelations that are variable mental associations, and animated
drawn, it must be added, from less spiritual by expectancy. With Hamilton the most
depths of our being than is habitual to these important questions are assumed to be finally
contemporaries, and accompanied, too, with foreclosed. With Mr. Mill all questions are
less of the emotional inspiration which con always open questions; what is yet to hap
tagiously communicates itself. His literary pen may modify our answers to them; the
action, not less intrepid, is every way of a human race is on a hopeful voyage of dis
calmer and less fiery sort than Mr. Carlyle's. covery—any whither. The Hamiltonian
As an excitement to reverential love and faith, starts with propositions, believed by him to
or to a Pascal-like awe in the meditation of be universally necessary; the disciple of Mr.
the intellectual and moral mysteries of life, Mill declines to admit the claim of any pro
most feel, we should imagine, that his writings position to eternal universality or necessity.
are less powerful than those of Mr. Tennyson, And yet each writes in large letters, on the
Mr. Maurice, and, we must add, those of his very front of his philosophy, that whatever
Scotch contemporary Sir W. Hamilton. knowledge can be attained by or attributed
With Sir W. Hamilton, nevertheless, Mr. Mill to man is essentially finite and relative.
is to be classed as one of our two great con Of these two tendencies, which, it may be
temporary systematic reasoners about the asked, is likely to regulate the future among
nature and methods of knowledge, and the men, or, especially and more immediately,
laws which should regulate belief; while they among Englishmen and Scotchmen, in mat
are distinguished as leaders of what are com ters of physics and politics, art and educa
monly regarded as opposed and rival schools tion, morals and theology? Which is even
of philosophical doctrine. They are accepted now regulating it? On what side should we
representatives of the two contrasted methods range ourselves in this contest?
of interpreting the world in its ultimate re These questions are sometimes put in a
lation, to our knowledge, which philosophy spirit which betrays entire ignorance of what
has presented throughout its history, and the philosophy is. It is not certainly as leaders
discussion of which has been said to be its of opposite sects, for one of which we seek
history. Whether this ought to be said we a party triumph, that we are now about to
shall consider by and bye. Here, at the out look at Sir W. Hamilton and Mr. Mill, and
set, we note distinctive marks in the aims of to hear what each says on matters which
the two leaders whose respective answers to thinking persons are trying from age to age
the principal questions of all philosophical in to think over again, and to express more
quiry are in this volume placed side by side truly, but at each stage with a large remainder
and compared. These marks may be pon of error and indistinctness. We regard them,
dered by those who want to appreciate the on the contrary, as strong individual think
human interests which this otherwise purely ers, full of speculative curiosity, who are
intellectual discussion concerns; for it is their struggling to attain each for himself the good
broadly distinguishable intention, as much as point of view for amending or harmonizing
their mctaphysical formulas, which gives to common, inarticulate, and unreflective opi
such systems power. nion, but whose very individuality and indi
The spirit which seeks to conserve faith in vidual environment of circumstances occa
God, free-will, and other supersensible reali sions that one-sidedness of mental vision from
ties, is to be found working in Sir W. Hamil. which none of us is free. The history of all
ton, amid a crowd of learned references to genuine philosophy is the history of a dis
the grand historic past of speculation, and by cussion, cessation from which is the collapse
means which have for their avowed end the of intellect and of social progress, while
promotion of intellectual activity as in itself its immediate result always leaves plenty of
a good thing. Mr. Mill, on the other hand, room for a fresh effort to think more clearly
is inspired with the hope of intellectual pro and express more felicitously. It is the his
gress in the future, and on this behalf he tory of a continued controversial dialogue,
struggles for present freedom of thought from by which the mental vitality of society is
the bondage of assumptions imposed as neces sustained, but in which every man, and every
sary by the past. In Hamilton a reverential nation, has a way of thought and expression
intellectual conservatism animates a series of different from every other. We do our part,
discussions, dogmatically confined round a now and here, if we help to keep the discus
centre of supposed necessary principles or sion going, taking our own, however subordi
intuitions, which are assumed to be given nate, place in its perennial course; and,
originally to our weak, because finite intelli if it may be so, contributing something
gence. Mr. Mill encourages intellectual to correct the thought or expression of pre
movement in any direction to which we are ceding interlocutors, by help of the sides of
conducted by experience, consolidated by in a common truth which respectively they
1865. Mr. Mill's Examination of Sir W. Hamilton's Philosophy. 3
hold up to view. It is in this zigzag course cessors in Germany had introduced into
that truth in any department has gradually modern thought,—propositions then very
moved forward, and that it has been assimi strange to British philosophical controver
lated in each new age or different nation, by sialists, but which his power has since put
the imperfect faculties and languages of into wide circulation. And now Mr. Mill
In en. appears.”
We have spoken of Mr. Mill as, in this Mr. Mill recognises in the works of Hamil
book, virtually an interlocutor in the contro ton the most powerful agency on the conser
versial dialogue in which certain Scotchmen, vative or conformist side of British philosophy,
of a more than European range of influence, and thus naturally they have more than any
have been engaged for more than a century others on that side attracted his candour and
—to the benefit of Scotland and the world, courage. The Hamiltonian he regards as the
as it may be hoped. This Scotch discussion latest form of the Reidan theory; and “by
in philosophy—on a wide scale, and with no other of its supporters has that theory,”
European consequences at any rate—was set he thinks, “been so well guarded, or express
agoing by David Hume in 1738. In him ed in such discriminating terms, and with
this part of the island first took its place such studious precision. Though there are a
among the manifestly intellectual communi few points,” he adds, “on which the earlier
ties of Europe. Subsequent Scotch philo philosopher seems to me nearer the truth, on
sophical discussion, as indeed German too, is the whole it is impossible to pass from Reid
an attempt to crack the hard nuts of Humism, to Sir William Hamilton, and from Sir Wil
or to protest against its conclusion that when liam Hamilton back to Reid, and not be struck
cracked they are all found to be empty of with the immense progress which their com
real knowledge within. Thomas Reid was mon philosophy has made in the interval be
the first among us to undertake this task. tween them” (p. 107):
The sagacious Glasgow professor spoke on Mr. Mill explains that the subject of his
the side of conformity to unanalysed com book is not properly Sir William Hamilton,
mon conviction, and in opposition to Hume, but “the questions which Sir William Hamil
who had spoken for philosophical dissent ton discussed.” And he justifies his undertak
from unfeasoned beliefs in things of ever ing by expressions regarding the importance
during interest. This earnest and energetic of these questions, which, as coming from a
expression of the common consciousness, by man of affairs, and not an academic pedant or
Reid and his associates, was, however, so monastic recluse, may carry weight among
little critical, that it looked like an interpola those who would drown the voice of “meta
tion by unreflective opinion in a great philo physics” and its perplexing questions by the
sophical debate. Hume made Reid and his din of daily human life. “England,” says
friends suspicious of Locke, and frightened Mr. Mill, “is often reproached by Continental
them into a misunderstanding and reversal thinkers with indifference to the higher philo
of the still more subtle philosophical teach sophy. But England did not always deserve
ing of Berkeley, from all which we are only this reproach, and is showing, by no doubtful
now recovering. After Reid and Stewart, symptoms, that she will not deserve it much
the next to take a conspicuous part, speaking * Since this was written, critics of Sir W. Hamil
from a new point of view, was Thomas ton, as well as of other late and living "British
Brown, the Edinburgh Professor of Moral philosophers, have been crowding in. Professor
Philosophy, whose early death cut short a Massyn's Recent British Philosophy (London, 1865)
career of brilliant promise, but in whose cism, places its author, already eminent in literary criti
among those in this country who are entitled
comparatively crude fragments, consisting of to guide metaphysical opinion. The Exploratio
pamphlets and of rapidly written and post Philosophica of Professor Grote £ e, 1865)
humously published lectures, we find traces affords rich and fresh philosophical feeding, in a
of a more ingenious conception than Reid's volume over whose pages one breathes the pure
of Hume's critical questions, along with less love of truth, and is attracted to sympathy with
intellectual enterprise, whether conducted, by
of the modest wisdom for which Reid is Hamilton or Ferrier, Mr. Mill or Dr. Whewell, or
admirable. The succeeding great interlocutor our countryman, Professor Bain of Aberdeen, and
in the zigzag, alternative course of this which we especially welcome as an emanation
Scotch philosophical dialogue is Sir W. from thewhose University of Cambridge. And Mr.
Hamilton, contemptuous of the fences which Stirling, Secret of Hegel (London, 1865) has
suddenly revealed a strong man watching and
Brown tried to set up against some results of working among us, now threatens Hamiltonism
the phenomenalism that he received so with war to the knife.
largely into the working premises of his # A comparison of Dr. Priestley’s “Examination”
of the Philosophy of Reid, Beattie, and Oswald
philosophy, and ready to transfer for discus (London, 1774), with Mr. Mill's “Examination” of
sion into the Scotch arena the principal pro Sir W. Hamilton's Philosophy (London, 1865), sug
positions which Kant and his greatest suc gests a similar remark.
4 Mr. Mill's Examination of Sir W. Hamilton's Philosophy. Sept.
longer. Her thinkers are again beginning to be a trust which acknowledges that we neither
see, what they had only temporarily forgotten, know all nor are ignorant of all? These and
that a true Psychology is the indispensable like questions are those in debate under cover
basis of Morals, of Politics, of the Science and of controversies about the relativity and fini
Art of Education; that the difficulties of Meta tude, as distinguished from the absoluteness
physics lie at the root of all Science; that and infinitude, of knowledge; the relation of
these difficulties can only be quieted by being our knowledge, or of any knowledge, to what
resolved, and that until they are resolved, posi really exists; the reality of matter, and what
tively if possible, but at any rate negatively, we we should mean when we say that space and
are never assured that any human knowledge, matter exist and are external to us; the reality
even physical, stands on solid foundations” of mind, and what we should mean when we
'.
(p.It2). an arduous business to gather together say that mind exists; the beginning and end
ing of matter or mind; whether they, or in
in an orderly way “the questions discussed deed existence in any form, absolutely began
by Sir W. Hamilton,” along with the exact or will absolutely end, and what we can know
Hamiltonian answers or solutions, from the or may believe about such Beginning or
lectures, and the fragments of essay, disser Ending. What, in short, shall we say about
tation, and annotation, over which they are the Eternal Stream of Existence, a part of
scattered, and in which they are brought which, in passing through, or rather in consti
forward in various forms of expression. Mr. tuting, our personal conscious experience, ap
Mill has reproduced them, according to his pears somehow to connect us with the whole 3
own interpretation of what they are, and in Metaphysical questions, more or less of the
his own lucid and interesting manner, but sort condensed in this last one, and discussed
not, we think, in an order which gives dis by Sir W. Hamilton and Mr. Mill, may be
tinct prominence to the salient features, and conveniently arranged in three subordinate
keeps the subordinate parts in their due rela groups:
tion to three or four great centres of discus 1. There is a long list which circulates
sion. We shall here offer a generalized sum round the terms “natural realism” or “dual
mary of the questions into which these two ism,” with their correlatives “consciousness”
great minds have thrown themselves—a sort or “perception,” and especially “éonscious
of map of the territory of Philosophy as it ness of matter.” We may conveniently keep
has been occupied in the Scotch discussion these together. They all refer to the “stream
which Hume initiated, and which Mr. Mill is of existence” as it is in the act of passing
now maintaining. through and constituting our primary or im:
The questions of Intellectual Philosophy mediate conscious experience. Is there, they
may be assorted in two principal groups. ask, anything “external” behind what we
I. The first group gives rise to METAPHY are immediately conscious of ? or is this very
sics. Here are some specimens of them:— immediate consciousness itself the ultimate
What is this conscious life, on which we thing, behind which we cannot go, and be
entered when we became conscious, and on hind which there is nothing of a different
which, as by a new birth, we enter in a deeper essence to go to, however much more there
sense when, as in asking this very question, may be of a like sort with the phenomenal
we begin to reflect? Is it hollow and transi stream itself, in our own past or future con
tory, void of all reality, and soon to be dis scious experience, or in the past, present, or
solved; which we may enjoy as it lasts after future conscious experience of other sentient
its fashion, but looking on the whole all the beings? The Hamiltonian Consciousness of
while as a lie? Or is there something real in Matter may be taken as a peg on which to
what now is, and conducting, too, to another hang questions under this first head, also dis
and more awe-inspiring reality, of which we cussed in this book by Mr. Mill. In them
have glimpses in the very objects we are now selves these might indeed be so treated as
conscious of, and anticipations in the faith that answers to them should include the
which carries us beyond them? In a word, whole range of metaphysics.
what shall we say about what we commonly 2. It is better, however, to keep separate,
call our Knowledge? Does it penetrate to as a second group of questions, those which
the real existence of what we say we know; may be said to circulate round the terms
or does it leave us in the dark, being after all “common sense,” “testimony of conscious
no real knowledge? Should our habitual ness,” “necessary beliefs,” “necessary truths,”
state be a consciousness that we know the “intuitions” (in one of the two meanings of
universe in which we find ourselves, and may this word”), “universal postulates,” “d priori
we dispense with mere faith or trust? or principles,” etc., in the works of Sir William
should it be the doubt which paralyses trust? * That is, the meaning in which Mr. Mill con
or should it, intermediate between the two, fines it, according to which it includes general prin
Hamilton and others; and to which Mr. Mill up, and the pieces re-arranged, as they attach
adds, “law of inseparable association” and themselves to the first, second, or third of
the “psychological,” as distinguished from these groups.
the “introspective” method in metaphysics.
It is through what these terms refer to that II. Besides these three groups of metaphysi
our present or immediate consciousness, tran cal questions, philosophical discussion connects
sient as it is, is connected inferentially with itself with a body of questions in Logic. The
manifestations of existence which have been metaphysician meditates upon the stream of
or which are to be. The controversy about consciousness, as our branch of the Eternal
Necessary Truths is thus the nucleus of thisstream of Being. The logician seeks to con
second group. - struct a mechanism which may assist us in
forming conceptions and beliefs about what is
3. A third group of questions rising beyond
and yet involved in the two preceding ones, not actually present in the conscious stream,
refers to the limits which mark the culmi and cannot be adequately imagined even; and
nation or apex of that knowledge which, also in applying to the increase and extension
beginning as an immediate consciousness, of our beliefs, those universal assumptions
expands, in the form of belief, beyond this which are the special matter of examination
narrow area, so as to embrace in inferences when we are under the influence of the second
what is past and future. This group may be group of metaphysical questions. The formal
said to circulate round the Hamiltonian construction of science, and the methods of
Theory of the Conditioned and the Uncondi actually constructing it, rather than its ulti
tioned. Here we ask whether knowledge, or mate basis, structure, and apex, is the problem
knowledge and belief, is co-extensive with of Logic. And this gives rise, in the book
existence? Is there Being beyond Knowing; before us, to a series of questions which may
or is existence dependent on a consciousness, be thus assorted:—
so that if consciousness is not, existence can 1. An elaborate system of rules and for
not be? What, in short, is the relation of mulas, to which we are told the mind must
“knowing” to “being '". Is our knowledge conform when it is developing or extending
in the last analysis a relation ? Is all know its conceptions, and abridging, with the aid
ledge as such necessarily a relation? Is exist of language, what it believes in, has been
ence essentially a relation ? If there be extra transmitted (latterly under the name of Logic)
conscious existence, how should we demean from the days of Aristotle. What is the
ourselves towards it? Do we owe it any belief worth of this imposing intellectual machi
in default of all knowledge; and should such nery? Does it display to us the laws of our
belief about it in any way modify our manner intellectual life? Does it assist in making
of thinking of, or believing in, the physical that life more available for its main inten
or moral matters which concern human life, tion? Questions concerning the philosophical
and are contained in human science? worth of the Aristotelian or Scholastic Logic,
We have thus three groups of metaphysical and the soundness of the interpretation of
questions, the first concerned with Existence the thinking and ratiocinative nature of man,
as we immediately know, perceive, or are con on which this logic is rested by Sir W. Hamil
scious of it; the second, with Existence as it ton, are the subject of a series of chapters by
is mediately knowable or believed in; and Mr. Mill.
the third, with the Unknowable or Uncondi 2. Sir W. Hamilton is conspicuous in the
tioned,—the due study of this last enabling history of nineteenth century philosophy as
us, according to Sir W. Hamilton, as well as an innovator, on a great scale too, upon the
Mr. Mill, to eliminate from human discussion traditional formulas or framework which
ontological abstractions, which men have in scholastic logic offers for unelliptically ex
vain sought to make matter of science, and pressing our thoughts, for testing their verbal
by which their conceptions of what is within consistency, and for securing methodical
their range have been grievously perplexed. arrangement in what we are supposed to
These three groups of questions, we say again,know. He has constructed a framework that
are so connected that the first set cannot be is new, and which advances the claim that it
fully answered until the second and third are is simpler and every way more scientific than
answered. Notwithstanding, they ought to be the old one produced by Aristotle? Shall
distinguished; and the metaphysical works of we accept it as such; or if not, has it any
Sir W. Hamilton, as well as the metaphysical legitimate place? In what manner, in short,
portion of this book of Mr. Mill, may be broken shall we dispose of the Hamiltonian Analytic
of Logical Forms? Questions of this sort
ciples which consciousness is supposed to attest, occupy some more of Mr. Mill's chapters.
and not mere face-to-face conscious intercourse with
phenomena,—a usage which seems to confuse some 3. Several since Bacon, Mr. Mill himself
of his reasoning. recently the most conspicuous in Britain
among the number, have pressed the claims by Hume, was employed about all the three
of a logical organon or mechanism for testing metaphysical groups. Under Reid it was
inferences, that is more comprehensive in its characteristically a discussion of the first of
aims than either the Old or the New Formal the three, in the form of a criticism of the
Analytic. These last confine their help to theory of a Perception of Matter by means
the business of putting into ratiocinative of representations or ideas, and of the con
order judgments which are assumed to be sequences of that theory. Brown was en
already proved; they give us no guarantee gaged in re-thinking Reidism, in order to
for the validity of the assumption, nor any attain an interpretation of some of its prin
additional resources for increasing the num ciples of common sense, especially regarding
ber of legitimate beliefs regarding the universe Causation, more assimilated than that of his
of which we have immediate but transient predecessors to our phenomenal experience,
glimpses in consciousness. Can a Real Or and which was, in fact, more akin to that of
ganon of this sort be constructed; and, if so, Hume. Hamilton has been the first in Scot
of what power towards promoting the inter land to put forward metaphysical questions
pretation of Nature? Mr. Mill only touches of the third group so as to deepen and in
these questions in this book; and it can tensify those of the first; while he may be
hardly be said that Sir W. Hamilton has said to have introduced the first and second
done even so much anywhere in his writings. group of the logical questions as a new ele
While Hamilton, in his Logic, was chiefly ment in . Scotch philosophical discussion,
employed in amending or re-constructing a which had previously adventured (as in the
set of logical forms, –the framework for ela cases of Hume, Stewart, and Brown, and
borating what we are assumed to know, Mr. that incidentally rather than systematically)
Mill's Logic, elsewhere expounded by him, is only logical questions of the third group.
a system of devices for securing that beliefs
in facts of which we have no immediate con We are obliged to confine ourselves in this
sciousness, shall be accepted as legitimate or article to the Metaphysical questions dis
fully proved only when they are shown to be cussed by Sir W. Hamilton and Mr. Mill.
virtually specimens of our more general be. We inquire what truth and active thought
lief in the uniformity of Nature. have gained by Mr. Mill's “examination” of
Sir W. Hamilton's Metaphysics; what
These four last pages contain a programme amendments of permanent value he has sug
of matters professedly discussed in Mr. Mill's gested in the Hamiltonian manner either of
“Examination” of Sir W. Hamilton's philo putting or of answering such questions; and
sophy, and which should be re-discussed in what sort of resuscitation of the philosophi
any adequate review of his “Examination.” cal spirit among us, in what tone, and with
The question of the Freedom of Will,—the what applications, may be expected to issue
vindication of which Mr. Mill regards as “the from what he has written.
central idea” of the Hamiltonian system, and First of all, we find pervading Mr. Mill's
the “determining cause of most of Sir W. Ha manifesto certain formidable charges against
milton's philosophical opinions,”—although, the Metaphysics of Hamilton. Among the
on account of its ethical relations, it has a most important of these are three—
chapter apart in Mr. Mill's book, belongs ' .) General want of symmetry, and espe
partly to the first, but especially to the third cially a frequent inconsistency with itself—
of our three sets of metaphysical questions, Two radical and nearly connected inconsis
and receives its solution,—or rather dismissal, tencies are reiterated, viz., the inconsistency
according to Sir W. Hamilton,—in his genc of what it teaches about Consciousness of
ral dismissal from philosophy of what is ne Matter on the one hand, with what it teaches
cessarily unknown or unconditioned. And about the Relativity of knowledge on the
the “Theory of Pleasure and Pain,” however other; and its inconsistency in bringing back
interesting in itself, lies aside from the path under the name of Belief what it rejects
we mean to follow in this article. under the name of Knowledge.
The whole history of intellectual philoso (2.) Misrepresentation of other philosophi
phy is the history of attempts, by a series of cal teaching.—The special misrepresentation
strongly individual minds, of very various alleged is that the majority of philosophers
temperament and genius, and occupying dif are said by Hamilton to “have been wont to
ferent points of view, to re-think more deeply play fast and loose with the Testimony of
than their predecessors, answers to the fore Consciousness; rejecting it when it is incon
going groups of metaphysical and logical venient, but appealing to it as conclusive
questions, as well as to present an amended when they have need of it to establish any
expression of the questions themselves. of their opinions.”
Scotch philosophical discussion, as initiated (3) Unsubstantiality and irrelevancy in
its highest and most characteristic doctrine, the all-embracing conceptions with which he
viz., the Relativity of knowledge, under the deals steadily in his mind, while they are
Law of the Conditioned. struggling for adequate and exact expression.
These are charges which, with dignified The “totum teres, atque rotundum” philo
courtesy, and with a candour that shows sophy, as professed by imperfect man, is
itself in profuse quotations from the writings necessarily shallow; and what Bacon, in his
arraigned, Mr. Mill in many forms urges Advancement of Learning, says of divinity
against the Metaphysics of Sir W. Hamil is true of metaphysics (which is speculative
ton. Without doubt they are grave ones. theology under another name),—“As for
A system that is radically inconsistent with perfection or completeness in divinity, it is
itself, hopelessly incoherent and disjointed, not to be sought; for he that will reduce a
which builds itself upon a false interpretation knowledge into an art will make it round and
of other systems, and in which the highest uniform; but in divinity many things must
distinctive principle is hollow and illusory, be left abrupt.” “Plato,” Mr. Grote remarks
seems hardly to justify Mr. Mill in the com in the Preface to his great work on that phi
plimentary language which he applies to its losopher and his contemporaries—“Plato
author. Let us see, however, how the mat would have protested not less earnestly than
ter stands. Cicero against those who sought to foreclose
A preliminary remark, applicable to the debate, in the grave and arduous struggles
Logic as well as to the Metaphysics, seems to for searching out reasoned truth; or to bind
be called for with regard to the charge of down the free inspirations of his intellect in
internal inconsistency, , which Mr. Mill so one dialogue, by appealing to sentence al
reiterates, and which he illustrates by the ready pronounced in another preceding.
above major, and by very many other minor Of two inconsistent trains of reasoning, both
instances. The critic of this philosophy cannot indeed be true; but both are often
ought not to forget that the printed exposi useful to be known and studied; and the
tion of it is contained in two sorts of docu philosopher who professes to master the the
ments—(1) those published by Sir W. ory of his subject ought not to be a stranger
Hamilton in his lifetime and under his own to either. . . . I recognise such inconsisten
eye; (2) those published since his death in cies, when found, as facts—and even as very in
1856, with all the necessary disadvantage of teresting facts—in his philosophical character.”
posthumous publication. The larger portion Another remark occurs. A large part
of the extant “Works” of Hamilton is post of what Sir W. Hamilton has written, and
humous, comprehending, in addition to the also of Mr. Mill's examination of what he
four volumes of “Lectures on Metaphysics has written, consists of attempts to interpret
and Logic,” with their remarkable appen what other philosophers mean in what they
dices, various fragments of unpublished Dis have written. The ambiguity and changes
sertation suggested by what Reid has writ in human language, even the most exact and
ten. Seven Dissertations appended to Reid's philosophical, must perpetually produce this
works (one of them unfinished), with a body deposit, so apt to create discussion and con
of annotations upon the text (published in troversy; and besides this, independent
1846); certain metaphysical and logical Dis minds, each imperfect, necessarily conceive
cussions and their appendices (published col many of these problems differently. The
lectively in 1852); and a very few annota exercise of trying to think what other philo
tions on the works of Stewart (in 1855), sophers have thought, exactly as they have
contain, we believe, all the philosophical thought it, is itself an important aid to re
writing that was published by Sir W. flection, when it does not run into pedantry,
Hamilton himself. The chronological order nor withdraw the mind of the critic from the
in which these works, of both classes, were truths written about. But we shall not, in
written, must also be cared for by the critic. what follows, spend much time in trying to
Mr. Mill has not, we think, enough adverted settle the many still open questions about the
to all this, when he brings his charge of in exact conceptions which the great minds re
coherence against the published exposition of ferred to by Mr. Mill and by Sir W. Hamil
the Hamiltonian philosophy. ton, were labouring to express.
But apart from this consideration, charges
of want of symmetry, and even of inconsis We must now face the most formidable
tency, may be plausibly supported against looking charge of inconsistency with itself
every profound philosopher with whose writ which Mr. Mill brings against the Hamilto
ings we have any acquaintance. This may nian metaphysics. The reader may turn
be explained by the nature of the objects back to our three groups of metaphysical
the philosopher is conversant with, and the questions to see what it is, Mr. Mill virtual
hardly surmountable difficulty of keeping ly says that Sir W. Hamilton's main answer
to the first of these groups of questions con great deal besides; we are not kept down to
tradicts his main answer to the third group, the humble, tentative habit of mind which
—these two answers being, moreover, the he and Sir W. Hamilton both profess to
two fundamental principles or discoveries in foster.
the metaphysical part of his philosophy. When we first read this charge of radical
The Hamiltonian doctrine that we have a contradiction, which is so many times re
perception or consciousness of Matter, is al peated by Mr. Mill, we were surprised that
leged to be irreconcilable with the Hamilto he should have presented the particular
nian doctrine that we cannot have Absolute proof which he does present of Sir W. Ham
knowledge. To the doctrine of relativity, ilton's surrender of the one-half of his meta
Mr. Mill very emphatically professes his own physics, in the statement and vindication of
adherence, speaking of it as the fundamental the other half—his surrender of the law of
truth in all philosophy and intellectual cul the conditioned, in order to maintain our
ture. Only he thinks that Sir W. Hamilton consciousness of matter—or, at any rate,
conceives it in a way in which it quite loses that he should have confined himself to this
its importance, and that by maintaining a proof, when so much more, of a like descrip
consciousness of the primary qualities of tion, lay as ready to his hand. Why, we
matter he altogether does away with it. asked ourselves, does Mr. Mill not found this
We venture to think that if Mr. Mill had charge of inconsistency with relativity of
examined more patiently the nature and ten knowledge, upon the Hamiltonian doctrine,
dency of the doctrine that we are conscious that we are conscious, directly and absolute
of Matter, we should have heard less about ly, of our feelings when we are feeling them,
a contradiction, which looks so fatal on the or of our thoughts when we are thinking
surface. them, or, in short, of any of our conscious
But here is the contradiction very much acts and states when we are conscious of
as Mr. Mill takes it up. them, as well as upon the Hamiltonian doc
In dozens of places Sir W. Hamilton de trine that we are conscious, directly and ab
scribes the human manner of knowing what solutely, of solid and extended phenomena,
are called the primary qualities of matter, as when we are in sentient intercourse with
a “consciousness,” or “perception proper;” them Being conscious, without a medium,
a direct, immediate, absolute knowledge; a of unextended and unsolid feelings, while we
knowledge of them “as they are in them are percipient of them, is as much knowing
selves,” and not merely as causes which pro existence absolutely and in itself, as being
duce effects in us. When we have sentient conscious, in like manner without a medium,
intercourse with what is extended and solid, of phenomena of extension and solidity,
we know Matter, he says, not through the while we are percipient of them. A con
medium of its effects, but as it is in itself. sciousness of both is maintained throughout
We are percipient or conscious of extended Sir W. Hamilton's writings. Nay more, a
and solid objects, and not merely of sensa consciousness of our feelings, when we feel
tions caused by them in us. On the other them, is maintained by Mr. Mill himself.
hand, when we have sentient intercourse Both the philosophers say that we have a
with objects as coloured, or sonorous, or odo direct, conscious, face-to-face perception of
rous, we are conscious only of the sensible our own sensations and other feelings while
effects which external objects produce in us, they last. How then does the assertion that
and not of an external object as it is itself or we are percipient, directly and not through
absolutely. But then, in dozens of other a medium, of phenomena of solidity and ex
places we find Sir W. Hamilton energetical tension, contradict the principle that all our
ly asserting, and seeking to prove, that we knowledge is relative, when the assertion
cannot know any object at all absolutely or that we are percipient, directly and not
in itself. Of things absolutely or in them through a medium, of the phenomena of
selves he says we know nothing, or know sensation or emotion or intelligence, does
them only as incognisable. All that we not ?, The former of these two assertions
know, or can know, is phenomenal of the may be objected to on some other ground
unknown. All our science of Matter is ulti perhaps, but surely not on this—and by Mr.
mately a Nescience. Mill.
These two sets of passages, Mr. Mill A passage in the twelfth chapter of Mr.
argues, are irreconcilable. We cannot know Mill's book first admitted light for us on his
matter as in itself solid and extended; or, if meaning, and so far relieved a seeming in
we can, it can no longer be said that all Ab consistency in Mr. Mill himself. In that
solute knowledge is impossible to us; we chapter we find this sentence:—“It is evi
have, at any rate, this Absolute knowledge of dent that our knowledge of mind, like that
the material world, and may have it of a of matter, is entirely relative; Sir W.
Hamilton indeed affirms this of mind in a Sir W. Hamilton did not say, or did not try
much more unqualified manner than he be enough to say well. But all that is away
lieves it of matter, making no reservation of from the proposition on which Mr. Mill
any primary qualities” (p. 205). founds this charge of radical inconsistency
Now, we ask Mr. Mill to produce one pas against the Hamiltonian metaphysics.
sage that Sir W. Hamilton has ever written A host of passages, as well as the whole
which supports the assertion contained in the analogy of his philosophy, leave us no room
words we have put into Italics. Where to doubt that when Sir W. Hamilton de
does Sir William say, expressly or by impli scribes our primary knowledge of extended
cation, that our conscious knowledge of mat or solid objects as direct, presentative, imme
ter, or any of its qualities, is less relative than diate, absolute, in a word, as conscious know
our conscious knowledge of mind and its ledge, he means to distinguish it from those
qualities is ? Where does he say that we other phenomena in consciousness, which are
have an absolute knowledge of the primary what he calls representative, and in which we
qualities of matter, in any other sense than are not conscious of the solid and extended
that in which he says that we have a like percept, but only of a mental image or re
knowledge of a feeling of pain or pleasure in presentation of it, not numerically different
our own minds while it is being felt, or of from the conscious act or state itself. In this
an act of consciousness while it is being representative consciousness, Mr. Mill would
acted. On the contrary, he says, with a say that the distinction of subject and object
steady uniformity of conception, that in per is merely “nominal” and “metaphorical”
ception we are equally and simultaneously (see p. 216); but, in the Hamiltonian philo
conscious of the percipient act and of the sophy, this so-called nominal or metaphori
extended or solid object; of the subjective cal difference of subject and object is the
sensation and of the external perception. only recognised difference between them,
Both are alike relatively known; both are save and except in the case of external percep
alike accidents or manifestations of unknown tion, which has the wonderful peculiarity of
existence; both are alike phenomenal of that receiving an object, believed by Hamilton to
unknown; and yet, in a sense, both are alike be numerically different from the act, into
irrelatively, presentatively, directly, imme the same relation with itself that the so
diately, absolutely, in a word, consciously called “nominal and metaphorical” objects
known. However inexplicable it may be, of our other conscious states bear to them.
and however at variance with the assumptions It is this which makes “external perception”
of preceding philosophers, and with the ordi so unique a phenomenon throughout the
nary manner of speech, he describes both as Hamiltonian metaphysics. It had been taken
alike involved in the stream of our very con for granted in British philosophy that only
scious experience, and that in spite of the sensations and other “mental states” could
apparent contrariety of extension and solidity get into that relation to consciousness which,
to thought and feeling. That the solid and in their case, Mr. Mill calls a merely nominal
extended portion of our conscious experience or metaphorical relation of subject and
is also somehow believed to be contrary to object; and that “external objects” could
and independent of that portion of it which be known only through our consciousness of
consists of mere sensations and other feelings, the sensations which they excite,—as past
or of intelligent and voluntary acts, is indeed objects are known through our consciousness
also held by Sir W. Hamilton. Just now, of the mental states of remembrance which
however, we are speaking only about what they leave behind them. Sir W. Hamilton
we are phenomenally conscious of; not about was the first boldly to say that this is not so;
the beliefs to which what we are thus con and that our sensations actually introduce the
scious of may somehow give rise. Sir W. external phenomena which they illuminate
Hamilton begins with what we are thus con into the very current of our direct conscious
scious of in our sense-experience. He finds, experience.
as indeed Mr. Mill and everybody else does, Mr. Mill, apparently overlooking all this,
that we are conscious of phenomena which naturally finds a tissue of inconsistency in
form the connotation of such words as “ex what Sir W. Hamilton has written about
tension,” “solidity,” “externality,” etc. He consciousness. For instance he is startled (p.
calls that a consciousness of matter. Whether 112) by finding him say that “consciousness
he sufficiently analyses the connotation of comprehends every cognitive act,” and pro
the words “extension,” “solidity,” “external ceeds to argue from this that “we can have
ity,” etc.; and how we ourselves ought to no knowledge of the past or the absent,” and
describe the portion of our experience which to make a difficulty in the Hamiltonian ex
gives rise to them, are questions about which planation that “all our mediate cognitions
a great deal has to be said, which perhaps are contained in our immediate.” We see
no inconsistency, or even obscurity, in the kind of evidence that is beyond dispute. We
Hamiltonian meaning here. Every cognitive ask our readers to ponder the opening pages
act is a conscious act; inasmuch as we of Mr. Mill's ninth chapter, including the
cannot know without an object of which we long quotation from Sir William Hamilton's
are conscious, although that object is (in lectures (pp. 128–31), which Mr. Mill accepts
every case except external perception) what as “one of the proofs that, whatever be the
Mr. Mill calls a “nominal” or “metaphorical” positive value of Sir William Hamilton's
object. The object in consciousness, when achievements in metaphysics, he had a greater
we remember the past, or imagine the absent, capacity for the subject than many metaphysi
is the act of memory, or the act of imagina. cians of higher reputation, and particularly
tion. But the object of which we were con than his distinguished predecessors in the
scious in the previous perception of that re same school of thought, Reid and Stewart.”
membered past was the very external reality Some of the remarks which Mr. Mill ap
itself, which then and there started up in the pends to this long quotation disclose his own
stream of our conscious life. In memory we misconception of this chief article in the
are conscious of an object that is not self-con Hamiltonian metaphysics. “The facts (of con
tained, but that has something behind it; our sciousness) which cannot be doubted, are
priorsense-perception of the object now merely those,” he says, “to which the word consci
represented in a consciousness of the act of ousness is by most philosophers confined,—
memory was, on the other hand, objectively the facts of internal consciousness; the mind's
complete, inasmuch as nothing knowable by own acts and affections. What we feel we
us lay behind it, as its standard of represen cannot doubt that we feel. It is impossible
tative accuracy, or as its cause. It was itself to feel and to think that perhaps we feel not,
the thing, at least the only thing of which we or to feel not, and think that perhaps we
could have any positive knowledge; as a feel. What admits of being doubted,” he
percept, we could not refer it to any previous adds, “is the revelation which consciousness
presentation, which we can and do in the is supposed to make (and which our author
case of mediate objects we remember, but considers as itself consciousness) of an exter
which are not themselves in consciousness at nal reality” (pp. 131, 132).
all. Now, the part of Hamiltonism we are here
“The past reality,” Mr. Mill strangely re considering, and which Mr. Mill puts in con
marks (p. 114), “is certainly implied in the tradiction to the Hamiltonian doctrine of the
present recollection of which we are con Absolute, is exactly what he here describes as
scious; and our author has said that all our “the phenomena of consciousness considered
mediate knowledge s contained in our in simply in themselves.” Sir William implies
mediate, just as knowledge of the outward that these phenomena are of two obviously
object is contained in our knowledge of the distinguishable kinds,—some solid and ex
perception. If, then, we are conscious of the tended, others unextended and unresisting;
outward object, why not of the past sensation and he further (but this is beyond the present
or impression ?” Now, where, we ask Mr. question) implies that there is nothing ex
Mill, has Sir William Hamilton said anything cept unknown substance transcending the
to justify the assertion which we have printed one of these two sorts of phenomena, and
in italics? Where does he say that a past event nothing except unknown substance transcend
is contained in our consciousness of its repre ing the other. As phenomena, he professes
sentation in memory, in the same way as an to take both as they are given in our sentient
extended and solid object is contained in the experience. It is true, that in addition to this
sphere of our sense-perception of it? A large their merely phenomenal and transient cha
part of what Hamilton has written was meant racter, they have another aspect, the result,
to enforce the distinction between these two, according to Sir William Hamilton, of an in
and to say on the one hand, that conscious stinctive and inexplicable “testimony of con
ness experiences, as immediately as it does our sciousness” to something more than what is
own feelings when we feel them, the solid ex merely phenomenal and transitory, i.e., some
tended phenomena that are present in sense; thing permanent in their character; the result,
while, on the other hand, it receives into this according to Mr. Mill and others, of our ex
immediate experience only the mental acts or perience of how they behave themselves—in
states which represent past absent events, not a word, of mental association, and afterwards
the past or absent events themselves. inductive comparison. In this second rela
So far from regarding consciousness as a tion,—not as mere transient phenomena in
kind of evidence that is incompetent in a consciousness, but as phenomena believed
conditional knowledge, Mr. Mill himself puts it to have certain relations to what is out of
prominently forward, “if only we can obtain transient consciousness,—the solid and ex
it pure” (p. 126), as emphatically the one tended phenomena are believed to be external
to and independent of our being conscious of We regard it as a distinct and important con
them; while the unextended, unresisting tribution by Sir William Hamilton to the
thoughts and feelings, are believed to depend theory of Matter previously common in this
on our consciousness of them. But this al country. Except Berkeley, we know no other
leged “testimony of consciousness” regarding philosopher in these islands who begins by
these two sorts of phenomena, of both of acknowledging that Matter, whatever it may
which we are conscious, might conceivably turn out to be, is at any rate that which we
be reversed. The solid and extended pheno find in our proper conscious experience—that
mena we might have instinctively believed to consciousness is not a mere medium for re
be phenomena of ourselves, and the unextend presenting an extended and solid world which
ed and unresisting feelings and thoughts to be exists behind it—and that there is nothing
external to and independent of ourselves; or we behind the proper objects of sense-conscious
might have believed both to be external; or ness, these being the very things or realities
both to be internal. In short, the phenomena themselves which we call material, external,
given to consciousness are one consideration; extended, solid. This was so far Berkeley's
the immediate inference of consciousness about teaching, and it is virtually Hamilton's.
them (as Sir William Hamilton puts it), or Berkeley and Hamilton may, notwithstand
the mediate inference we draw concerning ing this agreement, differ in regard to what
them (as others suppose it to be), viz., that we are bound to believe respecting the mate
some of the phenomena of which we are con rial phenomena which thus visit conscious
scious (e.g., sizes, shapes, solid objects, etc.) ness; that belief forming the third above-men
are the manifestations in us of something that tioned element in the Hamiltonian doctrine.
is independent of us; while others (e.g. feel As for Reid, we cannot discover that he was
ings, thoughts, etc.), are manifestations of our within sight of this “consciousness” of mate
selves,—is another and different consideration. rial phenomena, so suggestive of ulterior
But we must look at the Hamiltonian speculation, or that he meant to say more
doctrine of consciousness of Matter as a whole, than that our belief in Matter is due to in
and not merely in the one aspect in which stinct, and not to fallacious reasoning about
Mr. Mill presents it. It is in many respects representative images.
the most ingenious, internally complete, and In this first element of his complex doc
original part of all that its author has uttered trine of Realism, Sir William Hamilton, as
in the Scotch philosophical discussion; and it seems to us, brings the question back—or
it is to be gathered only by a careful collation rather forward—to the reflective point of
of passages situated in widely separated parts view at which Berkeley had contemplated it
of his writings. It is not to be confounded more than a century before, but from which
with Reid's doctrine, which is only a deliberate intervening British thinkers had been scared,
statement of the unanalysed sentiment, while partly by David Hume, but also by certain
the Hamiltonian doctrine is strictly reflective infelicities of statement in Berkeley's own
and critical. It contains three principal writings. Yet while he takes the purely re
elements. First of all, there is the assumption flective or philosophical, as distinguished
that Matter, in its primary qualities, is a por from the vulgar, and also from the imper
tion of our properly perceptive or conscious fectly philosophical point of view, Sir Wil
experience. Then there is the recognition liam Hamilton pauses, we think, in the work
(through aid of physiology and psychology of analysis before he has sufficiently sur
combined) of that qualified Matter which veyed what his stand-point enables him to
can thus appear in the very current of our command. He does not enough analyse
direct conscious experience, as being only our what Space, and Matter, and Extension, and
own animated organism, or what is in physical Externality mean; or what is meant by the
contact with it, and as not being any of the belief on which we all act—that what ap
distant objects which encompass us in the pears in consciousness as extended and exter
ambient space. Lastly, there is the assumption nal, practically continues to exist when we
that we are mysteriously obliged to believe are not conscious of it. He puts our belief
that the primary qualities—which we are in the permanence of that which appears in
thus as conscious of, while they are present the senses too much on the same footing
to us in our organism, as we are of feelin with our immediate consciousness of the
while we are feeling them—are (unlike the transient sense-appearances themselves, which
feelings) qualities of a something that is suggest the belief; and he seems to forbid
“contrary in existence” to ourselves, but criticism alike of the belief and of the mean
ing of what is believed, by calling it all “a
which is nevertheless present in our conscious
Iless. fact of consciousness.” And yet these
The first of these momenta we have been are the very questions which the recogni
rying to make clear in the last few pages. tion of the passage of Matter through
12 Mr. Mill's Examination of Sir W. Hamilton's Philosophy. Sept,
our sense-consciousness suggests to reflec combined with our tangible and other expe
tion. -
rience, we infer what is visible and tangible

What we have called the second element elsewhere, e.g., in the sun and moon, or
in the Hamiltonian doctrine is an avowed wherever our inferences extend.
critical and reflective modification of Reid’s | Mr. Mill has no doubt (p. 111) that this
uncritical “common sense” judgment about part of the Hamiltonian teaching is correct,
the objects we perceive. Reid says that “and a great improvement upon Reid.” We
“when we see the sun and moon we have no can accept it only in the light of the mean
doubt that the very objects which we imme ing to be put upon the terms Matter, Space,
diately see are very far distant from us and and Externality, in the propositions which
from one another. We have not the least express the third element in the Hamiltonian
doubt that this (what we see) is the sun and theory of perception. And to these we now
moon which God created some thousands of proceed. Consciousness is here alleged to
years ago, and which have continued to per give testimony to the meaning of the mate
form their revolutions in the heavens ever rial or sense appearances which pass through
since" (Reid, p. 298); and he accepts this it; to tell us how we should interpret and
belief as its own sufficient authority. Sir define them. Consciousness, according to
W. Hamilton reverses this doctrine, and de Sir W. Hamilton, testifies that what appears
nies that we see the sun and moon in the in perception is somehow external to and
heavens, or that any human being ever saw independent of our being conscious of it.
or ever will see them. In fact, according to Mere sensations expire when we cease to be
Sir William, no two persons ever see the conscious of them. The solid and extended
same thing. We do not and cannot see, or percepts which our sensations reveal to us,
have any other sort of sensible intercourse exist, whether we are conscious of them or
with any part of the material world, except not. Whoever doubts this, according to
the nervous organism of our own bodies, and him, doubts one article in the faith which is
what is immediately in contact with that. the common foundation of all speculation
When we are “conscious of matter,” we are and action. He makes God a deceiver, and
conscious of that matter which we animate; the root of our nature a lie. Now, the great
and which, when animated, is illuminated by majority of philosophers, by his account,
the various sensations of taste, smell, sound, have doubted whether phenomena, of which
or colour, of which we are also, and simulta we are immediately conscious in our sensible
neously, conscious. Feeling and Extension experience, are in themselves external to and
—Mind and Matter—the Ego and the Non independent of consciousness. They regard
ego, are as it were fused together in an ani these immediate objects as only “ideas” or
mated organism; and what we are properly representations, behind which the otherwise
conscious of, when we are conscious of an unknown, external, and extended world lies
extended object, as distinguished from a concealed, or revealed only as their cause.
mere sensational feeling, turns out, after And they do all this in the very act of ac
physiological and other experiment, to be a knowledging that nature or common reason
portion of that small mass of matter of teaches us something quite different from
which our bodies are composed. The intro this, viz., that the very object of which we
duction, so to express his doctrine, of this are sentient is itself the external object.
small portion of the space occupying uni They thus play fast aud loose with this testi
verse (whatever “space” and “extension” mony of consciousness, and in denying its
mean, of which again), into the current of a fallibility in this instance, prostrate its infal
human consciousness, on a footing of entire libility in every other. All this suggests
equality with sensations and other feelings, questions which carry us a great way into
of all which we are notoriously conscious, a subtle and fascinating part of metaphysical
opens the only way to that indefinitely nu analysis.
merous body of inferences, which includes We are here obliged to leave Sir W.
the sun and moon, “very far distant from Hamilton, and to connect ourselves more
us” in the heavens, and also the entire circle with Mr. Mill, whose three chapters (xi., xii.,
of our conclusions in the physical sciences, xiii.) on the Primary Qualities of Matter,
Of all these inferred objects we have of and on the Nature of our Belief in Matter
course only a belief or mediate conscious and in Mind, we regard as the ablest in his
ness, for we cannot see an inference with the book, and as among the clearest expositions
eye of sense. But we are sensibly conscious of psychological analysis now contained in
of what we afterwards discover by reasoning the English language. Sir W. Hamilton,
to be a small spot of extended matter con we think, has served philosophy well in
tained in or in contact with our animated recognising the material world, as within the
organism; and from this sense-consciousness, proper sphere of consciousness, in respect of
its extension and solidity. In so doing he “an opinion strangely prevailing amongst
has no more contradicted his doctrine of our men, that houses, mountains, rivers, and, in
incapacity for Absolute knowledge, than he a word, all sensible objects, have an existence,
has done in recognising (with Mr. Mill him natural or real, distinct from their being per
self) mind, in respect of its thoughts and ceived by the understanding.” It is in this
feelings and actions, as also phenomenal within external or spacial existence that the reality
the sphere of consciousness. But he goes on of things consists; and any proposition
to put a bar to ulterior questions about the which expresses doubt or denial of their
definitions of extension, solidity, and exter independent externality—which affirms that
nality, by the short-hand assumption that “all the choir of heaven and furniture of
they are qualities of that which is “contrary the earth,” have not any subsistence without
in existence” to us who are conscious of a mind—which proclaims that “their being
them. To tell us that we are conscious of is to be perceived or known,” is called un
extended and solid phenomena, and that natural, destructive of our sense of the vast
consciousness testifies to their “externality,” ness and glory of the material universe, and
is to teach a creed which consists of abstrac at the best an eccentric hypothesis, for which
tions, until by reflection this externality has no evidence has been or can ever be alleged.
been translated into our actual experience. This would be the sentiment of vulgar or
We still want to know what externality unreflective realism, and—with some abate
means, what extension means,—what matter ment on account of the secondary qualities
and space mean. We are conscious of sense of matter—it is expressed with emphasis and
reality; but what, after all, are we to under iteration in the writings of Beattie, Oswald,
stand by this reality ? Sir W. Hamilton and even Reid, as its mouth-pieces in philo
has, we fear, left the answers to these ques sophical debate.
tions too much in the shape of unresolved But this is not the language of Hamilton.
dogmatic formulas; Mr. Mill has ably tried With him, as we have partly said already,
to resolve them back into their origin in our there is a sun and moon that are no doubt
mental history. In doing so, he has made independent of human consciousness of them,
his examination of Hamiltonism a partial but which we never see, and cannot, without
solution of the problem which Berkeley a contradiction, be supposed to see. There
alone among British philosophers did so is an illimitable space, though no part of it
much to state and solve; which the formula beyond our own animated organism is ever
that we are “conscious of matter” suggests presented to our senses. The only material
again; and which is now fairly precipitated world which we ever come into direct
anew, with Mr. Mill's acceptance of at least intercourse with is this animated organism,
half of Berkeley's solution, into the arena of and whatever touches that. The rest of the
British philosophical discussion. material world is for us a series of inferences.
And even with regard to this infinitesimally
We must here explain our meaning, and small sense-given material world, as well as
try to settle the relation of both Mr. Mill all the rest, when we are neither sentient nor
and Sir W. Hamilton to what may be called concipient of it, and when no one else is so,
the Berkeleian problem, which is truly the —during intervals of all consciousness of it
main problem of all Reflective Realism; and or about it, if any such there be,—it relapses,
which, as solved, or indeed as conceived, in does not Hamilton mean to say, into uncon
one or other of two ways, is the turning ditioned, irrelative, merely substantial or
point of two great tendencies—the tentative potential existence, of which we can have
and experiential, and the dogmatic or ab only “a negative conception,”— whatever
stract, the former of which we in Scotland that may mean?
need to strengthen, and the other to edu Mr. Mill writes as if, in Sir W. Hamilton's
cate more philosophically within its proper system, the relation of perception and percept
sphere. should correspond with that of sensation and
With regard to this problem of Externality its external cause, or of mental state and a
in the senses, the mass of mankind are ready supposed “object,” that is out of immediate
to say that our very senses themselves teach sense-consciousness. This appears in what
us all that there is an external world, distri he says in his review of Hamilton's account
buted throughout ambient space, and con of the different theories on the belief in an
sisting of real things of various shapes and external world. He can see no important
sizes, colours, tastes, and smells, which con difference between Brown and Hamilton; he
tinue to exist in the state our senses showsays that Brown's theory “cannot with any
them to us, whether we are perceiving them justness of thought or propriety of language
or not, and of which our perception is a be called a theory of mediate or representative
mere accident. As Berkeley puts it, it is perception” (p. 162). He supposes Hamilton
to mean that representative perception is it appears in its passage through conscious
always a “knowledge of a thing by means of ness. Matter would then present its positive
something which is like the thing itself” (p. or qualified side in our senses; and when it is
162); whereas all Sir William intends is, in that predicament we attribute primary and
that Brown's doctrine of a mediate perception secondary qualities to it. But when it ceases
of the qualities of Matter, through “external to be in that predicament, we have only its
states of mind,” cannot give us what is “de negative or unqualified side to deal with ; it
serving of the name of knowledge,” inasmuch lapses as it were into unconditioned existence,
as the external states are not known to resem from which it recovers only through renewed
ble the qualities they are assumed to give us intercourse with a sentient and concipient
a knowledge of; we not having, in the case mind. If this be a logical development of the
of sense-perception, the previous presentative implied meaning of Hamiltonism, in what
perception or direct consciousness of the except in name does it too differ from Berke
things themselves, which makes a representa leyism? ??
-
tive knowledge of them possible in memory, The conception of “externality” or “ex

although impossible in sense. All this, on ternal objectivity” is not so easily defined as
the part of Mr. Mill, is to reverse the funda uneducated dogmatism takes for granted.
mental principle of the Hamiltonian percep Man cannot act, cannot live, without assuming
tion, according to which the external and an external world, in some conception of the
independent percept is no more the cause of term “external.” It is the business of the
its being perceived than what Mr. Mill calls a
philosopher to explain what that conception
“nominal” or “metaphorical object” (p. 216) ought to be. For ourselves, we can conceive
is the cause of our being conscious of it. Inonly—(1.) An externality to our present and
this latter case, the object and the subject transient experience, in our own possible ex
being identical, there is, by universal ac perience past and future; and (2.) An exter
knowledgment, no causal relation between nality to our own conscious experience, in the
them. In the former, although the object contemporaneous, as well as in the past or
and subject are, according to Hamilton, “con future experience of other minds. Any ob
trary in existence,” there is nevertheless nojectivity one can positively conceive is de
causal relation between them, but an identitypendent on mind; but it is not depend
in the percipient act. We could not say that ent on, nor indeed properly involved in,
we had anything “deserving the name of the present experience of the individual;
knowledge,” of our own thoughts or feelings, nor is it exclusively dependent on, nor even
if we knew them only as the causes of mental properly involved in, his own individual
effects which in no way resemble them. As mental experience, as Mr. Mill, we think,
little can we, Hamilton would say, have any too much represents it. The tendency of
thing “deserving the name of knowledge” of the best modern ideas (so far including
qualities of Matter, if we know them only as those of Hamilton), is towards a Reflective
the causes of effects in the mind which in no Realism, in which the entire spacial or ex
way resemble them. ternal world is a unique modification (what
But, after all, what means this externality its peculiarities are analysis has partly disco
or objectivity proper, which, according to vered) of conscious experience. The Uni
Hamilton, consciousness attests with regard to verse, in this philosophy, is a universe of
percepts : What is Matter when it is not MINDs, which communicate with one another
perceived? What becomes of percepts when through sensible symbols. These symbols
our sensations are withdrawn How can an each mind can so modify in other minds, as
extended percept, for instance, continue to that those others become conscious of the in
exist when the sensation of its colour is gone? duced modifications, and are able thereby to
What, moreover, do we mean when we say infer their conscious causes; while all the
that what we perceive is extended or solid 4 minds, and all their sense-given phenomena,
Are Hamilton's solid and extended percepts are in an established harmony under Supreme
only special groups of Mr. Mill's sensations, Mind.
viewed in their relation to his “possibilities Any external or space-filling universe that is
of sensation”? We have failed to discover a by us positively conceivable, is in this philo
definite expression either of these questions, sophy dependent on mind, because conscious
or of his own answers to them, in Sir William ness as agent or patient, is that only of which
Hamilton's writings. The analogy of his phi we have experience. Our primary experience
losophy would lead him to say that unper is a conscious experience. A conscious self
ceived and unconceived Matter exists only is the only unit we can multiply in imagina
potentially, or rather substantially; and that tion. We can conceive phenomena as ex
of this substantial existence we know nothing ternal in another mind, or as external to our
positively, except when contained in, and as own present mental experience; but we can
not conceive them aloof from all mental expe locomotive experience which it presents to
rience. It is only negatively, as uncondi us. Extension and space cease to be con
tioned, in a word, as empty abstractions, that ceived as huge entities, independent of what
we can speak of percepts, when they are not we are, have been, or may be conscious of;
perceived or conceived by us, or of phenomena they begin to be conceived of as possibilities
when they are out of our conscious experience of an experience that is familiar in conscious
—unless, indeed, we conceive them, as in the ness. Extension and space are analysed into
conscious experience of another. ** as
time, and time into consciousness of changes.
It is this conception of “externality,” “ma All sensible phenomena, but especially visual,
teriality,” and “spacial reality,” to which the become a system of signs,—a language, sig
profoundest and most comprehensive modern nificant of other conscious experience, not
reflection is now converging. It was dimly now actual, but which has been, or may be
approached, under other forms, in ancient come actual. Reflective Realism can thus
speculation. Nor can it be said truly that it plead that, in its doctrine of Matter, it is only
is a mere assertion, unsupported by proof, a higher expression of the now common
and which proceeds on principles that disable scientific conception, that nature is a lan
us from ever working our way to a legitimate guage, our scientific and practical knowledge
belief in anything beyond the charmed circle of Matter, so far as it goes, being an interpre
of our personal sensations and other feelings. tation of the immediately sensible signs which
Reflective Realism is only a change in the constitute that language. In short, Matter
unanalytic manner of thinking about objects; is Mind embodied in and signified by sensc
a thinking them in a less abstract, because experience of minds.
more comprehensive way. Let us look at Reflective Realism can plead, in the second
some more of what it has to plead in its place, that it has no practical evidence of any
behalf. other sort of externality than what resides
It can plead, in the first place, that ana either in our own past and future sensible ex
lysis has succeeded in resolving our experience perience, or in the present, past, or future
of Space into an experience of unresisted sensible experience of other minds, i.e., exter
locomotion, and of solid Matter into an ex nality in time, or else externality in another
perience of resisted locomotion. For nearly spirit. What Matter is, out of all relation to
two centuries, but especially since the publi human experience, is surely a frivolous dis
cation of Berkeley's Theory of Vision, reflec cussion. We want to know, not about this
tive analysis has been gradually resolving mere abstraction, but about sensible Matter;
our spacial and solid conscious experience as either contained in our actual conscious
into an experience of successive non-resist experience, or as inferrible from that experi
ances and resistances to motion, associated ence, in the form of actual and possible con
with the visual experience of contempora scious experience, pleasant or painful, in our
neous modifications of colour by which the selves or others. When Matter is conceived
former is symbolized. In a late number of as a system of regularly ordered sensible
this Journal we discussed all this.” We there signs, by means of which we can foresee the
translated the abstractions Space and Exten sense-experience of ourselves and others, all
sion into a peculiar sort of experience of that we have practically to do with it, or that
which we are conscious in the senses of touch we can positively conceive about it, is repre
and sight. The conception of the remote sented in the conception. Sensations, per
ness of an object, for example the sun, is the cepts, or whatever else we please to call them,
conception of a locomotive experience by us are then phenomena in consciousness, which
which could not be finished for thousands of have this peculiarity, that they are reliable
years. The spacial vastness of the universe signs of other sensible phenomena, or groups
is the possibility of indefinitely protracted of sensible phenomena, of which we are not
now sentient; and also reliable signs of the
* See article on Berkeley's Theory of Vision, in
North British Review, for August, 1864, in which existence and action of other conscious agents.
visual phenomena are proved to be a system of What proof have we of more than this in
symbols, and visual extension a language of con what we call Matter? Have we any evidence
temporaneous signs, significant of our successive ex of an existence which should continue in the
periences of active resistance and locomotion, with death of all conscious life, created and Divine?
which they are arbitrarily connected. The visual
theory of Berkeley, by implication, analyses the Can we mean anything at all when we speak
conception of Space into a modifieation of the con of the continued existence either of space or
ception of Time; and in its doctrine of arbitrary time after the annihilation of all conscious
but regular connexion of sensible signs anticipates ness? It is surely only through an illusion
the philosophical conception of physical causation that any one supposes he can; at least we
88 an £ uniformity or association, the
actual relations in which are discoverable through must continue so to believe until we are
experience. helped first to put meaning into the words,
and then to find evidence for the reality of ferred, it implies actual sensations, treated as
what they mean. signs, and interpreted to mean other sensa
After what has been said, we need hardly tions, or groups of sensation, not actually
add, as a third item in the pleading, that we felt, but inferred to be conditionally certain,
have no practical need for the extra-conscious in the future sensible experience of the perci
existence of anything that we apply lan pient. These conditionally certain masses
guage to ; provided that, in whole or in part, of possible, past or future, sensations, of
it appears in and disappears from the cur which actual sensations are the signs, and in
rent of consciousness in a calculable man which actual sensations were, so to speak,
ner. The peculiar calculableness of these wrapped up, constitute Mr. Mill's conception
sensuous appearances and disappearances, of External Object or Material Substance.
not being due to us, does indeed suggest the Our power to infer this sort of objectivity
very conceivable inference, that what causes or material substance is, according to Mr.
them must be a conscious cause, able to cal Mill, the physical result of laws of conscious
culate. And if we look with a human eye, experience “not contested by Sir W. Hamil
and from a sympathetic heart, upon the sen ton and other thinkers of the Introspective
sible universe, can we avoid the conviction school.”—(P. 190.) They are these two
that, in being conscious of Matter, i.e., of sen our expectant faith; and the tendency of all
sible order, we are constantly conscious of invariable association to generate belief.
the signs of Mind—not indeed immediately Place one, he virtually says, with these two
conscious of any mind except our own, but tendencies, in an orderly succession of sensa
immediately conscious of what we cannot tional experiences; in other words, let a suc
but interpret as signs of other minds, more cession of sensations be excited in a sentient
or less like our own, and of Supreme, All having these two tendencies; and let the
pervading Mind? sensations be so related, individually or in
Into this conception, according to our groups, that an immediate consciousness of
manner of thinking, even Sir W. Hamilton's one proves to be a sign of the future possible
sense-given Matter ultimately resolves itself, experience of others, or of a group of others,
when reflective analysis is applied to Exten without a single instance to the contrary,
sion and Solidity. And to this result, at any and we are so constructed that we become
rate, we are largely helped by the three sin not only unable to imagine their separation,
gularly interesting chapters of Mr. Mill's but obliged to believe them inseparable. All
“Examination,” which we have already that we can say in explanation and vindica
named. Yet Mr. Mill, we think, has not tion of this constitutional tendency and its
fully availed himself in these chapters of the resulting belief or assumption, is, that it is
philosophical resource against Egoism, which natural, and that the belief is verified by
his own view of Self partly affords. At the every action, and by every result of action.
end of his three chapters, we feel inclined to This perception theory of Mr. Mill, essen
ask why he does not regard himself as the tially Berkeleian, differs in two respects, at
external universe, or rather the external uni least, from the corresponding part of Ha
verse as a general term expressive merely of miltonism—(1) According to Sir William
the order in which a large portion of his own Hamilton, the sensations introduce into, or
conscious experience appears and disappears rather reveal as already present in conscious
—i.e., the sensational portion of it; and ness, something that is not sensational at all,
those “possibilities,” as he calls them, of viz., percepts or primary qualities of matter.
which actual sensations are the signs. What The object of which we are sensibly con
is an “external” world of this sort other scious is, with him, not a sensation dependent
than a part of his own associated ideas, upon a sentient, but an external percept inde
which, to a certain extent, he is able to pendent of the percipient, and invested with
foresee, but which provide no way to any qualities of extension and solidity which are
other externality than the one which has its not attributable to the percipient at all.
seat in himself, as he is to be, or has been 8 According to Mr. Mill, our conscious expe
If this be so, is he not the universe? Must rience in sense is exclusively of sensations,
he not logically profess Egoism, the doctrine which are dependent upon the sentient;
which Fichte is supposed at one period of his while they are, he would say, causally (i.e.,
life to have believed ? Let us see. invariably and unconditionally) connected
“Matter,” says Mr. Mill, “may be defined with other possible sensations, of which they
a Permanent Possibility of sensation” (p. are signs. (2) Sir W. Hamilton's percept,
198). This is his conception of the exter in the absence of a percipient, becomes un
nality and substantial reality of the universe conditioned—being disengaged, as it were,
that is transiently presented to our senses. from the kind of consciousness which consti
As presented, it is actual sensation. As in tutes what we mean by the terms “exten
sion” and solidity. The actual sensation of Matter or Material Substance. This external
Mr. Mill, on the other hand, on the with world is merely a conditional certainty in
drawal of the sentient, becomes part of a my own personal history. It is the latent
group of possible or potential sensations; part of those patent trains of actual asso
and that group of possible sensations is the ciated sensations which make up my indivi
“object” of his—merely mediate—percep dual sentient life. This is not an actual, but
tion, and the cause (in Mr. Mill's meaning of only a potential externality; and potentially
cause) of any of the actual sensations, which external only to my present sense-conscious
otherwise lie, as it were, latent in the group ness, not to my personal conscious life.
until they become actual. When I see an Externality proper is more than this, as
apple, for instance, part of the qualities of indeed Mr. Mill seems to imply in his enu
the apple (its colour, etc.) are in actual, and meration (pp. 206–7) of the marks (third
the others (its hardness, odour, taste, etc.) mark) by which permanent possibilities of
only in conditionally certain sensation. In sensation are distinguished from “permanent
short, Mr. Mill's object of mediate percep possibilities of feeling.” It has its seat in
tion is much in the predicament in which, another self. It involves the conception of
according to Sir W. Hamilton, our states of actual sensations and percepts, dependent on
consciousness are when they are what he other conscious agents, as ours are on us, and
calls latent; or rather, in which chairs and contemporaneous with our own conscious
tables are, according to Berkeley, when they experience. It is only as we are able to
are not perceived. They exist potentially, infer this conceivable externality, that we
which amounts to this, that they exist prac reach the complex conception of ourselves
tically, and appear when we expect them. existing and being conscious in a universe,
But Sir W. Hamilton, Mr. Mill says, “did that is not merely dependent on and relative
believe in more than this” about matter; to ourselves. The working conception of
while Reid, Stewart, and Brown, whatever and belief in externality implies the discovery,
they may have themselves supposed, did that we are not alone in this strange life;
not. Sir W. Hamilton, he thinks, believed that we have recognised the sensible signs of
in a “perdurable basis of sensations, distinct companions who are living other lives like
from the actual and possible sensations them ours, and who are able to communicate with
selves” (p. 198). And what, we may ask, us, as we with them, through the medium of
is this “perdurable basis” other than “un our respective sense experiences. We have
conditioned existence,”—which is only a more than a prevision of conditionally cer
synonyme for the unknown : tain sensations, which may hereafter be ex
The “perdurable basis” of Sir W. Hamil perienced by ourselves, but which are not
ton—his substantial matter—we shall have yet actual in us. There is also a mediate
to refer to when we are considering what he perception or reasonable belief in sensations,
and Mr. Mill say about the Unconditioned. and other conscious experience, now going
The “permanent possibilities” of Mr. Mill on, contemporaneously with our own, in
himself we cannot regard as adequate to other conscious beings like ourselves. There
express all that we mean, when we conceive is not merely, as with Mr. Mill, conditionally
sensible reality, matter, space, and exter certain externality in time, but there is also
nality. Mr. Mill's externality is, as it appears actual externality in spirit; and these two
to us, an externality that must be confined to combined convert a not-self, given or implied
his own conscious history, and its possibili in all self-consciousness, into the not-self
ties in the past and in the future; unless he which daily enlarges and defines itself in our
is willing to admit, as an essential part of his conceptions, under the accumulating infer
definition, the externalizing or projecting ences of science. That can only be a sham
efficacy, as we may call it, of other conscious externality which leaves us in solitude,
beings like ourselves. Otherwise, each of us among associated sensations.
may say that this externality amounts sim Consciousness of phenomena as dependent
ply to a conditional certainty that my sensa on a Self is thus the basis of human science
tions have been, might have been, or may and belief—the groundwork or flooring,
become such and such. For sensations, beneath which we cannot go in our analysis.
apart from other conscious Selfs, are not It is that unity in our conscious experience
actual externally to me. As far as this quasi which admits of being multiplied, and thus
externality goes, I am the universe—that externalized in imagination and belief. Mr.
universe being composed of my actual sensa Mill himself seems to feel that he has not
tions, and other feelings, and my mediately given enough of prominence to the concep
perceived possibilities of being sentient— tion of Self in his definitions of Matter and
Mind. These are defined by him as if the
these possibilities, as quasi external to my
actual sensations at any given time, being true conception of the Universe were that of
WOL, XLIII.
as a series. The truth is that we are here face
a series of mere feelings, inclusive of sensa
tions, so grouped and related to one another to face with that final inexplicability at which,
that an actual experience of one of the sensa as Sir W. Hamilton observes, we inevitably
arrive when we reach ultimate facts.”—(Pp. 212
tions is reasonably followed by belief in a 13.)
great many others not then actual. Matter
he defines as we have said, as “a Permanent This passage, so far as our passive or sen
Possibility of Sensation,” and, Mind as “a sational, as distinguished from our volitional
Permanent Possibility of thoughts, emotions, experience is concerned, contains all that we
and volitions as well as sensations.” If these care for as true in the Hamiltonian, or in any
definitions were all that he had to say about other doctrine of consciousness. It concedes
Matter and Mind, Mr. Mill's last word in | an inexplicable consciousness of Self. This
philosophy, as he now interposes in the implies a not-self, but not necessarily either
Scotch debate, would be nearly the same as the material not-self, or the spiritual or con
David Hume's first word in the same debate scious not-self, these being gradually discover
a hundred and thirty years ago. But all ed in experience. To the “inexplicable be
that Mr. Mill says is not comprehended in lief” about Self, which Mr. Mill says is re
his definitions of Matter and Mind. He goes quired to complete the conception of what
far to provide the bridge which we have to Mind is, there is no analogue in sense-given
employ when we realize an actual as well as phenomena viewed in abstraction from a con
possible externality, in the following passage, sciousness. The only radical synthesis we
which we regard as philosophically the most can point to either among them, or among
important in his book:— the feelings and thoughts and volitions which
make up, according to Mr. Mill, our purely
“Besides present feelings, and possibilities of mental experience, is their common depend
present feeling, there is another class of pheno ence on Selfs to which they are all alike
mena to be included in an enumeration of the
elements making up our conception of mind. consciously present.
The thread of consciousness which composes Mr. Mill condemns Dr. Reid (p. 207), for
the mind's phenomenal life, consists not only alleging, against Hume's famous resolution of
of present sensations, but likewise, in part, of Mind into a mere series of feelings, that that
memories and expectations. Now what are deprives us of all evidence for the external
these? In themselves they are present feelings, existence of conscious fellow-creatures, God,
states of present consciousness, and in that re and immortality:— -
spect not distinguished from sensations. They

all resemble, moreover, some given sensations “By what evidence,” he asks, “do I know,
or feelings of which we have previously had ex or by what considerations am I led to believe,
perience. But they are attended with the pe that there exist other sentient creatures; that
culiarity that each of them involves a belief in the walking and speaking figures which I see
more than its own present existence. A sensa and hear have sensations and thoughts, or, in
tion involves only this; but a remembrance of other words, possess minds? The most strenu
a sensation, even if not referred to any particu ous intuitionist does not include this among the
lar date, involves the suggestion and belief that things I know by direct intuition. I conclude
a sensation, of which it is a copy or representa it from certain things, which my experience of
tion, actually existed in the past; and an ex my own states of feeling proves to me to be
pectation involves the belief more or less posi marks of it. I conclude that other human be
tive, that a sensation or other feeling to which
ings have feelings like me, because, first, they
it directly refers will exist in the future. Nor
have bodies like me, which I know, in my own
can the phenomenon involved in these two case, to be the antecedent condition of feeling:
states of consciousness be adequately expressedand because, secondly, they exhibit the acts, and
without saying that the belief they include is,other outward signs, which in my own case I
that I myself formerly had, or that I myself, know by experience to be caused by feelings.
and no other, shall hereafter have, the sensa I am conscious in myself of a series of facts
tions remembered or expected. The fact be connected by an uniform sequence, of which
lieved is, that the sensations did actually form,
the beginning is modifications of my body, the
or will hereafter form, part of the self-same middle is feelings, and the end is outward de
series of states or thread of consciousness, of
meanour. In the case of other human beings, I
which the remembrance or expectation of those have the evidence of my senses for the first and
sensations is the part now present. If there last links of the series, but not for the interme
fore, we speak of the Mind as a series of feeldiate link. In my own case, I know that the
ings, we are obliged to complete the statementfirst link produces the last through the interme
by calling it a series of feelings which is aware
diate link, and could not produce it without.
of itself as past and future; and we are reduced
Experience therefore obliges me to conclude
to the alternative of believing that the Mind or
that there must be an intermediate link, which
Ejo is something different from any series of must either be the same in others as myself, or
feelings or possibilities of them, or of accepting a different one: I must either believe them to
the paradox that something which, ex hypothesi, be alive or to be automatons; and by believing
is but a series of feelings, can be aware of itself them to be alive, that is, by supposing the link
to be of the same nature as in the case of which Self or Not-self in the first sensation that
I have experience, and which is in all respects we experience, nor until after considerable
similar, I bring other human beings, as pheno experience of the recurrence of sensations,
mena, under the same generalizations which I according to fixed laws and in groups. But
know by experience to be the true theory of
my own existence. And in doing so I conform where, we ask, does Sir W. Hamilton say
to the legitimate rules of experimental inquiry. that we are awakened to a necessary belief
. . . We know the existence of other beings in a Self or a Not-self, in the “first" sensa
by generalization from the knowledge of our tion that we experience? What does he say
own; the generalization merely postulates that inconsistent with the supposition that this
what experience shows to be a mark of some conception and belief mysteriously rises up
thing within the sphere of our consciousness, only after a series of sensations has been ex
may be concluded to be a mark of the same perienced without it? The belief in Self
thing beyond that sphere. . . . As this theory
leaves the evidence of the existence of my fel rises inexplicably, Mr. Mill himself allows.
low-creatures exactly as it was before, so does The belief in the spacial or material Not-self
it also with that of the existence of God. Sup is partly explicable, as we say, in agreement
posing me to believe that the Divine Mind is so far with Mr. Mill, but not with Sir W.
simply the series of the Divine thoughts and Hamilton.
feelings prolonged through eternity, that would We need not ask what-either Sensation
be at any rate believing God's existence to be or Self is, before the sentient becomes self
as real as my own. As for evidence, the argu
ment of Paley's Natural Theology, or, for that conscious. We can have sensational experi
matter, of his Evidences of Christianity, would ence without any definite conception of what
stand exactly where it does. The design argu this experience involves; we can feel before
ment is drawn from the analogy of human ex we are able to give an accurate definition of
perience. From the relation which human our feeling. Our growing ability to distin
works bear to human thoughts and feelings, it guish and define the things of which unde
infers a corresponding relation between works fined original experience is made up, is simply
more or less similar, but superhuman, and su our intellectual growth; which turns on the
perhuman thoughts and feelings. If it proves pivot of Self, and consists in a deepening and
these, nobody but a metaphysician needs care
whether or not it proves a mysterious substra truer interpretation of phenomena dependent
tum for them. . . . As to Immortality, it is on, yet distinguished from Self, and which are
precisely as easy to conceive that a succession symbolic or interpretable, in their relations
of feelings, a thread of consciousness, may be to one another, and to other Selfs with their
prolonged to eternity, as that a spiritual sub dependent phenomena.
stance for ever continues to exist; and any Nor can we allow that either sensations or
evidence which would prove the one will prove percepts produce this conception of Not-self
the other” (pp. 208-11).
merely from something in themselves per se
We shall not now examine the intended and not from their order and groupings, or
meaning of the doctrine of Hume which from the established harmony of the sense
suggested to Reid the objection thus criti given portion of each person's experience with
cised by Mr. Mill. Reid, at any rate, sup that of other persons. Imagination and
posed it to involve a denial of that belief in other purely internal experience in each of
Self, which Mr. Mill, in the remarkable pas. us might reveal externality to what we are at
sage already given, presents as “the final in any moment feeling in our own conscious
explicability.” If Mind be merely a series history, and might also reveal phenomena ex
of feelings,—of “impressions and ideas,” isting in other minds, if this internal experi
without any lawful belief in a personal iden ence were organised like our external intelli
tity involved in them, we cannot infer more gible relation with the entire cosmical system,
than this of “other” successive feelings. and could, as it were, be experienced simul
We cannot represent as external what is not taneously by ourselves and others in common.
to be believed even as internal. The very This is assumed to be the case, in a degree,
words, “I,” “self,” “myself,” “other selves,” in supernatural dreams and visions, which in
etc., must be abolished. Existence is ana volve an intercourse of a mind with other
lysed into phenomena, orderly it may be, but minds, through what is usually internal ex
unconnected by any vital bond of Self, that perience.”
“ultimate inexplicability.”
One word as to the date of the commence * Professor Masson asks, with reference to Mr.
ment of our properly conscious experience. Mill, “How can I predicate the existence of other
Mr. Mill (p. 214) conceives Sir W. Hamil minds in the same sense as I can predicate my own?”
ton to be wrong in his statement that a “self (Recent British Philosophy, p. 355.) Why not at
least when we add what Mr. Mill says about Self
and a not-self are immediately apprehended to his definition of Mind? We have a specimen in
in our primitive consciousness.” He thinks our own consciousness (however “inexplicable”) of
that we have probably no hotion of either a Self that is conscious of sensible and other phe.
A question may here be suggested. Is the sciousness” (p. 153, etc.). In short, the ques
actual universe ultimately referable to a Self? tion discussed by Hamilton, under cover of a
Is there no higher form of existence than this defence of natural realism, is the question of
of phenomena dependent on Minds which the infallibility of universal postulates, assumed
maintain inter-communion through their sen to be given as facts in consciousness. Our
sible phenomena? As a self-conscions expe belief in the independent externality of what
rience seems to rise mysteriously out of blind, we are conscious of, when we are conscious of
unself-conscious sensation, may self-conscious solid and extended phenomena, is taken as a
ness, in its turn, advance into what is higher? specimen, a fortiori, of this kind of infallibilty.
Are there any universal truths which we
It is now more than time to proceed to the are originally obliged to believe, or which we
second of the three groups of metaphysical originally know to be true? Sir W. Hamil
questions which we arranged at the outset. ton is supposed to answer this question in the
Mr. Mill's criticism of the Hamiltonian affirmative, and Mr. Mill in the negative. Let
Realism,—from which we have tried to draw us contemplate its significance, which is said
some contributions towards a Reflective by many to be immense.
Philosophy of Space, Externality, and Reality Is there an infallible voice within us?
—is itself a cover for a discussion which is Have we, in the last resort, an absolute stan
even deeper, or at least more comprehensive. dard of truth for determining anything at all?
The metaphysical question about Matter, and Or is all beyond transient sense-objects not
about the difference between Not-self and Self, properly knowledge, but only probability;
Mr. Mill indeed characterizes as “the most generated historically and by experiment, and
fundamental question in philosophy.” But excluding any intuition of universal truth
all through his answers to it, he hears the latent in our own deepest and truest being :
uuder-tones of another debate, between what If even our belief in the special externality of
he calls the Introspective and the Psychologi Matter is a belief due to a particular kind of
cal—or, as we should say, the Dogmatic or changeable conscious experience, and is not a
Abstract, and the Tentative or Experiential— direct infallible revelation, it may be asked,
methods of metaphysical inquiry. He dis Where have we any absolute truth at all,
cusses “the most fundamental question in which we know that no future evolution of
philosophy,” mainly in order to illustrate the experience shall reverse or modify If there
difference between these two methods; and in is no direct infallible revelation of externality
order to meet in the face Sir W. Hamilton's in sense, we are apt to say there can be no
summary manner of settling it,—by a dog infallible revelation about anything at all—
matic appeal to an assumed “testimony of no “inspiration of the Almighty” for regu
consciousness,” as an absolute standard. All lating the understanding and life of man.
philosophers who proclaim a different origin The confused fight about “consciousness
of our belief in the externality of matter, or of matter” which we have been trying to dis
who give a different account of what matter entangle, is in fact felt, by one party, in re
and externality mean, are charged by Sir spect of its human interest, to be a fight
William with the grave offence of “playing against scepticism, on behalf of reality, infalli
fast and loose with the testimony of con bility, and absolute truth, and by another as
a fight against dogmatism on behalf of liberty
nomena. Can we not infer the existence of other and progress. It is in one of its aspects the
similar units inductively, from their sensible signs, old and ever-during struggle between Faith
while we cannot intelligibly infer abstract Matter? and Scepticism; and in another, the struggle,
Mr. Masson also seems to think (p. 357, etc.),
that what he calls Mr. Mill's “ £ ideal also perennial in human nature, between Dog
is!' " is severely tested by the modern geological matism and Inquiry, struggles which have
osure of the Pre-Adamite, and even pre-sen given life to philosophy and theology in all
it existence of our planet. But length of time the living ages of their history,–in Greece,
es not increase the difficulty. If the pre-sen
ent planet was “created,” say a million of years in mediaeval times, in modern Europe, and
Jefore any individual sentient, this would mean never more earnestly than now. On the
that if any of us, now sentients, had been awaken battle-field of metaphysics, “Platonic ideas,”
ed into consciousness at some definite time in the“innate ideas,” “connate ideas,” “common
course of that million of years, we should have
sense,” “common reason,” “intuitions,” and
had the sense-experience which Science, reasoning “testimonies of consciousness,” are a few of
inductively from present geological phenomena, is
able to attribute to that supposed time; but that the watchwords of the combatants on the
if, on the other hand, we ' become conscious be one side; and “experience,” “sensation,” and
fore the million of years commenced, i.e., before “mental association,” are a few of the watch
the planet was “created, we should have had no words on the other.
sense experience at all—its quasi-externeity not Let us consider the true relation of our two
having, ex hypothesi, at that date commenced, so
far as our sense-experience would be concerned. philosophers to this second group of questions.
1865. AMr. Mill's Examination of Sir W. Hamilton's Philosophy. 21
In reference to the first group, we have merely on consciousness as the scene of a set
described the Hamiltonian philosophy as a of phenomena,—takes its place on the con
dogmatic yet partly reflective dualism, and servative side in the battle about “necessary
the philosophy of Mr. Mill as an analytic self truths.” Mr. Mill, proclaiming freedom from
conscious phenomenalism. Our conscious all inexplicable assumptions except that of
ness, from the date of its awakening, and all a self-consciousness of phenomena, which are
through this earthly life of ours, is, according presented in orderly co-existence and suc
to the one philosopher, interpenetrated, as it cession, in an associative and expectant mind,
were, by an inexplicable belief attested by is ready to believe in any way that the co
consciousness, in the polar opposition of two existent and successive phenomena of our
realities, Mind and Matter, Ego and Non-ego, ever enlarging experience require.
with the qualities of each of which it is in More earnest debate has circled round
conscious relation, while out of that relation this than perhaps round any other high specu
they are both unknown or unconditioned. lative question. It has been described as the
Our consciousness, when it is awakened, is, one question in metaphysics, which, as decid
according to Mr. Mill, inexplicably aware of ed by each generation for itself, gives the
itself as past and future, and gradually defines tone to the whole opinion and mode of
an external world, which in our early con thought in that generation. We confess to
scious history is a dim and vague correlate thinking that not a little misconception and
of the hardly developed conception of an Ego, exaggeration are commonly mixed with
but which, step by step, becomes, through our what is said as to this battle about “necessary
associative tendency, and also through what truths,”—this controversy between a priori
Mr. Mill calls the principle of expectation, and and a posteriori philosophies—between the
Sir W. Hamilton the principle of philosophical reason and the understanding.
presumption, the system of physical con Take Sir W. Hamilton as a representative
ceptions for which language provides names, of the philosophy of necessary truths, and
and which are further corrected and enlarg Mr. Mill as a representative of the opposed
ed in science. philosophy. More favourable types on either
It is at this point that the two systems side could not be found. Do we find a har
diverge. Sir W. Hamilton who has already bourage for certainty and infallibility in the
recognised, in this foundation of his system, teaching of the one, and an exposure to hope
two beliefs for which he says no explanation less doubt when we try to place ourselves at
can be given, explains the construction of the point of view of the other? It is not
our mediate knowledge, in all its ramifica so. According to both, there are beliefs
tions, by means of other universal but inex which we are obliged to form about the phe
plicable beliefs,—some positively and others nomena of which we are conscious, and their
negatively conceived,—which we are origi meaning. In both, we find a way open, on
nally obliged to have, while we cannot fully which, in the form of reasonable belief, we may
comprehend them. Mr. Mill, on the other expand the narrow area of our transient but
hand, postulates no such universal beliefs; direct conscious experience. But then the
and regards the growth or extension of our beliefs which Hamiltonism declares that we
knowledge, in the remotest ramifications of are obliged to assume are universal, and sup
science, as due to the same principles of ex posed to be secure against all possible future
pectation and association which set it agoing experience; while the beliefs that Mr. Mill
at the commencement, afterwards aided by recognises as legitimately formed, are due to
artificial language, and by artificial forms ofthe experience through which we have pass
reasoning. Sir W. Hamilton proclaims the ed, and may be modified by the experience
presence of universally applicable intellectualthrough which we are still to pass. The one
necessities, of which he can give no account; accepts principles which are assumed to be
and he assumes these as the framework of absolutely universal for us; while they are
our intellectual being. Mr. Mill accounts for ultimately inconceivable by us, because con
all the intellectual necessities or universal sciousness is only of the finite, and their ob
truths which regulate our beliefs and actions, jects disappear at both ends in the Eternal or
by the kind of experience through which Infinite. The other accepts principles which
(self-conscious and endowed with the asso are discovered to be universal, as far as ex
ciative and expectant tendency as we are) we perience can carry us towards universality,
pass, in this our life-intercourse with pheno and which as such are the natural basis of
mena. Hamiltonism, grounded on, and con our secular life, but which, as our experience
solidated throughout its structure by neces is limited, become the “open questions” of
sary truths of the common sense or common an endless experience. Both systems, it
reason,-grounded on consciousness as a wit must be added, are grounded on and animat
ness to a set of universal principles, and not ed by a faith or trust in what we cannot
immediately know or be conscious of Ham nature is not a lie. And however unable we
iltonism can at the best only trust to beliefs, may be to forecast the future fortunes of the
which it declares we cannot fathem, but human voyage, on an ocean of experience
which it assumes are fit to carry us over the that is enveloped in darkness, so long as we
unfathomable abyss. Mr. Mill invites us to persevere in this voyage, and in forming
trust any belief which, gathered from an ex reasonable beliefs regarding what is meant by
perience sufficiently criticised, is on the same symbolical phenomena of which we are con
level of trustworthiness as our faith in self or scious, we are, with Mr. Mill, acting on the
in the uniformity of nature, and that even assumption that so far nature, and our ten
while he cannot shut the door against the dency to trust in phenomenal uniformity of
suggestion that nature may become disorderly, co-existence and succession, are not decep
and that what seems to have always been tive.
may not alway continue to be the custom of This difference of attitude does not imply
phenomena. If we confine the meaning of that the Hamiltonian stands ready to receive
the word knowledge to the direct conscious into the structural part of his system any
ness of phenomena while we are conscious of belief which is popularly assumed to be a
them, e.g. of a feeling while it is being felt, necessary one, while Mr. Mill stands ready to
then neither of these two philosophies affords bar out all beliefs that cannot stand the ordeal
a “knowledge” that is co-extensive with of legitimate experiential proof. Sir Wil
“beliefs” which both accept as legitimate. liam Hamilton, on the contrary, proclaims
With both, belief greatly transcends know that the “argument from common sense is
ledge, and both ultimately repose in a faith, one strictly philosophical and scientific,” and
in which the one cannot conceive that any that “the first problem of philosophy is to
future experience shall ever disturb him, while seek out, purify, and establish, by intellectual
the other keeps his necessary beliefs (them. analysis and criticism, the elementary feelings
selves attributed to past invariability in his or beliefs, in which are given the elementary
conscious experience), ever open to be modi truths of which all are in possession.” And
fied by the contingencies of his future con though he refrains from attempting to pro
scious experience, or to be annihilated, if duce an exhaustive analysis and classification
that experience shall at any time terminate of the truths in which Being is as it were
for ever. With Hamilton, in the necessary supernaturally, or super-experientially, re
absence of a universal experience, we lean on vealed for our practical purposes, on this
universal propositions, which express beliefs mysterious life voyage that is enveloped in
that stand in the place, and do the work of the darkness of the Unconditioned, he de
a universal experience. By Mr. Mill we are scribes the problem as “in itself certainly
invited, in the meantime, to trust in our lim one of the most interesting and important in
ited and relative experience, even as if it philosophy.” Moreover, he contributes the
were universal. suggestion that “principles of cognition
So far, it is a difference of attitude in the which now stand as ultimate may be reduced
two philosophers. The Hamiltonian travels to simpler elements; and some which are
on the dark unknown, with his chart of now viewed as direct and positive may be
necessary truths, which he believes that no shown to be merely indirect and negative,
future experience can disturb, but which he —their cogency depending not on the im
acknowledges at the same time that he can mediate necessity of thinking them—for if
not clearly and distinctly decipher. Mr. Mill, carried unconditionally out they are them
on the same dark voyage, trusts to truths selves incogitable,—but on the impossibility
which he thinks the action of experience has of thinking something to which they are
converted into necessary ones, which are directly opposed, and from which they are
clearly and distinctly decipherable, but which the immediate recoils.”—(Reid's Works, pp.
experience may at any time cease to necessi 743, etc.)
tate. A tendency of the one philosophy is It may here be asked whether there are
to abstraction from experience, in mere verbal any propositions in intellectual philosophy
proposition and reasoning; a tendency of the which Sir William Hamilton assumes to be
other philosophy is to insist on having all its necessary and authoritative, but which Mr.
propositions and reasonings resolved into and Mill would reject because unsupported by
read in the light of a narrow experience. sufficient inductive proof? While each
With both science is constructed by help of seeks for trustworthy propositions by a dif
indispensable trust or faith. However “ne ferent method—the one by a critical analysis
cessary” any proposition may be, and how of our present beliefs, with a view to detect
ever originally inevitable our belief in it, we those which we cannot hold in suspense;
accept and act upon it as true, according to the other by an inductive comparison of phe
Hamilton, only on the assumption that our nomena presented to observation-do both
in fact reach, by their respective routes, the our provisional conceptions, by collision with
same goal, so that Mr. Mill is ready to in our moral and physical experience, which
dorse, as experimentally proved, all the real leaves us unable at any time, or in any phi
propositions which Sir William Hamilton losophical system, to offer a final and
assumes without proof as part of our origi exhaustive list of universal postulates, but
nal intellectual stock 2 which, systematically pursued from age to
We cannot here either find an essential age-each individual and each generation
difference. We cannot name any real ques self-corrected, by the comparison of its con
tion, soluble on the method of a priori criti ceptions with present and preceding expe
cism, that is not solved, in its own character rience,—developes universal postulates, that,
istically tentative way, by the method of by successive modifications, become better
logically criticised experience; while we adapted than preceding ones to throw light
know no question left open to controversy over ourselves and our phenomenal world,
by the latter method, which can be saved in our life-voyage with our companions
from controversy by the former. If a de through the surrounding darkness of the
bated universal proposition is assumed to be unknown. The world may continue to ex
true independently of experience, and to be pect a demonstrated and final system of
implied in and by reasoning, this very as necessary truth; our real philosophy, in its
sumption, and its legitimacy, becomes itself growth, can only be a system of assumptions
the question. Instead of a controversy about or hypotheses, increasingly accommodated
the probability of the proposition, we have a to the real experience, moral and material,
controversy about the probability of its being through which we are passing. Yet this
a priori or necessary—but no irenicon. We philosophy may employ the language of
cannot infallibly know what is not pheno Wordsworth in his immortal ode on Immor
menally in consciousness, and we can know tality; or it may even occupy the Platonic
that infallibly only while it is in conscious point, and view each physical discovery as
ness. All beyond makes a demand, in some the disclosure of an overlooked but esta
form or other, upon Trust or Faith. Every blished harmony between Divine ideas in our
universal proposition about realities reposes minds, and Divine ideas symbolized in na
on belief; and while it implies an act of con ture; or it may describe our conceptions as
sciousness it is only one of mediate conscious gradually corrected by experience, as human
ness. In short, we can have no real generaliza science advances in its tentative career, and,
tions of the understanding which do not in adopting the language of Bacon, who has
volve a reasonable faith ; and no faith is been called our British Plato, see in true
reasonable which cannot be translated into philosophy, not the doctrine of an individual
the language of the understanding, or faculty or of one age, but the slow and never-ending
which judges according to external and in birth of time. The “necessary truths” of
ternal sense. They are the two sides of the philosophy, untested by experience, are only
same shield, and any theory which confines plausible conjectures, although, when they
itself exclusively to either is a mere abstrac are the imaginations or ideals of genius,
tion and not a philosophy. We have an un they prove powerful forces for our intellectual
philosophical phenomenalism, which abstracts advancement. The high ideals of modern
from the conscious mind, or an unphiloso thought are sometimes only the revival of
phical metaphysics which treats of forms and forgotten truths, already tested by experience,
faculties in abstraction from their real objects. but which, in intervening periods of unre
Philosophy itself is reflection upon both in flection, had lost their meaning, and are now
their living union. re-suggested with all the power of new dis
The answers of philosophy to the second coveries. It is not easy to refute the theory
group of questions are not to be found in an that all universal postulates were at first
uncritical acceptance of the universal, and, tentative and hypothetical, when it is con
as they are called, the natural persuasions ceded that some of them have been so early
of men—in Reid's uncritical common sense, and so superabundantly verified, that we
which it is the very object of philosophy to have been in consequence unable to avoid
enlighten and correct by reflective analysis. feeling them to be necessary in all thought
As little are these answers to be found in an and action recorded by memory.
abstract and verbal criticism of universal What is important to note on each side,
propositions which we are assumed to be in this memorable controversy, is the mode
obliged to believe and conceive; or in un in which each treats the propositions, whose
critical generalizations of portions, especially authority, by common consent, warrants be
the merely sensible portions, of our con lief or trust. The advantage of Mr. Mill's
scious experience. They are to be sought mode is, that it insists upon having them
for in that constant tentative correction of translated into the language of experience;
that of the Hamiltonian method, that it calls reference of these abstractions to our expe
attention to their prominence as the pivots rience. The intuitional school, on the other
on which our work as intellectual beings hand, when led by inventive genius, has cir
must turn. Neither mode lifts them above culated, under the name of intuitions, fruitful
an originally blind trust, or can convert ideals, which have afterwards received the
them into a knowledge which can dispense warrant of inductive experience; while the
with trust; at least in beings who are not experientialists are often represented by men
omniscient, and who cannot comprehend the of merely sensuous science, who have no
universe in a single intuitive grasp. With corresponding experience of their own in
Hamilton we are intellectually weak, and which to recognise truths attested in the
become incoherent and contradictory when love and reverence, in the struggles and suf
we begin to reason about what is not finite. ferings, of the noblest human spirits.
With Mr. Mill we are now coherent and But in any way of it, absolute infallibility
consistent, but our present science may be is out of human reach, and no interpretation
come absurd and contradictory in an expe of symbols, either physical or verbal, can
rience in which we find two parallel straight secure it— -
lines enclosing a space—space annihilated, “We have but faith; we cannot know;
alike in its one form of resistant extension For knowledge is of things we see;
or matter, and in its other form of non And yet we trust it comes from Thee,
resistant extension or space proper,-univer A beam in darkness: let it grow.”
sal nature in disorder, and changes unsug But is this all? Is there nothing Absolute
gestive of causation, a condition of things beyond this? Is Knowledge not greater
in which present beliefs (on his doctrine the than what is thus immediately or inferen
produce in their first beginnings of an un tially known : Is Existence merely identical
conscious associative influence upon our self with, or may it be distinguished from, a
consciousness amid orderly phenomena) must knowledge such as this? Is my intelligence,
pass away, and with them the substitute or if not mine, is human intelligence, in its
which they supply for the Omniscience of common beliefs, however these beliefs have
which we are destitute. Mr. Mill's experien come to be what they are, in any respect a
tial and tentative universal postulation opens measure of the Universe?
room for this possibility; and Sir W. Hamil These questions have glimmered through
ton's necessary truths provide no absolute the Hamiltonian Realism, in its theory of
guarantee against it. Neither, we repeat, External Sense in particular, and also of
gives absolute infallibility; for what is ori Common Sense in general. They meet us
ginally necessary to be believed may turn in the face now, under cover of controver
out to be a deception, and that which expe. sies about the relativity, finitude, and con
rience has converted into a practical neces ditions of this our mediate and immediate
sity to believe, some future experience may consciousness of existence; the relation of
dissolve. On either method, we rest at last belief to knowledge; the conceivability of
in Faith, and merely describe differently the the Absolute, the Infinite, the Uncondition
manner in which the texture of beliefs in ed; and the connected questions about Causa
which this our faith is manifested comes to tion and Free-will. They form the upper,
be what it is. The philosophy of necessary as the theory of a consciousness of matter is
truths ascribes these directly to our constitu the lower story in the metaphysical structure.
tion as conscious beings, and demurs to hav A large part of Mr. Mill's book, and at least
ing them translated into experiential lan as large a proportion of what Sir W. Hamil
guage; the opposed philosophy ascribes them ton has written, are the fruit of attempts to
to the gradual and corrective influence of determine what is to be seen at this third
our constitution, in the circumstances in point of intellectual vision. Mr. Mill con
which we are conscious. The introspective siders this the most original part of the
or intuitional metaphysicians, in refusing to Hamiltonian philosophy; and no doubt the
translate their universal assumptions into the wide interest which that philosophy has
language of experience, are apt to reason excited in Great Britain and abroad has
from them dogmatically, and to encourage been mostly on account of its real or sup
the unreflecting in their unwillingness to posed conclusions at this culminating point
have their assumptions analysed into a con of the metaphysical system.
crete meaning. We had one illustration of Mr. Mill and Sir W. Hamilton are at any
this already in the resistance which is offered rate verbally agreed in taking the Relativity
to a strictly experiential resolution of the of human knowledge, whatever that may
conceptions of space, material reality, and mean, for the supreme article of their meta
externality; and we value Mr. Mill's philoso physical creeds. We do not need to quote
phy for its tendency to enforce a steady passages in proof of this.
But it is not so easy to determine what measured, and to which individual “know
each intends this formula to express. Mr. ledge” is relative.
Mill, in particular, although he has devoted Discounting this, we distinguish three ap
a whole chapter to explain how a knowledge parently different phases of the relativity of
may be relative, has not, we think, here knowledge. These may be expressed respec
attained to his customary vigour of philoso tively in three propositions:—
phical imagination. He restricts the term 1. Human knowledge or consciousness,
“relative” to a knowledge that is conversant mediate and immediate, is the effect of an
with subjective effects, while it is doomed to unknown cause, to which unknown cause it
entire ignorance of objective and ultimate is relative.
causes. If human knowledge is not imme 2. Human knowledge, or consciousness
diately of Noumena or “things in them mediate and immediate, is in itself, essentially
selves,” but only of the sensational and other or internally, a relation, that which is irrelative
effects of Noumena, then it is only what he being necessarily unknown.
would call relative. And this is what it is, 3. Human knowledge, or consciousness
according to Mr. Mill; who takes Sir W. mediate and immediate, is in itself an im
Hamilton's account of our knowledge of the perfectly comprehended system of relations,
secondary qualities of matter as a specimen collectively relative to, and measurable by
of this conception of a merely relative know Divine Omniscience or the Divine Ideas.
ledge. He holds that all we know, imme The correlated terms in the first of these
diately and mediately, of external objects, theories are our immediate conscious expe
is the sensations which they cause, and the rience and inferences from it (the effect), and
order of the occurrence of these sensations, that which is not consciousness, but which may
in ourselves and others;—this, we suppose be called External Existence (the cause of what
he would add, is not known to be all that is. we experience and infer). The correlative
But what is to be understood by our phe terms in the second of these theories are the
nomenal knowledge being relative to an un various elements, internal to and constitutive of
known cause ? We should have expected our intelligence and its inherent faith. The cor
Mr. Mill to say that phenomena in a con related terms in the third of these theories
scious self are themselves the Absolute, at are our variously conditioned but objectively
least the only Absolute we have to do with. imperfect knowledge, on the one hand, and
But he does not say this. He uses language the all-comprehensive Divine Omniscience on
here and there in this book, and generally in the other. Mr. Mill seems to adopt the first,
his Logic, about unknown causes and things, and Sir W. Hamilton the second of these
which is very like Sir W. Hamilton's excep theories; while the third is the conception
tional manner of speaking about the Uncon of those who claim for our intelligence a
ditioned. Both philosophers now and then seminal identity with an Omniscience from
seem to say that there is something, not which we actually fall short only in degree.
phenomenal in consciousness, that is, and that Under the first and second theories the
perhaps is knowable, not by us indeed, but environment of our finite knowledge is an
in some higher intelligence. Unknown; under the third theory its envi
When any one proclaims the relativity of ronment and ideal is Omniscience.
this our human knowledge, the first question Mr. Mill is puzzled how to understand what
which occurs is, What is that to which it is Sir W. Hamilton means by his “strong and
in relation? A relation supposes two terms. explicit” affirmations of the merely relative
Our immediate and mediate consciousness nature of every human knowledge,—as when
makes one of these terms. But what is the he says that “things in themselves” are to
other? The phrase “relativity of human us “altogether unknowable;" that whatever
knowledge” carries a different meaning, we can know of anything is “its phenomenal
according to the answer given to this ques relation to our organs;” and that “all we
tion. know is phenomenal of the unknown.” He
We, of course, discount the individual re concludes, however, that “in any substantial
lativity of vulgar scepticism, according to meaning of the phrases, the doctrine they assert
which, whatever any man believes, however was certainly not held by Sir W. Hamilton”
his conceptions may have been formed, is true (pp. 17, 18); who, he adds, by no means admits
for him—each individual being the sufficient that we know nothing of Matter, for instance,
measure of the universe for himself. This except its existence and the sensations pro
sort of relativity is discarded by all who speak duced by it. Quotations are offered, from which
of one man's beliefs or conceptions as being Mr. Mill draws the conclusion, “that Sir W.
more nearly true than another's. For this Hamilton either never held, or when he wrote
manner of speaking implies an independent the Dissertations had ceased to hold, the
standard, by which individual thought is doctrine for which he has been so often
praised, and nearly as often attacked—the doctrine of relativity is the verbal figment
doctrine of the Relativity of knowledge. He which Mr. Mill supposes it to be Is it not,
certainly did sincerely believe that he held it. in fact, identical with his own, with the two
But he repudiated it in every sense which exceptions, that he describes the unknown or
makes it other than a barren truism. In the unconditioned as a “cause ’’ or an “existence;"
only meaning in which he really maintained and that the decipherable symbols by which
it, there is nothing to maintain. It is an he permits us to be regulated in our voyage
identical proposition, and nothing more” through the darkness, are uniformly the
(p. 28). language of experience, thus leaving room for
We have alluded to this already in speak modification or even reversal of our present
ing about the meaning of a consciousness of “necessary truths,” by our future experi
Matter. We confess that we are at a loss to ence,—a contingency against which, as we
discover a “substantial difference” between have said, no doctrine can find absolute
Mr. Mill's unknown Cause, and Sir W. Ham security. With Mr. Mill himself our real
ilton's Unconditioned or Unknown. In knowledge in all physical inferences, is
fact, Sir W. Hamilton turns his back to the ultimately relative to our associative tenden
Unconditional. more visibly than even Mr. cies and our expectant faith; with Hamil
Mill does. He disclaims any knowledge of ton it is radically relative to those “testimonies
more than things or persons, human and of consciousness” which he gathers together
Divine, conditioned in space and time, Mr. under the name of common sense. Hamilton
Mill sometimes appears to say that we have no doubt claims a knowledge of the pheno
a knowledge of at least the “mere existence” mena given to us in consciousness, and a
of outward or extra phenomenal things or belief in the “necessary truths” by which we
causes; while Sir W. Hamilton does not interpret them, which may in a secondary
claim even objective “existence” for his Un sense be called absolute. It is, so to speak,
conditional. Our ultimate ignorance of causes a relatively absolute knowledge and belief;
is a doctrine which Hamilton reiterates; tell for it is our fixed and trusted compass on our
ing us that “the causes of all phenomena are at life voyage, as acting and thinking beings,–
last occult;” and that “thus at last we must to be trusted till proved false. And its com
perforce confess the venerable abyss of plement of beliefs is not, he maintains, dis
ignorance.”—(Discussions, p. 657.) proved by anything that we experience, or
Mr. Mill says that Sir William Hamilton by any internal contradiction among the
taught no substantial doctrine of relativity. beliefs themselves. Now, what more, what
He taught, at any rate, a doctrine whose direct less, does Mr. Mill himself say? In what,
and prominent result is that “the highest except in degree, and in his manner of de
knowledge is a consciousness of ignorance;” scribing the origin and limits of our ultimate
that “the pursuit of knowledge is but a course Trust, does he differ from Sir William Hamil
between two ignorances;” that “the consum ton? His “unknown cause” is equivalent to
mation of our philosophy is ignorance;” that Sir William’s “unknown existence,” for he
“as cognisant intelligences, our dream of professes that he cannot say (except so far as
knowledge is a little light surrounded with it may be inferred from experience) that the
darkness;” that "the sphere of human en ordered uuiformity, on which he regulates all
lightenment is at best a point, compared with his intellectual proceedings, is eternal. Ha
the boundless universe of night surrounding milton professes to be ignorant (apart from
it;” that “the grand result of human wisdom the instinct of reason) whether Existence has
is a consciousness that what we know is as or has not a beginning or an end. He can
nothing to what we know not.” These are only only say that Existence must be either abso
a few out of a host of passages in which Hamil lutely finite or infinite, e.g., in its duration.
ton enunciates the most comprehensive conclu In other words, Time is either absolute or
sion that is peculiarly due to that relative infinite. Now we cannot decide between
knowledge which involves our Absolute these alternatives; and, thus ignorant, we
Nescience, and our dependence on Faith in have to live in Time by faith, and not by
the “necessary truths” which, in our life sight or perfect knowledge.
voyage, we carry with us and interpret in What is the concrete question that lies be
consciousness, as a substitute for the Omni neath this controversy about an Uncondi
science of which we are destitute. Let us tioned ? Here again Mr. Mill seems to mis
recollect that when we are said to be ulti conceive. He tells us that the question really
mately nescient, this implies that there can at issue in Sir William Hamilton's celebrated
be no proper science of anything until every and striking review of M. Cousin's philoso
thing is completely known,—that Omniscience phy, is “only another form of the question,
is the only Science. With all this in our ‘Have we, or have we not, an immediate
recollection, can we say that the Hamiltonian intuition of God? . . . . the name of
God being veiled under two extremely ab which we may have, and are justified in hav
stract phrases, the Infinite and the Absolute, ing, a full assurance of all the things pro
perhaps from a reverential feeling’” (p. 32). nounced unknowable to us”? In what re
Where, we ask Mr. Mill, has Sir William spect does it make “Belief a higher source
Hamilton written anything to sanction this of evidence than knowledge;” or assert that
translation of the debated question? The we have, and are warranted in having, “be
question is not immediately about a know liefs beyond our knowledge; beliefs respect
ledge or consciousness of God, and the pos ing the Unconditioned, respecting that which
sibility of that, but about the possibility of a is in itself unknowable !”
knowledge or consciousness of Existence Where does Mr. Mill find evidence that
(God and Creation, Mind and Matter) which Sir W. Hamilton recognised in conscious
should supersede the Belief or Trust in ness beliefs in another sense than he does
which Hamiltonism throughout declares that himself; though he differs with him in his
we are obliged to live. Existence is eternal. account of the way in which some of them
Can we reduce eternity to science? or can come to be there? Hume sets down as one
we even comprehend what we mean when of the chief subjects for philosophical curi
we use the word? Our regulative belief, in osity, “to inquire what is the nature of that
its causal form, presses us beyond the finite evidence which assures us of any real exist
in time. This, according to Sir William ence and matter of fact, beyond the present
Hamilton, is because we are originally un testimony of our senses or the records of our
able to conceive an absolute beginning; ac memory.”—a part of philosophy, he adds,
cording to Mr. Mill, it is because our associ which “has been little cultivated either by
ated experience has gradully made us unable the ancients or moderns.”—(Essays, II. 37.)
to have satisfaction in unexplained changes. Mr. Mill's own treatise on “Logic” is an ex
But whatever its origin, do not both alike position of the rationale of this kind of evi
recognise a mental tendency in us which im dence. With him, as indeed with Hume.
pels us to carry Existence at last out of sight and with all, this evidence is radically belief
of finite intelligence, into Eternity or the substituted for perfect insight or knowledge.
Unknown, thus leaving us at the mercy of a Every received universal proposition regard.
state of mind which is radically one of trust, ing matters of fact is saturated with belief.
and not of conscious insight,—not, in short, When we accept any of the generalizations
a state of intuition of phenomena at all? of science, or of the alleged necessary truths
With Sir W. Hamilton the Unconditioned of reason regarding matters of fact, we do so
or Infinito-Absolute is not a real external only on trust. We believe in the universality
thing, though here and there he uses lan of gravitation, not because we can intuitively
guage which may seem to imply that it is. or consciously perceive of all the gravitating
It is only another name for our ultimate ig universe, past, distant, and future, but be
norance of the rb "Ev xoi IIāv—an ignorance cause we trust in the uniformity of nature,
which leaves us at the mercy of faith in our and have evidence of the gravitating rule
physical and moral experience, or in what among bodies, which we cannot reject, with
Sir William calls the “testimony of con out, by implication, ceasing to believe in the
sciousness.” “The Infinite and Absolute steadiness of natural order. And this very
are,” he tells us, “only the names of two faith in the steadiness of nature, or in physi
counter imbecilities of the human mind, cal causation, is itself according to Mr. Mill,
transmuted into properties of the nature of not even a complete, but only an empirical
things, of two subjective negations converted induction. It is at last only a blind confi
into objective affirmations. We tire our dence, generated by the associative tendency,
selves either in adding to or in taking from. which produces what in a secondary sense
Some more reasonably call the thing unfin we may call knowledge, but which is appro
ishable—infinite ; others, less irrationally, priately named belief. Sir W. Hamilton's
call it finished—absolute. But in both cases “consciousness” may testify more things
the metastasis is itself irrational.”—(Discus than Mr. Mill's “experience” does; but it is
sions, p. 21. not “belief respecting the Unconditioned”
Can Mr. Mill say that “what is rejected as that it testifies; unless Mr. Mill's own trust
knowledge by this doctrine is brought back in continued natural uniformity, in the ab
under the name of belief;” or can he charge sence of any knowledge that nature is uni
it with reducing the doctrine of relativity to form, is to be called “belief respecting the
“a mere verbal controversy, by an admission Unconditioned.” Both are only regulative
of a second source of intellectual conviction beliefs as to how we should think and act in
called Belief, which is anterior to knowledge, our voyage through surrounding darkness—
is the foundation of it, and is not subject to trust in our compass in the absence of day
its limitations; and through the medium of light. Hamilton's beliefs are of the nature
of knowledge, so far as they inform us how tion, nor destitute of a minimum, and in this
to steer; they are different from knowledge, respect unfinishable. We cannot conceive
so far as, enveloped as we are in the unknow time, i.e., existence as in time, at a maximum
able, we can point to no area of conscious or finished quantity, nor as destitute of a
maximum or unfinishable. We cannot con
experience wide enough to, be co-extensive
with them; some of them we accept as true ceive time, i.e., existence in time, at a mini
without limit in time, although eternity is mum, and in this respect unfinishable. But
unknowable. May not the like be said of one in each of these pairs of alternatives
the beliefs which Mr. Mill also carries as his must be true.
working cargo; though he may have them Mr. Mill holds that Sir W. Hamilton has
otherwise arranged, and expressed with a failed to make out both these points. “It is
more direct reference to their related experi not proved,” he says, “that the conditioned
ence? Is not Mr. Mill ready to vindicate lies between two hypotheses concerning the
himself for believing that nature is univer Unconditioned, neither of which hypotheses
sally uniform, although he cannot know, and we can conceive as possible. And it is not
must merely take on trust this universality? proved that, as regards the Unconditioned,
Yet neither he nor Sir W. Hamilton are to one or the other of these hypotheses must be
be described as thinking that these regula true. Both propositions must be placed in
tive trusts have “the Unconditioned” for that numerous class of metaphysical doc
their object; that they are a knowledge (un trines, which have a magnificent sound, but
der another name) of the Unknown. The are empty of the smallest substance.” (p. 87.)
most “complete” induction involves an ulti For ourselves (as we have already, in this
mate trust,-well or ill founded, and in what article, treated space as a conception of one
ever way originated. kind of conscious experience in time, and
Mr. Mill, however, says that Sir W. Ham time itself as only an abstract term to express
.ilton does professedly penetrate into the Un the mutability of our conscious experience,
conditioned, in promulgating what he calls the conception being suggested by the fact
his law of the Conditioned; that he there of change), we may throw space out of ac
applies the rule of “excluded middle” to the count, and describe our conscious experience
Unconditioned, to which, as a synonym for of changeable existence, as what at last loses
the Unknown, any rule must be inapplicable. itself in one of two alternate inconceivables,
We do not deny that there are ambiguous each illustrative of what Hamilton calls “a
expressions in what Sir W. Hamilton has counter imbecility of the human mind.” Must
written, due in part perhaps to too resolute not the experienced Existence, external or
an abstinence from concrete references; yet internal, which we are daily conscious of as
here too, strange as it may seem, we ask for changing, externally and internally, be either
the difference between the Conditioned changing for ever, or else cease to change?
Knowledge of Hamilton, and the results of How can we avoid one of these alternatives?
the corresponding part of the criticism of Existence, as in time, must, in short, either
Mr. Mill. Let us compare them. be or not be. It is, as such, either absolutely
Our whole conscious experience is, in finite or infinite. Its absolute finitude is in
Hamilton's view, conditioned in space and consistent with the universality of the causal
time. As dependent on the body, it is ex belief; its infinity cannot be grasped as a
tended or conditioned by space; and in itself, conception, for, ex hypothesi, it is not a whole.
as well as when external, it is conditioned by We may come by our causal belief in the
time. Man involves body and mind. What way Mr. Mill says we do, or in the way Sir
ever we know or believe in, thus partakes W. Hamilton says we do, or in the way Reid
both of a spacial and a temporal nature; for. says we do. But however we come by it,
everything we can know or believe in is con there it is: and, as Mr. Mill may allow, by
an invariable association at any rate, we are
nected with everything else. Now we do unable to conceive or believe an uncaused
not, properly speaking, know anything unless beginning of Being (i.e., of the rh IIāv, or
we know everything, and as space and time God + creation). Nor can we, on the other
become mysterious when we try to carry hand, conceive as complete what in its essen
them out towards the infinitely great or the tial nature must be incomplete,—the Infinite
infinitely little, everything spacial and tem alternative. But the Existence which we
poral becomes mysterious too. “Omnia are cognisant of “in part,” must be either
exeunt in mysterium.” We cannot conceive the one or the other. Our highest concep
space, i.e., existence in space, at a maximum tion is thus of Existence where its horizon is
or finished quantity, nor as destitute of a the darkness of the unknowable.
maximum or unfinishable. We cannot con
Mr. Mill objects that the principle of ex
ceive space, i.e., existence in space, at a mini cluded middle, i.e., that one of two contradic
mum or finished quantity in the other direc
1865. Mr. Mill's Examination of Sir W. Hamilton's Philosophy. 29.
tory hypotheses must be true, is inapplicable Known, which Sir W. Hamilton enunciates
to “things in themselves.” He refuses to and asks us to believe. Sir William indeed
admit this rule when the subject is a Nou bids us believe scientific and practical pro
menon; inasmuch as “every possible predi positions regarding what is revealed as con
cate, even negative, except the single one of ditioned, for which we can render no reason,
Mon-entity, involves as a part of itself some and which we must take on trust, because we
thing positive, which part is only known to cannot fathom the abyss over which we are
us by phenomenal experience, and may have floating. But is not the whole tenor of his
only a phenomenal existence. . . . The only philosophy to exhort to neutrality upon con
contradictory alternative of which the nega troversies which have been fetched from the
tive contains nothing positive, is that between Unknown; to teach that questions in which
Entity and Non-entity, Existing and Non we try to transcend the beliefs which are our
existing: and, so far as regards that distinc human substitute for Omniscience are vain
tion,” he adds, “I admit the law of excluded and profitless, and should be consigned to
middle as applicable to Noumena; they must the limbo of open questions? Is not its
either exist or not exist. But this is all the supreme lesson an enforcement of the intel
applicability I can allow to it.” (p. 86.) lectual duty of turning our back upon the
Now, when we try to face the problem of Unconditioned or Unknowable, in order that
the Beginning or the Ending of this time we may read the revelation in consciousness
conditioned existence, are we not face to face (or, as Mr. Mill would have it, in experience),
with the very alternative which Mr. Mill which ultimately we must take upon trust?
here admits as legitimate? We are asking Does it not warn against the opposite atti
whether Existence, as conditioned in time, tude, in which metaphysicians and theolo
ultimately is, or is not. Mr. Mill will allow gians have been too apt to indulge, of gazing
that this must either be, or not be, i.e., there into the Unconditioned, and involving them.
must either be or not be temporal or mutable selves in antinomies of reason, in a virtual as
Existence; that such Existence is either ab sumption of Omniscience? The true scope
solutely finite or else infinite. Succession of developed Hamiltonism is to sweep away
either is or is not noumenal. But can we a mass of ontological speculation; and to
grasp either alternative, and so hinder it from induce a trustful study of phenomena, and
reminding us, as it does, whenever we try to their relations to other self-conscious pheno
grasp it, that our whole conscious life, with mena, and to Supreme Mind. “A world of
all its cargo of beliefs, is placed here, as false, and pestilent, and presumptuous reason
Pascal says, “in a vast uncertain medium, ing, by which philosophy and theology are
ever floating between ignorance and know now equally discredited, would,” he tells us,
ledge,” and in which “all things seem to “be at once abolished, in the recognition of
arise from nothing, and to proceed to in this rule of prudent Nescience.”
finity?” Has this discovery that “our dream of
Mr. Mill says a great deal about “incon knowledge is a little light, rounded with
ceivability,” and its three kinds, and about darkness,” any effect upon our manner of
its being “impossible to believe a proposition looking at what comes within the little light?
which conveys to us no meaning at all,” such: Are our spiritual, moral, and physical beliefs
as that “Humpty-Dumpty is an Abracada less fixed because all intelligence is at last
bra,” we neither knowing what is meant by only trust? Is every proposition open
an Abracadabra, nor what is meant by because no proposition is ultimately know
Humpty-Dumpty; and he argues from this able? May our physical faith be discredited
that propositions about the Unconditioned by our moral and spiritual, our moral and
must be incredible. Yet Sir W. Hamilton spiritual by our physical, and either, or
tells us, he says, that “things there are both, by an alleged supernatural revelation ?
which may, nay, must be true, of which the These questions are suggested by Mr. Man
understanding is wholly unable to construe sel's professed applications of Hamiltonism,
to itself the possibility;” and that it is obliged and by Mr. Mill's relative criticism, which
to believe as necessary “one of two uncon has drawn a larger share of popular attention
ditionates, neither of which can be conceived than any other part of his “Examination.”
as possible.” But does Mr. Mill himself not The chapter which contains this criticism re
believe that the Existence of which we are quires a separate review for itself. With
conscious, ultimately either is, or is not all our admiration for Mr. Mansel's labours
changing; or that the rh IIów either has or as a philosopher, and as the ornament of an
has not a beginning or an end ? We must illustrious university, we are not prepared to
hold Mr. Mill's objection irrelevant, until he subscribe to some passages in his application
names to us any other sort of proposition of the Hamiltonian philosophy to theological
with regard to the Unconditioned or Un controversy, in his celebrated Bampton Lec
30 Mr. Mill's Examination of Sir W. Hamilton's Philosophy, Sept.
tures. Our inability to rise to a science that Human life is based on both ; and the philo
is independent of faith or trust-faith in the sophy of the Unknown,—ignorant alike of
testimony of consciousness, according to moral causation and of physical law, except
Hamilton, or in the results of invariable as given, mediately or immediately, in expe
association or experience, according to Mr. rience,—is ready to recognise both.
Mill,—is surely no reason for accepting as
believable any professed external revelation, We cannot even enter on the consideration
or any excepted interpretation of such, irre of any of the three groups of logical ques
spectively of its moral and spiritual contents. tions, already noted as embraced by Mr. Mill,
The more awful the darkness of the surround and to which eight chapters of his “Exami
ing Unknown, the more implicit might our nation” are devoted. These, if treated in a
faith be expected to be in the “testimonies of manner at all commensurate with their num
consciousness,” or in the primary revelations ber and intricacy, would require another
of physical and moral experience,—without article not shorter than the present. We
which we have not got light to see our way take room, however, for the remark, that
to the proof of a revelation which approaches while Mr. Mill in many places in the jogical
us through historical facts. A doctrine that as in the metaphysical chapters, so it seems
puts discredit upon the common reason, be to us, exaggerates his own differences with
cause we are not omniscient, is, in fact, a Sir W. Hamilton, and Sir W. Hamilton's
reversal of the Hamiltonian philosophy, inconsistencies with himself—and sometimes,
which turns its back upon the Unconditioned, by a misconception of the Hamiltonian mean
not in order to be able to throw a new mean ing-he nevertheless in the logical discussion,
ing into words when they express the attributes in one important particular, concedes nearly
of God, but in order to enforce obedience to all that we are prepared to maintain. He
our genuine intellectual and moral beliefs. “subscribes heartily to all that is said of the
Hamiltonism paralyses ontological discussion importance of Formal Logic by Sir W. Hamil
in its primary rudiments, by proving that ton and Mr. Mansel” (p. 403). Nor does he
ontology has nothing to discuss or controvert, “deny the scientific convenience of consider
and then directs human research to the reali ing this limited portion of Logic apart from
ties that are revealed in our external and the rest; the doctrine of Syllogism, for in
moral experience, in a spirit of trustful stance, apart from the theory of Induction;
humility. It makes open questions, or rather and of teaching it in an earlier stage of in
no questions at all, of many famous theologi tellectual education” (p. 404). And we agree
cal ones; but it nowhere opens a way for with him when he goes on to say that “it is
the reception of a professed external reve not only indispensable that the larger Logic,
lation of a God who cannot be worshipped which embraces all the general conditions of
and trusted without involving us in a con the ascertainment of truth, should be studied
tradiction of all that we mean by wisdom, in addition to the smaller Logic, which only
and goodness, and trustworthiness. Nor, concerns itself with the conditions of consis
after all, do we understand Mr. Mansell to tency, but the smaller Logic ought to be, at
intend the contrary; or indeed to intend at least finally, studied as part of the greater
more than the analogical theologians, includ —as a portion of the means to the same end;
ing King, Brown, and Whately, have ex and its relation to the other parts—to the
pressed in other language. other means — should be distinctly dis.
played.”
We meant to have examined some of the After this, in what does Mr. Mill differ
applications of the doctrine of the Unknown from Sir W. Hamilton and Mr. Mansel, with
to the multiplication of “open questions,” respect to much that he has written about in
for the promotion of theological eclecticism, these chapters, unless in the larger meaning
and to free agency or causation proper, he insists on giving to the world Reasoning,
human and Divine, as well as its relation to which with him embraces not the act merely
the IIamiltonian theory of the causal belief. of formally applying assumed general rules
But we must forbear, even tempted as we are to the determination of doubts, but also the
by Mr. Mill's chapters on these two last sub tentative processes, for determining the expe
jects. We can only express our regret at the riential legitimacy of the assumptions. The
countenance which Mr. Mill gives to an as Logic and logical psychology of Hamilton
sumed inconsistency of Divine and human limits itself to the former; the Logic and
free-will with regularity in nature or the logical psychology of Mr. Mill embrace the
phenomenal world. The matter of present latter. To this circumstance are due many
interest in this question is the possibility of a of Mr. Mill's strictures on his chapters on
moral causation co-existing with universal Concepts, Judgment, and Reasoning. At
law or order in the world of experience, the same time, we believe that no really phi.
1865. Burlesque Poetry. 31
losophical study of Logic is possible, if the ART. II.—BURLEsquE PoETRY.

student overlooks the relation between the
abstract formulas for judgments and reason 1. Butler's Hudibras. Edited by Robert
ings,—whether according to the Old or the BELL. Fcap. Griffin. 1861.
New Analytic,-and what is to be expressed 2. The Poetical Works of Matthew Prior.
in them. The forms are the framework London. William Pickering. 1835.
which logical science provides for the unel
liptical expression of our ratiocinative appli THE Burlesque, though a lower species of
cations of assumed universal propositions, to the Comic, which can never expose vice or
the determination either of general questions, recommend virtue with the energy of the
or of matters of fact. At the best, they Higher Comedy, has yet its own place and
help us to decide whether our sumptions are purpose in literature. It may be allowed at
experientially legitimate, only by making us times to amuse us in a sort of Saturnalia by
more distinctly aware of what we logically mimicking what is lofty and dignified; but
mean in them, and of what they lead to if its best use is to level inordinate pretensions
we are verbally consistent with ourselves. and reveal the emptiness of inflated exagge
We must close abruptly. Mr. Mill an ration. We may fairly laugh at a passing
nounces that his “Examination ” is “an parody on almost anything that is not sacred,
attempt to anticipate, as far as is yet possible, just as we might enjoy for an hour the late
the judgment of posterity on Sir W. Hamil Mr. Robson's Medea without throwing off our
ton's labours” (p. 3); and he thinks that he allegiance to Euripides. But the elaborate
anticipates that judgment in the opinion that burlesques which have sometimes been in
either Dr. Thomas Brown, or Archbishop fashion, as Travesties of Homer or Virgil,
Whately, “has done far greater service to the Comic Grammars, Comic IIistories of Eng
world, in the origination and diffusion of im land, and the like, appear to us to be profane
portant thought, than Sir W. Hamilton with abominations, as hurtful to unformed minds
all his learning” (p. 553). When the philoso as they are offensive to a cultivated taste.
phy of Hamilton is interpreted by Mr. Mill, An undue indulgence in this tendency leads
as in even ludicrous contradiction with itself, to a habit of morbid irreverence that breaks
in its most fundamental principles, and as through all the barriers intended to repress
proclaiming an unsubstantial truism to be its its aberrations. On the other hand, when the
great discovery, even this estimate of its frivolous puts on the mask of gravity, when
place appears to be a favourable exaggeration. dogmatism usurps the place of truth, when
But, if what seems on a superficial interpre error or absurdity have gained a prescriptive
tation to be a shallow truism is found to be ascendency, the Burlesque may lawfully be
a profound truth, by oversight of which the called in to detect the imposture, and restore
world has been vexed with ontological ab the influence of reason and good sense.
stractions which have often superseded expe It has been sometimes said that the an
rience, or has taken license in controversies cients were unacquainted with burlesque
where the question can be determined and writing; but this is surely a mistake. They
even stated only by an Omniscience; and if may have no poems entirely burlesque, for
the chief alleged contradictions disappear, the Battle of the Frogs and Mice, if it is to
and the essential Hamiltonian theory, so far be called ancient, belongs to the Mock Hero
as it goes, is found to be at any rate one with ic, which is the opposite of the Burlesque,—
itself, and largely capable of assimilation with the one consisting in the exaltation of the
the best ideas of this age, we must respect Little, while the other attempts to depreciate
fully ask Mr. Mill to consider whether this the Great. Yet the two extremes will some
critical judgment truly forecasts, the place times meet; and it seems impossible to deny
that is to be finally adjudged by the philoso that the ancient comic writers, particularly
phical world to Sir William Hamilton, as an Aristophanes and Lucian, exhibit many bur
interlocutor in the Scotch discussion of philo lesque pictures and passages. The conduct
sophy, and a power in the European thought and bearing of Bacchus in the play of the
of the nineteenth century. Frogs is a burlesque upon the character of
Hercules, in his descent to the infernal re
gions; and many of the dialogues of Lucian
are a burlesque upon the Pagan mythology
and Heroic history. Homer himself has
presented us with a burlesque sketch, when
he makes the gods give way to inextinguish
able laughter, at Vulcan's awkward efforts to
hand round the nectar with the grace of a
Ganymede.
32 Burlesque Poetry. Sept.
The earliest modern masters of eminence I would not my daughter, that “scho” were
in this school are confessedly Berni and Scar miscarried,
ron; but although we recognise them as first But at her most worship I would “scho” were
married.
in date, we cannot admit them to be fore- || Therefore a tournament shall begin
most in excellence, when we think of the in This day sevennight,
comparable poem of Butler, who both saw With a flail for to fight,
so well the proper objects of his attack, and And he that is most of might
could direct the artillery of his ridicule Shall brook her with wynne.”
with such unerring and overwhelming “Whoso bears him best in the tournament,
effect.
Him shall be granted the gree by the common
Our English literature, however, contains assent,
other admirable specimens of this style be For to win my daughter with doughtiness of
sides Hudibras ; and indeed throughout its dint
whole range burlesque compositions of an And Coppell my brood-hen that was brought
occasional character are constantly to be out of Kent,
found. Whenever anything good is over And my dunn'd cow;
done or comes to be out of place and season, For no 'spence will I spare,
For no cattle will I care,
Momus is always ready to make game of the He shall have my grey mare .
occasion. Wherever reverence ceases ridi
And my spotted sow.’”
cule may begin.
The Rime of Sir Thopas, in the Canterbu A word here in passing on a philological
ry Tales, is a burlesque on the narrative bal point. “Coppell” seems to have become a
lads of the day, with their endless detail of common or conventional name for a domes
trifling particulars, and their stereotyped for tic fowl, and it is so used in an old chap-book
mulas of silly commonplace. But a truer edition of Reynard the Fox, mentioned in
specimen of this kind of caricature may be Mr. Collier's recent book on Early English
found in “The Turnament of Tottenham,” Literature, vol. ii. p. 241. It is the name
which belongs apparently to the century after there given to Chanticleer's daughter, who
Chaucer, and is an excellent burlesque on has been killed by Reynard, and whose
those encounters of chivalry where Beauty epitaph runs thus:
presided and was the prize of Valour. The
contest here has for its object the “wooing, “Coppell lies here, stout Chanticleer's dear
winning, and wedding of Tib, the Reeve's daughter:
daughter,” and the combatants are the rus Mourn thou that read'st, for wicked was her
tics of the neighbourhood, mounted on cart slaughter.”
horses, and fighting with flails. The versifi The name thus given was then either in ver
cation is strongly alliterative, and resembles nacular use or was taken from Caxton's trans
in a somewhat simplified form the metre with lation of the Flemish forms of the poem of
which we are familiar in the “Awntyrs of Reynard, which some consider as the most
Arthur at the Terne Wathelyn,” and other ancient of the whole. There the Cock's
early English poems of the Round Table. daughter is called Coppe or Coppen, while in
The Tottenham Tournament must be well the Low German version of 1498 her name
known to many of our readers, but as old is Krassevot (Scratchfoot). Whether in
things are beginning now to be forgotten, we Flemish or in English, the word Coppel or .
venture to insert a verse or two of it, which Coppe is derived from cop, a top or crest; and
we do in modern spelling. coppell, or the copped hen, is the same with
After a holiday-gathering of country people our name of “tappit hen,” which means in
at Tottenham, Perkyn the l’otter openly its literal sense a hen with a tuft, and in its
asserts his pretensions to the hand of Tib, figurative sense a still better thing. Tib's
the daughter of Randolph, the reeve or bai hen, it will be observed, was brought out of
liff of the manor. His claim is met by an Kent, which is not far from the country of
indignant resistance on the part of some the Dorkings. -
wealthier suitors, and Randolph, the father, The week that intervened between the
then proclaims a tournament to be held for appointed day for the tournament is busily
deciding the competition, while he announces employed by the several combatants in
at the same time the portion which his “graithing their weed,” and otherwise pre
daughter will receive:– paring for the contest; and the substitutes
which they resort to for regular armour are
“Then said Randolph the Reeve, ‘Ever be he amusingly described:—
“waryd,”
That '' this carping longer would be tar “They sewed them in sheepskins for they should
r1ed : - not brest: -
Ilk-one took a black hat instead of a crest; Perkin having won the day, the affair is
A basket or a pannier before on their breast, suitably wound up. The wounded are car
And a flail in their hand; for to fight “prest," ried off by their wives, sisters, or sweet
Forth gan they fare; hearts; the bridal is celebrated, and the
There was ‘kythed mickle force,
Who should best fend his corse; bridal feast is attended by all the defeated
combatants :- -
He that had no good horse,

He gat him a mare." “To that ilk feast came many for the nones;
The description of the lady who is to be Some came hip-halt, and some tripping on the
stones;
at once the spectatress and the reward of the Some a staff in his hand, and some two at once;
strife is given in very brilliant colours: Of some were the heads broken, of some the
“Such another gathering have I not seen oft, shoulder-bones; -
When all the great company came “ridand' With sorrow came they thither:
to the croft; Wo was Hawkyn, wo was Harry,
Wo was Tomkyn, wo was Terry,
Tib
On
on a grey mare was set up on lof:
a : full of feathers, for ‘scho' should And so was all the bachelary,
sit soft, When they met together.
And led to the gap. “At that feast they were served with a rich
For crying of the men array,
Further would not Tib then Every five and five had a cokenay;
Till ‘scho' had her brood-hen And so they sate in jollity all the long day;
Set in her lap. And at the last they went to bed with full great
“A gay girdle Tib had on, borrowed for the deray;
“nones,' Mickle mirth was them among;
And a garland on her head full of round bones, In every corner of the house
And a broach on her breast full of sapphire Was melody delicious
stones,
For to hear precious
With the holy-rood token,” etc. Of six men's song.”
We cannot dismiss this excellent ballad
The several competitors then put up their without noticing the great affinity which its
various vows for success, after the most ap language exhibits to the Anglian forms of
proved fashion of knighthood, and the fight speech.
begins: Coming down a little later, one suspects
“When they had their vows made, forth can at first that Spenser is about to give us a
they hie, burlesque in his Shepherd's Calendar, when
With flails and horns and trumps made of tree: he begins with those lines which Pope ridi
There were all the bachelors of that countree; culed so mischievously in his insidious paper
They were dight in array, as themselves would in the Guardian —
be:
Their banners were full bright “H. Diggon Davie! I bid her good day;
Of an old rotten fell; Or Diggon her is, or I missay.
The cheveron of a plough-mell; D. Her was her, whilst it was day-light;
And the shadow of a beli But now her is a most wretched wight.”
Quartered with the moon light. On further perusal, however, we perceive
“I wot it was no ‘childer' game when they that the poet's intention was merely to give
together met: the language, and paint the manners of rural
When ilka freke in the field on his fellow bet, life in their rudest simplicity, without any
And laid on stiffly, for nothing would they let, design to throw contempt upon them. On
And fought ferly fast, till their horses swet, the other hand, we find in the Midsummer
And few words spoken.
There were flails all-to slattered, Night's Dream a most unequivocal and suc
There were shields all-to flattered, cessful burlesque upon the high-flown tra
Bowls and dishes all-to shattered, gedy of the times, as caricatured by the
And many heads broken. “tedious brief scene of young Pyramus, and
his love Thisbe; very tragical mirth.”
“Perkin turned him about in that ilk thrang, The seventeenth century in England pre
Among those weary boys he wrest and he sented a new aspect of literature, where wit,
He threw them down to the earth, and thrast in
wrang; the sense of ridicule, and for purposes of
personal and party satire, became peculiarly
them amang, conspicuous. Milton, though a violent enough
When he saw Terry away with Tib fang, controversialist in prose, refused to prostitute
And after him ran :
Off his horse he him drewgh, his Muse to political polemics, and in dark
And gave him of his flail enough. ness and obscurity brought forth those com
‘We te he, quoth Tib, and leugh, positions of which it was no violent hyper
‘Ye are a doughty man.'” hole to say that “the force of nature could
VOL. XLIII.
34 Burlesque Poetry. ' Sept.
no further go,” than to unite in one last ed society. Swift and Prior followed Butler
achievement all the beauty and majesty of in the lower walk of broad and easy merri
former excellence. But on the side of ment, and all but rivalled him as writers of
Royalty there were other men of genius who burlesque.
successively appeared, and devoted their It is to be regretted that so many of
transcendent powers to the advancement of Swift's pieces possess but a local or limited
the public cause which they had espoused. interest, and that many of them are dis
Butler first, and Dryden after him, produced figured by that wretched misanthropy that
in Hudibras and in Absalom and Achitophel seemed to find in garbage its natural food.
the two greatest political poems that were His best things are admirable in their style,
ever seen. Dryden's forte in satire lay in and models of ease and simplicity. Take as
the mock-heroic style; while Butler was a a specimen his Baucis and Philemon, where
consummate master of the burlesque, and Ovid is so delightfully modernized with the
has given a specimen of it that is not likely most skilful expansion and improvement in
ever to have a rival. It is perhaps singular those points that best admitted of it. The
that while Butler's genius took this inferior Latin original, which, although simple and
range of wit, the controversies he had to homely in its description of the rustic couple,
deal with were of larger compass and more is never mean or undignified, dwells chiefly
enduring interest than those which are the on the rural feast which is laid before the
subjects of Dryden's loftier strains. The gods, while the conversion of their cottage
political questions at issue in Dryden's satire into a temple is despatched in these few
were more purely personal and temporary lines:—
than those which occasioned the Civil Wars
“Illa vetus, dominisetiam casa parva duobus,
in the previous reign, although, of course, it Vertitur in templum : furcas subiere columnae;
was Butler's cue to present merely the ludi Stramina flavescunt, aurataque tecta videntur,
crous aspect of these, and to keep out of Celataeque fores adopertaque marmore tellus:”
view the great points that were involved as
to the limits of monarchical power and the “Their little shed, scarce large enough for two,
Seems from the ground in height and bulk to
claims of religious liberty. Dryden thought OW:
that Butler should have chosen the heroic A. st: temple shoots within the skies,
measure; but he was here estimating another The crotches of their cot in columns rise:
man's genius by his own; and it is plain The pavement polished marble they behold,
that each of those great men understood his The gates with sculpture graced, the spires
own powers best, and that neither would proba and tiles of gold.”
bly have succeeded had he invaded the Swift, in describing the conversion of the
other's province. yeoman's house into a church, gives us a
We do not propose here to swell our pages number of details of the most ingenious and
by a vague and general eulogium on Butler, ludicrous kind, expressed in the easiest verse
or by extracting those passages from his and most natural language:–
poem which have been repeated time out of
mind as specimens of his peculiarities. There “They scarce had spoke, when fair and soft
is an opening even now, we think, for a care The roof began to mount aloft:
ful examination of Hudibras in its different Aloft rose every beam and rafter,
The heavy wall climbed slowly after.
bearings, with reference not merely to the The chimney widened and grown higher,
brilliant wit and talent displayed in it, and Became a steeple with a spire.
to the innumerable sources from which its The kettle to the top was hoist,
erudition is derived, but also to the truth and And there stood fastened to a joist,
wisdom which may be found in its senti But with the upside down, to show
Its inclination for below:—
ments, partial and one-sided as these may be, Doomed ever in suspense to dwell,
on the great political and ecclesiastical topics 'Tis now no kettle, but a bell.
which are its theme. But an elaborate sur
A wooden jack, which had almost
vey of this kind our limits do not permit us Lost by disuse the art to roast,
at present to attempt, and anything short of A sudden alteration feels,
it would be idle and impertinent. Increased by new intestine wheels.—
The next half-century presents us with The jack and chimney, near allied,
similar contrasts, though the subjects are less Had never left each other's side;
connected with political differences. Pope The chimney to a steeple grown,
was every way the legitimate successor of The jack would not be left alone;
But up against the steeple reared;
Dryden; but in the Rape of the Lock he Became a clock and still adhered;
surpassed anything that his master had done And still its love to household cares,
in the region of wit, and produced the most By a shrill voice at noon declares,
elegant and elaborate trifle that ever delight W: the cook-maid not to burn,
The roast meat which it cannot turn.

Some say, She's all in all, and all in every part;
The groaning chair began to crawl, Some say, she's not contained, but all con
Like a huge snail, along the wall; tains.”
There stuck aloft in public view,
And with small change a pulpit grew.— The theory here adverted to, that the soul
A bedstead of the antique mode, or mind is “all in all, and all in every part,”
Compact of timber many a load, is generally ascribed to Aristotle, though we
Such as our ancestors did use, suspect it is rather the result which his com
Was metamorphosed into pews; mentators have drawn from his various works
Which still their ancient nature keep than any express proposition of his own.
By lodging folks disposed to sleep.” Though the phrase is pedantic and obscure,
But the most remarkable specimen of the it seems to have a meaning and a truth some
Burlesque of that period is to be found in what to this effect,—that while the mental
Prior's Alma, a poem which in the last cen principle is universally diffused over the
tury was much admired and often quoted, whole body, it is present in its totality of
but which is now, we suspect, so little known, energy in every part of it.
that we feel justified in attempting an ana. The general notion that the brain was the
lysis of it, as a literary curiosity, and select “chair” of the soul, was afterwards carried
ing and illustrating some of its best passages. out by Descartes in a more minute way, by
The absurdities and impertinences of assigning to her the Pineal Gland as her spe
science seem always to afford a fair subject cial throne or palace, from which, by means
of ridicule. From the time of the Margites of the nerves and the (supposed) animal spi
down to that of Martinus Scriblerus, the rits, she kept up a telegraphic communication
folly of those who pretend to know many with the more distant parts of the body, re
things, and who know nothing well, has ceiving messages from the different senses,
afforded a favourite employment for wit. and sending out her instructions to the seve
Among the topics which may be thus han ral organs of motion. This idea was promul
dled, are some of those discussions where phi gated by Descartes in his later works, and in
losophers have attempted to dogmatize upon particular in his Treatise on the Passions,
matters placed beyond the reach of our facul and On Human Nature, which were widely
diffused after his death in 1650. For a time
ties, and on these we may be allowed to raise
a laugh, so long as we keep clear of the the Cartesian system generally carried every
more serious mysteries which involve the thing before it, and Aristotle seemed going
to the wall—a result not a little due to the
religious element. The questions formerly
raised as to the seat of the Soul come under consummate prudence with which Descartes
this description, looking at this part of our had been guided in his language as to ques
nature more as a vital and intelligent principle tions affecting theology and the Church. But
than as a spiritual and immortal element. shortly after his death a reaction took place,
The Anima or Luxh of Aristotle and the partly owing to the alarming lengths to which
Schoolmen is not precisely what we call the his professed disciple, Spinoza, seemed to
Soul, or even the Mind, though the latter carry out his principles, and partly from a
term approaches, perhaps, the nearest to the suspicion which gained ground that the meta
idea. The union of the Soul and Body, of physics of Aristotle were at bottom more
favourable than those of Descartes to the Ca
Mind and Matter, is a subject on which it tholic doctrine of transubstantiation. The
was natural to speculate, and which involves
inquiries of a high and solemn description. tide accordingly turned, and the doctrines
But, as treated by the Schoolmen, who affect and disciples of Descartes came to be de
ed to explain it with a minuteness of detail nounced in France, as well as at Rome, as
that was presumptuous and absurd, it became, heretical and dangerous. It seems to be
in its lighter aspect, a legitimate occasion for thought that the Parliament of Paris, on the
laughter. application of the University, or of the Col
The doctrines of the early thinkers on this lege of the Sorbonne, were about to issue a
subject are referred to in a graver tone in the deliverance to the same effect, and were only
beautiful poem of Sir John Davies, on the hindered from doing so by a burlesque sen
Immortality of the Soul, dedicated to Queen tence which Boileau, in 1671, circulated on
Elizabeth, in 1592:— the subject, to show the absurdity of such
interference. This very clever jeu d'esprit,
“In judgment of her Substance thus they vary, of which, however, we are obliged to speak
And vary thus in judgment of her Seat; merely from recollection, as we have not a
For some her Chair up to the Brain do carry,
Some sink it down into the Stomach's heat. copy within reach, affects to be an Injunction
or Interdict by the Supreme Court of France,
“Some place it in the root of life, the Heart; under an application presented on behalf of
Some in the Liver, fountain of the Weins; Aristotle of Stagira and other ancients, com.
plaining that their doctrines, though so long there had been any here, must have been
recognised and established, had been suddenly always taken up in contemplating her own
dispossessed of their rightful influence and beauties.”
authority, and that various new notions had It was at this time that Prior wrote the
violently usurped their place, in reference to very witty and clever poem which it is the
the most important subjects of a physical and chief object of this article to notice. It was
metaphysical nature. It is therefore ordered composed by him about the year 1717 to
that these novelties shall be discontinued, and cheer the tedium of a close confinement to
that all the old views and practices shall be which he was subjected, for a supposed com
resumed; that the earth shall no longer pre plicity in the treasonable plans imputed to
sume to revolve on her axis, or go round the his friend Lord Oxford, and the other Tories.
sun according to the Copernican opinion; ALMA is a romance form of the Latin ani
nor the blood to circulate in the body, as ma, and the French éme, and the idea of the
promulgated by Harvey; further, that sick poem is to ridicule the speculations we have
persons shall be treated exclusively according referred to as to the seat of the soul, by pro
to the old rules of medicine, and that any pounding a new and ludicrous theory on the
patients who may have been cured by the subject. The plan is carried out in an ima
new methods shall be held as if they had not ginary conversation between Prior and his
been cured, but shall be subjected to the proper friend Mr. Shelton, under the names of Mat
orthodox remedies, as if they were still sick; thew and Richard. Matthew begins with an
and, finally, all persons whatsoever are pro account of the existing doctrines, and first of
hibited and discharged from believing or the Aristotelian view:—
receiving, or thinking or acting, according to “Alma in verse, in prose the Mind,
any other philosophical system than that of By Aristotle's pen defined,
Aristotle and his followers, or from molesting Throughout the body, squat or tall,
and disturbing those parties in their posses. Is bona fide all in all.
sion of public authority in time to come. And yet, slap-dash, is all again
While this controversy was at its height, a In every sinew, nerve, and vein;
story is told of a country curé in France who Runs here and there like Hamlet's ghost,
had four mastiffs, one called Aristotle and While everywhere she rules the roast.—
This system, Richard, we are told,
another Descartes, having each another dog The men of Oxford firmly hold.”
attached to him as his disciple. The animals
were trained up so that each pair had a fierce “The Cambridge wits, you know, deny
animosity against the other; but when With ipse dicit to comply.
brought out to fight they were taught to Alma, they strenuously maintain,
Sits cock-horse on her throne, the brain;
begin at first by barking alternately in a mo And from that seat of thought dispenses
derate tone, and in the form of a dialogue, as Her sovereign pleasure to the senses.”
if they were carrying on a disputation. By
degrees the discussion became louder and After some amusing illustrations of these
more violent, till at last the two philosophers conflicting views, Matthew declares his desire
and their respective pupils rushed together to propose a via media between the two:
with the utmost ferocity, and were only pre
vented from worrying each other to death by “Now to bring things to fair conclusion
the interference of their master, who used to And save much Christian ink's effusion,
assemble his friends to witness these encoun Let me propose a healing scheme,
ters, as affording a vivid picture of the viru And sail along the middle stream.
lent contests then raging among human dis For, Dick, if we could reconcile
utants.
Old Aristotle with Gassendus,
How many would admire our toil?
In England, among those who thought of And yet how few would comprehend us!”
such things, Descartes was not yet exploded
in the beginning of the eighteenth century, Matthew then announces his theory thus:—
and in particular the theory of the Pineal
Gland was then almost a popular belief. In “My simple system shall suppose
his dream of the dissection of a beau's head, That Alma enters at the toes;
Addison tells us what be there saw : “The That then she mounts by just degrees
pineal gland, which many of our modern Up to the ankles, legs, and knees;
philosophers suppose to be the seat of the Next, as the sap of life does rise,
She lends her vigour to the thighs;
soul, smelt very strong of essence and orange. And all these under-regions past
flower water, and was compassed with a kind She nestles somewhere near the waist;
of horny substance cut into a thousand little Gives pain or pleasure, grief or laughter,
faces or mirrors which were imperceptible to As we shall show at large hereafter.
the naked eye, insomuch that the soul, if Mature, if not improved, by time,
1865, Burlesque Poetry. 37
Up to the heart she loves to climb; Now, if 'tis chiefly in the heart
From thence, compelled by craft or rage, That courage does itself exert,
She makes the head her latest stage.” 'Twill be prodigious hard to prove
“From the feet upward to the head; That this is eke the throne of love.
Pithy and short,” says Dick,—“Proceed.” These notions then I think but idle,'
And love shall still possess the middle.”
The first indications of Alma's presence
are shown in the early activity of the infant Advancing life gradually brings an abate
at the lower extremities:— ment of the more youthful passions, and a
few years of chequered courtship, or of matri
“Hence long before the child can crawl, monial loves and quarrels, produce a season
He learns to kick and wince and sprawl; of indifference.
To hinder which your midwife knows
To bind those parts extremely close; “Leaving the endless altercation,
Lest Alma, newly entered in, The mind affects a higher station.”
And stunned at her own christening's din,
Fearful of future grief and pain, Of this apathetic condition Prior gives
Should silently sneak out again.”
us an apt example in the story of a Thra
As Alma ascends, the whole limbs become cian king who lived in the time of the Tro
active:— jan war:—
“Now mark, dear Richard, from the age “Poltis, that gen'rous king of Thrace,
That children tread this worldly stage. I think, was in this very case.
Broom, staff, or poker they bestride, All Asia now was by the ears,
And round the parlour love to ride; And gods beat up for volunteers
Till thoughtful father's pious care To Greece and Troy; whilst Poltis sat
Provides his brood, next Smithfield fair, In quiet, governing his state.
With supplemental hobby-horses; And whence, said this pacific king,
And happy be their infant courses! Does all this noise and discord spring?
Hence for some years they'll ne'er stand still; Why, Paris took Atrides wife—
Their legs, you see, direct their will. With ease, I could compose this strife.
From opening morn till setting sun The injured hero should not lose,
Around the fields and woods they run.” Nor the young lover want a spouse.
But Helen changed her first condition,
In process of time Alma rises to the cen Without her husband's just permission.
tral regions of the system, from which the What from the dame can Paris hope?
affections are supposed to be developed. She may as well from him elope.
Richard struggles hard for the whole belief | Again, how can her old goodman
With honour take her back again?
that love is situated in the heart or liver, and | From hence I logically gather,
refers to the traditions of the poets on that The woman cannot live with either.
subject, both Classical and English; but Mat Now, I have two right honest wives,
thew maintains that the heart and liver have For whose possession no man strives:
other things to do, and that the poets only One to Atrides I will send;
speak of those organs for the sake of the And t'other to my Trojan friend.
metre : Each prince shall thus with honour have
What both so warmly seem to crave!
“Jecur they burn, and Cor they pierce, The wrath of gods and men shall cease,
As either best supplies their verse; And Poltis live and die in peace.
And if folks ask the reason for't,
Say, one was long, and t'other short.— Dick, if this story pleaseth thee,
If Cupid throws a single dart, Pray, thank Dan Pope, who told it me.”
We make him wound the lover's heart,
But if he takes his bow and quiver, . It is curious how little is known of this
'Tis sure, he must transfix the liver. Poltis, whose name we have not found in the
For rhyme with reason may dispense,
And sound has right to govern sense. ordinary biographical dictionaries, nor have
we come upon any other trace of him than
Anatomists can make it clear, a short notice among the common collections
The liver minds his own affair:— of Greek Apophthegms, where the hint of
Still lays some useful bile aside this story is given, which Pope and Prior
To tinge the chyle's insipid tide.— have so much improved. It is lucky for the
Now gall is bitter with a witness, world that the scheme for pacification thus
And love is all delight and sweetness. proposed by Poltis or Poltys (as the name
And he, methinks, is no great scholar
Who can mistake desire for choler. should rather be spelt), was not adopted;
for if it had been, we should not have pos
* The like may of the heart be said: sessed the Iliad or the Odyssey.
Courage and terror there are bred.— Matthew now diverges into some inciden
tal discussions as to the propensity of Alma “In Britain's isles, as Heylin notes,
to animate different limbs simultaneously, The ladies trip in petticoats,
whether connected by proximity or by sym Which, for the honour of their nation,
They quit but on some great occasion.
pathy. He inculcates also the doctrine that Men there in breeches clad you view:
Alma is mechanically influenced by the pre They claim that garment as their due.
ponderance of inducements in the resolutions In Turkey the reverse appears;
she adopts. He argues Long coats the haughty husband wears
And greets his wife with angry speeches
If she be seen without her breeches.—
“That Alma merely is a scale;
And motives, like the weights, prevail.
If neither side turn down or up, ‘Now turn we to the farthest east,
With loss or gain, with fear or hope, And there observe the gentry drest;
The balance always would hang even, Prince Giolo, and his royal sisters,
Like Mah'met's tomb 'twixt earth and heaven.”
Scarr'd with ten thousand comely blisters:
The marks remaining on the skin,
A particular illustration is then given, ana To tell the quality within.
logous to the well-known problem of Buri Distinguish'd slashes deck the great:
dan's ass, that scholastic animal which was As each excels in birth or state,
supposed to be placed in a state of equipoise His oylet-holes are more, and ampler:
The king's own body was a sampler.
between a bundle of hay and a bucket of water, Happy the climate where the beau
when it was both hungry and thirsty:— Wears the same suit for use and show :
And at a small expense your wife,
“This, Richard, is a curious case: If once well pink'd, is cloath'd for life.—
Suppose your eyes sent equal rays
Upon two distant pots of ale,
Not knowing which was mild or stale; “I mention'd diff'rent ways of breeding:
In this sad state your doubtful choice Begin we in our children's reading.
Would never have the casting voice: To master John the English maid
Which best or worst you could not think, A horn-book gives of gingerbread:
And die you must for want of drink; And that the child may learn the better,
Unless some chance inclines your sight, As he can name, he eats the letter.
Setting one pot in fairer light; Proceeding thus with vast delight,
Then you prefer or A or B, He spells, and gnaws, from left to right.
As lines and angles best agree: But show a Hebrew's hopeful son,
Your sense resolved impels your will; Where we suppose the book begun,
She guides your hand,—so drink your fill.” The child would thank you for your kindness,
And read quite backward from our Finis.
Devour he learning ne'er so fast,
Alma has a tendency to fasten on some Great A would be reserved the last.”
peculiar member, and thus create a ruling
assion. The unhappiness of its taking the
direction of the tongue is particularly descant The later progress and proceedings of
Alma are thus described:
ed on:—
“Again, if with the female sex “When Alma now, in different ages,
Alma should on this member fix, Has finish'd her ascending stages;
(A cruel and a desperate case Into the head at length she gets,
From which Heaven shield my lovely lass!) And there in public grandeur sits,
For evermore all care is vain To judge of things and censure wits,
That would bring Alma down again— Here, Richard, how could I explain
You know a certain lady, Dick, The various labyrinths of the brain
Who saw me when I last was sick, Surprise my readers, whilst I tell 'em
Of cerebrum and cerebellum !
She kindly talk'd, at least three hours, -
Of plastic forms and mental powers: How could I play the commentator
Described our pre-existing station, On dura and on pia mater |
Before this vile terrene creation: Where hot and cold, and dry and wet,
And, lest I should be weary'd, Madam, Strive each the other's place to get;
To cut things short, came down to Adam; And with incessant toil and strife,
From whence as fast as she was able Would keep possession during life.
She drowns the world, and builds up Babel: I could demonstrate every pore,
Thro' Syria, Persia, Greece, she goes; Where memory lays up all her store;
And takes the Romans in the close.” And to an inch compute the station
'Twixt judgment and imagination:
O friend! f could display much learning,
The movements of Alma are influenced At least to men of small discerning.
also by national manners and customs in The brain contains ten thousand cells:
dress, in personal appearance, and in educa In each some active fancy dwells;
tion: Which always is at work, and framing
The several follies I was naming." The full development of Mat's system does
As in a hive's vimineous dome not proceed all this time without strenuous
Ten thousand bees enjoy their home; opposition from his companion, who tries in
Each does her studious actions vary, the middle of the disscussion to set up the
To go and come, to fetch and carry;
# still renews her little labour, rival theory that the seat of the soul is the
stomach:— -
Nor justles her assiduous neighbour.”

Alma, when she has reached the head, is “I say, whatever you maintain
Of Alma in the heart or brain;
subject to an entirely new class of feelings. The plainest man alive may tell ye,
The reign of passion being over, Avarice be Her seat of empire is the belly:
comes predominant as the desire of appro From hence she sends out those supplies,'
priation survives the power of enjoyment. Which make us either stout or wise;
Locomotive energy having ceased, Alma lives The strength of every other member,
in the recollection of the past, or is content Is £ on your belly-timber;
with any trifle that comes to afford present The qualms or ruptures of your blood
amusement : Rise in proportion to your food;
And if you would improve your thought
“A print, a bronze, a flower, a root, You must be fed as well as taught.”
A shell, a butterfly, can do’t;
Even a romance, a tune, a rhyme, The doctrine is sought to be illustrated by
Help thee to pass the tedious time.” the effect of different kinds of diet on na
tional character:
These, too, however, lose at last their pow “Observe the various operations
er, and Alma approaches her end — Of food and drink in several nations.
Was ever Tartar fierce or cruel
“Wearied of being high or great, Upon the strength of water-gruel?
And nodding in her chair of state,— But who shall stand his rage and force
She finds, poor thing, some little crack,
If first he rides, then eats his horse?
Which nature, forced by time, must make, Salads and eggs, and lighter fare
Through which she wings her destined way; Tune the Italian spark's guitar.
Upward she soars; and down drops clay: And if I take Dan Congreve right,
hile some surviving friend supplies
Hic jacet, and a hundred lies.” Pudding and beef make Britons fight.”
Richard, in following out the same view,
The picture and reflections that follow are compares the human frame to a complicated
in Prior's best style of easy elegance:— clock, where besides the “horal orbit” that
“O Richard, till that day appears, | tells the time of day, there are a number of
Which must decide our hopes and fears, “added movements” showing the day of the
Would fortune calm her present rage, month, the moon's age, and other particulars,
And give us playthings for our age; all of which, however, depend on the main
Would Clotho wash her hands in milk spring:
And twist our thread with gold and silk;
Would she, in friendship, peace, and plenty, “So, if unprejudiced you scan
Spin out our years to four times twenty; The goings of this clock-work, man,
And should we both in this condition You find a hundred movements made.
Have conquer'd love, and worse ambition; By fine devices in his head;
(Else those two passions by the way But 'tis the stomach's solid stroke,
May chance to show us scurvy play;). That tells his being, what's o'clock.
Then, Richard, then should we sit down, If you take off his rhetoric trigger,
Far from the tumult of this town; He talks no more in mode and figure:
I fond of my well-chosen seat, Or, clog his mathematic wheel,
My pictures, medals, books complete. His buildings fall, his ship stand still;
Or, should we mix our friendly talk Or, lastly, break his politic weight,
O'ershaded in that favourite walk, His voice no longer rules the state.
Which thy own hand had whilom planted, Yet, if these finer whims were gone,
Both pleased with all we thought we wanted, Your clock, though plain, would still go on;
Yet then, ev'n then, one cross reflection But spoil the engine of digestion,
Would spoil thy grove and my collection: And you entirely change the question.
Thy son, and his, ere that may die, Alma's affairs no power can mend;
And Time some uncouth heir supply, The jest, alas! is at an end:
Who shall for nothing else be known Soon ceases all this worldly bustle;
Bnt spoiling all that thou hast done. And you consign the corpse to Russel.”
Who set the twigs, shall he remember
That is in haste to sell the timber ? * A celebrated undertaker of funerals. He is
And what shall of thy woods remain, mentioned by Dr. Garth in The Dispensary, Canto
Except the box that threw the main?". iii.
40 Carlyle's History of Frederic the Great. Sept.
* The argument ends, as usual, in neither ART." III.—History of Friedrich II of

# being convinced by his opponent; but Prussia, called Frederick the Great. By
THoMAs CARLYLE. 6 vols. London:
ick finally cuts the knot by declaring that
no theory deserves to be adopted that does Chapman and IIall. 1864.
not add to one's comfort, and that good hu
mour and good fellowship are the best phi MR. CARLYLE's History of the French Re
losophy: volution, published twenty-eight years ago,
ended with the following passage:–
“Sir, if it be your wisdom's aim
To make me merrier than I am; “And so here, O reader, has the time come
I'll be all night at your devotion— for us two to part. Tolsome was our journey
Come on, friend; broach the pleasing notion; ing together; not without offence; but it is
But, if you would depress my thought, done. To me thou wert as a beloved shade, the
Your system is not worth a groat. disembodied or not yet embodied spirit of a
For Plato's fancies what care I? . Brother. To thee I was but as a Voice. Yet
I hope you would not have me die, was our relation a kind of sacred one; doubt
Like simple Cato, in the play, not that! For whatsoever once sacred things be
For anything that he can say? come hollowjargons, yet while the voice of man
Ev’n let him of ideas speak speaks with man, hast thou not there the living
To heathens in his native Greek. fountain out of which all sacrednesses sprang, and
If to be sad is to be wise will yet spring? Man, by the nature of him,
is definable as an incarnated word. Ill stands
I do most heartily despise
Whatever Socrates has said it with me if I have spoken falsely: thine also
Or Tully writ, or Wanley* read. . it was to hear truly. Farewell.”
Dear Drift,t to set our matters right,
Remove these papers from my sight; The History of Frederic closes with a
Burn Mat's Des-cart and Aristotle: very different leave-taking:
Here! Jonathan, your master's bottle.” “I define him to myself as hitherto the Last
Such is an outline of that poem, of which of the Kings;—when the Next will be, is a
very long question I But it seems to me as if
Pope is said to have declared it was the only Nations,
one he knew that he would like to have probably all Nations, by and by, in
written. their despair,—blinded, swallowed like Jonah,
in such a whale's-belly of things brutish, waste,
An elaborate translation of Prior's Alma abominable (for is not Anarchy, or the Rule of
in Latin verse was published in 1763 by what is Baser over what is Nobler, the one
Thomas Martin, Master of the Grammar life's misery worth complaining of and, in fact,
School in Warminster, Wilts; but it has not the abomination of abominations, springing
sufficient merit to justify quotation. from and producing all others whatsoever?)—as
The inquiry as to the Seat of the Soul is if the Nations universally, and England too if it
obsolete. The rise and prevalence of hold on, may more and more bethink them
now selves of such a Man and his Function and Per
the Ideal Philosophy tended to extinguish formance, with feelings far other than are possi
such a speculation, and the opposite doctrine ble at present. Meanwhile, all I had to say of
of Materialism was equally fatal to it. No him is finished: that too, it seems, was a bit of
question of that kind can be entertained, un work appointed to be done. Adieu, good read
less we believe both that there is a Soul that ers; bad, also, adieu."
can have a seat, and a Body in which that In the tone and spirit of these two passages
seat can be located. But even those who
hold, with a firm persuasion, that there is we seem to discern clear marks of a change
which has taken place in Mr. Carlyle; a
Something we can call spiritual, and Some change
thing else we can call corporeal, are now not for the better. He has grown
satisfied that the how and whereabouts of their hardened in self-confidence; a grim yet not
contact and connexion lie beyond our powers unkindly humour has given place to savage
intolerance; the deep and warm sympathies
of discovery. Important and increasing light which ever and again relieved his sternest
has been thrown upon the operations of dif. moods of indignation have sunk out of sight,
ferent portions of the nervous system, but byand there remains a cheerless uniformity of
what link the two distinct and separable ele harshness and contempt—forgotten only
ments are united, and in what way they act when some of the strange favourites of his
and react upon each other, is still as great a
wayward fancy step upon the scene. It is
mystery as ever, and is likely to remain so,
until “the Great Teacher Death” shall re hardly too much to say that he appears to
move the veil from our eyes. have lost what was once his leading charac
is really
teristic—a genuine insight into what
* Humphrey Wanley, librarian to the Earl of noble in human action, and exalted in human
Oxford. character.
# Mr. Prior's secretary and executor. Worst of all is that, in the theme Mr.
1865, Carlyle's History of Frederic the Great. 41
Carlyle has here chosen, these unhappy ten in which he is fated to live is not corrupt
dencies will have peculiar power to work and effete, that the country to which he
mischief Except religion, there is no sub belongs is not utterly degraded or hopelessly
ject on which the people of this country ruined. -
think so much as politics; and it is a subject We do not propose, in these pages, to

on which, fortunately for them, though give any continuous sketch of the events of
greatly to Mr. Carlyle's disgust, their thoughts Frederic's life. That has been already done
can be carried out into action. It is plainly, by many reviewers, and the book itself has
then, a matter of no small moment that they been widely read, at least those parts of it
should think rightly on political questions; which bear directly on Frederic's career.
and Mr. Carlyle has here done all in his Our concern is rather with Mr. Carlyle than
ower to make them think wrongly. In his with his hero ; more with the causes and the
life of Sterling he treated the religious be political results of Frederic's wars than with
liefs of his countrymen in a manner that the details of the wars themselves. For, as
even a critic so favourable as Mr. Brimley it seems to us, the great interest of this book
was forced to condemn as “wholly unjustifi lies in the fact that it is the final and com
able;” and now he is doing all he can to plete development of Mr. Carlyle's views,—
upset their political creed. We shall hardly the latest exposition of the doctrine of hero
be suspected of affectation when we say that worship. What manner of man then is the
to mark Mr. Carlyle's errors is not a grateful chosen hero, according to this doctrine in its
task. It is difficult to do so without mis perfection ? To what form of government
giving; it is impossible to do so without does it lead us? And what effects does it
regret; it is hopeless to do so without incur tend to produce on the history of a nation?
ring the charge of presumption. Yet Mr. If we can catch any glimpse of a satisfactory
Carlyle is not a writer whose errors, if they answer to these questions, we may be able to
be such, should be passed in silence. A man appreciate the political value of the doctrine
of genius preaching a morality at once pre itself.
tentious and unsound, is the most dangerous Beyond doubt, Mr. Carlyle has chosen a
of all teachers. And he is never more dan theme well suited to a full and clear illustra
erous than when he teaches by means of tion of his theory, both as regards the cha
istory. Such diatribes as the Latter-Day racter of his hero, and of the period in
Pamphlets carried with them their own refu which he lived. The eighteenth century Mr.
tation. The subjects were familiar, and their Carlyle knows thoroughly, and does not in
fallacies were therefore powerless. But it is the least admire. It is, in his eyes, “a dis
a very different matter when an unrivalled astrous, wrecked inanity, not useful to dwell
knowledge of a past time is devoted to the upon.” It was “opulent in accumulated
work of setting the present in a false light. falsities,” had, indeed, grown so false as to
And this is what Mr. Carlyle has done. He have lost the consciousness of being false, was
is never weary of driving home the moral of “steeped in falsity, and impregnated with it
his tale, which is simply the manifold infe to the very bone.” Some critics have re
riority of his own country and time. Now sented such sweeping condemnation, and
it is no light thing that historical facts should have stood up for this so much abused cen
be distorted in order that false opinions may tury. They maintain that it must have had
be inculcated; that some chosen period or something good in it, because much good
some favourite hero should be painted in came after it; and then they run over the
colours unduly bright, in order that the days great names of which it can boast in litera
we live in may appear more gloomy, and the ture, statesmanship, and war; and ask if a
men who rule us more incapable; in a word, tree altogether bad could bring forth such
that erroneous convictions should be fostered fruit? Neither argument is very conclusive.
and groundless discontent awakened. Mr. The former is an old and well-worn fallacy;
Carlyle, in Past and Present, sketched a and as for the latter, it proves nothing at all.
lordly abbot of the middle ages, whose muni The truth is that, as Mr. Carlyle puts it,
ficence might contrast with the cold charities during the eighteenth century, and especially
of the nineteenth century; he now brings the latter part of it, the whole fabric of so
Frederic before us in beautiful and command ciety was unsound and decaying. Many of
ing proportions, which may dwarf into insig the men whose names are quoted as the
nificance the puny rulers of the present day. ornaments of the time gained their greatest
In both instances the representations are un fame by their efforts to pull that fabric down.
real and the contrast misleading; nor would The ruling classes were not only corrupt,
it be a useless service to convince any reader but were in a position utterly unreal, and
that the morality in which he has been impossible to be maintained. That they were
taught to believe is not a dream, that the age blind to this, and went fiddling and dancing
to destruction illustrates more plainly than cacies of diplomacy, and he has little sym
anything else what Mr. Carlyle calls “the pathy with those who do not share this
falsity” of the time. Under them, indeed, abhorrence. He directs divers sneers, not
influences were gathering, and forces were always in the best taste, against “ingenious
rising which they recked not of -here to Herr Professor Ranke,” whose history of
gain a calm success, there to burst forth in Frederic, we are told, “affords mankind a
storm; but these things belong, not to the wondrously distilled ‘astral spirit, a ghost
life of the eighteenth century, but to its like facsimile (elegant grey ghost, with stars
destruction. No ; the latter half of that dim twinkling through), of Frederic's and
century was artificial, unreal, undignified,— other people's diplomatizings in this world.”
the only thing grand about it was the Revo A man like Ranke deserved more respectful
lution in which it closed. And it is precisely mention. His researches have thrown a light
because of these characteristics that it forms on Frederic's policy and career which we sus
a background against which heroism, or the pect Mr. Carlyle would have more highly
semblance of it, stands out in strong relief. appreciated, had it not been for the fact that
Many points, too, in Frederic's character the more this hero's diplomacy is investi
become almost heroic from contrast with the gated, and the more his treaties are studied,
weakness and meanness of his epoch. He the less apparent will become the “modera
was eminently clear, direct, resolute, and tion and veracity” ascribed to him by his
largely endowed with “veracity,” in the English biographer. And while we are on
Carlylian sense of the word; that is, the this subject, we must say, once for all, that
faculty of seeing things as they really are, a Mr. Carlyle expresses his contempt for the
faculty by no means to be confounded with Prussian “Dryasdust,”—including in this
the more vulgar virtue of telling the truth. borrowed phrase such men as Preuss and
On the other hand, his bad qualities bring Ranke,—in terms which are quite unbecom
out the doctrine of hero-worship in its full ing. The Prussian Dryasdust may be tedi
force. In judging of characters like Moham ous, and much in want of an index, as well
med and Cromwell, whose thoughts were as of things more important; but surely he
other than the thoughts of common men, is laborious and accurate, and so far as facts
we are easily led into a feeling of vague reve are concerned, makes rough places smooth
rence, seeing much that we cannot '' for those who follow after him in a manner
hend, and would not hastily condemn. But which deserves thankful acknowledgment
Frederic's was no such mixed character. All rather than rude and scornful abuse. Even
his faults, his selfishness, his tyranny, his “ghost-like facsimiles” are something to have
faithlessness, are quite apparent; and there ready made to one's hand.
fore we say that Mr. Carlyle has at last cho But if some students might desire fuller
sen a hero whose character is well calculated information regarding great treaties, none
to bring out the weakness as well as the can wish for anything more regarding the
strength of the gospel of hero-worship. fighting which is too often the result of
Which of the two it brings out more com treaties. All Frederic's battles are set forth
pletely we shall hereafter see. with surprising lucidity, and in the most
Of the literary merits of the Life of Frede minute detail. Even without the accompa
ric widely different opinions will be enter nying plans, the careful reader can, from the
tained. Of course, like all the works of Mr. verbal description, take in the lie of the
Carlyle, it bears unmistakably the stamp of ground, can comprehend the general plan of
genius. Laborious research, no uncertain the action, and can see how each formation
mark of genius, is apparent on every page. and manoeuvre bears upon that plan. Minute
Certainly Mr. Carlyle does not hide this as Mr. Carlyle sometimes is, he never descends
light under a bushel. He is for ever bewail to the details which make Mr. Kinglake's
ing his mighty toils, as if he were another battle of the Alma at once tedious, con
Hercules, and glorifying his persevering in fused, and ridiculous. On the whole, so far
dustry. On one point connected with Frede as we can judge, he does not exhibit the
ric's public life we should have liked greater power of seizing upon and vividly represent
fulness of detail,—we mean what Mr. Carlyle ing the essence, as it were, of an action
calls “hypothetic diplomatic stuff.” We which was possessed in so remarkable a de
have several sketches, always wonderfully gree by Sir William Napier; but some of
graphic, of diplomatic interviews; but we his battle-pieces, as Prague, Dettingen, Fon
sadly want definite accounts of the exact tenoy, seem to us not unworthy of the histo
nature of the negotiations carried on, and of rian of the Peninsular war.
the treaties actually concluded. But Mr. We have said that Mr. Carlyle's research
Carlyle avoids these things, not from laziness is visible on every page of his book. In no
but from distaste. His soul abhors the intri way is it more pleasantly visible than when
1865. Carlyle's History of Frederic the Great. 43
he brings up from the great stores of his perilous intricacies, the big star, Autocracy of
knowledge some lively anecdote or familiar all the Russias,—through what horrors of intri
allusion which serves to cheer the reader cacy, that last! She had hoped always it would
be by Husband Peter that : with the deeper
during his long and sometimes weary jour steady head, would be Autocrat: but the intri
neying. We catch bright glimpses into the cacies kept increasing, grew at last to the
domestic life of the Prussian Princesses; strangling pitch; and it came to be, between
bitterly sarcastic pictures of the follies of Peter and her, “Either you to Siberia (perhaps
the French Court awake our scorn and laugh farther), or else II And it was Peter £ had
ter; grimly humorous, but yet indulgent to go;—in what hideous way is well enough
sketches of the Court of St. Petersburg, in known; no Siberia, no Holstein thought to be
the days of Peter the Great, of infame Catin, far enough for Peter:—And Catharine, merely
weeping a little for him, mounted to the Auto
and of the more notorious Catharine II., ex cracy herself. And
then, the big star of stars
cite we hardly know what various emotions, being once hers, she had, not in the lover kind
but among them certainly that of amuse alone, but in all uncelestial kinds, whole nebulae
ment. Some of these Court-scenes, for ex and milky-ways of small stars. A very Semi
ample such as illustrate the life and conver ramis, or the Louis-Quatorze of those Northern
sation of Peter the Great, or of Augustus Parts. ‘Second Creatress of Russia, second
Peter the Great
the Strong, are hardly suited for quotation; loveliest objects;inyet
a sense. To me none of the
there are uglier, how infi
but we cannot resist giving the following nitely uglier: object grandiose, if not great.”—
sketch of the great Czarina and her hus (Vol. vi. pp. 248-9.)
band:—
“Catharine too had an intricate time of it The wretched Peter is disposed of in a
under the Catin; which was consoled to her few inimitable sentences
only by a tolerably rapid succession of lovers, “Peter is an abstruse creature; has lived, all
the best the ground yielded. . . . In fine, there this while, with his Catharine an abstruse ife,
has been published, in these very years, a Frag which would have gone altogether mad except
ment of early Autobiography by Catharine her for Catharine's superior sense. An awkward,
self—a credible and highly remarkable little
Piece; worth all the others, if it is knowledge ardent, but helpless kind of Peter, with vehe
of Catharine you are seeking. A most placid, ment desires, with a dash of wild magnanimity
solid, substantial young Lady comes to light even: but in such an inextricable element,
there; dropped into such an element as might amid such darkness, such provocations of un
have driven most people mad. But it did not manageable opulence, such impediments, ima
her; it only made her wiser and wiser in her ginary and real,—dreadfully real to poor Peter,
—as made him the unique of mankind in his
eneration. Element black, hideous, dirty, as time. He ‘used to drill cats, it is said, and to
apland Sorcery;—in which the first clear duty to do the maddest-looking things (in his late
is to hold one's tongue well, and keep one's
eyes open. Stars,—not very heavenly, but of buried-alive condition);—and fell partly, never
fixed nature, and heavenly to Cathariner—a quite, which was wonderful, into drinking, as
the solution of his inextricabilities. Poor Peter:
star or two, shine through the abominable
always, and now more than ever, the cynosure
murk: Steady, patient; steer silently, in all of vulturous vulpine neighbours, withal; which
weathers, towards these ! infinitely aggravated his otherwise bad case!”
“Young Catharine's immovable equanimity —(Vol. vi. p. 256.)
in this distracted environment strikes us very
much. Peter is careering, tumbling about, on Bankrupt, chaotic, opulent in falsities, and
all manner of absurd broomsticks, driven too
surely by the Devil; terrific-absurd big Lap above all, miserably wanting in the kingly
land Witch, surrounded by multitudes smaller, element, as the eighteenth century undoubt
and some of them less ugly. Will be Czar of edly was, there were yet a few statesmen and
Russia, however;—and is one's so-called Hus soldiers in Prussia, and even in other coun
band. These are prospects for an observant, tries, whose occasional presence gives life
immovably steady-going young Woman | The and dignity to the record. Walpole and
reigning Czarina, old Catin herself, is silently Fleury, unable to avert the coming evil, not
the Olympian Jove to Catharine, who reveres
her very much. Though articulately stupid as brave enough to avoid the guilt of participat
ever, in this Book of Catharine's, she comes out ing in a policy they disapproved by a volun
with a dumb weight, of silence, of obstinacy, tary relinquishment of power, are neverthe
of intricate abrupt rigour, which—who knows less forced to give place to more fiery spirits.
but it may savour of dumb unconscious wisdom Kaunitz, hailed in his own day as the great
in the fat old blockhead? The Book says little est of diplomatists, with his rides under glass
of her, and in the way of criticism, of praise, cover, and his rash dinners on boiled capons
or of blame, nothing whatever; but one gains —“a most high-sniffing, fantastic, slightly
the notion of some dark human female object,
bigger than one had fancied it before. insolent shadow-king;” Belleisle, vain, un
“Catharine steered towards her stars. Lovers principled, blustering, yet likeable in a way,
were vouchsafed her, of a kind (her small stars, as the last of the grand old Frenchmen;
as we may call them); and, at length, through “Fiery" Loudon, and “Cunctator.” Daun;
the two Keiths, “active” Prince Henry,– “Smelfungus,” make it quite impossible for
every man indeed of that stern band of war him to render an extensive sketch of this
riors who surrounded Frederic—all these are sort interesting or even intelligible to the
brought before us living and moving, not a general reader. The second volume is main
trait forgotten which can give individuality to ly occupied in the vain endeavour to make a
the character. Even men long familiar to us hero out of that drunken savage Frederic
we learn to know better than before : Chat William ; and, though enriched with much
ham again lives to “bid England be of good of Mr. Carlyle's humour and genius, is, we
cheer and hurl defiance at her foes;" Wolfe, must say, on the whole wearisome. Volumes
greatly daring, is borne by the midnight three, four, and five are the cream of the
flow of the St. Lawrence to the scene of his work; for the end of the Seven Years' War,
£ and his death; Montcalm, prophetic as from the battle of Torgau to the Peace of
is end draws near, foretells the revolt of Hubertsburg, is very tedious, and the Bava
America and the humiliation of England. rian War is unendurable. The redeeming
But not only from Courts and armies does points in the sixth volume are the account of
Mr. Carlyle gather that personal element the Partition of Poland, and, perhaps, the
which gives so much interest to his History. best index that was ever put together. As a
Many of the great names in literature light whole, the book wants proportion. We have
up the page, and cheer the reader, if but for too much of Frederic's ancestry, far too much
a moment, with a pleasant effect of contrast. of his father in particular; we have too
They are introduced for all sorts of reasons much of his campaigns, and too little of his
—often for no reason at all, but they are internal administration. Prolix, confused,
always welcome. Their only connexion with out of proportion—all this, we regret to say,
the theme may be the time of their death, can be urged truly against the Life of
as Swift and Pope; they may have recorded Frederic.
some incident in the great struggle, as Smol
But all other literary faults sink into insig
let; like Maupertuis they may be laughed
nificance when we think of the style in which
at, with Johnson they may receive a fewMr. Carlyle has seen fit to write. Why in
words of hearty greeting; some come andthis respect he should have chosen so to fall
go, pleasantly, but without result, as Gellert
away from his former self, it is hard to tell.
or Zimmermann; a few leave behind them It is quite melancholy to compare what he
for ever the marks of the tread of the has done with what he chooses to do now.
monarchs of thought, as Voltaire. Kings, In his early days, Mr. Carlyle wrote English
statesmen, warriors, men of letters, pass in as few men have ever written it—simply and
proud procession before us; types from every clearly, yet with a richness and power pecu
class in that strange society enliven the liarly his own. No reader will blame us for
scene; and, as the stately panorama rolls on, recalling to his recollection the following
the gazer looks with rapt attention on a most pathetic passage from the Diamond
brilliant and life-like picture of a bygone Necklace, published nearly thirty years ago:—
age, separated from us by a gulf broader and
deeper than could have been the work of “Beautiful High-born that wert so foully
time alone. The historian of the great hurled low ! For, if, thy Being came to thee
out of old Hapsburg bynastics, came it not also
catastrophe which closed the eighteenth cen (like my own) out of Heaven? Sunt lachrymae
tury, has in this book enabled any pains rerum, et mentem mortalia tangunt. Oh, is there
taking reader to form for himself some idea a man's heart that thinks, without pity, of those
of what was the state of the nations which long months and years of slow-wasted igno
made that catastrope inevitable. miny;—of thy birth, soft-cradled in Imperial
On the other hand, it is not to be denied Schönbrunn, the winds of heaven not to visit
that many and forcible objections can be thy face too roughly, thy foot to light on soft
urged against the Life of Frederic as a work ness, thy eye on splendour; and then of thy
death, or hundred deaths, to which the Guillo
of art. It is often prolix and often con tine and Fouquier Tinville's judgment-bar was
fused; sins both of commission and of omis but the merciful end ? Look there, O man born
sion are numerous. Thus the first volume is of woman | The bloom of that fair face is
concerned almost exclusively with the history wasted, the hair is grey with care; the bright
of the Hohenzollerns—with the rise of Prus ness of those eyes is quenched, their lids hang
sia into a nation and a royalty. This pre drooping, the face is stony pale, as of one living
amble, though undoubtedly too long, might in death. Mean weeds, which her own hand
has mended, attire the Queen of the world.
have been made interesting had it been The death-hurdle, where thou sittest pale mo
written in a clear and perspicuous style. tionless, which only curses environ, has to stop:
But Mr. Carlyle's abruptness and obscurity, a people, drunk with vengeance, will drink it
his trick of telling a story by allusion, and again in full draught, looking at thee there.
his preposterous habit of quotation from Far as the eye reaches, a multitudinous sea of
45
1865. Carlyle's History of Frederic the Great.
maniac heads; the air deaf with their triumph ignoble ancestry; if not by him to be im:
yell! The Living-dead must shudder with yet proved and enriched, at least to be preserved
one other pang; her startled blood yet again perfect and undefiled.
suffuses with the hue of agony that pale face, Besides this unhappy substitution of rant
which she hides with her hands. There is then
no heart to say, God pity thee? O think not and fustian for real force of expression, Mr.
of these; think of HIM whom thou worshippest, Carlyle's tricks of composition have grown
the Crucified,—who also treading the wine into vicious prominence. The old Smelfungus
press alone, fronted sorrow still deeper; and and Sauerteig device is repeated in these
triumphed over it, and made it holy; and built volumes until it becomes irksome to a degree;
of it a “Sanctuary of Sorrow, for thee and all his love of nicknames and sweeping terms of
the wretched ! hy path of thorns is nigh. abuse has grown to an extreme. What pos
ended. One long last look at the Tuileries, sible good can come from raving against
where thy step was once so light, —where thy “boiling unveracities,” “apes of the Dead
children shall not dwell. The head is on the
block; the axe rushes—Dumb lies the world; Sea,” “putrid fermentations of mud pools,”
that wild yelling world, and all its madness, is and so on ? What does it all mean? To
behind thee.” what reader does it convey any distinct com
prehensible idea? Nay, these wild generali
To us this passage seems to fulfil all the ties have a directly pernicious effect. They
conditions of good writing—the worthiest may do Mr. Carlyle a good turn now and
thoughts expressed in appropriate and moving then in the way of finishing in convenient
words. Beside it Burke's celebrated burst of
vagueness some terrible denunciation; , but
eloquence on the same sad theme becomes they do this at the expense of clear thinking
tinsel; apart from the beauty of the diction, on his part and clear apprehension on the part
there is a tenderness of feeling which goes to of his readers. Nothing is more fallacious
the heart. Nothing of a similar stamp, or at than the use of what Mr. Foster, in his essay
all approaching to it, can be found throughout on the use of the word romantic, calls “ex
these six large volumes; the following, rather, ploding terms.” They only serve the pur
is a fair specimen of Mr. Carlyle's later pose of concealing obscurity or confusion of
style : thought, and, in the hands of Mr. Carlyle,
“When the brains are out, things really ought they serve this purpose many and many a
to die;—no matter what lovely things they time. Even worse, if possible, is Mr. Car
were, and still affect to be, the brains being out lyle's fondness for nicknames, and the pro
they actually ought in all cases to die, and with minence he gives to physical peculiarities.
their best speed get buried. Men had noses at It would be tedious to give instances—they
one time, and smelt the horror of a deceased are to be found on every page. In regard to
reality fallen putrid, of a once dear verity be
come mendacious, phantasmal; but they have, the latter point, Mr. Carlyle seems to have
to an immense degree, lost that organ since, and taken a hint from Mr. Dickens. The pecu
are now living comfortably cheek-by-jowl with liarities both in dress and appearance of many
lies. Lies of that sad ‘conservative kind, and of his characters, of George II. for example,
indeed of all kinds whatsoever: for that kind is are as frequently insisted on and made as
a general mother; and breeds, with a fecundity familiar to us as the coat-tails of Mr. Pickwick
that is appalling, did you heed it much."-(Vol. or the teeth of Mr. Carker.
iii. p. 337.) Such tricks, besides being in bad taste, are
We cannot find it in our hearts to forgive positively misleading. Mr. Carlyle's admirers
this falling away in Mr. Carlyle. Such a are fond of claiming for him the great merit
rare and splendid gift was his, and to see how of getting at the real nature of a man—of
he has thrown it behind him ! And the drawing his characters from within out.
worst is, that he has done this wilfully, with wards,” to use their favourite way of putting
his eyes open. Affectation, a love of singu it. The fact may be so; but certainly the
larity, an idea that inverted sentences and habit we refer to gives no very strong tes
uncouth phraseology would give weight to timony that it is so. For in this way we get
his teaching—such have been the causes of nothing but the outsides of people. They
the corruption of Mr. Carlyle's style. are identified by some external trait, and are
Not only has he thus deprived his readers ever after associated with it. Now, this trait
of much pleasure; not only has he done him may be the index to the real character of the
self grievous injustice, he has also inflicted a man, but it also may not. We should like to
deep, though not, we hope, a lasting injury, have the character well analysed before the
on the English language, than which no more nickname is given, or the representative pecu
grievous fault can be laid to the charge of a liarity fixed upon. The device is amusing
great author. A man like Mr. Carlyle should and telling. A forcible impression is pro
look on the language in which he writes as a duced on the imagination; but the question
proud heritage come down to him from no will intrude—is that impression true? Are
the pictures like the originals? We feel our And this line of defence, not only immoral,
selves too much at the mercy of the writer, but shabby—unworthy of any higher order
and would welcome with a sense of security of criminal than a thimble-rigger—is further
characters drawn in the old-fashioned style. supported on the ground that Frederic “did
With a brief but vehement protest against not volunteer into this foul element like the
the use of German nomenclature by Mr. Car others,” an assertion which is as nearly as
lyle,—at once unpleasing and puzzling, and, possible the exact reverse of fact. Whether
worst of all, not consistently kept up, —we Frederic's invasion of Silesia was justifiable or
pass from considering the book in its literary not, we shall presently see; but that, whether
aspects. justifiable or unjustifiable, it was entirely
Unfortunately, when we do this we leave voluntary on his part, is beyond question.
all possibilities of praise behind us, and get Statements of this sort—and throughout
deeper and deeper into the region of mere these volumes their name is legion—alto
fault-finding. We say nothing of his won gether overthrow our confidence in the can
derful admirations, and for his not less dour of the historian.
groundless dislikes; but when we look at the Space would soon fail us did we attempt
general scope and tenor of the book, we can anything like an enumeration of the fal
hardly convince ourselves that Mr. Carlyle is lacious arguments and perverted judg
in earnest. We feel it impossible to get into ments with which the Life of Frederic
a state of moral indignation on the matter, as abounds. We will recall to the recollection
some reviewers have done; the whole thing of our readers but one more example—per
looks so like a ponderous joke. Mr. Carlyle's haps the most remarkable of all. No
morality may be expressed by the formula-- one who ever read it has forgotten the story
act up to your character, that is, do whatever of the execution of Katte, the unhappy
you like; his politics may be expressed by companion of Frederic's flight, when driven
the formula—seize whatever you have a to despair by the brutality of his father. Mr.
chance of getting, and, when asked to give it Carlyle does his best to gloss over the bar
up, answer by demanding more. barity of Frederic William ; but the facts
Thus he really seems to believe that he represented even by his friendly pen—the
has satisfactorily disposed of all objections sentence of the court-martial changed into
to Frederic's faithfulness, by the question, one of death by the king—the sudden inti
“How, otherwise than even as Friedrich did, mation to the prisoner—this night drive of
would you, most veracious Smelfungus, have sixty miles just before his execution, for no
plucked out your Silesia from such an ele other purpose but that the prince should “see
ment and such a time !” which, in plain Eng him die”—the prince himself tortured into
lish, means that by setting before yourself an a happy insensibility, and so only escaping
utterly unjustifiable end you become entitled the sight of the death of his friend,—make
to adopt any means, however iniquitous, for up a drama of refined cruelty which recalls
its attainment. Again, what can any reader Carrier or Lebon, or some other of the more
make of the two following passages, occurring distinguished ruffians of the French Revolu
in the same volume, and but a few pages tion And then, at the end of all this, Mr.
apart?— Carlyle tells us that it was “indeed like the
“And indeed we will here advise our readers doings of the gods, which are cruel, though
to prepare for dismissing altogether that notion not that alone.” To the justly exasperated
of ' duplicity, mendacity, finesse and reader we can suggest this comfort, that a
the like, which was once widely current in the hobby is least mischievous when pushed to
world; and to attend always strictly to what its greatest extreme. Readers may therefore
Friedrich says, if they wish to guess what he is restrain their wrath; serious remonstrance
thinking; there being no such thing as ‘men would be even more out of place; but a feel
dacity' discoverable in Friedrich, when you ing of considerable irritation cannot be alto
take ' trouble to inform yourself.”—(Vol. iii.
: '" I can by no means call Fried gether

p. 419. restrained. If an author of ordinary
powers and moderate pretensions were to in
rich to his allies and neighbours, nor even super dite nonsense of this sort, inextinguishable
stitiously, veracious, in this business; but he laughter would be his portion. But when it
thoroughly understands, he alone, what first comes from a great teacher in Israel—a writer
thing he wants out of it, and what an enormous of rare genius and of vast influence; when
wigged mendacity it is he has got to deal with.
For the rest, he is at the £ with it is forced upon us with profound confidence,
these sharpers; their dice all cogged; and he and our assent demanded with the loftiest
knows it, and ought to profit by his knowledge arrogance, a plain man feels at once impa
of it. And, in short, to win his stake out of tient and affronted. It is not so much that
that foul weltering mediey, and go home safe his sense of morality is offended,—the thing
with it if he can.”–(Vol. iii. p. 478.) ... is too preposterous for that; but he feels in
a manner aggrieved by such outrageous in a white light. Thus when Walpole sends
sults to his understanding. What, on the subsidies to Austria he is covered with con
other hand, are those qualities which gain tempt; when Pitt does the same by Frederic
Mr. Carlyle's approval—which make him he is exalted to all honour. France is, by
thus slow to mark all extremes of iniquity? some curious legerdemain, made responsible
So far as we can see, mainly the possession for all the evils that have ever befallen Ger
of a mysterious something called veracity. many, for the Seven Years' War, for the
Thus Frederic William is forgiven every Thirty Years' War, both of which had begun
thing, because he is “a wild man, wholly in before she drew the sword. Nay, in order
earnest, veritable as the old rocks, and with to show how combustible were the elements
a terrible volcanic fire in him too. There is in 1740, and so afford some colour of an ex
a divine idea of fact put into him, the genus cuse to Frederic, the Spanish war, into which
Sham never hatefuller to any man.” We popular clamour dragged Walpole, is defend
are not supplied with any clearer definition ed,—-a war which was afterwards condemned
than the above of this precious characteris by the very men whose party-spirit brought
tic; neither do we gain much knowledge of it on, which, after lasting ten years, ended in
it from a study of those men by whom it a discreditable peace, without one of the ob
has been possessed and displayed in action. jects for which it was undertaken having been
Cromwell, Napoleon, Frederic William, Fre gained. The story of Jenkins' ear is narrat
deric the Great, what have these men in com ed with some pathos, and without the slight
mon ? And our difficulties are further in est indication of doubt, as an instance of the
creased by the fact that Mr. Carlyle is by no high-handed doings of the Spanish Guarda
means consistent in his predilections. Thus, Costas, and as “calculated to awaken a mari
in Hero-Worship, the leaders of the Com time public careful of its honour.” And yet
mons—Pym, Hampden, etc.—are lightly Mr. Carlyle can hardly be unaware that Burke
spoken of, as “worthy,” but “unloveable” treated the said story as a fable, and that
men, while in his Cromwell they are restored good authorities have attributed the less of
to favour; here we have Napoleon and his Mr. Jenkins' ear (which he always carried
wars denounced as “grounded on Drawcan about with him wrapped up in cotton), not
sir rodomontade, grandiose Dick Turpinism, to the truculence of Spanish Guarda-Costas,
revolutionary madness, and unlimited ex but to the homely severities of the English
penditure of men and gunpowder;” while pillory. When he comes on matters in
in the History of the French Revolution this which his favourites are directly concerned,
same Napoleon was “natural terror and hor his colouring is yet more illusory. We have
ror to all phantasms, being himself of the already remarked on the way in which he
genus Reality " So true is it that eccentri glosses over the shameful story of Katte. In
cities and dogmatism surely lead to incon the same fashion he omits or softens down
sistency and self-contradiction. many instances of Frederic's harshness, as
But Mr. Carlyle is open to another charge, his injustice to Moritz at Colin, or the bitter
worse even than this wanton disregard of contempt by which he broke his brother's
plain morality: he is not always scrupulous heart; of his cruelty, as his order before
or candid in his statements of facts. When, Zorndorf that no quarter should be given; or
as not unfrequently happens, the exigencies his scandalous bombardment of Dresden,
of his case drive him into a corner, he does which Sismondi reprobates as “une des taches
not stick at a trifle to get out of it. We are les plus odieuses qui termissent sa mémoire.”
far from saying that Mr. Carlyle is wilfully Worse still, we hear not a word of those pro
unfair or inaccurate—naturally he is, we fessions of regard and friendship with which
should think, the most honest of men,—but this most “veracious” politician amused the
we do mean to say, that to be constantly Empress-Queen up to the very moment when
maintaining a pet paradox, or supporting a he dashed into Silesia. Again, the miserable
very doubtful hero, must have a demoralizing Voltaire-quarrels are set forth with much
effect on the mind. A writer with such partiality, and at times convenient obscurity.
aims ever before him cannot preserve the Doubtless Voltaire has exaggerated the treat
fairness of his spirit. Historic impartiality is ment he and his niece received at Frankfort
one of the rarest of virtues, and is hardly from coarse Prussian soldiers; but is there
attainable by a man who is always fighting no truth in his story? Making every allow
against general opinion. It is not that di ance for exaggeration, was not the conduct
rectly erroneous statements are made, but of these military bullies savage to a degree;
hostile facts are so lightly thought of that and if Frederic did not expressly authorize
they are dropped out of the narrative alto their harshness, did he ever disavow it? Did
gether; things are looked at from a false he ever punish or rebuke any one in conse
point of view, are seen by a coloured, not by quence of it? Was not the whole trick ex
48 Carlyle’s History of Frederic the Great. Sept.
actly what might have been expected from to vindicate the Carlylian theory of goverr
Frederic,-the result of an unamiable craving ment more completely and conclusively than
for a contemptible revenge? the meanness of has ever yet been done, by showing it suc
the proceeding being, if possible, increased cessful in action. Has either of these things
by the pains taken that Frederic's share in it been accomplished?
should be concealed. How low this great Till Mr. Carlyle took the matter in hand,
prince should stoop to gratify his pleasure in people had pretty well made up their minds
inflicting pain, may be gathered from the as to the character of Frederic. Lord Stan
fact of his having actually issued orders to hope, the most impartial and sober-minded
curtail the sugar and chocolate consumed by of historians, thus writes of him —
his distinguished guest, a charge which Mr.
Carlyle, so far as we can see, does not ven “Wain, selfish, and ungrateful, destitute of
truth and honour, he valued his companions,
ture to contradict. Often a vital fallacy is not from former kindness. but only for future
dexterously conveyed in a few words, as use. But turn we to his talents, and we find
when we are told of “the Silesian, or parti the most consummate skill in war, formed by
tion of Prussia question;”—the fact being his own genius, and acquired from no master;
that Silesia did not at that time belong to we find a prompt, sagacious, and unbending ad
Prussia at all, and that the Empress Queen, in ministration of affairs; an activity and applica
her attempts on the province, was only seek tion seldom yield ng to sick, ess, and never
relaxed by pleasure, a d seeking no repose ex
ing to regain her own. Very extraordinary, cept by variety of occupation; a high and
too, is Mr. Carlyle's way of dealing with overruling ambition, capable of the greatest
Frederic's flight from the field at Mollwitz. exploits, or of the most abject baseness, as
That a young prince at his first battle should either tended to its object, but never lo ing
have been disturbed by the defeat of his sight of that object; pursuing it with dauntless
cavalry, and even swept away in their head courage and an eagle eye, smetimes in the
long rout, is small discredit to him; Frede heavens and sometimes through the mire, and
never tolerating either in himself or in others
ric's after life can well bear this slight weak one moment of languor, or one touch of pity.”
ness. But no spots must be on Mr. Carlyle's
sun. Accordingly, instead of simply saying To reverse such judgment as this—to
that Frederic ran away, he tells us that he make the world recognise in Frederic not
“was snatched by Morgante into Fairyland, only a great warrior and statesman, but also
carried by Diana to the top of Pindus (or an honest politician and a high-minded man,
even by Proserpine to Tartarus, through a is Mr. Carlyle's leading object. Whether or
bad sixteen hours), till the battle whirlwind not he has succeeded in this object we shall
subsided.” Maupertuis told the English am hereafter see; but in the first place, we must
bassador at Vienna how he rode off in the remark that his devotion thereto has, in one
King's suite, how some Austrian hussars sal important respect, been prejudicial to the
lied out of Oppeln upon them, whereupon real value and interest of his work. His en
Frederic, exclaiming, “Farewell, my friends, deavour to set Frederic before us in a new
I am better mounted than you all,” gaily light makes him dwell upon the influence
rode off, leaving his friends to captivity. No and doings of that prince, to the entire ex
very great sin after all, except in the manner clusion of the various elements, at once of
of doing the thing; but Mr. Carlyle will discord and of progress, which were then
have none of it, and so disposes of Mauper awakened in the world. Mr. Carlyle could
tuis by quoting against him Voltaire's ac never be a supporter of the “dynamical”
count of his doings after Mollwitz. This is theory of history; but in this book he re
really too bad. Voltaire to be cited as a jects it altogether, and thereby misses the
good authority against Maupertuis, the man real grandeur of his theme. In the struggle
of all others whom he most hated and de which we know by the name of the Seven
spised ! What a “world of scorn would Years' War, many forces were at work very
look beautiful” in Mr. Carlyle's eyes at the different from the ambition of Frederic. The
idea of Voltaire being quoted as an authority national and political spirit of Germany was
against Frederic | This list of omissions and moving on the face of the waters. . It had
misrepresentations, ranging from matters of slept a deep sleep ever since the death of
the highest moment to matters seemingly of Gustavus on the field of Lützen. The old
the lowest, might be extended almost indefi mediaeval tendencies towards independence
nitely; and it seems conclusive against the and self-government had been utterly over
trustworthiness of Mr. Carlyle's history. whelmed in the Thirty Years' War. A
With all this, what has Mr. Carlyle made gloomy reign of darkness and terror—of
out? The main purpose of his book seems Austria and Popery—had lasted for some
to be twofold-first, to give to the world in hundred years. But the time had now come,
Frederic the ideal of a patriot king; second, though the fulness of time was not yet. The
league formed against Frederic, which Pitt, dull, we might silently go to sleep. But no
with pardonable exaggeration, styled “the slumbers are possible to Mr. Carlyle's hear
most powerful and malignant confederacy ers; and as we cannot choose but listen, and
that ever yet has threatened the independ listen to much that is quite wrong, we are
ence of mankind,” roused, to some extent, forced to take up our testimony on the other
that independence which it menaced. De side.
spite the blind of the accession of Sweden, Two events in Frederic's life may be taken
it was universally felt to be a league of Catho as decisive of the case—the invasion of Si
lics against Protestantism, and the spirit of lesia and the partition of Poland. Of these
the sixteenth century swelled high in favour the former is incomparably the more import
of the successor of the “Lion of the North.” ant. For here undoubtedly we have the
Clement XIII. did Frederic an invaluable key to the whole of Frederic's career. If his
service when he sent a sword and a velvet seizure of Silesia, in the first instance, was
hat, and dove of pearls, enriched with his justifiable, the guilt of what followed does
pontifical benediction, to Marshal Daun. . It not rest with him. Mr. Carlyle has laboured
was a struggle, too, of despotism against this point in his hero's favour, and quite
liberty. Austria, the overthrower of the fairly : “His first expedition to Silesia,—a
Hanseatic cities, the destroyer of Bohemia, rushing out to seize your own stolen horse,
the violator of the Constitution of Hungary while the occasion answered,—was a volun
and of the Low Countries, could never be tary one; produced, we may say, by Fried
regarded as other than the bitter foe of free rich's own thought and the Invisible Powers.
dom and of German nationality. In every But the rest were all purely compulsory,—to
way it was a contest between darkness and defend the horse he had seized.” Doubtless
light, for the awakening mind of Germany this last sentence is quite true. All Frede
was naturally on the side of German inde ric's subsequent history runs up to the inva
pendence. Thus all the stars in their courses sion of Silesia. His wars were undertaken
fought for Frederic. In his behalf—the scep either to ward off anticipated danger from
tic, the despot, the French littérateur—were this coveted province, or to defend it when
enlisted the influences of Protestantism, of openly attacked. They all take their cha
love of liberty, and of the rising power of racter, so to speak, from the original outbreak
German thought. The spirit of the times in 1740. It becomes, therefore, a matter of
was on the side of Frederic—an aid which, some importance to see what was the nature
even if despised by him or undeserved, should of Frederic's claims to Silesia. The sort of
not have been omitted in the story of his information which the reader will gain from
life. Such omission may tend to the greater Mr. Carlyle on this point may be gathered
glory of Frederic, though we doubt this; from the following passages:—
but it certainly is a serious injustice to the “No fair judge can blame the young man
reader, and detracts sadly from the dignity that he laid hold of the flaming Opportunity in
and the value of the record. this manner, and obeyed the new omen. To
But to return to Frederic's character. The seize such an opportunity, and perilously mount
point on which he is most generally con upon it, was the part of a young magnanimous
demned is his conduct of the foreign affairs king, less sensible to the perils and more to the
of Prussia. In his relations with other king other
been.”
considerations, than one older would have
doms he is accused of unprincipled ambition “Friedrich, after such trial and proof as has
and utter faithlessness. Now we should have seldom been, got his claims on Schlesien allow
been well content had the question of Frede ed by the Destinies. His claims on Schlesien; :
ric's public morality or immorality been left and on infinitely higher things; which were
without remark to the judgment of the found to be his and his nation's: though he had
reader. We have no great love for that not been consciously thinking of them in mak
style of history-writing which is always ing that adventure. For, as my poor Friend
insists, there are Laws valid in Earth and
pointing a moral. We prefer greatly the Heaven; and the great soul of the world is
passionless indifference of Thucydides, who just.”—(Vol. iii. pp. 141,335)
sheds his light alike upon the just and the
This can hardly be considered satisfactory
unjust. We have no inclination to preach historical
ourselves, and we have still less inclination information; and really there is
to listen to the preaching of others. If Mr. little better to be got. We suspect that very
Carlyle would only tell us calmly and truth few, even among the careful students of these
fully what took place, and then leave us volumes, could tell what Frederic's claims on
alone! But this is precisely what Mr. Car Silesia really were. Clear statement of them
lyle will not do. He is for ever in the pul: there is none; but from the obscurities of
it; exhorting, prophesying, denouncing. If the first volume the diligent reader may glean
# doctrine were sound, and his preaching an idea of their nature, though a vague and
WOL. XLIII,
insufficient one. We will do our best to right to alienate it according to his own
state them shortly and plainly. arbitrary wish,-that, in short, as lawyers
When Silesia first comes clearly into the put it, “no man is in law the absolute owner
light of European history—about the middle of lands; he can only hold an estate in
of the tenth century—it had been Christian them.” The rights accruing to Prussia, in
ized, and was governed by Poland. Divi virtue of these transactions, constituted Fre
sions of the heritage of the Polish crown deric's best claim on Silesia. Another and
among the members of the Royal family a weaker ground for justifying the invasion
made Silesia independent about the middle arose as follows:—The principality of Jägen
of the twelfth century. Towards the middle dorf, also a district of Silesia, had come into
of the fourteenth century it became a feuda the possession of Joachim Frederic, Elector
tory of Bohemia, or rather a part of that of Brandenburg, by various steps which it is
kingdom, partly by resignations of various Si not necessary to narrate here. Joachim gave
lesian dukes, partly by a fortunate marriage of it to his second son, John George. The new
the son of that king of Bohemia who fell at Duke of Jägendorf, unfortunately for himself,
Cressy. From this time Silesia shared the warmly supported the Elector-Palatine in his
fortunes, good and evil, of Bohemia; adopt attempt on the crown of Bohemia. The
ed the doctrines of Huss, welcomed the Re result of that attempt, and the fate of the
formation, and supported the cause of the “Winter-King,” is well known. The Duke
“Winter-King;” and had therefore to en was laid under the Ban of the Empire, and
dure, in a greater or less degree, the miseries of course forfeited Jägendorf, the investiture
of the wars of Zisca, and the yet greater of which was conferred on the prince of the
miseries of the Thirty Years' War. The House of Lichtenstein. With the merits of
treaty of Westphalia made no difference in the cause which the unlucky John George
the political position of Silesia; only secured espoused we have nothing at present to do.
to it freedom of religious opinion, a privi He played and lost; and accordingly forfeited
lege which the House of Austria laboured his possessions. The proceedings of the
perseveringly to take away. In 1537, Sile House of Austria may have been harsh, but
sia, or rather certain portions of Silesia, be cannot be called illegal. The danger had
came connected with Prussia in the follow been too great for lenity. Rulers more
ing manner:—Frederick Duke of Brieg and merciful than the House of Hapsburg has
Liegnitz-principalities in Silesia, concluded a ever shown itself, would hardly have proved
treaty of succession or agreement, to succeed lenient to the adherents of a cause which
reciprocally, on failure of heirs to either, with had nearly torn from them such a possession
Joachim the Second, Elector of Brandenburg. as the kingdom of Bohemia. Mr. Carlyle, of
Doubts, however, existed from the first as to course, attacks this proceeding as “contrary
the legality of this treaty, and nine years to all law " Unfortunately for himself he
after its execution it was declared null by the gives his reasons, or rather his reason, which
King of Bohemia, afterwards the Emperor is merely that Johann George had left “inno
Ferdinand the First. In this declaration of cent sons;” as if rulers had always recognised,
nullity the states of Bohemia concurred, and or were at all bound to recognise, the amiable
the Duke of Liegnitz at least acquiesced. doctrine that the political sins of parents do
Nay, the states of Bohemia were the first to not descend to children. Lastly, in 1686,
challenge the proceeding. Mr. Carlyle calmly the Elector Frederic William expressly re
assumes that the paction was “questionable nounced his pretensions to Jägendorf and the
by no mortal.” But the point is not quite other Silesian duchies in exchange for a dis
so clear. The right of a vassal to dispose of trict, contiguous to his own dominions, and
his lands is most distinctly though implicitly called them “the circle of Schwiebus.” Fre
limited by the condition that he must not deric's son was jockeyed out of this circle of
dispose of them to the injury of his suzerain Schwiebus for the sum of £25,000; but
and of his country. Would the Earl of nevertheless the renunciation of the father,
Warwick, under our Edward IV., have been if, indeed, that renunciation was required,
entitled, by the laws of England, to make remained good.
such a “heritage-brotherhood” with the To rake up from the dust of past centuries
Duke of Burgundy ? The illustration is per pretensions such as these, and make them
haps a strong one. But it brings out the the ground for war, is conduct the rectitude
principle which justifies the states of Bohemia of which it would be idle to discuss. No
and the King in what they did; a principle wonder that Mr. Carlyle finds it convenient
which not only regulated the whole feudal to talk vaguely of Frederic's “claims,” with
system, but which lies at the root of all te out clearly telling us what these claims were.
nures now,-the principle that a vassal does If such pleas are to be regarded as a cause of
not hold his land absolutely,–that he has no war, the world could never be at peace for
a week together. What would be said of riching themselves with the spoils of the
France were she to take up arms that she great Austrian heritage; but such virtue,
might enlarge her borders till they should be rare at any time, would have been un
as they were at the peace of Amiens? What precedented and incomprehensible in the
would be said of the King of Holland were middle of the eighteenth century. Why,
he to begin a European war that he might we might rather ask, should she have re
regain the Belgian provinces? Nay, fresh as frained from the plunder ? She was bound
the wound is, would Austria be held justified by no ties to Austria. She had not been
were she, without any new provocation, to recently an ally and friend of the House of
overrun with her troops the plains of Lom Hapsburg. On the contrary, France and
bardy? But Frederic's conduct was far more Austria had been foes for long ages. It was
flagrant than any of the cases we have sup too much to expect that either of these
posed. His claims were antiquated—pre Powers would let slip a favourable oppor
scribed by the lapse of centuries. It is, to say tunity of humiliating and reducing the other.
the least, exceedingly doubtful whether they And yet France is loaded with abuse for
were at the first well founded. Beyond doubt having yielded to temptation, and gone to
they had been distinctly waived by his ances: war openly and above-board; while Frederic's
tors, and prince after prince of his house had treacherous robbery is justified and praised.
acquiesced in that waiver. And lastly, Prus It is really too much that history should be
sia was a party to treaties whereby the inte turned topsy-turvy in this fashion. On Fre
grity of those dominions which Frederic trea deric, and on Frederic alone, lies the blame
cherously invaded was expressly guaranteed. of having commenced this fearful strife.
Of course Mr. Carlyle laughs at the Prag But for his unprincipled ambition, peace
matic Sanction: “the only real treaties are a would have probably been preserved. In
well-trained army, and your treasury full.” peace lay the only hope of safety for Austria.
Truly a comforting doctrine for the wellbeing France and England were ruled by minis
of mankind, calculated to promote peace and ters to whom peace had been always dear.
good-will, and stop the present mania for Russia had nothing to gain by war, and
armaments, -in all ways well worthy of a showed no inclination to move. These
great teacher of the public mind. But surely Powers, together with Poland and Holland,
we cannot disregard the fact that all the had expressly declared their intention of
States of Europe, Prussia included, had bound maintaining the Pragmatic Sanction. And
themselves to maintain the Pragmatic Sanc no one of them showed any symptom of
tion—a treaty which regulated the Austrian falsifying these declarations until the example
succession, and secured the Austrian domi of the King of Prussia called the whole world
nions. That instrument, in the weighty words to arms. “On his head is all the blood
of Lord Macaulay, “was placed under the which was shed in a war which raged during
protection of the public faith of the whole many years and in every quarter of the globe,
civilized world.” And yet Mr. Carlyle would the blood of the column of Fontenoy, the
convince us that Frederic did well to violate blood of the monntaineers who were slaugh
his obligations under that instrument, because, tered at Culloden. The evils produced by
forsooth, “flaming Opportunity” invited him; his wickedness were felt in lands where the
that is, because Austria was poor, because the name of Prussia was unknown; and, in order
Emperor was dead, and because the young that he might rob a neighbour whom he had
matronhood of the daughter of the man to promised to defend, black men fought on the
whom Frederic probably owed his life might coast of Coromandel, and red men scalped
prove unequal to the cares of empire. each other by the great lakes of North
The results of this treachery were such as America.” The beginning of strife is like
might easily have been foreseen. When war the letting out of waters. It is a terrible
had once begun all the nations of the earth question,—At whose door lies the guilt of a
athered together to the fray. According to war? And by what motive driven did Fre
r. Carlyle, France is to blame for this. deric do these things? In his manifestoes he
Why should she have interfered, and have spoke a little, and Mr. Carlyle now speaks a
so “palpably made herself the author of the great deal, of “claims” on Silesia; but it
conflagration of deliriums that ensued for must be admitted that Frederic did not, as a
above seven years henceforth; nay, for above rule, pretend to more virtue than he had.
twenty years”? Undoubtedly France was In his letters and conversations he ascribed
wrong. We are in no way concerned to his conduct to its true motives—a desire to
defend her. But is it just that she should extend his territory, and a vain craving for
bear the whole, or even the chief blame? It La Gloire.
would have been right, of course, in her to
have kept aloof, and seen other nations en * Lord Macaulay's Essay on Frederic.
His schemes were carried out with pro curses” over that proceeding. Mr. Carlyle
found secrecy and duplicity. He preferred defends or palliates it by drawing a forcible
no demand for redress, he made no declara and humorous picture of Poland in a state of
tion of war. He continued his assurances of “anarchy, pestilence, famine, and pigs eating
amity up till the last moment, and had overrun your dead bodies,” deliverance from which
Silesia with his troops before Austria knew would be a manifest blessing for Poland her
that he had any cause of quarrel against her. self, and hardly less so for her neighbours.
As he began the war, so he carried it on. The Poles are plainly no favourites with Mr.
With every new success he rose, “sibyl-like,” Carlyle; and their constitution, as described
in his demands; and yet Mr. Carlyle affects by him, with the right of confederation—that
to be mightily indignant because the world is, the right of any man to disobey the law
would not credit his professions of moderation. when he might think fit; and the Liberum
But whenever his own ends were secured, he Veto—that is, the right of any man to stop
cared little for the safety of his allies, or for the proceedings of the whole parliament,—
the preservation of his own honour. After “an ever-flowing fountain of anarchy, joyful
the battle of Chotusitz, Maria Theresa agreed to the Polish nation,”—certainly seems the
to cede Silesia, and he abandoned France most remarkable form of social existence
and Bavaria without a thought. France, under which mortal men ever attempted to
pressed by Austria and England, was soon live and prosper. We should like to quote
reduced to desperate straits; Bavaria was much here, but we must content ourselves
overrun with bands of Austrian hussars, and with the summing up:--
her unhappy Elector hurried heartbroken to “The Poles put fine colours on all this; and
the grave. Then Frederic took alarm at the are much contented with themselves. The
ascendency of Austria, allied himself anew Russians they regard as intrinsically an inferior
with France, and without complaint, without barbarous people; and to this day you will hear
cause of offence, a second time invaded the indignant Polack Gentlemen bursting out in the
Austrian dominions. A year had barely same strain: ‘Still barbarian, sir; no culture,
elapsed when he again deserted France, and no literature,'—inferior because they do not
concluded another peace with Austria, now make verses equal to ours! How it may be
with the verses, I will not decide; but the Rus
sufficiently humiliated. In fact, his policy sians are inconceivably superior in respect that
was simply this: to seize whatever he could, they have, to a singular degree among Nations,
and then so to play off France against Austria the gift of obeying, of being commanded. Po
as to prevent the fruits of his robberies being lack Chivalry sniffs at the mention of such a gift.
forced out of his hands. The policy was astute, Polack Chivalry got sore stripes for wanting
and it was pursued with perfect resolution, this gift. And in the end, got striped to death,
rapacity, and faithlessness. A desire to stand and flung out of the world, for continuing blind to
well in public opinion, somewhat strange in the want of it, and never acquiring it. Beyond
all the verses in Nature, it is essential to every
such a politician,—connected perhaps with Chivalry and Nation and Man. “Polite Polish
the real admiration and the love of letters
Society for the last thirty years has felt itself to
which formed part of his character,-prompt be in a most halcyon condition, says Rulhière;"
ed him from time to time to justify his con ‘given up to the agreeable, and to that only;'
duct in the eyes of Europe.” Thus, on the charming evening-parties and a great deal of flirt
occasion of his second attack on Austria in ing: full of the benevolences, the philanthropies,
1744, he published a letter or address to the the new ideas,—given up especially to the pleas
people of England. He does not seem to ing idea of “Laissez-faire, and everything will
come right of itself. “What a discovery !'
have taken much by the motion. “A poor said every liberal Polish mind; “for thousands
performance,” writes Horace Walpole of it; of years, how people did torment themselves
“his Voltaires and his literati should correct trying to steer the ship; never knowing that
his works before they are printed. To pen the plan was, to let go the helm, and honestly
manifestoes worse than the lowest commis sit down to your mutual amusements and
that is kept jointly by two or three Mar powers of pleasing!'
graves, is insufferable.” “To this condition of beautifully phosphores
On the question of the partition of Poland cent rot-heap has Poland ripened, in the helpless
we have less to say. Our readers will not reigns of those poor Augusts;—the fulness of
time not now far off, one would say? It would
hear from us any “shrieks or foam-lipped complete the picture, could I go into the state
cf what is called ‘Religion’ in Poland. Dis
* Mr. Carlyle differs from this, and finds in Fre senterism, of various poor types, is extensive;
deric “not the least anxiety to stand well with and, over-against it, is such a type of Jesuit
any reader." This may be true of Frederic in his Fanaticism as has no fellow in that time. Of
autobiography, but not as a rule. Witness the which there have been truly savage and sangui
instance in the text, his publication of the papers
£ : Dresden, and his Apologie dema Conduite nary outbreaks, from time to time; especially
in 1757.
* Rulhière, i. 216 (a noteworthy passage).
one at Thorn, forty years ago, which shocked many instances in which successful Ultra
Friedrich Wilhelm and the whole Protestant
montanism has proved the ruin of nations.
world. Polish Orthodoxy in that time, and Still, judged of by the results, the partition
perhaps still in ours, is a thing worth noting.
A late Tourist informs me, he saw on the streets of Poland was, to say the least of it, a seri
of Stettin, not long since, a drunk human crea ous blunder, and the above defence can be
ture staggering about, who seemed to be a Bal pleaded on behalf of Catherine alone. Yet
tic Sailor, just arrived; the dirtiest, or among it would be well for Frederic's reputation if
the dirtiest of mankind; who, as he reeled along, nothing worse than his share in this transac
kept slapping his hands upon his breast, and tion could be laid to his charge.
shouting, in exultant soliloquy, ‘Polack, Catho Students of the military science will find
lik I’ am a Pole and Orthodox, ye inferior much to interest them in these volumes. Not
two-legged entities!—In regard to the Jesuit
Fanaticisms at Thorn and elsewhere, no blame only are the battles narrated, as we said
can attach to the poor Augusts, who always before, distinctly and with brilliancy, so that
leant the other way, what they durst or could. ordinary readers can understand and enjoy; .
Nor is speciality of blame due to them on any but no little skirmish is forgotten, and the
score; it was ‘like People, like King, all along; plans of Frederic's campaigns are mapped
—and they, such their luck, have lived to out in a way which must for soldiers be both
bring in the fulness of time.”—(Vol. vi. pp.409, interesting and instructive. We can imagine
410.)
no more profitable study than the study
Looking upon these things, Mr. Carlyle is of Frederic's marches and manoeuvres—in
clearly of opinion that Poland was moribund, which, so far as we can judge, his military
and had well deserved to die. He makes a genius is even more conspicuous than on the
somewhat novel application of the old analogy field of actual battle, always excepting the
between the State and the Individual, main signal triumphs of Rossbach and Leuthen.
taining that just as when a man “has filled Indeed, for so great a captain, Frederic com
the measure of his wicked blockheadisms, mitted some extraordinary blunders in the
sins and brutal nuisancings, there are Gib work of fighting. At Colin, Hochhirch, and
bets provided, there are Laws provided; and Kunersdorf, disregarding the counsels of his
you can, in an articulate regular manner, best officers, he rushed into errors which
hang him and finish him to general satisfac brought him to the brink of destruction. At
tion,” so nations fallen into depths of decay Prague, again, he rejected advice which, had
must be disposed of by some similar pro it been followed, would have secured to him
cess. There is much truth in all this, but not only the victory he gained, but the total
the analogy fails in one important point, and final overthrow of the foe. In fact,
namely, that it is not so easy to hang a na Frederic was not a heaven-born general.
tion as to hang one man. The “finishing” is Lord Stanhope, in the passage we before
an essential element in Mr. Carlyle's process; quoted, was quite mistaken when he spoke
and to finish a nation is a hard thing. Po of Frederic's skill in war as “formed by his
land, for example, has not been finished to own genius and acquired from no master.”
this day. Had the partition of Poland, once It was formed by long experience, and ac
accomplished, proved to be a matter disposed quired, not only from the teaching of his own
of for ever, had no re-partitions and rebel veterans, but from some severe practical les
lions ensued, Mr. Carlyle's defence might sons administered in his second Silesian war,
have been held conclusive; but, as things by old Marshal Traun. “No general,” says
have turned out, the case is not quite so Frederic himself, “committed more faults
clear. Of all the parties concerned, how than did the King in this campaign.” It
ever, the Czarina was most free from blame. was a campaign of manoeuvring not fighting,
Mr. Merivale, in his recently published vo and Frederic was out-manoeuvred. His cam
lume of Essays, has shown that she interfered paigns in the Seven Years' War had very
not only in the interests of order, but as the different issues. Beaten he sometimes was,
champion of religious liberty. The terri out-marched or out-manoeuvred never.
tory which she took from Poland had been It would be out of place to discuss here at
for long a debatable land between two bar any length Frederic's qualities as a com
barous nations. She interfered in answer to mander, even were we qualified to do so;
the appeals and supplications of millions of but the constitution of his army, and his
serfs, almost all orthodox Greeks ground bearing towards both his officers and their
down to the earth by a savage and bigoted men, are points of general interest, and which
aristocracy, the victims at once of tyranny throw some light on his character. What
and fanaticism. The Archbishop of Cracow
had induced the Diet to bind themselves by * He always admitted that he regarded this
a solemn vow never to extend toleration to campaign as his school in the art of war, and M.
schismatics,—thus adding another to the de Traun as his teacher.
manner of man did he show himself to be in thing else, was ever other than lenient to
this most important relation of his life? The mere errors of judgment.
first thing which strikes us is, that a harsher The constitution of Frederic's army was
chief never led men to victory. He praised in the highest degree remarkable. It was
rarely, rewarded almost never, and punished officered by Prussians and nobles; but the
unsparingly. In his officers he visited mere troops were gathered from all quarters of the
blunders with cruel severity. Bevern, a brave earth, and by every possible device of lying
and skilful captain, was sent to Stettin in dis and kidnapping. Mr. Carlyle never alludes
grace because of the doubtful result of the to Frederic's recruiting expedients, though he
battle of Breslau, fought in circumstances does to those of his father. But Frederic
which even Mr. Carlyle admits to have been was, in this respect, even worse than Frederic
“horribly difficult.” Schmettau, for the William. He had his miserable crimps
capitulation of Dresden,-a capitulation ex spread all over Europe, kidnapping peasants,
pressly authorized by Frederic himself about or seducing the troops of his allies; sticking
a month before it happened,—was disgraced at no crime to gain men to be sacrificed to
and never employed again. Years after, the ambition of this “last of the Kings.” He
when the aged veteran ventured to complain profited by their disgraceful services, and
of the scanty pension allowed him from the paid them; but if they were detected he
Invalid List, he received the gracious answer disowned them, and left them to their fate.
that he should be “thankful he had not lost The cruelty of the treatment to which these
his head.” General Finck, an able soldier, troops were subjected was such as few armies
of tried skill and courage, who had been have ever experienced. The following de
thought worthy to be intrusted with the scription, though given in a work of fiction,
command of the army after the disaster of is no whit exaggerated:—
Kunersdorf, was ordered by the king, against
his own vehement remonstrances, into a “The life the private soldier led was a fright
ful one to any but men of iron courage and
position of extraordinary difficulty and dan endurance. There was a corporal to every three
ger at Maxen—“has a Sphinx riddle on his men, marching behind them, and pitilessly using
mind, such as soldiers seldom had.” He the cane; so much so that it used to be said
failed to extricate himself, and was forced to that in action there was a front rank of privates
capitulate. For this he received a year's and second rank of sergeants and corporals to
imprisonment in Spandau, and was thereafter drive them on. . . . The punishment was in
dismissed the service. Throughout his life cessant. Every officer had the liberty to inflict
Frederic kept up a strange vindictiveness to it; and in peace it was more cruel than in war.
. . . I have seen the bravest men of the army
wards every one who had been, however cry like children at a cut of the cane; I have
innocently, connected with this disgrace; seen à little ensign of fifteen call out a man of
possibly because he must have felt that he fifty from the ranks,—a man who had been in
had himself in great measure to blame for a hundred battles,—and he has stood presenting
it. Years after, when an officer, who had arms and sobbing and howling like a baby while
belonged to the capitulating army, fallen into the young wretch lashed him over the arms
poverty and evil times, sent in a humble and thighs with the stick. In the day of action
this man would dare anything. A button might
petition for a pension, Frederic wrote on the be awry then and nobody touched him; but
margin, with cruel sarcasm: “Assign him a when they had made the brute fight then they
pension by all means! assign it on the profits lashed him again into subordination.”
of Maxen.” Such conduct betrays unmis.
takably a cruel nature, and is very short The This horrible life was uncheered by hope.
sighted besides. Frederic was not better possibility of promotion at once awakes
served in consequence of it, but worse. In the stimulus of personal ambition and im
£
stances not a few occurred in these wars, in or thea Prussian
feeling of professional dignity; but
soldier there was no such
which Frederic's generals, from an undue
dread of his displeasure, rushed upon disaster possibility. The army must be officered by
against their own better judgment. Thus, nobles alone. This illustrious prince, in
in 1760, Fouquet, “the Bayard” of Prussia, all whom Mr. Carlyle discovers, as the soul of
his noble tendencies, “that he has an
reluctantly obeying Frederic's mistaken orders
(Spandau and disgrace might have been endless appetite for men of merit, and feels,
awaiting him otherwise), lost Silesia, and consciously and otherwise, that they are the
some 10,000 men. Fear indeed is a deadly one thing beautiful, the one thing needful to
foe to good counsel. No man can exercise officer when
him,” peace came, would dismiss any
who was not noble, whatever his ser
the full powers of his mind when disturbed
by the knowledge that a mistake, however vices might have been. In spite of all his
innocent, will certainly entail punishment. cant about equality and sneers at blood, he
Accordingly no wise chief, in war or any * Thackeray, Barry Lyndon.
was in practice a bitter aristocrat. He carried portunity offered, as at the retreat from Dres
his reverence of German quarterings even den, in scores and hundreds; but no mutiny
into his administration of civil affairs. He was ever brought to a successful issue, though
would not allow a merchant to travel at more the attempt was more than once made. The
than a certain fixed rate of expense; he difficulty of combination, in such circum
would allow a nobleman's estate to be pur stances, is almost insuperable; and we fear
chased by none but a nobleman. The punish it must be added, that there is a tendency in
ments by which this motley army was kept human nature to cower before stern oppres
in order were frightful. Death was regarded sion. Of this strange army we get no know
as a secondary punishment. In order to in ledge from these pages; we are presented in
sure a capital sentence a strange and horrible stead with an imaginary picture of high
crime of child-murder became prevalent. The minded Prussians, devoted to their king, and
soldiers shrank from the guilt of suicide; but overflowing with patriotism and Lutheran
they thought it little harm to secure their hymns.
own release from suffering by causing the The third of Mr. Carlyle's volumes opens
death of an innocent child. That even such with rejoicings over the beginning of Frede
an army as this fought well under Frederic ric's civil reforms—rejoicings not wholly un
is matter for no surprise. For they knew deserved. He showed a real anxiety for the
their trade well, and on the field of battle speedy administration of justice, and did his
that knowledge must come into play. Men best to secure for his subjects this great bless
are essentially combative by nature; and the ing. He abolished torture. He granted to
hounds love the huntsman who can best all sects, except the Jews, perfect religious
show them the prey. But they fought un liberty. He allowed uncontrolled freedom of
stirred by any of those influences which thought and expression. These were great
almost make fighting virtue. It is too bad boons. But one boon, greater than all these,
of Mr. Carlyle to compare such an army as was persistently withheld, namely, freedom
this to Cromwell's Ironsides. He has else of action. “My people,” he said, “may think
where described it far more truly,– “fighters as they please, provided I may act as I
animated only by drill-sergeants, messroom please!” Never was a people so regulated
moralities, and the drummer's cat l”* A few and disciplined in every relation of life. They
of the native Prussian soldiers did show could not marry, or buy or sell, or travel
something of stern enthusiasm, as at Leu abroad, or stay at home, save as the king
then; but these were the exception. The thought fit. And the extraordinary thing is,
stock of such men was soon exhausted; and that he did all this superintendence himself.
the rest were merely the best fighting brutes, He had absolutely no ministers. Those who
perfectly trained, and handled by a master. are curious to see how nearly the life of a
Never, we think, did the profession of arms great and illustrious prince may resemble the
wear a less inviting aspect. The army, as a life of a galley-slave should read Lord Ma
body, was animated by nothing of that religi caulay's sketch of Frederic's business habits.
ous and political enthusiasm which made the He himself did all the work of governing
troops of the Commonwealth the finest Prussia, and what that work must have been,
soldiers the world has ever seen, or of that owing to his love of meddling and distrust
passion for distinction and glory, that fervid of subordinates, it is hardly possible for us to
devotion to a leader, which carried the le conceive. A nobleman could not go to Aix
gions of Napoleon triumphantly to the close la-Chapelle for his health; a man of letters
of many a bloody day. When Frederic him could not go to Holland to procure informa
self implored them to return to the charge tion for a history of that country, without
at Colin, he had for his answer, “No, no, special permission from the king.” Sir
Fritz; we have done enough for eightpence Charles Hanbury Williams thus writes to
a day.” No such thought was present to Mr. Fox in 1751 : “If a courier is to be de
any English or French soldier when brought spatched to Versailles, or a minister to Vienna,
up to turn the doubtful battle at Marston his Prussian Majesty draws himself the in
Moor or Marengo.
The one inexplicable puzzle to our mind is, * The marginal notes written by Frederic on the
reports sent to him by his ministers, or more
that this army never rose up in impetuous re properly speaking, secretaries, are characteristic,
volt and put a stop to the whole thing, by and sometimes most amusing. The answer which
shooting, if necessary, the king and every he gives to a petition from some officials objecting
officer they had. We are told indeed that to the promotion of their juniors over their heads,
Frederic was never quite safe on parade, and
is well worthy of attention # ourselves:
“I have in my stable a parcel of old mules, who
no wonder. The troops deserted, when op have served me a long while, but I have not yet
found any of them apply to be made superinten
* French Revolution, vol. iii. dents of the stable.",
structions for the one, and writes the letters and not the less so because he violated, pretty
for the other. This you will say is great; consistently, all the doctrines of free-trade.
but if a dancer at the opera has disputes
“To prevent disappointment, I ought to add
with a singer, or if one of those performers that Friedrich is the reverse of orthodox in
wants a new pair of stockings, a plume for “Political Economy; that he had not faith in
his helmet, or a finer petticoat, the same king
Free Trade, but the reverse; nor had ever
of Prussia sits in judgment on the cause, and heard of those Ultimate Evangels, unlimited
with his own hand answers the dancer's or competition, fair start, and perfervid race by
singer's letter.”f His leading idea was to all the world (towards ‘cheap-and-nasty, as the
make Prussia a barrack-yard. He was per likeliest winning-post for all the world), which
suaded that his people could not act or think have since been vouchsafed us.”—(Vol. iv. p.
370.)
wisely for themselves, and that he therefore “They are eloquent, ruggedly strong Essays,
must think and act for them. In his concep those of a Mirabeau Junior upon Free Trade;
tion of how to promote the wellbeing of a they contain, in condensed shape, everything
nation he was far inferior to Peter the Great. we were privileged to hear, seventy years later,
The Czar laboured to raise brutes into men ; from all organs, coach-horns, jews-harps, and
Frederic's aim was that men should remain scrannel-pipes, pro and contra, on the same
as children. sublime subject: ‘God is great, and Plugson of
Perhaps the most inexcusable and per Undershot is his Prophet. Thus saith the Lord,
Buy in the cheapest market, sell in the dear
nicious development of Frederic's love of est!'”—(Vol. vi. p. 351.)
meddling was when he interfered with the
administration of the law. The story of It is no cause of reproach to Frederic that
Miller Arnold's lawsuit is well known. We he did not understand or appreciate free
have no space to go into that matter here, trade; but it is difficult to keep one's temper
further than is necessary to illustrate Frede when a man like Mr. Carlyle condescends to
ric's style of government. If, after repeated such idle buffoonery as this. It was hard
investigation and consideration, all the best enough to get free-trade adopted; it is even
judges in a country should agree on a point now hard enough to get it carried out; and
in an intricate and difficult branch of law; it is very intolerable that a great writer and
if, in spite of remonstrances and threats from pretentious teacher should indulge in mean
a despotic king, they adhere to their opinion ingless sneers at a policy which he cannot
as one which they cannot, on their con intelligently attack. That Frederic was
sciences, change or modify, people will be apt wrong in many of his views, as his horror
to think that they must be in the right. Not at the precious metals leaving the country,
so the king of Prussia. Without misgiving his love of monopolies, his belief that manu
he reversed the decision; abused the judges factures would flourish at his will, that trade
who pronounced it only a little less coarsely could be fostered by restrictive laws, will now
than his father would have done; and re a-days hardly be disputed. On the other
warded them for their conscientiousness by hand, he adopted a course with regard to
dismissal and imprisonment, finding them many matters, which, though we may hastily
liable also in damages to the successful liti condemn it as unsound, would seem, judged
gant. The results were what might have by the result, to have been eminently suc
been expected. For some time after the cessful; and Mr. Carlyle would have rendered
Courts of Law found the utmost difficulty in better service by helping us to a solution of
enforcing their authority; and it is gratify these difficulties, than by his vague denuncia
ing to know that hundreds of peasants used tions of the “Dismal Science,” as he thinks
to throng under the king's windows with pe it humorous to call Political Economy.
titions in their hands, all loudly shouting, It is hard indeed to say whether we are
“Please your Majesty, consider our case; we more astonished by Frederic's mode of sus
have been far worse treated than the Arnolds.” taining the burdens of war, or by his power
How the king relished this practical result of of repairing the ruin which war leaves be
his interference we are not informed. Finally hind. Even seen, as it only now can be seen,
Frederic's successor had to pay out of his by dim glimpses, his war budget is indeed
own pocket all the expenses occasioned by wonderful; to extravagant British minds al
this freak of royal equity, and so hush up the most inconceivable. The pay of the Prussian
matter. soldier was small, and when peace came ever
Frederic's commercial policy opens up a unnecessary man was rigorously paid off.
topic at once more attractive and instructive. The economy practised in every branch of
In many respects it was worthy of attention, the public service was carried to the verge
of meanness. The frugality practised in the
* Quoted in Lord Mahon's History of England. Royal household was unexampled, though it
Appendix, vol. iv. were much to be desired that it should gain
imitators. Moreover, the war was to a great have condemned all his proceedings. For
extent conducted on the principle of making example, at the close of the war he had in
war support war. In Saxony, an enemy's hand some twenty-five million thalers which
country, levies of men and contributions were he had got ready against the next campaign.
made by him during all those terrible years. These he spent himself, in the manner and at
Still the mystery remains quite inexplicable: the places where necessity seemed most im
how did he manage to come through that perious. Now it is certainly a doctrine of
fearful conflict without incurring a penny of Political Economy that private enterprise
debt? And then another curious question best develops the resources of a country.
arises, and one of some moment when nations But there is not in this science more than in
take to fighting, Would it not have been bet others any rule without exceptions; and the
ter if debt had been incurred ? Would not most rigid political economists will probably
much suffering have been avoided if more admit that crises may come in the history of
money had been forthcoming? Though the a nation, when the interference of the Go
nation did eventually recover, at the time the vernment may be not only harmless but
agony was almost too great for endurance. salutary. Such a crisis in our own history
Now, might not this agony have been greatly was the Irish famine. Some writers carry this
mitigated, might not much personal suffering doctrine considerable lengths, maintaining,
have been spared, much property have been for instance, that Government may, with good
preserved, by borrowing from the resources effect, afford to the people facilities of loco
of the future? Then, again, as to the tamper motion, so as to enable them to take advan
ing with the currency. Can it ever be good tage of any local rise in wages. Indeed,
in the long-run for the financial well-being of strictly looked at, is a State system of emi
a nation that the coinage should be debased gration anything but carrying out this prin
as Frederic debased it ! ciple on a large scale? The truth is, that
Yet more astonishing than Frederic's the doctrines of economic science cannot be
management of the war was the way in unbendingly applied to extraordinary condi
which Prussia, under his guidance, recovered tions of society. Prussia, at the close of the
from its effects. The state of the country at war, was in a condition altogether extraordi
the close of the Seven Years' conflict is not nary. Trade was annihilated, property inse
easy to be imagined. The population had cure, the law weak, and the people conse
been decreased by ten per cent.; wide tracts quently in that state in which a tendency to
of country lay desolate; the villages were hoard money, instead of profitably employ
depopulated; the fields were uncultivated; ing it, must have been wide-spread. It may
at best, only women and children remained therefore be doubted whether Frederic's
to follow the plough. The very seed-corn “paternal,” or rather steward-like, system of
had been devoured. The towns were hardly government was not well adapted to the exi
in better plight than the country. In Berlin gencies of the case. The question is most
itself a third part of the population was sup interesting, but we have no space to discuss
ported by alms. But if the guilty ambition it here—the rather that it is not opened by
of Frederic had reduced his country to this Mr. Carlyle. Instead of dealing with it he
point of misery, it is only fair to add that his has chosen to indulge in such “inarticulate
industry and administrative capacity soon shriekings” against Political Economy and
raised her out of it. In some three or four Free-Trade as we have quoted above. By
years Prussia was restored to comparative this course he has done injustice at once to
prosperity. There could hardly be a more his readers and himself. His readers have
interesting or instructive study than to in lost much valuable political information; and
quire carefully how this was done. Readers the life of Frederic has been written without
who remember Lord Macaulay's elaborate ac any sufficient statement of Frederic's great
count of the debasement of the coinage under est and purest title to fame. For a detailed
William, and the measures taken to restore account of the means by which Frederic
it, will understand what might have been healed the wounds of the State, and of his
done here. Unhappily Mr. Carlyle has no administration during the last twenty-three
taste for such inquiries. He reiterates with years of peace which closed his reign, how
vehemence that Frederic violated all the willingly would we exchange the prolix
doctrines of “the dismal science,” but be record of the early glories of the Hohenzol
yond this it does not please him to go. And lerns, the irritating defences for the extrava
we are not sure that he is right even thus gances of Frederic William, or even the mi
far. Undoubtedly Frederic did not much nute descriptions of Frederic's marches and
understand or value Political Economy, but countermarches among the mountains of
in the matter now before us it is by no means Bohemia. That Frederic was totally mis
quite clear that political economists would taken in the general principles of his admi
nistration is hardly disputable, but it by no riddle. This is mainly owing to his unfor
means follows that he was mistaken in the tunate predilection for Frederic William.
measures he adopted under certain extraordi He insists on defending the conduct of that
nary circumstances; and history never could drunken savage, whose best excuse, indeed,
have discharged a more useful office than in is, that he was often drunk for months toge
pointing out the reasons of this distinction. ther, if not quite mad; nay, in upholding
There can be no doubt that Frederic had him as a model father, whose judicious, if
at heart the well-being of his subjects. Im somewhat stern control was productive of the
mediately after his accession he announced greatest benefit to his son. Now the real
his determination to “make men happy.” truth we suspect to have been that Frederic's
That he sincerely laboured to carry out this whole nature was distorted and corrupted by
determination cannot be denied. Unfortu the treatment of his youth. As a boy, he
nately, like most men in all ranks and sta was “one of the prettiest, vividest little
tions of life, he insisted on making others boys;" as he grew up he evinced an open,
happy according to his views, not according generous, and affectionate nature. But his
to their own. It is a mistake not less serious love of literature and music, and a distaste
than common. He believed he understood for constant drill, excited his father's wrath.
their real interests better than they did them To what lengths that wrath reached,—public
selves; therefore they were not permitted to blows, imprisonment, murder of his son's
seek their well-being in their own way. His friend, almost the murder of his son himself,
argument ran thus: I am wiser than my is well known. No mortal could pass through
people, therefore they can only be truly such an ordeal unscathed. None but rarely
happy if they obey my orders in all things; beautiful natures can come out of an unhappy
and so the whole population was drilled like home otherwise than hurt and marred. Fre
so many soldiers—or almost slaves. Again, deric's home was more than usually unhappy,
he thought it for the good of the country and the results of this were not trifling.
that his territory should be enlarged, and soWant of sympathy made him reserved;
the Seven Years' War was brought upon the cruelty made him hard-hearted; stern re
people that Silesia might be obtained. That pression made his nature break out into low
war cost Prussia some 200,000 men, not to practical joking. So far as we can now
speak of the sufferings of the survivors. Wasjudge, he was naturally the very reverse of
the acquisition of Silesia sufficient to convert
irreligious, and indeed he early showed a dis
all this misery into a balance of happiness? position towards serious thought. But his
Supposing Frederic had never gone near father stormed at him as a Calvinist and a
Silesia, but had preserved peace throughout Predestinarian ; forced him, on pain of death,
his reign, devoted himself to developing the to relinquish these damnable heresies; and
resources of the country, and increasing the ended, as might have been anticipated, in
intelligence and extending the liberties of the making him a believer in nothing. Again,
people, would not the Prussians have been paternal love sought to exert itself in arrang
happier then, more prosperous and higher in ing a marriage for the prince, and, yielding
the scale of nations now Mr. Carlyle, as to the suggestions of courtiers in Austrian
we have seen, defends the Silesian robbery. pay, paternal love forced upon Frederic a
But even he cannot defend all Frederic's wife whom he detested, and whom he hardly
civil administration; yet he is never at a ever saw ; condemning him to a life of lone
loss for an excuse to save his hero. When liness, without the affection of a woman, or
Frederic does anything wise, no one may the hope of posterity. Worst of all was
share the credit with him ; when he does that fear taught deceit, the only protection
anything very unwise, some one else, if pos of the weak. From that sad day on which
sible a Frenchman, has to bear the blame. Katte was led to death before his eyes, Fre
Thus, when he introduces a system of excise deric shrouded himself in a “polite cloak
for which no good word can be said, the of darkness,” to use Mr. Carlyle's elegant
whole responsibility is laid upon the advice euphemism for a system of complete hypo
of D'Alembert and Helvetius. crisy. It is painful to read of the Crown
Frederic's character is a strange study in Prince kissing his father's dirty gaiters; but
human nature. He was often satirized; but he had to stoop yet lower. His proud heart
he never fell into the hands of a satirist who must have suffered many a bitter pang before
could make the most of him. To an epi he endured to write in terms of fawning
grammatic writer like Pope he would have affection to such a creature as Grumkow, the
been invaluable. The inconsistencies and most contemptible of the knot of traitors and
contrasts in his nature are grotesque and toadies, who, under the intellectual reign of
puzzling. Mr. Carlyle's indiscriminating Mr. Carlyle's first hero, ruled the destinies of
praise gives us no aid towards solving the Prussia. That cloak of darkness, which then
seemed to stand him in good stead, was strange elements of Frederic's character.
never through life thrown aside, and leaves a Beyond doubt he was possessed by an ear
shadow on his fame. Altogether apart from nest and pure love of literature. Few kings
his faithlessness to his engagements, Frede have ever so loved literature for its own
ric's attempts to deceive, or, in slang phraseo sake; many successful authors have striven
logy, to “humbug” his adversaries, were less laboriously after literary success. He
often so barefaced as to be quite ludicrous. lay under the disadvantage of having the
Thus, at the very time when his armies were command of no language; and yet his prose
occupying the whole of Silesia, except a few writings have received the commendation of
fortified towns, he had the effrontery to write Gibbon. As to his verses, the less said of
to the Duke of Lorraine, “My heart has no them the better; save, perhaps, the one
share in the mischief which my hand is doing remark, that Mr. Carlyle's argument, from
to your Court.” their frequent and extreme indecency, to
Curiously enough, the domestic vices gene their author's innocence of the actual com
rally reappear in those who have suffered mission of those iniquities which have been
from them. Frederic had many of the faults laid to his charge, is not more ingenious
of his father, only in a less degree. But than true to human nature.
they do not seem to have been his naturally; A curious similarity may be remarked
he acquired them from the teaching of exam between the weaknesses and faults which
ple. By nature frank, generous, affectionate; marred the character of Frederic, and the
cruel usage made him deceitful, harsh, unfeel weaknesses and faults which marred the cha
ing, implacable. “IIe is as hard,” said Wol racter of Richelieu. In both these great
taire of him, as Churchill said of James II., men there was the same love of small mat
“he is as hard as that marble table.” In ters, and passion for minuteness of detail,
some points he greatly improved and soft which could not but be injurious to greater
ened as he grew older; he became more interests. In both there was the same love
tolerant, more patient, more moderate. It of literature, the same addiction to literary
would have been an instructive study to mark trifling. Both were penetrated with a pro
how many of his greatest faults were derived found scorn and distrust of their fellow-men ;
from a corrupting education, and how many neither could resist a mocking humour which
of these faults age and experience removed.made enemies for the sake of a laugh; both
But this would have involved the admission derived enjoyment from humiliating and giv
of imperfection in his father, and even in #
pain to others in the intercourse of social
ife.
himself; and neither admission is Mr. Car
lyle prepared to make. Instead, therefore, Mr. Carlyle has avoided anything like a
of such a study of character, we have undis delineation of Frederic's character; but at
criminating panegyric of both, neither inter the close of all he brings him strikingly
esting, nor sophistical, nor just. before us in his greatest weakness and his
An extravagant affection for the lower greatest strength:—
animals has often been found in men who
cared very little for their fellow-creatures. “He well knew himself to be dying; but
Frederic was a noted example of this; though some think, expected that the end might be a
little further off. There is a grand simplicity
the peculiarity is nowhere mentioned by Mr. of stoicism in him; coming as if by nature, or
Carlyle. He had always some half-dozen by long second-nature; finely unconscious of
Italian greyhounds in the room with him; itself, and finding nothing of peculiar in this
one the especial favourite, the rest kept to new trial laid on it. From of old, Life has
afford the favourite the pleasures of society. been infinitely contemptible to him. In death,
To one of these, called Alcmena, he was so I think, he has neither fear nor hope. Atheism
truly, he never could abide: to him, as to ai
attached, that at her death he was quite
of us, it was flatly inconceivable that intellect,
overpowered with grief, and insisted on keep moral emotion, could have been put into him
ing her corpse in his room long after it had by an Entity that had none of its own. But
become putrid. Dogs cost him less, he used there, pretty much, his Theism seems to have
to say, and were much more attached and stopped. Instinctively, too, he believed, no
faithful than a Marquise de Pompadour. A man more firmly, that Right alone has ulti
footman was appointed to the honour of mately any strength in this world: ultimately,
attending on them, and a carriage was appro yes;—but for him and his poor brief interests,
what good was it? Hope £ himself in Divine
priated to their use, in which they went out Justice, in Divine Providence, I think he had
for their airing, always occupying the hind not practically any; that the unfathomable
seat. They were all buried on the terrace Demiurgus should concern himself with such a
at Sans Souci, and in his will he left direc set of paltry ill-given animalcules as oneself
tions that he should be interred beside them. and mankind are, this also, as we have often
Keen literary tastes were among the noticed, is in the main incredible to him.
“A sad Creed, this of the King's;—he had so long on the character of Frederic that we
to do his duty without fee or reward. Yes, must be brief on this matter. Generally,
reader;—and what is well worth your atten the world knows pretty well how Mr. Carlyle
tion, you will have difficulty to find, in the
annals of any Creed, a King or man who stood would have it governed, but the Life of
Prederic leaves no doubt on the matter.
more faithfully to his duty; and, till the last
hour, alone concerned himself with doing that. Frederic's system is unreservedly commended;
To poor Friedrich that was all the Law and all England, on the other hand, has only at rare
the Prophets: and I must recommend you to intervals in her history been governed at all.
surpass him, if you, by good luck, have a better Lord Chatham was—
Copy of those inestimable Documents!–Inar
ticulate notions, fancies, transient aspirations, “The one King England has had, this King
he might have, in the background of his mind. of Four Years, since the Constitutional system
One day, sitting for a while out of doors, gazing set in. Oliver Cromwell, yes indeed,—but he
into the Sun, he was heard to murmur, “Per died, and there was nothing for it but to hang
haps I shall be nearer thee soon : '—and indeed his body on the gallows. Dutch William, too,
nobody knows what his thoughts were in these might have been considerable,—but he was
final months. There is traceable only a com Dutch, and to us proved to be £ Then
plete superiority to Fear and Hope; in parts, again, so long as Sarah Jennings held the
too, are half-glimpses of a great motionless Queen's Majesty in bondage, some gleams of
interior lake of Sorrow, sadder than any tears Kinghood for us under Marlborough;—after
or complainings, which are altogether wanting whom Noodleism and Somnambulism, zero on
to it.”—(Vol. vi. pp. 636-7.) the back of zero, and all our Affairs, temporal,
spiritual, and eternal, jumbling at random,
Assuredly he possessed, if ever man did, which we call the Career of Freedom, till Pitt
fortitude—“the virtue of adversity,” the stretched out his hand upon them. For four
most heroic of all the virtues. The full years; never again, he; never again one
force of his character was never shown till resembling him,—nor indeed can ever be.” . . .
among the dangers and sorrows of the Seven “No, Nature does not produce many Pitts:
—nor will any Pitt ever again apply in Parlia
Years' War. He bore up against over ment for a career. “Your voices, your most
whelming calamities, and triumphed over sweet voices; ye melodious torrents of Garda
them, and established himself in security. rene Swine, galloping rapidly down steep
Few men ever sought less their own happi places,—I, for one, know whither!' * * *
ness and ease, ever worked harder in their —Enough.”—(Vol. vi. pp. 556, 557.)
vocation. He discharged, with calm endu
rance, the multifarious labours of his life of Parliament, representation, a free press,
self-imposed toil, uncheered by hope, urged these things on which we are wont to pride
on by no fear, but ever loyal to his sense of ourselves, are not only useless, they are
duty. “The night cometh when no man utterly destructive and damnable. Indeed,
can work.” As the night drew nigh, his as to the latter, we are told with unusual
weariness grew more intense, his loneliness distinctness, that it cannot “answer very
yet deeper. One by one the companions of long among sane human creatures; and, in
his prime, towards a few of whom he felt as deed, in nations not in an exceptional case,
much affection as his iron nature was capa it becomes impossible amazingly soon.” This,
ble of feeling, had fallen from his side; he however, does not arise from indifference to
had no love for any of his own family who his country. On the contrary, it springs
then survived, save, perhaps, the Princess from a keen jealousy for her honour. Mr.
Amelia, and in her pitiable state she could Carlyle never writes with more unaffected
only be to him an additional cause of sor enthusiasm than when he is describing some
row; through life he had never sought affec gallant exploit of his countrymen. Hawke
tion, so now the solace of affection could destroying the French fleet amid the storms
not be his: friendless and hopeless, he met of the Bay of Biscay and the dangers of an
with serene courage the inevitable end. It unknown shore, the column at Fontenoy,
is a picture from which we cannot withhold the horsemen who followed Granby at War
our reverence, but which fails to command burg—none of these want their sacred poet.
our love. Had he been less be praised we He seems ever on the watch for some exploit
should have liked him better: the outrageous of British arms, eager to celebrate it. But,
worship of his biographer affronts the reader, as a rule, it is only the men that he can
and alienates his sympathies. praise. The officers he finds a sorry set. If
they are without fear of death, they are also
The second great point of interest in this without knowledge of war. Trained soldiers
book is, as we have said, that it contains the laugh at them as “knowing absolutely
completest exposition and illustration of Mr. nothing whatever” of their profession; and
Carlyle's views on government which the “this goes from the ensign up to the gene
world has as yet received. We have dwelt ral.” In a word, they are nothing but
“courageous poles with cocked hats,” which but Pitt's career, marred by many and grie
evil, as well as all others, comes from our vous errors, shows nothing less than the
constitutionalism, which prevents the recog wisdom and statesman-like sagacity which
nition of heroes, and denies them scope could safely be intrusted with uncontrolled
when found. The only remedy is to re power over the destinies of a nation. No
nounce altogether our miserable system, and second Pitt, says Mr. Carlyle in a spirit of
to throw the government of the country dismal prophecy, can ever save England
unreservedly into the hands of those who again. But we are not told why. Pitt rose
are worthy. Let us be ruled by “heroes” to power under constitutionalism; and under
and all will be well. a phase of constitutionalism far less alive to
Now this high-sounding theory, whatever the influence of genius than that under which
its merits, is by no means new. It is at least we now live. If Mr. Carlyle would point
as old as Plato. Indeed it is a necessary out the influences which in our present state
result of speculations, which consider politics of society throw obstacles in the path of
in an ethical point of view, which mix up genius, he would do good service; for such
politics with ethics. Plato's ideal statesman, influences there undoubtedly are. But he
as developed in the Gorgias and the Repub does no service by simply calling his fellow
lic, is a minute and despotic teacher or countrymen swine—whether of the Gada
trainer, fashioning all men after the pattern rene or any other breed.
he thinks best. In his state only hero-philo Now in this difficulty as to the supply of
sophers are to bear sway. A chosen few heroes—the difficulty which Plato failed to
have been gifted with that gold beyond solve, and which Mr. Carlyle has made no
price, which gives them the right to guide attempt to solve—what does it behove us to
and govern men. On these few nature has do? Are we to waste ourselves in a useless
bestowed the sad privilege of ruling, on longing for them? or are we rather to enter
others she imposes the obligation of obedi tain the belief that the true greatness of a
ence.” But then the difficulty is how these nation consists in being able to do without
hero-rulers are to be secured. Plato faces them; that a people is then best governed
the difficulty, and gives us the result in the when its institutions are such as allow of
social rules of the Republic. He does not an open and easy expression of the national
shrink from putting plainly before us all the will,—when, in short, it can look for govern
extraordinary social regulations requisite to ment, not to the accident of one man, but to
carry out such a theory of government, the the free exercise of the sense and knowledge
restraint and enforced uniformity to which it of the intelligent community. It is the old
leads. But Mr. Carlyle does not face this story told in new and pompous words; the
difficulty at all. He preaches the duty of old controversy, constitutionalism against
obedience to these rulers when they appear; despotism, which, in times of trouble, is al
he says, that because we have them not we ways brought up to puzzle the unwary. But,
are running down steep places like “Gada. looking beyond plentiful though vague ex
rene swine;” but he gives us no hint of pressions of scorn and disgust, what definite
how we are to get them. It is perhaps true, charges does Mr. Carlyle bring against con
that of all forms of government, a wise and stitutional governments? So far as we can
beneficent despotism may do most for the make out, one only,–that they are badly
happiness of the people. But where are we served. Our statesmen are incapable; our
to find this? We fear that few rulers of diplomatists are ignorant; the men who lead
this stamp have ever existed, or are likely to our armies are “barbers' poles.” And this,
exist among the sons of men. Certainly the greatest calamity which can befall a na
the examples which Mr. Carlyle has given tion, is a necessity of a constitutional govern
from our own history are not calculated to ment :
recommend his theory. Cromwell, a great “But Votes, under pain of Death Official,
and sagacious prince, did all in his power are necessary to your poor Walpole: and votes,
that his government should not be despotic; I hear, are still bidden for, and bought. You
great as were the merits of William III, a may buy them by money down (which is fel
care for the interests of the people of Eng ony, and theft simple, against the poor nation);
land was at no time the leading motive of or by preferments and appointments of the un
meritorious man—which is felony double-dis
his policy; and perilous would be the for tilled (far deadlier, though more refined), and
tunes of a nation which lay at the mercy of theft most compound; theft, not of the poor
the greedy, and traitorous, and all-capable Nation's money, but of its soul and body so
Marlborough. Pitt's daring enthusiasm far, and of all its moneys and temporal and
saved England in a dark and troublous hour; spiritual interests whatsoever; theft, you may
say, of collops cut from its side, and poison put
* Rep. v. 474. into its heart, poor Nation I Or again, you may
buy, not of the Third Estate in such ways, but In all professions and employments in Eng
of the Fourth, or of the Fourth and Third to land, rising merit is less encouraged by the
gether, in other still more felonious and deadly, Government than in any other country. This
though refined ways. ... By doing claptraps, mal-administration of patronage is doubtless
namely; letting off Parliamentary blue-lights, an evil, and it is an evil connected with our
to awaken the Sleeping Swineries, and charm
them into diapason for you,—what a music! system of Parliamentary Government; yet
Or, without claptrap or previous felony of your we have our checks,—the vague check of
own, you may feloniously, in the pinch of public opinion, the more active check of her
things, make truce with the evident Demago Majesty's opposition; and the latter of these
gos, and Son of Nox and of Perdition, who is supposed to be pretty vigorous just at
has got ‘within those walls' of yours, and is present.
rown important to you by the Awakened The case against constitutionalism is not
£ risen into alt, that follow him. Him
you may, in your dire hunger of votes, consent so clear as regards the higher offices. It
cannot be said that here we are in any way
to comply with; his Anarchies you will pass
for him into “Laws, as you are pleased to term worse than our neighbours. Mr. Carlyle
them;—instead of pointing to the whipping often makes himself merry with our way of
post, and to his wicked long ears, which are so choosing a king to rule over us. It does
fit to be nailed there, and of sternly recom sound comical enough our picking up a
mending silence, which were the salutary thing. Hanoverian gentleman, who knew nothing
—Buying may be done in a great variety of about England and cared less, who could not
ways. The question, How you buy? is not, on even speak our language,
the moral side, an important one. Nay, as and making him
there is a beauty in going straight to the point, our chief and leader; first binding up tightly
and by that course there is likely to be the in constitutional restraints lest he might do
minimum of mendacity for you, perhaps the us a mischief. But on the whole we prefer
direct money-method is a shade less damnable this system, with the results to which it leads,
than any of the others since discovered; while, to the system of investing a dynasty of
in regard to practical damage resulting, it is of Bourbons or Hapsburgs with uncontrolled
childlike harmlessness in comparison | . . .
“I am struck silent, looking at much that power, in the hope that by some wondrous
goes on under these stars;—and find that mis concourse of atoms a hero may rise up among
appointment of your Captains, of your Exem them. Again, as to our chief men under the
# and Guiding and Governing individuals, king, we do not see that we are worse than
igher and lower, is a fatal business always; others. Certainly, in the times Mr. Carlyle
and that especially, as highest instance of it, writes of statesmen like the Pelhams and
which includes all the lower ones, this of so Bute, soldiers like Lord George Sackville
lemnly calling Chief Captain, and King by the from sulks or cowardice refusing to charge
Grace of God, a gentleman who is not so (and at Minden, or Howe fiddling in Philadelphia
seems to be so mainly by Malice of the Devil,
and by the very great and nearly unforgiveable while America was slipping from the grasp
indifference of Mankind to resist the Devil in of England, do not form a pleasant subject
that particular province, for the present), is the for contemplation, any more than the Aber
deepest fountain of human wretchedness, and deen administration and Crimean War of our
the head mendacity capable of being done!—.” own day. Nay, the older time has rather
—(Vol. iii. 1 p. 374-5, 433.) the better of it, in that they had at least the
satisfaction of shooting an admiral, whereas
Doubtless there is much truth in all this. our miscarriage ended in the ingenious de
It is especially true of the lower ranks of vice of a Chelsea inquiry for white-washing
the public service. So far as regards these, everybody, aud in worrying almost to death
England then was, and probably now is, the man to whose courage we were indebted
worse served than any country in the world. for a knowledge of our shortcomings. Still,
what nation fared better in the Seven Years'
We would especially recommend Mr. Carlyle's
observations on this theme to those wiseacres War? Not France, which put Marshal
who think that India can be best governed Soubise at the head of her armies, and was
rewarded with the rout of Rossbach. Not
by any chance son of a Director, and regard
it as a frightful hardship that diplomatists Austria, which sent out Prince Karl five
should be required to know French, and that times to lead her armies to defeat, until at
soldiers should be expected to have mastered last Leuthen was too much even for her pa
the arduous accomplishments of writing and tience; which threw away her only chance
spelling; arguing that to insist on such ad of victory by depriving Loudon of his com
mand because he had taken Schweidnitz–
vanced knowledge is absurd, because there
the most brilliant exploit of the war—with
have been eminent men who did not possess out
it; in other words, that because Frederic the the knowledge of the Aulic Council or
Great never could spell, therefore every boy the Empress. Nay, not even Prussia; for
who can't spell will make an excellent officer. merit had no chance of rising in an army
officered by nobles alone. There is no hard To be a Nation; and to believe as y u are con
er matter than to secure that only those who vinced, instead of pretending to believe as you
are fit for high command should attain it. are bribed or bullied by the devils about you;
what an advantage to parties concerned ! If
But in this particular neither reason nor his Prussia follow its star—as it really tries to do,
tory convinces us that constitutional govern in spite of stumbling!”—(Vol. vi. pp. 332–3.)
ments are worse than despotic governments.
We cannot see that Parliaments are more How has this fair promise been realized?
likely to be affected by favouritism, or any Compare England and Prussia now. Na
other corrupt influence, than kings and pros tional swagger is silly and vulgar, so we shall
titutes. Surely George III. and Bute, with say nothing of England save that even Mr.
a Parliament, were better than Louis XV. Carlyle can bring no more definite charge
and Madame de Pompadour without one. against our present condition than that we
Corruption, both in the shape of bribery and are “swine,” and given up to the worship of
of the promotion of incompetence, prevailed “shoddy.” But look at Prussia. It seems
most when Parliaments were unreformed and to us that she has retained nothing of Fre
public opinion weak. It is now less than it deric save his rapacity and selfishness. Ani
was, and, if we desire it to decrease yet fur mated by his genius she held the third place
ther, we should do well to adopt the means among European States; she holds that
which proved efficacious before. We should place ... longer. Immediately on his death
do all in our power to strengthen public she began to fall away. Even the excellence
opinion, to extend education, so increasing of his army was rested on no basis which
the intelligence in the country, and to bring could survive himself. Twenty years after
that intelligence to bear upon the conduct of Frederic's last drill, the army of “the sword
public affairs by giving the nation a more of Europe” was annihilated in a single day,
adequate representation. and Prussia was laid prostrate at the feet of
The two great political evils which beset Napoleon. Military critics predict a similar
States are anarchy on the one hand; on the fate for her army now, in the event of its
other abject submission—an existence digni being called on for any more arduous enter
fied by no political feeling, stirred by no in prise than the bombardment of Düppel.
terest in public affairs, without hope, without In her foreign relations the Prussian Court
honourable ambition, unconscious at last has kept in the paths in which Frederic
even of its own degradation. Constitution taught her to tread. What was the idea of
alism leads to neither of these; despotism Frederic's wars? The unjust possession of
must lead to one or the other. Silesia; a low aim, not calculated to elevate
It is when we come to look at the life of the tone of the people. This love of acquisi
a nation that the difference between good in tion, this spirit of unscrupulous selfishness,
stitutions and the accident of one wise ruler has animated Prussian politics ever since.
comes out. The former endure, the influence The lure of Hanover led her into her selfish
of the latter soon passes away. In the pages and suicidal neutrality in the great struggle
of Mr. Carlyle England cuts a sorry figure by against France. When forced into that
the side of Prussia. Under the sway of struggle she haggled for money and territory
Frederic, Prussia rose like the day-star on the like an old Jew. On one occasion the king
European world. refused at a critical moment to send his con
“There is no taking of Silesia from this man; tingent unless the Powers should make up
no clipping of him down to the orthodox old for him an extra subsidy of two millions. On
limits; he and his Country have palpably out another, the intelligent negotiations of the
grown these. Austria gives up the problem: then Lord Malmesbury enabled that astute
‘We have lost Silesial ' Yes; and, what you Court to get both money and territory at
hardly yet know,—and what, I perceive, Fried once. That eminent diplomatist signed a
rich himself still less knows, -Teutschland has treaty at the Hague by which 62,000
found Prussia. Prussia, it seems, cannot be Prussians were to join the allies in the Low
conquered by the whole world trying to do it; Countries for the trifling consideration of
Prussia has gone through its Fire-Baptism, to
the satisfaction of gods and men; and is a £300,000 down, and £50,000 per month.
Nation henceforth. In and of poor dis'ocated England did actually pay about a million and
Teutschland, there is one of the Great Powers a half, and the money, as well as the 62,000
of the World henceforth; an actual Nation. soldiers, was employed, not in the defence of
And a Nation not grounding itself on extinct the Low Countries, but in the subjugation of
Traditions, Wiggeries, Papistries, Immaculate Poland. In such matters Prussia contrasts
Conceptions; no, but on living Facts, -Facts unfavourably even with Austria. A certain
of Arithmetic, Geomery, Gravitation, Martin
Luther's Reformation, and what it really can “dignity of vice” has always characterised
believe in :—to the infinite advantage of said the proceedings of the Imperial Court. She
Nation and of poor Teutschland henceforth. never had much virtue, and she has had the
frankness never to assume any. Prussia is such a writer as Mr. Carlyle. We all owe
now, and has ever been, quite as selfish, far him so much, that to do this seems not only
more hypocritical, and far more mean. Her presumptuous, but ungrateful. But it is pre
conduct throughout the Schleswig-Holstein cisely because his power is so great that his
business, both towards the duchies them errors may not be passed over. He cannot
selves, and towards Austria, would have as escape on the plea of being harmless. A few
tonished, perhaps gratified, even Frederic. years ago his influence was unbounded; and
Europe, indeed, can never forget the services now, if less extensive, it is not less potent.
rendered by Prussia in the crisis of 1813. To him we owe it (not to take meaner in
But for that small thanks are due to the stances) that the deepest art critic England
Prussian Court. It was the work of the great can show, and one of the greatest masters of
German people rising up pro aris et focis, and the English language, has forsaken his true
we all know how they have been rewarded. vocation, and become a fierce denouncer of
Through many changes, broken pledges, imaginary evil, and a foolish prophet of woe
and violated constitutions, liberty has made to come. And this Life of Frederic is, we
little progress in Prussia. The result of this verily believe, more calculated to do mis
has been that she has lost, it may be never chief than anything Mr. Carlisle has written.
to return, her chance of the Hegemony of Ger It contains the fullest exposition of his views,
many. The Klein-deutsch, or Prussian party, and it carries out these views unflinchingly in
were strong at the close of 1848; but the mi practice. In composition, style, and arrange
serable weakness of Frederic William, arising ment, a falling off from his former self cannot
solely from his dislike of freedom, refused fail to be remarked; but his humour is as
the offered crown of the resuscitated German rich, his power of description as brilliant as
empire, and their prospects were ruined. ever. It is in tone and sentiment that his
The king's attempt to gain some little ad deterioration is most painfully obvious. It
vantage by an alliance with Saxony, and may not greatly matter what any one may
Hanover, ended in the humiliation of the think of the man Frederic: he is beyond
Convention of Olmütz, and the overthrow of this world's foolish judgments. And it is no
liberalism in Germany. She has never re pleasure to dwell upon the faults which
gained the position she then threw away; marred a character in so many points en
she never can regain it so long as she per titled to our respect. But while we shrink
sists in her present policy. The minor States from rash condemnation or vulgar abuse of the
will never rally round a despotic or half man, we must not be blinded as to the real
despotic power. The later history of Prussia nature of his actions. It does matter very
shows, to our thinking convincingly, how greatly that the verdicts of history should not
little permanent benefit is bestowed upon a be reversed, that evil should not be turned
nation by the accident of “a hero.” “Never into good, at the bidding of genius; that
since the death of Frederick the Great,” men should not be persuaded that vigour and
Count Bismark is reported to have said, fortitude can compensate for rapacity and
“has the king governed in Prussia; it is his faithlessness. And it does greatly matter
entourage that governs.” And that entourage also that men should not be driven into
has governed by adhering to all Frederic's vague dissatisfaction with all things round
faults as a ruler, and forgetting all his them—alike with the religion they profess
virtues. and the freedom they enjoy. Mr. Carlyle's
We had something more to say on the denunciations, often very commonplace in
present position of Prussia; but our space is themselves, command attention from the
exhausted. But we have, we hope, said force and originality with which they are ex
enough to show that Mr. Carlyle has failed pressed; and the contemptuous tone of his
in his attempt to raise up Frederic into a philosophy becomes popular because it ap
model of every kingly excellence; and in peals pleasantly to our self-gonceit. But
his more dangerous endeavour to glorify beyond this he affords no help; no troubled
despotism at the expense of constitutional and truth-seeking mind will find any guidance
government. from him. A state of cheerless mockery or
passionate discontent, leavened with a flat
He must be a confident critic who can
tering sense of superiority to all mankind,
animadvert on the works of a man of genius such would be the perfected triumph of Mr.
without any feeling of misgiving. Such Carlyle's teaching. He can pull down, but
feelings must be unusually frequent and he cannot build. He leads his votaries out
strong when it is thought right to dissent into the wilderness, and leaves them to wander
from, and even to condemn, the opinions of there alone. He stirs up doubt and discon
* See an instructive article on “The Germanic tent in their minds, and then abandons them
Diet” in the National Review for April, 1864. to that unhallowed companionship. Hap
1865. Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie, Bart." 65
pily we have nothing now to do with his less pregnant and less revolutionary, it may
tone on religious subjects. But he has in at least be said that he did far more to adorn
this work assaulted political morality, the the character of the profession. In some re
recognised principles of Government, and the spects his life and history are more worthy of
British Constitution. We refuse to cast study and “commemoration” than even Hun
aside any of these at his bidding; and we ter's. Hunter was wholly an exceptional
believe that he will render no useless service man; Brodie emphatically a representative
who shall, however humbly, labour to show man. He was a representative man, not in
that morality must be observed in political the often-used sense that he represented or
affairs not less than in the common business embodied peculiar abstract views or theories,
of life; that a despotic, meddling, “paternal” but in the sense that he might be taken with
government represses the independent exer out hesitation as the representative of the
tions of the people, and so obstructs their class to which he belonged. While he lived,
progress and hinders their well-being; the he did on more than one occasion actually
Constitution, in the perfecting of which so represent the profession to Government, and
many great men have spent themselves, spar his name was continually used among us as
ing not their goods, their comfort, or their lives the symbol of his calling. In works of fiction
—which so many generations of Englishmen especially, if any name was required to be
have loved, and been wont to glory in—is not called in to attend an imaginary patient, that
a thing of naught, to be despised and rejected, of Brodie was always selected; particularly
to be disparaged and cast aside because of in cases of the kind which he was never ac
some slight defects or some temporary failure; customed to treat. Now that he is dead, his
but a rich and noble inheritance,—as Comines character is still looked up to as realizing,
called it centuries ago, “a holy thing;" a with a near approach to perfection, both what
treasure of great price; to be revered with the public would desire the profession to be,
exceeding reverence; cherished, amended, and what the profession would wish them
but never slandered; in a word, that this selves to become. And the recent publica
country, so far as we can see, is not hurrying tion of his collected works, in which a most
to destruction, nor, so far as we can judge, is interesting but fragmentary autobiography is
worthy of such a doom. included, brings himself and his life vividly be
fore us again.
BENJAMIN CollINs BRODIE, the fourth of
*
six children, was born in 1783, at Winsters.
low in Wiltshire. His father, who was rector
ART. IV.—The Works of Sir Benjamin of the parish, seems to have been a man of
Collins Brodie, Bart, D.C.L., Sergeant considerable attainments and intellectual
Surgeon to the Queen, President of the power. Unable to afford the expense of
Royal Society, déc. With an Autobiogra sending his children to the large public
phy. Collected and arranged by CHARLEs schools or the universities, and unwilling to
HAwKINs, F.R.C.S. In Three Volumes. trust them elsewhere, he determined to take
London: Longmans, 1865. upon himself the sole charge of their educa
tion. As a schoolmaster, he was a strict
THE late Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie com disciplinarian, and the studies of the young
menced the Hunterian Oration in 1837 by Brodies were constant and severe. With
saying, “The annual oration which I have many minds a too early and unremitting ap
this day undertaken to deliver, was founded plication defeats its own object, but in the
by the late Sir Everard Home and Dr. Baillie, present instance it produced nothing but good.
for the purpose of commemorating John Hun Sir Benjamin Brodie was wont to attribute
ter, and other illustrious individuals who exist his success in life very much to the habits
no longer among us, but who, while they did of regular and arduous study in which he had
exist, contributed to advance the sciences, or been trained in his youth. The household
otherwise to adorn the character of the sur was a very quiet one, seeing but little society,
gical profession.” He himself is now num and accustomed to trust to itself for those
bered with those of whom he then spoke; things which give a zest and interest to life.
and has already taken a place among them He thus grew up a home-bred boy, shy, mo
second to none, John Hunter alone excepted. dest, and retiring, “thinking too much of him
Nor will his reputation suffer much by com self in some things, too little in others,” but
parison even with that rare man. If he had with habits of reflection, and with an inde
not Hunter's brilliant genius and profound pendence of character which might have been
originality, if his contributions towards the extinguished by the experience of a public
advancement of the sciences of Surgery were school. That he should enter the medica
WOL. XLIII. N-5
66
Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie, Bart. Sept.
profession was determined, not so much b son. It was in this school that Brodie began
any special liking or expressed wish of his the study of Anatomy. His work there was
own, as by the will of his father, who was led done under a strong sense of duty, and in
to choose that path for one of his sons, by the trustful obedience to the advice which his re
fact that Dr. Baillie, Dr. Denman, and Sir lation Dr. Baillie had pressed upon him, to
Richard Croft, three distinguished medical make himself master of Anatomy before he
men of the time, were connected with him proceeded to study Disease. The first nausea
by family ties. The son obediently followed of the dissecting-room was soon overcome,
the leading of his father. He scarcely even but no great affection for Anatomy was ac
asked himself whether he should be happy quired. Moreover, he felt solitary among his
in the choice or no, but accepted it as a fellow-students. There was no one, with the
matter of course, almost as if it had been ar exception of Lawrence, to whom he could
ranged before he was born. Not only had talk with freedom, or with any hope of re
he no bias in favour of the profession, but sponse, on the matters that as yet chiefly in
there had been no special direction towards terested him. Dugald Stewart and the pro
that end given to his studies. He had be blems of psychology, Homer, Virgil, and
come a good Greek and Latin scholar; knew literary criticism, were all lost upon the rough
a little French and Italian ; and as much untutored fellows who dissected by his side
mathematics as enabled him to study the ele at Wilson's. A mind less evenly balanced,
mentary parts of astronomy, mechanics, and less subject to discipline and the duty of obe
physics. dience, might easily have been led to turn
t was in October, 1801, that he first came away from the profession in disgust. If we
up to London to commence his professional may judge from some slight indications, it
studies, which at that time were very differ was not without a struggle that Brodie pur
ently arranged from what they are at the sued his path. # , his intercourse was
present day. Nearly every General Hospital not confined to Mr. Wilson's pupils. His re
in London has now a medical school attached lations Denman and Baillie took much notice
to it, in which lectures on the various sciences of him; his brother was in London studying
which belong to the profession are delivered, Law; and he had joined some friends, among
and theoretical instruction in Medicine and them Dr. Maton, in founding a sort of literary
Surgery is given to the students who have debating club, where everything was dis
entered to study the practice of the hospital; cussed except theology and politics.
and the Professors attached to the school are A summer's holiday at home was followed
for the most part also officially connected by another winter at ' and in the fol
with the hospital. It very rarely happens lowing spring he entered St. George's Hos
that a student joins the medical school of one pital, for the purpose of attending the sur
hospital, and pursues his practical studies in gical practice of Mr., afterwards Sir Everard
another. At the beginning of the present Home. During the first winter he had
century, however, very little general or theo listened to the surgical lectures of Mr. Aber
retical instruction was given in connexion nethy, and had been led, through the enthu
with any of the hospitals. This was supplied siasm of the lecturer, to choose pure Surgery
by various Anatomical Schools, which were as that branch of the profession to which he
the property of independent individuals, in no should devote himself—his want of a univer
way necessarily connected with any hospital. sity degree shutting him out from the career
A student might join one of the schools for of a physician. With his entrance into the
the purpose of dissecting, of learning his Hospital he felt that he was beginning a new
anatomy, and of receiving instruction in other life. In the study of Anatomy, as a prelimi
matters, and might proceed to “walk” any one nary to the medical profession, the mind is
of the hospitals he pleased." Among these for the most part passive; it is then learning
schools, one of the most famous was the so how to appreciate the accuracy, the exacti
called Hunterian School of Anatomy in Great tude, the iron rule of nature. There is no
Windmill Street, which received its name room for any display of logic, of imagination,
from the distinguished William Hunter, who of mental acuteness. The student has only
had taught here, and who had transmitted it to remain obedient and quiet until an image
to the equally distinguished Dr. Baillie, from of the mysterious mechanism of the human
whose hands it passed into those of Mr. Wil body, in its minutest details, has been stamped
upon his senses and his memory. But the
* It is a matter for very grave consideration, moment that he crosses the threshold of the
whether many advantages connected with the old hospital all is changed. The mind is at once
system are not now entirely lost, and whether a
revival of that system, with some modifications, called into great activity; the faculty of ob
might not prove beneficial to the profession, and servation, the power of inference are set at
more especially to science. work; probabilities have to be calculated, and
1865. Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie, Bart. 67
the judgment has to be largely used. Brodie, London, the ignorance of his fellow-students
whose mind had been previously interested drove him to seek for elevating intercourse
in works of imagination and speculation, had in the society of men whose tastes were for
found Anatomy rather dull work; but in the the most part confined to literature. The
investigation of disease by the bedside, and profession he had adopted seemed to him
in the appreciation of remedies and treat. at that time a duty rather than a pleasure—
ment, he recognised that the profession could a mechanical routine to be mastered for the
afford him all the intellectual occupation that
sake of the competency it promised, rather
he desired. His lessons in the Hospital, too, than one of the paths of intellectual culture.
threw back an interest on the dissecting He was apt, we imagine, to rank science far
room, and he returned to Wilson's in the fol below literature, and especially below philo
lowing winter with an awakened zeal in sophy, technically so called, as an intellectual
Anatomy, able to follow Dr. Baillie's advice pursuit or as an exercise of mental power. .
from choice as well as from obedience. The His experience in the Hospital, however,
spring of the following year was saddened by opened his eyes to the amount of thought
the death of his much-loved father, but the involved in a successful practice of the heal
loss sent him back to the Hospital with a re ing art, and his happy intercourse with the
newed determination to work. In the Octo bright band of distinguished men of science
ber of the same year he was again to be found into whose society Home had brought him,
at Wilson's, but this time assisting to teach showed him that science was well justified
the other students as well as improving him by her children of that day, who stood
self. During the next summer, that of 1805, second in intellectual vigour to none of the
he occupied the post of house-surgeon to St. minds of the age. rom that time for
George's Hospital, a situation which vastly ward Brodie and science were inseparable.
increased his opportunities of study. At the Throughout the remainder of a long life
conclusion of his term of office in the suc none were so ready as he to utter just
ceeding October, Mr. Home '' to make praises of science; none so ready to foster
him his private assistant, aff" the offer was all scientific efforts. Literature never ceased
gladly accepted. Such a position, besides to be pleasing, nor philosophy enticing to
being compatible with the winter duties in him; but science, either in its pure or its ap
Great Windmill Street, and bringing in some plied forms, ever afterwards claimed and re
small emoluments, was one of great advantage ceived his warmest affections. In 1808,
to Brodie, inasmuch as it brought him into while he was as yet a mere senior student,
close contact with one who, whatever may not quite twenty-five years of age, he was
have been his faults, was a good surgeon, and appointed assistant-surgeon to St. George's
whose love for Comparative Anatomy, though Hospital. From the day of his election,
marred by an overweening personal ambition, Home resigned to him much of his own
could not but have a very beneficial effect on duties, and the absence of the junior surgeon,
a young surgeon. For two years and a half Mr. Gunning, with Lord Wellington's army in
Brodie continued with Home, learning some the Peninsula, placed in Brodie's hands the
surgery, teaching at Wilson's, and doing a care of a large number of patients. He im
good deal of work in Comparative Anatomy. mediately, gave himself up with vigour to
During this time he was often thrown into his new duties. Every day he spent hours
the company of Clift, who afterwards became in the Hospital, taking notes and studying
the Conservator of the Hunterian Museum.cases. The porters and other menial officials
Home also made much of him, introducing of the place were astonished to see him work
him to Sir Joseph Banks and other dis ing as busily as if he were still a student, in.
tinguished men of science; and the shy, re stead of treating the patients in that rapid
tiring young surgeon might often be found in and cursory manner which became the dig
the library of the Royal Society's President, nity of a surgeon. A year or two before, he
where, on Sunday evenings, Davy, Wollas had joined Mr. Wilson in delivering lectures
ton, Young, the elder Herschel, Cavendish, on Surgery at the school in Great Windmill
and others, met to talk together about things Street, and very soon found that the greater
as great as the universe, and, in spite of Peter share of the work fell upon himself. So
He was, in fact, successful and popular with the students was
Pindar, as small as fleas.
admitted a member of the aristocracy of he, that he began to take part in the anato
science. mical lectures as well. The absence of pri
The influence of these two years and a vate practice, however, left still some spare
half on the future of Brodie's life can hardly time on his hands, and that he sedulously de
be exaggerated. In his boyhood his studies voted to experimental researches in Physio
were rather literary than scientific; and, logy. In 1809 he presented to the Royal
during the first two years of his residence in Society an “Account of a Dissection of a
68 Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie, Bart. Sept.
Human Foetus, in which the Circulation of logy. There are few physiologists of note
the Blood was carried on without a Heart.” who have not at some time or other of their
It was printed in the Philosophical Trans lives been induced to attack these difficult
actions, and though he himself in after years problems; and if their labours have not al
set little or no store by it, he was on the ways produced striking and important re
strength of it elected a Fellow of the Society, sults, their researches have at least been
on the 15th of February, 1810. In Novem great opportunities for enunciating and de
ber, 1810, when twenty-eight years of age, fining their views on fundamental physiolo
he delivered a Croonian lecture, “On some gical doctrines. Among such the investiga
Physiological Researches respecting the In tions of Brodie will always hold a high rank.
fluence of the Brain on the action of the Since the date of his memoirs much progress
Heart, and on the Generation of Animal has been made in the chemical and forensic
Heat,” for which a Copley medal, “the high aspect of these things; and, with regard to
'est honour the Society has to bestow,” was one poison which he studied, viz., urari, re
awarded to him. In 1811 he contributed a cent inquiry has brought to light some very
paper containing “Experiments and Observa important facts, having a most decided in
tions on the different Modes in which Death fluence on the general progress of Physiology,
is produced by certain Vegetable Poisons;” which had escaped his notice. But as con
and, in 1812, two papers containing further cerns the physiological action of the other
experiments and observations on the same poisons, it will be scarcely too much to say
subjects, animal heat, and the action of poi that our knowledge in that direction has re
sons. The Copley medal was at that period ceived but few material additions since his
not given with the same jealous care which time.
marks its distribution at the present day, and The other researches, begun with the in
was perhaps on some occasions granted for tention of testing the truth of the views of
memoirs of decidedly inferior merit. The the brilliant Bichat concerning the heart's
selection of Brodie's researches for the hon beat being independent of the brain's action,
our has, however, been ratified by the im ended in coming upon a result which at that
portance which has been attached to them time was judged, and rightly judged, to be
ever since, and which has led to their being of extreme importance. Various hypotheses
described in nearly all text-books of Physio had been put forward by the older philoso
logy. It may be worth while to enter into phers to account for the fact that a very
them somewhat fully here. large number of animals, the so-called warm
The experiments on the different modes in blooded creatures, have a fixed, constant, in
which death is produced by certain poisons, dividual temperature, which is, in the main,
were undertaken with a view to “ascertain in independent of any external source of
what manner certain substances act on the warmth, being at times below, but mostly
animal system so as to occasion death, in above, that of the surrounding atmosphere,
dependently of mechanical injury.” The and which is said to be due to Animal Heat.
author's purpose was not so much a forensic In the pages of the learned Haller, one may
as a purely physiological one. He desired read how, it being taken for granted that the
not so much to assist in the solution of the general heat of the body was merely a mani
various practical questions that come up in festation of the heat of the blood, some
the witness-box, as, by destroying piecemeal thought that a certain amount of caloric was
the various members of the economy, to get, innate in the heart, by whose efficacy the
amid the unloosing of the bands of life, some blood was continually warmed; how others,
insight into the laws governing the actions of among them the great Newton, fancied that
animal bodies. Poisons are, indeed, in the heat was generated in the heart through the
hands of the physiologist, most valuable in influence of the same humours that drove
struments of analysis. By them he is ena that organ to its pulsations; how a third sect
bled, with some degree of success, to annihi attributed it to a fermentation or efferves
late this or that function of the body, and to cence in the blood; others to the movements
observe what takes place when the remain of the body; and still others to the friction
der are thus deprived of the help of their of the blood-globules as they roll along
fellow. Hence any advance in our know through the narrow capillaries. The same
ledge of their physiological properties car author enters into an exhaustive discussion of
ries with it all the benefits that result from the merits of these various views. All such
the improvement of a scientific instrument, conflicting shadows of opinion” were, how
or of a method of observation. The action
of poisons is, it is true, an exceedingly ob * Exception should be made in favour of Mayow,
scure matter, but it shares that feature in who dug up the truth about oxidation and respira
common with all the deeper parts of Physio tion, and then half-buried it again with rubbish.
ever, dispersed and driven wholly away by could continue to beat in the absence of a
the bright light of the chemical discoveries brain, Brodie employed artificial respiration
of Black, Priestley, and Lavoisier. Under on animals who had been decapitated, or
the teaching of those great men, it began to whose brain had by other means been de
be conceded that animal heat was an effect stroyed. By the regular action of a pair of
of respiration, the result of the combustion bellows attached to a tube introduced into
of carbon (and hydrogen) into carbonic acid the windpipe, air could be driven in and out
(and water) by the oxygen of the breath, of the chest in a way exactly simulating ordi
that the temperature of the body and that of nary respiration. When this was done, the
a stove were identical in their causation, be heart continued to beat, the muscles of the
ing both produced by the very same process. limbs and trunk to contract when stimulated,
But the word “respiration” was at that time the blood to be changed from a venous to an
used to denote a change supposed to take arterial colour in its passage through the .
place in the lungs only. By it was under lungs; in fact, except that there was no con
stood an oxidation in the lungs of the carbon sciousness, no voluntary movement, and ap
of the blood by means of the oxygen of the parently no secretion, the animal machine
breath. In that process the rest of the body seemed to be performing the same functions
had no share, except in so far as it furnished as during life. According to the theory of
material for combustion, and received the Black, the respiration, the change of the
benefit of the resulting warmth. The lungs blood from a venous to an arterial character
were looked upon as the furnace where all in the lungs, being in such a case still carried
the actual burning took place, the blood on, animal heat ought also to have been ge
vessels, as species of hot-water pipes, carry nerated, and consequently the insufflated
ing all over the body the heat arising from corpse ought to have maintained its natural
the combustion in the lungs. Whatever temperature as long as artificial respiration
processes were taking place in other parts of was continued. Brodie, however, found that
the body, brain, muscle, or viscera, might be it gradually but persistently became cooler.
fulfilling their functions in bringing forth other Nay more, when two rabbits of the same
fruits of living action, as sensation, motion, size, breed, and colour were killed, and the
secretion, etc., but they had nothing to do one left untouched, while the other was in
with the production of animal heat. The sufflated, the latter always cooled the most
physiologists of that day were too much in rapidly, for the obvious reason that in its
clined to regard the body as a bundle of case, a certain amount of cool air was at fre
machines or organs, each organ having its quent intervals brought into contact with the
own particular function and nothing else warm interior of the animal. He moreover
much to attend to, and all being bound to obtained the same results when he refrained
gether by no strong bond, save that of the from mechanically destroying the brain, and
so-called vital principle. Against this theory merely suspended its action by a narcotic
of Lavoisier, it was urged, with great force, poison; and, with the help of Brande, de
that if their views were true, the lungs ought monstrated that not only did the blood ap
to be the hottest part of the body, which pear to the eye to undergo in the lungs the
they certainly were not. This difficulty was, usual change from the venous to the arterial
however, for a while supposed to be laid by condition, but also that the amount of car
the highly ingenious, but it must now be said bonic acid given off by the animal during
barren speculations of Crawford, on the spe artificial respiration, to no extent differed
cific capacity for heat of venous and arterial from that proper to life and health. He
blood; and although Lagrange and Hassen drew from his experiments the conclusion
fratz contended that the essential part of re that animal heat was in no direct way con
spiration, the oxidation of carbon, took place, nected with respiration; that by respiration
not in the lungs, but in the capillaries of the no (he afterwards changed the “no” for “lit
body at large, their views were not ge tle”) heat was generated, but that the sole
nerally accepted for many years afterwards, condition and source of the elevated tem
until, in fact, they were supported by the ob perature of warm-blooded creatures was the
servations of Magnus on the relative quanti integrity and functional activity of the brain
ties of oxygen and carbonic acid contained and nervous system.
in venous and arterial blood. At the time The results thus obtained by Brodie were
of Brodie's memoirs the theories of Black corroborated, with unimportant modifications,
and Lavoisier reigned supreme, and it was by subsequent inquirers; and it may at the
because his results were unexpectedly in such present day be said that ordinary artificial
direct contradiction to their views that they respiration, after the destruction of the brain,
attracted so much attention. or during the suspension of its activity, is in
For the purpose of showing that the heart sufficient to maintain the temperature natural
to the living healthy animal body. The con in terms of units of heat. To affirm that
clusions, however, drawn by him from these heat can be produced in the animal body
results may be looked at from two points of without previous oxidation, without a meta
view. On the one hand, they may be consi morphosis of its chemical substances, or that
dered as a protest against the chemical theory oxidation can there take place without heat
of Lavoisier, and they doubtless did contri or some equivalent force being set free, is to
bute to the subsequent acceptance of the contradict, not the physiological science only,
truer doctrines. On the other hand, they but also the whole physical philosophy of the
seem to ascribe to the brain a work hitherto present day. We may admit that the brain
unnoticed or unknown,” and indicate a dis has a great influence on animal heat, but we
position to rebel against the dominant scheme can do so only under the assumption that it
of independent organs and functions. affects either the sum-total of the bodily me
It must be confessed that the development tamorphosis, or the manner and amount in
of physiological science has taken the direc and to which the force arising from the ordi
tion which these researches may thus be sup nary oxidation is either distributed and dissi
posed to have pointed out. Not that Brodie pated as heat, or transformed into some other
saw by any means clearly the true meaning mode of energy. An exact interpretation of
of his results. Had he done so, the papers of Brodie's results demands a quantitative exa
Home's young pupil would have shown, not mination of all the circumstances of the expe
signal ability only, but great genius. He riments, much greater and more minute than
thought he saw in them a clear contradiction he, with the resources then at his command,
of chemical theories of life, and an undoubted was able to give to them. That such an ex
support of so-called vital theories; and was amination has since, as far as we know, not
inclined at first to believe that the nervous even been attempted, indicates that the expe
system generated heat in some peculiar, mys riments have not now the same importance
terious way; whereas in reality they only. that they formerly had. Like their author,
contradicted chemical theories which were their work is done; they form part of the
erroneous, in so far as they were narrow and history rather than of the working capital of
limited, and opened up the way to wider and science. What is really the same subject,
truer views of the same kind. Since his time the influence of the nervous system on che
the theory of Lavoisier has been superseded, mical transformation, i.e., on secretion, nutri
not by doing away with it altogether, but by tion, etc., is now being attacked from other
extending it. And as in the old-fashioned points with a success which, during the last
mazes he gets to the central tree the soonest few years, has been very great, and has ex
who at first seems to be going directly away plained much which seemed to support the
from it, so, in the history of physiological sci erroneous part of Brodie's views. No line of
ence, the way to a physical and chemical research, in fact, seems to promise more fruit
explanation of vital actions has been often than that of which Sir Benjamin Brodie's in
gained by what seemed at first sight a turning quiries may be regarded as one of the earliest
the back on Chemistry and Physics alto efforts. If we look at them in this light, in
gether. Again and again the appeal to vital tracing out the genesis of one small branch of
principles has turned out in the end to be an that scientific thought, which waxes as the
appeal to a wider Chemistry and truer Phy years roll on, we may recognise in them a
sics. At the present day we regard animal value which increases with time, even though
heat as due, not to combustion or carbon in the particular praise which was bestowed on
the lungs, but to an oxidative metamorphosis them at the date of their publication, and
of all the tissues of the body, some to a which won for him the Copley medal, may
greater, and others to a less extent. The lungs seem exaggerated, if not mistaken. In the
are, we now think, not a furnace to which all line of English physiologists who, few and
burning is confined, but a chimney through scanty as they be, have handed down the ap
which issues the smoke generated by a com parently vital theories of John Hunter, and
bustion which goes on everywhere, and that little by little have interpreted them, without
most fiercely in the tissue or part where life radical change, into the rigid physico-che
is most active. In fact, the most advanced mical doctrines of the present day, the name
philosophy teaches that all the measurable of Brodie will always occupy a high place.
forces of living bodies are due to combustion, Three other memoirs complete his purely
to oxidation, or at least to chemical trans physiological writings. One, “On the Influ
formation, and believes that they may, when ence of the Nerves of the Eighth Pair on the
our knowledge is wide enough, be all expressed Secretions of the Stomach,” was printed in
the Philosophical Transactions for 1814;
*Unless it be by some obscure theorizer. See another, “On the Influence of the Nervous
the amusingly excited note in Milligan's translation
of Majendie's Physiology, 1829, p. 578. System on the Action of the Muscles in gene
1865. Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie, Bart." '71
ral, and of the Heart in particular,” was read numbers; and he began to feel that his phy
as a Croonian lecture in 1813, but by the siological experiments must be laid aside, that
desire of the author was not published; a his business in life was not pure science, but
third, “On the Effects produced by the Bile actual practice. Although his scientific
in the Process of Digestion,” appeared in ''
epoch, if we may so call it, was a very
Brande's Quarterly Journal of Science, in perhaps the most happy period of his life;
1823. The two first are both connected with and although in his later years he longed for
the same subject which had previously en some respite from patients and active duties,
gaged his attention, the bond between the in order that he might return to the studies
nervous system and the organic, that is, the of his early days, he never regretted the
chemical and physical processes of the animal choice he had made of becoming a successful
body; and what has been said of the earlier surgeon rather than a distinguished physi
papers applies equally to these. The matter ologist. Nor has the world any reason to
was one of surpassing interest to Brodie. He deplore it. It is true that England is not :
saw in it not a mere idle question to be an overburdened with working physiologists;
swered by curious men, but an image of, and those that deserve that name at the present
in some sort a key to, that mysterious con day may be counted on the fingers, and
nexion between the immaterial mind and the many of them are harassed with other duties.
material body, which was ever a subject of She was not overburdened then, though in
much thought to him, which comes promi this respect she held at that time a rank
nently forward in his Psychological Inquiries, among other nations which she holds no
and which led him “to say to a friend, in speak longer. Yet she could afford to spare Brodie.
ing of his lectures on the Comparative Ana Distinguished scientific men may be got any
tomy of the Brain, ‘The complexity of the day, may be trained at any time, if love be
mechanism of the higher brains is enough to present, and scope (and a livelihood) be
make one giddy to think of it.’” allowed, while the qualities necessary for a
Although during the whole of his life Bro perfect surgeon are more rare. If a man has
die never failed to take the greatest interest industry, a tolerably good head, and a humble,
in all matters relating to Physiology and steadfast love of truth, he can hardly fail in
Anatomy, and as an active Fellow of the producing good results in pure science when
Royal Society was frequently busied with new he sets himself heartily to the work; whereas
discoveries in those sciences, his own personal great success in the practical art requires as
exertions in them may, except from 1819–23, well moral and social qualifications that are
when he held the post of Professor of Com not always to be found. The one deals with
£ Anatomy and Physiology to the nature, who demands only obedience; the
oyal College of Surgeons, be considered to other has to do with nature too, but also with
have ended within a few years after his ap men and women who need as much ruling as
pointment to St. George's Hospital. In 1869 she needs obeying. Had Brodie devoted
he had taken a house. In 1812 Wilson himself to pure Physiology he might have
wished to make over to him the school in proved himself not merely a faithful labourer
Great Windmill Street, in which they had but a great discoverer, or he might have
conjointly delivered anatomical and surgical settled down into an ordinary Professor.
lectures. Acting upon Home's advice, he Judging from what we know of him, it is
declined the offer, which was afterwards ac probable that he would not have ascended to
cepted by Charles Bell. He took, however, the highest heights of pure science. That
another house in the same street, in which he absence of pronounced bias towards any par
fitted up a museum, and where he continued ticular path of knowledge, which proved of
to deliver surgical lectures until the year such great utility in the life he actually
1829, when he transferred them to St. adopted, would not have been the best augury
George's Hospital. By far the greater part for his progress in pure science. For a career
of his time was spent in the Hospital, where of that kind an enthusiasm is necessary, an
his studies were unremitting and laborious. enthusiasm such as that of Edward Forbes,
His attention being drawn to diseases of the an enthusiasm that is often all the more
joints, the paucity of knowledge on the sub useful for being apparently sometimes blind
ject led him to make some original inves and heedless. On the other hand, a strong
tigations, the results of which were commu feeling concerning “duty,” which was ever
nicated in 1813 to the Medical and Chirur uppermost in Brodie's mind, and which is the
gical Society, of which he had become a grand support of all who have to act, would
member in 1808. As an effect of these in have been for the most part lost in a life
quiries, and of the practical and scientific devoted to abstract inquiry. The man of
reputation he was acquiring, he found that science, as far as his researches are concerned
patients came to consult him in increasing —and if he be real, he and his researches are
one—needs no such source of strength. He it were, of Medicine, worshipping the tradi
has only quietly, humbly, and truthfully to tions of the elders, and accepting no physio
£ forward in the way that opens up for logical doctrines until they have, in process
him the more clearly the longer he pursues of time, acquired the stamp of the sect. In
it. “Duty” to such a one is superfluous, if the eyes of such men, Physiology, if not un
not unintelligible. Men of pure science, | clean, is at least nothing more than a mere
again, are content often to look forward to plaything, wholly useless in everyday life.
the results of their labours as useful only in | Others again, on the other hand, are perhaps
future. Sir Benjamin Brodie had that long- too “hastily scientific,” too ready to accept
|
ing to see the immediate fruits of his works, the flickering light of a few academical dis
which is characteristic of a practical mind. putations as a guide through the darkness of
Even in his abstruser speculations, such as the human body, too willing to act upon any
those which he developed in his old age, it advice that is written in letters of Chemistry.
was not so much the love of abstract truth as or Physiology, and not in the language of
the hope of achieving good that stirred him. common sense. To such, Chemistry, or Gal
His Psychological Inquiries are to be re vanism, or some other section of knowledge,
garded as not so much an effort in mental is a shibboleth, and the recent advance of
science, as a transcript from the note-book of Physical Science the dawning of a mil
a physician, who, calmly talking over and lennium. A third class, forming, as we be
wisely considering the symptoms of human lieve, the bulk of the profession, while refus
ity, points out what he considers the best ing no ray of light or offer of help that
treatment and remedies to be adopted. But comes from Physiology or Chemistry or else
if Sir Benjamin Brodie might not have be where, temper the zeal and eagerness of sci
come a leader in science, he did become one ence with the wisdom and caution of experi
of the greatest of English surgeons. His suc ence. They may be said to be practical in
cess justified his choice. re and scientific in modo, inasmuch as they
It is very interesting to observe the position are distinguished, not by their wearing the
he took in reference to the conflicting claims externals of science, not by their resting their
of the science of life and the art of healing. treatment on the result of vivisections and
There is very considerable difficulty in judg chemical experiments, not by their giving
ing fairly of the mutual relations of these themselves up to any dominant scientific
two things. Though, theoretically consider doctrines, but by their studying their cases
ed, the latter is the practical application of and governing their practice in that truthful,
the former, practically speaking they stand unwearied, catholic spirit, and trustful obedi
apart from each other. A physiologist is ence to nature, which is the token of all sci
not necessarily a good practitioner, but rather ence properly so called. They feel that the
the contrary; and the converse is equally bedside and laboratory are as yet too far
true. It is matter of uncertainty, and yet apart for them to pass rapidly from one to
not without importance, how far the two the other; but they feel, too, that truth and
should be combined. If we turn to the pub success are to be won by the same means in
lic for advice, we find them in a state of both.
hopeless contradiction or vacillation. At one It need hardly be said that it was to this
moment they shrink from everything that is last class that Sir Benjamin Brodie belonged.
not entirely practical, and make haste to His youthful intercourse with the muse of
shun any manifestation of science, as fore pure science prevented him from ever dis
boding unwise and dangerous treatment. It paraging her, while his having felt, from per
is said of Sir Charles Bell that the falling off sonal knowledge, how fragmentary and un
of his patients after the appearance of a sci certain, how far behind the urgent necessi
entific memoir from him, generally led him ties of everyday life, were the doctrines of
to publish a practical clinical lecture, with a Physiology, saved him from blindly follow
hope of restoring the balance. At another ing their lead. Ever anxious to connect the
time the public rush all agape after the latest phenomena of disease with those of health,
scientific discovery, and hope all things of the ever striving to lay bare the deep-seated
last new physiological theory. Very often general laws governing both alike, he was
an abstruse paper has happily produced an still aware that what he knew cast but a
unexpected rise in patients. Nor is the pro stray light on what he had to do; that, while
fession itself by any means unanimous on the now and then some far off truth in Physi
matter. There are many, and such are gene ology lighted up the obscurity of a harass
rally called “highly practical,” who delight ing case, it happened far more frequently
in making a mock of all science, and feel a that relief came both to the patient and the
special pleasure in adopting courses for which doctor through a quick following up of the
no reason can be rendered: the Pharisees, as hints that accident or acute observation
started, through treatment which science tant-surgeon to full surgeon. In 1828 the
neither suggested nor could give a reason partial retirement of £ Astley Cooper
for. He saw that the honest performance of largely increased his practice, particularly in
his practical duties could leave him but little the department of Operative Surgery. In
leisure for scientific pursuits, that he could 1830 the pressing demands of his private
not be a great surgeon and a remarkable duties compelled him to give up his syste
physiologist at the same time. He did not matic course of surgical lectures at St.
care, or rather he saw he was not the man George's, though for some years afterwards
to be, like Young, a great philosopher and a he continued to give occasional clinical dis
moderate practitioner. But he felt that he courses. In 1834 he became, by virtue of
could carry into his active life the same his position as sergeant-surgeon, one of the
spirit that had already given him so great a examiners at the Royal College of Surgeons.
success in his leisure studies, and the walls of In 1837, looking forward to some leisure in
St. George's Hospital could testify to the way the coming years, he purchased Broome
in which he set to work. Every day he Park, at Betchworth in Surrey. In 1840,
spent hours there. He studied the cases “after having filled the place of assistant
that came under his care with as much assi surgeon for fourteen years, and that of sur
duous, conscientious, painstaking accuracy as geon for eighteen years,” he resigned his
if he were preparing his notes for publication office, at the early age of fifty-six, partly be
in the Philosophical Transactions. He felt cause he now began to feel the necessity
that every patient called for as much re of diminishing the amount of his labours,
search as any subject of his previous me and partly from a generous wish to increase
noirs. the opportunities of the active and deserving
The public soon began to learn that a man young men he saw around him. With the
of such a temper was one who could be fully exception of memorable occasions such as
trusted. The few patients quickly became these, his life might seem to lookers-on full
many. In 1816 he married, upon an income of sameness; patients in the morning, pa
of £1500 a year; and after the publication, tients in the afternoon, patients in the even
in 1819, of his papers on Diseases of Joints, ing, and even in the night, with, at one pe
in the form of a book, his practice very riod of his life, the frequent harassment of
rapidly increased. In 1823 his annual in long provincial journeys. But, though ob
come from fees alone amounted to £6500, jectively monotonous, it was subjectively of
being about half of what is stated to be the great and varied interest. Even the private
limit which it in no year exceeded. patients had sometimes charms that were
In the life of a busy surgeon, and espe not limited to the fees they brought. The
cially of one enjoying unbroken success and treatment of many cases became, of course,
uniform progress, there are naturally but few after a while, a mere matter of dry routine.
events of which others will care to be told. A few questions, a rapid glance, and both the
In the autobiography we meet more than nature of the disease and the proper remedy
once with such a remark as, “During this were at once divined. Little mental exer
this time my recollection furnishes me with tion was required for, and therefore little
very little that is worthy of being record leasure derived from, instances of maladies
ed. My mode of life was uniform enough.” which had been seen and studied again and
The chief facts of Brodie's external history again. All cases, however, were not of this
may soon be enumerated. In 1817 he gained, description. Every day was sure to bring to
through his straightforward conduct, the his £g eye some feature of disease
friendship of Sir William Knighton, and that awakened curiosity and stimulated the
upon the advice of that gentleman was called mind, something that had been looked for
in to see the wonderful sebaceous tumour on long, something that had not been expected
the head of King George IV., of the remo at all. No day could fail to add fresh links
val of which so ludicrous an account is given to various chains of thought, to bring fresh
in the Life of Sir Astley Cooper. In 1828 proofs or new corrections of growing theo
he became surgeon to the King, and in 1830 ries and views. Especially true was this of
he treated with great temporary success the his hospital experience, where disease could
dropsy of that monarch. In 1832 he be be studied more rigidly and with greater
came, upon the death of Sir Everard Home, scientific accuracy than in the private con
sergeant-surgeon to King William IV. In sulting-room, and where the intellectual plea
1834 he was elevated to the rank of baronet, sure of observing any striking symptom or
and thus received the highest political honour result of treatment was increased by the
open to the profession. In 1822 the resig satisfaction of explaining its importance
nation of Mr. Griffiths changed his position or meaning to a group of intelligent and
at St. George's Hospital from that of assis inquiring students. “Some of my happiest
hours,” he writes, “were those during which lic of what the profession might and ought
I was occupied in the wards of St. George's to be, and an example to the profession of
Hospital, with my pupils round me, answer what it might and ought to become. In both
ing their inquiries, and explaining the cases functions he did great and good service.
to them at the bedside of the patients.” Before his time men had been much accus.
Science, again, was a never-failing source oftomed to associate eminence in the surgical
pleasure to him. He took part in all the profession with individual talent marred by
new and stirring discoveries, and mixed with coarseness, abrupt humour, or personal vanity,
all the distinguished men of his time. And and often united with great ignorance in
if he needed or cared for other excitements matters outside the art. Brodie showed
he had his share in them too. The surgeon them that general culture, science, and phi
who rises to be the leading surgeon of thelosophy were helpmates rather than hindran.
day is necessarily brought into close contact
ces to professional ability, and that it was
with all phases of life, the highest as well as
best for one who aspired to be a leading sur
the lowest. He sees, moreover, characters geon, not to discard nor to affect to despise
at seasons when real features come to the the mind and manners of a gentleman. The
surface, and learns secrets which are hid from whole tenor of his life did much to raise the
all the world. He has, perhaps, on the surgical art in the opinion of the world.
whole, better opportunities than most men Equally beneficial was his influence upon his
of getting behind the scenes, and seems to brethren. The profession and the public are
take some part in all the life of his time. not always agreed as to who deserve to be
Among that knowledge which was buried in considered the most eminent surgeons or
the grave with Brodie, a great deal that ap physicians, but for once they heartily joined
peared to him most likely worthless, would in ranking Sir Benjamin Brodie as facile
be highly prized by many a gossiping mind. princeps. Perhaps no one was ever so uni
It is difficult to form a just estimate of versally esteemed and looked up to by his
the good effected by such a life as Brodie's. fellows as was he. This was partly due to
The number of valuable lives spared or the great respect he in turn felt for his fel.
lengthened, the amount of human suffering lows. The large class of general practition.
lessened by his skill, with the benefits to ers, to whose care, after all, the health of
mankind thus indirectly wrought; all, in the community is in the main intrusted, he
fact, that is implied by the well-known Ho always held in high estimation. He never
meric line which asserts that a healer is delighted, as many in his position do, in
worth a hundred other men, by no means snubbing them. On the contrary, whenever
comprises all he did. His professional writ he was called in consultation to some obscure
ings, though they were but few, were of the spot in the country, he used to take with
highest order. His book on Diseases of him a list of questions, to be put to his
Joints at once took, and has since maintained humble brother, in order that he might learn
the rank of a standard work. It may be something from the latter's experience, and
said to have inaugurated a new epoch in the he was wont to say that many a time the
treatment of those maladies. And the same benefit which he himself in this way received
observation will apply to his other larger was greater than that which he was able to
treatises, while his various short observations, bestow upon the patient. An acknowledged
occasional papers, and lectures, are a rich mine leader of the profession, such as he was,
of practical ideas and suggestive hints, to would naturally £ a great power of mould
which a practitioner will again and again ing and forming the minds and characters of
turn when baffled in his art. But his un others, especially of those who entered the
written influence was far larger than his profession at the time when he was in the
written. With the death of such a man zenith of his fame. Every student who
there is lost to the world a store of wisdom, entered the hospitals would be sure to see in
in which it can never share. In the case of himself, with more or less distinctness, a
Brodie, this was perhaps larger than with future Brodie. , And it was well for the pro
most distinguished men. He himself was fession that it had a man of Brodie's stamp
wont to say that nine-tenths of his know at its head. He was, in many respects, far
ledge would perish with him. All his life fitter to hold that position than his imme
long, however, and especially during his later diate predecessor, Sir Astley Cooper, whose
years, he was working upon the men of his acknowledged eminence, being beyond de
time in a way which was but dimly visible fence, need not fear criticism. No two men
to himself, and which cannot perhaps even could be more unlike than were these dis
as yet be fully appreciated by others. We tinguished surgeons. The only point in
have said that he was emphatically a repre which they touched was the love each bore
sentative man; he was a pattern to the pub to science, and they differed even in their
attitude towards science. Brodie looked and skill in the use of the knife, and to be
upon Anatomy chiefly as the basis of Phy calculating rather how they should deal with
siology; and in Physiology he saw a means patients than treat diseases. Brodie taught
of intellectual culture, a stronghold of the them to look upon themselves, not as single
healing art, and a great help towards solving individuals about to secure the admiration
the riddle of human nature. His own phy and fees of a large clientèle, but as members
siological labours were connected with im of a body which, by its history, its educa
portant questions, the answers to which tion, and its connexions with science, was
turned both the thoughts and practices of called to great exertions in order to over
men. Sir Astley Cooper loved Anatomy come or to soothe the sufferings of mankind.
partly for its own sake, just as he loved dis. And not only by virtue of his moral nature
secting, partly on account of its direct utility and temper was Brodie's influence over his
in Mechanical Surgery, and partly because it brethren a benign one; in the more strictly
was a path along which he might tread intellectual features of his professional cha
towards fame. And his own labours were racter he was equally potent for good. His
prompted by one or other of these feelings. method of healing, which by the force of
The one was in his proper sphere when in example became the method of many others,
the midst of quiet discussion, the other may be briefly described as the union of
when, with the help of students, he was dis skilled diagnosis with a wise and happy
secting an elephant under adverse circum adaptation of ordinary remedies. By his
stances. excellence in diagnosis he helped very mate
In his professional capacity, Cooper was rially to construct the edifice of modern
brilliant, somewhat off-hand and hasty per Medicine, and to keep his particular depart
haps, delighting in difficult and extraordinary ment of Surgery on a level with the rapidly
operations, restless under the necessity of developing one of the pure physicians.
minutely and laboriously investigating an To one not conversant with the "details of
obscure case, in his glory when an unfore disease, the mere distinguishing one disease
seen accident in the operating theatre dis from others may seem to be only preliminary
mayed his fellows, and called for prompt to the more difficult task of treatment; but
decision and immediate action. Brodie, in reality it is much more than half the
though never failing in emergencies, disliked struggle. The true appreciation of a mala
the glamour of operations, looked upon the dy being rightly got, the manner of curing
knife as a reproach rather than as a credit, it follows in most cases as a matter of course.
was cautious and wisely slow in judgment For true diagnosis, the accurate sorting and
though quick in ratiocination, to the last setting apart the various sets of symptoms
modest and retiring, and shone most when which we call diseases, must not be con
thought and wisdom were most required. founded with a mere superficial distribution
Both loved their profession, but Cooper of names. A name may be given without
loved fame more than the accomplishment trouble, and therefore without result; but
of duties, and it may perhaps be said, loved two diseases, alike in their superficial and
praise more than fame. If Brodie loved external phenomena, but unlike in their
anything more than his profession, it was deep-seated and fundamental qualities, can
that general pursuit of truth and performance not be distinguished until we have gone right
of duty of which the surgical art was only down into the essential nature of each. Dia
one example; and if he had ambition, it gnosis is in fact merely the expression of
was ambition of the purest quality, mixed Pathology, the science of disease. And it is
with nothing that was not proper to a noble only by knowing diseases that we can hope
mind. In Cooper's eyes, the healing art was to cure them. It is astonishing sometimes
a sphere in which natural ability, a quick to witness how effectual the simplest reme
hand and eye, a tact in dealing with men dies and plainest directions turn out when
and things, were sure to meet with success. they are suggested by an accurate knowledge
Brodie saw in it a continual attempt, often of the nature of the malady, -in other
times unsuccessful and disappointing, to solve words, when a correct diagnosis has been
baffling problems, a path of duty which could made. In ninety-nine cases out of a hun
only be happily trod with the help of a dred, when a particular treatment has been
watchful study of nature, a faithful, childlike, remarkably successful after the failure of
humble obedience to all she taught, and a many others, the result has been due to the
wise appreciation of all the hints she gave. therapeutic blow having been directed, not
The influence of Cooper's example was to at random, but with clear intent. A slight
make young surgeons inclined to overrate tap in the right place will do what no amount
their own importance, to think much of the of beating the bush could effect. Many of
externals of their art, of personal address the diseases which afflict us are so dreadful
because they are mere shadows. They tor never obstinately refusing to receive assistance
ment us in the gloom of ignorance; when either from the newest elegant pharmaceutical
light approaches they melt away almost of preparation or from the latest and most inge
themselves. And though there are many nious mechanical contrivance, he held that
which we fail to touch, even when we seem many remedies, however old-fashioned, were
to know most about them, we have, through of the greatest use when one had learnt
diagnosis, at least the melancholy satisfac from experience the exact time and place
tion of foreseeing all their gravity. In the in which to employ them. His scientific
art of diagnosis Sir Benjamin Brodie was a culture was too pronounced to allow him
master, and great was the delight which he ever to fail of reaping the first and last fruits
took in the work. His other characteristic, of Physiology and Pathology, while his
the wise use of remedies, almost necessarily practical wisdom and humility kept him
followed from his efficiency in this. Per from ever discarding an unmistakable help
fection of diagnosis and multiplicity of reme because he could not write down the scientific
dies are always to be found existing in an formula of its action; and we may safely say
inverse ratio to each other. He who is care that the great bulk of the profession is tread
less in his analysis will be profuse with his ing in the same path. It is confessedly diffi
[' and he who has gone to the cult to disentangle the influence of a single
ottom of a malady will not have to go much man from the mixed impulses of an age;
further in seeking for the cure. Apart, how but the fact is patent, that during the past
ever, from those remedies suggested by the half century the progress of the healing art,
results of diagnosis, there are also a large and the intellectual and moral development
number of purely empirical remedies and of those that practise it, have taken place
plans of treatment, satisfactory indications exactly in that direction towards which all
for which fail either because the nature of Sir Benjamin Brodie's efforts turned. Every
the disease can with our present knowledge where, even in the humblest representative,
be probed to a certain depth only, or because may be seen the same drawing near to sci
our knowledge of the modus operandi of ence, the same desire to rest all treatment
drugs and other therapeutic agents is so im on a rational basis, and the same conscious
perfect. The various members of the medi ness of the ennobling effect of uprightly
cal profession vary much in their attitude pursuing its duties. It would be absurd to
towards these sealed missives of cure. Some say that he himself was not borne upon a
are eager for them, use them frequently and wave which began elsewhere; it would be
fearlessly, are alternately borne up by hope unjust to think that he was not foremost in
and cast down by disappointment in their "# the movement on.
experience of them. New remedies, always Though naturally not of a very strong, and
joyfully accepted by patients, are not without certainly not of a very robust constitution,
charms for professional men, and fashion he lived, notwithstanding years of laborious
here, as elsewhere, has a powerful sway. exertion and times of almost incessant toil,
Other practitioners are fond of confining to see the fruit of his labours; to witness,
themselves purposely and rigidly to a very beside his own personal success, that develop
scanty list of drugs, like Brodie's old master ment of the sciences, and that exaltation of
in pharmacy, who in his “open shop” had the character of the surgical profession, for
many show bottles, but, for the most part, which he had striven. Without trespassing
only four use-bottles, one for each of the much on a subject that has often been se
quarters from which he believed the wind of lected as a butt for sarcasm, we may perhaps
disease to blow. It is a very common thing venture to say that the length of his life was
to hear men, accounted remarkably success in part the result of his own care. Seeing
ful men, exclaim in their old age, “Give me so clearly as he did how much mental exer
opium, quinine, and sulphur,” or, “calomel, tion depends on a comfortable physical con
digitalis, and antimony, and I will cure all dition of the body, he considered that care
diseases that can be cured; ” and tales have lessness in regard of his health was worse
been told of those who had but one pre than a waste of time. In his early days he
scription, which, if not regarded as a panacea, once allowed a too intense application to
was at least offered as treatment to all sorts render him for a while unfit for his duties,
and conditions of men. On the other hand, but he never, we believe, repeated the mis
there is a small class of men who state that take. As far as was in his power he so kept
they conscientiously abstain from every treat his body, that in his old age he was able to
ment for which they cannot render a reason enjoy the honours that came upon him.
from beginning to end. It need scarcely be We have already mentioned, that in 1834
said that Brodie belonged to none of these. he received the highest political mark that
While accepting no treatment rashly, and can be bestowed on the medical profession,
1865. Mr. Russel on the Salmon. 77
Had there been other higher ones he would At the end of April he returned to Broome
undoubtedly have had them, and as undoubt Park, and after a few days was seized with
edly would not have cared much for them. fever. Very soon a malignant affection of
He told his students more than once that the right shoulder began to show itself. He
they were to seek not political but scientific gradually got worse, and on the 21st of Oc
rank: “Our profession,” said he, “is not a tober, 1862, he died. His death was such as
political one.” And the words which have might have been expected from his life. He,
been chosen by Mr. Hawkins in which to the greater part of whose days had been
give a facsimile of Sir Benjamin's hand spent “in the midst of the valley of the
writing, do not merely express a sentiment shadow of death,” who had ever been most
put in to grace an introductory lecture; like earnest in the search for truth, was not likely
everything else that Brodie said, they simply to have been heedless of the things behind
spoke his real feelings. In telling the stu the veil, or to have been unready himself to
dents what they were to look forward to, he pass beyond it.
was talking of his own desires. Looking
back on his own life, he could not but recog
nise its great success in the wealth, profes
sional reputation, and social rank he had
attained to. One thing only was lacking to
him—some external token that science as ART. W.—1. The Salmon. By ALEx. Rus
well as the world acknowledged his labours, sEL. Edinburgh, 1864.
and was proud of his worth. 2. View of the Salmon Fishery of Scotland.
His cup might be said to be full when on By MURDo MACKENZIE, Esq. Edin
the 30th of November, 1858, he was elected burgh, 1860.
President of the Royal Society. We may
fairly believe that no event of his life ever THERE is more in the title and the title-page
gave him such pleasure as this. The Royal of a book than people are apt to imagine.
Society, the nurse of English science, though Many an author, who has to his complete
at times it has suffered from the influence of satisfaction rounded his sentences, polished
cliques, has had the good fortune never to his periods, and finished the fair copy of his
degenerate into an Academy. This may manuscript for the printer, will acknowledge
partly be attributed to the fact that its fellow the perplexity he has experienced in finding
ship is not restricted to cultivators of pure an appropriate name under which to intro
science, but that intellectual prowess is leav duce his work to the public. Mr. Russel has
ened with the leaven of high social station overcome this common difficulty,–if indeed
and of distinguished practical ability. In he ever felt any, -and he has found for his
their President the Fellows have often wisely book in one simple word—and that the mere
sought not so much rare success in one name of the noble fish, on which he has
branch of science as a catholic appreciation given to the world perhaps as able and com
of all kinds of knowledge. In no one could prehensive a treatise as ever has been written
such a quality have been found to a more on that or any other subject—a title plain
eminent degree than in Sir Benjamin Brodie. and unpretending, qualified by no supple
For three years he adorned that office as he mentary specification of his plan of action.
had adorned his profession; and it was with Yet, how suggestive! how seductive —“THE
the greatest regret that the Council, in Novem SALMON.”
| ber, 1861, unwillingly accepted his unwilling From whatever point of view we regard
but forced resignation. An affection of the the salmon, he will be found to assert an im
eyes, which even the skill of a Bowman was portance and claim an interest far greater
unable to arrest, was beginning to render him than attaches to any other of our £
unfit for all active duties. The same cause fishes. If we look at him artistically, for
compelled him to resign the Presidency of the symmetry of form and gracefulness of out
General Medical Council, where his wisdom line, for brilliancy of hue, he is perfection.
and experience had been of especial use. The Consider him gastronomically—Is he not the
life that had been so rich in works was be king of fishes? In his season—and the
ginning to fail. His general health, however, brightest and most enjoyable season of the
continued so far good that he was able to be year is his—what dinner is not graced by his
in London during the winter of 1861–2, and presence? Comely in death as he was hand
to attend and speak at a meeting of the Royal some in life, how right royal he is to look at
Medical and Chirurgical Society, when an ad as he lies in state, unconsciously awaiting the
dress of condolence to the Queen on the death anegyrics and laudations which are, more or
of the lamented Prince Consort was voted; ess, awarded to departed notabilities—to
a fit subject for his last public speech. none more worthily than to him at whose
78 Mr. Russel on the Salmon. Sept.
obseques the assembled guests are about to way up the river. Every high tide brings up a
assist! We cannot trust ourselves to dilate number of these fish, whose sole object seems
to be to ascend the stream. At the shallow
on so exciting a theme. “Why needlessly fords, where the river, spreading over a wide
provoke the appetite by beatific visions of surface, has but a small depth of water, they are
dexterously divided portions of firm, rich, frequently obliged to swim, or rather wade (if
pink flake, with its creamy curd, and the such an expression may be used), for perhaps
more luscious cut from the under part of the twenty yards of water of two inches in depth,
fish, neatly, temptingly disposed side by side which leaves more than half the fish exposed to
on our plate, over which the crisp, fresh-sliced view. On they go, however, scrambling up the
cucumber sheds a rich aroma! If we do fords, and making the water fly right and left,
make mention of another condiment, too like ducks at play. When the fish are nume
often recklessly, ignorantly, taken with sal rous, I sometimes see a dozen at once. . . .
“The jumping of salmon up a fall is a curious
mon, it is simply to record the novel and and beautiful sight, at d the height they leap,
sensible proceeding of a learned German pro and the perseverance they show in returning
fessor of our acquaintance, who, after doing again and again to the charge, after making
ample justice to his solid fish, called for the vain efforts to surmount the fall, are quite won
lobster-sauce, and helping himself to half a derful. Often on a summer evening, when the
tureen, made a second fish course of it, and river is full of fish, all eager to make their way
up, have I watched them for hours together, as
pronounced it excellent. they sprang in rapid succession, looking like
Take the salmon commercially. Its ac pieces of silver as £y dashed up the falls with
knowledged value is attested by the enormous rapid leaps. The fish appear to bend their head
amount of legislative enactments passed from to their tail, and then to fling themselves for
very early periods of our history down to the ward and upwards, much as a bit of whalebone
resent day, to regulate the fisheries and to whose two ends are pinched together springs
insure its preservation. These laws, we may forward on being released. I have often watch
ed them leaping, and this has always seemed
suppose, were originally framed, in respect of the way in which they accomplish their extraor
the salmon being a staple article of food, and dinary task.”
grants were made by the Crown of fisheries
in sea and estuary and river with the design We claim a peculiar right to quote Mr. St.
of insuring a regular supply of what was in John's words on this subject, for being in
early times a necessary—not a luxury: for Sutherland with him many years ago—the
before the means of ready transport were year may be recognised from the circumstance
thought of the salmon was as recognised an of the late Duke having, in consequence of
article of diet to those within reach of the
the decline of the fish, wisely proclaimed a
precious commodity as beef or mutton is jubilee for the salmon—we sat with our
now.
lamented friend on the rocks above the falls
The excellence and the value of the sal
of the Shin, on a lovely afternoon in the late
mon standing thus confessed, we would fain spring, to watch the fish going up, speculat
know something of its habits and manner of ing on the chances of this or that fish suc
life, of its instincts and peculiar organization. ceeding in making his landing good on the
We stumble on the very threshold of our narrow ledge of rock at the top of the fall,
inquiry. The salmon is a mysterious fish over which the stream was rushing with great
even to those who have made it a study. Its violence—the fish, now struggling, with half
rapid growth, the metamorphoses it under his body in mid air hanging over the pool
goes before it arrives at maturity—from parr below—now gaining a little, now losing
to smolt—from smolt to grilse-from grilse ground—and finally, making a vigorous effort,
to the perfect fish; its annual migration to was either lost to our sight, or, spent with
the sea—its return to the river in which it his exertions, fell heavily back to the foot of
was bred, to deposit its spawn on the gravelly the fall, to recover his strength and “get his
beds up the stream; its amphibious nature, wind” for another leap. We counted nearly
which renders it necessary that it should be a hundred fish that made their way to the
now a denizen of the salt, now of the fresh
upper level, some of which we put at twenty
water—sea and river each claiming it as its pounds' weight.
own; its strength of purpose and perseve Now, a word of the salmon as a game fish
rance in overcoming the natural obstacles in —an object of sport. Half a century ago,
the way of its journey—all is mystery. rod-fishing for salmon was but little practised
Charles St. John, while residing beside the —more perhaps in England than in Scotland.
estuary of the Findhorn, did not fail to observe The upper
the habits of the salmon
£ of rivers were content
to supply their tables by netting; spearing
or leistering” was also resorted to; and as
“During the spring and summer, it is an
amusing sight to watch the salmon making their * Leistering has been long practised in Norway,
this mode of capturing salmon demanded the purpose-that salmon angling is actually
considerable skill and dexterity, the art was one of the most costly, and is apparently—that
not unfrequently cultivated by gentlemen for is, to the eye of all but the person suffering—
their amusement, but was more successfully one of the dearest and most desperate of re
creations. The expense and the labour are great;
carried on upon a larger scale by unauthor the material recompense inappreciable, and
ised persons, in season and out of season, as often quite invisible. The average cost of a
much for sport as profit. The rod-fishings, salmon taken on the rod fisheries of the Tweed
until within the last forty years, were of so (and Tweed is not an extreme case), was latel
little moment that the Salmon Acts contained calculated as varying between £3 and £
no clause whatever to regulate them—the counting nothing for time and for travelling ex
object of these laws was the fixing the fence pe ses,—the latter item, it must be understood,
being proportionately very heavy, because a
or close times, and the making certain pro salmon fisher cannot, like a grouse shooter, re
visions for facilitating the journey of the fish. main at his station for weeks together, but is re
from the sea to its spawning beds in the river. stricted to only two or three days after each
The harvest of the salmon river was at the flood. Yet the money is cheerfully paid, and
river's mouth, and the interests of the pro the disappointments no less cheerfully endured.
prietors of the lower waters were alone deem Salmon-fishing is indeed a passion, perhaps un
ed worthy of legislative care. accountable as to its origin, but certainly irre
But the time arrived when our fish was no pressible in an ever-increasing proportion of the
longer to be put in the same category with £ while in individuals the appetite, once
implanted, almost invariably grows rapidly till
vulgar cod and herring, when his value was the end, on the very little indeed that it now-a
not to be gauged by the price he might fetch days has to feed upon. It is s range to think of
per pound in the market as mere provender. the exceeding desperateness of the chances of
He was now to take rank with the noble success which suffice to tempt men away from
hart of the forest—to be honoured, as that their business and their families to some of our
sainted animal the fox is by the huntsman. salmon-streams; yet those who have most often
He was to inaugurate a new sport, to create felt and seen the hopelessness of the undertak
a new order of sportsmen, who should pre
ing, are
again.
' those who are most eager to try it
ok at that otherwise sensible and re
serve and watch over him as jealously as he spectable person, standing midway in the gelid
might the wild bird of the heather, or the Tweed (it is early spring, or latest autumn, the
more gentle pheasant of the woodland covert. only seasons when there is much chance), his
Through him was to be set in movement a shoulders aching, his teeth chattering, his coat
new industry, giving employment to hundreds tails afloat, his basket empty. A few hours ago,
of new hands; the most costly appliances probably, he left a comfortable home, pressing
were invented for taking him scientifically, business, waiting clients, and a dinner engage
ment. On arriving at his ‘water, the keeper,
artistically. The rarest and most beautiful as the tone of keepers now is, despondingly in
specimens of the feathered tribe were made formed him that there is “nae head (shoal) o'
subservient to the sport. Fabrics of steel of fish, although, at the utmost, ‘there may be a
the finest temper—of gold and silver-silken happenin' beast, or, as we have heard it ex
skeins of richest dye, --were all put in requisi ressed, with that tendency to a mixture of
tion to make fitting offerings to him. Bright £ with the Border patois, which is to be
ascribed, we suppose, to the influence of the
eyes and fair hands help to trim the lure parochial schools, ‘There's aiblins a traunsient
that tempts the poor fish to his fate | brute. But in his eagerness and ignorance he
We turn to Mr. Russel's book for an elo
knows better than the keeper; and there he is
quent defence of rod-fishing for salmon: at it still, in his seventh hour. The wind is in
his eye, the water is in his boots, but Hope, the
“But is the salmon good for sport? There charmer, lingers in his heart.”
actually are £ that will ask such a question,
though to all but the grossly ignorant it seems Who that has been bitten with the mania
to verge on the insane, if not on the profane: for salmon-fishing—its fascination is little less
Perhaps there may be some who, being assured than mania—will not acknowledge the truth
that the salmon is good for sport, are capable of
asking next, what, is sport good for? . . But to of this picture; will not regard it almost as
this extreme class we merely reply, that it is a photograph of himself, and a reflet of his
good for health and for amusement-at least as own feelings?
good for these purposes as much of the walking
and rid ng that is done under the sun, and “It has been maintained,” Mr. Russel goes
greatly better than most of the eating, drinking, on to say, “though not perhaps in cool print,
and dancing that is done under the chandelier. by men of sense and sobriety—men not igno
We may consent to admit—for it is nothing to rant of any of the delights to which flesh has
served itself heir—that the thrill of joy, fear,
and under nearly, the same name. There is a and surprise (now-a-days surprise is the pre
arish in one of the best fishing districts called dominating emotion) induced by the first tug of
'. a salmon, is the most exquisite sensation of
80 AMr. Russel on the Salmon. Sept.
which this mortal frame is susceptible,—whe ! is given by the hinds, and the noble animal
ther he come as the summer grilse, with a flash | lazily rises, looks round him, stretches him
and a splash; or like a new run but more sober
self leisurely, and presents a broadside to the
minded adult, with a dignified and determined
line of fire. Echo has hardly finished giving
dive; or like a brown-coated old inhabitant,
back the sharp crack of the rifle, when the
with a long pull and a strong pull, low down in
the depths.” ready hunting-knife has finished the work.
It may be a good head; so much the better
The most prejudiced unbeliever cannot —we will suppose it to be perfect—but there
choose but admit that there must exist some is an end of the stalk. For how much of his
extraordinary charm in a pursuit which success has our sportsman been dependent
takes such a strong hold on the affections of upon his forester?
its followers—which can lead them, men of But let us not speak grudgingly of the
whose sanity there can be no question, to sport of deer-stalking for the exceptional
undergo willingly all and more than Mr. Rus man who can enjoy it by his own energy.
sel so graphically paints. In what consists We have access to a journal of one such—a
this charm ? Let us—not invidiously—com man who has stalked and shot more deer
pare salmon-fishing with the two sports of the than most in Scotland, and who thinks no
field that have equally keen and enthusiastic more of the public when he is writing his
admirers. Taking fox-hunting first: we will memorandum of his day's sport, than when
suppose the case of a good horseman, with a he is creeping to his stag. We will indulge
perfect horse under him; he jogs on quietly our readers with a peep at the notes of one
to the meet, full of pleasant anticipations of day's sport. The date is the 19th Septem
sport; he exchanges greetings with his ber:—
friends and neighbours at the covert-side; it
is a good scenting day, and the ground is in “I started at ten, and looked the whole Glut
capital order; he comes in for “a good the Forest to the head—blank, lunched at 1.30 in
Glut water half-a-mile above Glenmore
thing;” his horse carries him well; he is (lunch, the heel of a loaf and some weak brandy
well forward at the kill; he has enjoyed his and water, followed by the never-failing dessert,
gallop thoroughly. As to the hunting—of a pipe); we then crossed the flow in for the
which he sees little, and cares perhaps less— head of Glenbaun, and on to the Cromalt burns,
that is managed by the huntsman, who, too which we looked and double looked but in vain
impatient to let the hounds work out the —then had another nip of B. and W., and ano
scent, usually lifts them when in difficulties, ther pipe, and a long look at the country in
in order to insure a fast run. Hunting, real general, and Orkney in particular, where we
hunting, went out with the slow hound of could distinctly see the waves breaking upon
Hoy (it was very clear), then up and off home,
bygone days; it is now but steeple-chasing via Glenbaun, Liavid, etc.; when we got near
under another name, and, but for the stirring Liavid burn (downwind, could not help it) we
music of the hounds, a drag does almost as noticed two or three ravens working pretty
well. After all, it is the horse that has done high up the burn [since I found the dead hind
the work. last Wednesday through the assistance of the
Is it not somewhat the same in deer-stalk ravens, I have a sort of respect for them; in
ing? We will assume that our sportsman is fact, they seem to follow me, and to-day I may
say they found for me a living stag], at same
a strong walker, hardy and lasting, and take moment got a very fresh track going up the
it for granted he is a good shot with the rifle burn; next moment saw a whole flight of ravens
—in these days who is not? Under the get up off something, so I went up the burn to
guidance of his stalker or forester, he enjoys see, still getting the fresh track. Robert at
a glorious travel over moor and mountain, once said, “A deer has just got our wind, sir,
refreshed perhaps occasionally with an ex and gone up the burn and put up the ravens'
tempore bath in a cool burn, and is at length, (and he was right), so I went cautiously up the
by the skilful strategy of his attendant, burn, looking very sharp. . Presently we came
to an old dead sheep; I said, ‘This is all, Bob.'
brought up to his stag. The “bonnie beast”
‘No, sir, said he, ‘go on, I am sure a deer is on
is there within eighty or a hundred yards of
before us, so we went on about 200 yards,
the boulder behind which master and man when Robert, who was close to me, touched me
are almost breathlessly crouching; the tips and pointed silently, and, by Jove! there were
of his antlers, barely showing above the hea a pair of horns '' in some deep heather,
ther, would scarcely indicate his presence, if about 80 or 90 yards from me! I down at once
it were not for an attendant hind or two who and proceeded to creep in, knowing very well
his head would be sure to be looking down the
are keeping ward and watch over their sul burn. After creeping a while, I raised myself a
tan. After a long and tedious interval of little, to get his horns again, to make sure of my
pleasurable suspension—the rifle, may be, cover; and as I was creeping on very gently
resting the while on the rock, and covering(for now I was only about fifty or sixty yards
the lair of the unconscious hart—the alarm from him), from some cause or other which I
can’t make out, up he got and cantered up the noted carefully, by some well-known mark on
burn ‘end on, and up got I, cocked, and shot rock or bank, the height of the water, know
him dead (at any rate, he came down on his ing that an apparently trifling difference in
nose, and could not rise) with the first barrel; its level will cause the fish to shift their lay,
then in Iran, but he was so violent, kicking
and tearing, that I did not care to go near him. to move upwards to the neck of the stream,
He then struggled till he fell over a bank into or to fall back to the tail of the run,—that he
the burn, and I let him have his own way for a has studied, in a word, the anatomy of his
minute; then when he was lying a little quiet, river. We need not say much of his method
I saw the main jugular throbbing, so I made a of handling the rod; the throwing a good
rapid plunge at it with my knife, and ran out line—straight to the point and light—is a
of the way; however, the deed was done, and necessary accomplishment—it ought to be a
he fairly pumped the blood out of his body, and matter of course; but it no more follows that
made the little burn run red, till at last nature
had to give way, and he died, but not before he the man who is an adept at casting, could
had wriggled and struggled about twenty yards kill a fish when he has hooked him, than
down the channel of the burn from the place that the Eton boy, who can flick a fly off the
where he first fell. We then grealloched him, stable-door with his elder brother's four-in
and covered him up in a bank with heather, and hand whip, would be able to drive a team in
went home, arriving at seven P.M., very delight a crowded thoroughfare.
ed and very hungry, so I enjoyed my dinner, Suppose our ideal fisher to know exactly
consisting of soup made from his predecessor
(the stag of last Wednesday), etc., etc. Now where to look for his fish. Let us suppose
for the cause of all this struggling and kicking him, after a vast expenditure of patience and
and subsequent death: the little leaden messen perseverance and hard work, to have suc
ger had gone right along his back, cutting the ceeded in hooking it. It is now, at the first
hair in a line exactly parallel to, and about one mad rush of the fish, when the reel is grind
inch from the black line of his back, and then ing delicious music, that the real qualities of
through the neck, touching, but not breaking the man are brought to the fore—skill com
the bone. Perhaps a learned physician would bined with coolness and judgment; dashing
call it an abrasion, and subsequent concussion
of the cervical vertebrae of the spine.” readiness with patience; force tempered with
gentleness; now '' the wild impetu
To fox-hunting, as well as to salmon-fish osity of the fish, keeping the while a steady
ing, a spice of danger adds zest to the thing. strain upon him. If our readers desire a spe
The fox-hunter may chance to be conveyed cimen of the qualities brought out in this
to the nearest farm-house upon a hurdle or a sport—the dexterity, the decision, the pati
gate; the fisher may be nearly drowned by ence, the fertility of resource—we would
his own boots, and be landed by his own clip pray his attention to the narrative, not writ
in a strong stream or an eddying pool. The ten for the public, of one who is no mean
utmost mishap that can befall the deer master of the art, and who has the rarer
stalker is a fit of rheumatism occasioned by quality of painting his scene in natural
the frequent alternations of heat and cold colours to the life :
and wet to which he is necessarily subjected,
and this, it must be admitted, is by no means “Do you remember saying a salmon was as
tood as lost if he went over the Ess on the
a comfortable risk to run. Neither of these £n at Relugas?” writes Sir A. Cumming
contingencies, we imagine, enters very largely to St. John. “A strong and active fish played
into the estimate of the pleasures to be de me a trick last week, and contradicted your
rived from the respective pursuits, so we will idea, by taking me down from Rannoch over
put them out of the question, and will endea the Fiji as far as the Pool above the Divie junc
vour to show cause why salmon-fishing may tion. The night had been stormy, with heavy
justly claim precedence over other sporting rain, and although I expected “she” would
pursuits—why it is more powerful in its by ‘grow' in the course of the day, I thought that
attractions, and more grateful to the self-love ing an early start I might get a few hours fish
of its followers. before the water came down, especially as
# very often take greedily just before a grow.
And first, then, a fisher is thrown mainly I was at the river by four A.M., and commenced
upon his own resources—that is, always sup at Rannoch (Randolph's Leap). I found the
# him to be intimately acquainted with water much as I left “her' the night before,
small and clear, the only chance of fish being
is river; that he has fished it in every state;
in high water, still coloured and fining from just in the white broken water at the throats of
the last spate, the stream yet full and strong streams, or in the deep holes amongst the rocks.
Rannoch is fishable only from one small ledge
and rapid; at low water, bright and clear or bench, about two feet square and 25 feet
and gentle in its flow, when the boulders, above the level of the water, to which bench
over which but a few days since the stream you must scramble down the face of the rock,
was dashing furiously, show their rounded and from this spot you fish the whole pool, be
faces high and dry above water; that he has ginning with the line as the fly comes off the
WOL. XLIII. N–6 .
bar of the reel, and letting out yard by yard “All I could do was to give him what line
till the fly is working in the “spoots' or narrow he required until he found a resting-place be
rapids, 80 to 90 feet down the stream. If you hind some rock; this he did after rattling off
hook him you must play and kill him in the fifty yards of line. Waiting some minutes till
pool, if possible, your gillie clipping him on a he seemed quiet, I threw off some ten yards
small bed of gravel down below your feet, it more line, and turning the top of the rod up
being impossible to follow him if he takes down stream, I darted it down to my man on the
the water, from the small two-feet square ledge, gravel below, having cautioned him not to alarm
without first ascending to the footpath, and re the fish by letting the line get taut. To scram
descending to the bed of the river; this you ble up the rocks, and down again to the gravel
cannot manage with a fish on, owing to trees bed, to resume possession of my rod, was two
and £ rocks. The pool is fished from or three minutes' work, and just as I seized hold
the right bank. of it, the fish having ventured from his shelter,
“Well, I rose him at my feet almost at the was, in spite of his efforts, hurried down at ra
first throw, to a small fly about half an inch cing pace, taking more line than I liked, while
long; he came deep and shy three times, and I followed, crawling and leaping along some
refused to take it or any other. I guessed him impossible-looking country, such as I would not
at about 17 lbs. Leaving him to his own re have faced in cold blood.
flections after making an appointment with him “By this time he had nearly reached the Ess
for a later hour, I tried the poo's above, hurry or fall, and all seemed lost. I do not think he
ing along to the best spots in anticipation of really intended going over; for when he felt
the water rising. I worked till eight o'clock, himself within the influence of the strong
keeping on the same fly described before I smooth water, he tried his best to return, but
had more than average sport, killing four good in vain; over he went like a shot, and long
new run fish, viz., one of 12 lbs., one 10 lbs., ere I could get round some high rocks and down
and two of 9 lbs. At eight, the water begin to the lower part of the fall, I had 80 or 90
ning to grow, I reeled up, and rushed down to yards of line out, and to follow him further on
Rannoch to show my early friend another fly; this side of the water was not possible, owing
but the water having fairly commenced to grow, to the steep rock rising beside the stream. To
I put on a fly above two inches long, and the add to the embarrassment of my position, I
tippet being triple gut, I, by an interposition of found, on raising the point of my rod, that in
Providence, put on a triple casting line. Having going over the fall the fish had passed beneath
cautiously descended to my stand, I showed it some arch deep under water, thus making my
to him at once; he made small bones of it case appear very '' But determined
this time, and rushing up like a bull-dog, or not to give it up yet, I sent my man up to the
like one of your lovely Peregrines, took the fly house of Relugas, where he found an oil three
greedily. 1 just let him feel I was at the other pronged dung fork and a garden line, with
end of the gear, and knew instinctively that the which we managed to construct a grapnel; and
good steel was well into something firm. At at the second throw in, I got hold of the line
first he seemed not quite to realize the situation, below the sunken arch; then fastening it to
and after a few sulky and dangerous shakes of my right hand, I made my man throw the w'ole
the head took to sailing steadily up and down line off the reel and through the rings, and hav
the pool, once or twice approaching the rapids ing drawn the remainder of the line through
below, but turning again by gentle per uasion; the sunken arch, and clear of the impediment, I
these tactics he continued for nearly an hour, formed a coil, and with my left hand pitched
my man waiting for him on the gravel below, the end of it up to him, where he passed it
and out of my sight. By this time the effects through the rings again from the top of the rod,
of the last night's rain became fully apparent, fixed it to the axle of the reel, and handed me
the still, dark pool below my feet had turned down the rod to where I stood. From the long
into a seething pot, without a quiet corner for line out, and the heavy water, I could not tell
the fish to rest in, and the water had risen whether the fish was on or not, but the line
nearly twenty-four inches above its size when looked greatly chafed all along.
I hooked him. The upshot was, he shot down “I now tried the only plan to end the busi
the narrows, and went rolling heels over head mess; leaving my man holding the rod, I went
down the foaming ‘Meux and Co.'s Entire (this to a bridge some distance up the river, and hav
being the usual colour of our summer floods). ing crossed to the other side and come down
To stop him was impossible; I held on above opposite him, he pitched the rod over to me; I
the rapid till I thought my good Forrest rod felt that, if he was still on, I was sure of him,
would have gone at the hand, and certainly the and reeling steadily up the 80 yards which were
fine single gut I had on earlier would have out, I followed down to the big round pool be
parted with half the strain.” low, where, to my surprise, I became aware
that he was still on. He made but a feeble re
* Memo., en parenthèse-I once asked several old sistance, and after a fight of two hours and
sportsmen what weight was on the line at the ver forty minutes, we got the clip into as gallant a
heaviest strain you could put on with rod in '. fish as ever left the sea—weight, 194 lbs., and
as when holding on like grim death to an insubor
dinate fish, the end of the line being attached to 20 lbs. to be nearer the mark; none guessed less
the hook of a spring balance—i.e., what weight than 15 lbs. ! The fact is, you cannot, with the
the balance '' register. One man guessed 35 best and strongest tackle, draw out more than 3}
lbs., another, laughing at him, said he would bet or 4 lbs.
new run. The last hour-and-a-half was in a

us very much in the glorious state of uncer
roaring white flood. The fly was, as you may tainty in which a jury may be supposed to be,
imagine, well ‘chawed up.’”* after the judge has read over his notes, collat
In the second chapter, on the Natural His ed the various and conflicting depositions of
tory of the Salmon, Mr. Russel enters fully the witnesses, and has bid them (the benighted
into the vexed question of the migration of jurymen) consider their verdict.
the parr to the sea, and its return to the fresh Here again, Mr. Russel quaintly observes,
water as grilse. So long ago as 1849, we “we are brought up with a jerk, so to speak,
chanced to be in Sutherland, and took the by the new and startling question, Is the
opportunity of an introduction to Mr. Young grilse a grown or transmuted salmon smolt,
of Invershin to pay him a visit, in order to or, in other words, is the grilse an adolescent
hear from himself an account of the experi salmon? Here is a man,” he says, “a man
ments he had made, and was still engaged in of Ross, who actually hesitated to declare his
making, on the habits of the Salmon. Strong belief in the popular and accepted fact of a
in his first year's theory, he showed us his grilse being a young salmon;” and beginning
preparations in spirits of the different stages in a strain of good-humoured banter, he pro
of growth of the fish from the ova to the per ceeds with hard facts and figures to demolish
fect parr, both without and with its silvery Mr. Mackenzie's bold theory, in which achieve
dress for commencing its journey to the sea, ment the reader will be disposed to think
and he certainly succeeded in convincing us, him perfectly successful. “However,” he
by arguments the most conclusive, as we continues, as he takes breath after his long
thought, that his theory was the right one. argument,
It came to pass, singularly enough, that while “there is considerable difficulty in the way of
we were the guest of the well-known sports obtaining conclusive evidence from experiments
man and naturalist, the late Mr. Charles St. made on the fish after it has assumed its migra
John, not many days afterwards, Mr. Shaw, tory habits, and can no longer be kept under
inspection and protection. . . . Some of these
the champion of the other theory, paid him experiments, nevertheless, even by the great
a visit, and he straightway made it equally extent to which they have failed regarding their
clear to us that his evidences for the second
special purposes, have served to admonish us of
wear's migration were to the full as strong as another fact, of which we were scarcely in
those of his rival experimentalist were for search,-the fact that there is an enormous de
the first year's. It was not, we believe, till struction of salmon life taking place elsewhere
some years later that the half and half theory than in the rivers and by the inventions of man.”
was broached—that half the parr make their This brings us to the consideration of the
descent the first year, and half the second. third section of the book before us, which
Hear Mr. Russel on the result:—
treats of the Decay of salmon. Assuming
“Although, on the whole, the evidence must, the fact of the general diminution in the pro
we think, be held as thus establishing that one duce, Mr. Russel observes that
half the fish descend at one year, and the other
half at two years of age, still, if this compro “there have been some serious mistakes in esti
mise is not accepted, and a decision one way or mating the amount as well as the period of de
the other is insisted upon, then it must be held cline. It has been a good deal forgotten that
that by far the weightiest and best-tested evi the excessive plenty of olden times, besides
dence is in favour of two years.” being somewhat more matter of tradition than
of evidence, was rather a partial or local than a
But there remains yet another difficulty to general or national plenty. . . . That salmon
be got over before weget to the perfect salmon. have greatly diminished, are even still diminish
It is a question “whether the young of the ing, and ought to be increased, are all truths;
salmon, after descending as a smolt, ascends what is here sought to be guarded against is
that same season or the next,” and Mr. Rus merely the deduction that that diminution is to
sel takes occasion to regret the looseness of be measured either by the decrease in the yield
the experiments that have been made to as of some of what used to be the most produc
certain this point; the more so, as, better tive fisheries, or by the facts that formerly sal
and more carefully conducted, they might mon were in some places a cheap and abundant
have tended to the solution of the former commodity, and now are ev-rywhere a costly
luxury.”
question, the age at which the parr descends.
We have not space to follow our author No doubt the modern facilities of trans
in his reasoning, nor to reproduce the facts port have opened new markets for fish that
and figures he brings forward on both sides; formerly were par force consumed in the
but we cannot but admire his impartial and neighbourhood of the fishery, and must have
lucid summing up of the evidence. It leaves been there almost a drug. Steam and rail
have in fact rendered the salmon an universal
* Memoir of St. John. fish, attainable in the most remote parts of
Great Britain, and by so doing have made very slight care and a little well-timed absti
nence would have continued and increased a
that a question of national importance, which
was essentially of local interest only; still, natural supply capable of meeting ten times the
however, the supply not being equal to the demand. There are few regions in the world
that had more salmon, and that even yet have
demand, it remains a costly luxury in the fewer men, than Labrador and the northern
distant quarters in which it is purchasable, shores of the lower St. Lawrence; yet even
while it is put altogether out of the reach of there it is complained, in most of the recent
those to whom formerly it was a cheap and works regarding British North America, and also
abundant commodity as food. in various documents issued by the Canadian
We cannot, however, follow Mr. Russel in Government, that abundance has by neglect
and abuse been turned to scarcity. . . . When
his other proposition, for the decrease in the we see the results even on the St. Lawrence
yield of rivers is general, not partial. If it and its tributaries, running through comparative
could be shown that any one river—say in deserts, we need not wonder at the evil results
Scotland—produced at the present day as of much greater means of destruction employed
great an amount of fish as it did fifty years on a much more exhaustible field.”
ago, while another exhibited a great falling
off in its produce, it would be only fair to set It would be beyond our limits to set forth in
one against the other, and strike an average array evidence to prove what must be gene
to come at the actual increase or diminution rally admitted, that salmon “from the earliest
as compared with former yields. But if, as historical period down to less than a century
we believe, and as Mr. Russel's statistics seem ago, abounded to excess in the neighbourhood
to show, the decline of the fish is common to of English and Irish, still more of Scotch
every river in the United Kingdom, we think rivers, accessible to migratory fish.” Mr.
we should be safe in taking almost any one Russel has diligently looked up and set in
of them as a sample river to exhibit the order all the old authorities that bear upon
lamentable loss the country has sustained. the subject; and all concur in their testimony
It is easy to understand how, in compara of the abundance of the fish. For want of
tively small rivers like our own, a fish that, regular statistics, which in the olden time
not only in the different stages of its develop existed not, he has drawn upon the journals
ment, but in its mature state, must of neces and letters of early travellers in Scotland,
sity travel out and home by the same road, and from these he gives many quaint and
must pass through the same toll-bars, and curious extracts; nor does he omit to make
run the gauntlet of all the murderous devices mention of the old legend about the stipulation
and appliances the ingenuity of man can in of apprentices and servants not to eat salmon
vent to intercept it on its journey—not to more than a certain number of days in the
mention the perils of the sea, and the natural week—a legend which seems to belong to no
enemies it must needs encounter in the prose one district. The Royal Commissioners of
cution of the Grand Tour in the deep which Inquiry into the Salmon Fisheries of England
mysterious instinct bids it annually perform and Wales met the story everywhere, but its
—has but a slender chance of attaining evidence nowhere. “We endeavoured,”
longevity. It is indeed almost matter of they say in their Report, “to obtain a sight
astonishment that it should not be cut off of one of these instruments, but without suc
altogether,-that its race should not become cess, though we met with persons who stated
extinct; and the more so, since the same that they had seen them; and the universal
causes have operated to a most extraordinary prevalence of the tradition seems to justify
degree in bringing about a scarcity of salmon belief in it.” Tradition has handed down to
in the mighty waters of the Western World, us many stories much more improbable,
compared to which our proudest streams are which are received by common consent, and
but as rivulets,—“in regions where the fish we are quite willing to accept this one as
is, or was, incomparably more abundant, and evidence. But, as we think, no proof is
the means and inducements to capture incom needed of former abundance: of present
parably smaller, than at almost any time, and scarcity there can exist no doubt whatever.
in any district, in the United Kingdom.” Our author has confined himself almost
The following statement would appear in entirely to Scotch rivers; but, mutato nomine,
credible if it were not borne out by facts. the same deplorable tale may be told of the
Mr. Russel says— decay of salmon in English rivers. The Eng
lish Commissioners of Inquiry, we are told,
“Some of the American rivers, whose salmon state that the evidence as to those rivers of
supplied food only to a few hundreds of wan England and Wales where the fish had not
dering Indians, are reported by recent travellers
to have been depopulated, and the supply to been quite extinguished, showed a decline
have been brought far below the demand, ranging from nine-tenths to ninety-nine hun
merely by the disregard of seasons, though dredths, within the memory of living wit
1865. . Mr. Russel on the Salmon. 8.5
nesses. Let us take the instance of a river, within the danger of any extraordinary rise
small indeed, but which was in days of yore of the river, he stopped suddenly before one
one of the best salmon streams in England,— of the biggest trees in the pine wood, through
the Christchurch Avon, whose fish formerly which our path lay, and, pointing to one of
commanded a fancy price in London. There its lower boughs, which, heavily weighted
is yet a man living who can remember a with moisture from the recent rain, was bent
hundred salmon being taken in the nets at to the ground, said:—
one haul at Claypool, near the junction of
the Stour with the Avon. For many years “You would hardly be able to estimate the
—certainly until the present laws came into amount of water hanging on that single bough.
operation — that number would fully have Imagine, then, those bare hillsides clothed
represented the amount of fish taken in any with larch and fir, more luxuriant in foliage,
One SeaSO1).
and of more giant growth than these in the
plain; and conceive, if you can, the mass of fluid
We are now brought to a consideration of arrestel before it reaches the earth, held in sus
the causes of the decline of the fish, of which, pense, to trickle gently down, to percolate the
says Mr. Russel, one of the chief and irre. earth, to fill the springs, before it arrives at the
movable is the increase of land drainage:– great drain of our valley. A thoughtless and
improvident waste of the forests has had much
“Salmon do not incline to enter, nor even to do with this, although other causes, natural
though they may have entered, to ascend a but inexplicable, have helped to bring about
river, either when it is in high flood, ‘roaring the clearance of the wood” (d.'nuement was his
from bank to brae, or when it is dwindled and word) “above a certain level on which it for
limpid, but when it is between these two con merly grew. The rain now sweeps in a sheet
ditions, subsiding, and in some degree clarifying. of water down the mountain slopes to swell the
Now the effect of increased drainage—by which river at once; it has lost all respect for its for
we refer, not so much to the drains of the arable mer bounds, and carries desolation in its mad
districts as to the open ‘sheep-drains of the career, running off as rapidly as it had grown.”
pastoral districts at the water sources—is to
bring down the water more quickly, and in May not this apply equally to the Tweed?
greater volume, and then to carry it seaward We say the Tweed, because we think the
with greater rapidity; thus making addition to character of that river more changed than
the two extreme conditions of water, in which that of any other; but it must hold good
fish do not incline to travel. . . . One conse
more or less with most of the rivers in Scot
quence of this is, that the fish are kept longer
hanging about the mouths of rivers, where, be land, for it is well known that within the
sides the numbers taken in the stake and bag last century vast tracts of woodland have
nets, they fall a prey to their natural marine been cleared, and the ground laid down in
enemies. . . . And the changes caused by drain arable or pasture.
age must tend to an increase in the destruction Another mischief to be dealt with is the
of the ova—the greater suddenness and violence obstruction and pollution of rivers, incident
of the flood washing the spawn away while in to the rise of population and industry on their
process of deposition, or even after its being
covered.” banks; the poisoning of waters by mine
works; the emptying of noxious refuse from
There is yet, we think, another natural factories; conversion of rivers into sewers for
cause for the rapid flow of flood-water to the the drainage of towns. Of this we have all
sea,—the clearance of forest, and the break heard and read of late, usque ad nauseam.
ing up the ground for arable and pastoral The baneful and unsavoury subject is now,
purposes; altogether independently of artifi however, in process of ventilation, and it is
cial draining. We are led to this conclusion to be hoped that stringent measures will be
by drawing a parallel with the rivers in generally adopted to cure an evil, the result
Switzerland, where it is notorious the inunda of which is not the diminution, but the ex
tions have of late years been much more tinction of fish.
calamitous than formerly. The question of close-time, or, as it is more
We fell in one day with the curé of a vil generally called in England, the fence-months,
lage in the Canton of Friburg, who, like our naturally presents a great difficulty to any
selves, had walked down to the banks of the uniform legislation respecting it.
Sarine, then in full flood, and roaring like a
cataract, to look at the river, which threat “The application,” says Mr. Russel, “of the
ened, as he informed us, to carry away some same rules regarding seasons in rivers differing
very widely from each other in their natural
day his church and the cluster of cottages circumstances, and in the habits of their fish,
nestling near it. In answer to a question was a most pernicious mistake. As a Highland
we propounded, how it came to pass that laird very aptly expressed it, thirty years ago,
people could have been incautious enough to a Parliamentary Committee, “To prohibit
to build churches and raise dwelling-houses early rivers from beginning (the fishing) till
late ones are ready, is as sensible a plan as it has undeniably an equally powerful claim for
would be to prohibit the farmers in England protection, is an unjust law. Let it be glozed
from cutting their crops till the harvest was over as it may, however ingeniously, salmon
ready in the Highlands. . . . At the same time, legislation, both ancient and modern, has
there are some considerable practical difficulties
in the way of having a close-time varied for been one-sided and partial. Every law has
various rivers; and the main fact that great been framed for the sole behoof of the pro
evil has been caused by too long and too late prietors of the fisheries at the mouths of
fishing, and that there has been a want of rivers; and if a selfish clause or two,-selfish
variety as to legal seasons, have been to some in respect of the direct interest the lower
extent acknowledged by the recent Acts, which proprietors have in protecting the breeding
shorten the fishing season as a whole, and give of the fish,-have doled out a niggardly boon
the Commissioners very con iderable power as
to varying the period for opening or closing.” to those on the upper waters, in the shape
of a twenty-four or thirty-six hours' run of
With regard to the fishing by net and the fish in the week, it has been grudgingly
coble, we assume that the grants conferring bestowed, and is miserably insignificant to
the right can be legally established. It is what they may fairly claim.
not to be wondered at that man's ingenuity It is altogether lost sight of that in this
should have been taxed to render the en interval between six on the Saturday even
gines of capture as deadly as possible; we ing and six on the Monday morning, so gene
would go the length even-always supposing rously allowed, the river may be in such a
the right proved–of designating it fair fish state as to prevent the fish entering; it may
ing, if it can be proved at the same time be heavy spate; it may be thin water; and
that, when the original grants were made, this may and does occur frequently in the
the donors contemplated the mischievous fishing season. “So much the better for us!”
perfection to which the art of fishing could say the owners of cruives and net-fisheries
be carried; that its results would be to give below. “There is not a clean fish in the
to some few favoured individuals the right to river!” groans the disappointed angler, who
gather at the river's mouth the harvest which has been impatiently looking forward to a
was sown in the upper part of the water; in day's fishing above.
other words, to appropriate to themselves at Little need be said of the concession made
the least nine-tenths of the fish that were to the rod fisher of an extension of open
born and bred in the river above, thus ren time, of allowing him a few weeks' more
dering the fishery, or, let us say, the fishing, chance of killing a fish after the net and
comparatively valueless to scores of proprie cruive-fisheries are closed. One ought to be
tors along its banks. “They are grants grateful for small benefits; but as fair rod
from the Crown ''” it is argued; “vested in fishing for salmon never did and never will
terests are not to be lightly regarded !” We do much harm to a river, we think there is
may observe in passing, that whenever we no great claim to gratitude to be asserted by
hear the plea of vested interests urged, we those who exercise the prepotenza of the
have little difficulty in foreseeing what is fisheries. This concession, moreover, trifling
coming; in the majority of cases it is em as it is, really operates greatly to the advan
ployed to cover some act of injustice, or some tage of the lower proprietors, in giving an
unworthy motive. “But it is the law,” re inducement to protect the fish in spawning
turns the advocate, “and the law must be time, to which—we speak advisedly of the
respected " To which it may be replied, Spey—the upper proprietors were formerly
“It is one thing to keep the law, another to utterly indifferent.
respect it.” Mr. Russel runs a tilt, as might be antici
But have these privileges been abused? pated, against the fixed or standing nets,
And if abused, is there no legitimate mode “for here,” he says, “we come to the chief
of correcting the abuse ! It seems to be too culprit, and have got evidence against him
lightly conceded, or taken for granted, that both curious and conclusive:"—
here can be no assailable point in the triple
armour of the monopolists of the fisheries. "“Fishing by stake or bag nets (the former
We are willing to admit that the modern being a species of net hung on stakes driven
salmon legislation is good as far as it goes, into the beach, with cells or traps a little be
and well calculated to bring about the espe £ low water, and the latter being a species
cial objects, to protect the peculiar interests ept stationary by anchorage, and ordinarily
to which all its enactments have been di reaching some hundreds of feet beyond low
water) is an invention only about thirty or forty
rected; but it is not heretical to assert that years old, as regards at least the places in Scot
any law whatever which operates to the es land where it is now practised; while, as re
pecial benefit of one class, and to the detri gards England and Ireland, it is of stili more
ment of another, when, moreover, the latter recent date. It is not only novel; it may be
said to exist only through the omission or igno but scaring.” We are much more inclined
rance of the Legislature. The chief aim of to fancy it was used rather as a lure for fish
legislation on the subject, both in England and —and was on that account declared illegal
Scotland, from Magna Charta downwards, has
been to prevent the raising of ‘standing gear' —unless, indeed, the Norwegian salmon has
in ‘the run of the fish; but this prohibition peculiar idiosyncrasies. An old Norway
did not extend to the sea-coast, partly, perhaps, fisher, in giving us his experiences of the
because that was not then known to be “the fishing and fisheries in that country, writes:
run of the fish, and partly because no sort of —“Sometimes the face of a smooth rock on
engine had at that time been invented capable the side of a fiord is painted white; the salmon
of standing and acting effectually in the open rush at it, taking it to be a fall of water, and
sea. It has since, however, been discovered—
and most diligently has the discovery been put a man, perched on a wooden stage erected
to use—that the sea-coast is almost as much the above, is waiting for them with a net.”
course of the fish as is the channel of the river One of the worst enemies of the salmon,
or estuary. The salmon returning to the fresh however, the seal, is at the same time the
water does not lie off in mid-ocean, and then, terror of the salmon-fishers on the coast,
as with a needle and compass, steer right into
the river's mouth. It feels, or as Sir Humphry “who wage a constant war upon them for the
Davy expressed to the Committee of 1824, great damage they do to their stake-nets, which
scents its way along the shore for many miles.” are constantly torn and injured by these pow
erful animals. Nor is the loss they occasion to
These engines were soon generally adopt the salmon-fishers confined to the fish which
ed by any one possessing a stretch of sea they actually consume, or to the nets that
beach, to the rapid and continuous loss of the they destroy, for a seal, hunting along the coast
river fisheries. in the neighbourhood of the stake nets, keeps
To illustrate this, Mr. Rus.
the salmon in a constantly disturbed state, and
sel gives a tabular statement of the returns drives the shoals of fish into the deep water,
of “two fisheries, forming in value half the where they are secure from the nets."f
whole Tay,” for three decades, one before
their erection, one during their existence, Poor, persecuted salmon Your two di
and one after they were suppressed. These rest enemies are quarrelling over your de
are conclusive enough, but he says, - struction, while Acts of Parliament are mak
ing, Commissioners are inquiring, and Local
“In addition, we may mention that the num Boards are sitting in council for your pre
ber of boxes (each box containing 100 pounds servation.
of fish) shipped from the river fisheries of the
Tay in 1812, the last year of the stake-nets, Salmon legislation comes next in natural
was 1175; in 1819, after they had been com succession to Mr. Russel's consideration, and
pletely removed, 5694.” he has, by his method of treating the sub
ject, contrived to give a popular interest to
Our “culprit” stands convicted, on his the chapter, dry and uninviting as its head
own showing, of delinquencies committed by ing argues it to be. One cannot fail to be
himself; he is caught “red hand;” but we struck with his preamble, that
have no means of knowing the number of
pilgrims he has caused to diverge from their “for more than six hundred years the preserva
tion and increase of salmon has been the sub
road to incur other dangers scarcely less
sure and fatal. “These engines,” said the ject of legislation in all the three kingdoms;
and from the first, as now, the leading principle
English Commissioners of Inquiry, “are of legislation has been to prevent the fisheries
baneful to the fisheries, not only on account being worked in excess of the natural powers
of the number of fish which they destroy, of reproduction. From of old, too, as now,
but also because they scare and drive them that principle has been applied mainly to two
away to sea, when they come in shoals seck points—to prevent the fisheries being worked
ing the rivers, thereby exposing them to be for a season either too long or mistimed, and to
injured or destroyed in a variety of ways.” prevent any of them being worked unfairly or
too severely in respect to machinery, as by en
“The fact here set forth,” Mr. Russel re gines more eff.ctive in capture than the engines
ordinarily in use, r operating to obstruct and
marks, “is recognised in all the old legislation, deter as well as to capture. In other words,
which prohibits fixtures in the rivers and estu the fixing of the proper duration and dates of
aries, on account not so much of their success close-time, and the regulation or prohibition of
in capturing, as of their effect in deterring and
frightening; any ‘white object, though inca obstructive, destructive, and especially fixed en
gines, were the objects aimed at six centuries
pable of anything but scaring, being prohibited ago, and are objects not quite attained yet."
equally with engines of capture.”
We are at issue with Mr. Russel about the
* See also Lloyd, Scandinavia, vol. i. p. 86.
1854.
“white object being incapable of anything + St. John's Wild Sports, p. 224. .
Passing over the ancient legislation, some and sell them when they had attained health,
of it very amusing, which Mr. Russel quotes size, and weight. The upper proprietors were
from the statutes of both kingdoms, let us to take care of them for two years without
see what later legislators have done to bring killing them, and the lower proprietors who
could take no care of them, were to kill them
about the objects which centuries of law before they had been two days, or perhaps two
making had only been able partially to ef. minutes, within their realms.
fect. “If landed proprietors used game as fishing
Lord Westbury, in a judicial decision, proprietors are apt to use salmon, “shooting
seems to have summed up most clearly “the down the hens, and not letting one head esca
leading principles and objects which the which by any means, fair or foul, they could
Legislature had had in view in all the Sta. possibly destroy, nobody could doubt the sure
and early result. And yet, to make even this
tutes, which might be held as mainly decla a parallel to the case of salmon, we must sup
ratory of the common law.” “The first was pose that, in addition to his own reckless
the object of securing to the salmon a free slaughter, a proprietor had no ground on which
access from the lower to the upper fresh birds would breed, and nevertheless so acted as
waters of the rivers, which are the natural to make enemies of those on whose grounds
spawning-grounds of the fish; the second they did breed, and who had the eggs and the
was to secure the means of return to the young at their mercy.”
young salmon or smolt down to the sea; the All honour to the Duke of Roxburghe,
third was the prohibiting the taking of un who, foremost in the fight, wielded his bill,
clean fish during certain periods of the year
when it was out of season as an article of and succeeded in “turning the tide of bat
tle.” -
food.”
How are we to interpret the expression, “If the time was come,” says Mr. Russel
“securing free access?” The words have a man (for a change in the existing system), “the
had come too. That man was the Duke
broad signification. Clearly they are con of Roxburghe, who was strongest an fore
demnatory of all fixed engines, and by impli most, £ as to finding the sinews of
cation would be equally so of over-fishing war, in leading a series of successful assaults
with the net, for such is the perfection at upon the old and decaying system, in the cause,
which net-fishing has arrived—so rapid the not, truly speaking, of upper proprietors against
succession of the nets, and so skilful the lower, but of preservation and increase against
fisherman—that it is wonderful if a fish can waste and decay. Without seeking éclat, or
pass them. Mr. Russel, however, very justly claiming merit, or even getting much assistance,
says: “It would have been better that Lord the Duke gave to this good work years of
trouble and thousands of pounds; to him the
Westbury had stated separately and empha owners of salmon-fisheries, low and high, owe
tically another object, which, at the utmost, more than they know of, and certainly very
he only includes as part of one of the three much more than they have acknowledged.”
objects he selects for specification,—the for
bidding any fishery owner increasing, through The Tweed bills of 1857 and 1859 paved
ingenious appliances or otherwise, the effi the way to more complete and general legis
ciency of his instruments to the injury of his lation; certain mischievous engines, called
neighbours or the general interest.” “stell-nets,” on the lower water, and the no
Many abortive attempts were made to less murderous cairn-nets on the upper, were
legislate and adjust the differences between got rid of; the close-time was lengthened,
two parties, whose interests, if fairly con and the rod-fishing had a great extent of
sidered, are identical. The battle raged grace accorded to it; the killing foul fish at
fiercely between the proprietors of the upper any time was prohibited; spearing or “leis
and those of the lower fisheries,—between tering”—“burning the water,” as it is some
right and might. It is impossible to read times called—was declared illegal; the
Mr. Russel's statement of the case without a meshes of nets were restricted as to size
feeling of indignation:— (one and three-quarters of an inch from knot
to knot); the closeness, both as to distance
“The upper proprietors, as Sir Walter Scott and time, with which ordinary or wear-shot
expressed it, were made mere ‘clocking-hens nets may be worked, fixed; obstructions
for the lower heritors, and took an absolute caused by dykes or dams were attempted to
disgust at the process of incubation. Their be removed, etc. etc.
grounds were turned into mere lying-in hospi In 1861, the Lord Advocate, “being
tals and nurseries; they scarcely ever saw sal
mon but as infants, as mothers in a delicate strongly opposed and weakly befriended,”
failed in passing a bill which would have
condition, and as invalids only ‘as well as could
be expected. They were to nurse them when struck at the root of a great evil. It pro
they were young, and to heal them when they vided for the abolition of all fixed engines.
were sick; and the people below were to ki'l In the following year he succeeded in pass
1865. AMr. Russel on the Salmon. 89
ing the bill which forms in the main the used in the capture of fish, is on the principle
existing law for all rivers north of Tweed. that every one who was to benefit by the pro
In it he omitted altogether the question of tection of the fishery should contribute towards
that protection. This was as fair a system as
fixed engines, leaving it in a better position could be devised, and, moreover, it had the ad
to be dealt with separately hereafter. The vantage of being well tried in Ireland ever
annual close-time was fixed at 168 days; since 1849. The present state of the fisheries
the weekly close-time at 36 hours—from six in that country was only so good as it was in
on Saturday night to six on Monday morning. consequence of that Act. In Ire'and ample
Rod-fishing was to end on the last day of funds for the protection of the fisheries had
been raised. For the Shannon—a river similar
October, unless the proprietors desired an in size to the Severn—£1300 odds had been
earlier closing; fishing with lights was pro
hibited, as well as the sale and use of salmon obtained last ye r, and £1400 odds this year.
I'OC.
. . . The 11th sectin of the English Act pro
hibited the use of all fixed engines, but allowed
The English Act of 1861 makes sundry all ancient rights enjoyed at t e time of passing
and necessary provisions for the removal of the Act. . . . In Ireland, whire they had found
obstructions, and for the prevention of pollu one legal weir there were fifty illegal ones, and
tion of rivers:—The annual close-time, from the removal of the latter had occasioned a great
1st September to 1st February, being 153 public benefit, as also to the owners of the
fisheries.”
days. Two extra months, till 1st November,
are given for rod-fishing. The weekly close The main provisions of the Irish law
time is from twelve at noon on Saturday to (1862–1863) are the fixing 168 days for the
six on Monday morning (six hours more than close-time, and permitting angling from the
given by the new Scotch law). The mini 1st February to 1st November. The ques
mum size of the meshes of nets is fixed at tion of fixed nets is scarcely set at rest. Bag
two inches from knot to knot. All fixed
nets are, however, prohibited in any river, as
engines are pronounced illegal, wherever so defined, with the exception of cases in
placed, with the exception of “fishing weirs which the right of salmon fishing in the
and fishing mill-dams,” and of “any ancient whole of a river or its tributaries belongs to
right or mode of fishing as lawfully exercised one proprietor. No new fixed nets can be
at time of the passing of this Act, by any erected anywhere. No cruive or trap can be
person, in virtue of any grant or charter, or used within fifty yards of a mill-dam, unless
immemorial usage.” the mill-dam has a pass approved by the
Shortly after the appearance of Mr. Rus Commissioners. Every cruive must have an
sel's book, a bill brought in by Mr. Baring open passage for the fish. This free gap, or,
and Sir George Grey, “to amend the Sal as it is commonly called in the country, the
mon Fishery Act in England (1861),” passed “Queen's Gap,” must be in the deepest part
into law (1864). This contains many valua of the stream, in a line parallel with the
ble clauses, the first of which relates to the direction of the stream at the weir, its bot
establishment of a Board of Conservators in tom level with the natural bed of the stream
each district, their qualification, and powers above and below the gap; its width in its
to appoint water-bailiffs to act under them; narrowest part must not be less than one
to issue licenses provided by the Act; to tenth part of the width of the stream; it
urchase any legal rights to weirs; authority need not be, however, made wider than fifty
is given to the water-bailiffs to inspect all feet, or narrower than three. No person to
weirs, dams, and fixed engines, to examine be entitled to compensation by reason of the
and seize all illegal nets and other instru enforcing of any free gap in any weir. The
ments for fishing. Licenses for rod-fishing, Act (1863) contains also a scale of licenses
available only for the season, and good every for engines: bag-nets, £1; stake-nets (Scotch),
where south of Tweed, are fixed at £1 ; #30; rod, £1. It gives also most extensive
those for weirs, etc., to be determined by the powers to the Commissioners.
Conservators. The proceeds of such licenses A late English Act (1865), among other
to be applied to defraying the expenses of good provisions, establishes licenses: rod,
carrying into effect in each district the said .#1; otter, lath, or jack / £3; cross-line, £2.
Acts.
of its old reputation as a salmon stream. The
“This method of raising funds,” says Mr. Chairman of the Central Committee says, in a let
Eden, the Inspector of Fisheries, in a letter to ter to us:—“Hitherto we have effected some little
the Chairman of the Central Committee of the good with very small funds; but all the credit is
due to Mr. George, our secretary, who really is an
Severn Association,” “by taxing all engines invaluable man, and salmon enthusiasts all over
England owe him a debt of gratitude for the very
* To the Severn Fisheries Association, now in lucid and forcible suggestions he has made from
the twenty-third year of its existence, is due the time to time to the Fishery Commissioners, many
credit of restoring to their noble river something of which have been embodied in the new Act.”
From this summary of the laws of the It is not to serve the interests of this or that
three countries, we gather that, by taking individual, but to restore as nearly as possible
what is best from each of them to form one to its former plenty a valuable commodity
whole, a better general law might be pro which has been suffered by wasteful extrava
duced common to Great Britain and Ireland. gance, by selfish greed, and by unrestrained
Mr. Russel opens his fifth chapter, on abuse, to become a “costly luxury” instead
“Future Salmon Legislation,” with a most of a staple of food. Of food! and in these
appropriate injunction to the public and the ominous days, threatened as we are by a
Legislature, regarding the question of fixture still further dearth of one of our most pre
fisheries on the coasts of Scotland :— cious products, with the prices of meat at an
“Clear your m’nd of cant!” “The public
unprecedented height, we hold that the most
mind,” he says, “which of course the legisla stringent measures ought to be adopted, the
tive mind reflects, has become infec'ed with the utmost powers of the law be put in force, to
idea that these eng'nes are a ‘property' which turn to the best account the ready means we
it w; uld be robbery to take away; but the fact, have of increasing our store of provisions.
easy of dem nstration, is, that the s -called Is a question raised about the absolute value
pro, erty is in truth stol n goods, or rather the of the salmon as food? Are there persons
means of stealing goods that had for centuries who look upon salmon legislation as a mere
been the lawful property of others. . . . In fight between the rod-fisher and the fish pur
Scotland all property in salmon-fi heries is
constituted by, or derived from Crown grants. veyor? Let us go back to a page in the
Now the sum of the whole matter, as to fixed early part of Mr. Russel's book:—
grants, is condensed in this little fact, that the “From the reports of the Irish Commiss on
Crown never made a grant of salmon-fisheries ers we learn that, in 1862, apparently an ordi
with the intention or under the slightest sus nary year, three Irish railways conveyed 400
picion that the fishing was to be performed by tons, or about 900,000 lbs. of salmon, being
fixed nets. All the charters for sea-cast fish
equal in weight and treble in value to 15,000
eries were grante', and all those fisheries sheep, or 20,000 mixed sheep and lambs. In
worked long before those engines were resorted Scotland the Tay alone furnishes about 800,000
to or thought of. It is therefore not an infer lbs. . The weight of salmon produced by
ence but a simple matter of fact, that, if the the Spey is equal to the weight of mutton au
owners of sea-coast fisheries were now com
nually yielded to the butcher by each of several
pelled to recar to the machinery which they of the smaller counties.”
used at first, and which is the only kind per
mitted to their neighbours, still they would have The mischief caused by the stake and bag
left to them all that was ever intended they nets to the legitimate net fishing admits of
shou'd have, and all that they ever had, till no doubt. They are baneful in their effects
within tese few years, they, at their own in a national point of view, as tending to the
hands, seized what had from ancient times be decrease of the salmon, not only by prevent
longed to oth rs. The question is not whether
the sea-shore proprietors holding fishing char ing the “free access of fish to the rivers,”
ters” (an end ought to be made at once of such but by the incalculable waste they occasion
as do not) “shall retain their right of salmon by scaring them out to sea. The “beggar
fishing, but whether they, and they alone, shall my-neighbour” game that is played by their
be allowed to fish by any and every means thy owners is senseless as it is unprofitable,—a
can devise; more especially, whether they are
to be allowed to use a species of engines not
£ of gambling by which all lose. In
ngland they have been condemned; in Ire
contemp a ed when they acquired their right land they are in process of extinction. In
of fishing, not used by them till a very recent
period, and strictly prohibited to 'll their neigh Scotland alone it is hesitated to acknowledge
bours. It is not a question of taking away any the principle of all law, which is asserted in
‘right, but of applying the same regulation to its sister countries, that the “public good is
the same right at one spot as is applied to it at paramount.”
another round the corner. It is not a question We cannot agree with Mr. Russel that the
of taking away any portion of any kind of proprietors of these illegal fisheries have a
‘property,’ but of bringing all portions of the claim to be dealt with tenderly by the law,
same kind of property under the same law.” that it should “do its spiriting gently;” nor
We agree that fixed engines on the sea would it, we think, be dignified to “treat
coast and estuaries are simply usurpations, them as belligerents,” and terrify them into
defensible on no plea save the miserable one terms. It may almost be taken for granted
of prescription: that they are doomed, that it is only a ques
tion of time. The case, again, of the pollu
“You tell a pe’igree tion of rivers is at the present day acknow
Of threescore and two years—a silly time,
To make prescri, tion for a kingdom's worth.” ledged to be a national question, in a sanitary
sense, irrespective of the injurious effect it
What is the intent of all salmon legislation? produces on the lives of the poor fish. They
will, however, come in for their measure of quences is justly entitled to protection. Mr.
relief in the large and comprehensive legisla Russel suggests a remedy:
tion which an evil of such vital importance
must eventually provoke. “The present system is a scramble; each man
There remains yet to be dealt with an having a few yards of river bends his efforts to
abuse which has been overlooked or lightly catch as many fish as he can; and the grand
object of all the innumerable and complicated
regarded in the several acts mentioned above, laws on the subject is to prevent his efforts
which form the salmon law of the land.
from being too effective. This is a system of
There is certainly a discretionary power given very natural growth, but it has now grown to
to the special Commissioners,” but the mag be a great and unnecessary evil and anachronism.
nitude of the abuse demands special legisla The proportionate value of every man's rights in
tion—special clauses in acts to meet it; we any river is now accurately ascertained; why
allude to the over-fishing by the recognised should not all the owners on any given river
legitimate means of net and coble, and to form themselves, as it were, into a joint-stock
company, this man having a fourth share, and
the suicidal faculty that is permitted and in that a fortieth, and then proceed to fish the river
variably exercised by the owners of these in the way best for all of them, considered as
engines, of killing the fish before it has ar one interest, and divide the money proceeds
rived at a state of maturity. among the shareholders according to the num
It has not been sufficiently considered in ber and proportion of their shares? More
any legislative enactments that the taste, the specifically, our radical reform is this—to erect
rage for salmon angling, has added a new and work in each river at such place, or several
places, as might be most suitable, some engines
commercial value to the property along the which shall, during periods properly regulated
river bank. The rod-fishing in a river is now and restricted, take possibly every fish which
a most valuable possession, even narrowed as ascends to them, or allow all to pass, dividing
it is by the rapacity of the owners of the the expense and the produce among the [Jro
lower fisheries, and it might be rendered ten prietors of the fisheries in the proportion which
fold more valuable by fair and equitable laws. the present value of the fishery of each bears to
We leave out of our calculation the increased the present value of the whole.”
inducement it might hold out to fishers to
visit remote districts, and to spread much The project is one well worthy of being
money on their course; the employment it entertained by our law-givers. The pleasant
would afford to so many more of the people consummation might be brought about by
as attendants or gillies; the additional im an Act of Parliament appointing special
pulse it would give to a trade which has Commissioners, with powers to investigate
already grown within a few years to an ex and settle the claims, and to apportion the
traordinary extent, and given employment to shares; to legislate for the cruive, or trap or
hundreds of hands in the manufacture of fish instrument for waylaying the fish; to control
ing implements. Still less would we insist its action, its seasons, its too great efficiency;
on the common benefit that would be con to organize a strong and effective staff of
ferred by facilitating the means of enjoying a water-bailiffs along the river from the upper
healthful and manly sport. We merely say most spawning beds to the mouth; to con
that property which involves such conse stitute a board of management, subject to
their inspection, for finance and business
* In Ireland we find the Commissioners exer. detail.
cising the authority delegated to them in a wa And not the least of the advantages to be
calculated to work an immense benefit. The fol
lowing is an instance of the extension of the derived from such a method of conducting
weekly close-time being summarily ordered. the fisheries would be the easy means afford
“Bandon, County Cork-It having been proved ed by it of correcting an abuse which has
that net-fishing is carried on in the tidal and fresh always appeared to us most monstrous and
water portions of the Bandon river to such an ex most patent, but which has been altogether
tent as to be highly injurious to the fisheries of the
river, Notice is hereby given, that we propose to overlooked or disregarded hitherto—the
Inake Bye-laws to the following effect, viz.:—The wholesale and indiscriminate destruction of
use of nets of any description for the capture of the adolescent salmon. While the whole
salmon or trout in the tidal portion of the river is object of salmon legislation has been to pro
prohibited between six of the clock on Friday tect the fish and to increase its value as food
morning and six on the succeeding Saturday morn
ing. And the use at any time of nets of any de —as property—the system of destroying it
scription whatever for the capture of salmon or in its second stage, before it has arrived at
trout is prohibited in the fresh-water portion of maturity, has never been attacked. It is
the said river.” The Commissioners intinate they positively astounding to see in the tabular
will be prepared to receive protests in writing,
from any persons who have objections to make, up returns quoted by Mr. Russel the proportion
to the 1st August. The notice is signed by the of grilse killed to that of salmon. The
Commissioners, and dated July 12, 1865. most rigorous provisions are made in the
92 Sensation Novelists: Miss Braddon. Sept.
several Acts, for the protection even of the ries, and last, not least, of anglers. But he
roe of the fish, and immunity is extended to has done more than that. By the clear, his
the infant parr. And if to the parr, why torical survey he has given of old and new
not to the grilse? The same reason holds salmon-legislation, by chronicling the dif
good; in neither case has the fish arrived at ferent provisions of the several Acts that
maturity. Let us take at hazard, from Mr. have been passed from early ages down to
Russel, one return of the annual produce of the present day, and more especially by col
the Tweed Fisheries (1856, the last issued), lating, as it were, the laws as recently enact
we here find the number of salmon 4,885, of ed for the three countries, he has rendered
£ 33,992,-nearly six-sevenths of the fish easy a task which seems to have perplexed
villed were fish that had not bred ! A system and baffled all our legislators hitherto, how
such as this is clearly as detrimental to the ever much they agreed in its importance,
increase of the salmon as its policy is short that of framing on good, sound principles one
sighted, and its results injurious to the owners complete Act for the preservation and pro
of fisheries. We should be glad to see in tection of the salmon. That achieved, it
the next Salmon Act a clause or two prohibit would be difficult, we think, to show cause
ing the taking (except with the rod) or sell why such an Act should not be common to
ing any grilse under four pounds weight.” the United Kingdom.
In giving the privilege to rod fishers, it will The extracts we have given will enable our
be seen that they must use it for sport, not readers to judge with what skill Mr. Russel
profit. It is a small boon. Fair fishing with has served up his salmon. The workman is
the rod never yet hurt a salmon-river, and always at his work; never turns aside to dally
the number of grilse killed by the angler with any other attraction. His style is un
would be insignificant. affected, unstudied—not spoilt by the ever
..We have not space to follow Mr. Russel recurring Shaksperian quotations and allu
in his exposition of the “non-legislative re sions which tell to the initiated. He is clear,
medies,—better nursing and cheaper fishing,” vigorous, hard-hitting, but never losing tem
—which are treated of in the last section of per—full of spirit and life.
his book. He insists on the importance of
Pisciculture, which is now so successfully
carried out at Stormontfield, and sets forth
the advantage that would accrue from the
adoption of his co-operative scheme.
ART VI.—1. Lady Audley's Secret. By
“One effect of such a reform,” he says in the M. E. BRADDoN. 3 vols. London,
concluding paragraph, “would be a great saving 1862.
of expense in wages and materials, which at 2. Aurora Floyd. By M. E. BRADDoN. 3
present seem to amount, on the chief fisheries, vols. London, 1863.
to nearly three-fourths of the total value of the 3. Eleanor's Victory. By M. E. BRADDoN.
produce; and a still grander result would be the 3 vols. London, 1863.
putting an end to wasteful strife, opening up a
free field for amicable co-operation, and making 4. John Marchmont's Legacy. By M. E.
simple a hundred questions which are now com BRADDoN. 3 vols. London, 1863.
plex, by transforming, at one stroke, the con 5. Henry Dunbar. By M. E. BRADDoN.
tending parties from competit rs to partners. 3 vols. London, 1864.
In a word, it would introduce into th: piscatorial 6. The Doctor's Wife. By M. E. BRADDoN.
realms the three great, well-known, and much 3 vols. London, 1864.
coveted benefits of Peace, Reform, and Re 7. Only a Clod. By M. E. BRADDoN. 3
trenchment.”
vols. London, 1865.
Mr. Russel has done good service in plead
ing the cause of the ill-used, persecuted sal If the test of genius were success, we should
mon, and putting forth its pretensions to be rank Miss Braddon very high in the list
esteemed and protected as food, as property, of our great novelists. The fertility of her
as sport, advocating alike the claims of the invention is as unprecedented as the extent
public generally, of the proprictors of fishe of her popularity. Month after month she
produces instalments of new novels which
* To those who do not know the accuracy with attract countless readers, and are praised by
which an experienced fisherman can estimate, not a few competent critics. Three years
almost to a fraction, the weight of a fish at first ago her name was unknown to the reading
sight, it may appear hard that the law should public. Now it is nearly as familiar to every
compel him to return a grilse to the water without
first having put it into the scales. They may be novel-reader as that of Bulwer Lytton or
assured he will incur no risk of getting into Charles Dickens.
trouble. Miss Braddon cannot reasonably complain
1S65. Sensation Novelists : Miss Braddon. 93
that, in her case, striving merit has been suf beer is considered scandalous by the sup
fered to fret and pine unheeded. Almost as porters of the Permissive Bill. A novel
soon as Lady Audley's Secret appeared, it which deserves censure from a literary point
was lauded by distinguished critics, and of view cannot merit high eulogy solely on
eagerly purchased and read by an enthu account of its morality. That which is bad
siastic section of the public. Daily news in taste is usually bad in morals: it is suf
papers which habitually neglected, or carped ficient, then, as it is fair, to apply the
at works that fell short of a very high stan test we propose to the works of Miss Brad
dard of excellence, became conspicuous for don.
the exceptional compliments they paid to As yet they have never been criticised
this authoress. Even a weekly journal which otherwise than singly. Thus the leading
is noted for lavishing stinging sarcasms on peculiarities which characterize all of them
the female novelists in whose works High have not been pointed out. Unless we re
Church principles are unsupported or scoffed gard them collectively we shall be unable to
at, has bestowed ungrudging praise on the form a comprehensive opinion regarding them.
writings of Miss Braddon. As novel after It is as unjust to determine the merits of Jhe
novel issued from the press, the laudatory author of several works on the strength of
epithets were, when possible, more copiously one only, as it is to decide on the quality of
showered upon her. Her triumph has been a book after perusing a single page. Put
nearly complete. By the unthinking crowd ting aside the earlier and more crude works
she is regarded as a woman of genius. The of this authoress, and taking those only which
magazine to which she contributes is almost have rendered her so notorious, we shall
certain to have a large circulation, and to analyse each of them in turn. It may be
enrich its fortunate proprietors. She has that an account of the different plots will not
bewitched so many persons, that those who be unwelcome to some readers, and may con
have the misfortune to be blind to her charms vey information to those who have neither
have had small chance of being listened to time nor inclination to peruse all the shilling
when pronouncing an adverse judgment. monthly magazines, or the novels reprinted
Her position in the world of letters can be from them.
almost paralleled by that which one of her The scene of Lady Audley's Secret is
personages held in the world of art. In Audley Court, a “very old and very irregu
Eleanor’s Victory, Launcelot Darrell becomes lar and rambling mansion,” situated in Essex.
an artist, after being baulked of a property We are assured that “in such a house there
which he had hoped to inherit. He paints a were secret chambers.” Equally natural is it
picture called “The Earl's Death.” It is that there should be a lime-tree walk, “a
emphatically described as a “sensation” chosen place for secret meetings and for
picture. Miss Braddon goes on to say that stolen interviews.” Trees overshadowed this
“although the picture was ugly, there was a walk so as to form a “dark arcade,” at the
strange, weird attraction in it, and people end of which stood the rusty wheel of an old
went to see it again and again, and liked it, well. Upon everything about the house
and hankered after it, and talked of it perpe peace is said to have laid her “soothing
tually all that season; one faction declaring hand;” “ay, even upon the stagnant well,
that the lucifer-match effect was the most which, cool and sheltered as all else in the
delicious moonlight, and the murderess of old place, hid itself away in a shrubbery be
the earl the most lovely of womankind, till hind the gardens, with an idle handle that
the faction who thought the very reverse of was never turned, and a lazy rope so rotten
this became afraid to declare their opinions; that the pail had broken away from it, and
and thus everybody was satisfied.” Now, had fallen into the water.” The foregoing
there is a “faction” which does not think passage forms, as it were, the key-note to the
her “sensation novels” the most admirable work. From the outset everything is mys
product of this generation, and considers that, terious. It is certainly puzzling how a well
judged by a purely literary standard, they are could hide itself, and a rope be lazy and rot
unworthy of unqualified commendation. To ten
that “faction” we belong. We shall pur Sir Michael Audley is the proprietor of
posely avoid applying a moral test to these the rambling mansion and dismal walk, the
productions; for those who apply it are rusty wheel and lazy rope. Although a
generally prone to condemn that which they widower, the father of a charming daughter
cannot praise, chiefly because others think it aged eighteen, yet it was not till “the sober
admirable. On this principle bear-baiting age of fifty-five” that he fell ill of “the terri.
was denounced by the Puritans; smoking is ble fever called love,” having “never loved
called a vice by the members of the Anti before.” The lady who attracted him was
Tobacco Society; and drinking a glass of Lucy Graham, governess in the family of a
94 Sensation Novelists: Miss Braddon. Sept.
village doctor. She was supposed to be bert Audley should have chambers in Fig
twenty years of age, and is said to have been Tree Court, should live there on his income,
“blessed with that magic power of fascina and spend his time in smoking German pipes
tion by which a woman can charm with a and reading Balzac's novels, is very likely;
word, or intoxicate with a smile.” Sir but that he should meet “sly old benchers”
Michael “could no more resist the tender in the Temple Gardens, who took any interest
fascination of those soft and melting blue in his welfare, is as incredible as that a private
eyes, the graceful beauty of that slender soldier strolling through Hyde Park on a
throat and drooping head, with its wealth of summer's evening should be accosted in fa
showering flaxen curls, the low music of that miliar terms by the Duke of Cambridge. It
gentle voice, the perfect harmony which per seems difficult to conceive anything more
vaded every charm, and made all doubly ridiculous than the foregoing passage; yet
charming in this woman, than he could resist Miss Braddon has shown that she can surpass
his destiny. Destiny! why, she was his des it; for at page 116 of the second volume we
tiny!” It was not beauty which alone at read that “elderly benchers indulged in
tracted Sir Michael: he loved without being facetious observations upon the young man's
able to help it. He but fulfilled his destiny. pale face and moody manner. They suggested
Miss Braddon teaches us to say, with the fol the probability of some unhappy attachment,
lowers of the Prophet, “It is fate.” She has some feminine ill-usage, as the secret cause
to explain, however, wherefore, if it were Sir of the change. They told him to be of good
Michael's destiny to fall in love, it was neces cheer, and invited him to supper-parties, at
sary to depict Lucy Graham as having been which “lovely woman, with all her faults,
so very fascinating. Does she consider des God bless her, was drunk by gentlemen who
tiny to wait upon good looks? shed tears as they proposed the toast, and
Before passing on we must notice the were maudlin and unhappy in their cups to
heroine's hair. All Miss Braddon's heroes and wards the close of the entertainment.” When
heroines are specially remarkable in this re Miss Braddon was writing fancy sketches like
spect. Lucy Graham had “the most won this, the wonder is that she should have not
derful curls in the world—soft and feathery, been a little more bold. Why did she not
always floating away from her face, and add that the judges graced the supper-parties
making a pale halo round her head when the with their presence, and enlivened them with
sunlight shone through them.” “No one curious stories and comic songs? In order
but a pre-Raphaelite would have painted, hair to complete the portrait of this very extra
by hair, those feathery masses of ringlets, ordinary young barrister, we must add that
with every glimmer of gold, and every shadow he is characterized as being “a fellow who
of pale brown.” At page 237 of the same turns his collars down, and eats bread and
woume we read of “her yellow curls glisten marmalade.” It is true that a rival says this
ing with the perfumed waters in which she of him; but Miss Braddon would not have
had bathed;” and at page 251 that “my lady's put such a charge into the rival's mouth if
yellow curls flashed hither and thither like she had not thought it a grave one. Once
wandering gleams of sunshine.” This is quite she makes him describe himself to Lady Aud
in the style of the advertising female who pro ley in these terms:—“You have no senti
fesses to have the power of making any lady mental nonsense, no silly infatuation, borrowed
“beautiful for ever.” from Balzac and Dumas fils to fear from me.
Robert Audley, the nephew of Sir Michael, The benchers of the Inner Temple will tell
is one of the prominent actors in this story, you that Robert Audley is troubled with none
and he is in every way so unlike other men of the epidemics whose outward signs are
of his class, that we shall give a full account turn-down collars and Byronic neckties.”
of him. He is a barrister by profession, and One other specimen of Robert Audley's con
briefless by choice. Having an income of four versation will conclusively prove that in every
hundred pounds, he is able to live without thing he differs from ordinary male mortals.
toil or trouble. His favourite amusements He is telling a friend about Lady Audley,
are smoking German pipes and reading French and thus describes her:—“She's the prettiest
novels. It was his custom, when the weather little creature you ever saw in your life,
was very hot, and he was very tired, to stroll George, . . . such blue eyes, such ringlets,
into the Temple Gardens, where, “lying in such a ravishing smile, such a fairy-like bon
some shady spot, pale and cool, with his # net, all of a tremble with heartsease and dewy
collar turned down, and a blue silk handker spangles, shining out of a cloud of gauze "
chief tied loosely about his neck, [he] would This is nearly as amusing nonsense as the
tell grave benchers that he had knocked him stories about the “sly old benchers.”
self up with over-work. The sly old benchers Another person who figures in this novel
laughed at the pleasing fiction.” That Ro is George Talboys. He deserted his wife
1865. Sensation Novelists : Miss Braddon. 95
went to Australia, lived there for three years never read of again except in a “sensation
and a half, then returned to England with novel.
f:20,000, and learned that his wife had died Next morning the pair went out to fish.
shortly before his return, leaving an infant Robert Audley fell asleep on the bank of the
son under the care of her father. George stream. When he awoke, his friend had dis
Talboys is the attached friend of Robert Aud appeared. Unable to learn any tidings of
ley. They go together to the village of him, he concluded that he had been murder
Audley, where they spend some time, and ed, and that Lady Audley was guilty of his
visit Audley Court during the absence of Sir death. He begins to collect proofs. Piece
Michael and his wife. Alicia, who remains by piece he links together the chain which
behind, receives her cousin and his friend. connects Lady Audley with the crime. So
They express a desire to see a portrait of the industrious, wary, and expert does he become,
lady of the house. It is in her bedroom, the as to force the authoress to say that “though
door of which is locked. However, they suc solemn benchers laughed at him, and rising
ceedin their object, entering the room through barristers shrugged their shoulders under
a secret passage. The portrait must have rustling silk gowns when people spoke of
been an extraordinary work of art; certainly, Robert Audley, I doubt if, had he ever taken
the language in which it is described is an the trouble to get a brief, he might not have
extraordinary specimen of writing. In the rather surprised the magnates who under
portrait, Lady Audley “had something of the rated his abilities.” Yet this energetic young
aspect of a beautiful fiend. Her crimson man is depicted as little better than a fool.
dress, exaggerated like all the rest in this Four chapters after the passage about the
strange picture, hung about her in folds that solemn benchers and rising barristers, we
loöked like flames; her fair head peeping out read that, being on a visit to Audley Court
of the lurid mass of colour as out of a raging during the winter, —“he had even gone so
furnace. Indeed, the crimson dress, the sun far as to put on, with great labour, a pair of
shine on the face, the red gold gleaming in skates, with a view to taking a turn on the
the yellow hair, the ripe scarlet of the pout frozen surface of the fish-pond, and had
ing lips, the glowing colours of each accessory fallen ignominiously at the first attempt,
of the minutely-painted background, all com lying placidly extended on the flat of his
bined to render the first effect of the paint back until such time as the bystanders should
ing by no means an agreeable one.” We think fit to pick him up.” When not lying
should think neither the first nor the last im on the ice “placidly extended on the flat of
pression could be other than painful. It per his back,” or doing something equally unna
plexes us to know what Lady Audley was tural and ridiculous, he manifested his good
really like when we read a passage like the breeding by smoking cigars in Lady Aud
foregoing, a few pages after having read one ley's boudoir. Truly, Miss Braddon has very
like the following:—“The innocence and can strange notions about the manners and cus
dour of an infant beamed in Lady Audley's toms of young and inexperienced barristers.
fair face, and shone out of her large liquid The result of Robert Audley's researches
blue eyes. The rosy lips, the delicate nose, was to confirm him in his belief, and also to
the profusion of fair ringlets, all contributed change his nature. A more marvellous in
to preserve to her beauty the character of ex stance of conversion we never met with. It
treme youth and freshness.” As might be shows that Miss Braddon's views are decid
anticipated, the effect of the portrait on the edly original as to the effect which the
two friends was very startling. George Tal unravelling of a mystery has on the mind of
boys was struck dumb; Robert Audley spoke a young barrister who is addicted to reading
of it “with an air of terror perfectly sincere.” Balzac's novels and smoking rschaum
They returned to their inn. A storm of thun pipes. These are her own words:—“The one
der and lightning commenced and raged vio purpose which had slowly grown up in his
lently, the effect of which on George Talboys careless nature, until it had become powerful
was to make him still more moody, whereas enough to work a change in that very nature,
Robert Audley “calmly retired to rest, serene made him what he had never been before—
ly indifferent to the thunder, which seemed a Christian.”
to shake him in his bed, and the lightning After his conversion, Robert Audley suc
playing fitfully round the razors in his open ceeds in attaining his object. He winds a
dressing-case.” The latter clause merits chain of damning facts round. Lady Audley.
special notice. We have heard of many curi She makes a desperate attempt to free her
ous freaks committed by lightning, but that self, by procuring his death, setting fire to
it should play round razors without injuring, an alehouse in which he is passing the night.
or even exciting a spectator, is a phenomenon He escapes and accuses her of being a mur
of which we never heard before, and shall. deress. Eventually she admits the truth of
96 Sensation Nove'ists : Miss Braddon. Sept.
the charge, as well as the fact that in mar capable of being perused without the reflect
rying Sir Michael she committed bigamy, ing reader being induced to lament the time
seeing that her husband was alive. This was he has lost over its pages. No discriminat
George Talboys, whom she had pushed down ing reader ever laid down these volumes
the old well. The matter is hushed up, and without regretting that he had taken them
instead of being tried for murder she is sent up, and that their authoress should have so
to a private madhouse in Belgium, where she misemployed her undoubted talents as to
languishes and dies. It afterwards appears produce them.
that she was innocent of the crime of mur The difference between it and Aurora
der, for George Talboys got out of the well Floyd, Miss Braddon's next novel, is chiefly
and went to America. He opportunely re a difference in names and accessories. Archi
visits England, to the great joy of his friend. bald Floyd is another Sir Michael Audley.
It is not said that Robert Audley ever repent Like the latter, the former, when advanced in
ed of having been the means of causing his years, marries a beautiful but penniless wo
aunt to end her days prematurely in a mad man. Mr. Floyd's wife “was a tall young
house, charged with a crime of which she woman, of about thirty, with a dark com.
was innocent. On the contrary, there is the plexion, and great flashing black eyes that lit
usual amount of marrying and giving in up a face which might otherwise have been
marriage. Babies are born in due time, and unnoticeable, into the splendour of absolute
every one rejoices. The authoress concludes beauty.” This lady did no wrong beyond
by hoping that “no one will take any objec giving birth to a daughter who commits bi
tion to my story because the end of it leaves gamy and is suspected of being a murder
the good people all happy and at peace.” ess. Almost at the outset, we are warned
For a reason very different from that anti. against disbelieving anything in this novel.
cipated by the authoress do we object to this The trick is a hackneyed one. What is
story. The short extracts we have given notable in this case is the manner in
serve to show that the personages are not which Miss Braddon introduces her state
like living beings. They prove also how ment. Having to tell us that the lady was
thoroughly ignorant Miss Braddon is of the not discontented, and loved her husband, she
ways of the world and the motive springs of does it in this wise: “If this were a very
the heart. With the exception of Phoebe romantic story, it would be perhaps only pro
Marks, the lady's-maid, not a single person per for Eliza Floyd to pine in her gilded
age has any resemblance to the people we bower, and misapply her energies in weepin
meet with in the flesh. for some abandoned lover, deserted in an evil
Lady Audley is at once the heroine and hour of ambitious madness. But as my story
the monstrosity of the novel. In drawing is a true one, not only true in a general sense,
her, the authoress may have intended to por.but strictly true as to the leading facts which
tray a female Mephistopheles; but, if so, she
I am about to relate, and as I could point
should have known that a woman cannot fill out, in a certain county far northward of the
such a part. The nerves with which Lady lovely Kentish woods, the very house in
Audley could meet unmoved the friend of the which the events I shall describe took place,
man she had murdered, are the nerves of a I am bound also to be truthful here, and to
Lady Macbeth who is half unsexed, and not set down as a fact that the love which Eliza
those of the timid, gentle, innocent creature Floyd bore for her husband was as pure and
Lady Audley is represented as being. When sincere an affection as ever man need hope
ever she is meditating the commission of to win from the generous heart of a good
something inexpressibly horrible, she is de woman.” In addition to considering this as
scribed as being unusually charming. Her a very round-about way of stating a very sim
manner and her appearance are always in ple fact, we regard it as one of those blunders
contrast with her conduct. All this is very which a true artist would never commit.
exciting; but it is also very unnatural. The Before examining into the details of this
artistic faults of this novel are as grave as novel, we shall indicate the nature of the
the ethical ones. Combined, they render it plot. Aurora, the heroine and daughter of
one of the most noxious books of modern the wealthy banker Mr. Floyd, is first en
times. And, in consequence of faults like gaged to Talbot Bulstrode, then to John
these, we cannot admit the plea that the Mellish, whom she marries. Mr. Mellish has
story is well told, that the plot is very cle a groom, James Conyers, who had formerly
verly planned, that the work is one which, been in the employment of Mr. Floyd. With
once begun, cannot be relinquished before him, Aurora, while still a girl, had fallen in
the close. This plea might be urged in love. He had enticed her away from a
favour of the vilest tales. It is not enough French boarding-school, and induced her to
that any work should interest, it must # marry him. This was her secret, and because
1865. Sensation Novelists : Miss Braddon. 97
she would not reveal it to Talbot Bulstrode, shoulders in serpentine tresses, that look
he had broken off the engagement. Before ed like shining blue-black snakes released
marrying for the second time, she learned, onfrom poor Medusa's head to make their
good authority, that her first husband was escape amid the folds of her garments. . . .
dead. When he re-appears as her second One small hand lay under her head, twisted
husband's servant, she tries to bribe him to in the tangled masses of her glorious hair.”
leave the country. Terms are arranged be In this same volume Miss Braddon observes,
tween them. She has an interview, and that “some women never outlive that school
pays him the required sum. A few minutes girl infatuation for straight noses and dark
afterwards he is shot through the heart. hair.” Remembering what she has written
Aurora is suspected of having committed about Lady Audley's golden locks, we must
murder as well as bigamy. Like Lady Aud admit that Miss Braddon is not given to ad
ley, she has been guilty of one crime only. mire any particular hue, and that she evi
This being satisfactorily proved, she is re dently loves hair for its own sake, provided
married, and her trials are over. Curiously that it be abundant.
enough, Aurora has no child by either hus From a lady novelist we naturally expect
band till after the clearing up of the mystery
to have portraits of women which shall not
which surrounds her. On the last page but be wholly untrue to nature. We have seen
one of the third volume, is the announce that Lady Audley is quite as fantastic a
ment of the birth of a “black-eyed” boy. sketch as that of any of the male characters.
The distinctive characteristics of Aurora The following example will prove that Auro
are her eyes and hair. The former are “like ra Floyd is equally wanting in the traits
the stars of heaven;" the latter is blue-black. which constitute a true woman. A half
We are told that, “like most young ladies witted servant having kicked a lame dog of
with black eyes and blue-black hair, Miss which she was very fond,
Floyd was a good hater.” This is rather puz
zling, seeing that Lady Audley was repre “Aurora sprang upon him like a beautiful
sented as an excellent hater, although her tigress, and catching the collar of his fustian
eyes were blue and her hair red. There jacket in her slight hands, rooted him to the
spot upon which he stood. The grasp of those
must have been something terrible in Auro slender hands, convulsed by passion, was not to
ra's eyes, for on one occasion she is repre be easily shaken off; and Steeve Hargraves,
sented as looking at a man “with her eyes taken completely off his guard, stared aghast
flashing forked lightnings of womanly fury.” at his assailant. Taller than the stable-man by
Of course, the possession of such eyes and a foot and a half, she towered above him, her
hair is made the theme of many impassioned cheeks white with rage, her eyes flashing fury,
paragraphs. The following is a specimen : her hat fallen off, and her black hair tumbling
about her shoulders, sublime in her passion.
“The thick plaits of her black hair made a “The man croached beneath the grasp of the
great diadem upon her low forehead and imperious creature.
crowned her as an Eastern empress; an em “‘Let me go!" he gasped, in h’s inward
press with a doubtful nose, it is true, but an whisper, which had a hissing sound in his agi
empress who reigned by right divine of her tation; ‘let me go, or you'll be sorry; let me
eyes and hair. For do not these wonderful go!
black eyes, which perhaps shine upon us only “‘How dared you!' cried Aurora, “how
once in a lifetime, in themselves constitute a dared you hurt him? My poor dog! My
'' lame, feeble dog! IIow dared you do it?
royalty " In another chapter she is depicted ou cowardly dastard! you—"
“with her coronet of plaits dyed black against “She disengaged her right hand from his
the purple air,” and again with “her long collar, and raine a shower of blows upon his
purple-black hair all tumbled and tossed clumsy shoulders with her slender whip; a
about the pillows.” Be it observed that her mere toy, with emeralds set in its golden #:
hair changes its colour according to circum but stinging like a rod of flexible steel in that
little hand.
stances. At one time it is simple black, at
another blue-black, then dead-black, and “‘How dared you!' she repeated again and
again, her cheeks changing from white to scar
lastly purple-black. The last change occurs let in the effort to hold the man with one hand.
in the tenth chapter of the first volume. In Her tanged hair had fallen to her waist by this
the second volume the epithets are repeated time, and the whip was broken in half-a-dozen
without much variation. There Aurora is places.’”—(Vol. i. pp. 273, 274.)
spoken of as “that Egyptian goddess, that
Assyrian queen with the flashing eyes and When Aurora's husband suddenly found
serpentine coils of purple-black hair.” She his wife thus employed, we are told that he
is also represented lying on a sofa, “wrapped “turned white with horror at beholding the
in a loose white dressing-gown, her masses of beautiful fury.” If he had been a genuine
ebon hair unveiled and falling about her man, and not the puppet of a female novelist,
VOL. XLIII. - 1
98 Sensation Novelists : Miss Braddon. Sept.
he would have turned away with loathing claimable spendthrift, commits suicide. The
from the sight. An authoress who could loss, at play, of a sum of money he can ill
make one of her sex play the chief part in spare, is the incentive to do this. His daugh
such a scene, is evidently acquainted with a ter Eleanor, aged fifteen, thereupon swears
very low type of female character, or else to be revenged upon the man who had won
incapable of depicting that which she knows her father's money, and thus hastened his
to be true. We are certain that, except in death. This takes place in Paris. She then
this novel, no lady possessing the education returns to London, and after eighteen months
and occupying the position of Aurora Floyd have elapsed, becomes the companion of Lau
could have acted as she is represented to ra Mason, who lives with a widow named
have done. . Darrell, and is the ward of Gilbert Monckton.
The same impression of unreality is pro Some time afterwards the widow's son,
duced by the other characters. There is Launcelot, returns from India. He falls in
Lucy Floyd, who “was very pretty, certainly, love with, and proposes, but without success.
with pink cheeks, a white nose, and rose to Eleanor. Meantime she discovers that he
coloured nostrils,” and who gloried in what at had not gone to India: she suspects that he
one time is styled golden hair, at another might have been in Paris at the date of her
“amber tresses.” She is a pretty doll. So father's death, and that he is the person on
silly is she that in the matter of dress she is whom she had sworn to wreak her vengeance.
quite ignorant of what will suit her. Indeed, Simply in order to further her plan, she ac
Aurora is obliged to reprove her in this cepts the proffered hand of Gilbert Monck
strain: “Why, you silly Lucy, don't you ton. The guilty Launcelot is in expectation
know that yours is the beauty which really of succeeding to the property of Maurice de
does not want adornment? A few pearls or Crespigny. Shortly before the old gentle.
forget-me-not blossoms, or a crown of water man's death, he learns that the property is
lilies, and a cloud of white areophane, would bequeathed to another. Thereupon he gets
make you look a sylphide; but I dare say a forged will prepared and substituted for
you would like to wear amber-satin and cab. the real one, according to which the property
bage-roses.” went to Eleanor. She, however, cares more
The gentlemen are, if possible, still less about revenge than money. Suspecting foul
attractive and life-like than the ladies. There play, she watches, and detects Launcelot in
is a Talbot Bulstrode who combines in his the act of substituting the forged will for the
own person more contradictions than any genuine one. For a time she fails in bring
other man who ever figured in a novel. At ing this home to him, but does so ultimately,
thirty-two he had “run through all the and then, at the request of his mother, re
wealth of life's excitements and amusements.” frains from making his guilt public. Launce
Yet he was too proud to be either vicious or lot becomes an artist, and rises to fame. The
foolish. Although a “captain of Her Ma moral of the story seems to be, that to cheat
jesty's 11th Hussars,” yet he “was fond of an old man at cards and to forge a will are
scientific studies, and he neither smoked, no impediments to attaining distinction in
drank, nor gambled.” Once only he went the world, and, indeed, are rather venial of.
to the Derby, and then he turned away at fences. Let the authoress speak for herself
the exciting moment of the great race. It on this momentous point: “And although
is said that “those who spoke of him summed the artist did not become a good man all in
him up by saying that he wasn't a bit like a moment, like the repentant villain of a
an officer.” As represented by this author stage play, he did take to heart the lesson of
ess, he does not resemble a rational being. his youth. He was tenderly affectionate to
After having depicted the wicked Lady the mother who had suffered so much by
Audley and the tempestuous Aurora Floyd, reason of his errors, and he made a very
Miss Braddon celebrated the victory of a he tolerable husband to a most devoted little
roine who is at once unnatural and namby wife.” When this novel appeared, it was
pamby. In one respect, Eleanor's Victory highly praised. The severes critics saw
differs essentially from the other works of nothing to object to in it. In the most cen
this prolific authoress. Lady Audley con sorious of the journals the following words
tains one secret only: this one contains were written: “This appears to us to be the
three. Eleanor has a secret, so has Gilbert best of Miss Braddon's novels, for it is a
Monckton, a staid solicitor, and Launcelot sensation novel without any glaring impro
Darrell, a contemptible scapegrace. Thus priety in it, with several characters cleverly
there is abundance of “sensation” in this drawn, and with a plot that does the author
novel also. Soon after beginning it, we are ess great credit.” From the outline we have
excited. Towards the commencement of the given of the plot, our readers will be able to
first volume, George Vane, a ruined and irre estimate the justness of these remarks. They
1865. Sensation Novelists: Miss Braddon. 99
will probably agree with us in thinking, that set that shadowy brand upon the face of this
if there be no “glaring impropriety” in this child?” Indeed, Miss Braddon reiterates
novel, then all novels may be absolved from shallow phrases about “Fate” or “Destiny,”
censure on the ground of immorality. as if she thought that, by so doing, her read
Several of the personages are less objec ers would be reconciled to the improbabilities
tionable than the story. If we except her with which she surfeits them.
conduct as an avenger, the heroine is an in There are three heroes in this novel, of
teresting person. When describing her ap whom John Marchmont is the least conspicu
pearance, Miss Braddon gives us her theory ous, although his position is not the least
about a face. It will be seen that, much as enviable. When we first make his acquaint
she values hair, there are other things she ance, he is acting as a supernumerary for a
admires more. After saying that Eleanor's shilling nightly at Drury Lane. Brighter
eyes were “grey, large, and dark,” she pro days are in store for him. Owing to the un
ceeds thus:—“I would rather not catalogue looked-for deaths of several relations, he suc
her features too minutely; for though they ceeds to the estate of Marchmont Towers,
were regular, and even beautiful, there is and to the enjoyment of an income of eleven
something low and material in all the other thousand pounds. But his wealth profits
features as compared to the eyes. Her hair him little, for he is in the last stage of con
was of a soft golden brown, bright and rip sumption. He is a widower, and his daugh
pling like a sun-lit river.” Elsewhere it is ter Mary, who is but a child, will eventually
said that her “glorious hair was suffered to become mistress of Marchmont Towers.
fall from under the bonnet, and stream about Should she die without issue, her cousin,
her shoulders like golden rain.” Again, she Paul Marchmont, will succeed. A year be
is depicted “with her white bonnet, and fore his death her father marries Olivia
nimbus of glittering hair.” The following Arundel, a lady of strong religious views, and
remark is fresher, though by no means in who entertains an unquenchable love for her
better taste, being a capital example of “sen cousin Edward. The marriage is a matter
sation” writing:—Eleanor stood with “her of convenience for both parties. John March
long auburn hair streaming over her shoul mont thinks that Olivia will make a good
ders, with the low light of the setting sun guardian for his daughter after his decease,
shining upon the waving tresses until they while Olivia is tempted by the dignity she
glittered like molten gold.” Before quitting will attain to. After her husband's death,
the subject of hair for the present, we must Olivia acts the double part of exacting guar
note by far the most remarkable of the many dian and harsh stepmother to Mary. She is
variegated tints with which Miss Braddon harassed by the knowledge that the latter
colours the hair of her heroines and heroes. is loved by Captain Edward Arundel. Mary,
She makes one of her personages, called unable to bear her stepmother's treatment,
Laura Mason, “a little romantic girl with flies from Marchmont Towers, and is married
primrose-coloured ringlets.” to her lover. Being obliged to leave her
The most curious incident a novelist ever alone for a short time, he is laid up for some
imagined occurs in these volumes. Gilbert weeks on account of a railway accident.
Monckton, Eleanor's husband, becomes jea Paul Marchmont and Olivia plot together to
lous of her, without being able to verify his make away with Mary. The former does
suspicions about her infidelity. He discovers, this that he may succeed to the estate, the
however, that although she may not love latter that she may punish him who was in
another, yet she does not love him. There sensible to her charms. Captain Arundel
upon he deserts her, and writes a letter, from recovers, but cannot learn where his wife is,
a distant town, proposing a separation. She, or whether she is alive. He is told that she
in her turn, runs away from the house her suddenly left Marchmont Towers one night,
husband has forsaken, changes her name, and and is supposed to have drowned herself.
engages herself as companion to a lady. Meantime she is kept prisoner in a boat-house,
Her husband soon repents him of his con where she remains some years, and gives
duct. When he wishes to make amends he birth to a son. As years pass away Captain
cannot find his wife. Through an accident, Arundel ceases to think that his wife is alive,
the couple, who had run away in opposite and becomes engaged to another lady. On
directions from the same house, meet again the wedding-day Olivia repents and tells him
and become reconciled. where his wife is concealed. Paul March
John Marchmont's Legacy may be sum mont commits suicide. Olivia becomes mad.
marily characterized as a tale of destiny. The wife who has been restored to Captain
“The awful hand of Destiny” menaces us in Arundel soon dies. After a few years he
the first chapter, and in the sixth the author finds final consolation in marrying her with
ess asks—“Has the solemn hand of Destiny whom the marriage had been so dramatically
hindered. It will be seen that the plot is Lady Macbeth ?” How she acted is shown
nearly as involved as the incidents are start in one passage, which is notable as being
ling.
with Olivia, Miss Braddon has taken great among the passages of the genuine sensa
tional style. She had witnessed love-making
pains. She is the daughter of the Rector of between Mary and Captain Arundel. So
Swampington. Before marriage she did her strange does she look that Mary asks her
duty, and disliked it. As a reward, the bishop what is wrong. “Olivia Marchmont grasped
used to compliment her on her devotion. the trembling hands uplifted entreatingly to
Censorious old ladies unhesitatingly lauded her, and held them in her own,—held them
her wondrous self-denial, and her assiduity in as if in a vice. She stood thus, with her
ministering to the wants of the poor and the step-daughter pinioned in her grasp, and her
ailing. All this gave her no relief; for, like eyes fixed upon the girl's face. Two streams
Miss Braddon's heroines, she was oppressed of lurid light seemed to emanate from those
by a sad secret—“She was weary of life.” dilated grey eyes; two spots of crimson
Less is said about her secret than is said blazed in the widow's hollow cheeks.” The
about her hair, which, of course, is unlike latter portion is inimitable. We doubt if,
that of any one else. “It had not that pur even at the Surrey Theatre, anything like it
ple lustre, nor yet that wandering glimmer was ever delivered. After reading that Oli
of red gold, which gives peculiar beauty to via's hair “was dark, fathomless, inscrutable,”
some raven tresses. Olivia's hair was long and that, when excited, “two streams of
and luxuriant; but it was of that dead, inky lurid light emanated from her eyes,” and “two
blackness which is all shadow. It was dark, spots of crimson blazed” in her hollow cheeks,
fathomless, inscrutable, like herself.” What we are inclined to think she is but a creature
terrible hair! of Miss Braddon's imagination, and that such
As far as we can gather, the only reason a personage is as unreal as a hobgoblin.
why Olivia was so madly in love with her Paul Marchmont, the villain, is hardly so
cousin was that his locks were red, and hers overpowering as his accomplice. Of course
black. The first time he is referred to, it is he is notable for his hair, which is said to
said that he had “a nimbus of golden hair” have given “a peculiarity to a personal ap
shining about his forehead. In this respect pearance that might otherwise have been in
he is not singular; for, as may be remem no way out of the common. This hair, fine,
bered, Eleanor Wane had a “nimbus of glit silky, and luxuriant, was white, although its
tering hair.” “That wandering glimmer of owner could not have been more than thirty
red gold” which was wanting in Olivia's seven years of age.” He is but a sorry scoun
hair was conspicuous in that of Captain drel. After being publicly horsewhipped he
Arundel; and we are assured that “the glit meekly forgives his chastiser. The loss of
ter of reddish gold in his hair, and the light honour is as nothing compared with the pos
in his fearless blue eyes” contributed to ren session of Marchmont Towers. Had he been
der him attractive. When married to the drawn after the life, he would have been en
girl Olivia detests, he is said to have had dowed with some redeeming qualities. When
“chestnut curls.” Circumstances alter hair a man acts as a villain, he does not, as Miss
as well as cases. Even Captain Arundel is Braddon seems to think, cease to be a man.
made to talk nonsense on this subject. This Even had Paul Marchmont been what we
example is interesting as being an additional are told he was, he would not have com
one of the kind of talk in which Miss Brad mitted suicide; but have sneaked away with
don thinks that gentlemen indulge. He is whatever property he could steal. This
made to say that he liked certain “girls in authoress adds another to the many proofs
blue, with the crinkly auburn hair,—there's she furnishes us with of her entire ignorance
a touch of red in it in the light,—and the of human nature and mental processes, by
dimples.” So absorbing and important is the making Paul Marchmont commit suicide after
great hair question in the estimation of this the manner of Sardanapalus.
authoress, that when questioning herself as Henry Dunbar contains another tale of
to why she loves her cousin, she first asks— guilt and crime. The hero is a brutal mur
“Is it because he has light-blue eyes and derer. With an ingenuity which we must
chestnut hair with wandering gleams of light acknowledge without admiring, Miss Braddon
in it !” has here devised an entirely new sort of mur
The character of Olivia is as extraordinary der. The victim is the head of an East Indian
as her appearance. What she really was is banking firm. He had been obliged to leave
thus summed up: “Did she sacrifice much, the army and his country in early life, on ac
this woman, whose spirit was a raging fire, count of its being discovered that he had
who had the ambition of a Semiramis, the forged a name to a bill, or rather that he had
courage of a Boadicea, the resolution of a induced another to do the decd by which he
was to benefit. Thirty-five years elapse, and must have resembled those of Tittlebat
he returns home to occupy the post of head Titmouse after the application of the mix
partner in the London £ His former ture which made his hair all the colours of
accomplice, Joseph Wilmot, who had been the rainbow. Miss Wilmot's “was of a
scurvily treated, as he thought, contrives to colour which a duchess might have envied,
meet Mr. Dunbar at Southampton, there and an empress tried to imitate with subtle
murders his old employer, assumes his name, dyes compounded by court chemists.” Is
and becomes possessed of his wealth. The any particular colour of hair the right one
puzzle consists in Mr. Dunbar being suspected for a duchess to have? If so, we suppose it
of having murdered his servant, the real mur must match with strawberry leaves.
derer being regarded as the victim. In the Towards the end of The Doctor's Wife,
end the truth is discovered; but the mur the authoress says: “This is not a sensation
derer escapes from justice, dying respected novel. I write here what I know to be the
and penitent in an obscure village at the sea truth.” Something of the same thing was
coast. stated by her at the commencement of Au
It would hardly have occurred to any other rora Floyd, and indeed novelists are allowed
than a “sensation” novelist to make a story to make such statements for the sake of effect,
like this the subject of a work in three vol without its being expected that they should
umes. Few other novelists could have in be literally correct. In the case of The Doc
vented anything so diabolical as the murder, tor's Wife, Miss Braddon very nearly wrote
or have depicted with seeming complacency what was literally true. Had the plot been
the after-life of the criminal. The impression very slightly altered, and certain passages
made is, that the murderer was a clever man, omitted, this novel would not have contained
and was very hardly used. In her preface, any one burning for revenge, or thirsting for
Miss Braddon tells us that “the story of blood. There are fewer artistic faults in it
Henry Dunbar pretends to be nothing more than in any of the works we have discussed.
than a story, the revealment of which is cal It proves how very nearly Miss Braddon has
culated to weaken the interest of the generalmissed being a novelist whom we might re
reader, for whose amusement the tale is writ spect and praise without reserve. But it also
ten.” The most astonishing thing about this proves how she is a slave, as it were, to the
is, that Miss Braddon should seriously con style which she created. “Sensation” is her
sider a tale of crime as fitted for the “amuse Frankenstein.
ment” of anybody. Her notion of what Isabel Sleaford, who has read novels and
“the general reader” is may be the correct poems till they become incorporated with
one. We earnestly trust, however, that he all her thoughts, marries George Gilbert, a
does not possess the morbid tastes of Miss country surgeon, and a strict matter-of-fact
Braddon, and is a less contemptible personage man. It is one of those unions about which
than she considers him to be. Sir Edward Lytton loves to write—the union
Here, again, we find nothing remarkable of the Real with the Ideal. Such an union
about the personages excepting their hair. is quite certain to produce misery. In this
If the following be true, then many disreput novel the wife is the sufferer. She is vexed
able-looking characters have it in their power to find the hard realities of life so inferior to
to beeome gentlemen in appearance at a very the life which is represented in fiction. When
small cost. After Joseph Wilmot had his suffering from the painful effects of disen
beard shaven off, his moustache trimmed, chantment, she makes the acquaintance of
and his hair cut, “he was no longer a vaga Roland Landsell, a gentleman who has a
bond. He was a respectable, handsome splendid property, and who writes poems in
looking gentleman, advanced in middle age; the style of Byron, when Byron was a cynic.
not altogether unaristocratic-looking. The Mrs. Gilbert makes of this rich but wretched
very expression of his face was altered. The gentleman the hero of her heart. She reads
defiant sneer was changed into a haughty his poems with rapture. She listens to his
smile; the sullen scowl was now a thought opinions with respect, mingled with awe. In
ful frown.” After this it sounds tame to hear his house she finds the fruition of her dreams
it said about Laura Dunbar: “How beauti of luxury. The result may be foreseen. But
ful she looked, with the folds of her dress the consequences are not what we should an
trailing over the dewy grass, and a flickering ticipate. No marriage vows are broken.
halo of sunlight tremulous upon her diadem Though overtures are made, yet no offence
of golden hair.” Miss Wilmot, the mur is committed. At the crisis of the story,
derer's daughter, possesses, however, the Mrs. Gilbert's lover is murdered by her
most wonderful locks of any of the person father, and her husband is carried off by
ages described by Miss Braddon. For them fever.
she cannot find a colour. We suppose they Such is the plot. A rapid sketch of the
story will show how gratuitously the “sensa ess, she makes Roland Landsell give vent
tion” element has been introduced into these to the following novel remark: “With red
volumes. hair and freckles, Mrs. Gilbert might go to
George Gilbert pays a visit to Sigismund perdition, unwept and unhindered.” We are
Smith, who makes a living by writing sensa led to infer that she was saved by having
tion novels, which are published in penny been born with yellow-black eyes and a
numbers. By him the country surgeon is straight nose.
introduced to the Sleaford family. It is not We now come to the last of Miss Brad
known in what manner Mr. Sleaford earns don's published novels. It will not long
money; but he is supposed to be a member of bring up the rear, for another one is about
the legal profession. The truth is that he is to be given to the public, and a new one is
the chief of a gang of forgers. Being de in course of preparation. Whether or not
tected and put on his trial, he is sentenced to others are added to the list, it will serve our
ten years' penal servitude. Chief among the purpose to examine those she has produced.
witnesses whose evidence led to the convic A novelist who gives upwards of twenty
tion of the culprits was Roland Landsell. volumes to the world may add others to the
With him Sleaford was furious, because he heap, but will hardly alter the opinion we
considered it unfair that one whom he styled shall form respecting their literary merits.
“a languid swell” should act as an amateur The new ones may be very good, but cannot
detective. be as original as the old. Only a Clod is a
The Sleaford household was broken up in proof of this. The stamp of the authoress
consequence of the misfortune which had of Lady Audley's Secret is visible in every
happened to its head. Isabel went out as a page. Style, tone, and method of construc
governess in the house of a Mr. Raymond. tion are all old; the names and a few of the
There it was that she was wooed and won epithets alone are different. By some it is
by George Gilbert. Through Mr. Raymond regarded with a rapture akin to fanaticism.
they made the acquaintance of Roland Land One eminent critic has designated it as “the
sell. Everything goes smoothly ' till most remarkable of the very remarkable
Mrs. Gilbert's father, having got a ticket-of books written by Miss Braddon.” Accordin
leave, proceeds to solicit money from her. to another, “it must surely be pronounce
She visits him clandestinely, not wishing it to an eminent success.”
be known that she was his daughter. Her con The truth is, that it contains fewer inci
duct being bruited about the neighbourhood, dents and a little less crime than the other
Roland Landsell goes to watch the pair. He productions of this authoress. There is not
waits till they part, then assaults her father, one foul murder in any of the volumes. A
is recognised by him, has his skull shattered, man tries to seduce a wife from her allegi
and afterwards dies. The murderer escapes, ance to her husband; but he fails, and dies
makes his way to America, where, we are of delirium tremens. His brother is on the
told, that “for him too a Nemesis waits, point of committing bigamy when an acci
lurking darkly in some hidden turning of the dent occurs to hinder him. A tale of seduc
sinuous way along which a scoundrel walks.” tion to which we are treated turns out to be
Although Mrs. Gilbert loses a husband and a mistake, the seducer having unwittingly
lover almost simultaneously, yet she has the married the woman whose ruin he had plan
satisfaction of obtaining a large fortune, Ro ned. Compared with Miss Braddon's other
land Landsell having made a will bequeath novels, this one is almost a moral treatise.
ing all his property to her, at a time when Francis Tredethlyn, the hero, is a private
he expected she would forsake her husband soldier, who comes unexpectedly into a pro
and live in adultery with him. On the perty yielding him upwards of thirty thou
whole, the wicked people have the happier sand a year. He marries Maude Hillary, who
fate in this novel. had been engaged to Ensign Lowther, whose
As the eyes or hair are such very impor servant he had formerly been. Mr. Harcourt
tant items in Miss Braddon's catalogue of Lowther becomes the intimate associate of
curiosities, we must not omit to notice those the rich man. He initiates him into the
of the personages who fill the leading parts. mysteries of Bohemian life, doing this with
Mrs. Gilbert has “yellow-black eyes;” those the view either of ruining his health, or at
of her lover are stranger still, being of “a least of detaching him from his wife. The
nondescript colour.” “Sometimes you look authoress exhibits great familiarity with the
ed at the eyes, and they seemed to you a customs of the least reputable district of
dark bluish-grey; sometimes they were ha London. She tells us Francis Tredethlyn
zel; sometimes you were half-beguiled into “found that Bohemia was a kind of Belgra
fancying them black.” In perfect accordance via in electro-plate.” There, he was carried
with the peculiar philosophy of this author “to worship at numerous temples, whose dis
tinguishing features were the flare of gas in a moment, and abandoned himself to a sud
lamps, and the popping of champagne corks, den access of rage, that reduced him to the
branded with the obscurest names in the level of a wounded tiger. It was only
for about twenty seconds that his claws were
catalogue of wine-growers, and paid for at fastened on Francis Tredethlyn's throat. A
the highest rate known in the London mar Cornish heavy-weight is not exactly the kind
ket.” We are assured, however, that he en of person for a delicately-built Sybarite to
tered those curious temples as a spectator only; wrestle with very successfully.
that his “worst sin was the perpetual “stand “‘We are rather celebrated for this sort of
ing” of spurious sparkling wines, and the thing in my county, Mr. Tredethlyn muttered
waste of a good deal of money lost at un between his set teeth, as he loosened Harcourt
limited loo, or blind hookey, as the case Lowther's grasp from his throat, and hurled
might be.” Many other particulars are given him in a kind of bundle to a corner of the room,
where he fell crashing down amongst the ruins
of what he saw and felt. To us it is a mys of a dumb-waiter, half-buried under a chaos of
tery far more perplexing than anything in broken bottles and lobster-shells.”
these novels, how a lady should be able to
describe with such minuteness what she This feat accomplished, Mr. Tredethlyn
designates as “remote and unapproachable sets off with the intention of starting for
regions, whose very names were only to be South America. No sooner has he departed
spoken in hushed accents over the fourth than his wife longs for his return. Tidings
bottle of Chambertin or Clos Vougeot at a arrive that the vessel in which he is supposed
bachelor's '" to have sailed has been destroyed by fire, and
Harcourt Lowther is unexpectedly baffled that all on board have perished. His widow
in his project. Having discovered that is inconsolable for her loss. When in this
Francis Tredethlyn was in the habit of visit state, Mr. Lowther has an interview, and
ing a lady at Petersham, he contrives that proposes for her hand; which, we suppose, is
Mrs. Lowther shall witness an interview be the right thing for a “delicately-built Syba
tween the two. When next she meets her rite” to do under the circumstances. His
husband, she tells him that they are to re overture is scornfully repulsed. He is order
main strangers to each other, and that his ed to leave the house. Before obeying, he
presence inspires her “with disgust and ab stands for a few moments looking at Mrs.
horrence.” The lady in question turns out Tredethlyn:—“A strange compound of pas
to be Mr. Tredethlyn's cousin, whom he had sionate admiration and vengeful fury flamed
long been in quest of, and who had been mar in his eyes.” After taking his departure, he
ried to, and then deserted by, Mr. Lowther's wanders “to some dismal waste-ground in
elder brother. This, of course, is not ex the neighbourhood of Battersea. . . .
plained at the proper time to Mrs. Trede There he laid himself down amongst the
thlyn. In place of giving a clear statement of rubbish of a deserted brickfield, and cried
the affair, her husband determines first to like a child.” For Harcourt Lowther a
upbraid his pretended friend, and then to flyheavier punishment is in store than that of
from his home. It is a peculiarity of Miss being hurled among broken bottles and lob
Braddon's heroes and heroines that they are ster-shells, or ignominiously turned out of
always ready to abandon wife, children, and the house of which he was scheming to be
home, and proceed at a moment's notice come master. While endeavouring to make
either to Australia or America. He takes a drunkard of Francis Tredethlyn, he ac
his revenge on Harcourt Lowther by expos. quired the habit of drinking to excess. At
ing his conduct in the presence of a host of last, he dies of delirium tremens at a German
friends. Then occurs the following scene, watering-place.
which resembles that extracted from Aurora As may be easily divined, Francis Trede
Floyd, and also one which we did not ex thlyn did not sail in the ship which was lost.
tract from John Marchmont's Legacy. It is He had taken his passage, but did not get on
remarkable as evincing what Miss Braddon board in time. Everything is explained be
considers to be the way in which gentlemen tween him and his wife; and they are re
would act when in a state of passion. Mr. united, to live, as is the manner of such per
Tredethlyn having finished speaking, sons at the end of a novel, an unclouded life.
In due time after the reconciliation, children
“there was a moment's silence, followed by a are born to them. It is very noteworthy that,
sudden smashing of glass. A pair of small in all Miss Braddon's novels, a child never
sinewy white hands fastened cat-like upon
Francis Tredethlyn's throat; and he and Har appears till it is wanted. Need we add that
court Lowther were grappling each other in a poor curates and their wives never figure
fierce struggle. It was very long since that among her heroes and heroines!
gentleman had been weak enough to get in a
passion. Mr. Lowther lost his head all Having now passed in review the long roll
of Miss Braddon's personages, what report Braddon. If called upon they would cite as
can we make, what judgment must we pro examples some of the best works of Scott,
nounce? Have we discovered among them and a few of the works of Bulwer Lytton
one who thoroughly amuses or interests us; and George Eliot. The Heart of Midlothian
one whom we might be tempted to take as a and Eugene Aram, Adam Bede and The Mill
model, or compelled to admire as the imper on the Floss, are unquestionably novels where
sonation of anything noble in demeanour and in there are incidents as highly coloured as
loveable in mind? Is there a single page in in Lady Audley's Secret or Henry Dunbar.
her writings from which we have derived any The difference, however, is far greater than
gratification or learned anything new Have the resemblance. These works are truthful
we found her to be a creator of new types, a taken as wholes, and even the startling oc
copyist of living personages, or a creator of currences are not at variance with experience
unnatural monstrosities? and probability. According to Miss Braddon,
Applying to her productions the test which crime is not an accident, but it is the business
we named at the outset, we find that she ex of life. She would lead us to conclude that
cels where to excel is no merit, failing utterly the chief end of man is to commit a murder,
in those respects wherein to fail means me and his highest merit to escape punishment;
diocrity. Of pathos and humour, happy that women are born to attempt to commit
touches and telling sayings, words which de murders, and to succeed in committing bigamy.
pict while they explain, thoughts at once If she teaches us anything new, it is that we
original and impressive, we can discover no should sympathize with murderers and reve
traces in her pages. What is conspicuous rence detectives. Her principles appear to us
above all things is the skill with which she to resemble very strikingly those by which
groups her materials, and the manner in which the Thugs used to regulate their lives.
she deals with revolting topics, so as to hinder The charge is a hard one; but of its justice
the startled reader from tossing her volume we are firmly convinced. The extracts we
away in sheer disgust. She can tell a story have given suffice to prove that it is deserved.
so as to make us curious about the end. Let her personages cease to be potential or
Does the power of doing this alone stamp her actual criminals, and they will stand forth as
as a great novelist? lay figures distinguishable for nothing except
Sydney Smith would have replied, Assured the shape of their noses and the colour of
ly it does. When reviewing Mr. Lister's un their eyes and hair. They excite our interest
deservedly forgotten novel, Granby, he wrote only so long as they are blameworthy. Her
these words: “The main question as to a good people are insufferably stupid. Sir
novel is, Did it amuse? Were you surprised Michael Audley, John Mellish, George Gil
at dinner coming so soon? did you mistake bert, Francis Tredethlyn suffer for the sins of
eleven for ten and twelve for eleven ? Were others, and seem to suffer deservedly. We
£ too late to dress? and did you sit up can hardly sympathize with fools when their
eyond the usual hour? If a novel produces own folly is the cause of their misfortunes.
these effects it is good; if it does not, story, Miss Braddon renders all those who are not
language, love, scandal itself, cannot save it. wicked so utterly ridiculous, that we are
It is only meant to please; and it must do tempted to infer she designed to show how
that or it does nothing.” mistaken a thing is probity or goodness.
Now, the reviewers who have lauded Miss Tested, then, by a purely literary standard,
Braddon's novels, apply to them only the test these works must be designated as the least
employed by Sydney Smith. They tell us valuable among works of fiction. They
that the plots will hardly bear criticism, that glitter on the surface, but the substance is
the tone is unhealthy, that the views of life base metal. Hence it is that the impartial
are false and mischievous; but they recom critic is compelled, as it were, to unite with
mend them to us notwithstanding, merely on the moralist in regarding them as mischievous
the ground that each can be read from the in their tendency, and as one of the abomi
first to the last page without our attention nations of the age. Into uncontaminated
ever flagging, or our interest being abated. minds they will instil false views of human
They are recommended, moreover, as good conduct. Such notions are more easily im
stimulants in these days of toil and worry, posed on the unwary than eradicated from the
and as well fitted for relieving overtaxed minds which have cherished them. Miss
brains by diverting our thoughts from the Braddon makes one of her personages tell
absorbing occupations of daily life. another that life is a very different thing in
Others, again, take different ground. Ac reality than in three-volume novels. She has
cording to them the “sensation tale” is no manifested this in her own works. But the
novelty. They boldly avow that all great fact of this difference is a conclusive proof
novels are as sensational as those of Miss | of their inferiority. A novel is a picture of
1865. “Frost and Fire.” 105
life, and as such ought to be faithful. The ART. VII.—Frost and Fire. Natural En
fault of these novels is that they contain pic gines, Foot-marks, and Chips, with Sketch
tures of daily life, wherein there are scenes es taken at Home and Abroad. By a
so grossly untrue to nature, that we can TRAVELLER.
hardly pardon the authoress if she drew them
in ignorance, and cannot condemn her too “THE aim of this book is to show that where
strongly if, knowing their falseness, she in light shines, there also force radiates. . . .
troduced them for the sake of effect. The That is the sum of the whole; but to reach
Archbishop of York did not overstate the that point is a long stage in an endless jour
case when, speaking as a moralist, he said at ney.” To reach the end of this stage, our
the Huddersfield Church Institute, in Novem traveller has made many a journey, some
ber last, that “sensational stories were tales times long, but never a weary one; and the
which aimed at this effect simply—of excit result, as recorded in Frost and Fire, is a
ing in the mind some deep feeling of over book which many will delight in reading.
wrought interest by the means of some terri The method employed by the author is in
ble passion or crime. They want to per every sense eminently healthy. He has not
suade people that in almost every one of the been content, while reading books bearing
well-ordered houses of their neighbours there on his subject, merely to glance here and
was a skeleton shut up in some cupboard; to cast an eye there, after the fashion of some
that their comfortable and easy-looking neigh who play at geology or other branches of
bour had in his breast a secret story which he science, and, deluding themselves with the
was always going about trying to conceal; idea that they are doing practical work, rush
that there was something about a real will into print with scraps of ill-digested know
registered in Doctors' Commons, and a false ledge. True, he calls his book a “rough
will that at some proper moment should tum work, done with sorry tools,” but this saying
ble out of some broken bureau, and bring thoughtful readers will readily dissent from,
about the dénot ment which the author wished for the main tools that wrought the work
to achieve.” Though the foregoing remarks were a vigorous mind working in a vigorous
have a general application, yet they apply body, which for twenty years or thereabout
with crushing force to the present case. It has wandered over the world alive to all sorts
need only be added, as advice to those who of impressions derived directly from nature
either possess or delight to buy such books, about the subjects he best loves. So clear
that the proper shelf on which to place them sighted, indeed, are his descriptions, that it
is that whereon stands The Newgate Calen is not too much to say that great part of the
dar. book belongs to that class of works of which
We should act unfairly if we left on our Darwin's Journal of a Naturalist is the
readers' minds the impression that we do not highest type. Pleasant records of journeys
regard Miss Braddon as an authoress of origi and personal adventure are scattered through
nality and merit. In her own branch of two beautiful volumes, as if to prove to his
literature, we hold that she is without a living readers that the author has a right to say
rival. The notoriety she has acquired is her what he says in the more scientific parts of
due reward for having woven tales which are the book,-a right founded on long experi
as fascinating to ill-regulated minds as police ence, which we soon discover has been well
reports and divorce cases. Her achievements employed, even when we dissent from some
may not command our respect; but they are of the conclusions of the author.
very notable, and almost unexampled. Others “The following pages,” says Mr. Camp
before her have written stories of blood and bell, “are meant for readers who take pleasure
lust, of atrocious crimes and hardened crimi in natural science without being philosophers.
mals, and these have excited the interest of a They are records of things seen or learned,
very wide circle of readers. But the class and of thoughts which sprang up while
that welcomed them was the lowest in the scenes were fresh, or knowledge freshly gain
social scale, as well as in mental capacity. ed; they are written by one who has no claim
To Miss Braddon belongs the credit of having to scientific knowledge, and they are printed
penned similar stories in easy and correct for people like himself. A traveller's book is
English, and published them in three volumes not for learned professors, but for that va
in place of issuing them in penny numbers. grant class who wander and think for them
She may boast, without fear of contradiction, selves—who think of something besides
of having temporarily succeeded in making daily bread, or daily turtle and champagne,
the literature of the Kitchen the favourite how to get ease and plenty, and how to get
reading of the Drawing-room. rid of time.
“The aim of this book then is to seek
natural forces; the plan of it is a train of
106 “Frost and Fire.” Sept.
thoughts carried from effects back to causes, that form continents and islands, and the
as far as slender knowledge and capacity will engines employed in this work are classified,
gzo.”
Some of the learned professors will, we —as time and frost, rivers, land and sea ice,
-
to which we may add the chemical action of

fear, object to their exclusion from “that carbonated waters, which, were it part of his
vagrant class who wander and think for object, Mr. Campbell could readily prove has
themselves;” for vagrancy is a habit that produced in limestone countries denudations
has long been native to many eminent profes only second to those that have been brought
sors and their congeners, men like Agassiz, about by the power of rivers and of ice. The
Darwin, Wallace, Murchison, Lyell, Forbes, tools that these engines employ, he says, are
Tyndall, Dr. Thompson, Logan, Jukes, Hook and have been local glaciers on a modern
er, the late Dr. Falconer, Escher von der scale, old local glaciers on a grander scale,
Linth, Desor, and a host of others, who find some of which are now geologically histori
their own country, and even their own con cal, Arctic currents bearing icebergs, now ex
tinent, too small to yield data for the solution
isting, or that formerly existed, in an old Baltic
of the physical and biological problems that current equivalent to that which flows along
they set themselves to unravel. Three things, the shores of Greenland, stones and wood
says Lyell, are indispensable to the geologist, borne down by rivers and torrents, and ice
the first of which is travel, the second travel, floats; while the signs and other relics that
and the third still travel. A geologist is they leave, and have left, are frost marks and
nothing if not a vagabond. A critical palae weathering, glacial striations, river and sea
ontologist or a mineralogist may stay at home terraces, and those rounded forms of rock
if he can find his specimens there, but a and hill that may be best expressed by the
physical geologist must wander, because he expression that the surface of the land has
must see many lands; and the spirit of vaga been moulded by ice.
bond adventure and love of hardship is, or PART II, in like manner, expounds the
has been, as strong in many geologists, biolo theory of deposition of strata, the forces that
gists, and physical philosophers, as it is in bring it about, and by which it is modified—
the most devoted sportsman that ever shoul time, temperature, and light; the engines that
dered a gun or cast a fly. It is this that work it,-air and water; the tools that pro
makes some of their books so inexpressibly duce its details,—winds and waters; and the
delightful, and it is this union of clear scien marks that it leaves,--water-marks, beaches,
tific observation with the best kind of vaga stream-marks, bedding, rain-marks, fossils, etc.;
bondage, that will make Mr. Campbell's book while PART III. is devoted to the upheaval of
so charming to a wide circle of readers, whe the crust of the earth, which thus provides
ther they belong to the class of strictly scien sub-aērial material for these engines to work
tific men, or to the general public, who pa upon.
tronize Mudie. Therefore we cannot admit The preliminary chapters of PART I., from
that the author of Frost and Fire “has no 1. to viii., deal first with a notice of the great
claim to scientific knowledge.” Whether or “cinder heap” called Iceland; next the diffi
not we agree with him in all his views, every culties encountered by the geologist who
qualified person must allow that his book is merely sits at home and reasons; the forms
the work of a strictly scientific mind cultivat of bodies that enter into the constitution of
ed by skilled observation and long reflection, the earth ; air, its movements and the laws
and to this is added a power of exposition by that regulate them, and the corresponding
pencil and pen, so perfect that even if you laws that regulate the movements of currents
think him to be wrong he almost persuades of water. The plan is good. The laws are
you he is right. expounded, seemingly complex, but in reality
Before discussing any of the more impor simple in their origin, that produce those
tant views held by Mr. Campbell on ice movements in air and water, the effects of
work, we will endeavour to give a general which are seen in denudations of the earth's
idea of the scope and style of the work. crust now and in all known time past, result
“The book treats of forms”—of the forms ing in deposition, which could not go on for
of the land dver large tracts of the earth's ever were it not that upheaval, being more or
surface, of the engines that produced these less constant, the material above the sea-level
forms, the forces that drive them, and of the is provided, for the winds, the rains, and the
tools that the engines wield. In a curious rivers, for glaciers and sea-waves, to play
table of contents the sum of the whole is upon, waste, and re-arrange, while vast ice
given arranged in a diagrammatic form. bergs, grating along the coasts, plough up
The main subject there is seen to be that sediments beneath the sea-level, and grind
section of geology, known as “denudation,” the solid rocks on which these sediments lie.
or the waste and destruction of rocky masses So obvious are these effects, that long ago,
1865. “ Frost and Fire.” 107
about the time of the great civil war, the old and it is hard at first to believe that the
naturalist Ray dared to say, that but for “earth-fast stone,” which the teacher declares
some compensating process (now called up to be “a wandering block,” was in very truth
heaval), the whole upper world must, in the brought on an ice-raft from a parent moun
long-run, be worn away and sink beneath the tain hundreds of miles away, while possibly
WaVeS. the rounded hill-side on which it lies was
At first sight it might appear as if this grooved and scratched by the very iceberg
programme could be of little interest to any from whence the boulder dropped. But when
except purely scientific readers; but let any a man has seen a volcano, great glaciers, and
one so minded dip into the book, and he will icebergs all at work; when he thinks of the
find that the details of personal experience meaning of soundings and dredgings, of dis
by which Mr. Campbell acquired his know coloured sea-water, and of the myriads of sea
ledge will force him to read on, and perhaps creatures that are buried in its sediments;
to acquire an interest in subjects that other when he knows by experience what great
wise he might think lay quite outside his line rivers are, and reflects on all the rivers,
of thought and action. Wherever the author great and small, that are for ever hurrying
goes he finds matter for amusement, for keen “the dust of continents to be" to the ocean;
observation, and often for deep reflection, and then, by slow degrees, his eyes open to the
many a hint is thrown out on subjects not vastness of geological time; he realizes the
essential to the volumes, that unintentionally fact that the larger part of continents are sea
mark the well-accomplished mind. sediments of many ages, solidified and heaved
The chapters are often commendably short. into the air, but only for a time, for “the hills
Chapter I, of little more than two pages in are shadows” themselves, and under the
length, gives, as we have already stated, a wear and tear of rending frosts, of glaciers
preliminary sketch of that great heap of and running water, . of sea-waves and of
slags and cinders called Iceland, where the chemical solutions, they are for ever being
“twin giants, Fire and Frost,” “are working lowered and changing their forms, and in
within such narrow bounds, that their work boulders, gravel, sand, mud, and invisible
can be seen as a whole;” and in Chapters II. solutions,
and III. the difficulties that beset the mere
home-geologist are well set forth. He is “They melt like mists, the solid lands,
forced to take so much on trust, that though Like clouds they change themselves and go."
“he may understand the teaching of practis
ed men, and believe what he is told,” yet “he These are some of the lessons which the
cannot be familiar with the irresistible power author of Frost and Fire travelled so much
of natural forces, whose power he has only to learn, for “demolition and reconstruction
seen upon some pigmy scale.” by natural forces are not all within daily ex
“No home-bred Englishman has ever seen perience at home,” and having seen and
any power in action which seems strong learned these and many other lessons in
enough for the work described as denudation. natural science, he applies them, in Chapters
. . . Rivulets cut deep furrows in smooth Iv. to viii., to natural objects and home ex
hill-sides; . . . but the shape of some great periments within the reach of almost any one
glen,”—and this we may doubt,-“bears no who chooses to open his eyes and think.
resemblance to that of the small transverse The reader will best understand his method
furrows which rivulets make, or to the wind if we give a sketch of some of the matter
ing river-bed at the bottom of the glen.” contained in the chapters mentioned above,
Again, it is well known that the hills and mingling it here and there with remarks of
valleys, and even the plains of vast tracts of our own. First the author deals with forms,
the Northern and Southern hemispheres, have and invents signs and formulae to express
been moulded by ice so thoroughly, that the them. He then shows the importance of the
eye of the experienced glacialist at once re subject to students of nature, in so far that
cognises the familiar forms even in regions having once mastered the essential mean
new to him, and when “it is said that ice and ing of the forms of clouds, river-deltas, craters,
cold water ground down the hills and scooped fossils, loose stones, etc., he can at once predi
out the glens,” though a home-bred geologist cate the causes that brought them about,
“may believe it all vaguely, he cannot realize whether they be found on the surface of the
it if there is nothing like a glacier within earth, or, some of them, in planets like the
his experience.” Likewise he states, and this moon and Mars, the former of which is so
will also find dissentients, that there are val near that, with the help of a telescope, we
leys which neither glaciers nor rain-fall and can partly analyse the structure of its sur
rivers could make. Certainly there are ice face.
relics that were never made by land glaciers, “No delta (A) is seen in the moon; no
forks and meanderings” of rivers on its sur Trees are vanes, and no other wind-gauge is
face. “There are no clouds there from wanted to show that the atmosphere has a
which rain can fall,” but craters being pro habit of rushing past the British Isles from
duced on the earth, “it is fair to suppose west to east on its way north. If the true
that these lunar shapes, these O craters also bearings of exposed trees were taken and
resulted from a combined action of heat, cold, mapped, a wind chart might be added to the
and weight, which did their work, and have physical atlas.” In like manner the draughts
now ceased to work on that surface, though of air in a room are illustrated by a beautiful
still active here.” There is no pretence of diagram, showing the curved motions of the
originality in these terse expositions, but the air by help of fumes, and an elastic balloon
clearness of the language in which he explains filled with light gas; and the subject is
the causes of the forms of clouds, storms, etc., admirably applied to the ventilation of various
and the pleasant manner, for example, in kinds of mines, in which Mr. Campbell has
which he reasons on the conclusions that had some experience. We wish we could
may be drawn from finding a bit of a broken extract largely on this point for the benefit of
bottle on the sea-shore rolled into a pebble, the Mining Commission. After various re
brings the subjects of which he treats before marks on the ventilation of coal-pits, the
the reader in a manner so vivid that even old writer says:—
speculators often sympathize with the thought, “In deep cold metal mines, where a few nar
like children to whom it might be new. “An row pits all open about the same level, stagna
ice-ground stone differs from one that is tion is the rule. So long as air inside the stone
simply water-worn. There are many degrees bottle with the slender necks is colder than air
of wearing, and many varieties of gravel and outside, it is heavier. There is no natural
rolled stones; and a skilled eye can distin power applied to lift it, and it cannot flow out
guish them.” True as this is, and simple as for want of fall. Like water collected in an
it seems to all the more advanced school of old working, the cold, heavy mine air is a foul
deep stagnant pool, which evaporates a little,
physical geologists, it is astonishing how overflows now and then, and swings about in
largely the geological world is still leavened its rocky bed; but it never changes like water
with men who have not realized it. Many in a river pool, because there is no stream
first-class geologists familiarly know the flowing through it. Such a mine is a contrast
smooth, flattened forms and scratches of to one through which air moves constantly.
average glacier stones, but when similar forms “On a fine, warm, bright, sunny day, with
the sweet breath of fields and heather hills in
and striations are placed before them in stones
of Permian age, they dispute or deny the his nostrils, a pedestrian in search of informa
tion comes to a trap-door and a hole like a
identity of the causes that must have produced draw-well. Odours of bilge-water and rotten
them. Gastaldi of Turin, who, reasoning on eggs, mildew and worse things, rise when the
these things, has demonstrated the existence trap is lifted, and they contrast abominably
of glaciers and icebergs during the Miocene with the delicate perfume of beans and hedge
epoch in what is now Northern Italy, has re rows. The pool moves when it is stirred; but
ceived but little honour for the discovery in his when left to its own devices, the most delicate
own country, and not much more abroad. tests often fail to show any movement at a pit
Here it is, though he does not allude to such mouth. Cobwebs, paper, silk, soap-bubbles,
and smoke, which show movement in the
cases, that Mr. Campbell's remarks on the stillest room, all indicate repose at the neck of
forms of stones come well into play. Timid the bottle, for the unsavoury air stagmates in the
or over-cautious philosophers could not trust cold dumb well which holds it.
themselves to read the meaning of forms and “If the average temperature inside be 60°,
marks in Permian and Miocene conglome. and outside 61°, there is nothing to lift the
lowest stratum.
rates, when these went against preconceived
notions of the gradual cooling of the earth's “There is no rattle, no din, no movement
crust down to a recent period of geological here. A dull, sleepy, creaking sound comes
faintly in from a big water-wheel, which is
history, or any other vague hypothesis of slowly turning and pumping water from a neigh
climate.
bouring hole. The only cheery sound about the
We must not neglect to draw attention to place is the rattle of hammers and stones, where
the beautiful illustrations of meteorological boys and girls and strong-armed women are
phenomena, and of currents in water, that smashing and washing ore in sunlight and fresh
occupy Chapters v1. to v1.1. The prevalent air. Like bees they sing as they work cheerily.
south-west direction of British and Continen Their cheeks are ruddy, and their bright eyes
dance with fun; but down in the dark well is
tal winds is illustrated pictorially by “the sickness, silence, and gloom.
strange old trees that stretch out their twisted, “A distant sound is heard below; the yellow
tangled, moss-grown, fern-clad arms towards glimmer of a candle shines out of the black
the north-east, and bend their heavy trunks earth; hard breathing approaches, and the
in the same direction, as if seeking for shelter. l regular beat of thick-soled boots on iron staves
1865. “Prost and Fire.” 109
comes slowly ticking up the pit, like the beat modify by abrasion the shapes of their sur
ing of a great clock. A mud-coloured man ap faces. Waste is however compensated at the
pears at last, and he stares amazed at the surface by expansion consequent on internal
stranger perched at the mouth of his den; heat, by means of which upheaval of land is
seated on a sollar, and watching cobwebs with
a pipe in his cheek. The miner may be blue, always taking place in some way, volcanic
or otherwise.
or yellow, green, brown, orange, or almost red,
but he is sure to be gaunt and pale-faced. His A curious speculation arises from such con
hair and brow are wet with toil; his eyes blink siderations, especially if we do not look on
like those of an owl in daylight; he wheezes, them precisely from Mr. Campbell's point of
and he looks fairly blown. With scarce a word view, viz., that of mere expansion and waste.
of greeting, he stares and passes on to the Assume that the earth has cooled from a
changing house; and the cobweb which he dis melted state, and that water at length was
turbed settles like a pendulum at Zero once
more.” enabled to rest upon its surface, which it en
tirely covered. Because of radiation, cooling
The movements of currents of water de and contraction took place. The crust frac
pendent on heat and cold are equally well turing in lines, and the mass of the crust gra
shown by a diagram of a glass tank with a vitating towards the centre, crumpled strata
lump of rough ice floating at one end, and a forming mountain ranges were forced into
black stone placed at the other exposed to the air, and this process, because of cooling,
the sun. “When the water has settled, was repeated again and again. The result
pour milk gently on the ice,” and at first would seem to be that the more the land rose
“the white milk sinks in the clear water, and the deeper the ocean would become—a re
spreads upon the bottom of the tank;” but sult inferred by Dana in his theory of the
as the sun warms the stone, and the stone origin of continents.” But all the atmo
warms the water, while at the other end spheric agents, and the sea-waves working on
above the melting ice cools it, “temperature coasts, are for ever wasting the land, and
is unevenly distributed, so weights are un striving to reduce it below the level of the
even, the machine turns round,” and by help sea in the form of new sediments; and when
of the milky cloudiness you can study the radiation has proceeded far enough, contrac
movements of currents in the water. But the tion of the earth's crust would cease, for the
tank not being full, “gives a section of air whole globe may become solid. If, under
as well as water,” and this miniature atmo these hypothetical circumstances, atmo
sphere (covered with a sheet of glass) is spheric agents still work as they do now,
worked by the same forces that move the every continent and island must inevitably
water. Smoke, supplied from a piece of tinder, be carried, grain by grain, and stone b
shows miniature storms in the air, “and the stone, into the sea, and the whole land will
systems revolve in the same direction, because disappear beneath the waves.
the moving forces are the same,” and all the If, on the other hand, after a certain
phenomena of clouds are produced in this little amount of cooling had taken place, heat in
chamber. This is but a miniature represen the interior of the earth should be generated
tation of what is always going on on a vaster unequally by the pressure of gravitation, then
scale in the ocean and the atmosphere be it is not easy to see why upheaval of land
tween the tropics and the poles, and these should not be continued for indefinite periods
are the forces by which the great agents are by expansion from below. The feeble con
set to work that sculpture all the rocky irre ducting power of rocks bears upon this point.
gularities that produce the tangible features These, however, in the present state of our
of the solid earth. , Heat raises moisture by knowledge, are vague speculations; they
evaporation; the absence of heat in various may or they may not have any value, and at
degrees increases its weight and it falls; all events they have little to do with the
gravity draws it to lower levels, whether in theories of our author. The subject of de
the form of ice-streams or water-streams; nudation leads us to one of Mr. Campbell's
gravity also causes rocks to tumble; and main topics, treated of in Chapters Ix. to
friction of ice and fluid water, aided by the xLiv., and entering on this question we
solid matter they bear along, moulds all that cannot do better than quote some of those
portion of the earth that rises above the level vivid passages of travel, that show how
of the sea. And the sea itself acts as a fel heartily he threw himself into all the acci
low-worker with these agents, not only in dents and humours of his position. We
distributing sediment, not only, as Playfair will, however, leave the Alpine scenes un
says, by “the powerful artillery of the waves,” touched, most readers having had enough of
destroying coasts, but also by floating from such descriptions through the efforts of mem
the north and south masses of ice which
grind along the sea-bottoms and coasts, and * Dana's Manual of Geology.
bers of the Alpine Club. Among the Alps arrived, so I got in through a window and took
he studied the effects produced by land ice, possession of the priest's room. As it grew
but his larger and more important experience dark, people came tumbling in from the woods
lay in Norway, Sweden, and North America, where they had been working, and we had a
party round the fire at one of the houses. I
where the universal effects of ice-work force could not understand half they said, for I had
themselves everywhere on the educated eye, now got into a fresh dialect; but I fancied my
even more strongly than in Switzerland. hostess was a witch or a doctress, for men pur
In 1857 he started from Fjærland Fjord chased mysterious oil from a bottle, which was
in Norway, to see a small conical glacier carefully weighed; and one pretty girl had a
near Bergen, which “is constantly changing long earnest conversation about some one who
from dome to cone and from cone to dome," had been sick, and who was now ‘frisk.”
and “it teaches more about glaciers than There was an air of mystery about my hostess,
in addition to the general odour of cormorants
any specimen known to the writer.” After that pervaded her dwelling. Presently the
much tramping and rowing, his men took door opened, and the husband, with a wet bag
him to a house where he “got some pota and a creel of live fish, tumbled in; and there
toes, and fladt bröd and cold water,” and then we all sat with our faces lighted up by the
he turned into a hay-loft. wood fire, chattering like a flock of gulls;
while a little girl, who woke up at the noise,
“I thought I was to have a quiet night, and kept screaming like a young cormorant from its
began to change my stockings in the dark on nest, “Moor, gie me fisk. When supper was
the hay-floor, when I heard a lot of voices ready we supped, and I turned into the hay
chattering close to me. loft as usual, but this time I was alone.”
“‘Have I company?" said I. -
“O yes, we are three, said a girl's voice Next morning he rowed up the fjord to
from amongst the hay. take a lesson from the glacier. The whole
“And do you not sleep in the house?' detail is admirably described, the steep pro.
quoth I. truding glacier below him sliding down the
“‘No, we always sleep in the hay in sum valley, high cliffs on its sides, and above
mer, said another female treble, ‘because of the these “the glittering blue ice hung in the
fleas. Plea ant look-out for me! There was
no help for it. It was raining cats and dogs most fantastic peaks and spires. Each time
outside, so I put on a water-proof for a night the hot sun shone upon this broken edge,
gown, and tumble 1 in amongst the family; and from behind drifting clouds, great wedges of
presently I heard them groaning and kicking ice came thundering down the rocks, broken
and catching fl. as all round me. I had some to powder, and formed a fresh layer on a
thing to do in the same line myself before white cone” (the lower glacier). Then he
long; but I had walked twenty miles over the shows how this “ice-cone was melting,
fjeld with my gun and a heavy knapsack; and spreading, slipping, grinding, groaning, and
in spite of fieas and family I was soon fast
asleep.” polishing rocks, as other ice-cones have done
for ages at some former period over the
When he awoke at dawn he found he whole of Scandinavia, as glaciers are now
“had been sleeping in a regular nest of them, spreading and sliding on high plateaux above
big and little. Their lairs were all about the Sogne Fjord, in Iceland, and in Switzer
in the hay, and Martha, dimly visible, was land.” . . . “About 400 yards off” from the
still fast asleep, with a sheepskin rolled about end of the glacier “there was a field of ripe
her. She may have been about ten years corn, and a very hot sun, which caused all
old. the movement in air and water, and all the
“Another girl now came out and raked polishing on these rocks.”
Martha out of the hay with a rake; and Similar glaciers are not uncommon in
having seen that operation performed, I too Switzerland, and one well-known instance
went into the house, took some cold potatoes, occurs on the route from Meyringen to the
and colder water, for breakfast, and started at Grindelwald,—the Swartzwald glacier, which
5.30.” The traveller then walked sixteen itself is a flattened cone, fed by avalanches
stiff miles, partly with a girl “so exceedingly that fall from the higher icy regions. The
ugly, that I longed to take her portrait,” for base melts, and throughout the year the
not only had she “an enormously swelled waste of ice changed into running water is
face,” but the colour and texture of her hair replaced by fresh supplies of broken ice that
was “like the tail of a roan horse,” and he fall from the Alps above. In the Norwe
asked her for a lock of it. By and bye he gian case the reformed glacier is close to the
crossed a fjord with a lame man sea-level; in Switzerland it is thousands of
“to a place where the priest sleeps when he feet higher. In either case, as the author
comes to preach, and where a lot of painters shows of the Norwegian instance, the lower
had lived for some time this summer. There glacier may dwindle away, or grow and join
was not a living soul about the place when we the upper glacier, according as future cli
1865. - “Frost and Fire.” 111
mates may become milder or more cool. At distant views there were none. I had to walk
present, pressure caused by increase of matter hard to save daylight. At the end of twelve
falling on the apex of the flattened cone long miles by pedometer, I found myself at a
maintains the outward flow of these second farm, and as I walked up I heard a fiddle. I
thought that promised fun, so walked in and
ary glaciers, “and the same laws govern the asked for quarters. I found four or five tall
movements of large heaps that fall from the strapping young fellows—the best grown men
sky, and spread their bases over large tracts I have seen in Norway—and a girl to match,
of country.” The last remark is important, sitting about a long table listening to the music,
for by increase of snow in a wide region that while the girl brushed her long frowsy locks
is almost a perfect plain (if such a case ex with a carding comb. There was a general
ist), lateral motion of the mass will be pro promise of fleas about the place, but I tucked
duced by pressure alone. my trousers into my socks, according to the old
plan first learned in Greece, and sat me down
“The next ice-tool,” says Mr. Campbell, in with the family. It was dark outside, but a
Chapter xv., is the “River-glacier.” The bright fire and a single candle lit up the wild
great snowy dome of Mont Blanc is an ex unkempt heads nodding to the music.
ample, and from the upper feeding-ground of “I asked for old Norse ditties, and got seve
snow glaciers diverge, and pass down the ral. Presently a vast supper of porridge was
valleys “like flowing rivers.” produced, and the fiddle paused, while I
Justedal's glaciers, in the Bergen district, smoked my pipe.
“Supper over, the fiddle began again. Pre
are not much known, and in 1857 a trip was sently one of the young giants in leather
made to visit them, and Mr. Campbell justly breeches sprang on the floor, seized the giant
congratulates himself that his beautiful draw ess who made the porridge, and began a polska.
ing of the Bondhuus lake and glacier in its He trotted round the room, holding her hand,
main features resembles that made by the while she toddled after him. Presently the
Principal of St. Andrews in 1851. Any one girl was spun round and round like a teetotum,
familiar with glaciers will at once recognise showing such powerful understanding that I
marvelled; and then she was seized round the
the perfect truthfulness of this drawing, and waist, and they both twirled together. Then
of that of the “Justedal's Is Brae.” The
they ambled about as before, then they had
smoothly-flowing, sweeping curves of the lat another fit of spinning till they were tired; and
ter, as the ice draining from the upper snow then another giant took the floor alone, and
plateau rebounds from side to side of the performed the Halling dance.
winding valley, is admirably given, and even “It was an odd performance, more like
the veined structure of the ice on the left, tumbling than anything else, and when it was
due to pressure, is rendered with perfect #
over they if I could do anything.
“The music was something like reel time, so
truth. The steep cataract-like slide of the I took the floor, and performed sundry reel
Bondhuus glacier is equally well expressed; steps, amidst the most flattering exclamations
while in both, the largely mammillated — That karl can use his feet.” “It is not the
structure of the old ice-ground rocks, stretch first time thou hast danced. ‘That was supple,'
ing high above the glaciers, or below their and so on.
ends, the boulders and the perched blocks “So encouraged I performed “Jacky-Tar,'
are all so truthfully rendered, that they may blushed modestly, and retired to bed. I had
well inspire others with a friendly envy, my doubts of the couch, for it was in the family
store-room, where winter garments were hung,
whose eyes can appreciate, but whose hands so turned in all standing, and tried to sleep;
can only depict in dreary diagrams all the but it was quite hopeless. There was a regular
phenomena of the well-beloved regions of hailstorm of starving fleas pattering down upon
ice. To epitomize all this would be going my face from the winter clothing, creeping
over familiar ground, for the external pheno. about my feet, and getting through my armour
mena of glaciers are everywhere the same." everywhere. I stood it for some time, but at
We must also leave scientific details till we last I jumped up, gathered my wraps, and
come to the traveller's larger ice-theories, marched out of doors. I believe they would
have picked my bones before morning if I had
and in the meanwhile will indulge in another stayed in the bed. I found a barn, open at
extract from his journal, of a trip to visit both ends, with some straw, and there camped.
the Justedal's glaciers, simply and graphically Presently the moon rose over a lofty hill, and
written, and full of pleasant humour:— I began to rejoice in the agreeable change, and
to enjoy the view; but for me there was no
In September 1857.—“Landed at Roneidet rest that night. I ãad a whole colony with me,
about 3, and after getting food from its hospita and they were industrious fleas. I got up
ble inhabitants, set off at 4 with a boy, and a twice, stripped, and shook my clothes; but it
horse to carry my goods up the Justedal. was all in vain. No sooner laid down than
“The track follows the river, winding up a they began to dance polskas, hallings, and reels
deep narrow gorge between enormous rocky up and down my arms and legs. Ät last I fell
hills. Here and there is a stony plain, the dé asleep in spite of them.
bris of a glacier, overgrown with trees; but “Thursday, Sept. 3d.—I was hardly asleep
when an old fellow awoke me. I was sleeping sea-lochs of Scotland, and on the wide heaths
across the barn door, and he wanted to begin of Westmoreland and Yorkshire, the blood
his work, as it was daybreak. I was too sleepy of whose inhabitants is derived from North
to stir, so he rummaged about amongst the ern races. From the flat plains of England
straw and departed; but he was soon back
again with my host, exclaiming, that this ‘fre all popular mystery has long since departed.
mande karl” was a “frisk person, because he “A boatman,” says Mr. Campbell, “declared
was sleeping out, but that he must go away that his mother, when a girl, had seen a
from there. They stirred me up, and showed flock of mysterious cows near the Folge Fond
me to a hay-shed, so I took my plaid once at Yiggra Stola. They vanished, and they
more and flitted. were “Huldra Beasto.’ ” On the south side
“There was a grand lot of dry hay, and I of the Hardanger Fjord, under the snows of
was about to throw myself upon it, when I per
ceived a dog curled up in a nest; the next step the Folge Fond, “according to peasants, are
was almost into the mouth of my boy, who was seven parishes, which were overwhelmed for
sound asleep, and covered with hay; the next I their wickedness. The church-bells may still
found a vacant corner for myself, and took it, be heard ringing on certain holy days.” It
when, to my wonder, up sprang the dancing is curious how universal traditions of this
giantess, over whom I must have walked. She kind are respecting the burial of towns and
shook her long elf locks, gaped horridly, and cities, generally under lakes. It is well
departed; and I went really to sleep at last. known to Welshmen that a great sea-dyke
“At 7 I was stirred up once more, fed on
potatoes and cold water, and departed. As once stretched from St. David's Head in
soon as I got to a river I bathed, and routed Pembrokeshire to the west point of Lleyn in
the hostile army.” Caernarvonshire, which forms the north horn
of Cardigan Bay. The son of Seithyn, Seith.
We like a man who takes comfortably to enyn, King of Dyfed, who was much given
potatoes and water for breakfast when he can to carousing, neglected the dyke, and one
get nothing better; and further on we might night, while he was feasting, it gave way, and
possibly appreciate his inability to manage the Cantref.gwaelod,—the Lowland Hundred,
“greasy porridge,” while we clearly sympa with sixteen fortified towns and all its vil
thize with his love of sitting “on the highest lages, was buried under the waters of what is
rock he could find for an hour, gazing and now Cardigan Bay. Many years ago the
dreaming as one must dream when so placed. writer of these remarks was informed by a
I can neither explain nor express the pleasure lady at Fishguard that she knew an old lady
which it gives me to sit thus perched on a who, sitting on a calm Sunday on Penslade,
rocky point, high above the visible world, and looking at the sea, saw, as in a vision,
and glower and dream alone; but here I had all the Cantref.gwaelod, with its towns and
my fill of mountains and solitude.” The villages, rise out of the sea, while the church
pleasure is none the less that it cannot be bells rang, and then she knew the tradition
easily expressed. David sitting perhaps no to be true. Fishermen still sometimes see
higher than his house-top, knew the feeling parts of the walls of the towns in quiet days,
when, looking at the distant mountains, he when the sea is clear, and profane geologists
longed for the wings of a dove. declare them to be trap-dykes, or massive
n his way down from the rock, Mr. jointed reefs of Cambrian grit.”
Campbell shot four ptarmigan, “to the in The journeys, from the journals of which
tense joy of Thugu, the boy, who kept ex the foregoing extracts are made, took place
claiming, ‘Ney ney! he shoots in the air ! in Southern Norway, and the lesson learned
Ney ! ney! ney !' ... I was not sorry, for I
*
from these excursions is, “that a local land
thought of dinner;” and when he got back ice system consists of a number of re
to his hostess, having eaten but little food for volving water-systems, which rise up from
some days, “I was not going to trust my warm regions, move in the air, fall on cold
spoil to the old woman to ruin; so I took solid rock, glide and flow from it; carving
my birds to a log, plucked a couple, cut them hollows on hill-sides, and leaving tracks
up, washed them, and set them to boil with everywhere on the downward path which
a lot of potatoes in a large black pot. The leads water down to the sea from a block of
result, eaten in the dark, was a feast such as high land.” Again, “The whole is a local
aldermen never taste, and cannot imagine; system, whose source is in the clouds (or
and the pipe and the sound sleep in the hay rather in the sea which feeds the clouds), and
that followed were as good in their own way whose base rests on a rock-plateau, which is
as the feast.” wearing away to the amount of the mud car
To the northern folk themselves, the living
glaciers and the old ice-worn fjords are ject* consult
Let those who care to know more of this sub
the Traditions concerning the Submer
mysterious. The same feeling, generated by sion of Ancient Cities, by the Bishop of St. David's,
loneliness, exists in the muirs and dreamy published, I believe, in 1858.
ried to the sea by rivers.” With such facts at Arvet, among other things, saw a pretty
before them in many mountain regions, it is little woman who “had a large leathern
curious to find that some distinguished mo knapsack on her back. . . . Presently she
dern geologists scarcely recognise glaciers as turned her head, and addressed the contents
great denuding agents at all. They look on with “Er du waukin du ?' Down came the
them as accidental adjuncts of high mountain bundle, and out of it came a rosy-cheeked
ranges that have done but little in the way baby with large blue eyes, dressed in full
of wasting and moulding the earth's surface, Dahl costume.” He then drove to Skattun
just as others, who are familiar enough with gebyn, “because it was ‘a poor place in the
running water, are unable to realize the mountains,’” and on the way was joined by
scooping out of great systems of valleys by two carriages “filled with swells who had
that busy agent, aided by landslips from hill been to a wedding,” and the whole parish
sides, great and small, that in a geological turned out to see them.
sense are of frequent occurrence. Mountain “It was worth a journey to Sweden only to
glaciers and mountain torrents and rivers act see that gathering. The old fellows with their
alike in this respect. Both deepen their clean white breeches and their yellow aprons
beds. On or into both, earth and rocks are crowded about us: their long hair and red caps,
always falling. The glacier bears downwards blue stockings and birch-bark shoes, were per
on its surface most of this matter that does fect: very pretty fair blue-eyed girls and bright
not find its way to the bottom through cre eyed boys, each a picture, climbed up the rail
vasses and moulins, and the river carries it ings and peered over the heads of the old men;
and the landlord, himself a study, trotted about
away, and rolls and grinds it into powder. with his merry £ce, shaking hands with every
And in many a deep valley, on the sides of body in turn, and talking the most incompre
which the horizontally-bedded rocks rarely hensible of Dahlska. The priest told me that it
show any fractures or faults, the practised eye £ very rare for a traveller to come that road
at all.
readily infers that the form of the ground
proves the excavation of valleys by streams; “The swells being gone, I ordered some
and, as Mr. Darwin remarks, the wonder is, porridge, and took possession of the room, in
tending to be quiet, but I had reckoned without
listening through the night to the never my host. First one old picture, and then ano
ceasing rattle of descending stones on the ther, walked in, and after saluting me, gravely
Andes, that the mountains stand so long seated itself; and so they filled the room to my
under this incessant and irresistible power. delight.
The local glaciers of part of Norway are “We were soon as thick as thieves, and I had
in the same latitudes as the Faró Isles and to answer a string of questions.
Northern Scotland; and it has long been “Were we Christians in England? Had we
schools? Had we Bibles?
known that this Norwegian area “was for “For answer I produced mine, and for many
merly covered by one large local system minutes there were loud exclamations of won
which still hovers over it; ” for all the moun der at the beauty of the book, and the unintel
tain sides, now bare of ice, are, as in the ligible language. Then we had to read a bit to
Alps, ice-worn and smoothed, and every hear what it was like, and then an old fellow
fjord from end to end shows the signs of the read the same bit in Swedish to compare the
grinding of vast glaciers that once filed what two. Next they set to play on a queer square
are now sea-valleys, compared with which instrument with one string which lay on the
table, but as no one was good at it a girl was
the Norway glaciers of to-day are merely of summoned. She was neat and trim as a Sun
pigmy size. “If there be a star of ice-marks day maiden could be, fresh and rosy; her jacket
on the oval block which forms Southern Nor was of sheepskin, beautifully dressed, with
way, there ought to be a herring-bone pat fringes of white curly wool round the wrists and
tern on the long ridge which stretches” from skirts; her petticoat was blue, and like a
the North Cape through the mass of the crimped collar; her stockings were red, and
peninsula; and Mr. Campbell gives the her shoes of the true Dahl pattern—the upper
leather embroidered, and with a large flap like
results of his experience in the middle and a Highland brogue; the sole of birch bark, two
more northern regions, mixed with curiously inches thick, with a small square peg in the
interesting descriptions of men and animals, middle of the foot instead of a heel. With her
so well told, that all classes of readers except psalmodicon on a rough deal table, with a single
ing the extra high and dry scientific school, candle shining on her earnest face, with old
must take pleasure in them. Two or three long-haired wrinkled faces and twinkling eyes
more of these descriptions we must quote all about her, and a background of brown wood,
she looked like a Dutch picture come to life.
before turning to the main theory of the The lassie had a sweet voice and sang well.
glacial period. “At last my party broke up, and wishing me
In September, 1850, finding there was no a hearty good-night all round, they thanked me
thing to eat at Finstuga but potatoes and for my ‘agreeable company' with great polite
cold water, he drove on, and on the journey ness, and left me to repose in sheepskin sheets.”
VOL. XLIII. N–8
In 1849, on the 14th of July, he “found out a mouse; and there was a procession wor
Robert Chambers” at Kaafjord measuring thy of the backwoods.”
the heights of old sea-terraces, the results of
Once fairly out on the misty fjeld—
which are recorded in Mr. Chambers's well
known book on Ancient Sea Margins; and “There were grey mist, grey moss, grey
these raised sea-marks play an important stones, and grey rocks, all of one pattern, with
part in Mr. Campbell's views of the cause ofhere and there a bit of soft marsh, covered with
a glacial climate in the northern regions ofdwarf mountain rhododendron, dwarf birch,
Europe, bearing as they do on its past sub shrubs, and multiber. Occasionally a golden
mergence. It must have been delightful to plover flew screaming into the mist as we ap
see Mr. Chambers playing “Scotch tunes on proached his domains, and now and then enor
a flute to the deer, and the seals, and the mous white owls appeared like mountain ghosts,
screeched at us, and vanished. • -
Lapps, in the quiet and still twilight of a “Once the mist lifted and showed us a
Northern night,” and dreaming, “of the glimpse of the distant country; and a more
wonder which the melodies rouse.” dreary, desolate, cheerless waste would be hard
On the 31st of August in the same year, to find.* There were lakes and stones, rock
with a comrade he set off from Alten to and deer moss, as far as the eye could reach,
walk over the mountains to Sweden. without a hill, almost without a marked feature
to impress it on the memory; and yet I see it
“We were a curious lot certainly. now as I saw it then.—A grey sea of rounded
“First marched Abraham, a little, wiry, rocks; a flock of wild geese sailing overhead
wrinkled, sandy-haired man, with a scrubby below the mist; and a large white owl, as big
beard, dressed in a reindeer cap, turned up wit as an eagle, perched like a milestone upon a
blue. His body was draped in a mangy rein £ block in the foreground; horses and men
deer pesk; a thing like a shirt, made fast about ooking damp and shiny, and clouds of smoke
the waist with a girdle, from which dangled a rising from hides, jackets, and newly-lit pipes.”
knife. His legs were clad in a pair of yellow
comagas, stuffed with grass; and on his back On this day's march they came “upon a
he bore about thirty pounds of smoked salmon. colony of fjeld-rev-mountain-foxes. They
The tails of the fish wagged and flapped like a
couple of fins, one on each side, as he trudged had drilled a sand-hill as full of holes as a
steadily on, with a short black wooden pipe in rabbit-warren. Our first notice of their pre
his cheek. sence was a sharp angry yelp from a little
“He was the picture of a savage. His father fellow perched as sentinel on the top; he
was a Quain '' his mother a Lapp; he gets was answered from all sides, and in a mo
drunk when he can, and knows the country by ment they had all scampered home and were
day or night, in summer or winter, for hundreds out of sight. They seemed about
of miles, whether he is drunk or sober. He
leaned far forward, trod on his heels, and shuf the size of small terriers, and looked grey in
the dusk.”
fled over the ground at a very deceptive
pace. “Provender getting low" by the 2d Sep
“Then came a horse with a couple of Quain tember, they were forced to carry guns for
panniers, swathing a lot of deerskins for beds, pot-shooting, for T. also seems to be a sports
a prog-basket, a bottle-holder, and my rod, man who loves a hunt in more ways than
which stuck out over the beast's head like a one. Lakes innumerable met them at every
bowsprit. | turn,-a characteristic feature in all Northern
“Then came my comrade, T., in a razeed
brigand's hat, shading a pair of blacking-brush ice-worn scenery, both European and Ameri
moustaches and an unshorn chin, his shoulders can. “We lunched in the rain on the shore
covered with the tails of an old mackintosh of a lake under an extempore tent made of
sewn into a cape, and the rest of his rig seedy luggage and plaids, birch-trees and fishing
but civilized. rods;” and reaching Mars Elv by 5.30 the
“Then came a second horse with a light men wanted to camp, but T insisted on push
load, intended as a resource in case any one ing on to Bingasjerve; and as our traveller
broke down.
“Then came Ula, with one eye out, but the stood neuter, “at last T. carried his point.”
other as sharp as his nose and his temper. His The result was that a horse sprained his fet
dress was a black leathern cap with a peak, lock in fording the river; the men had
grey woollen jacket, waistcoat, and loose leg to re-stuff their boots with dry grass; they
gings, over which came a pair of the everlasting lost an hour, and “were drenched like drown
long comagas. ed rats.” But they plodded on, the “men
“Then came the third horse, and then a growling all the time,” in the dark, among
taveller in an old kilt jacket, an old pair of tumbled rocks, precipices, and in a wood of
rent trousers, a hat stuck round with feathers
and flies, and a gun for pot-shooting. birches on a steep hill-side, “where the poor
“T.'s dog, Fan, wriggled her stump of a tail, * “It is exactly like the high country near
and ran backwards and forwards, stoppin Reykjavik, except that the stones are volcanic in
every now and then to fight a lemen or sme Iceland.”
horses went tumbling about like drunken finished, we had a fire lighted and a shelter
men;” into a lake, into a river, into a dense made. It looked snug, so T. joined our party.
drenching thicket of willow, at last with one A deerskin on the ground, a gaff-stick for a
final tumble of the lame horse, they reached ridge-pole, and a plaid, made a tent; a roaring
fire and a brew of coffee, and a reiper roasted
Bingasjerve. “But instead of “a roaring in his feathers, ajorum of hot punch and a long
fire and a welcome there was no one here, jaw, kept us '' employed till past eleven;
so we marched in and took possession of and then we drew on our sleeping boots, put
everything we wanted. First we made a fire, on great-coats, crept into our nests, and slept
then a stew; and we rolled ourselves upon like tops. Once I awoke, being too hot, and
the floor at one in the morning. found that Abo had piled up a bonfire. He
“I don't know that I was ever more was grinning at me through the smoke. We
grinned mutually for some time, then I took an
knocked up; and I was somewhat wroth observation of my comrade's long legs, which
with my chum for saying that it was all the projected from his shelter in a highly pictu
fault of Abo. I held my tongue till I had resque fashion; and then I rolled over again
smoked a pipe, and then the wrath went off and slept till seven. I would not give such
with the smoke; and we slept side by side travelling for the best down bed in Windsor,”
in peace and harmony.” —says the young writer, then, we presume,
The horse was so lame that the party had not many years escaped from Eton.
“Our way now lay through a wood of well
to stop all next day in and about a house grown birches growing upon sand-hills. There
where nets, poles, boat, deerskins, teapot, were paths and tracks, and here and there
“Finsk Bible on a shelf with a page turned patches of bare sand, where we could see the
down ; in short, the whole tenement as the tracks of men, and dogs, and cows. Here, too,
tenant left it in spring, and as he hoped to we found the track of the army of lemens which
find it in autumn. It speaks well for the we had met on the fjeld. They seemed to have
wandering Lapps, and for the solitude of the marched in a compact body, following the
place.” Solitary indeed; for except their beaten path where there was one, and taking
the best road everywhere. Here and there lay
party “and the mosquitoes, there was not a the body of a defunct straggler to prove that
living creature seen all day;” and they seem the tracks were really what they seemed; but
only to have had one reiper, shot the day be there was not a live, lemen to be seen any
fore, to stew and devour; but next day, on the where. What odd little brutes these are !
march, meeting every now and then with co They march, as if by agreement, from some un
veys of these birds, they made up for yester known eastern point, and invade Norway like
day's short commons by stewing three for a swarm of locusts. They swim rivers, climb
hills, burrow holes everywhere, and gnaw and
lunch and dinner. By and by, from the top of nibble everything till they reach the sea. Even
a hill they saw their destination, Kautokeino, then they strike out westward, for the islands
in the distance; and everywhere, as far as get full of them. . At last they disappear as
the eye could reach, “the same rolling sea mysteriously as they came. No one knows
of grey moss-clad rocks, birches, lakes, bogs, whence they come or where they go; but
and stones.” The book abounds with simi every two or three years they arrive in shoals
lar descriptions of scenery, all given in a few as I saw them, and after a time they vanish.
They abound in North America.
words, so well chosen, that any one who “The first lemen I ever saw was at Bose
knows the agents by which the land has kaap, in 1849. Late one evening, when night
been modelled, at once recognises the north, was beginning to show, my host and I were
and the action of vanished ice, even though, smoking about the doors, while a dog was run
in dropping on a chance passage, he might ning about near the house. Suddenly we heard
not be aware at first to what region of the a scrimmage near an outhouse, the barking of
world the description referred. the dog, and the sharp angry chattering note
of some other creature. My host exclaimed,
After the passage of one of the bad bogs ‘The lemens are come, ran off to the scene of
noted above, “the horses began to flag; action, and came back panting with a yellow
their master growled; and then we came to animal like a marmot, but no bigger than a
a birch wood and a river.” small rat. From that day whenever we went
into the woods we found lemers, and smaller
“Kautokeino had been seen, so T. wanted black creatures like short-tailed mice. They
to go on. Ula wanted to stop, so did Abo; it swim rivers, and trout eat them, for I have
was a fine night, and I had no wish for another several times cut freshly-swallowed lemens and
scramble in the dark, so I voted, and turned mice out of trout which took my flies in the
the scale. The place seemed made for a camp, Alten.”
so I declared my intention of stopping there
with the horses. T. would go on to the houses At Kautokeino they were entertained by
with Abo, but Abo was of a different opinion. Mr. Rout, who “had set up for himself here
He explained that the ford was up to his breast, as handlesmand.” Mrs. Rout came from
and that he could not swim; and, by the time
the river had been examined and the argument Tromsö, and “spoke of her former dwelling
and her friends as a London lady might if “My little neighbour, the child, was now
fate had married her to a wild Highlander. pulled out by an old woman, and the little
For dinner there were roast wild wretch looked so pretty with its bright eyes
goose, jam, French beans, and a bottomless and its miniature fur dress, that I gave it a lump
of sugar, and sketched it while T. boiled the
meat-pie, wine and liquor, rum; and silver kettle.”
spoons and forks to eat with. The lady
handed her dishes, and ate as if by suffer After a long day's march they got into
ance;” a custom we have seen in a modi fresh quarters. In the morning a family
fied form in other parts of Europe. “Dinner toilette was performed something like the
over, we all bowed and said “Tak for mad.' preceding, “and when breakfast was over we
The host said, “Thanks for your agreeable offered them a dram, which they refused.”
company; and then we put the chairs “Meantime the old man” (the host) “had set
against the wall, shook hands, and fell to to reading aloud from the big Bible; and for the
work upon pipes and palaver.” first time I heard Finsk well. It was a sonorous,
During the repast a lean hungry tribe of grand language, full of broad vowels and soft
every second word a dactyl. I could
dogs were working outside at his “prog consonants,
almost fancy it ancient Greek, with its diph
basket.” “They opened it; stole a goose; thongs.
upset the pepper; and were deep in a jar of “No one seemed to attend, or to stop from
butter when they were discovered and driven working. The reading over, I sketched Abo,
away.” while Ula and the fat damsel began again. I
Soon after their departure— fancied I could gather the drift of this palaver;
and I was right. On arriving, I had served out
“Ulainformed me that he had lost the brandy a dram, and in the morning I had offered another;
keg. Now, this had been newly-filled, and our and now it appeared that the household were
friends were noted topers; so I suspected rogue teetotallers, and grievously shocked.”
ry. “You go back and find it, said I, ‘and I
will go on with Abo. . They had for some time crossed the water
“But,' said Ula, ‘I don't know the way.' shed, and when they reached the river Muonio,
“‘Then go to Kautokeino, and get a guide.” opposite Karasoando, “Tall, well-grown, long
“‘But I have no money, quoth Ula. haired men, dressed in grey woollen jackets,
“‘Then I will lend you some, and take it off loose leggings, and comagas,” ferried them
your pay.' over to Sweden from Russia. In sixty hours
“‘Will you wait a moment, said Ula, ‘and they had walked about two hundred English
I will go back? it can't be far; and so we miles, and so ended this part of their journey.
waited. -
“Those who hide can find; and, in a few show We have indulged in these quotations to
the admirable stuff of which the book
minutes, Ula came shouting with the keg under
his arm.” is made, for the benefit of those readers who
may not be so much attracted by scientific
Having forded the Alten, and found the descriptions and discussions, though these also
hut in the dark, the master and his wife are done in a manner so masterly that they
“turned out all standing” to welcome their cannot fail to draw universal attention. Mr.
guests; and the rousing of the family next Campbell's “eye for a country,” as geologists
morning is described in the following graphic say, is perfect, and any one who has travelled
morsel:—
widely with his eyes open will fully realize
“September 6th–Rose from my lair at six, the physical character of the north of Scandi
stepped over Ula, and went out to reconnoitre. navia from the following brief descriptions:—
It looked bad, so returned to my deerskin. “The journey may be done by an easier route.
Presently the family began their toilette. Boats can be poled up the Alten to the falls,
“First the master kicked off the deerskins, and dragged for a short distance; then, by
and turned his legs out of his box, then he “sticking’ up past Kautokeino and Mortana, a
scratched his head and lit a pipe, and scratched chain of lakes with a few portages leads all #:
again all over and round about, and then the way to the Muonio river by water.
operation was ended, for he rose and went out. “A similar route leads up the Tana to a chain
“Then Ula got off the floor and scratched of lakes which communicate with the head
himself, and he was ready. waters of the Kemi river. It is therefore pos
“Then Abo and his two bed-fellows tumbled sible to travel in a boat nearly all the way from
out somehow, and yawned, and stretched, and the North Sea, and from the Arctic Ocean to the
scratched themselves all over; then they slipped Gulf of Bothnia, by several routes.
their deerskin shirts over their heads, and stuck “In 1851, I conversed with a man who had
knives into their girdles, and looked as fresh as actually
if# had washed. travelled from sea to sea with a boat,
which he and his comrades dragged over one
“Then, all hands began stuffing comagas with low neck of land, about an English mile wide.
grass, and I thought it time to move. In a few “All the portages are over low necks of land,
minutes we too had shaken ourselves, and rolled separate adjoining lakes, and there is no
up our beds, and were busy about our breakfast. which
high ground all the way.
1865. “Prost and Fire.” 117
“The winter tracks follow lakes and rivers, nothing of Continental ice on a scale like the
for flat ice makes a good road.” universal glacier of North Greenland, and
It reads like a description of parts of such, to say the least, any glacier must have
Canada, Labrador, or the far North-west, and been that, covering Norway and Sweden,
the similarity of strings of lakes, rivers, and filled the Gulf of Bothnia on its course to
portages, is due to the same geological causes. the Baltic. Neither does the moraine-matter
The rocky formations are in great part the of the great undulating low-country of Switzer
same, and both have been dressed in the same land and of the north of Italy at all resemble
way during a “glacial period.” that of the broad-sloping water-shed, from
The temptation to quote from Mr. Camp 1400 to 2000 feet high, that divides the North
bell's pages is almost irresistible, and we wish Sea from the Gulf of Bothnia. It is true
that space would allow of full notes on the that in the great moraine of the Dora Baltea,
descent of the Muonio river on the frontiersnear Ivrea, which forms a circuit of fifty
of Russia and Sweden, of the fierce rapids, miles or thereabout, the moraine-rubbish is
of the sturdy steersmen plying their spade sometimes stratified, and the same kind of
handled paddles, one of whom “chewed his stratification is apparent in the moraines left
quid, and guided the boat with the skill of a by the great old glacier of the Rhine that
London cabman in a crowd.” In the turmoil covered what is now the Lake of Constance,
of rocks and water “our pilot only grasped and in those of the Reuss (Lucerne) of Thun,
his paddle the tighter, and set his teeth, and and of the Rhone on their southern retreat
off we went . . . the high bow slapping hard from the Jura. This partial stratification of
into the waves; but skill and coolness were great Alpine moraines is easily accounted for
at the helm. . . . The old boat writhed and when we consider that the petty moraines of
cracked from stem to stern, and pitched head existing Swiss glaciers are often dotted by, or
long into the waves, till I thought she must dam up, pools of water on a small scale, which
part or founder. . . . I know nothing grander re-arrange the rough sediments in strata, and
than such a torrent, unless it be the rolling these are often buried again under later piles
Atlantic, and nothing gives me such an idea of moraine-rubbish. On the vast moraines
of irresistible force as Atlantic waves after a of the so-called “glacial period,” the same
storm.” | phenomena were in progress on a larger scale;
We commend to all readers the delightful and besides, the great bodies of water that
description of a farm in Russian Lapland (vol. flowed from the gigantic glaciers of the time,
i. p. 292), the women and girls hanging up must often have re-arranged the moraine
sheaves of corn, the rough sledge drawn by matter in a manner of which in Switzerland
a young bull, the men of wildest and dirtiest we have no modern example. But all this
exterior, the short and brawny bandy-legged is very different in aspect from the sands and
smith, with his bare arms folded on his breast, boulders of the wide country that forms the
his flaming red hair, standing “out on end surface between the North Sea and the Gulf
like the sun's rays on a sign-post,” and the of Bothnia. But for the absence of minute
unexpected fat reindeer stag which trotting details, such as might be gathered in a survey
in unawares set all hands chattering and extending over many years, Mr. Campbell's
handling their knives. notes read like Nordenskiold's description of
“I shall not easily forget that group. The the striated rocks, the lakes, and the Osars
red smith holding the deer's horn and a long of Finland.
knife, the white bull and the yellow corn, Among the many delightful sketches in
some black dogs, a lot of girls with keen Chapter xx, there is one that will be read
eyes glancing down from the rock, and the with great attention by those who interest
dark forest and blue sky behind.” He saw themselves in the habits of the prehistoric
and described it with the eye of an artist, dwellers of France, Belgium, Denmark, Bri
and the reader is not likely to forget it either. tain, and elsewhere, who lived in caves and
A fortnight later and they found their way huts, were hunters by land or sea, in some
to Copenhagen. During much of the way cases before the tribes of the north knew
Mr. Campbell was trying to make what he much of domesticated animals. This passage
had seen agree with the work of glaciers in refers to a short residence among the Lapps
Switzerland, and he could not reconcile them; in 1850, when Mr. Campbell pitched his tent
but, though puzzled, by the time they reached among them, and loved to watch their habits.
Haparanda, near the Gulf of Bothnia, he had “The presence of reindeer seems to indi
“formed an idea that the Gulf itself was the cate a mean temperature of not more than
bed of an old glacier.” This idea, which we 34° or 36° Fahr, and when reindeer were
shall by and bye return to, he has since re plentiful in central France, that region proba
nounced, and partly with good reason, for the bly, instead of a mean temperature of 55°,
ice-valleys of the Alps in modern times show must have had a climate the average warmth
118 * Frost and Fire.” Sept.
of which was not higher than 34° or 36°, and then they posed for a picture of savage
for that temperature limits the growth of life. The small imp was practising on the
plants fit for reindeer pasture, so that Lapp calves and hinds, and screaming at them in
camps are seldom found above that line.” emulation of the bigger brother. He kept
kicking the big stags which lay on the ground
As far south as Bergen, where tame reindeer with the most perfect familiarity.”
are kept, “they never come down to the sea “The rain came through the tent, and in the
or to rich grass pasture, but seem to prefer hut it was impossible even to sit on the ground
cold, and moss which grows in cold regions. without bending forward. The children would
If the French deer were of the same nature, look over my shoulder, to my terror, so sketch
their existence proves a cold climate in France. ing was not easy. There were five dogs, three
There were plenty of them [in France], for children, the old woman, Marcus, and myself;
and all day long, the handsome lady from next
they were eaten in large numbers. They could door, and her husband, and a couple of quaint
not flourish without plenty of moss. Moss mangy-looking old fellows, kept popping in to
does not grow abundantly without cold;” see how the stranger got on. The kota itself
and in the following sketch we seem to have was a cone of birch sticks and green turf, about
the old manners and habits of these early in seven feet high; and twelve or fourteen in dia
habitants of Europe, modified by the neigh meter. It was close quarters, but the scene was
worth the discomfort. No one seemed to care
bourhood of civilisation, but otherwise con
a rap for rain, or fear colds, more than the deer.
tinued by direct transmission down to our Breakfast consisted of milk and cheese and
own day. Men and animals have both re boiled fish; and whenever any dish had been
treated north, the latter probably from choice, used the old dame carefully wiped it out with
the former perhaps by compulsion. her crooked forefinger, and £ licked the
finger and every attainable place in the dish
“By the time we got up to the kotas, we itself. It was wonderful to see her dexterity,
had passed through some sharp showers. The and to hear her talk while she polished the dish.
Lapps had now arrived, and a tent was pitched When one of the children spilt some milk on its
beside the conical hut. In the kota I found a deerskin dress, it was all gathered and licked
dirty old woman and a lot of dirty children up with the same tongue which found time to
sitting round a fire made in the middle of a ring scold the offender.
of stones, and looking very picturesque in the “Dinner was reindeer's flesh boiled. The chil
half light that streamed down through the chim dren cracked the bones on the stones after they had
ney. There was a heap of gear and human polished the outside; and they sucked up the mar
creatures, iron pots and wooden bowls, dogs row; then the dogs, who had not dared to steal,
and deerskins, piled in admirable confusion; were called in their turn, and got the scraps.
and the mother was engaged in a hunt amongst Wooden bowls were set apart for the dogs.”
the tangled locks of the youngest of her brood.
Not liking this neighbourhood, went out and
made my own shelter, and got on a greatcoat, After a pretty long experience of Lapps,
for it was cold and misty and comfortless after Mr. Campbell decides that they are not hos
the warm glen. Tried the tent, and found a pitable. “No Lapp has ever offered me so
very fine-looking Lapp woman sitting on a heap much as a scrap ''. or a drop of milk;
of deerskins, serving out coffee and reindeer but every Lapp I know was ready to sell
cream to the clocker with a quaint silver spoon. anything, and greedy for silver, which is
She had silver bracelets and a couple of silver hoarded and hidden underground.” A good
rings; and altogether, with her black hair and
dark brown eyes glancing in the firelight, she deal of it must be lost in this way, to be re
looked eastern and magnificent. Set to work covered long hence, like the old torques and
with the paint-box instanter, but she would brooches of the Celt, while the “polished”
not sit # for a moment, and it was almost bones split for marrow, and afterwards thrown
dark. Gave it up, and went out amongst the to the dogs, remind the reader of the old
deer, which had gathered round the camp to populations round whose squalid huts rose
be milked. There were about six hundred in
the kjökken-möddings of Denmark.
the herd, and some old stags were quite mag It is now time more definitely to touch
nificent. One had fourteen points on one brow
antler, and about forty in all. He looked quite upon Mr. Campbell's opinions of what were
colossal in the evening mist. A small imp of a and are the causes of “glacial periods” in
boy, about three feet high, and a child just different parts of the northern hemisphere,
able to toddle, were wandering about amongst forming episodes in what geologists call the
the deer. The boy was amusing himself b Post-Pliocene epoch. How to obtain cold
catching the largest stags with a lasso, to pull so extreme as to have produced immense
the loose velvet from their antlers. He never
missed his throw, and when he had the noose glaciers, fleets of icebergs, and sheets of coast
round the beast's neck, it was grand to see him ice, in regions where these agents are either
set his heels on the ground, and haul himself altogether unknown or only (by comparison)
in, hand over hand, till got the noose round feebly developed, is the question; and the
the stag's nose. Then he had him safe and author of Frost and Fire decides in favour
quiet, with the nose aud neck tied together, of geographical changes in the distribution
of land and sea, having been sufficient, by he not only confirmed the old opinion of
help of old ocean currents, to account for all Venetz, that they once were of prodigiously
the marks and signs of ancient ice that have larger dimensions than at present, but also,
yet been observed both in Europe and North travelling over great part of the British Is
America. This he does without adopting lands and other regions of Northern Europe,
the extreme case hypothetically brought for he announced that the mountains of the
ward by Lyell, that if all the land of the Highlands, Wales, Ireland, etc., had all main
world were gathered round the poles, the tained their glaciers, and further, that such
world would be extremely cold, whereas if local systems of snow-drainage were not suffi
almost all the land were collected round the cient to account for all the observed pheno
equator, the average temperature of the sur mena of a more general glaciation. The
face of the earth would be seriously raised. polishing and grooving of rocks, and also the
Wisely, he either ignores or rejects most of characters of great part of the boulder-clay,
the old theories, parts of which still now and were such that, in his opinion, they pointed
then crop out, and help to support some to something more universal. By these in
novel theory of the “glacial period.” Few vestigations he founded the first enlarged
geologists or physical£ idea of what geologists now call the “glacial
any
of these, especially since some of them, on period,” declaring that great part of the land
seemingly good grounds, have begun to in of both the Northern and Southern hemi
sist that “glacial periods” are recurrent, and spheres had been covered with coatings of
that ice-borne boulder-stones occur in other glacier-ice, thickest by far towards the poles,
formations besides the “Till,” and range far which spread southward from the North Pole,
back in Tertiary, and even in Palaeozoic time. and northward from the South, grinding and
If this be true, the doctrine that internal grooving the rocks over which the sheets
heat ever seriously affected external climate passed. In Europe, while still working south,
in any part of known geological time falls to or later, as it declined in size by change of
the ground, even were there no other reasons climate, this great glacier system gradually
to prove it, connected with life and the ab deposited those masses of clay and “wander
sence of extreme alteration by heat of the ing stones” now known to Scotch geologists
lower beds of thick stratified formations.” as the till, or boulder-clay. A few men like
The supposition of Poisson, that our system Buckland boldly followed Agassiz in this
has in former times passed through hotter grand conception, but the greater number of
and colder regions of space, fares no better, the first geologists in Britain and on the
for space has no temperature to measure, and Continent of Europe shrunk from what
as we derive no sensible heat now from any seemed to them a mere wild speculation.
of the stars except our own sun, it is impos Swiss, French, Italian, English, and German
sible to believe that we could do so without geologists even denied the great original
approaching so near to some other source of spreading of Alpine glaciers northward to
heat that all the arrangements of our solar the flank of the Jura, and southward far into
system would be deranged. Neither will the plains of Piedmont and Lombardy; and
astronomers allow that cold and hot climates to his latest days the illustrious Won Buch
can be produced by the shifting of the earth's would not allow that the glaciers of Switzer
axis of rotation, owing to the formation of land had ever been, so to speak, a single me
groups or ehains of mountains in regions re tre larger than at present. Men of eminence
moved from the equator, and the theory that are even now living on the flanks of the
the phenomena of the glacial period were Alps, and in England, who entertain a kind
caused by “a higher temperature of the of invincible repugnance to the idea, and
ocean than that which obtains at present,”t who can scarcely account for the steady
does not gain ground among geologists, who growth of an opinion younger than theirs,
cannot reconcile it with what they consider which they can scarcely resist, but which
to be positive geological facts that point in seems to them little short of a species of in
an opposite direction. sanity, when applied to the glaciation by
All the world interested in these matters terrestrial ice # Continental areas, far larger
knows that after Agassiz had spent years in than the regions bordering the Alps. In
£ the structure, movements, and Britain, some geologists could not for a long
geological effects produced by Swiss glaciers, time even see the evidence of minor glaciers
in the Highlands of Scotland, Cumberland,
* Journal of the Geological Society, 1855, p. 203. Wales, and Ireland; and their Continental
# Ably argued by Professor Frankland. Higher comrades were equally sceptical about the
temperature, he says, produced increased evapora
tion, condensation, and precipitation; while the occurrence of bypast glaciers in the Vosges,
cloudy atmosphere prevented the sun's rays from the Black Forest, and other mountain clus
melting in summer what fell in winter. |ters on the Continent of Europe. If they
120 * Frost and Fire.” Sept.
could not see this, now evident to so many, densed fogs, which intercepted the heat of
far less likely were they to allow the possi the sun, and produced on the half submerged
bility of the greater generalization of Agassiz, land of Scandinavia, and even of Britain, a
that glacier-ice once covered almost univer climate and glaciers like those of the Green
sally a vast portion of the Northern hemi land of to-day, only smaller, because of the
sphere. The subject was ridiculed, and in the minor area of land to be drained of snow.
main it has only been by slow degrees, first Greenland, he says, is undergoing a “glacial
that local glaciers, originating in the snow period” now, and on this point all men are
drainage of minor clusters of mountains, have agreed who think upon the subject, though
been allowed, and, secondly, that a younger some may also suspect that formerly it was
generation have adopted the larger theory still more deeply buried under snow and ice.
of Agassiz in whole or with various modifi Scandinavia, Britain, and the rest of Europe,
cations. Mr. Campbell, however, still rejects as far south as the plains of Lombardy, un
it; while Agassiz, having worked at the gla derwent a “glacial period” like that of the
cier and iceberg phenomena of North Ameri modern Greenland in times geologically not
ca, adheres to his theory, and indeed only long bypast. The great moraines of Pied
sees in these phenomena additional reasons mont and Lombardy are now covered by
for sticking to his old faith. orchards and vineyards, and the thirsty tra
After a great deal of this kind of opposi veller ploughs ankle-deep through the dusty
tion in Britain and elsewhere, one of the roads; where glaciers once filled the valleys
phases through which the “glacial theory” in Wales, snow rarely lies deep for a fort
passed, was the admission that what is now night; in Scandinavia glaciers are chiefly
called ice-borne drift, was not deposited by confined to the high fjelds; and even at the
tumultuous currents of water caused by the North Cape the heat of summer in the sun
sudden upheaval of hypothetical land in the is disagreeably oppressive; and in all but
north, but that over Britain, and the north of the southern parts of Scandinavia, this sea
Europe generally, all the upper shell-bearing warmed area lies in latitudes the same as
boulder beds were drifted on coast ice, and on those of the southern half of Greenland,
icebergs that broke from glaciers which de which, except on the coasts of the south, is
scended to the sea from the mountains of covered with a universal sheet of glacier-ice.
Scotland, Cumberland, and the adjoining The conditions, therefore, says Mr. Campbell,
counties, Wales, and chiefly from the great prevail now in and round Greenland that
Scandinavian chain. This was a great point once prevailed on and round Scandinavia.
gained, being founded on facts collected all Cold ice-bearing currents from the pole sur
over the north of Europe. The same kind round the former land and cool it, and gla
of argument equally applies to North cier-ice covers it. Cold ice-bearing currents
America. bear bergs far to the south, along the shores
Reasoning on facts connected with the of North America and deposit drift, and the
erratic boulder drift, Mr. Campbell rejects glaciers of Greenland and the icebergs of the
the great sheet of northern glacier ice in West Atlantic ' effects in all respects
ferred by Agassiz, and attempts to prove comparable to those of the so-called “glacial
that, exclusive of the effects produced by period” of old times in the interior of the
special glaciers in ranges and clusters of continents of Europe and America. What
mountains, all the ice-ground surfaces of the Greenland is now, Scandinavia, half sub
lower grounds of Europe and America, and merged, was once. Arctic currents, bearing
of much of the mountains, may be satisfac icebergs and stones, once overspread a vast
torily explained by the theory, that just as part of the continent of North America (and
there is a “glacial period” in Greenland now, on any hypothesis this is true); and Arctic
marked by a nearly universal glacier there, currents bearing ice-rafts along the shores of
and just as there is a “drift” glacial period Scandinavia, and farther south, ground and
in the Western Atlantic, marked by the rub scratched the hills and plains of £ and
bish that drops from southward-floating ice Northern Europe, till, melting, they finally
bergs; so in Europe, now so mild because dropped the last relics of northern moraines
of the Gulf Stream, there was a time when, in more southern seas. The partial sub
by partial submergence, similar conditions mergence of Northern Europe during a
revailed. Then a great current from the “glacial period” is certain. More than two
£ Sea swept round the shores of Norway thirds of Britain is more or less covered with
down to the Gulf of Bothnia, and through “northern drifts,” here and there mixed with
the Baltic; the sea was frozen in winter east broken sea-shells, and its southern limit ex
and west, all round the Scandinavian shores; tends from the Rhine north of Bonn, all
and vast bodies of floating ice and icebergs across Europe to the confines of the northern
grinding along the coast cooled the sea, con half of the Ural Mountains. The same is
the case in North America, where stratified (moutonnée), ice-polished, and striated, and
drifts and erratic boulders, sometimes shell the point in debate between the disciples of
bearing, strew the surface as far south as lati Agassiz and those who think like Mr. Camp
tudes 38° and 40°. This has long been bell, is, whether or not these ice-worn surfaces
known, and Mr. Campbell, for his own satis were chiefly produced by a general sheet of
faction, has proved it in North America. glacier-ice, covering great part of the known
Besides this, he insists specially on the old northern continents and islands, or by the
marine shell-bearing terraces that, tier above southward passage of fleets of icebergs grind
tier, mark the seaward slopes of the Scandi ing over sea-bottoms and along coasts when
navian peninsula to a height of 600 feet the countries were half submerged. Neither
above the sea; and reasoning from his own side denies that great part of the regions sup
and other observations on the subject, he ap posed to have been so powerfully moulded by
plies the argument in such a way, that sandy icebergs, at some time or other maintained
flats on the watershed between the Gulf of their £ nor yet that during part of the
Bothnia and the Arctic Sea are also presumed glacial period they were more or less deeply
to be of marine origin. It is thus inferred submerged; but those who deny the theory
that boulders and terraces at exceedingly of Agassiz assert that floating ice produced
high levels, there and elsewhere in Scandina the chief part of the continental signs of a
via, evince submergence of the land to a far “glacial period,” or of “glacial periods;”
greater depth than 600 feet though shells while the followers of Agassiz, allowing the
have not yet been found in them, just in the agency of icebergs, consider that they were
same way that it was long believed, after the inadequate to produce the greater effects that
publication of Mr. Darwin's Memoir, that have been attributed to them. -
the parallel roads of Glen Roy are ancient The grinding and denuding power of these
sea-margins. Agassiz, at an earlier period, floating ice-islands must be tremendous. The
asserted that these parallel roads were ter ice-raft launched from the great glaciers of
races made by old lakes dammed up by a Greenland described by Lord Dufferin and
glacier which cut across the mouth of the Mr. Lamont, “sets off,” says Mr. Campbell,
valley, something like that which, in a small “at a rapid pace, with its awning of grey
way, dams up the Lac de Combal on the cloud spread, and the next thing it does is to
Italian side of Mont Blanc, or of the little cool the air, sea, and climate. . . . The pace
Merjelen See, on the flank of the great of an Alpine glacier, according to Forbes and
Aletsch glacier. The actual amount of the the best authorities, is four feet in twenty-four
extreme submergence of any part of Scandi hours at the utmost,” and “incidentally, La
navia is nowhere precisely stated, but that it mont gives the pace of the ice-float . . . at
was separated from the mainland is asserted five miles an hour (from Spitzbergen), from
(and we believe it), the total submergence north-east to south-west. “So a maximum
being considered perhaps to have exceeded velocity of two inches an hour (in a glacier)
2500 feet. grows to 316,800 per hour.” Amongst the
The evidence of sea-shells in drift on Moel Thousand Isles the rate of the Arctic current
Tryfan in Caernarvonshire proves that Wales is estimated by Lamont at seven or eight
has been submerged nearly 1400 feet, and miles an hour. “So the power of a glacier
later proofs, almost as clear, show that it must on shore is nothing to the power of the same
have sunk during a “glacial period” 2000 or glacier afloat,” and “no one seems to have
2300 feet. Boulder beds with sea-shells are considered the system as one great denuding
common all down the eastern coast of England, engine.”
and in the west, in Lancashire, they have been The depth of an iceberg in the sea de
found in cliffs by the sea-shore, and up to a pends on the mass and shape of the ice,
height of 1200 feet. The writer of these re and on the quantity of moraine matter with
marks knows some of these facts from personal which it may chance to be loaded. “Small
examination of the ground both in Europe and icebergs about Spitzbergen are sometimes
America, and however the explanation of the 1000 yards in circumference and 200 feet in
whole may be read, there is at all events a great thickness,” or at least 180 feet under water,
amount of floating knowledge current on the and on the coasts of Greenland bergs are of
subject of a “glacial period” common to prodigiously greater size; and if Kane's in
Europe and America, or of “glacial periods” ference be correct, that one of the glaciers
endured by these continents in different por he saw was 3000 feet thick, there may be
tions of that section of geological time, of floating bergs of all sizes ploughing along
which the present phase is but a part. sea-bottoms at depths up to more than 2500
But underneath the “drift,” which was feet, with or against the wind, wherever the
a result of glaciation of some sort or other, deep-sea currents may carry them. . It is a
the rocks are generally found to be rounded strange sight. The only large iceberg we
122 “Frost and Fire." Sept.
ever chanced to see seemed like a white and observed? We think not, and believe, after
blue island, as large as the Bass Rock, steadily considerable experience of the question, that
making its way against the wind, but there land ice has done the greater share of the
was nothing else in sight by which to esti moulding work, while it is only by a union
mate its actual size. Quoting from Scoresby, of the two-land glaciers and floating ice,
“a body of more than 10,000 millions of tons that the whole of the phenomena can be
in weight meeting with resistance when in clearly explained.
motion, produces consequences which it On this point, however, we must be brief
is scarcely possible to conceive,” and when, for want of space. It is an undoubted fact
instead of one such body, there are broad that in North America, from the North Sea
streams of ice-fields and bergs year by year, to latitudes 38° and 40°, rock-surfaces have
and century after century, grinding their way been largely moulded by ice. It is seen high
south, there “is surely an engine strong on the exposed parts of the Lawrentian
enough to work denudation on a large scale.” mountains; it has been observed nearly to
The lower points and surfaces of bergs some the summit of the Katskills; and in the
times set with stones, must cut great trenches plains, wherever the drift is removed, stria
through soft sediments, shove forwards and tions are evident, often, but not always, run
contort the beds, and smoothe and grave the ning from N.N.E., to s.s.w. The Green Moun
rocks with long grooves and striations, like tains, for example, near Canaan, trend a little
those produced by glaciers on land. When north of east in a set of parallel ridges, alter
melting, and especially when aground, the nating with deep valleys; and the striations
stony and muddy débris that falls from them on the roches moutonnées run northwesterly
will arrange itself in mounds, a circumstance across the tops of the ridges, down into the
that easily accounts for the irregularity of valleys, and up and over the opposite hills;
surface of many upheaved glacial sea-drifts, yet the run of the hills and valleys is in a
holding lakes, pools, and peat-mosses (once direction that, had the ice-marks been caused
lakes), like those among the Kaims of Castle by icebergs driven by a northern current,
Kennedy in Wigtonshire, and of Carnwath, we should expect to find striations on the
or like others in the lowlands of Fife, and va hill-sides following the course of the valleys.
rious other places in Scotland, but especially The valley of the Hudson and its continua
in Finland, where, according to Nordenskiold, tion through Lake Champlain is certainly
the whole country is covered with lakes lined on the bottom with marine deposits.
dammed up by Osars, in Scotland known as Mr. Campbell describes striations running
Kaims, and in Ireland as Eskers. These cu along, not down, the flanks of the hill at a
rious heaps and long mounds occur in Eng height of 1935 feet above the sea, in a direc
land at least as far south as the Tyne and tion 40° N. of E., and he quotes Ramsay as
North Lancashire, but we are not aware that having made similar observations on the same
they have yet been observed farther south, or ground in 1857. At a height of 2850 feet,
round the borders of Wales. * the same writer also noticed no traces of local
Though much has been written by dif glaciers, and he inferred at that time (Quar
ferent authors about the transporting power terly Journal of the Geological Society, 1859)
of icebergs, and the scattering of boulders that these horizontal striations were caused
and finer sediments by their agency, no one by icebergs drifting down the great valley of
has heretofore attempted to work out the the Hudson, and grating as they passed along
theory of berg-action as a denuding power, the slopes of the escarpment of the Katskill
in the way that it has been done in Frost mountains in a sea about 3000 feet deep.
and Fire; and one point of great value in From his subsequent writings, however, on
the book is, that it so ably opposes the strong glacial matters connected with the physical
reaction which has lately risen against the geology and geography of America, Great
power of bergs to produce any serious effect Britain, and other parts of Europe, it may be
on the shape of the solid rocks of a submerg doubted if he would still adhere to the views
ed country, for some writers seem to attribute expressed in 1859 respecting the ice-grooves
the mammillated moulding of rocks entirely on the Katskill mountains, especially when
to great land glaciers. But making every taken in connexion with the published writ
allowance for the prodigious and long-con ings of Professor Dana, Sir William £
tinued energy of huge grounding islands of and Professor H. Youle Hind. If the hol
fast-floating ice-a subject long ago mooted lows holding the myriad lakes of North
by Mr. Darwin—the question still remains, America that are true rock-basins, were
was it capable of producing every effect actually, as has been attempted to be proved,
attributed to it by Mr. Campbell, taking into ground out by land glacier-ice, then when a
account all the conditions of extent and shape person has ceased to fear the magnitude of
of the lands over which ice-action has been Agassiz's theory, he will not even shrink
from the consequences of inferring a glacier these markings on hill and hollow were made
older than the marine drift big enough to by icebergs, the great difficulty seems to be,
produce horizontal striations high on the how such floating bodies, under the influence
sides of the Katskill escarpment, especially of northern currents, could have produced
when backed by the authority of an observer even tolerably straight striations over irregular
so able and so cautious as Professor Dana. ground, formed of hills that often lay across
But it may well be that striations were form the presumed tracks of the icebergs, and
ed by both causes. through deep lakes which are only basin-val.
In his Manual of Geology, with special re leys filled with water; whereas, since we
ference to American Geological History (a know that in the Alps, glacier-ice has gone
work that ought to be in the hand of every over good-sized barriers, like the Kirchet near
student of geology, old or young), Dana does Meyringen, and across the hilly undulations
not hesitate to adopt the idea of continental of what are called the plains of Switzerland,
ice as the greatest scale, attributing the pro then unmodified by the present system of
bable cause of the “glacial period” to gene rivers,—believing this, we say that both the
ral elevation of the land of the area, for “an puzzling and the simple striations of the
elevation of 5000 feet is as probable as a sub North American continent seem most easily
sidence of 5000 feet,” and such subsidences explained by the theory of continental ice.
have been of frequent occurrence in the his In like manner, Professor Hind, in a “Pre
tory of the earth. But if the cold were so liminary Report” on the geology of New
great in the far north, “there would have Brunswick, states that the whole country is
been a universal barrier in the universal ice covered with striations, generally, but not
and snow of the universal glacier. But on always, running N. 10° w., in one case, “on
the south the ice would have had a limit, the summit of the Blue Mountains, 1650
caused by the climate, motion would have feet above the sea.” “In Prince Wil
been mainly southward, and the requisite lead liam we can also,” he says, “see the work
ing slopes for the flow of the ice are found in the glacier has accomplished in excavating
two cases, in New England and eastern New Lake George,” and he boldly attributes the
York, along the Connecticut valley, east of the formation of great escarpments to the same
summit of the Green Mountains, and along the cause; the whole showing “that the action
Hudson river valley, west of the summit.” of the ice slowly moving over it must have
Such glaciers would have passed over the continued for an exceedingly long period of
minor summits, scoring them on the way, time.” But though “the direction of the
and the Green Mountains would have given moving mass of ice was generally due north
that more eastern direction to the striae and south, as the glaciers approached the sea
(noticed above) observed about the higher they accommodated themselves to the sinu
summits, because the general slope is east osities of the valleys through which they
ward, while below the more elevated points, made their escape, and produced striations
the southern inclination of the great valley in different directions. At a greater eleva
itself would have directed the movement of the tion and more inland, what were on the sea
extended glacier. When, years ago, we saw shore mere ice-streams would be in the inte
the striations on the Green Mountains, we rior a uniform or broad glacial mass.” The
were sadly puzzled to account for the stria whole, he infers, “would involve a glacial
tions running transverse to the trend of the mass certainly not less than 2000 feet in
ranges, not only on their tops, but also on thickness,” and quoting Agassiz, he says,
their sides. In vain we tried to account for “the thickness of the sheet cannot have been
them on the theory of local glaciers, and much less than 6000 feet,” and, “in short,
against the grain we attributed them to drift the ice of the great glacial period in America
ing icebergs; but now, on high authority, moved over the continent in one continuous
quoted above, it is stated that they may be sheet, overriding nearly all the inequalities
accounted for on the hypothesis of a great of the surface.” -
glacier that overrode all minor obstructions. Such are the conclusions drawn by several
Sir William Logan, also, in his late report on competent observers in North America, and
the geology of Canada, does not hesitate to we give them that readers may see both
assert, not only that glacier-ice often seems sides of the question.
to have passed over hills, but also that the Mr. Campbell's conclusions with regard to
striations running in at one end of lakes, and the power of icebergs in moulding the sur
rising out at the other, point to the entire fill face of the country on this side the Atlantic,
ing of these hollows with moving ice; and are of the same nature with those which he
we infer from his remarks that he agrees with supposes produced like effects in North
the hypothesis that these hollows were scoop America; but, as already stated, he believes
ed out by the agency of land glaciers. If all that Europe had a distinct glacial period of
124 * Frost and Fire.” Sept,
its own. We wish that space would allow how all its surface might be glaciated by
us to give an epitome of his account of the land and sea ice during the process, thus pro
intense glaciation of Scandinavia during that ducing both mammillations and terraces, it
period, caused by the great northern Baltic is difficult to see how, under the circum
current, of the launching of fleets of bergs stances, the striations would have a tendency
from the slips direct for the eastern coasts of (with variation) to follow a general northerly
Scotland and England, then more than half and southerly direction. If, for example, re
submerged, and of his argument to show ported observations of striations are good,
that the surface of the Highlands and the the great glacier-sheet that descended south
Lowlands, the north of England and Wales, wards from the Grampian Mountains flowed
were to a great degree modelled by floating right across the lower undulations of the old
ice, then and subsequently modified by local red sandstone, and up and across the Ochil
systems of glaciers. Whether we agree with Hills, and it is not till we reach the lowlands
all his views or not, no one can read his de of Fife and the Firth of Forth, that, joining
scriptions without pleasure and instruction, the ice that flowed eastward through that
so vivid is the style and so perfect his power great valley, the striation of the country took
of clear exposition. an eastward direction. The same kind of
We must, however, refer to one point to reasoning applies to the valley of the Clyde,
which Mr. Campbell also calls attention, and it seems to some good observers, there
namely, the ice-worn character of fjords. It fore, that though bergs and flow-ice had their
has been noticed by several writers, and first, sway during a partial submergence of Bri
we believe, by Professor Dana, that fjords tain, the main moulding of the surface was
are characteristic of all regions in which produced by sheets of land-ice similar to
great glaciation has occurred. The coasts of that which now covers Greenland or Victoria
Norway and of Scotland prove this, and the land, sea-ice being, they say, incompetent to
same is the case west of the Rocky Moun produce these special effects, however great
tains, and on parts of the eastern coast of may be its power.
North America. Tierra del Fuego and the If Britain were submerged 1000 or 2000
shores of a large part of South America feet, the mountains of the Highlands, the
west of the Andes, are similarly indented. north of England, and of Wales, would form
These fjords are simply valleys through groups of islands, and in among the intricate
which large glaciers flowed when the land mazes of the straits, sea-ice and bergs of
was higher than now, and Loch Lomond and moderate size might certainly float about and
others of the fresh water lochs in Scotland grind the rocks in all directions. Striations
were fjords at certain periods of their his would then be formed along the coasts,
tory, since raised above the level of the sea. which would more or less agree with the run
Their sides and the mountains bounding them of the valleys, especially during certain stages
to the very tops are often seen to have been of submergence. Two things, however, are
moulded by ice, and they are rarely deepest to be noted:–
towards their mouths. Raise the land and First, In the wider countries round moun
sea-bottom but a little, and they would often tain regions the striations, as already stated,
become lakes. Walleys and lake-hollows like often run right across the country up hill
them are common all over the Highlands of and across dale, as if the mass of ice had
Scotland. Lake Champlain in North Ameri- been so great that it disregarded the minor
ca is a case in point, and if Lombardy and obstructions of moderate-sized hills, and treat
Piedmont were submerged, which they nevered them as mere roches moutonnées; just as
were during any part of the “glacial period,” in Switzerland, and even in Wales, it has
the great Italian lakes would be turned into been said that when the large valleys were at
fjords. We believe it to be impossible to their fullest, the ice overrode the minor spurs
account for the unnumbered lakes of the that bound tributary valleys. Few things
Highlands of Scotland, and far more for are more striking than to stand on the top
those of North America, by mere oscillations of Ingleburgh, in Yorkshire, or the high
of level and axial movements, and it seems hills above Dent, and the beautiful valley of
to us not more easy to account for them by the Lune, and to scan, as it seems to us, not
the casual scooping power of grating ice only the mammillated glaciation of the coun
bergs. A great iceberg that might grind its try up to the very tops of the hills, but also
way across the lip of a submerged deep rock the manner in which the vast ice-sheet, at
bound basin could scarcely touch the deeper some part of its history, wound deep among
bottom on the floor at all, till it reached the all the labyrinthine valleys of the country,
opposite bank; and if a hilly country were and yet, turning aside in its higher strata to
sinking beneath the sea, and emerging during find an unobstructed course, wrapped round
a glacial period, though we can understand the upper slopes, and along and over the hill
sides in directions at all sorts of angles to In many passages of his book, Mr. Camp
the ice-currents that flowed deeper in the bell satisfactorily shows, that since the so
valleys, the whole, however, finding its way called close of the glacial period of Europe,
towards the low ground farther south. running water has not done much in the way
Secondly, In the more mountainous re of excavating valleys in Norway and else
gions of Britain that have been half sub where. This is perfectly true regarding the
merged, the glaciers that again filled many great features of the country. On either
of the valleys after emergence, partly, and side of mountain-streams that now flow
we think often very largely, destroyed and through old glacier valleys, ice-polished sur
modified the earlier markings, whether made faces of rocks descend right down to the
by icebergs or by older and larger glaciers, margins of the brooks and rivers, or to the
and it thus becomes difficult to determine edges of the gorges that rivers have cut for
the precise origin of special ice-marks, other themselves. But it is equally clear that there
wise than that they were made by ice. In must have been leading slopes through which
many cases, however, as in parts of Ireland, the newly-formed glaciers flowed when a
in the plains, there is a confusion of stria “glacial period” commenced, and the diffi
tion, most easily accounted for by icebergs, culty of the case is to find out how deeply
while in other regions there is no such con and widely the valleys were excavated before
fusion, the marks corresponding best to those that period began. The glacier of the Dora
we know to have been produced by glacier Baltea, for example, was of enormous size
ice, even though they may be covered with when it deposited its moraine more than
marine drift; and there is nothing forced in 1600 feet high on either side of and far be
this opinion, for if Greenland were now to low Ivrea. The ice, at all events, was more
be submerged slowly, the same effects would than 1600 feet thick, and towards the latter
follow. days of the glacier the valley was as deep as
All the regions described by Mr. Camp it is now. The question then arises, and has
bell, excepting Scandinavia, we have had been broached by Dr. Tyndall, Did these
some personal experience of, and, we think, glaciers excavate the valleys down which
on the whole, that all the conditions of the they flowed ? That they moulded them is
case are best satisfied by a broad union of allowed by all, excepting the dying school,
the two hypotheses, combined with that of who look upon mountains and valleys as
a general cooling of the Northern hemisphere chiefly owing to fracture and disturbance, and
of the time. After much observation and not to wear and waste of rocky masses due
varied reading, we feel convinced that the to all kinds of atmospheric disintegration,
old glacier regions of the Alps, the Jura, the after the manner long ago so perfectly illus
Black Forest, and the Vosges, were not de trated by Hutton. Now there are regions on
pressed nearly so low as to be washed by the the Continent of Europe, and even in Bri
sea during any portion of this late European tain, of which no one has asserted that during
lacial epoch, whether or not distinct in time the glacial period they were covered by gla
£ that of America. If Switzerland were ciers. Take for example the great table
submerged, so that the blocks far above the lands on either side of the Rhine and Mo
Pierre-a-bot floated to the Jura on marine selle, where “drift” or glacial débris is ut
ice, as Mr. Campbell supposes, then marine terly unknown. Those who like the idea of
“drift” ought to lie on the hills that flank sudden and strong physical force better than
the Rhine, far down to meet the drift of the that of time, or who are unaccustomed to think
plains north of Bonn or Cologne. After of hills and valleys and slopes on a true scale
traversing the whole of that region with a of angles, may continue to maintain that the
special eye to the subject, we have failed to courses of these streams, and the unnum
detect any drift. Neither is any known in bered valleys that run into them, all lie in
the plains of Piedmont and Lombardy. lines of fracture. But in modern phrase, the
Farther north in Europe, beyond the Thürin contorted and half-metamorphosed strata of
gerwald, marine ice-drift is plentiful enough. the Moselle, have been planed across by old
It is conceivable, however, on Mr. Camp marine denudation, and in this old plain the
bell's hypothesis, that the great old glaciers valleys were and are being excavated, at least
of these regions may have been due to the ever since the close of Miocene times, in this
refrigeration of the centre of Europe by the manner. When the land fairly emerged, a
influence of the Baltic current flowing from downward flow in a given direction originat
the icy regions of the North Sea and Scan ed, dependent on slight undulations of sur
dinavia, but for various reasons, we think, the face. The river began to cut its course,
refrigeration of the north of Europe was due bending hither and thither. On the convex
to causes of a more general kind, probably sides of the curves of the water, the more
not yet fully understood. rapid rushes cut away the ground and com
126 “Frost and Fire,” Sept.
menced cliffs, and just in proportion as the in Britain, are rudely stratified boulder-beds,
river cut its way in any given direction into containing Arctic shells, and various minor
the hill, so it deepened its bed, and thus in subformations not at present important to us.
time, on the side towards which the water The same succession has been more vaguely
flowed, a high steep slope or cliff was formed; described in America, and above these are the
whereas, on the other side,—the re-entering shell-banks of Quebec, the Leda clays of
angle,—a long gentle slope passes down to Montreal, described by Dr. Dawson, and the
the margin of the river. The water is there laminated clays of the Hudson, and Lake
fore deep on its convex side and shallow on Champlain. These last, in which the whales
the opposite bank, and where the water is and seals cited by Mr. Campbell were buried,
deep the cliff is high, and vice versa, and this are notice-borne boulder-clays, but finely-lami
sort of process, having gone on in that and nated clays, without stones, like those on the
other regions from time immemorial, even banks of the Hudson, near Albany. The
(almost) in a geological sense, and being rocky floor on which true glacial beds rest
modified by the cutting through of necks of has almost everywhere been intensely ice
land in the curves of the rivers, in course of worn, and the circumstances therefore entirely
time valleys are widened by the action of resemble those with which we are familiar
weather and running water alone. In more over that part of Europe that has been worked
mountainous regions this is less marked, but upon by land-ice, and then submerged during
even there, given sufficient time, even with our “glacial period.”
out snow and ice, valleys must in the long Believing as we do, that the lower unstra
run deepen and widen. The stream flows tified boulder clays of America are often, as
on and deepens its course; because of this with us, relics of old moraine on a great scale,
deepening tributaries are formed, secondary we do not think that all the chief phenomena
tributary rivulets and brooks are again form of glaciation of that continent, as described
ed to these, the banks of all are cut away, by Logan, Dana, and Hind, can be accounted
the intervening ridges themselves in time for by any theory by which icebergs are re
disappear, and this may be the case whether quired to have done the main work of mould
the agent be ice or water. Let a “glacial ing the surface of the country. But agree
period” come on and overflow the country ment in detail will not prove synchronism in
with ice, and let it continue long enough, the glacial periods of the two continents, and,
then all the minor details of mere watery indeed, in the present state of knowledge,
action will be obliterated, and an extreme however much we suspect it to be true, it is
lover of ice might very well attribute the en impossible to prove, on ordinary geological
tire excavation to the long-continued passage grounds, that the glacial period of Europe is
of glaciers. - of the same date with the submergence of
In our own country, in the Weald, there great part of North America, while it is
is a broad valley forty miles across, and many equally impossible to show that a glacial
minor ones, entirely due to denudation, by period in North America co-existed, or did
water as far as we know; and in the district not co-exist, with Mr. Campbell's Baltic current.
of the High Peak in Derbyshire, and the Looked at on a large scale, the following
neighbouring parts on the north, where there are some of the main facts. Glacial pheno
are no signs of glaciers, the formation of mena are traceable across North America to
valleys in the flat-lying carboniferous shales Behring's Straits. In Siberia, according to
and sandstones, helped by numerous land Tchihatcheff, marine glacial beds occur, pass
slips, miles in length, seem to be due chiefly ing from the plains up the valleys of the
to the agency of running water Whether or Altai, but destitute of boulders; and this can
not this was the case, running water appa be easily accounted for by the probable ab
rently may be amply sufficient for the purpose. sence of land between the shores of Siberia
The questions raised in the part of these and the pole. Not far west of the northern
volumes bearing on frost, are so many that it Ural, strata full of “wandering stones” are
would be difficult in an ordinary review to common, and these continue all across Europe
touch on half of them, and therefore we must and into the sea beyond. We do not think
hasten to the question as to whether or not that the cold of all these vast regions can be
the glacial periods of Europe and America accounted for by a Baltic current, or by any
were distinct in time. -
other set of mere geographical changes.

Putting aside mere moraines made by Further, the amount of submergence indicated
minor glaciers in regions where they are no by Mr. Campbell, we believe did not every
longer found, superficial glacial deposits in the where take place. We venture to dispute
main consist of three kinds, both in Europe Dr. Hitchcock's statement that marine ter
and America:-Oldest, but often absent, there races exist on Snowdon, at 3000 feet above
is apt to be an unstratified boulder clay; later, the sea, and we dare to assert that, in 1847,
on the same mountain, at the same height, were floated on ice-rafts over the sunken
Mr. Baumgarten found Lower Silurian, and land; and sea-shells of Arctic type were
not Arctic species. No continental, and few mixed with the débris; and when the land
English geologists, now believe in the floating again arose, a milder phase of the glacial pe
from the Alps of the erratics on the Jura by riod still continuing, smaller glaciers plough
marine ice-rafts, and no marine boulder-bear ed out the “drift” from many of the valleys,
ing strata approach the Alps and the Jura of and left their moraines as they crept up
later than Miocene date. There are no post higher and higher into the upper glens dur
tertiary beds corresponding to our “drift” in ing a gradual change of climate. It has
their neighbourhood, either north or south of been stated that the same course of events
the Alps and Jura. We also know the coun may be traced in America, but it does not
try round the source of the Danube, 2850 therefore follow that America and Europe
feet above the sea, having visited it in search were submerged at the same time, even
of drift, and found none. We scarcely dare though they both contemporaneously en
to speculate on what would take place by en dured a glacial period. There is certainly
larging Behring's Straits, and lowering the much to be said on “the geographical” side
Himalayas 10,000 feet. It is dangerous of the question; but the other explanation,
ground till something definite is known on the now by no means new, seems to us to meet
subject. During the “glacial period” the the whole case in the best manner that ex
Himalayas may, for aught we know to the isting data will allow.
contrary, have been higher instead of lower, A new phase of the subject is even now
for it is a long way from thence to the plains opening on us, if Mr. James Croll's theory,”
of Siberia. To sum up, glaciers on a great which attracts so much attention, should
scale have been proved in Britain and Ireland, prove to be correct. In this remarkable me
Scandinavia, the Black Forest and the Vosges, moir he has attempted to show that “the
the Jura, the Alps, and Carpathians, the Pyre physical cause of the change of climate
nees and the south of Spain, the Caucasus during glacial epochs” is due to “the posi
and Lebanon, etc.; and, if reports be true, tion of the earth in relation to the sun,
there are glacial markings high in the passes which must, to a very large extent, influence
of Horeb and Sinai, while moraines partly the earth's climate.” This position, depend
circle their feet. In some of these regions ing on the varying eccentricity of the earth's
glacier ice has disappeared; in the others, the orbit, and on the inclination of its axis, is
glaciers have shrunk to pigmy size compared shown to produce, of necessity, great alter
with their former dimensions. There can be nating changes of temperature in the North
little doubt that many other mountain regions ern and Southern hemispheres. According
in Europe and Asia, and perhaps even in to it, our glacial period is far gone, while the
Africa, would tell the same tale, if trustworthy south still suffers from one which is probably
accounts of them could be got. increasing in intensity, while ours diminishes.
It seems to us, then, that though variations This evidently bears upon a much larger
of level had a great deal to do with the ques question, namely, the recurrence of glacial
tion, geographical changes, involving modifi periods in geological time, a question now
cations of sea-currents, are insufficient to ac rising into prominence, and long ago, we be
count for all the phenomena, and we still lieve, surmised by Agassiz, from considera
think that there was a general “glacial pe tions connected with the prevalence and
riod” for the Northern hemisphere, during poverty of life characteristic of formations of
which the northern halves of Europe and different ages. Of later date, proofs have
America were, to a vast extent, overridden been advanced by Ramsay to show that ice
by glaciers, which moulded the land, and bergs scattered boulder débris over parts of
flowed over minor obstructions, great to us, Europe during the Permian epoch; and in
but small when compared with the mass of the north of Italy the same kind of evi
ice. Then, but especially later, when climate dence has been satisfactorily adduced by Gas
began to ameliorate, under-currents of ice taldi with respect to the older Miocene strata.
accommodated themselves to the sinuosities It has lately been announced in the Reader,
of the valleys, even while the upper currents that the same kind of evidence bears on the
tended towards the direction of the major Old red sandstone boulder-beds of the north
drainage, thus moulding the whole of a great of England, and, if true, there can be no doubt
glacier country, and yet producing seemingly that it equally applies to the Old red con
divergent striations, as we now find them in glomerates of much of Scotland. Other for
a fragmentary state. While this was going mations will certainly some day be recog
on, submergence took place in Europe. Then nised as showing signs of ice-drifts from Silu
the great Baltic current, so admirably illus
trated by Campbell, had its sway; boulders * Philosophical Magazine, August, 1864.
128 “ Frost and Fire.” Sept. 1865.
rian times upward. If recurrent glacial pe not in all his inferences, we learn more from
riods can be shown to depend on a great as him of the power of ice than we do from
tronomical law, we will then begin at length any other work that has been recently pub
fairly to understand the subject. lished on the subject. For the present we
Here, however, we must rest, heartily com must leave the remainder of his work, even
mending Mr. Campbell's volumes to every though it contains matter on volcanoes and
one interested in the subject we have chiefly other points of equal interest to that which
dwelt upon. Whether we agree with him or we have more specially examined.
THE
N () R T H B R IT IS H. R. E. V. I E W .
No. LXXXVI.
F O R D E C E M BER, 1865.
ART. I.—SAMUEL TAYLoR Col.ERIDGE. ing an influence. But this process, intro
duced by Locke for the purpose of moderat
MoRE than enough has perhaps been said ing the pretensions of human thought, came
in disparagement of the eighteenth century. to be gloried in by his followers as its highest
It is not therefore to speak more evil of that achievement. The half century after Locke
much abused time, but merely to note an was no doubt full of mental activity in certain
obvious fact, if we say that its main tendency directions. It saw Physical Science attain its
was towards the outward and the finite. Just highest triumph in the Newtonian disco
freed from the last ties of feudalism, escaped veries; History studied after a certain man
too from long religious conflicts which had ner by votaries more numerous than ever
resulted in war and revolution, the feelings of before; and the new science of Political
the British people took a new direction: the Economy created. But while these fields
nation's energies were wholly turned to the were thronged with busy inquirers, and
pacific working out of its material and indus though Natural Theology was much argued
trial resources. Let us leave those deep, and discussed, yet from the spiritual side of
interminable questions, which lead only to all questions, from the deep things of the
confusion, and let us stick to plain, obvious soul, from men's living relations to the eternal
facts, which cannot mislead, and which yield world, educated thought seemed to turn
such comfortable results. This was the genius instinctively away. The guilds of the learned,
and temper of the generation that followed as by tacit consent, either eschewed these
the glorious Revolution. Nor was there subjects altogether, or, if they were con
wanting a man to give definite shape and strained to enter on them, they had laid
expression to this tendency of the national down for themselves certain conventional
mind. Locke, a shrewd and practical man, limits, beyond which they did not venture.
who knew the world, furnished his country On the other side of these lay mystery, en
men with a way of thinking singularly in thusiasm, fanaticism—spectres abhorred of
keeping with their then temper; a philo the wise and prudent. How entirely the
sophy which, discarding abstruse ideas, mechanical philosophy had saturated the age,
fashioned thought mainly out of the senses; may be seen from the fact that Wesley, the
an ethics founded on the selfish instincts of leader of the great spiritual counter-move
pleasure and pain; and a political theory ment of last century, the preacher of divine
which, instead of the theocratic dreams of realities to a generation fast bound in sense,
the Puritans, or the divine right of the High yet in the opening of his sermon on faith
• Churchmen, or the historic traditions of feu indorses the sensational theory, and declares
dalism, grounded government on the more that to man in his natural condition sense is
prosaic but not less unreal phantasy of an the only inlet of knowledge.
original contract. This whole philosophy, The same spirit which pervaded the phi
however inconsistent with what is noblest in losophy and theology of that era is apparent
British history, was so congenial a growth of not less in its poetry and literature. Limi
the British soil, that no other has ever struck tation of range, with a certain perfectness of
so deep a root, or spread so wide and endur form, contentment with the surface-view of
WOL. XLIII. N-9
130 Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Dec.
things, absence of high imagination, repres ceding age, and did much to supply it; who
sion of the deeper feelings, man looked at strove to base philosophy on principles of
mainly on his conventional side, careful de universal reason; and who, into thought and
scriptions of manners, but no open vision, sentiment dwarfed and starved by the effects
these are the prevailing characteristics. of Enlightenment, poured the inspiration of
Doubtless the higher truth was not even soul and spirit. The men who mainly did
then left without its witnesses, Butler and this in England were Wordsworth and Cole
Berkeley in speculation, Burns and Cowper ridge. These are the native champions of
in poetry, Burke in political philosophy, - spiritual truth against the mechanical philo
these were either the criers in the wilderness sophy of the Illumination. Of the former of
against the idols of their times, or the pro the two we took occasion to speak not long
phets of the new truth that was being born. since in this Review. In something of the
Men's thoughts cannot deal earnestly with same way we propose to place now before
many things at once; and each age has its our readers some account of the friend of
own work assigned it; and the work of the Wordsworth, whom his name naturally re
eighteenth century was mainly one of the calls, a man not less original nor remarkable
utilitarian understanding, one of active but than he—Samuel Taylor Coleridge. And
narrow intelligence, divorced from imagina. yet, though the two were friends, and shared
tion, from deep feeling, from reverence, from together many mental sympathies, between
spiritual insight. And when this one-sided the lives and characters of the philosophic
work was done, the result was isolation, indi poet and the poetic philosopher there was
vidualism, self will; the universal in thought more of contrast than of likeness. The one,
lost sight of the universal in ethics denied; robust and whole in body as in mind, reso
everywhere, in speculation as in practice, the lute in will, and single in purpose, knowing
private will dominant, the Universal Will little of books and of other men's thoughts, and
forgotten. To exult over the ignorant past, to caring less for them, set himself, with his own
glory in the wonderful present, to have got unaided resources, to work out the great ori
rid of all prejudices, to have no strong beliefs ginal vein of poetry that was within him, and
except in material progress, to be tolerant of stopt not, nor turned aside, till he had ful.
all things but fanaticism, this was its highest filled his task, had enriched English literature
boast. And though this self-complacent wis with a new poetry of the deepest and purest
dom received some rude shocks in the crash ore, and thereby made the world for ever his
of revolution with which its peculiar era debtor. The other, master of an ampler and
closed, and though the soul and spirit that more varied, though not richer field, of
are in man, long unheeded, then once more quicker sympathies, less self-sustained, but
awoke and made themselves heard, that one touching life and thought at more numerous
sided and soulless intelligence, if weakened, points, eager to know all that other men had
was not destroyed. It was carried over into thought and known, and working as well on
2' century in the brisk but barren criticism : a basis of wide erudition as on his own in
of the early Edinburgh Review. And at this ternal resources, but with a body that did him
very moment there are symptoms enough on grievous wrong, and frustrated, not obeyed,
every side that the same spirit, after having his better aspirations, and a will faltering and
received a temporary repulse, is again more irresolute to follow out the behests of his sur
than usually alive. passing intellect, he but drove in a shaft here
The same manner of thought which we and there into the vast mine of thought that
have attempted to describe as it existed in was in him, and died leaving samples rather
our own country, dominated in others during of what he might have done, than a full and
the same period. So well is it known in rounded achievement,-yet samples so rich,
Germany that they have a name for it, which so varied, so suggestive, that to thousands
we want. They call it by a term which they have been the quickeners of new intel
means the Illumination or Enlightenment, lectual life, and that to this day they stand
and they have marked the notes by which it unequalled by anything his country has since
is known. Some who are deep in German produced. In one point, however, the friends
lore tell us that Europe has produced but one are alike. They both turned aside from pro
power really counteractive of this Illumina fessional aims, devoted themselves to pure
tion, or tyranny of the mere understanding, thought, set themselves to counter-work the
and that is, the philosophy of Kant and He mechanical and utilitarian bias of their time,
gel. And they affect no small scorn for any and became the great spiritualizers of the
attempt at reaction, which has originated thought of their countrymen, the fountain
elsewhere. Nevertheless, at the turn of the heads from which has flowed most of what is
century, there did arise nearer home men high and unworldly and elevating in the
who felt the defect in the thought of the pre thinking and speculation of the succeeding age.
1865, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 131
It is indeed strange, that of Coleridge's union of transcendent genius with infirmity

philosophy, once so much talked of, and really of will and irregular impulses, the failure and
so important in its influence, no comprehen the penitential regret, lend to his story a
sive account has been ever attempted. The humanizing, even a tragic, pathos, which
only attempt in this direction that we know touches our common nature more closely
of is that made six years after Coleridge's than any gifts of genius.
death, and now more than twenty years ago,
by one who has since become the chief ex The vicarage of Ottery St. Mary's, Devon
pounder of that philosophy which Coleridge shire, was the birthplace and early home of
laboured all his life to refute. In his well Samuel Taylor Coleridge. As in Words
known essay, Mr. Mill, while fully acknow worth, we said that his whole character was
ledging that no other Englishman, save only in keeping with his native Cumberland-the
his own teacher Bentham, had left so deep robust northern yeoman, only touched with
an impress on his age, yet turns aside from genius—so the character of Coleridge, as far
making a full survey of Coleridge's whole as it had any local hue, seems more native to
range of thought, precluded, as he confesses, South England. Is it fanciful to imagine
by his own radical opposition to Coleridge's that there was something in that character
fundamental principles. After setting forth which accords well with the soft mild air,
clearly the antagonistic schools of thought and the dreamy loveliness that rests on the
which, since the dawn of philosophy, have blue combes and sea-coves of South Devon?
divided opinion as to the origin of knowledge, He was born on the 21st of October, 1772,
and after declaring his own firm adhesion to the youngest child of ten by his father's
the sensational school, and his consequent second marriage with Anne Bowdon, said to
inability to sympathize with Coleridge's me have been a woman of strong practical sense,
taphysical views, he passes from this part of thrifty, industrious, very ambitious for her
the subject, and devotes the rest of his essay sons, but herself without any “tincture of
mainly to the consideration of Coleridge as a letters.” Plainly not from her, but wholly
political philosopher. This, however, is but from his father, did Samuel Taylor take his
one, and that by no means the chief depart temperament. The Rev. John Coleridge,
ment of thought, to which Coleridge devoted sometime head-master of the Free Grammar
himself. Had Mr. Mill felt disposed to give School, afterwards vicar of the parish of
to the other and more important of Cole Ottery St. Mary's, is described as, for his age,
ridge's speculations,—his views on meta a great scholar, studious, immersed in books,
physics, on morals, and on religion,-as well altogether unknowing and regardless of the
as to his criticisms and his poetry, the same world and its ways, simple in nature and
masterly treatment which he has given to his primitive in manners, heedless of passing
politics, any further attempt in that direction events, and usually known as “the absent
might have been spared. But it is charac man.” In a Latin grammar which he wrote
teristic of Mr. Mill, that, though gifted with for his pupils, he changed the case which
a power which no other writer of his school Julius Caesar named, from the ablative to the
possesses, of entering into lines of thought, Quale-quare-quidditive, just as his son might
and of apparently sympathizing with modes have done had he ever taken to writing
of feeling, most alien to his own, he still, after grammars. He wrote dissertations on por
the widest sweep of appreciation, returns at tions of the Old Testament, showing the same
last to the ground from which he started, and sort of discursiveness which his son afterwards
there entrenches himself within his original did on a larger scale. In his sermons, he
tenets as firmly as if he had never caught a used to quote the very words of the Hebrew
glimpse of other and higher truths, with which Scriptures, till the country people used to
his own principles are inconsistent. exclaim admiringly, “How fine he was ! He
Before we enter on the intellectual result gave us the very words the Spirit spoke in.”
of Coleridge's labours, and inquire what new Of his absent fits and his other eccentricities
elements he has added to British thought, many stories were long preserved in his own
it may be well to pause for a moment, and neighbourhood, which Coleridge used to tell
review briefly the well-known circumstances to his friends at Highgate, till the tears ran
of his life. This will not only add a human down his face at the remembrance. Among
interest to the more abstract thoughts which other well-known stories, it is told that once
follow, but may perhaps help to make them when he had to go from home for several
better understood. And if, in contrast with days, his wife packed his portmanteau with a
the life of Wordsworth, and with its own shirt for each day, charging him strictly to.
splendid promise, the life of Coleridge is dis be sure and use them. On his return, his
appointing even to sadness, it has not the wife, on opening the portmanteau, was sur
less for that a mournful interest; while the prised to find no shirts there. On asking
him to account for this, she found that he sketched off as no other could sketch them,
had duly obeyed her commands, and had put may turn to Lamb's essay, Christ's Hospital
on a shirt every day, but each above the Five-and-Thirty Years Ago. “To this late
other. And there were all the shirts, not in hour of my life,” he represents Coleridge as
the portmanteau, but on his own back. With saying, “I trace impressions left by the recol
all these eccentricities, he was a good and lection of those friendless holidays. The
unworldly Christian pastor, much beloved long warm days of summer never return, but
and respected by his own people. Though they bring with them a gloom from the
Coleridge was only seven years old when his haunting memory of those whole-day leaves,
father was taken away by a sudden death, when, by some strange arrangement, we were
he remembered him to the last with deep turned out for the livelong day upon our own
reverence and love. “O that I might so pass hands, whether we had friends to go to or
away, if, like him, I were an Israelite with none. I remember those bathing excursions
out guile ! The image of my father—my to the New River. How merrily we would
revered, kind, learned, simple-hearted father sally forth into the fields, and strip under the
—is a religion to me.” first warmth of the sun, and wanton like
'. childhood, he tells us, he never young dace in the streams, getting us appe
took part in the plays and games of his bro tites for noon, which those of us that were
thers, but sought refuge by his mother's side penniless (our scanty morning crust long
to read his little books and listen to the talk since exhausted) had not the means of allay
of his elders. If he played at all it was at ing; the very beauty of the day, and the
cutting down nettles with a stick, and fancy exercise of the pastime, and the sense of
ing them the seven champions of Christen liberty setting a keener edge upon them!
dom. He had, he says, the simplicity and How faint and languid, finally, we would re
docility of a child, but he never thought or turn towards nightfall to our desired morsel,
spoke as a child. half-rejoicing, half-reluctant that the hours
But his childhood, such as it was, did not of our uneasy liberty had expired.” In one
long last. At the age of nine he was re of these bathing excursions Coleridge swam
moved to a school in the heart of London, the New River in his clothes, and let them
Christ's Hospital, “an institution,” says dry in the fields on his back. This laid the
Charles Lamb, “to keep those who yet hold first seeds of those rheumatic pains and that
up their heads in the world from sinking.” prolonged bodily suffering which never after
The presentation to this charity school, no wards left him, and which did so much to
doubt a great thing for the youngest of so frustrate the rich promise of his youth.
many sons, was obtained through the influ In the lower school at Christ's the time
ence of Judge Buller, formerly one of his was spent in idleness, and little was learnt.
father's pupils. “O what a change,” writes But even then Coleridge was a devourer of
Coleridge in after years, “from home to this books, and this appetite was fed by a strange
city school: depressed, moping, friendless, a accident, which, though often told, must here
poor orphan, half-starved." Of this school be repeated once again. One day as the
Charles Lamb, the school companion, and lower schoolboy walked down the Strand,
through life the firm friend of Coleridge, has going with his arms as if in the act of swim
left two descriptions in his delightful Essays. ming, he touched the pocket of a passer-by.
Everything in the world has, they say, two “What, so young and so wicked!” exclaimed
sides; certainly Christ's Hospital must have the stranger, at the same time seizing the
had. One cannot imagine any two things boy for a pickpocket. “I am not a pick
more unlike than the picture which Lamb pocket; I only thought I was Leander swim
draws of the school in his first essay and that ming the Hellespont.” The capturer, who
in the second. The first sets forth the look must have been a man of some feeling, was
which the school wore to Lamb himself, a so struck with the answer, and with the in
London boy, with his family close at hand, telligence as well as simplicity of the boy,
ready to welcome him at all hours, and ready that instead of handing him over to the po
to send him daily supplies of additional food, lice, he subscribed to a library, that thence
and with influential friends among the trus Coleridge might in future get his fill of books.
tees, who, if he had wrongs, would soon see In a short time he read right through the
them righted. The second shows the step catalogue and exhausted the library. While
dame side it turned on Coleridge, an orphan Coleridge was thus idling his time in the
from the country, with no friends at hand, lower school, Middleton, an elder boy, after
moping, half-starved, “for in those days the wards writer on the Greek article and Bishop
food of the Blue-coats was cruelly insufficient of Calcutta, found him one day sitting in a
for those who had no friends to supply them.” corner and reading Virgil by himself, not as
Any one who cares to see these things a lesson, but for pleasure. Middleton re
1865. Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 133
ported this to Dr. Bowyer, then head-master the school when he made his morning appear
of the school, who, on questioning the master ance in his “Passy, or passionate wig. Nothing
was more common than to see him make a
of the lower school about Coleridge, was told
that he was a dull scholar, could never re headlong entry into the schoolroom from his
peat a single rule of syntax, but was always inner recess or library, and with turbulent eye,
singling out a lad, roar out, ‘’Ods my life, sir
ready to give one of his own. Henceforth rah (his favourite adjuration), I have a great
Coleridge was under the head-master's eye, mind to whip you, then with as retracting an
and soon passed into the upper school to beimpulse fling back into his lair, and then, after
under his immediate care. Dr. Bowyer was a cooling relapse of some minutes (during which
all but the culprit had totally forgotten the con
one of the stern old disciplinarians of those
days, who had boundless faith in the lash. text), drive headlong out again, piecing out his
imperfect sense, as if it had been some devil's
Coleridge was one of those precocious boys litany, with the expletory yell, ‘and I will, too.”
who might easily have been converted into In his gentler moods he had resort to an inge
a prodigy, had that been the fashion at the nious method, peculiar, for what I have heard,
time. But, “thank Heaven,” he said, “I to himself, of whipping a boy and reading the
was flogged instead of flattered.” He was so
Lebates at the same time—a paragraph and a
lash between.” . .
ordinary looking a boy, with his great black “Perhaps," adds Lamb,
head, that Bowyer, when he had flogged him, “we cannot dismiss him better than with the
generally ended with an extra cut, “For youpious ejaculation of Coleridge (the joke was no
are such an ugly fellow.” When he was fif doubt Lamb's own) when he heard that his old
master was on his deathbed, “Poor J. B., may
teen, Coleridge, in order to get rid of school,
all his faults be forgiven, and may he be wafted
wished to be apprenticed to a shoemaker andto bliss by little cherub boys, all head and
his wife, who had been kind to him. On the wings, with no bottoms to reproach his sublu
day when some of the boys were to be ap nary infirmities.’”
prenticed to trades, Crispin appeared and
sued for Coleridge. The head-master, on How much of all this may be Lamb's love
hearing the proposal, and Coleridge's assent, of fun one cannot say. Coleridge always
hurled the tradesman from the room with spoke of Dr. Bowyer with grateful affection.
such violence, that had this last been liti In his literary life he speaks of having en
giously inclined, he might have sued the joyed the inestimable advantage of a very
doctor for assault. And so Coleridge used sensible, though severe master; one who
to joke, “I lost the opportunity of making taught him to prefer Demosthenes to Cicero,
safeguards for the understandings of those Homer and Theocritus to Virgil, and Virgil
who will never thank me for what I am try to Ovid; who accustomed his pupils to com
ing to do in exercising their reason.” pare Lucretius, Terence, and the purer poems
While Coleridge was at school, one of his of Catullus, not only with “the Roman poets
brothers was attending the London Hospital, of the silver, but even with those of the
and from his frequent visits there the Blue Augustan era, and on grounds of plain sense
coat boy imbibed a love of surgery and doc the and universal logic, to see the superiority of
former in the truth and nativeness both
toring, and was for a time set on making
this his profession. He devoured English, of their thoughts and diction.” This doc
Latin, and Greek books of medicine vora trine was wholesome though rare in those
ciously, and had by heart a whole Latin medi days, not so common even now, so much so
cal dictionary. But this dream gave way, or that some have supposed that in these and
led on to a rage for metaphysics, which set other lessons with which Coleridge credited
him on a course of abstruse reading, and Dr. Bowyer, he was but reflecting back on
finally landed him in Voltaire's Philosophical his master from his own after thoughts.
Dictionary, after perusing which, he sported While Coleridge was being thus whole
infidel. When this new turn reached Bow somely drilled in the great ancient models,
yer's ears, he sent for Coleridge. “So, sir his own poetic power began to put forth
rah you are an infidel, are you? Then I'll some buds. Up to the age of fifteen, his
flog your infidelity out of you.” So saying, school verses were not beyond the mark of
the doctor administered the severest, and, as a clever schoolboy. At sixteen, however,
Coleridge used to say, the only just flogging the genius cropped out. The first ray of it
he ever received. appears in a short allegory, written at the
Of this stern scholastic Lamb has left the latter age, and entitled “Real and Imaginary
following portrait:— Time.” The opening lines are—
“He had two wigs, both pedantic, but of dif “On the wide level of a mountain's head,
ferent omen. The one serene, smiling, pow I knew not where; but 'twas some faery
dered, betokening a mild day. The other, an place.”
old discoloured, unkempt, angry caxon, denot
ing frequent and bloody execution. Woe to In that short piece, short and slight as it is,
there is a real touch of his after spirit and and the garb of the young Mirandula), to hear
melody. thee unfold, in thy deep and sweet intonations,
During those years when he was in the the mysteries of Iamblichus or Plotinus; for
upper school, metaphysics and controversial even then thou waxedst not pale at such philo
sophic draughts; or reciting Homer in his
theology struggled for some time with poetry Greek, or Pindar; while the walls of the old
for the mastery; but at last, under the com Grey Friars re-echoed the accents of the in
bined influence of a first love and of Bowles' spired charity boy!”
poems, he was led clear of the bewildering
maze, and poetry for some years was para It is hardly possible to conceive two
mount. It may seem strange now that school times more unlike than this of Cole
Bowles' sonnets and early poems, which ridge at Christ's, pent into the heart of Lon
Coleridge then met with for the first time, don city, and that of Wordsworth at Hawks.
should have produced on him so keen an head, free of Esthwaite Mere, and all the
impression of novelty. But so it often hap surrounding solitudes. And yet each, as
pens that what was, on its first appearance, well in habits and teaching as in outward
quite original, looked back upon in after scenery and circumstance, answers strangely
years, when it has been absorbed into the to the characters and after lives of the two
general taste, seems to lose more than half friends.
its freshness. There can be no doubt of the Coleridge entered Jesus College, Cam
powerful effect that Bowles had on Cole bridge, in February 1791, just a month after
ridge's dawning powers; that he opened the Wordsworth had quitted the University.
young poet's eyes to what was false and On neither of the poets did their University
meretricious in the courtly school from Pope life leave much impression. For neither was
to Darwin, and made him feel that here, for that the place and the hour. Coleridge for
the first time in contemporary poetry, natu a time, under the influence of his elder friend
ral thought was combined with natural dic Middleten, was industrious, read hard, and
tion—heart reconciled with head. To those obtained the prize for the Greek Sapphic
who care for these things, it would be worth ode. It was on some subject about slavery,
while to turn to the first chapter of Cole. and was better in its thoughts than its Greek.
ridge's Literary Life, and see there the first Afterwards he tried for the Craven Scholar
fermenting of his poetic taste and principles. ship, in which contest his rivals were Keate,
But during those last school years, while his afterwards head-master of Eton, Bethell, who
mind was thus expanding, and while his became an M.P. for Yorkshire, and Butler,
existence was a more tolerable, in some re the future head of Shrewsbury School and
spects even a happy one, he was suffering Bishop of Lichfield, who won the scholar
much in that body, in which throughout life ship. Out of sixteen or seventeen competitors,
he had to endure so much. Full half his Coleridge was selected along with these
time from seventeen to eighteen was passed three ; but he was not the style of man to
in the sick-ward, afflicted with jaundice and come out great in University competitions.
rheumatic fever, inherent it may be in his He had not that exactness and readiness
constitution, but doubtless not lessened by which are needed for these trials; and he
those swimmings over the New River in his wanted entirely the competitive ardour which
clothes. But, above these sufferings, which is with many so powerful an incentive.
were afterwards so heavily to weigh him After this there is no more notice of regular
down, Coleridge, during his early years, had work. His heart was elsewhere—in poetry,
a buoyancy of heart which enabled him to with Bowles for guide; in philosophy, with
rise, and to hide them from ordinary obser Hartley, who had belonged to his own col
vers. Having dwelt thus long on Coleridge's lege, for master; and in politics, which then
school days, because they are very fully re filled all ardent young minds even to pas
corded, and contain as in miniature both the sionate intoxication. For the French Revo
strength and the weakness of the full-grown lution was then in its first frenzy, promising
man, we may close them with Lamb's de liberty, virtue, regeneration to the old and
scription of Coleridge as he appeared in outworn world. Into that vortex of bound
retrospect of Lamb's school companions: less hope and wild delirium what high-minded
youth could keep from plunging? Not
“Come back to my memory like as thou Coleridge. “In the general conflagration,”
wert in the dayspring of thy fancies, with hope
like a fiery column before thee—the dark pillar he writes, “my feelings and imagination did
not remain unkindled. I should have been
not yet turned—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lo
gician, Metaphysician, Bard I How have I ashamed rather than proud of myself if they
seen the casual passer through the cloisters had.” Pamphlets were pouring from the
stand still, entranced with admiration (while he press on the great subjects then filling all
weighed the disproportion between the speech men's minds; and whenever one appeared
1865. Samuel Taylor Coleridge. ' 135
from the pen of Burke or other man of power, goon dress, stopped him when he would have
Coleridge, who had read it in the morning, passed, and informed his friends. After
repeated it every word to his friends gathered about four months' service he was bought
round their small supper-tables. Presently off, returned to Cambridge, stayed there but
one Frend, a fellow of Jesus College, being a short time, and finally left in June 1794
accused of sedition, of defamation of the without taking a degree.
Church of England, and of holding Unita Then followed what may be called his
rian doctrines, was tried by the authorities, Bristol period, including his first friendship
condemned, and banished the University. with Southey, their dream of emigration,
Coleridge sided zealously with Frend, not their marriage, Coleridge's first attempts at
only from the sympathy which generous authorship, and his many ineffectual plans
youth always feels for the persecuted, but for settling what he used to call the Bread
also because he had himself adopted those and Cheese Question. On leaving Cam
Unitarian and other principles for which bridge he went to Oxford, and there met
Frend was ejected. Hence would come a with Southey, still an under-graduate at Bal
growing disaffection, which must have been liol, whose friendship, quickly formed, be
weakening his attachment to his University, came one of the main hinges on which
when other circumstances arose, which, in Coleridge's after life turned. Their tastes
his second year of residence, brought his and opinions on religion and politics were
Cambridge career to a sudden close. The then at one, though their characters were
loss of his trusty friend and guide Middle widely different. Southey, with far less
ton, who, failing in his final examination, genius than Coleridge, possessed that firm
quitted the University without obtaining a ness of will, that definite aim and practical
fellowship; and the pressure of some college wisdom, the want of which were the bane of
debts, less than £100, incurred through his Coleridge's life. Southey's high and pure
own inexperience, drove Coleridge into des. disposition and consistent conduct, combined
pondency. He went to London, and wan with much mental power and literary ac
dered hopelessly about the streets, and at quirement, awakened in Coleridge an admir
night sat down on the steps of a house in ing sense of the duty and dignity of '
Chancery Lane, where, being soon surround. actions accord with principles, both in wor
ed by swarms of beggars, real or feigned, he and deed. In after years Southey was to
emptied to them the little money that re Coleridge a faithful monitor in word, and a
mained in his pockets. In the morning, friend firm and self-denying in deed. Mo
seeing an advertisement—“Wanted Recruits rally, we must say that he rose as much
for the 15th Light Dragoons,” he said to above Coleridge, as in genius he fell below
himself, “Well, I have hated all my life him. But at their first meeting, pure and
soldiers and horses; the sooner I cure my high-minded as Southey was, he had not so
self of that the better.” He enlisted as fixed his views, or so systematically ordered
Private Comberbach, a name, the truth of his life, as he soon after did. He too had
which he himself was wont to say, his horse been stirred at heart, as Coleridge and
must have fully appreciated. A rare sight it Wordsworth also were, by the moral earth
must have been to see Coleridge perched on quake of the French Revolution. Enthusi
some hard-set, rough-trotting trooper, and astically democratic in politics and Unita
undergoing his first lessons in the riding rian in religion, he at once responded to the
school, with the riding-master shouting out day-dream of Pantisocracy, which Coleridge
to the rest of the awkward squad, “Take opened to him at Oxford. This was a plan
care of that Comberbach ; he’ll ride over of founding a community in America, where
you.” For the grooming of his horse and a band of brothers, cultivated and pure
other mechanical duties Coleridge was de minded, were to have all things in common,
pendent on the kindness of his comrades, and selfishness was to be unknown. The
with whom he was a great favourite. Their common land was to be tilled by the com
services he repaid by writing all their letters mon toil of the men; the wives, for all were
to their wives and sweethearts. At last the to be married, were to perform all household
following sentence written up in the stable duties, and abundant leisure was to remain
under his saddle, “Eheu, quam infortuni, over for social intercourse, or to pursue lite
miserrimum est fuisse felicem,” revealed his rature, or in more pensive moods
real condition to a captain who had Latin “Soothed sadly by the dirgeful wind
enough to translate the words, and heart
enough to feel them. About the same time Muse on the sure ills they had left behind.”.
an old Cambridge acquaintance, passing The banks of the Susquehanna were to be
through Reading on his way to join his regi this carthly paradise, chosen more for the
ment, met Coleridge in the street in dra melody of the name than for any ascertained
advantages. Indeed, they hardly seem to prospectus, “Knowledge is power,” to cry

have known exactly where it was. Southey the political atmosphere. One of the most
soon left Balliol, and the two friends went to
amusing descriptions Coleridge ever wrote is
Bristol, Southey's native town, there to pre that of his encounter with the Birmingham
pare for carrying out the Pantisocratic tallow chandler, with hair like candle-wicks,
dream. Such visions have been not only and face pinguinitescent, for it was a melting
dreamed since then, but carried out by en day with him. After Coleridge had haran
thusiastic youths, and the result leaves no reagued the man of dips for half an hour, and
son to regret that Coleridge's and Southey's run through every note in the whole gamut
W' never got further than being a dream. of eloquence, now reasoning, now declaim
Want of money was, as usual, the immediate ing, now indignant, now pathetic, on the
cause of failure; everything else had been state of the world as it is compared with
provided for, but when it came to the point what it should be; at the first pause in the
it was found that neither the two leaders, nor harangue the tallow-chandler interposed:—
any of the other friends who had embarked
in the scheme, had money enough to pay “And what might the cost be 7" “Only
their passage to America. Southey was the Four Pence (O the anti-climax, the abysmål
first to see how matters stood and to recant. bathos of that Four Pence!) only four-pence,
sir, each number.” “That comes to a deal of
At this Coleridge was greatly disgusted, and money at the end of a year; and how much
gave vent to his disappointment in vehement did you say there was to be for the money?"
language. The scheme was abandoned early “Thirty-two pages, sir! large octavo, closely
in 1795, and the two young poets, having printed.” “Thirty and two pages? Bless me,
been for some time in love with two sisters except what I does in a family way on the Sab
of a Bristol family, were married, Coleridge bath, that's more than I ever reads, sir, all the
in October of that year to Sarah Fricker, and year round. I am as great a one as any man in
Southey six weeks later to her sister Edith. Brummagem, sir! for liberty and truth, and all
that sort of things, but as to this (no offence, I
Marriage, of course, brought the money hope, sir) I must beg to be excused.”
question home to Coleridge more closely
than Pantisocracy had done. And the three But notwithstanding this repulse Coleridge
or four following years were occupied with returned to Bristol triumphant, with above a
attempts to solve it. But his ability was not thousand subscribers' names, and having left
of the money-making order, nor did his on the minds of all who heard his wonderful
habits, natural or acquired, give even such conversation an impression that survived long
ability as he had a fair chance in the toil after The Watchman with all it contained
for bread. First he tried lecturing to the was forgotten. The first number of The
Bristol folks on the political subjects of the Watchman appeared on the 1st of March,
time, and on religious questions. But either the tenth and last on the 13th of May, 1796.
the lectures did not pay, or Coleridge did not From various causes, delay in publishing be
stick to them steadily, so they were soon yond the fixed day, offence given to the reli
given up, and afterwards published as Con. gious subscribers by an essay against fast
ciones ad populum, Coleridge's first prose days, to his democratic patrons by inveighing
work. Attacking with equal vehemence Pitt, against Jacobinism and French philosophy,
the great minister of the day, and his oppo to the Tories by abuse of Pitt, to the Whigs
nents, the English Jacobins, Coleridge showed by not more heartily backing Fox, the sub
in this his earliest, as in his latest works, that scription list rapidly thinned, and he was
he was not an animal that could be warrant glad to close the concern at a dead loss of
ed to run quietly in the harness of any party, money to himself, not to mention his wasted
and that those who looked to him to do this labour. Though this failure was to him a
work were sure of an upset. Coleridge's very serious matter, he could still laugh
next enterprise was the publication of a heartily at the ludicrous side of it. He tells
weekly miscellany; its contents were to how one morning when he had risen earlier
range over nearly the same subjects as those than usual, he found the servant girl lighting
now discussed in the best weeklies, and its the fire with an extravagant quantity of pa
aim was to be, as announced in the motto, per. On his remonstrating against the waste,
that “ali may know the truth, and that the “La, sir!” replied poor Nanny, “why, it's
truth may make us free.” But powerful as only The Watchman.”
he would have been as a contributor, Cole The third of the Bristol enterprises was
ridge was not the man to conduct such an the publication of his Juvenile Poems, in the
undertaking, least of all to do so single April of 1796, while The Watchman was
handed. The most notable thing about The still struggling for existence. For the copy
Watchman was the tour he made through right of these he received thirty guineas,
the Midland county towns with a flaming from Joseph Cottle, a Bristol bookseller, who
to his own great credit undertook to publish morning before daylight, to walk ten miles in
the earliest works of Southey, of Coleridge, the mud to hear this celebrated person preach.
and of Wordsworth, at a time when those Never, the longest day I have to live, shall I
higher in the trade would have nothing to have such another walk as that cold, raw, com
fortless one. When I got there the organ was
say to them. If Cottle long afterwards, playing the 100th Psalm, and when it was
when their names had waxed great, publish done, Mr. Coleridge arose and gave out his
ed a somewhat gossiping book of reminis text, “He departed again into a mountain him
cences, and gave to the public many petty self alone. As he gave out this text, his voice
details which a wiser man would have with rose like a stream of rich distilled perfumes; .
held, it should always be remembered to his and when he came to the two last words, which
honour, that he showed true kindness and he pronounced loud, deep, and distinct, it seem
liberality towards these men, especially to ed to me, who was then young, as if the sound
had echoed from the bottom of the human
wards Coleridge, when he greatly needed it, heart, and as if that prayer might have floated
and that he had a genuine admiration of in solemn silence through the universe. The
their genius for its own sake, quite apart preacher then launched into his subject, like an
from its marketable value. No doubt, if any eagle dallying with the wind. The sermon was
one wishes to see the seamy side of genius upon peace and war, upon Church and State—
he will find it in the letters and anecdotes of not their alliance, but their separation; on the
Coleridge preserved in Cottle's book. But spirit of the world and the spirit of Christianity
though these details, petty and painful as —not as the same, but as opposed to one ano
ther. He talked of those who had inscribed the
they are, in any complete estimate of Cole cross of Christ on banners dripping with human
ridge's character are not to be disregarded, in gore. He made a poetical and pastoral excur
this brief notice we gladly pass them by. sion, and to show the fatal effects of war, drew
Other plans for a livelihood were venti a striking contrast between the simple shepherd
lated during this Bristol sojourn, such as boy, driving his team a-field, or sitting under
writing for the Morning Chronicle and taking the hawthorn, piping to his flock as though he ,
private pupils, but as these came to nought, should never be old; and the same poor country
we need only notice one other line in which lad, crimped, kidnapped, brought into town,
made drunk at an alehouse, turned into a
Coleridge's energies found at this time occa wretched drummer-boy, with his hair sticking
sional vent, which he once, at least, thought on end with powder and pomatum, a long cue
of taking up as a profession. We have seen at his back, and tricked out in the finery of the
that before leaving Cambridge he had become profession of blood. -
an Unitarian, and so he continued till about

‘Such were the notes our own loved poet sung.’
the time of his visit to Germany. While he
was in Bristol he was engaged from time to “And for myself, I could not have been more
time to preach in the Unitarian chapels in delighted if I had heard the music of the
the neighbourhood. The subjects which he spheres. Poetry and Philosophy had met toge
there discussed seem to have been somewhat ther, Truth and Genius had embraced, under
the eye and sanction of Religion. This was
miscellaneous, and the reports of his success even beyond my hopes.”
vary. Nothing can be more dreary, if it
were not grotesque, than Cottle's description Which of the two was right in his estimate
of his début as a preacher in an Unitarian of Coleridge's preaching, Cottle or Hazlitt?
chapel in Bath. On the appointed Sunday Or were both right, and is the difference to
morning, Coleridge, Cottle, and party drove be accounted for by Coleridge, like most men
from Bristol to Bath in a post-chaise. Cole of genius, having his days when he was now
above himself and now fell below ! With
ridge mounted the pulpit in blue coat and
white waistcoat, and for the morning service, one more passage from Hazlitt, descriptive of
choosing a text from Isaiah, treated his audi his talk at that time, we may close his Bris
tol life —
ence to a lecture against the Corn Laws;
and, in the afternoon, he gave them another “He is the only person I ever knew who
on the Hair-Powder Tax. The congregation answered to the idea of a man of genius. He is
at the latter service consisted of seventeen, the only person from whom I ever learned any
of whom several walked out of the chapel thing. There is only one thing he might have
during the service. The party returned to learned from me in return, but that he has not.
Bristol disheartened, Coleridge from a sense He was the first poet I ever knew. His genius
of failure, the others with a dissatisfying at that time had angelic wings, and fed on
sense of a Sunday wasted. Compare this manna. Ile talked on for ever; and you
wished him to talk on for ever. His thoughts
with Hazlitt's account of his appearance did not seem to come with labour and effort;
some time afterwards before a Birmingham but as if borne on the gusts of genius, and as if
congregation: the wings of imagination lifted him off his feet.
His voice rolled on the earlike a pealing organ,
“It was in January 1798 that I rose one and its sound alone was the music of thought.
13S Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Dec.
His mind was clothed with wings; and raised gether, rapt in fervid talk; Coleridge, no
on them he lifted philosophy to heaven. In his doubt, the chief speaker, Wordsworth not the
descriptions, you then saw the progress of hu less suggestive. Never before or since have
man happiness and liberty in bright and never these downs heard such high converse. “His
ending succession, like the steps of Jacob's
ladder, with airy shapes ascending and descend society I found an invaluable blessing, and to
ing. And shall I who heard him then, listen to him I looked up with equal reverence as a
him now? Not II That spell is broke; that poet, a philosopher, and a man.” So wrote
time is gone for ever; that voice is heard no Coleridge in after years. By this time
- more: but still the recollection comes rushing Wordsworth had given himself wholly to
by with thoughts of long past years, and rings poetry as his work for life. Alfoxden saw
in my ears with never-dying sound.” the birth of many of the happiest, most cha
It is pitiful to turn from such high-flown racteristic of his shorter poems. Coleridge
descriptions to the glimpses of poverty and had some years before this, when he first fell
painful domestic cares which his letters of in with Wordsworth's Descriptive Sketches,
this date exhibit. Over these we would found even in these the opening of a new
gladly draw the veil. Whoso wishes to linger vein. He himself too, had from time to time
on them may turn him to Cottle. There are turned aside from more perplexing studies,
many more incidents of this time which we and found poetry to be its own exceeding
can but name: his residence for some months great reward. But in this Nether Stowey
in a rose-bound cottage in the neighbouring time Coleridge came all at once to his poetic
village of Clevedon; the birth of his first son, manhood. Whether it was the freedom from
whom he named Hartley, for love of the phi the material ills of life which he found in the
losopher; his complete reconciliation with aid and kindly shelter of Mr. Poole, or the
Southey on his return from Portugal. One secluded beauty of the Quantock, or the con
little entry, in a letter of November, 1796, is verse with Wordsworth, or all combined, that
sadly memorable as the first appearance of stirred him, there cannot be any doubt that
this was, as it has been called, his annus mi
“The little rift within the lute, rabilis, his poetic prime. This was the year
Which soon will make the music mute.”
of Genevieve, The Dark Ladie, Kubla Khan,
He complains of a violent neuralgic pain in France, the lines to Wordsworth on first
the face, which for the time was like to over hearing The Prelude read aloud, the Ancient
power him. “But,” he writes, “I took be Mariner, and the first part of Christabel, not
tween sixty and seventy drops of laudanum, to mention many other poems of less mark.
and sopped the Cerberus.” That sop was The occasion which called forth the two
soon to become the worse Cerberus of the latter poems, to form part of a joint volume
two. with Wordsworth, has been elsewhere no
It was early in 1797 that Coleridge moved ticed. But if Coleridge could only have
with his family from Bristol, and pitched his maintained the high strain he then struck,
tent in the village of Nether Stowey, under with half the persistency of his brother poet,
the green hills of Quantock. One of the posterity may perhaps have reason to regret
kindest and most hospitable of his friends, that he should ever have turned to other sub
Mr. Poole, had a place hard by; and Cole. jects. During all his time at Nether Stowey
ridge having in June made a visit to Words he kept up a fire of small letters to Cottle in
worth at Racedown, persuaded this young Bristol, at one time about poems or other
poet, and his scarcely less original sister, to literary projects, at another asking Cottle to
adjourn thence to the neighbouring mansion find him a servant-maid, “simple of heart,
of Alfoxden. With such friends for daily physiognomically handsome, and scientific in
intercourse, with the most delightful country vaccimulgence?” When they had composed
for walks on every side, and with apparently poems enough to form one or more joint
fewer embarrassments, Coleridge here enjoyed volumes, Cottle is summoned from Bristol to
the most genial and happy years that were visit them. Cottle drove Wordsworth thence
ever granted him in his changeful existence. to Alfoxden in his gig, picking up Coleridge
“Wherever we turn we have woods, smooth at Nether Stowey. They had brought the
downs, and valleys, with small brooks running viands for their dinner with them in the gig :
down them, through green meadows to the a loaf, a stout piece of cheese, and a bottle of
sea. The hills that cradle these valleys are brandy. As they neared their landing place,
either covered with ferns and bilberries or oak a beggar, whom they helped with some
woods. Walks extend for miles over the hill pence, returned their kindness by helpin
tops, the great beauty of which is their wild himself to the cheese from the back of the
simplicity; they are perfectly smooth, without gig. Arrived at the place, Coleridge un
rocks.” Over these green hills of Quantock yoked the horse, dashed down the gig shafts
the two young poets wandered for hours to: with a jerk, which rolled the brandy bottle
from the scat, and broke it to pieces before the future with noble affections, I always
their eyes. Then Cottle set to unharnessing alight by your side.” His whole time in
the horse, but could not get off the collar. Germany, he seems to have overflowed with
Wordsworth next essayed it, with no better exuberant spirits and manifold life. “Instead
success. At last Coleridge came to the of troubling others with my own crude no
charge, and worked away with such violence tions, I was better employed in storing my
that he nearly thrawed the poor horse's head head with the notions of others. I made
off his neck. He too was forced to desist, the best use of my time and means, and there
with a protest that “the horse's head must is no period of my life to which I look back
have grown since the collar was put on.” with such unmingled satisfaction.” He had
While the two poets and their publisher were passed within a zone of thought new to him
standing thus nonplussed, the servant-girl self, and up to that time quite unknown in
happened to pass through the stable yard, England; one of the great intellectual move
and seeing their perplexity, exclaimed, “La ! ments such as occur but rarely, and at long
master, you don't go about the work the intervals, in the world's history. The philo
right way, you should do it like this.” So sophic genius of Germany, which awoke in
saying, she turned the collar upside down, Kant during the latter part of last century, is
and slipped it off in a trice. Then came the an impulse the most original, the most far
dinner, “a superb brown loaf, a dish of let reaching, and the most profound, which Eu
tuces, and, instead of the brandy, a jug of rope has of late years seen. It has given
pure water.” The bargain was struck, and birth to linguistic science, has re-cast meta
Cottle undertook the publication of the first physics, and has penetrated history, poetry,
edition of the famous Lyrical Ballads, which and theology. For good or for evil, it must
appeared about Midsummer 1798. About be owned that, under the shadow of this
the same time the two Messrs. Wedgewood great movement, the world is now living, and
settled on Coleridge £150 a year for life, is likely to live more or less for some time to
which made him think no more of Unitarian come. Perhaps we should not call it German
chapels, and enabled him to undertake, what philosophy, for philosophy is but one side of
he had for some time longed for, a conti a great power which is swaying not only the
nental tour. In September of that year the world's thought, but those feelings which are
two poets bade farewell, Wordsworth, with the parents of its thoughts, as well as of its ac
his sister, to Alfoxden, Coleridge to Nether tions and events. If asked to give in a sentence
Stowey, and together set sail for Hamburg. the spirit of this great movement, most men
So ended the Nether Stowey time, to Cole in this country would feel constrained to an
ridge the brief blink of a poetic morning swer, as the great German sage is reported to
which had no noon; to Wordsworth but the have answered Cousin, “These things do not
fresh dawn of a day which completely fulfilled sum themselves up in single sentences.” If
itself. any one still insists, we would refer him to
Landed at Hamburg, Wordsworth was some adroit French critic who will formu
interpreter, as he had French, Coleridge larize the whole thing for him in a word, or
nothing but English and Latin. After having at most a phrase. Into this great atmo
an interview with the aged poet Klopstock, sphere, however we define it, then seething
the two young poets parted company, Words and fermenting, it was that Coleridge passed.
worth, with his sister, settling at Goslar, there Most of his fourteen months were, no doubt,
to compose, by the German firestoves, the given to acquiring the language, but he could
poems on Matthew, Nutting, Ruth, The not mingle with those professors and students
Poet's Epitaph, and others, in his happiest without catching some tincture of that way
vein; while Coleridge made for Ratzeburg, of thought which was then busy in all brains.
where he lived for four months in a pastor's It was not, however, till after his return to
family, to learn the language, and then passed England that he studied Kant and other Ger
on to Göttingen to attend lectures, and con man philosophers. His name will ever be
sort with German students and professors. historically associated with the first introduc
Among the lectures were those of Blumen. tion of these new thoughts to the English
bach on Natural History, while Eichhorn's mind, which having been for more than a
lectures on the New Testament were repeated century deluged to repletion with Lockian
to him from notes by a student who had him ism, was now sadly in need of some other
self taken them down. Wordsworth kept aliment. Some have reviled Coleridge be
sending Coleridge the poems he was throw cause he did not know the whole cycles of
ing off during this prolific winter, and Cole thought so fully as they suppose that they
ridge replied in letters full of hope that their themselves do. As if anything, especially
future homes might be in the same neigh German philosophy so all embracing as these,
bourhood: “Whenever I spring forward into can be taken in completely all at once; as if
the first delver in any mine ever yet extracted But though he thus was constrained to
the entire ore. But to such impugners it come round to Pitt's foreign policy, he never,
were enough to say, we shall listen with more that we know, recanted the invectives with
patience to your accusations, when you have which he assailed that minister in 1800.
done one-half as much to bring home the There is still extant, among “The Essays on
results of German thought to the educated his Own Times,” a well-known character of
British mind, as Coleridge by his writings Pitt from the pen of Coleridge, which ap
has done. peared in the Morning Post. Coleridge, in
The first fruits, however, of his newly general fair-minded and far-seeing, had one
acquired German were poetic, not philoso or two strange and unaccountable antipathies
phic. Arriving in London in November, to persons, which Wilson mentions, and this
1799, he set to work to translate Schiller's against Pitt was perhaps the strongest and
Wallenstein, and accomplished in three the blindest. On the day that the character
weeks what many competent judges regard of Pitt appeared, the character of Buonaparte
as, notwithstanding some inaccuracies, the was promised for “to-morrow,” but that to
best translation of any poem into the English morrow never arrived. What that portrait
language. It is a free translation, with here would have been may perhaps be gathered
and there some lines of Coleridge's own from a paragraph on the same subject, con
added where the meaning seemed to him to tained in Appendix B. to the First Lay Ser
require it. At the time, the translation fell mon. The will, dissevered from moral feel
almost dead from the press, but since that ing and religion,
day it has come to be prized as it deserves.
“becomes Satanic pride and rebellious self-idola
try in the relations of the spirit to itself, and
In the autumn of 1799, Coleridge joined remorseless despotism relatively to others; the
Wordsworth on a tour among the Lakes, more hopeless as the more obdurate by its sub
that tour on which the latter fixed on the jugation or sensual impulses, by its superiority
Town End of Grasmere for his future home. to toil and pain and pleasure; in short, by the
This was Coleridge's first entry into a really fearful resolve to find in itself alone the one
mountainous country. Rydal and Grasmere, absolute motive of action, under which all
other motives from within and from without
he says, gave him the deepest delight; must be either subordinated or crushed. . . . .
Hawes Water kept his eyes dim with tears. This is the character which Milton has so philo
During the last days of the year, Words sophically, as well as sublimely, embodied in
worth, with his sister, walked over the York the Satan of his Paradise Lost: ~Hope in which
shire fells, and settled in their new home. there is no cheerfulness; steadfastness within
Coleridge had to return to London, and and immovable resolve, with outward restless
labour till near the close of 1802, writing for ness and immovable activity; violence with
the Morning Post. About Coleridge's con result guile; temerity with cunning; and, as the
of all, interminableness of object with
tributions to that paper, there has been main perfect indifference of means—these are the
tained, since his death, a debate which hardly marks that have characterized the masters of
concerns us here. Enough to say that having mischief, the liberticides, and mighty hunters
originally agreed with Fox in opposing the of mankind, from Nimrod to Buonaparte. . . .
French war of 1800, and having at that time By want of insight into the possibility of such
written violently against Pitt in the Morning a character, whole nations have been so far
Post and elsewhere, he was gradually sepa duped as to regard with palliative admiration,
instead of wonder and abhorrence, the Molochs
rated from the leader of the opposition by of human nature, who are indebted for the
the independent view he took against Napo larger portion of their meteoric success to their
leon, as the character of the military despot total want of principle, and who surpass the
gradually unfolded itself. Coleridge passed generality of their fellow-creatures in one act
over to the Tories, as he himself says, of courage only, that of daring to say with
“only in the sense in which all patriots did so their whole heart, ‘Evil, be thou my good!’
at that time, by refusing to accompany the All system is so far power; and a systematic
Whigs in their almost perfidious demeanour criminal, self-consistent and entire in wicked
towards Napoleon. Anti-ministerial they styled ness, who entrenches villany within villany,
their policy, but it was really anti-national. and barricades crime by crime, has removed a
It was exclusively in relation to the great feud world of obstacles by the mere decision, that
he will have no other obstacles but those of
with Napoleon that I adhered to the Tories. force and brute matter.”
But because this feud was so capital, so earth
shaking, that it occupied all hearts, and all theIt must have been early in 1801 that Cole
councils of Europe, suffering no other question
almost to live in the neighbourhood, hence it ridge turned his back on London for a time,
happened that he who joined the Tories in this and on the Morning Post, and migrated
was regarded as their ally in everything. Do with his family to the Lakes, and settled at
mestic politics were then in fact forgotten.” Greta Hall, the landlord of which was a Mr.
Jackson, the “Master” of Wordsworth's poem was the leading inspiration of the Edinburgh.
of the Waggoner; for from this house, des How unlike Wordsworth and Coleridge really
tined to become Southey's permanent earthly were, in their way of thinking and working,
home, as early as April of that year, Cole may be now clearly seen by comparing the
ridge thus writes describing his new home to works they have left behind. And as for
Southey, then in Portugal:— Southey and Wordsworth, they had nothing
“In front we have a giant's camp, an en at all in common, and were not even on
camped army of tent-like mountains, which, by friendly terms till more than ten years after
an inverted arch, gives a view of another vale. the Lake School was first talked of. Likely
On our right the lovely vale and wedge-shaped enough Coleridge found Wordsworth more
lake of Bassenthwaite; and on our left, Der original and suggestive than Southey. The
went water and Lodore in full view, and the singleness and wholeness of moral purpose
fantastic mountains of Borrowdale. Behind us
which inspired the lives of both his friends,
the massy Skiddaw, smooth, green, high, with must have been to Coleridge a continual
two chasms and a tent-like ridge in the larger.
A fairer scene you have not seen in all your rebuke; and Southey, perhaps, if we may
wanderings.” argue from his letters, on the strength of his
near relationship, and his greater opportuni
There Southey soon joined Coleridge, and ties of seeing the domestic unhappiness caused
the two kindred families shared Greta Hall by Coleridge's neglects, may have added to
together, a common home with two doors. the silent reproof of his example, admonitions
Coleridge was now at the full manhood of more openly expressed. In August, 1803,
his powers, he was about thirty, and the Wordsworth and his sister visited Coleridge
time was come when the marvellous promise at Keswick, and took him with them on that
of his youth ought to have had its fulfilment. first tour in Scotland of which Wordsworth,
He was surrounded with a country which, if and his sister too, have left such imperishable
any could, might have inspired him, with memorials. Most of the way they walked,
friends beside him who loved, and were from Dumfries up Nithsdale, over Crawford
ready in any way to aid him. But the next muir by the Falls of Clyde, and so on to
fifteen years, the prime strength of his life, Loch Lomond. Coleridge, never in good
when his friends looked for fruit, and he him health, being at this time in bad spirits, and
self felt that it was due, were all but unpro somewhat too much in love with his own
ductive. The Ode to Dejection, written at dejection, left his two companions somewhere
the beginning of the Lake time, and Youth about Loch Lomond to return home. But
and Age, written just before its close, with either at this, or some other time not spe
two or three more short pieces, are all his cially recorded, he must have got farther
poetry of this period, and they fitly represent north, for we find him, in his second Lay
the sinking of heart and hope which were Sermon, speaking of his solitary walk from
now too habitual with him. What was the Loch Lomond to Inverness, and describing
cause of all this failure? Bodily disease, no the impression made upon him by the sight
doubt, in some measure, and the languor of of the recently unpeopled country, and by
disease depressing a will by nature weakly the recital he heard from an old Highland
irresolute. But more than these, there was widow near Fort Augustus of the wrongs she
a worm at the root, that was sapping his and her kinsfolk and her neighbours had suf
powers, and giving fatal effect to his natural fered in those sad clearances. But if Scot
infirmities. This process had already set in, land woke in him no poetry on this his first,
but it was some years yet before the result and perhaps only visit, and if Scotchmen
was fully manifest. During these first years have had some severe things said of them by
at the Lakes, though Greta was his home, him, they can afford to pardon them. The
Coleridge, according to De Quincey, was land is none the less beautiful for not having
more often to be found at Grasmere. This been sung by him; and if from the people
retirement, for such it then was, had for him he could have learned some of that shrewd
three attractions, a loveliness more complete ness of which they have enough and to spare,
than that of Derwentwater, an interesting his life would have been other and more suc
and pastoral people, not to be found at Kes cessful than it was.
wick, and, above all, the society of Words If the Lake country had suited Coleridge's
worth. It was about this time that there constitution, and if he had turned to advan
arose the name of the Lake School, a mere tage the scenery and society it afforded, in
figment of the Edinburgh Review, which it no part of England, it might seem, could he
invented to express its dislike to three ori have found a fitter home. But the dampness
ginal writers, all unlike each other, but who of the climate brought out so severely the
agreed in nothing so much as in their oppo rheumatism from which he had suffered since
sition to the hard and narrow spirit which boyhood, that he was forced to seek a refuge
from it on the shores of the Mediterranean, Quincey, however, argues from Buonaparte's
—a doubtful measure, it is said, for one in character and habits that the thing was by
his state of nerves. Arriving at Malta in no means improbable.
April 1804, he soon became known to the It is hardly worth while to attempt to trace
Governor, Sir Alexander Ball, and during a all the changes of his life for the next ten
change of secretaries Coleridge served for a years after his return from Malta. Some
time as a temporary secretary. The official times at Keswick, where his family still lived;
task-work, and not less the official parade, sometimes with Wordsworth at the town-end
which he was expected but never attempted of Grasmere; sometimes in London, living
to maintain, were highly distasteful to him, in the office of the Courier, and writing for
and he gladly resigned, as soon as the new its pages; sometimes lecturing at the Royal
secretary could relieve him. He made, how Institute, often, according to De Quincey,
ever, the friendship of the Governor, whose disappointing his audience by non-appear
character he has painted glowingly in The ance; anon an inmate in Wordsworth's new
Friend. Whether Sir Alexander Ball merit home at Allan Bank, while The Excursion
ed this high encomium we cannot say, but was being composed; then taking final fare
Professor Wilson mentions that Coleridge's well of the Lakes in 1810, travelling with
craze for the three B.'s, Ball, Bell, and Bow Basil Montagu to London, and leaving his
yer, was a standing joke among his friends. family at Keswick, for some years, under care
The health he sought at Malta he did not of Southey ; domiciled now with Basil Mon
find. The change at first seemed beneficial, tagu, now with a Mr. Morgan at Hammer
but soon came the reaction, with his limbs smith, or Calne, now with other friends in or
“like lifeless tools, violent internal pains, not far from London: so passed those home
labouring and oppressed breathing.” For less, unsatisfactory years of his middle man
relief from these he had recourse to the se hood. No doubt, there were bright spots
dative, which he had begun to use so far here and there, when his marvellous powers
back as 1796, and the habit became now found vent in lecturing on some congenial
fairly confirmed. Leaving Malta in Septem subject, or flowed forth in that stream of
ber 1805, he came to Rome, and there spent thought and speech which was his native
some time in seeing what every traveller sees, element. During these wanderings he met
but what Coleridge would see with other eyes now and then with the wits of the time,
and keener insight than most men. Full either in rivalry not of his own seeking, or
observations on these things he noted down in friendly intercourse. Scott has recorded
for after use. There, too, he made the ac a rencounter he had with Coleridge at a
quaintance of the German poet Tieck, of an dinner party, when some London littérateurs
American painter, Alston, and of Humboldt, sought to lower Scott by exalting Coleridge.
the brother of the great traveller. Gilman Coleridge had been called on to recite some
informs us that Coleridge was told by Hum of his own unpublished poems, and had done
boldt that his name was on the list of the so. Scott, called on to contribute his share,
proscribed at Paris, owing to an article which refused, on the plea that he had none to pro
he (Coleridge) had written against Buona duce, but offered to recite some clever lines
parte in the Morning Post; that the arrest which he had lately read in a newspaper.
had already been sent to Rome, but that one The lines were the unfortunate Fire, Famine,
morning Coleridge was waited on by a noble and Slaughter, of which Coleridge was the
Benedictine, sent to him by the kindness of then unacknowledged author. It is amusing to .
the Pope, bearing a passport signed by the see the two sides of the story; the easy, off
Pope, and telling him that a carriage was hand humour with which Scott tells it in a
ready to bear him at once to Leghorn. Cole letter, or in his journal; and the laborious
ridge took the hint; at Leghorn embarked self-defence with which Coleridge ushers in
on board of an American vessel sailing for the lines in his published poems. More
England; was chased by a French ship; and friendly was his intercourse with Lord Byron,
was, during the chase, forced by the captain who, while he was lessee of a London thea
to throw overboard all his papers, and among tre, had brought forward Coleridge's Remorse,
them his notes and observations made in and had taken much interest in its success.
Rome. So writes Coleridge's biographer. This brought the two poets frequently into
Wilson laughs at the thought of the Imperial company, and in April 1816, Coleridge thus
eagle stooping to pursue such small game as speaks of Byron's appearance:—“If you had
Coleridge. And certainly it does seem hardly seen Lord Byron you could scarcely disbe
credible that Buonaparte should have so lieve him. So beautiful a countenance I
noted the secrets of the London newspaper scarcely ever saw; his teeth so many sta
press, or taken such pains to get his hands tionary smiles; his eyes the open portals of
on one stray member of that corps. De the sun—things of light, and made for light;
and his forehead, so ample, and yet so flexi when De Quincey first saw him in
ble, passing from marble smoothness into a 1807 :—
hundred wreaths and lines and dimples, cor
“I had received directions for finding out the
respondent to the feelings and sentiments he house where Coleridge was visiting; and in
is uttering.” But lecturing, or conversation, riding down a main street of Bridgewater, I
or intercourse with brother poets, even taken noticed a gateway corresponding to the descrip
at their best, are no sufficient account of the tion given me. Under this was standing and
prime years of such genius as Coleridge was gazing about him a man whom I will describe.
intrusted with. In height he might seem to be about five feet
The record of his writings, from 1801 till eight (he was in reality about an inch and a half
1816, contains only one work of real import ler, but his figure was of an order which
drowns the height); his person was tall and
ance. This was The Friend, a periodical of full, and tended even to corpulence; his com
weekly essays, intended to help to the forma plexion was fair, because it was associated with
tion of opinions on moral, political, and artis black hair; his eyes were large and soft in their
tic subjects, grounded upon true and perma expression; and it was from the peculiar ap
nent principles. Undertaken with the coun pearance of haze or dreamiñess which mixed
tenance of, and with some slight aid from with their light that I recognised my object.
Wordsworth, it began to be published in This was Coleridge. I examined him stead
June 1809, and ceased in March 1810, be fastly for a minute or more, and it struck me
that he saw neither myself nor any other object
cause it did not pay the cost of publishing, in the street. He was in a deep reverie, for I
which Coleridge had imprudently taken on had dismounted and advanced close to him be
himself. The original work having been fore he had apparently become conscious of my
much enlarged and recast, was published presence. The soun of my voice, announcing
again in its present three-volume form in my own name, first awoke him; he started, and
for a moment seemed at a loss to understand
1818. Even as it now stands, the ground
swell after the great French Revolution tem my purpose or his own situation. There was
pest can be distinctly felt. It is full of the no mauvaise honte' in his manner, but simple
perplexity, and an apparent difficulty in reco
political problems cast up by the troubled vering his position amongst daylight realities.
waters of the then recent years, and of the This £ scene over, he received me with a
attempt to discriminate between the first kindness of manner so marked, that it might be
truths of morality and maxims of political called gracious. The hospitable family with
expediency, and to ground each on their own whom he was domesticated all testified for Cole
proper basis. No one can read this work ridge deep affection and esteem; sentiments in
without feeling the force of Southey's re which the whole town of Bridgewater seemed
to share. . . . .
mark: “The vice of The Friend is its round
aboutness.” But whoever will be content to “Coleridge led me to the drawing-room,
rung the bell for refreshments, and omitted no
bear with this and to read right on, will find point of a courteous reception. . . . That point
all through fruit more than worth the labour, being settled, Coleridge, like some great Orel
with essays here and there which are nearly lana, or the St. Lawrence, that, having been
perfect both in matter and in form. But its checked and fretted by rocks or thwarting
defects, such as they are, must have told islands, suddenly recovers its volume of waters,
fatally against its success when it appeared and its mighty music, swept at once, as if return
ing to his natural business, into a continuous
in its early periodical shape. It was Cole strain of eloquent dissertation, certainly the
ridge's misfortune in this, as in so many of most novel, the most finely illuminated, and
his works, to have to try to combine two traversing the most spacious fields of thought,
things, hard, if not impossible to reconcile,— by transitions the most just and logical, that it
immediate popularity, and the profit accruing was possible to conceive. . . . Coleridge to
therefrom, with the attempt to dig deep, and many people, and often I have heard the com
to implant new truths which can only be plaint, seemed to wander; and he seemed then
to wander the most when in fact his resistance
taken in by an effort of painful thought, such to the wandering instinct was greatest, viz.,
as readers of periodicals will seldom give. when the compass and huge circuit, by which
Few writers have attained present popularity his illustrations moved, travelled farthest into
and enduring power, and least of all could remote regions, before they began to revolve.
Coleridge do so. The Friend contains in its Long before this coming round commenced,
present, and probably it did in its first shape, most people had lost him, and naturally enough
clear indications of the change that Cole supposed that he had lost himself. They con
ridge's mind had gone through in philoso tinued to admire the separate beauty of the
thoughts, but did not see their relations to the
phy, as well as in his religious belief. But dominant theme. However, I can assert, upon
of this we shall have to speak again. This my long and intimate knowledge of Coleridge's
middle portion of Coleridge's life may, per mind, that logic the most severe was as inalien
haps, be not inaptly closed by the description able from his modes of thinking as grammar
of his appearance and manner, as these were from his language."
Admirable as in the main the essay is from tural cruelty to my poor children. . . . After
which this sketch is taken, it contains some my death, I earnestly entreat that a full and
serious blemishes. De Quincey dwells on unqualified narrative of my wretchedness,
some alleged faults of Coleridge with a low and of its guilty cause, may be made public,
ing minuteness which the pure love of truth that at least some little good may be effected
can hardly account for; and with regard to by the direful example.” It is painful to
the great and all-absorbing fault, the habit ofdwell on these things, nor should they have
opium-taking, his statements are directly op been reproduced here, had it not been that,
posed to those made by Coleridge himself, as they have been long since made fully
and by those of his biographers who had the known, it might seem that we had given a
best means of knowing the truth. He says too partial picture of the man had we avoided
that Coleridge first took to opium, “not as a altogether this its darkest side. *
relief from bodily pains or nervous irritations, Strange and sad as it is to think that one
for his constitution was naturally strong and so gifted should have fallen so low, it is
excellent, but as a source of luxurious sensa hardly less strange that from that degrada
tions.” Here De Quincey falls ... into two tion he should ever have been enabled to
errors. First, Coleridge's constitution was rise. The crisis seems to have come about
not really strong. Though full of life and the time when those letters passed between
energy, his body was also full of disease, Cottle and him in 1814. For some time
which gradually poisoned the springs of life. there followed a struggle against the tyrant
All his letters bear witness to this, by the vice, by various means, but all seemingly
many complaints of ill-health which they ineffectual. At last he voluntarily arranged
contain, before he ever touched opium. to board himself with the family of Mr. Gil
Again, as we have already seen, what he man, a physician, who lived at Highgate in a
sought in opium was not pleasurable sensa retired house, in an airy situation, surrounded
tions, but freedom from pain,—an antidote by a large garden. It was in April, 1816,
to the nervous agitations under which he that he first entered this house at Highgate,
suffered. But whatever may have been the which continued to be his home for eighteen
beginning of the habit, the result of conti. years till his death. The letter in which he
nued indulgence in it was equally disastrous. opens his grief to Mr. Gilman, and commends
We have given the letter which marks his himself to his care, is very striking, showing
first recourse to the fatal drug in 1796. As at once his strong desire to overcome the in
his ailments increased, so did his use of it. veterate habit, and his feeling of inability to
At Malta, opium-taking became a confirmed do so, unless he were placed under a watch
habit with him, and from that time for ten ful eye and external restraint. In this home
years it quite overmastered him. In 1807, he learned to abandon opium, and here,
the year when De Quincey first met him, he though weighed down by ever increasing
writes of himself as “rolling rudderless,” bodily infirmity, and often by great mental
with an increasing and overwhelming sense depression, he found on the whole “the best
of wretchedness. The craving went on quiet to his course allowed.” That the vice
growing, and his consumption of the drug was overcome might be inferred from the
had reached a quite appalling height, when, very fact that his life was so prolonged. And
in 1814, Cottle having met Coleridge, and though statements to the contrary have been
seen what a wreck he had become, discovered made from quarters whence they might least
the fatal cause, and took courage to remon have been expected, yet we know from the
strate by letter. Coleridge makes no con most trustworthy authorities now living,
cealment, pleads guilty to the evil habit, and that there was no ground for these state
confesses that he is utterly miserable. Sadder ments, and that the friends of Coleridge who
letters were perhaps never written than those had best access to the truth, believed that
cries out of the depths of that agony. He at Highgate he obtained that self-mastery
tells Cottle that he had learned what “sin is which he sought. No doubt, the habit left a
against an imperishable being, such as is the bane behind it, a body shattered, and a mind
soul of man; that he had had more than shorn of much of its power for continuous
one glimpse of the outer darkness and the effort, ever-recurring seasons of despondency,
worm that dieth not; that if annihilation and visitings of self-reproach for so much of
and the possibility of heaven were at that life wasted, so great powers given, and so
moment offered to his choice, he would pre little done. Still, under all these drawbacks,
fer the former.” More pitiful still is that he laboured earnestly to redeem what of
letter to his friend Wade :—“In the one life remained; and most of what is satisfac
crime of opium, what crime have I not made tory to remember of his life belongs to these
myself guilty of? Ingratitude to my Maker; last eighteen years. It was a time of gather
and to my benefactors injustice; and unna ing up of the fragments that remained—of
saving splinters washed ashore from a mighty contains his own thoughts on the grounds of
wreck. But to this time, such as it is, we morality and religion, and of the relation of
are indebted for most of that by which these to each other, along with his own
Coleridge is now known to men, and by views on some of the main doctrines of the
which, if at all, he has benefited his kind. faith. The last work that appeared during
During these years the great religious change his lifetime was that on Church and State,
that had long been going on was completed published in 1830. After his death appear
and confirmed. As far back as 1800 his ed his posthumous works, viz., the four vo
adherence to the Hartleian philosophy and lumes of Literary Remains, and the small
his belief in Unitarian theology had been volume on the inspiration of Scripture, enti
shaken. By 1805 he was in some manner a tled £ of an Inquiring Spirit.
believer in the Trinity, and had entered on It is by these works alone, incomplete as
a closer study of Scripture, especially of St. many of them are, that posterity can judge
Paul and St. John. There were in him, as of him. But the impression of pre-eminent
De Quincey observed, the capacity of love genius which he left on his contemporaries
and faith, of self-distrust, humility, and child was due not so much to his writings as to
like docility, waiting but for time and sorrow his wonderful talk. Printed books have
to bring them out. Such a discipline the made us undervalue this gift, or at best re
long ineffectual struggle with his infirmity gard it more as a thing of display than as a
supplied. The sense of moral weakness and genuine thought-communicating power. But
of sin, working inward contrition, made him as an organ of teaching truth, speech is
seek for a more practical, upholding faith, older than books, and for this end Plato,
than his early years had known. And so he among others, preferred the living voice to
learned that while the consistency of Chris dead letters. Measured by this standard,
tianity with right reason and the historic Coleridge had no equal in his own, and few
evidence of miracles are the outworks, yet in any age. How his gift of discourse in his
that the vital centre of faith lies in the be younger days arrested Hazlitt and De Quin
liever's feeling of his great need, and the cey, we have already seen; and in his de
experience that the redemption which is in clining years at Highgate, when bodily ail
Christ is what he needs; that it is the “sor ments allowed, and during the pauses of
row rising from beneath and the consolation study and writing, fuller and more continu
meeting it from above,” the actual trial of ous than ever the marvellous monologue
the faith in Christ, which is its ultimate and went on. Some faint echoes of what then
most satisfying evidence. With him, too, as fell from him have been caught up and pre
with so many before, it was credidi, ideoque served in the well-known Table Talk, by his
intelleri. The Highgate time was also the nephew and son-in-law, Henry Nelson Cole
period of his most prolonged and undisturbed ridge, who in his preface has finely described
study. Among much other reading, the old the impression produced by his uncle's con
English divines were diligently perused and versation on congenial listeners. To that
commented on ; and his criticisms and re retirement at Highgate flocked, as on a pil
flections on them fill nearly the whole of the grimage, most of what was brilliant in intel
third and fourth volumes of his Literary lect or ardent in youthful genius at that day.
Remains. A discriminating, often a severe Edward Irving, Julius Hare, Sterling, and
critic of these writers, he was still a warm many more who might be named, were
admirer, in this a striking contrast to Arnold, among his frequent and most devoted listen
who certainly unduly depreciated them. ers. Most came to wonder, and hear, and
Almost the whole of his prose works were. learn. But some came and went to shrug
the product of this time. First the Two" their shoulders, and pronounce it unintelligi
g Sermons, published in 1816 and 1817. ble; or in after years to scoff, as Mr. Car
Then the Biographia Literaria, published in lyle. Likely enough this latter came crav
1817, though in part composed some years ing a solution of some pressing doubt or
before. In 1818 followed the recast and bewildering enigma; and to receive instead
greatly enlarged edition of The Friend; and a prolonged and circuitous disquisition must
in 1825 he gave to the world the most ma to his then mood of mind have been tanta
ture of all his wörks, the Aids to Reflection. lizing enough. But was it well done, O
Incorporated especially with the earlier part great Thomas! for this, years afterwards, to
of this work, are selections from the writings jeer at the old man's enfeebled gait, and
of Archbishop Leighton, of which he has caricature the tones of his voice?
said that to him they seemed “next to the In the summer of 1833 Coleridge was
inspired Scriptures, yea, as the vibration of seen for the last time in public, at the meet
that once-struck hour remaining on the air.” ing of the British Association at Cambridge.
The main substance of the work, however, Next year, on the 25th of July, he died in
WOL. XLIII. N–10
Mr. Gilman's house in The Grove, Highgate, And now, perhaps, we cannot more fitly
which had been so long his home, and was close this sketch than in those affectionate
laid hard by in his last resting-place within words of his nephew, the faithful defender of
the old churchyard by the roadside. the memory of his great uncle :—
Twelve days before his death, not knowing
it to be so near, he wrote to his godchild “Coleridge! blessings on his gentle memory!
Coleridge was a frail mortal. He had indeed
this remarkable letter,” which, gathering up his peculiar weaknesses as well as his unique
the sum of his whole life's experience, reads powers; sensibilities that an averted look would
like his unconscious epitaph on himself:— rack, a heart which would beat calmly in the
“MY DEAR GoDCHILD.— . Years must tremblings of an earthquake. He shrank from
pass before you will be able to read with an mere uneasiness like a child, and bore the pre
understanding heart what I now write; but I paratory agonies of his death-attack like a ma:
trust that the all-gracious God, the Father of tyr. He suffered an almost life-long punish
our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, ment for his errors, whilst the world at large
who, by his only begotten Son (all mercies in has the unwithering fruits of his labours, and
one sovereign mercy), has redeemed you from his genius, and his sufferings.”
the evil ground, and willed you to be born out
of darkness, but into light; out of death, but If we have traced in any measure aright
into life; out of sin, but into righteousness, even the course of Coleridge's life, no more is
into the Lord our Righteousness,—I trust that needed to show what were his failings and
He will graciously hear the prayers of your his errors. It more concerns us to ask what
dear parents, and be with you as the spirit of permanent fruit of all that he thought, and
health and growth in body and mind. did, and suffered under the sun, there still
“. . . . I, too, your godfather, have known remains, now that he has lain more than
what the enjoyments and advantages of this thirty years in his grave. To answer this
life are, and what the more refined pleasures
fully is impossible in the case of any man,
which learning and intellectual power can be
stöw; and with the experience which more much more in the case of one who has been
than threescore years can give, I now, on the a great thinker rather than a great doer;
eve of my departure, declare to you (and ear for many of his best ideas will have so melted
nestly pray that you may hereafter live and act into the general atmosphere of thought, that
on the conviction) that health is a great bless it will be hard to separate them from the
ing, competence obtained by honourable indus complex whole, and trace them back to their
try a great blessing, and a great blessing it is to original source. But the abler men of his
have kind, faithful, and loving friends and rela
tives; but that the greatest of all blessings, as own generation were not slow to confess
it is the most ennobling of all privileges, is to be how much they owed to him. In poetry,
indeed a Christian. But I have been likewise, Sir Walter Scott acknowledged himself as
through a large portion of my later life, a suf indebted to him for the opening keynote of
ferer, sorely afflicted with bodily pains, lan The Lay of the Last Minstrel. In the metre,
guors, and infirmities; and for the last three or sentiment, and drapery of that first canto, it
four years have, with a few and brief intervals, is not difficult to trace the influence of Chris
been confined to a sick-room, and at this mo
ment, in great weakness and heaviness, write tabel, then unpublished, but well known.
from a sickbed, hopeless of a recovery, yet with Wordsworth, aloof from his contemporaries,
out prospect of a speedy removal; and I, thus and self sufficing as he was, felt Coleridge to
on the very brink of the grave, solemnly bear be his equal—“the only wonderful man I
witness to you, that the Almighty Redeemer, ave ever known.” Arnold, at a later day,
most gracious in His £ to them that
called him the greatest intellect that England
truly seek Him, is faithful to perform what He had produced within his memory, and shared
hath promised, and has preserved, under all my with, perhaps learned from, him, some of his
pains and infirmities, the inward peace that
passeth all understanding, with the supporting leading thoughts, as that the identification of
assurance of a reconciled God, who will not the church with the clergy was “the first
withdraw His Spirit from me in the conflict, and fundamental apostasy.” Dr. Newman
and in His own time will deliver me from the pointed to Coleridge's works long ago as a
Evil One. proof that the minds of men in England were
“Oh, my dear godchild! eminently blessed then yearning for something higher and
are those who begin early to seek, fear, and deeper than what had satisfied the last age.
love their God, trusing wholly in the righteous Julius Hare speaks of him as “the great reli
ness and mediation of their Lord, Redeemer,
Saviour, and everlasting High Priest, Jesus gious philosopher, to whom the mind of our
Christ. generation in England owes more than to
“Oh, preserve this as a legacy and bequest any other man.” Mr. Maurice has every
from your unseen godfather and friend, where spoken with deeper reverence of him
“S. T. Col.FRIDGE.” than of any other teacher of these later times.
* This letter was written on the 13th, and he Mr. Mill has said that “no one has contri
died on the 25th day of July. buted more to shape the opinions among
younger men, who can be said to have any were some special wants, arising either from
opinions at all.” These words were written natural temperament or early education,
five-and-twenty years ago. Whether he still which marred or impoverished his full poetic
exercises anything of the same influence over equipment. He had never lived much in
younger men seems more than doubtful. the open air; he had no large storehouse of
| Very possibly Mr. Mill himself, and others of facts or images, either drawn from observa
that way of thinking, may have superseded tion of outward nature, or from more than
him. Yet though his name may have grown common acquaintance with any modes of
less, his works remain, and may be tested human life or sides of human character, such
even by another generation that knew not as Wordsworth and Scott in different ways
Coleridgé, by the thoughts which they con had. It was not the nature of his mind to
tain. dwell lovingly on concrete things, but rather,
These works are most of them more or less by its strong generalizing bias, to be borne
fragmentary, and this forms one difficulty in off continually into the abstract. Therefore
rightly estimating them. Another, and per we cannot think that Coleridge would have
haps greater, lies in the width, we had done more, either for the delight or the bene
almost said the universality, of their range. fit of mankind, if he had stuck wholly to
Most original thinkers have devoted them oetry, or that he did otherwise than fulfil
selves to but a few lines of inquiry. Cole his destiny by giving way to his philosophic
ridge's thought may be almost said to have instinct.
been as wide as life. To apply to himself His daughter has said that he had four
the word which he first coined, or rather poetic epochs, representing, more or less, boy
translated, from some obscure Byzantian, to hood, early manhood, middle, and declining
express Shakspeare's quality, he was a “my life. To trace these carefully is not for this
riad-minded man.” He touched being at place. The juvenile poems, those of the first
almost every point, and wherever he touched epoch, though showing here and there hints
it, he opened up some shafts of truth hitherto of the coming power, contain, as a whole, no
unperceived. He who would fully estimate thing which would make them live, were it
Coleridge's contributions to thought would not for what came afterwards. He himself
have to consider him as a poet, a critic, a has said that these poems are disfigured by
political philosopher, a moralist, and a theo too great exuberance of double epithets, and
logian. But without hazarding anything by general turgidity. These mark, perhaps,
like so large an attempt, a few brief remarks the tumult of his thick-thronging thoughts,
may be offered on what he has done in some struggling to utter themselves with force and
of these so widely different paths. freshness, yet not quite disengaged from the
It was as a poet that Coleridge was first old commonplaces of poetic diction, from
known, and the wish has many times been “eve's dusky car,” and from those frigid per
expressed that he had continued to be so, sonifications of abstract qualities in which the
and never tried philosophy. No doubt he former age delighted. Of these early poems,
had imagination enough, as some one has one of the most interesting is that on the
said, to have furnished an outfit for a thou death of Chatterton, in which, though the
sand poets, and it may be that Christabel form somewhat recalls the odes of Collins
will be read longer than any prose work he and Gray, his native self ever here and there
has written. But this belongs both to the breaks through. Some of them are pensive
substance and the form of all poetry that is with his early sorrow, others fierce and tur
perfect after its kind. Gray's Elegy will pro bid with his revolutionary fervours. The
bably survive longer, and will certainly be longest and most important, styled Religious
more widely read, than the best philosophic Musings, which Bowles ranked so high,
pieces of Hume, Berkeley, or Butler. This, might easily, notwithstanding some fine
however, does not prove that these thinkers thoughts, suggest one of his rhapsodies in a
have not done more for human thought than Unitarian chapel cut into blank verse. The
that most graceful of poets. Again, it may religious sentiments it contains are frigid and
be that imagination such as Coleridge's may bombastic; the politics denunciatory of exist
be as legitimately employed in interpenetrat ing things, of
ing and quickening the reason, and revivify
ing domains of philosophy, which are apt to “Warriors, lords, and priests, all the sore ills
That vex and desolate our mortal life.”
grow narrow or dead through prosaic formal
ism, as in purely poetic creation. Moreover, They contain, however, some true thoughts,
there were perhaps in Coleridge some special well put, though tinged with his Revolution
powers of fine analysis and introvertive spe dreams, on the good and evil that have
culation, which seem to have predestined him sprung out of the institution of property, and
for other work than poetry; just as there a fine apostrophe to all the sin-defiled and
sorrow-laden ones, whose day of deliverance And closes with these grand lines:—
yet waits. “O Liberty 1 with profitless endeavour
It had been well if the poems of the second Have I pursued thee many a weary hour;
period, which were mostly written during But thou nor swell'st the victor's strain, nor
the Bristol and Nether Stowey periods, and eVer
now make up the chief part of the Sibylline Didst breathe thy soul in forms of human
Leaves, had been arranged in the order in power.
which they were composed. . This would Alike from all, howe'er they praise thee
(Nor prayer, nor boastful name delays thee),
have thrown much light on them, arising as Alike'n Priest ra's harpy minions,
they do out of cither the events of the time And factious Blasphemy's obscener slaves,
or of Coleridge's personal circumstances. Thou speedest on thy subtle pinions,
Compared with those of the former period, The guide of homeless winds, the playmate of
the stream flows more even and unbroken. the waves |
The crude philosophy has all but disap And there, I felt thee! on that sea-cliff's
peared, the blank verse is now more fused verge,
and melodious, the rhythm of thought more Whose pines, scarce travell'd by the breeze
mellow, the religious sentiment, where it above,
does appear, no longer reasoning, but medi Had made one murmur with the distant surge!
Yes! while I stood and gazed, my temples
tative, is more chastened and deep. These bare
poems, it must have been, which were to And shot my being through earth, sea, and
De Quincey “the ray of a new morning, a alr
revealing of untrodden worlds, till then un | Possessing all things with intensest love,
suspected amongst men.” Such Wilson O Liberty, my spirit felt thee there!”
found them, and so in a measure they have Equal, perhaps, to any of the above, are
been to many since. But in re-reading them, the lines he addressed to Wordsworth, after
after an interval of years, this is somehow hearing that poet read aloud the first draft
felt less vividly. Is it that time has weak of “The Prelude :”—
ened the relish for poetry, or that the new
fragrance they once gave forth has so filled “An Orphic song indeed,
the poetic atmosphere that it makes itself A song divine, of high and passionate thoughts,
To their own music chanted ! . . .
now less distinctly felt! Whichever way it And when, O friend! my comforter and guide!
be, these accidents of personal feeling do notStrong in thyself and powerful to give strength,
affect their real worth. Of two fine poems Thy long sustained song finally closed,
written at Clevedon, the one on the “Eolian And '' deep voice had ceased—yet thou thy
self
• Harp,” contains a passage that may be com.
pared with a well-known, some might call it, Wert still before my eyes, and round us both
a Pantheistic, one in Wordsworth’s “Tintern That happy vision of beloved faces— -
Abbey.” The other, “Reflections on leaving Scarce conscious, and yet conscious of its close,
..a Place of Retirement,” breathes a beautiful, I sat, my being blended in one thought
(Thought was it? or aspiration? or resolve?)
though too brief, spirit of happiness and con Absorb’d, yet '# still upon the sound—
tent. In the same gentle vein are the “Lines And when I rose, I found myself in prayer.”
to his Brother George,” and “Frost at Mid
night,” in which the blank verse is finely Of the Ancient Mariner and Christabel,
fused and nearly perfect. But higher and the two prime creations of the Nether Stowey
-of wider compass are the three political period, and indeed of all Coleridge's poetry,
poems, the ode on “The Departing Year,” nothing need here be said. Time has now
written at the close of 1796, “France,” an stamped these as after their kind unsurpassed
ode, written in February, 1797, and “Tears by any creation of his own generation, or
in Solitude,” in 1798. The last of these perhaps of any generation of England's poetry.
opens and closes with some of his best blank The view with which these two masterpieces
verses, full of lambent light and his own ex were begun, as the two brother poets walked
quisite music, though the middle is troubled on Quantock, has been detailed elsewhere.
with somewhat intemperate politics, pam Coleridge was to choose supernatural or ro.
phleteeringly expressed. The ode on mantic characters, and clothe them from his
“France,” when his fond hopes of the Revo own imagination with a human interest and
lution ended in disappointment, is a strain of a semblance of truth. It would be hard to
noblest poetry. It opens with a call on the analyse the strange witchery that is in both,
clouds, the waves, the sun, the sky, all that especially in Christabel: the language, so
is freest in nature, to bear witness simple and natural, yet so aerially musical,
the rhythm so original, yet so fitted to the
“With what deep worship I have still adored story, and the glamour over all, a glamour so
The spirit of divinest liberty.” -
peculiar to the poet's self. The first part
belongs to Quantock, the second was com filled the necessary conditions of a critic or
posed several years later at the Lakes, yet judge, in the highest sense; that is, a man
still the tale is but half told. Would it have possessing in himself abundantly the origin
gained or lost in power had it been com ative poetic faculty which he is to judge of
pleted? in others, combined with that power of sober
His third poetic epoch includes his whole generalization, and delicate, patient analysis,
sojourn at the Lakes, and the fourth the rest which, if poets possess, they generally find it
of his life. The poems of these two periods irksome to exercise. This is but another
are few altogether, and what there are, more way of saying, that before a man can pass
meditative than formerly, sometimes even worthy judgment on a thing, he must know
hopelessly dejected. “Youth and Age,” that thing at first, and not at second, hand.
written just before leaving the Lakes, with a The other kind of critic is he who, though
strangely aged tone for a man of only seven with little or none of the poetic gift in him
or eight and thirty, has a quaint beauty; to self, has yet, from a careful study of the great
adapt its own words, it is like sadness, that master-models of the art, deduced certain
“tells the jest without the smile.” There canons by which to judge of poetry univer
are some of this time, however, in another sally. But a critic of this kind, as the world
strain, as the beautiful lines called “The has many a time seen, whenever he is called
Knight's Tomb,” and “Recollections of upon to estimate some new and original work
Love.” After the Lake time, there was still of art, like to which the past supplies no mo
less poetry; only when, as in the “Visionary dels, is wholly at fault. His canons no longer
Hope” and the “Pains of Sleep,” the fre serve him, and the native sympathetic insight
quent despondency or severe suffering which he has not. To judge aright in such a case
weighed down his later years sought relief in takes another order of critic; one who knows
brief verse. Yet belonging to the third or after another and more immediate manner of
fourth periods, there are short gnomic lines, knowing; one who does not judge merely by
in which, if the visionary have disappeared, what the past has done, but who, by the
the wisdom wrought by time and meditation poet's heart within him, is made quick to
is excellently condensed. Such are these:— welcome whatever new thing, however seem
“Frail creatures are we all; to be the best ingly irregular, a young poet may create.
Is but the fewest faults to have; Such a critic was Coleridge. An imaginatio
Look thou then to thyself, and leave the rest richer and more penetrative than that of 'V
To God, thy conscience, and the grave.” poets of his time; a power of philosophic
reflection and of subtle discrimination, almost
Or the Complaint and Reply:—
over-active; a sympathy and insight of mar
“How seldom, friend! a good great man inhe vellous universality; and a learning “laden
rits
with the spoils of all times,”—these things
Honours or wealth with all his toil and
made him the greatest—we had almost said,
pains. the only truly philosophic-critic England /
It sounds like stories from the land of spirits, had yet seen. -
If any man obtain that which he meits,

Or any merit that which he obtains.” Of his critical power, the two most eminent
examples are his chapters on Wordsworth's
- REPLY.
poetry in the Biographia Literaria, and his
“For shame, dear friend! forego this canting notes on Shakspeare in the Literary Remains.
strain; If one wished to learn what genuine criticism
What wouldst thou have the good great man should be, where else in our country's lite
obtain 7
Wealth, titles, salary, a gilded chain;
rature would he find so worthy a model as in
that dissertation on Wordsworth ? An ex
Or throne of corses which his sword had slain?
Goodness and greatness are not means but cellent authority has lately said that the busi
ends. ness of “criticism, is to know the best thing
Hath he not always treasures, always friends, that is known or thought in the world, and
The good great man?—Three treasures, life to make this known to others.” In these,
and light, chapters on Wordsworth, Coleridge has done
And calm thoughts, regular as infant's something more than this. In opposition to
breath; the blind and utterly worthless criticism
And three firm friends, more sure than day which Jeffrey represented, he thought out for
and night—
Himself, his Maker, and the Angel Death.” himself, and laid down the principles on
which Wordsworth or any poet such as he
If from his own poetry we pass to his judg should be judged, and showed these princi
ments on the poetry of others, we shall see ples to be grounded, not on the caprices of
an exemplification of the adage, “Set a poet the hour, but on the essential and permanent
to catch a poet.” Here for once were ful elements which human nature contains. He
gave definitions of poetry in its essential wanting this, he wants one of the senses the
mature, and showed, in opposition to Words “language of which he is to employ.” Again,
worth's preface, wherein poetry really differs Coleridge was the first who clearly saw
from prose. We wish we could stay to quote through and boldly denounced the nonsense
his description of the poet and his work, in that had been talked about Shakspeare's irre
their ideal perfection. Then how truly and gularity and extravagance. Before his time
with what fine analysis he discriminates be it had been customary to speak of Shak
tween the language of prose and of metre ! speare as of some great abnormal creature,
How good is his account of the origin of some fine but rude barbarian, full of all sorts
metre ! “This I would trace to the balance of blemishes and artistic solecisms, which
in the mind, effected by that spontaneous were to be tolerated for the sake of the beau
effort which strives to hold in check the ties which counterbalanced them. In the
workings of passion.” There is more to be face of all this, he ventured to ask, “Are
learned about poetry from a few pages of that then the plays of Shakspeare works of rude
dissertation, confined though it is to a spe uncultivated genius, in which the splendour
cific kind of poetry, than from all the reviews of the parts compensates for the barbarous
that have been written in English on poets shapelessness and irregularity of the whole !
and their works from Addison to the present Or is the form equally admirable with the
hour. Nor is the result of the whole a mere matter, and the judgment of the poet not
defence or indiscriminating eulogy on Words less deserving our admiration than his ge
worth, rudely as that poet was then assailed nius?” The answer which he gave to his
by those who were also Coleridge's own revi own question, and which he enforced with
lers. From several of Wordsworth's theories manifold argument, is in effect that the judg
about poetry he dissents entirely, especially ment of Shakspeare is as great as his genius;
from the whole of his remarks on the same “nay, that his genius reveals itself in his
ness of the language of prose and verse. At judgment as in its most exalted form.” In
times, too, he finds fault with his practice, and arguing against those who at that time “were
lays his hand on faulty passages and defective still trammelled with the notion of the Greek
poems, in which he traces the influence of unities, and who thought that apologies were
false theory; while the true merits of these due for Shakspeare's neglect of them, he
poems he places not on mere blind preference showed how the form of Shakspeare's dra
or individual taste, but on a solid foundation mas was suited to the substance, not less than
of principles. These principles few or none the form of the Greek dramas to theirs. He
at that time acknowledged, but they have pointed out the contrast between mechanic
since won the assent of all competent judges. form superinduced from without, and organic
Canons of judgment they are, not mechanical form growing from within; that if Shak
but living. They do not furnish the reader speare or any modern were to hold by the
with a set of rules which he can take up and Greek dramatic unities, he would be impos
apply ready-made. But they require, before ing on his creations a dead form from with
they can be used aright, to be assimilated by out, instead of letting them shape themselves
thought—made our own inwardly. They from within, and clothe themselves with a
open the eye to see, generate the power of natural and living form, as the tree clothes
seeing for one's-self, call forth from within a itself with its bark. Another point which
living standard of judgment, which is based Coleridge insists on in these lectures and
on truth and nature. throughout his works, a point often unheed
Again, turn to his criticisms on Shak ed, sometimes directly denied, is the closel.
speare and the Drama. They are but brief connexion between just taste and pure mora
notes, scattered leaves, written by himself or lity, because true taste springs out of the
taken down by others, from lectures, given ground of the moral nature of man. We
mainly in London. His lectures were in ge cannot now follow him into detail, and show
neral wholly oral, and were best when deli the new light which he has thrown on Shak
vered with no scrap of paper before him. speare's separate plays, and on his leading
But short as these notes are, they mark, and characters. We can but remark in passing,
helped to cause, a revolution in men's ways that Hamlet was the character in the expo
of thinking about Shakspeare. First he sition of which Coleridge first proved his
taught, and himself exemplified, that he who Shaksperian insight. In the Table Talk he
would understand Shakspeare must not, Dr. says, “In fact, I have a smack of Hamlet in
Johnson-wise, seat himself on the critical myself.” If any one wishes to see what a
throne, and thence deliver verdict, as on an really masterly elucidation of a subtle cha
inferior, or at best a mere equal; but that he racter is, let him turn to the remarks on
has need to come before all things with reve Hamlet in the second volume of the Literary
rence, as for the poet of all poets, and that, Remains. We had intended to quote it here
entire, but space forbids. This and other of experience and mature reflection. With this
Coleridge's Shaksperian criticisms have been one remark on his political side we pass on.
claimed for Schlegel. But most of these Criticism, such as we have described above,
had, we believe, been given to the world in presupposes profound and comprehensive
lectures before Schlegel's book appeared; thought on questions not lying within, but
and as to this exposition of Hamlet, Hazlitt based on wider principles beyond, itself. His
bears witness that he had heard it from Cole critical studies, if nothing else, would have
ridge before his visit to Germany in 1798. driven Coleridge back on metaphysics. But
That view of Hamlet has long since become it was the same with whatever subject he
almost a commonplace in literature, but the took up, whether art or politics, or morals or
idea of it was first conceived and expressed theology. Everywhere he strove to reach a
by Coleridge. Some of the other criticisms bottoming,—to grasp the living idea which
may be more subtle than many may care to gave birth to the system or institution, and
follow. But any one who shall master these kept it alive. Even in those of his works, as
notes on Shakspeare, taken as a whole, will the Literary Life, The Friend, and the Lay
find in them more fine analysis of the hidden Sermons, which most enter into practical
things of the heart, more truthful insight details, the granite every here and there
into the workings of passion, than are to be crops out, the underlying philosophy appears.
found in whole treatises of psychology. But that searching for fundamental princi
~ -
ples, which seems to have been in him from

Any survey of Coleridge's speculations the first an intellectual necessity, was increas
will be incomplete if it did not include some ed by that morbidly introvertive turn of mind
account of his political philosophy, which which, at some stages of his life, had nearly
holds so prominent a place among them. overbalanced him. In an often-quoted pas
Not that he ever was a party politician,—his sage from the Ode to Dejection, written at
whole nature was averse to this,—but his Keswick in 1802, he laments the decay with
mind was too universal in its range, his sym in himself of the shaping imagination, and
pathy with all human interests too strong, to says, that -
have allowed him to pass by these questions. . . . “By abstruse research to steal
But happily, the thorough and comprehensive From my own nature all the natural man;
discussion of this department of Coleridge's This was my sole resource, my only plan,
thought, which occupies the greater part of Till that which suits a part infects the whole,
Mr. Mill's celebrated essay, relieves us from And now is almost grown the habit of my soul.”
the necessity of entering on that subject This passage opens a far glimpse into his
here. There is, however, one important mental history. It shows how metaphysics,
point to which that distinguished writer fails for which he had from the first an innate
to advert. He speaks of Coleridge as an propension, became from circumstances almost
original thinker, but “within the bounds of an unhealthy craving. What then was his
traditional opinions,” and as looking at re ultimate metaphysical philosophy? This is
ceived beliefs from within. But it must not set forth systematically in any of his
surely have been known to Mr. Mill that works, but we must gather it, as best we can,
Coleridge, during his youth and early man from disquisitions scattered through them all.
hood, stood as entirely outside of established And here we must be allowed to call to mind
opinions, and looked at existing institutions a few elementary matters, which, however
as purely from without as it was possible trite to students of philosophy, are necessary
to do. No extremest young radical of the to be borne in mind for the clear understand
present hour, when intellectual radicalism ing of Coleridge's position.
has once again become a fashion, can ques Every one knows that from the dawn of
tion received beliefs more freely, or assail thought down to the present hour, the ques
the established order more fearlessly, than tion as to the origin of knowledge has been
Coleridge in his fervent youth did. The the Sphinx's riddle to philosophers. This
convictions on politics and religion, there strange thing named thought, what is it?
fore, in which he ultimately rested, are enti This wondrous fabric we call knowledge,
tled to the weight, whatever it be, of having whence comes it? It is a web woven out of
been formed by one who all his life long something, but is it wholly or chiefly woven
sought truth from every quarter, not from from outward materials, or mainly wrought
within traditionary beliefs only, but for many by self-evolving powers from within : Or, if
years from without also ; and who, when his due to the combined action of these, what
thought had gone full circle, became con part does cach contribute? How much is
servative, if that word is to be applied to due to the raw material, how much to the
him, not from self-interest or expediency, or weaver who fashions it? These questions,
from weariness of thinking, but after ample even if they be insoluble, will never cease to
provoke the scrutiny of every new genera and systematized the materialistic views
tion of thoughtful men. There always have which were at that time floating about his
been a set of thinkers who have regarded university. Being, like Locke, a physician,
outward things as the fixed reality, which he imported into his system a much larger
impresses representations of itself on mind as amount of his professional knowledge, and
on a passive recipient. There have always ex sought to explain the movements of thought
isted also another set, who have held the by elaborate physiological theories. He held
mind to be a free creative energy, evolving that vibrations in the white medullary sub
from itself the laws of its own thinking, and stance of the brain are the immediate causes
stamping on outward things the forms which of sensation, and that these first vibrations
are inherent in its own constitution. The give birth to vibratiuncles or miniatures of
one have held that outward things are gene themselves, which are conceptions, or the
tic of knowledge, and that what are called simple ideas of sensible things. In another
laws of thought are wholly imposed on the point he differed from Locke, in that, dis
mind by qualities which belong essentially to carding Reflection, he brought more promi
outward things. The others have maintained nently forward Association, as the great
that it is the mind which is genetic, and that weaving power of the mental fabric, which
it in reality makes what it sees. This great compounds all our ideas, and gives birth to
question, as Mr. Mill has well said, “would all our faculties. Such theories as these
not so long have remained a question, if the were the chief philosophical aliment to be
more obvious arguments on either side had found in England when Coleridge was a
been unanswerable.” There must, however, young man. At Cambridge, having entered
be a point of view, if we could reach it, from Hartley's college, where the name of that
which these opposing tendencies of thought philosopher was still held in honour, Cole
shall be seen to combine into one harmoni ridge became his ardent disciple. In the
ous whole. But the man who shall achieve Religious Musings, after Milton and Newton,
this final synthesis, and the age which shall he speaks of Hartley as
witness it, are probably still far distant., Phi “He of mortal kind
losophic thought in Britain has in the main Wisest; the first who marked the ideal tribes
leant towards the external side, towards that
extreme which makes the mind out of the Up the fine fibres to the sentient brain.”
senses, and maintains experience to be the Materialistic though his system was, Hart
ultimate ground of all belief. This way of ley was himself a believer in Christianity,
thinking, so congenial to the prevailing Eng. and a religious man. His philosophical sys
lish temper of mind, dates from at least as tem came to be in high favour with Priestley
far back as Hobbes, but was first fairly esta and the Unitarians towards the end of last
blished, almost like a part of the British Con century; so that when Coleridge became a
stitution, by the famous essay of Locke. In Hartleian, he adopted Necessitarian views of
his polemic against innate ideas he asserted the will, and Unitarian tenets in religion. A
two sources of all knowledge. “Our obser Materialist, a Necessitarian, a Unitarian, such
vation,” he says, “employed either about ex was Coleridge during his Cambridge and
ternal sensible, or about the internal opera Bristol sojourn. But it was not possible that
tions of our minds perceived and reflected on he should be permanently holden of these
by ourselves, is that which supplies our un things. There were ideal lights and moral
derstandings with materials of thinking.” yearnings within him which would burst
The latter of these two sources, here some these bonds. The piece of divinity that was
what vaguely announced, was never very in him would not always do homage to Mate
strongly insisted on by Locke himself, and rialism.
was by his followers speedily discarded. This Before he visited Germany he had begun
development of Locke's system is seen most to awake out of his Hartleianism. It had
clearly in IIume, who divided all the mind's occurred to him that all association—Hart
furniture into impressions or lively percep ley's great instrument—“presupposes the ex
tions, as when we see, hear, hate, desire, istence of the thoughts and images to be
will; and ideas or faint perceptions, which associated.” In short, association cannot
are copies of our sensible or lively impres account for its own laws. All that associa
sions. So that with him all the materials of tion does is to use these laws, or latent
thought are derived from outward sense, or à priori forms, to wit, contiguity of time and
inward sentiment or emotion. place, resemblance, contrast, so as to bring
Contemporary with Hume, and like him a particular things under them. When two
follower of £ Hartley appeared at Cam things have been thus brought together
bridge, and carried out the same views to under one law—say contiguity in time—the
still more definite issues. He gathered up may get so connected in thought that it be
comes difficult to conceive them apart. But to exist as far as our knowledge extends.
it never can be impossible so to conceive This necessity to think a cause for every
them; that is, to separate them in thought. existence or event, a necessity which we can
Further, he began to see that the hypothesis not get rid of, forms the essential peculiarity
of all knowledge, being derived from sense, of the notion of causality; marking it out as
does not get rid of the need of a living intel a necessary form of thought, born from with
lectual mechanism, which makes these copies in, and not gathered from experience. That
from sensible impressions. His own illustra which is created by experience is strength
tion is, the existence of an original picture, ened by the same. But this belief that every
say Raphael's Transfiguration, does not ac event must have a cause, is one which, as
count for the existence of a copy of it; but soon as we have clearly comprehended the
rather the copyist must have put forth the terms, we feel to be inevitable. Experience,
same powers, and gone through the same no doubt, first brings this cognition out into
process, as the first painter did when he distinct consciousness; but as soon as we
made the original picture. Or take that reflect on it, we discover that it must have
instance, which is a kind of standing Hou been present as a constituent element of that
goumont to sensational and idealistic com very experience. Of causality, then, as of
batants, -we mean causality, or the belief time and space, it may be said, to adopt the
that every event must have a cause. Sensa language of an able young metaphysician,
tionalists, from Hume to Mr. Mill, have “themselves cognitions generalized from ex
laboured to derive this, the grand principle perience, and, in that point of view, later
of all inductive reasoning, from invariable than experience; they are discovered to have
experience. Mr. Mill's theory, the latest and been also elements of those very cognitions
most accredited from that side, thus explains of experience from which they have been
it. He says that we arrive, by simple enu generalized, present in them as constituent
meration of individual instances, first at one elements, undistinguished before analysis. . .
and then at another particular uniformity, till They are elements of any and every particu
we have collected a large number of such lar experience, entering into every one of
uniformities, or groups of cases in which the them as its necessary form.” Or, as Cole
law of causation holds good. From this col ridge put it, “Though first revealed to us by
lection of the more obvious particular uni experience, they must yet have pre-existed in
formities, in all of which the law of causation order to make experience itself possible;
holds, we generalize the universal law of even as the eye must exist previously to any
causation, or the belief that all things what particular act of seeing, though by sight only
ever have a cause; and then we proceed to can we know that we have eyes.” And
apply this law so generalized as an inductive again, “How can we make bricks without
instrument to discover those other particular straw, or build without cement? We learn
laws which go to make up itself, but which things, indeed, by occasion of experience;
have hitherto eluded our investigation. Thus, but the very facts so learned force us inward
according to this philosophy, we arrive at on the antecedents that must be presupposed
the universal law by generalizing from many in order to render experience itself possible.”
laws of inferior generality. But as these last These and suchlike thoughts were sure to
do not rest on rigid induction, but only on arise in a mind naturally so open to the
simple enumeration of instances, the universal 'idealistic side of thought as that of Cole
law cannot lay claim to any greater cogency ridge, and to shake to pieces the materialistic
than the inferior laws on which it rests. One fabric in which he had for a time ensconced
authenticated instance in which the law of himself. And not merely intellectual mis
causality does not hold may upset our belief givings would work this way, but the soul's
in the universal validity of that law; and deeper cravings. Driven by hunger of heart,
that there may be worlds in which it is so he wandered from the school of Locke and
upset-in which events succeed each other Hartley, successively on through those of
at random, and by no fixed law—Mr. Mill Berkeley, Leibnitz, and, we believe, Spinoza,
finds no difficulty in conceiving. But this is and finding in them no abiding place, began
really a reductio ad absurdum. This world to despair of philosophy. To this crisis of
of causeless disorder, which Mr. Mill finds no his history probably apply these words:
difficulty in conceiving, is simply inconceiv
able by any intelligence. If such a world broke “I found myself all afloat. Doubts rushed in,
upon me from the fountains of the great
were proved to exist, we should be compelled deep, and fell from the windows of heaven.
to believe that for this absence of order there
The fontal truths of natural religion and the
is a cause, or group of causes; just as we books of revelation alike contributed to the
know there is a cause, or group of causes, flood; and it was long eremy ‘ark touched on
for the presence of that order which we know an Ararat and rested.’”
About this time he fell in with the works bility he found in the & priori forms of the
of the German and other mystics—Tauler, sensory time and space, and in the a priori
Böhmen, George Fox, and William Law, and forms or categories of the understanding,
in them he found the same kind of help which by their activity bind together into
which Luther had found in Tauler — one the multifarious and otherwise unintelli
“The writings of these mystics acted in no gized intimations of sense. It is sense that
slight degree to prevent my mind from being supplies the understanding with the raw
imprisoned within the outline of any single dog material; this the understanding passes
matic system. They helped to keep alive the through its machinery, and, by virtue of its
heart within the head; gave me an indistinct inherent concept-forms, reduces it to order,
yet stirring and working presentiment that all makes it conceivable and intelligible. But
the products of the mere reflective faculty par the understanding is limited in its operation
took of death, and were as the rattling twigs to phenomena of experience, and whenever it
and sprays in winter, into which a sap was yet steps beyond this and applies its categories
to be propelled from some root to which I had
not as yet penetrated, if they were to afford my to super-sensible things, it lands itself in con
soul food or shelter. If they were a moving tradictions. It cannot arrive at any other
cloud of smoke to me by day, yet were they a truth than that which is valid within man's
pillar of fire throughout the night, during my experience. Ultimate truths, valid for all
wanderings through the wilderness of doubt, intelligents, if such there be, are beyond its
and enabled me to skirt, without crossing, the reach.
sandy deserts of utter unbelief.” Had Kant's philosophy stopped here it
It was in the company of these men that would not have done much more for Cole
he first got clear of the trammels of the mere ridge than Locke's and Hartley's had done.
understanding, and learned that there is It was because Kant asserted the existence in
higher truth than that faculty can compass man of another faculty, distinct from and
and circumscribe. The learned seemed to higher than understanding, namely, Reason,
him for several generations to have walked that Coleridge found him so helpful. The
entirely by the light of this mere understand term Reason Kant employed in another than
ing, and to have confined their investigations our ordinary sense, as the faculty of ultimate
strictly within certain conventional limits, truths or necessary principles. He distin
beyond which lay all that is most interesting guished, however, between reason in its spe
and vital to man. To enthusiasts, illiterate culative and in its practical use. Speculative
and simple men of heart, they left it to pene Reason he held to be exclusively a regulative
trate towards the inmost centre, “the indwell faculty, having only a formal and logical use.
ing and living ground of all things.” And This use is to connect our judgments toge
then he came to this conviction, which he ther into conclusions, according to the three
never afterwards abandoned, that if the intel forms of reasoning,-the categorical, the hy
lect will not acknowledge a higher and deeper pothetical, and the disjunctive. These three
ground than it contains within itself, if, mak methods are the ideas of Speculative Reason
ing itself the centre of its system, it seeks to by which it strives to produce unity and per
square all things by its own laws, it must, if fectness among the judgments of the under
it follows out fearlessly its own reasoning, standing. As long as the ideas of Speculative
land in Pantheism or some form of blank Reason are thus used to control and bring
unbelief. While his mind was secthing with into unity the conceptions of the discursive
these thoughts it was that he first studied understanding, they are used rightly, and
the works of Kant, and these, he says, took within their own legitimate sphere. But
possession of him as with a giant's hand. whenever Speculative Reason tries to elevate
Henceforth his metaphysical creed was these regulative ideas into objects of theo
moulded mainly by the Kantian principles. retical knowledge, whenever it ascribes ob
This is not the place to attempt to enter on jective truth to these ideas, it leads to con
the slightest exposition of these. But, to tradiction and falsehood. In other words,
speak popularly, it may be said that the gist Speculative Reason Kant held to be true in its
of Kant's system is not to make the mind out formal or logical, but false in its material ap
of the senses, as Hume had done, but the plication. As the understanding, with its
senses out of the mind. As Locke and Hume categories, has for its object and only legiti
had started from withont, so he started from mate sphere the world of sense, so Specula
within, making the one fixed truth, the only tive Reason, with its ideas, has for its exclu
ground of reality, to consist, not in that which sive sphere of operation the conceptions of
the senses furnish, but in that which the the understanding, and beyond this these
understanding supplies to make sensible ideas have no truth nor validity. It was not,
knowledge possible. His prime question was, however, by these views, either of under
How is experience possible ! And this possi standing or of Speculative Reason, that Kant
came to the help of the highest interests of a personal property of any human mind.”
humanity, but by his assertion of the exist We cannot be said to possess Reason, but
ence in man of the Practical Reason which is rather to partake of it; for there is but one
the inlet or source of our belief in moral and Reason, which is shared by all intelligent
super-sensuous truth. Some have maintained beings, and is in itself the Universal or
this to be an afterthought added to Kant's Supreme Reason. “He in whom Reason
system. But, be this as it may, Kant held dwells can as little appropriate it as his own
that the moral law revealed itself to man as possession, as he can claim ownership in the
a reality through his Practical Reason—a breathing air, or make an enclosure in the
law not to be gathered from experience, but cope of heaven.” Again, he says of Reason,
to be received as the fundamental principle that “it has been said to be more like to
of action for man, evidencing itself by its own sense than to understanding; but in this it
light. This moral law requires for its action differs from sense: the bodily senses have
the truth of three ideas, that of the soul, of objects differing from themselves; Reason,
immortality, and of God. These ideas are the organ of spiritual apprehension, has ob
the postulates of the practical reason, and are jects consubstantial with itself, being itself
true and certain, because, if they are denied, its own object, —that is, self-contemplative.”
morality and free-will, man's highest certain And again, “Reason substantiated and vital,
ties, become impossible. They are, however, one only, yet manifold, overseeing all, and
to man truths of moral certainty—of prac going through all understanding, without
tical faith—though Kant did not use that being either the sense, the understanding, or
word, rather than objects of theoretical con the imagination, contains all three within
templation. itself, even as the mind contains its own
This distinction between the understanding thoughts, and is present in and through them
and the Reason Coleridge adopted from Kant, all; or as the expression pervades the dif
and made the ground-work of all his teach ferent features of an intelligent countenance.”
ing. But the distinction between Speculative In much of the above, Coleridge has not
and Practical Reason, which was with Kant only gone beyond Kant's cautious handling
radical, Coleridge did not dwell on, nor bring of Practical Reason, but has given to the Ger
into prominence. He knew and so far recog man's philosophical language a religious, and
nised Kant's distinction, that he spoke of even a Biblical colouring of his own. Nay,
Speculative Reason as the faculty of concluding in regarding Reason as the power of intuitive
universal and necessary truths, from particular insight into moral and spiritual truths, he has
and contingent appearances, and of Practical approached nearer to some of the German
Reason, as the power of proposing an ulti philosophers who came after Kant. Though
mate end, that is, of determining the will by Coleridge made so much of this distinction
ideas. He does not, however, seem to have between Reason and understanding, and of
held by it firmly. Rather he threw himself Reason as the organ of spiritual truth, and
on Kant's view of Practical Reason, and car though throughout his later works he is con
ried it out with a fulness which Kant pro tinually and at length insisting on it, he
bably would have disallowed. Kant's strong cannot be said to have made it secure against
assertion that there was at least one region all the technical objections. It would be
of his being in which man came into contact impossible here to follow him into all the
with super-sensible truth, with the reality of ramifications of this abstruse subject, and to
things, this, set forth not vaguely, but with show minutely the relation in which he
the most solid reasoning, was that which so placed Reason to understanding. We may,
attracted Coleridge. But in the use which however, notice one scoff against the whole
Coleridge made of this power, and the range system. It has been represented as a device
he assigned it, he went much beyond his to enable a man to believe that what is false
master. He speaks of Reason as an imme to his understanding may be true to his
diate beholding of super-sensible things, as Reason. This, though it may be a smart
the eye which sees truths transcending sense. sneer, is nothing more. What Coleridge did
He identifies Reason in the human mind, as maintain was that the material of moral and
Kant perhaps would have done, with Uni spiritual truth which comes to man through
versal Reason; calls it impersonal; indeed, his Reason, must, before it can be reduced to
regards it as a ray of the Divinity in man. definite conceptions and expressed in propo
In one place he makes it one with the Light sitions, first pass through the forms of the
which lighteth every man, and in another he understanding. In so passing, the truths of
says that Reason is “the presence of the Holy Reason and the moral will suffer some loss,
Spirit to the finite understanding, at once thebecause the conceptions of the understanding
light and the inward eye.” “It cannot be are not adequate to give full expression to
rightly called a faculty,” he says, “much less them; so that it was to him no argument
against a truth whose source lies in Reason, When Coleridge had made his own the
if, in passing through the understanding, or distinction between reason and understand
being reduced to logical language, it issued ing, he found in it not only a key to many
in propositions which seem illogical, or even of the moral and religious questions which
contradictory. And what more is this than had perplexed himself, and were working
to say that man's logical understanding is not confusion among his contemporaries, but he
the measure of all truth? a doctrine surely seemed to find in it a truth, which, however
which did not originate with Coleridge. But unsystematically, had been held and built on
whatever difficulties there may be in this by all the masters of ancient wisdom, whe
philosophy of the reason, it is an attempt to ther in philosophy or theology. Especially
vindicate and sanction those truths which lie he seemed to see this truth pervading the
deepest, and are most vital to human nature. writings of the Cambridge Platonists, of
Questions are continually rising within us, Leighton, and of all the best divines of the
whether born of our own thoughts or im seventeenth century.
ported from intellectual systems, asking anx A good example of the way in which
iously whether any thought of man can reach Coleridge applied his metaphysical princi
to spiritual realities. The mind is continu ples to philosophic questions, will be found
ally getting entangled in a self-woven mesh in the Essays on Method, in the third volume
of sophistry. It is the highest end of all phi of The Friend. He there attempts to re
losophy to clear away these difficulties which concile Plato's view of the Idea as lying at
philosophy has itself engendered, and to let the ground of all investigation with Bacon's
the mind look out on the truth as uncloud philosophy of induction, and to prove that,
edly as it did before these sophistications though they worked from opposite ends of
arose; to give back to the race the simpli the problem, they are not really opposed.
city of its childhood, with the wisdom of its In all inductive investigations, Coleridge
mature age. Of most metaphysicians, first contends, the mind must contribute some
and last, the main work has been to build up thing, the mental initiative, the prudens
between the spirit of man and the Father of quaestio, the idea; and this, when tested or
spirits solid walls and high, which no human proved by rigorous scientific processes, is
strength can pierce through, no eye can over found to be a law of nature. What in the
look. To break down and clear away these mind of the discoverer is a prophetic idea, is
walls, which others with such pains had found in nature to be a law, and the one
reared, this was the ultimate aim and end answers, and is akin to, the other. What
towards which Coleridge laboured. Herein Coleridge has there said of the mental initia
lies the great service which he did to his age tive which lies at the foundation of induc
and country. He was almost the first phi. tion, Dr. Whewell has taken up and argued
losopher for a hundred and fifty years, who out at length in his works on Induction.
upheld a metaphysics which was in harmony Mr. Mill has as stoutly redargued it from his
at once with the best wisdom of the olden own point of view, and their polemic still
time, and with man's deepest aspirations in waits a solution. But we must pass from
all time. It was a thorough and profound these pure metaphysical problems to notice
protest against the philosophy judging ac some of the ways in which Coleridge applied
cording to sense, with which England, and, his principles to moral and religious ques
pace Reid be it said, Scotland too, had so long tions.
been deluged. It opened up once more a In the Literary Remains there is a re
free passage for man's thoughts to that higher markable essay on Faith, which contains a
world of truth which philosophy had so long suggestive application of these principles.
barred against them; opened up to the Faith he defines to be fealty or fidelity to
human spirit a path which it might travel, that part of our being which cannot become
undisturbed by technical objections of the an object of the senses; to that in us which
understanding, toward that spiritual region is highest, and is alone unconditionally im
which is its natural home. Man's deepest perative. What is this? Every man is con
heart, his inmost being, from depths beyond scious of something within him which tells
all conscious thought, cry out for such access. him he ought, which commands him, to do
And it is the business of a true philosophy, to others as he would they should do to him.
not, as has been often done, to bar the way Of this he is as assured as he is that he sees
and to break down the bridges that span the and hears; only with this difference, that the
gulfs, but cautiously, yet resolutely, to make senses act independently of the will. The
ready a way by which the weary hearts of conscience is essentially connected with the
men may pass over in safety. Honour be to will. We can, if we will, refuse to listen to
the spiritual engineers who have laboured to it. The listening or the not-listening to
build up such a highway for humanity conscience is the first moral act by which a.
man takes upon him or refuses allegiance to he exclaims; “merely the referring of the
a power higher than himself, yet speaking mind to its own consciousness for truths
within himself. Now, what is this in each which are indispensable to its own happi
man, higher than himself, yet speaking with ness.” Of this any one may be convinced
in him # It is Reason, super sensuous, im who shall read with care his Friend or his
personal, the representative in man of the Lay Sermons. One great source of the
will of God, and demanding the allegiance difficulty, or, as some might call it, the con
of the individual will. Faith, then, is fealty fusedness of these works, is the rush and
to this rightful superior; “allegiance of the throng of human interests with which they
moral nature to Universal Reason, or the are filled. If he discusses the ideas of the
will of God; in opposition to all usurpation Reason, or any other like abstract subject, it
of appetite, of sensible objects, of the finite is because he feels its vital bearing on some
understanding,” of affection to others, or truth of politics, morality, or religion, the
even the purest love of the creature. And clear understanding of which concerns the
conscience is the inward witness to the pre common weal. And here is one of his
sence in us of the divine ray of reason, “the strongest mental peculiarities, which has
irradiative power, the representative of the made many censure him as unintelligible.
Infinite.” An approving conscience is the His eye flashed with a lightning glance from
sense of harmony of the personal will of the most abstract truth to the minutest prac
man with that impersonal light which is in tical detail, and back again from this to
him, representative of the will of God. A the abstract principle. This makes that,
condemning conscience is the sense of dis when once his mental powers begin to work,
cord or contrariety between these two. their movements are on a vastness of scale,
Faith, then, consists in the union and inter and with a many-sidedness of view, which,
penetration of the Reason and the indivi if they render him hard to follow, make him
dual will. Since our will and moral nature also stimulative and suggestive of thought
enter into it, faith must be a continuous and beyond all other modern writers.
total energy of the whole man. Since rea When Coleridge first began to speculate,
son enters into it, faith must be a light—a the sovereignty of Locke and his followers
seeing, a beholding of truth. Hence faith in English Metaphysics was not more su
is a spiritual act of the whole being; it is preme than that of Paley in Moral Philoso
“the source and germ of the fidelity of man phy. Both were Englishmen of the round,
to God, by the entire subjugation of the robust English stamp, haters of subtilties,
human will to Reason, as the representative abhorrent of idealism, resolute to warn off
in him of the divine will.” Such is a con any ghost of scholasticism from the domain
densation, nearly in Coleridge's own words, of common-sense philosophy. And yet both
of the substance of that essay. Hard words had to lay down dogmatic decisions on sub
and repulsive these may seem to some, who jects into which, despite the burliest common
feel it painful to analyse the faith they live sense, things infinite and spiritual will in
by. And no doubt the simple, childlike trude. How resolute was Coleridge's pole
apprehension of the things of faith is better mic against Locke and all his school we
and more blessed than all philosophizing have seen. Not less vigorous was his pro
about them. They who have good health test against Paley as a moralist, and that at
and light breathing, whose system is so sound a time when few voices were raised against
that they know not they have a system, have the common-sense Dean.
little turn for disquisitions on health and For completely rounded moral systems
respiration. But, just as sickness and dis Coleridge indeed professed little respect,
ease have compelled men to study the bodily ranking them for utility with systems of
framework, so doubt and mental entangle casuistry or auricular confession. But of
ment have forced men to go into these ab vital principles of morality, penetrating to
struse questions, in order to meet the philo the quick, few men's writings are more fruitful.
sophy of denial with a counter philosophy A standing butt for Coleridge's shafts was
of faith. The philosophy is not faith, but it Paley's well-known definition of virtue as
may help to clear away sophistications that “the doing of good to mankind, in obedience
stand in the way of it. to the will of God, and for the sake of ever
For entering into speculations of this kind, lasting happiness.” Or, as Paley has else
Coleridge has been branded as a transcen where more broadly laid down the same
dentalist, a word with many of hideous im principle, “we are obliged to do nothing
port. But abstruse and wide of practice as but what we ourselves are to gain or lose
these speculations may seem, it was for prac something by, for nothing else can be a vio
tical behoof mainly that Coleridge under lent motive.” Against this substitution, as
took them. “What are my metaphysics?” he called it, of a scheme of selfish prudence
for moral virtue, Coleridge was never weary of the agent but of the action, Coleridge
of raising his voice. Morality, as he con would reply, that all actions have their
tended, arises out of the Reason and con whole worth and main value from the moral
science of man; prudence out of the under principle which actuates the agent. So that,
standing, and the natural wants and desires if it could be shown that two men, one act
of the individual; and though prudence is ing from enlightened self-love, the other
the worthy servant of morality, the master from pure Christian principle, would observe
and the servant cannot rightly be confound towards all their neighbours throughout life
ed. The chapter in The Friend, in which exactly the same course of outward conduct,
he argues against the Utilitarian system of yet these two, weighed in a true moral
ethics, and proves that general consequences balance, would be wide as the poles asunder.
cannot be the criterion of the right and By these and suchlike arguments Coleridge
wrong of particular actions, is one of the opposes the Paleyan and every other form of
best-reasoned and most valuable which that Utilitarian ethics. Instead of confounding
work contains. The following are some of morality with prudence, he everywhere bases
the arguments with which he contends morality on religion. “The widest maxims
against “the inadequacy of the principle of of prudence,” he asserts, “are arms without
general consequences as a criterion of right hearts, when disjointed from those feelings
and wrong, and its utter uselessness as a which have their fountain in a living princi
moral guide.” Such a criterion is vague and ple.” That principle lies in the common
illusory, for it depends on each man's notion ground where morality and religion meet,
of happiness, and no two men have exactly and from which neither can be sundered
the same notion. And even if men were without destruction to both. The moral
agreed as to what constitutes the end, name law, every man feels, has a universality and
ly, happiness, the power of calculating con an imperativeness far transcending the widest
sequences, and the foresight needed to secure maxims of experience; and this because it
the means to the end, are just that in which has its origin in Reason, as described above,
men most differ. But morality ought to be in that in each man which is representative
grounded on that part of their nature, of the Divine Will, and connects him there
namely, their moral convictions, in which with. Out of Reason, not from experience,
men are most alike, not on the calculating all pure principles of morality spring, and in
understanding, in which they stand most it find their sanction. This truth Coleridge
widely apart. Again, such a criterion con reiterated in every variety of form.
founds morality, which looks to the inward But while he is thus strong in placing the
motive, with law, which regards only the foundation of individual morality in Reason,
outward act. Indeed, the need of a judg in his sense of that word, he repudiates those
ment of actions according to the inward theories which would draw from the same
motive, forms one of the strongest arguments source the first principles of political govern
for a future state. For in this world our ment. In opposition to these theories, he
outward actions, apart from their motives, held that each form of government is suffi
must needs determine our temporal welfare. ciently justified, when it can be shown that it
But the moral nature longs for, and Scrip is suitable for the circumstances of the par
ture reveals, a more perfect judgment to ticular nation. Therefore no one form of
come, wherein not the outward act but the government can lay claim to be the sole
inward principle, the thoughts and intents ofrightful one. Thus to prudence or expedi
the heart, shall be made the ground of judg ency Coleridge assigns a place in political
ment. Again, this criterion is illusory, be questions which he denies to it in moral ones.
cause evil actions are often turned to good Full of power is his whole argument against
by that Providence which brings good out of Rousseau, Paine, and others of that day, who
evil. If then, consequences were the sole or maintained the social contract and the rights
of man, and, laying the grounds of political
chief criterion, then these evil actions ought
to be, because of their results, reckoned right exclusively in Reason, held that no
good. Nero persecuted the Christians and thing was rightful in civil society which
so spread Christianity: is he to be credited could not be deduced from the primary laws
with this good result? Again, to form a of reason. “Who,” asked Rousseau, “shall
notion of the nature of an action multiplied dare prescribe a law of moral action for any
indefinitely into the future, we must first rational being, considered as a member of a
know the nature of the original action itself. state, which does not flow immediately from
And if we already know this, what need of that reason which is the fountain of all mo
testing it by its remote consequences? If rality?” Whereto Coleridge replies, Morali
against these arguments it were urged that ty looks not to the outward act, but to the
general consequences are the criterion, not internal maxim of actions. But politics look
solely to the outward act. The end of good Remains. Before, however, adverting to
government is to regulate the actions of par these opinions, it may be well to remember,
ticular bodies of men, as shall be most expe that, much as Coleridge thought and reason
dient under given circumstances. How, ed on religion, it was his firm conviction,
then, can the same principle be employed to founded on experience, that the way to an
test the expediency of political rules and the assured faith, that faith which gives life and
purity of inward motives? He then goes on peace, is not to be won by dint of argument.
to show that when Rousseau asserted that “Evidences of Christianity I am weary of
every human being possessed of Reason had the word. Make a man feel the want of it;
in him an inalienable sovereignty, he applied rouse him, if you can, to the self-knowledge
to actual man-compassed about with pas of the need of it, and you may safely trust it
sions, errors, vices, and infirmities—what is to its own evidence, remembering always the
true of the abstract Reason alone; that all express declaration of Christ himself; “No
he asserted of “that sovereign will, to which man cometh to me, unless the Father leadeth
the right of legislation belongs, applies to no him.’” So it was with himself. Much as he
human being, to no assemblage of human be. philosophized, philosophy was not his soul's
ings, least of all to the mixed multitude that haven, not thence did his help come. It
makes up the people; but entirely and exclu may have cleared away outlying hindrances,
sively to Reason itself, which, it is true, but it was not this that led him up to the
dwells in every man potentially, but actually stronghold of hope. Through the wounds
and in perfect purity in no man, and in no made in his own spirit, through the broken
body of men.” And this reasoning he ness of a heart humbled and made contrite
clinches by an instance and argument, often by the experience of his own sin and utter
since repeated, though we know not whether helplessness, entered in the faith which gave
Coleridge was the first to employ it. He rest, the peace which “settles where the in
shows that the constituent assembly of tellect is meek.” Once his soul had reached
France, whenever they tried to act out these the citadel, his ever-busy eye and penetrating
principles of pure Reason, were forced to con spirit surveyed the nature of the bulwarks,
travene them. They excluded from political and examined the foundations, as few before
power children, though reasonable beings, had done. And the world has the benefit,
because in them Reason is imperfect; women, whatever it may be, of these surveys. But
because they are dependent. But is there though Coleridge was a religious philosopher,
not more of Reason in many women, and let it not be supposed that he put more store
even in some children, than in men depen by the philosophy than the religion. He
dent for livelihood on the will of others, the knew well, and often insisted, that religion is
very poor, the infirm of mind, the ignorant, life rather than science, and that there is a
the depraved? . . Some reasonable beings must danger, peculiar to the intellectual man, of
be disfranchised. It comes then to a question tnrning into speculation what was given to
of degrees. And how are degrees to be de live by. He knew that the intellect, busy
termined ? Not by pure reason, but by rules with ideas about God, may not only fail to
of expedience, founded on present observation bring a man nearer the divine life, but may
and past experience. But the whole of Cole actually tend to withdraw him from it. For
ridge's reasoning against Rousseau and Cart the intellect takes in but the phantom of the
wright's universal suffrage is well worth the truth, and leaves the total impression, the full
attention of those advanced thinkers of the power of it, unappropriated. And hence it
present day, who are beginning once again, comes that those truths which, if felt by the
after a lapse of half a century, to argue unlearned at all, go straight to the heart and
about political rights on grounds of abstract are taken in by the whole man, are apt, in the
reason. They will there find, if they care to case of the philosopher and the theologian, to
see it, the whole question placed not on tem stop at the outside region of the understand
£y arguments, but on permanent princi ing, and never to get further. This is a dan
CS.
ger peculiar to the learned, or to those who
But keen as was Coleridge's interest in po think themselves such. The trained intellect
litical and moral subjects, and in whatever is apt to eat out the child's heart, and yet the
affects the wellbeing of man, the full bent of “except ye become as little children” stand
his soul, and its deepest meditations, were unrepealed. Coleridge knew this well. In
given to the truths of the Christian revela his earliest interview with De Quincey, he said
tion. From none of his works are these
“that prayer with the whole soul was the
thoughts absent; but the fullest exposition of highest energy of which the human heart was
his religious views is to be found in the Aids capable, and that the great mass of worldly men,
to Reflection, his maturest work, and in the and of learned men, were absolutely incapable
third and fourth volumes of the Literary of prayer.”
And only two years before his death, after a “Because I possess Reason, or a law of right
retrospect of his own life, to his nephew, who and wrong, which, uniting with the sense of
sat by his bedside one afternoon, he said, moral responsibility, constitutes my conscience,
hence it is my absolute duty to believe, and I
“‘I have no difficulty in forgiveness. . . . do believe, that there is a God, that is, a Being in
Neither do I find or reckon the most solemn whom supreme Reason and a most holy will
faith in God as a real object the most arduous are one with infinite power; and that all holy
act of reason and will. O no l it is to pray, to will is coincident with the will of God, and
pray as God would have us; this is what at therefore secure in its ultimate consequences by
times makes me turn cold to my soul. Believe His omnipotence. The wonderful works of
me, to pray with all your heart and strength, God in the sensible would are a perpetual dis
with the reason and the will, to believe vividly course, reminding me of His existence, and
that God will listen to your voice through shadowing out to me His perfections. But as
Christ, and verily do the thing He pleaseth all language presupposes, in the intelligent
thereupon—this is the last, the greatest achieve hearer or reader, those primary notions which
ment of a Christian's warfare on earth.' And it symbolizes, . . . even so, I believe, that the
then he burst into tears, and begged me to pray notion of God is essential to the human mind;
for him.” -
that it is called forth into distinct consciousness
It has been said that the great object of hisprincipally by the conscience, and auxiliarily by
theological speculations was to bring into the manifest adaptation of means to ends in
the outward creation. It is, therefore, evident
harmony religion and philosophy. This to my Reason, that the existence of God is
assertion would mislead, if it were meant to im absolutely and necessarily insusceptible of a
ply that he regarded these as two co-ordinate scientific demonstration, and that Scripture so
powers, which could be welded together into represents it. For it commands us to believe
one reasoned system. It would, perhaps, be in one God. Now all commandment necessa
more true to say that his endeavour was, in rily relates to the will; whereas all scientific
his own words, to remove the doubts and demonstration is independent of the will, and is
difficulties that cannot but arise whenever demonstrative only in so far as it is compulsory
on the mind, volentem nolentem.”
the understanding, the mind of the flesh, is
made the measure of spiritual things. He Thus we see that with regard to the first
laboured to remove religion from a merely truth of all religion, Coleridge places its
mechanical or intellectual, and to place it on evidence in conscience and the intuitive
a moral and spiritual foundation. His real reason. Carrying the same manner of think
aim was, notwithstanding that his love for ing into revealed religion, to its inherent
scholastic distinction might seem to imply substance he gave the foremost place as
the contrary, to simplify men's thoughts on evidence, while to historical proofs and
these things, to show that spiritual truth is arguments from miracles he assigned the
like the light, self-evidencing, that it is pre same subordinate place, as in reference to
conformed to man's higher nature, as man's the existence of God he assigned to argu
nature is preconformed to it. ments from design. -
As he had to contend against Lockeian His view upon this subject also had better
metaphysics and Paleyan ethics, so he had to be given in his own language. It could hardly
do strenuous battle against a theology mainly be expressed in fewer, and certainly not in
mechanical. He woke upon an age when better words. The main evidences, he thinks,
the belief in God was enforced in the schools are :
as the conclusion of a lengthened argument; “the doctrines of Christianity, and the corres
when revelation was proved exclusively by pondence of human nature to these doctrines,
miracles, with little regard to its intrinsic illustrated, first, historically, as the production
evidence; and when both natural and re of a new world, and the dependence of the
vealed truths were superinduced from with fate of the planet upon it; second, individually,
out, as extraneous, extra-moral beliefs, rather from its appeal to an ascertained fact, the truth
of which every man possessing Reason has an
than taught as living faiths evidenced from equal power of ascertaining within himself;
within. In opposition to this kind of teach viz., a will, which has more or less lost its own
ing, which had so long reigned, Coleridge freedom, though not the consciousness that it
taught that the foundation truth of all reli ought to be and may become free; the convic
gion, faith in the existence of God, was in tion that this cannot be achieved without the
capable of intellectual demonstration—that as operation of a principle co-natural with itself;
the experience in his own nature of the truth of
all religion, so this corner-stone of religion,
must have a moral origin. To him that the process described by Scripture, as far as he
belief was inherent in the soul, as Reason is can place himself with n the process, aided by
the confident assurances of others as to the effects
inherent, indeed a part of Reason, in the experienced by them, and which he is striving to
sense he gave to that word, as moral in its arrive at. All these form a practical Christian.
nature, and the fountain of moral truth. His To such a man one main test of the truth of his
words are— faith is its accompaniment by a growing insight
into the moral beauty and necessity of the pro ridge's religious opinions with which he
cess which it comprises, and the dependence of closes his essay, has asserted that he “goes as
that process on the causes asserted. Believe, far as the Unitarians in making man's reason
and if thy belief be right, that insight, which and moral feelings a test of revelation; but
changes faith into knowledge, will be the reward
of that belief.” differs toto coelo from them in their rejection
of its mysteries, which he regards as the
Subordinate to this internal evidence in highest philosophical truths.” It would be
Coleridge's view, buttresses, but not corner strange, indeed, if Coleridge, who certainly
stones, are the facts of the existence and of ought to have known both his own views and
the history of Christianity, and also of the those of the Unitarians, should have so far
miracles which accompanied its first appear deluded himself as to protest against them
ance. These are necessary results, rather unweariedly for this very fault, that they
than primary proofs of revelation. For, “as made man the measure of all things, while in
the result of the above convictions, he will this matter he himself was substantially at
not scruple to receive the particular miracles one with them. The truth is, that those
recorded, inasmuch as it is miraculous that an who speak most strongly about reason being
incarnate God should not work what must to the measure of faith, mean by the word
mere men appear as miracles; inasmuch as it Reason much the same as Coleridge meant
is strictly accordant with the ends and be by Understanding—the faculty of definite
nevolent nature of such a Being to com conceptions, the power of clearly compre
mence the elevation of man above his mere hending truths. And in their mouths the
senses by enforcing attention first, through an proposition means that nothing is to be be
appeal to those senses.” Thus, according to lieved in religion, or anything else, which
him, they are not the adequate and ultimate man's understanding cannot fully grasp,
proof of religion, not the keystone of the clearly conceive, definitely express, satisfac
arch, but rather “compacting stones in it, torily explain. Now Coleridge used the term
which give while they receive strength.” Reason in a sense different, nay, opposed to
Coleridge's theology was more or less a re this. He held, whether rightly or no we do.
coil from one in which miracles had been not now inquire, but he held, that there
pushed into undue, almost exclusive promi is in man a power of apprehending universal
nence, one in which the proof of religion was spiritual truths, something that brings him
derived mainly from the outward senses; into close relation, we had almost said con
whereas he was convinced that to subjugate tact, with supersensible reality, and to this
the senses to faith, the passive belief to the power he gave the name of Reason. And the
moral and responsible belief, was one main intimations of moral and spiritual things,
end of all religion. Whether Coleridge which he believed that he received through
struck the balance aright between outward this power, he accepted readily, though he
and inward evidence, whether he gave to could not understand nor explain them, nor
miracles that place which is their due ; even conceive the possibility of them. Even
whether, in his zeal for the inward truths, he with regard to the first truth of religion, the
estimated as they deserve the miraculous facts, existence, personality, and moral nature of
which, whatever they may be to some over God, he held that this is to be received on
subtilized intellects, have been, and always moral grounds, and regarded as a settled truth
must be, to the great mass of men, the main “not by the removal of all difficulties, or by
objective basis on which the spiritual truths any such increase of insight as enables a man
repose, these are questions into which we to meet all sceptical objections with a full
shall not now inquire. Our aim, especially and precise answer; but because he has con
in this part of our essay, is not so much to vinced himself that it is folly as well as pre
criticise, as to set forth, as fairly as may be, sumption to expect it; and because the doubts.
what his views really were. and difficulties disappear at the beam when
We have seen then that Coleridge held tried against the weight of the reasons in the
the adaptation of Christianity to man's need, other scale.” Again, of the fall of man, he says.
and to his whole moral nature, to be the that it is a mystery too profound for human
strongest evidence of its truth. And this insight; and of the doctrine of the Trinity,
naturally suggests the question, How far did that it is an absolute truth, transcending our
he regard man's moral convictions to be the human means of understanding or demonstrat
test of revelation as a whole, or of any par ing it. These, and numerous other suchlike
ticular doctrine of revelation ? Did he wish sayings might be adduced, not to speak of
to square down the truths of revelation to the whole scope of his philosophy, to show
the findings of human conscience? To an that it was no obstacle to his belief in a truth,
swer this question is the more necessary, be that it transcended his comprehension. Nay,
cause Mr. Mill, in the few remarks on Cole more, so far was he from desiring to bring
VOL. XLIII. N-11
162 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Dec.
down all religious truths to the level of human any moral standard of ours. All that the
comprehension, that he everywhere enforced moral judgment has a right to say to them is
it as a thing antecedently to be expected, that to refuse to believe any proposed interpreta
the fundamental truths should be mysteries, tion of them which contradicts the plain laws
and that he would have found it hard to be of right and wrong, any interpretation which
lieve them if they had not been so. makes God unrighteous on account of such
What then did he mean when he main facts, and to wait patiently in full faith that
tained, as he certainly did, that “in no case a time will come when we shall see these
can true Reason and a right faith oppose each now inscrutable facts to have been fully con
other?” We have seen that Reason with Cole sistent with the most perfect righteousness.
ridge was the link by which man is joined on And the same use which we make of our moral
to a higher order, the source whence he draws judgment in regard to the facts that meet us
in all of moral truth and of religious sentiment in life, we are bound to make of it with re
which he possesses. It was the harmony of gard to the doctrines of revelation. We are
revelation with this faculty of apprehending not to expect to see moral light through all
universal spiritual truths which was to him of these, but we are to refuse any interpreta
the main ground for originally believing in tion of them which does violence to the
revelation, and, therefore, he held that no moral sense. In both cases, however, we
particular doctrine of revelation can contra have reason to expect that, to those who
dict the findings of that faculty on the evi honestly and humbly use the light they have,
dence of which revelation as a whole is more light will be given,—a growing insight,
primarily received. In other words, no view or, at least, a trustful acquiescence in facts
of God's nature and of his dealings with men, which at first were too dark and perplexing.
no interpretation of any doctrine, nor of any There are in this region two extremes, equally
text of Scripture, can be true, which contra to be shunned. One is theirs, who in matters
dicts the clear intimations of enlightened con of religion begin by discrediting the natural
science. And the substance of revelation light, —by putting out the eye of conscience,
and the dictates of conscience so answer to —that they may the more magnify the
each other, that the religious student, under heavenly light of revelation, or rather their
the guidance of the Divine Spirit, may ex own interpretations thereof. The other is
pect to find an ever increasing harmony seen in those, who enthroning on the judg
between the two teachings. Opposed to this ment-seat the first off hand findings of their
doctrine of Coleridge, on the one hand, is own, and that perhaps no very enlightened,
the teaching of those who, believing in reve conscience, proceed to arraign before this bar
lation, deny to man any power of appre the statements of Scripture, and to reject all
hending spiritual truths, and hold that the those which do not seem to square with the
t first truths of religion must be received simply verdicts of the self-erected tribunal. There
as authoritative data from without. Equally is a more excellent way than either of these,
opposed, on the other hand, are the views of a way not definable perhaps by criticism, but
those who, though admitting in some sense to be found by spiritual wisdom. There are
the truth of revelation, yet make man's power those who, loath to do violence to the teach
of understanding the entire measure of all ings either of Scripture or of conscience, but
that is to be received as revealed. The creed patiently and reverently comparing them
which is bounded either theoretically or together, find that the more deeply they are
practically within this limit must needs be a considered, the more do they, on the whole,
scanty one. reflect light one on the other. To such the
The truth seems to be that, both in the words of Scripture, interpreted by the ex
things of natural and revealed religion, the perience of life, reveal things about their own
test that lies in man's moral judgment seems nature, which once seemed incredible. And
more of a negative than a positive one. We the more they know of themselves and their
are not to believe about God anything which own needs, the more the words of Scripture
positively contradicts our first notions of seem to enlarge their meaning to meet these.
righteousness and goodness, for, if we were to But as to the large outlying region of the
do so, we should cut away the original inexplicable that will still remain in the
moral ground of our belief in His existence world, in man, and in Holy Writ, they can
and character. Thus far our moral judg leave all this, in full confidence that when the
ments carry us, but not much further. No solution, soon or late, shall come, it will be
rational man who believes in God at all will seen to be in profound harmony with our
try to square all the facts that meet him in highest sense of righteousness, and with
the natural and the moral world to his sense that word which declares that “God is
of right and wrong. Life is full of inscrutable light, and in him is no darkness at all.”
facts which cannot be made by us to fit into Such, though not expressed in Coleridge's
1865. Samuel Taylor Coleridge. I63
words, we believe to be the spirit of his power, having the original ground of its own
teaching. determination in itself; and if subject to any
What then is to be said of those passages cause from without, such cause must have
in his works in which he speaks of the mys acquired this power of determining the will,
teries of faith, and the highest truths of phi by a previous determination of the will itself.
losophy, as coincident; in which he says that This is the very essence of a will. And
he received the doctrine of the Logos not herein it is contradistinguished from nature,
merely on authority, but because of its to whose essence it is to be unable to originate
him exceeding reasonableness; in which he anything, but to be bound by the mecha
speaks as if he had an intellectual insight nism of cause and effect. If the will has
into the doctrine of the Trinity, and draws by its own act subjected itself to nature,
out formulas of it in strange words hard to has received into itself from nature an alien
understand ' Whatever we may think of influence which has curtailed its freedom, in
these sayings and formulas, it is to be re so far as it has done so, it has corrupted itself.
membered that Coleridge never pretended This is original sin, or sin originating in the
that he could have discovered the truths only region in which it can originate—the
apart from revelation. If, after practically Will. This is a fall of man.
accepting these truths, and finding in them You ask, When did this fall take place?
the spiritual supports of his soul, he employed Has the will of each man chosen evil for itself;
his powers of thought upon them, and drew and, if so, when? To this Coleridge would
them out into intellectual formulas more reply that each individual will has so chosen;
satisfactory to himself probably than to others, but as to the when, the will belongs to a re
yet these philosophizings, made for the pur gion of being,-is part of an order of things,
pose of speculative insight, he neither repre in which time and space have no meaning;
sented as the grounds of his own faith, nor that “the subject stands in no relation to
obtruded on others as necessary for theirs. time, can neither be called in time or out of
He ever kept steadily before him the differ time; but that all relations of time are as
ence between an intellectual belief and a alien and heterogeneous in this question as
practical faith, and asserted that it was solely north or south, round or square, thick or thin,
in consequence of the historical fact of re are in the affections.”
demption that the Trinity becomes a doctrine, Again you ask, With whom did sin origi
the belief in which as real is commanded by nate And Coleridge replies, The grounds
our conscience. of will on which it is true of any one man
In the Aids to Reflection, the earlier half are equally true in the case of all men. The
of the work is employed in clearing away fact is asserted of the individual, not because
preliminary hindrances; the latter part deals he has done this or that particular evil act,
mainly with the moral difficulties that are apt but simply because he is man. It is impos
to beset the belief in Original Sin and in the sible for the individual to say that it com
Atonement. menced in this or that act, at this or that
With regard to the former doctrine, he time. As he cannot trace it back to any
shows that the belief of the existence of evil, particular moment of his life, neither can he
as a fact, in man and in the world, is not state any moment at which it did not exist.
peculiar to Christianity, but is common to As to this fact, then, what is true of any one
it with every religion and every philosophy man is true of all men. For, “in respect of
that has believed in a personal God; in fact, original sin, each man is the representative of
to all systems but Pantheism and Atheism. all men.”
The fact then needs no proof, but the mean Such, nearly in his own words, was the
ing of the fact does. As to this, Coleridge way in which Coleridge sought, while fully
rejected that interpretation of original sin, acknowledging this fact, to construe it to
which makes ‘original” mean “hereditary,' himself, so as to get rid of those theories
or inherited like our bodily constitution from which make it an infliction from without, a
our forefathers. Such, he held, might be calamity, a hereditary disease; for which,
disease or calamity, but could not be sin, the however much sorrow there might be, there
meaning of which is, the choice of evil by a could be no responsibility, and therefore no
will free to choose between good and, evil. sense of guilt. And he sought to show that
This fact of a law in man's nature which it is an evil self-originated in the will; a fact
opposes the law of God, is not only a fact, but mysterious, not to be explained, but to be felt
a mystery, of which no other solution than by each man in his conscience as his own
the statement of the fact is possible. For deed. Therefore, in the confession of his
consider: Sin to be sin is evil originating in, faith, he said:—
not outside of the will. And what is the “I believe (and hold it a fundamental article
essence of the will? It is a self-determining of Christianity) that I am a fallen creature
that I am myself capable of moral evil, but not is the more worthy of regard, as being the
of myself capable of moral good; and that an last result of one who had long resisted, and
evil ground existed in my will previously to only after profound reflection submitted him
any given act, or assignable moment of time
in my own consciousness. I am born a child self, to this faith. He there lays down, that
of wrath. This fearful mystery I pretend not as sin is the ground or occasion of Christian
to understand. I cannot even conceive the ity, so Redemption is its superstructure; that
possibility of it, but I know that it is so. My Redemption and Christianity are equivalent
conscience, the sole fountain of certainty, com terms. From this he does not attempt to
mands me to believe it, and would itself be a remove the awful mystery, but only to clear
contradiction were it not so; and what is real away any objections which may spring out of
must be possible.” the moral instincts of man against the com
And the sequel of the same confession thus mon interpretation of the doctrine. These
goes on:— -
are the only difficulties that deserve an an
SWer.
“I receive, with full and grateful faith, the In the Redemption, the agent is the Eter
assurance of revelation that the Word, which is nal Word made flesh, standing in the place
from eternity with God, and is God, assumed of man to God, and of God to man, fulfilling
our human nature, in order to redeem me and
all mankind from this our connate corruption. all righteousness, suffering, dying, and so
My reason convinces me that no other mode of dying as to conquer death itself, and for all
redemption is possible. . . . . I believe that this who shall receive him. The redemptive or
assumption of humanity by the Son of God was atoning act of this divine Agent has two sides
revealed and realized to us by the Word made —one that looks Godward, the other that
flesh, and manifes ed to us in Jesus Christ, and looks manward. The side it turns Godward
that his miraculous birth, his agony, his cruci —that is, the very essence of this act, the
fixion, death, resurrection, and ascension, were
cause of man's redemption—is “a spiritual
all both symbols of our redemption, and neces
sary facts of the awful process.” and transcendent mystery which passeth all
understanding;” its nature, mode, and possi
Such was his belief in 1816, marking how bility, transcend man's comprehension. But
great a mental revolution he must have gone the side that it turns manward—that is, the
through since the days when he was a Uni effect toward the redeemed—is most simply,
tarian preacher. The steps of that change and without metaphor, described, as far as it
he has himself but partially recorded. But is comprehensible by man, in St. John's
the abandonment of the Hartleian for a more words, as the being born anew; as at first
ideal philosophy, the blight that fell on his we were born in the flesh to the world, so
manhood, his suffering, and sense of inner now born in the Spirit to Christ. Christ was
misery, then the closer study of the Bible in made a quickening, that is, a life-making
the light of his own need, and growing in Spirit. This Coleridge believed to be the
tercourse with the works of the elder divines, nearest, most immediate effect on man of the
—all these were parts at least of the process. transcendent redemptive act. Closely con
But whatever may have wrought this change, nected with this first, most immediate effect,
no one who knows anything of Coleridge can are other consequences, which St. Paul has de
doubt that in this, as in opinions of lesser im scribed by four principal metaphors. These
port, he was influenced only by the sincerest consequences, in reference to the sinner, are
desire for truth. Great as may have been his either the taking away of guilt, as by a great
moral defects—fallen, as he may have fallen, sin-offering, just as to the transgressor of the
in some of the homeliest duties, even below Mosaic law, his civil stain was cleared away
common men, this at least must be conceded by the ceremonial offering of the priest; or
to him, that he desired the truth, hungered the reconciliation of the sinner to God, as the
and thirsted for it, pursued it with a life-long prodigal son is reconciled to the parent whom
earnestness, rare even among the best men. he has injured; or the satisfying of a debt by
In this search for truth, and in his declara the payment of the sum owed to the credi
tion of it when found, self-interest, party feel tor; or the ransoming, the bringing back
ing, friendship, had no place with him. He from slavery, by payment of the price for the
had come to believe in some sort in a Trinity slave. These four figures describe, each in a
in the Godhead, and admitted more or less different way, the result of the great redemp
the personality of the Logos, for some time tive act on sinful man. This is their true
before he returned fully to the Catholic faith. meaning. They are figures intended to bring
The belief in the Incarnation and the Re home to man in a practical way the nature
demption by the Cross, as historical facts, and the greatness of the benefit. Popularly
were the stumbling-blocks which last disap they are transferred back to the mysterious
peared. Therefore his final conviction on this cause, but they cannot be taken as if they
subject, as recorded in the Aids to Reflection, really and adequately described the nature
of that cause, without leading to confusions. which, though it does not fully meet all the
Debt, satisfaction, payment in full, are not difficulties, goes further toward satisfying at
terms by which the essential nature of the once the expressions of Scripture and the
atoning act, and its necessity, can be literally requirements of conscience, than any other
and adequately expressed. If, forgetting this, theologian we know of has done.
we take these expressions literally, and argue Such are a few samples of Coleridge's the
from them, as if they give real intellectual ological method and manner of thinking. In
insight into the nature and mode of that the wish to set them forth in something of a
greatest of all mysteries, we are straightway systematic order, we have done but scanty
landed in moral contradictions. The nature justice to the fulness and the practical ear
of the redemptive act, as it is in itself, is not nestness which pervades the Aids to Reflection,
to be compassed nor uttered by the language and have given no notion at all of the prodi
of the human understanding. Such, as nearly gality of thought with which his other works
as we can give it, was Coleridge's thought run over. It were vain to hope that any
upon this awful mystery. Whatever may be words of ours could give an impression of .
thought of these views, one thing is to be that marvellous range of vision, that richness,
observed, that Coleridge did not propound that swing, that lightning of genius. Be
them with any hope of explaining a subject sides his works already noticed, his Lay Ser
which he believed to be beyond man's power mons, with their Appendices, and his Literary
of explanation, but from the earnest desire to Remains, are a very quarry of thought, from
clear away moral hindrances to its full ac which, more than any other books we know,
ceptance. Such hindrances he believed that young and reflecting readers may dig wealth
human theologies, in their attempts to sys of unexhausted ore. Time forbids us to en
tematize this and other doctrines of Scripture, ter on them here. Neither can we do more
were from time to time piling up. It was his than merely allude to those remarkable let
endeavour, whether successful or not, in what ters, published after his death, in which
he wrote on this and on every other religious Coleridge approaches the great question of
subject, to clear away these hindrances, and the inspiration of Scripture. Arnold recog
to place the truth in a light which shall com nised their appearance as marking an era in
mend itself to every man's conscience, a light theology the most important that had oc
which shall be consistent with such funda curred since the Reformation; and the in
mental Scriptures as these, “I, the Lord, terval that has since passed has fully verified
speak righteousness, I declare things that are the prediction. To the views of Scripture
right;” “God is light, and in him is no dark there propounded Coleridge himself attached
ness at all.” Since his day, men's thoughts much importance. In the words of his
have been turned to consider the nature of nephew, “he pleaded for them so earnestly,
the atonement, as perhaps they never did be as the only middle path of safety and peace
fore. There is one view, of late years advo between a godless disregard of the unique
cated in various forms, which regards the and transcendent character of the Bible
atonement as merely the declaration or exhi taken generally, and that scheme of interpre
bition of God's love to sinners, which by its tation, scarcely less adverse to the pure spirit
moral power awakens them to repentance, of Christian wisdom, which wildly arrays our
and takes away the estrangement of their faith in opposition to our reason, and incul
hearts. This is no doubt part of the truth, cates the sacrifice of the latter to the former,
but it falls far short of satisfying either man's that to suppress this important part of his
deeper moral instincts, or those many pas solemn convictions would be to misrepresent
sages of Scripture which declare Christ's and betray him.” -
death to be the means of the forgiveness of Having given the fullest scope to his own
man's sin. Such interpretations, if taken for inquiries on all subjects, yet in a spirit of
the whole, leave out of account the “more reverence, he wished others to do the same,
behind,” which Scripture seems to bear wit believing this to be a condition of arriving at
ness to, and man's conscience to feel. They assured convictions of truth. He was full of
take no account of that bearing which Christ's wise and large-hearted tolerance—not that
death has toward God, and which Coleridge, tolerance, so common and so worthless, which
while he held it to be incomprehensible, fully easily bears with all opinions, because it
believed to exist. On this great question, the earnestly believes none—but that tolerance,
nature of the atoning act in its relation to attained but by few, which, holding firmly
God, some meditations have, since Coleridge's by convictions of its own, and making con
time, been given to the world, which, if they science of them, would neither coerce nor
go farther, seem yet in harmony with that condemn those who most strongly deny
which Coleridge thought. We allude to Mr. them. Heresy he believed to be an error,
Campbell's profound work On the Atonement, not of the head, but of the heart. He dis
tinguished between that internal faith which acknowledge whatever will not come within
lies at the base of religious character, and can
these, is much more patent and plausible,
be judged of only by God, and that belief and, in this country, at least, is more likely to
with regard to facts and doctrines, in which command the suffrages of the majority. The
good men may err without moral obliquity. advocates of this doctrine experienced for a
His works abound with such maxims as this: time a brief reaction, caused by the influence
“Resist every false doctrine; but call no man of Coleridge; for one generation he turned
heretic. The false doctrine does not neces the tide against them; but again they are
sarily make the man a heretic; but an evil mustering in full force, and bid fair to be
heart can make any doctrine heretical.” come masters of the position. Their chief
These are a few of the contemplations teachers have for some time, by the merits,
with which Samuel Taylor Coleridge busied it must be owned, of their works, become all
himself during the threescore years of his but paramount in the most ancient seats of
earthly existence. For more than thirty learning. In Oxford, for instance, the only
years now he has been beyond them, in two living authors a knowledge of whose
heritor of higher visions, but these he has works is imperatively required of candidates
left behind for us to use them as we may. for highest honours, belong to this school.
And since, while men are here, they must And there is no counteracting authority
needs, if they think at all, sometimes look up speaking from the opposite, that is, the
to those heights of thought, it may be spiritual side of philosophy, because no such
doubted whether, for persons philosophically living voice is amongst us. Whenever such
disposed, our age and country has produced a thinker shall arise, he will have to take up
any abler guide. Those who remember what the work mainly where Coleridge left it. In
Coleridge was to their youth, may fear lest the foundations laid, and the materials col
in their estimate of him now they should lected by Coleridge, he will find the best
seem to be mere praisers of the past, and yet, helps which British thought affords towards
if they were to call him the greatest thinker building up the much-needed edifice of a
whom Britain has during this century pro spiritual philosophy. And not for the phi
duced, they would be but stating the simple losophy only, but for the general literature
truth. For if any should gainsay this, we and the politics of our time, what words of
should ask, Whom would you place by his admonition would he have had, if he had
side? What one man would you name who been still present with us! In his own day
has thrown upon the world so great a mass the oracles of Liberalism reserved for him
of original thinking, has contributed so many their bitterest raillery, and he repaid then
new thoughts on the most important sub with contempt. He would hardly, we ima
jects? His mind was a very seed-field of gine, have been more popular with the
ideas, of which many have gone to enrich dominant Liberalism of our time, nor would
the various departments of thought, literary, he have accorded to it much greater respect.
philosophical, political, and religious; while Before the intellectual idols of the hour,
others still lie embedded in his works, wait whatever names they bear, he would not, we
ing for those who may still turn them to use. conceive, very readily have bowed down. Ra
And all he wrote was in the interest of man's ther he would have shown to them their own
higher nature, true to his best aspirations. shortcomings, as seen in the light of a more
The one effort of all his works was to build catholic and comprehensive wisdom. "Who
up truth from the spiritual side. He can doubt this, when he regards either the
brought all his transcendent powers of intel spirit of his works, so deep-thoughted and
lect to the help of the heart, and soul, and reverent, so little suited for popularity, or the
spirit of man against the tyranny of the attitude in which he stood towards all the
understanding, that understanding which ever arbiters of praise in his own generation?
strives to limit truth within its own definite Above all, Coleridge was a great religious
conceptions, and rejects whatever refuses to philosopher, and by this how much is meant :
square with these. This side of philosophy, Not a religious man and a philosopher mere
as it is the deepest, is also the most difficult ly, but a man in whom these two powers met
to build up. Just as in bridging some broad and interpenetrated. There are instances
river, that part of the work which has to be enough in which the two stand opposed,
done by substructions and piers beneath the mutually denouncing each other; instances
water is much more laborious and important, too there are in which, though not opposed,
while it strikes much less upon the senses, they live apart, the philosophy unleavened by
than the arches which are reared in open the religion. How rare have the examples,
daylight; so the side of truth which holds at least in modern times, been, in which the
by the seen and the tangible, which never most original powers of intellect and imagi
quits clear-cut conceptions, and refuses to nation, the most ardent search for truth, and
–R
1865. German Novelists: Freytag, Auerbach, Heyse. 167
the largest erudition, have united with reve ! swered. The circulating libraries are amply
rence and simple Christian faith—the heart of provided. Every good French novel, every
the child with the wisdom of the sage! He good English novel, is translated at once;
who has left behind him a philosophy, how and a great many both of French and Eng
ever incomplete, in which these elements lish novels that are very far from being
*
harmoniously combine, has done for his fellow good have a chance with the German public.
men the highest service human thinker can, But if we ask how many German works rise
has helped to lighten the burden of the above the level of French or English
mystery. mediocrity, the mass of names dwindles
almost to nothing. The Englishman who
has learned just so much German as to
master its light reading, finds the stock
ART. II.—1. Die Verlorene Handschrift [The exhausted in a moment. He hears of
Lost Manuscript]. Roman in fünf Hackländer as the German Boz (the Ger
Büchern. Von GUSTAv FREYTAG. 3 vols. mans scarcely ever talk of Dickens, and a
Leipzig, 1864. stranger will at first be puzzled at the fre
. Auf der Höhe [On the Height]. Roman quent mention of Botz as our greatest writer),
in acht Büchern. Von BERTHOLD AUER and he tries in vain to work his way through
BACH. 3 vols. Stuttgart, 1865. long-winded and fantastic inventions, in which
. Meraner Novellen [Meran Stories]. Von the humour is not nature, and the nature is
PAUL HEYSE. Berlin, 1864. not humour. He finds that Louise Mühl
bach has more claim to the title of the Ger
Novels are as much a branch of industry man James, as her interminable historical
in Germany as they are in England, but they novels are easy to read, and still more easy
have not enlisted the same class of talents in to forget. But for anything to be named,
their service. We do not believe that this not with the masters of English fiction, but
arises from any want of appreciation. It is (to borrow a simile from Eton) with the sixth
true that the Germans look down on what form, he soon learns that he must content
they call “circulating library novels” with a himself with a small list of writers, the best
contempt which is seldom felt, and still more of whom we have placed at the head of this
seldom expressed, by English readers. But, article.
on the other hand, our best novelists are One of the reasons, though not necessarily
highly esteemed in Germany, and no German the chief reason of this state of things, is the
would think of denying Dickens the name of absence of rule and the predominance of
poet, which few Englishmen would think of theory. Mr. Lewes says very justly, that no
according him. And if the dignity of the writer with a wholesome fear of the critics
true novelist is thus recognised, there is no before his eyes, would have dared to mystify
want of the other kind of appreciation which the public as Goethe did with Wilhelm Meis
is measured by sale. Freytag's Debit and ter's Wanderjahre. The German crities think
Credit went through six editions in two years. a novel an occasion for philosophizing.
A second edition of the two first volumes of They go so deeply into its inner meanings
his Lost Manuscript was called for before the that they have no time left for considering
third volume was ready to be delivered. We the mere execution, the mere artistic value,
may not have such '' instances of suc the mere accidents of the story. And while
cess in other writers; and the Germans do they thus neglect the rules of fiction, they are
not provide us with those interesting figures very eloquent upon its laws. They constitute
about the earnings of their popular authors themselves a legislative, not an executive
which are furnished by literary gossipers in body. Instead of saying, “This is bad,”
England, and which must prove so valuable “This is unnatural,” “This is a failure,” they
to the income-tax collectors. But we know ask, “What are the internal motives of the
that the sale of more serious works in Ger author in departing from the beaten track of
many bears no proportion to that of novels, conventional nature, and interposing a disso
and that where another writer counts his nance as a break to the general harmony ?”
readers by tens, the novelist is certain of his We see this substitute for criticism very
hundreds. strongly marked in the introduction written
Mr. Ruskin may perhaps allude to these by Bunsen for one of the translations of
remarks as a proof that demand is not neces Freytag's first novel. We are told that
sarily followed by supply. But we doubt if “every romance is intended or ought to be a
any political economist would assert that the new Iliad or Odyssey, in other words, a poetic
supply of what is good depends on the de representation of a course of events consistent
mand for what is good. In Germany the with the highest laws of moral government,
demand for novels has certainly been an whether it delineate the general history of a
168 German Novelists : Freytag, Auerbach, Heyse. Dec.
£, or narrate the fortunes of a chosen longer novels have not attained the same
ero. If we pass in review the romances of standard as his village stories. But Freytag,
the last three centuries, we shall find that those with the exception of his dramas, and his
only have arrested the attention of more than Pictures of Past Life in Germany, to which
one or two generations which have satisfied this
requirement. Every other romance, let it we need not here allude, is known purely by
moralize ever so loudly, is still immoral.” two novels, Soll und Haben, and Die Verlo
rene Handschrift. Of the first of these works
It is not a little significant, as a commen we entertain a very high opinion. We think
tary on this passage, that Auerbach, in his the second in most respects very much infe
able lecture on Goethe and the Art of Narra rior. Perhaps, as both have been translated
tion, calls Wilhelm Meister the modern
into English,” we may conclude that they
Ulysses. But though we may safely predict are familiar to our readers, and we may state
that Goethe's story will arrest the attention our impressions of them without sketching
of more than one or two generations, we the plot or detailing the characters.
cannot recommend writers of less genius to The strong point of Debit and Credit was
follow in his footsteps, or to aim at avoiding its vivid realism. Almost all the personages
immorality by the construction of such a had something to do, and they never let the
modern Odyssey.
The lecture of Auerbach’s to which we have reader fall asleep when they were really in
action. Such scenes as the journey of Anton
just alluded would have been more valuable and his principal to the Polish town which
if it were devoted less to criticism on Goethe,
and more to the refutation of false theories is in open revolt, and in which the waggons
of the firm of Schröter have been detained by
on art. As it is, it gives us the whole secret a scoundrelly innkeeper; or the assault on the
of novel-writing in one sentence: “Good sto Polish château in another insurrection, the
ries, well told.” We need hardly say that flaming waggon driven up to the door, and
the sentence is quoted from Lessing, but it is the yells which bear witness to the accuracy
applied by Auerbach. As this is all we have
a right to claim from the novelist, so it is of Fink's aim, are as spirited as anything in
the only end to which the novelist need look. Jew boy,Thewho
Scott. whole career of Weitel Itzig, the
begins with nothing, raises
Let him turn away his eyes from those incom himself to the height of wealth, and drowns
prehensible theories about the novel which himself at the end, is admirably told. That
led Goethe astray when he was more than scene, in particular, where he is standing at
half-way to the goal. Let him study the the back of the Jew caravanserai, as we may
nature which lies before him, and try to re call it, seeing indistinct letters forming them
produce that. Above all, let him not pervert selves in the waters of the stream and on the
the Horatian maxim, -
backs of the houses opposite, is a most power

“Scribendirecte
fons:
sapere est et principium et ful piece of psychological painting. Many of
the characters are entitled to equal praise.
Rem tibi Socraticae poterunt ostendere chartae, Fink is not, perhaps, very natural for a Ger
Verbaque provisam rem non invita sequen man, but he is very good. The Jew Schmeie
tur,” Tinkeles is no doubt taken from the life; he
into a theory that book knowledge is all in is certainly not taken from Dickens; nor is
all, and that if a man is certain of his philo it fair to tax Freytag with borrowing a cha
sophy it matters little what words he uses. racter, when he has only learnt those habits
The knowledge wanted by a novelist is that of observation which lead to the construction
of man and the heart of man, and style is of such a character. Again, Weitel Itzig him
more essential to him than even to an histo self, and his master in iniquity, Hippus, are
rian or a philosopher. as well drawn as their course is well described.
How far the three writers whom we have These are the most striking merits of the
before us observe these rules in their latest novel, the salient points which imprint it on
works, is now to be decided. But before en the memory. But much besides these is good,
tering on a detailed examination of the works, though not in an equal degree. The details
we must, in justice to the authors themselves of life on the Polish estate which Anton
and to our own public, give some sketch of manages for the Rothsattel family, the ruin
the principles by which they have hitherto which creeps gradually on that family, both
been guided, and of the writings by which in Germany and Poland, some of the social
they are best known. Our reason for placing scenes in the capital, and, more than all, the
Freytag at the head of the list, is that his dis character of Lenore, would raise Debit and
tinction as a novelist is greater than that of Credit above mediocrity, and insure it a good
Auerbach. The works by which Auerbach * The Lost Manuscript has been translated by
has earned his popularity have been shorter Mrs. Malcolm, and published by Messrs. Chapman
tales, more like those of Paul Heyse, and his & Hall. *
place, if not in our minds, at least on our or less to his novels, though written of his
book-shelves. But there are serious faults by dramas. In a letter to Ludwig Tieck, dated
the side of these merits. The habit of obser February 1848, we find Freytag expressing
vation which Freytag has learned from the himself as follows:–
English, sometimes degenerates into imita “One passage in your letter gives me much
tion of the English. There is some truth in ground for reflection. You are afraid that
the verdict of St. René Taillandier:—“Il s'en much in my pieces comes from my own experi
faut bien toutefois que M. Freytag soit un ence. That is not the case. With the Valen
talent complet. C'est l'absence des roman tine, indeed, I found the ethical significance in
ciers qui a fait son triomphe, c'est aussile my own life. In Waldemar everything is in
vented, with the exception of a couple of bad
désir que l'Allemagne éprouve de se voir re jokes; but there is something suspicious in it,
présentée autrement que dans les études re and your remark has brought it back to my mind
trospectives ou dans les histoires de village. without my being quite able to apprehend it.
M. Freytag a osé peindre les hommes de son There is something peculiar in my perception
temps, voilà sa force; il est diffus, il manque and rendering of characters, something which
de concentration ct de nerf, c'est là sa fai is not normal, a sort of surplusage, giving ideal
blesse.” This weakness has some chance of figures the air of portraits. This damages their
being pardoned in Debit and Credit, for the more ideality, and makes the representation of them
difficult to the actors. What is it? Is it
sake of the merits which we have specified. an exuberance which time and practice may
But the critical eye notices it as a significant lessen? Or is it not rather a deficiency, an
indication of the dangers to which Freytag organic failing in the construction? The pecu
would be exposed in another novel, and The liarity, however, seems to proceed from my
Lost Manuscript justifies such a prognostic. painting with an infinity of small strokes, which
Even in Debit and Credit the extreme I cannot avoid, because they flow quick and
length of the descriptions was tedious. Three easily from my pen,-that gives an air of in
pages devoted to cutting up loaf sugar are ternal wealth, behind which poverty may well
not a recommendation to novel-readers. But be concealed. It is a sort of arabesque paint
when we come to the minute detail of the ing, which makes me look very small in my
own eyes, when I compare it with the simple,
Rothsattel estate, and of the mode of con bold, and dashing lines of Shakspearean con
ducting business in the house of T. O. Schrö tours. And I am much afraid that this blemish
will hinder me from being of much use to the
ter, to the jealousy of one of Schröter's clerks
for another, and the trick by which one of theatre, or doing great things in our art. How
ever, I am soon going to try my hand on a sub
the clerks supplants another in the affections
of a widow, nothing but a severe process of ject pregnant with great passions, in order to
find out what my powers are. I fully recog
“skip” saves us from prematurely closing thenise that, in the present torpor and worthless
volume. In The Lost Manuscript we have ness of dramatic art, my mission lies in rearing
this tediousness without the redeeming points.
the banner of artistic truth and fidelity, till
There is far less spirit, far less incident in
some better man comes and takes it out of my
the new novel than in the old one, yet the hands. That will perhaps grieve me, but it
descriptions are quite as long, the unneces shall not perplex me. My misfortune is that I
sary episodes are worked out with equal stand alone, too much alone. I am too much
minuteness, and the characters are finished in need of competitors to urge me on. With
the others I have little in common.”
to the finger-nail. It is interesting to read
accounts of the way in which Freytag came This “misfortune” has already been
to know so much about the management of touched on by St. René Taillandier. In
commercial business and landed property. other respects Freytag is the severest critic of
- It is interesting to know, that while he was his own productions. The infinity of small
studying at the University of Berlin he mixed strokes to which he refers, and the air, not of
much with the family of a landed proprietorportraits, but of miniatures, which is shed
who had leased a royal domain, and that over ideal figures, are certainly obstacles to
from this intercourse he came to know not the production of the highest art. But it
only the ways, but the very life of a large will be a great day for German fiction when
estate; that while he was privatdocent in some better man than Freytag takes the ban
Breslau he entered into close relations with ner of truth and fidelity out of his hands;
Theodor Molinari, an esteemed merchant and for then, indeed, German fiction will have
patriot. But it is not so interesting to have gained a proud position, and may hope to
all the details that Freytag learnt from these rival all its contemporaries.
two friends of his embodied in a novel, and When we say that The Lost Manuscript
the novel turned into a Merchant's Complete is inferior to Debit and Credit, we do not
Guide, or A Country Gentleman's own mean to imply that in some artistic respects
Wade Mecum. What Freytag says of his it is not in advance of its predecessor. It is
own mode of painting may be applied more inferior in interest; it is an advance in in
170 German Novelists: Freytag, Auerbach, Heyse. Dec.
sight. It is inferior in spirit; it is an advance is not till later that he discovers the real
in power. It is inferior in quaint character; nature of the prince, and the scene in which
it is an advance in true character. It is not he discovers it is one of the most exciting of
so good as a story, and will not impress the the story. The readers have not been left so
reader's mind so vividly, but it shows that the long in ignorance. They have watched the
author's hand has grown firmer, and that he wiles of the princely spider for some time,
has gained in mastery of passion. In one have witnessed him reading his subjects’ let
respect The Lost Manuscript is much supe ters, spying into everything that goes on at
rior; in the freedom of touch with which the Court and everything done by his son at
comic incidents are presented. The comedy home or at the university, and giving full
of Debit and Credit was often the most tire powers to the culprit who forged the first
some part of the book; it was laboured and leaf of Tacitus to forge leaves of The Lost
stilted, forced and unreal. Much the same Manuscript, so as to detain the professor.
may be said for what is meant to be the The prince, this “Tiberio in diciottesimo,” to
lively episode of The Lost Manuscript—the borrow a line from Giusti, is in love with the
rivalry of the houses of Hahn and Hummel. professor's wife, and while the professor is
This has no real connexion with the story, making a fresh search for the manuscript in
and, like excrescences generally, it tries to the prince's dominions, his wife is left alone
vindicate its right by means that make it in a pavilion which communicates by secret
doubly obnoxious. But the comic scenes ways with the palace, and has served more
with some of the professors, belonging natu than once for similar adventures. But with
rally to the story, and therefore not insisted the prince's attempt on the professor's wife,
upon, are most successful. The novelist and his subsequent design of murdering the
should learn from this that there is a time for professor with his own royal hand, the in
everything, and that everything is right when terest drops off again, the novelist lets the
it comes in its proper place. thread go, and the tragedy falls into melo
The hinge on which The Lost Manuscript drama.
turns appears at first rather arbitrary, and To all who have read The Lost Manuscript,
not very promising. A philological professor, and even to those who have no more know
who finds in an old account-book of a monas ledge of it than they have gathered from
tery an allusion to a manuscript, which his these remarks, it must be plain that the book
critical penetration tells him must have been is very unequal. This is certainly our own
a complete copy of Tacitus, and who starts conclusion. But the inequality of the book
with a friend in search of this treasure, does is to be assigned to many causes. One of
not impress us as a satisfactory hero. Novels them is that Freytag is still too much ena
of a certain age have surfeited us with the moured of details which, like the small
old roll of paper discovered in some chest or strokes of his portraiture, flow quick and
cupboard, and we cannot at first divine why easily from his pen. Another is, that he
the old roll is this time to be a manuscript paints all his personages too uniformly, and
of Tacitus. When the professor fails in his all at full length. The fact that they are
search, but brings back a wife instead of the natural is no excuse, for it is a necessity of
manuscript, we begin to find a certain resem the novelist's art that some of his figures
blance to Auerbach's story of the Frau Pro must be kept more in the background, and
fessorin. The training through which Frey that of some only the upper half must be
tag's hero puts his countrified wife is told at visible. Still, after making all deductions for
very great length, and might seem a reflec this, we must allow Freytag the merit of
tion on the absence of the same training in natural portraiture. St. René Taillandier
Auerbach's story. Then we suspect a secret attributes the success of Debit and Credit to
reason for the Tacitean element in a forgery the fact that Freytag's models were recog
of a leaf of Tacitus, which deceives one of nised by the whole of Germany. “I was
the other professors, and is exposed by our walking at Augsburg,” says the French
hero. But it is not till almost the end of critic, “with a spirituel editor of the Allge
the second volume that we light on the real meine Zeitung ; he made me pass through
connexion between the lost manuscript and the great manufactories, the rich commercial
the living personages. For a while the third houses of the old city. There is the house
volume is intensely interesting. As a piece of Schröter, he told me; it is there that
of psychological portraiture, the prince is Gustav Freytag chose his models. The same
very powerful. Freytag's hero details the thing is said at Hamburg, at Lübeck, at Ber
different stages of the Caesarean malady as lin, at Breslau, at Leipzig, at Vienna, at
anatomized by Tacitus, without knowing that Trieste.” And this is no small triumph.
the prince to whom he is speaking has gone To some extent it may be repeated with the
through all of them in his own person. It present work. Every university town could
*
1865. German Novelists : Freytag, Auerbach, Heyse. 171
point out originals of Professors Raschke and We can hardly avoid making in some sort
Struvelius. The students’ Commerz, the a parallel between Auerbach's new novel and
students' duel, the professors' ball, with all the one we have just been considering. In
the husbands dancing with their wives, the both novels the principal scenes are laid at a
inauguration of the hero as Rector Magni minor Court. In both the loves of princes
ficus, are living pictures of the ways of a contribute chiefly to form the plot. But we
German university. We have read so many do not think either novel can be called ex
books about German students, and have long actly political. The object of a political no
been so profoundly sick of their songs, their vel is to show the abuses inseparable from
drinkings, their duels, and their follies in some system of government, and to move its
general, that we did not think that there was readers to demand a reform. Freytag's Lost
anything to be made out of them, even by Manuscript can scarcely be said to show the
such an artist as Freytag. We are doubly abuses of arbitrary rule in a small state, be
grateful to him for having shown us our cause he has made his prince unnaturally ar
error.
bitrary for one of the present rulers of Ger
It has often been said that a great success, many. Auerbach's On the Height is still
especially in the case of a first work, is a less aimed against the institution of monarchy,
stumblingblock to an author. Sheridan was because the sin he attacks is by no means
said by Garrick to be in great danger of fail confined to kings or to people in authority,
ing with his School for Scandal, on account but might exist to the full in a humbler sphere,
of its powerful Rivals. Weber himself and would not be diminished by imposing any
declared that the favour shown to one of his restrictions on loyalty. If, however, there is
operas in Vienna would militate against the any political feeling in Auerbach's new novel,
success of the next: “that young rascal Der it is the same that he has expressed from his
Preischütz has shot his poor sister Euryanthe very earliest writings. He has always looked
dead.” We do not believe that the public on the world as more or less out of joint. In
expects too much from Freytag on account his lecture on Goethe, he openly confesses his
of his first success, but we think he has been dissatisfaction with the state of things in Ger
led to repeat some parts of his first novel as many :—“Goethe—it is sad that we must
the surest way to enlist sympathy for his confess it—reproduced only German life as it
second. He must remember that one of the was in his time, and as, to our regret, it is
chief motifs in Debit and Credit was the still ; we have an art before we have a sound
wound inflicted on Schröter, when trying to civil, political, national life; we have, through
get possession of his waggons in the Polish Goethe himself, through his predecessor Les
town. Yet he gives us the same kind of sing, and his contemporary Schiller, a high
incident in the first volume of The Lost and rich literature, but we have no life at all
Manuscript, when the professor saves the corresponding to it.” Auerbach has always
young children from the gipsies, and is shown this opinion very clearly when he has
wounded in the arm. Again, the incident of left the villages of the Black Forest for a more
the boat in The Lost Manuscript is almost animated life. But even in describing the
identical with that of the lake in Debit and villages of the Black Forest he is neither con
Credit; the Doctor and Laura are the actors tented nor idyllic. Julian Schmidt, the his
in the first, and Bernard Ehrenthal and Le torian of German literature, says of Auer
nore in the second. We do not think some bach :—“The effect of his village stories is
of the characters quite clear from the same not particularly cheerful. He does not pre
charge. Magister Knips bears a strong re sent country life in its quiet enjoyment, but
semblance to Schmeie Tinkeles. Hummel in its internal dissensions. The atmosphere
has sat at the feet of Fink. Even if these in which we breathe is not thoroughly healthy,
resemblances escape observation, there is and it is a question if poetry has a right to
too much similarity in the way the chief represent exceptional cases, as if they formed
female characters are contrasted in both the rule.” But although this is the verdict
novels. Sabina and Lenore in Debit and of a critic of such eminence, it does not seem
Credit, Ilse and Laura in The Lost Manu to be generally accepted. Auerbach's sunny
script, are almost exactly balanced against tales, the cheerful atmosphere of the Black
each other,-the one staid and thoughtful, Forest, the hearty open peasantry, are
the other skittish and delightful. But phrases not unfrequently employed. One of
though Ilse is a far better portrait than Sa his translators tells us that his works show
bina, Laura cannot be named by the side of the existence, in so remote a corner of Eu
Lenore. That it was impossible to mate therope, of that element of political freedom—
hero of Debit and Credit with the heroine, the exercise of self-government. It is a sin
was a sufficient reason against giving so gular commentary on this, that the mayor in
prominent a part to such a character. one of the village stories makes the hero shave
off his moustaches. Perhaps the best refuta. constant thoughts recurring to her child, is
tion of the theories in favour of Auerbach's happily broken by the crowds of people in the
account of the Black Forest peasants is the streets, and the whole town illuminated in
one furnished by the peasants themselves. honour of the birth of a future king. Wal
“I have been told,” says the author in one of purga, the peasant woman, is brought at once
his late prefaces, “that one of my stories has to the Mistress of the Robes, who, though of
been reprinted in a local newspaper; that the the same nation, speaks to her through an in
peasants of the village I have named are fu terpreter, for French is the Court language
rious against me, say that the whole story is in the whole of Germany. Then she is taken
a lie, and that I have tried to make them ri to the queen. Her astonishment when the
diculous.” queen talks of the baby as “the prince,” is
Auerbach's new novel is in itself a plain in exceedingly naive; she was not yet aware
dication of his real views about the peasan that in the language of Court circulars, royal
try. We hope that we may take it as a sign personages never give birth to boys or girls,
that he is not going to relapse into that eter but to princes or princesses. Indeed, Wal
mal village life with which even he has wearied purga has much to learn at the Court. She
us, and that this novel will bridge over the finds that in palaces people always go about
chasm between the life of his old, and that of in their Sunday clothes; that the king makes
his present associates. It is eight years since love to a beautiful Maid of Honour over the
St. René Taillandier told Auerbach that cradle of his new-born prince; that princes
“l'auteur des Histoires de Village ne retrou do not like to see any but handsome men
vera les succès de ses débuts qu’en se mesur around them; and that the way in which
ant avec les grands problèmes, en peignant every one bows when the king passes, is like
les vices ou les vertus de la vraie société de son the shutting up of a pocket-krife. Some of
temps,” and we hope the advice has been taken. these wonderful discoveries are communicated
It is not indeed the first time that Auerbach in a letter home, which Walpurga dictates,
has attempted something beyond village life, and which is written for her by the lovely
but it is the first time he has done so with Maid of Honour, Countess Irma Wildenort.
any real success. The first novel he published This young countess is the heroine, more
was based on the life of Spinoza, and in this beautiful than the queen, and far more charm
it is difficult to recognise the future painter ing. Such is Walpurga's opinion, and, unfor
of the Black Forest. There is a great deal tunately, it is the king's opinion too. Irma
of Rembrandt-like power in the pictures of is not blind to her danger; she resolves to
the Inquisition in Spain, and of the Syna. leave the Court, and return to her father.
gogue at Amsterdam; but for knowledge of But her father, a proud old republican, with
the human heart, and for observation of hu a general contempt for kings, drives her back
man nature, we must go to the everlasting by his exaggerated dislike of her royal ad
peasants. Another of Auerbach's later works, mirer; and when she comes back to the Court
in which he tried to shake himself free, is the the king makes no longer a secret of his de
novel of New Life (Neues Leben), published votion.
in 1852, and plainly inspired by the Revolu Irma is unlucky in her family. Her father,
tion of 1848. But of this we cannot speak who might have saved her, drives her back
with any favour. What we wanted from to her ruin; her brother, a vile character
Auerbach was a novel dealing with more ge himself, tries to lead her into an unworthy
neral life, and yet preserving the same mas marriage, partly to palliate one of the kind
tery as is apparent in Barfüssle, Joseph im that he has himself contracted. While Irma
Schnee, and Edelweiss. Something of this is is in this secret misery, her guilt is almost
given us in his present venture. unfolded to the queen. A play is to be given
The story opens in a palace. An heir to in honour of the king's birthday, and the
the throne is expected; but it is contrary to queen is asked to choose a piece. She names
etiquette for the queen to nurse it, and a Emilia Galotti, and there is sudden silence.
young physician is despatched to the moun The king is conscious of the awkwardness of
tains in search of a healthy peasant. It is the pause, and breaks it; but the sound of his
also contrary to etiquette for an unmarried voice is so strange, that the queen is still more
woman to nurse a royal child, and it is diffi frightened. The play had been forbidden
cult to get a married woman who will leave hitherto, and its revival is not a little signifi.
her home, her own child, and her husband. cant. The people in the pit whisper when
At last one is found, but she is unwilling to they see the queen in her box, attended by
come; her husband is reluctant to lose her; Irma. One of them remarks that Irma has a
and the scene in which she debates with her single rose in her hair, “like Emilia Galotti."
self what she ought to do is touching in the But the play begins. The manager of the
extreme. Her journey to the capital, with theatre had provided a musical interlude by
some known composer after each act, that buys a farm, and they move away to it. As
the audience might be silenced; but this plan they cross the lake, a face appears from the
has failed. In the pit, as in the boxes, the waters, which legend proclaims to be the
whispers continue at every pause. The fourth
maiden of the lake, but which Hansei declares
act comes; the scene between Orsina and is an exact likeness of the Black Esther who
Marinelli, which discloses the prince's de so nearly led him astray. And as they land
signs on Emilia. At this the queen can scarce on the other side, where their goods are
ly command her anxiety. She hears Irma's placed in a waggon, Walpurga catches sight
breath come quicker and quicker behind her; of another form which she knows too well,
she half resolves to turn round suddenly and and which she at once pursues and clasps in
face her, but she dares not; she thinks in her her arms.
self all the time, “What if Irma were to faint Some time after Walpurga had left the pa
away? what if she were to shriek out loud 9" lace a dissolution of the Chamber had be
But Irma bears herself bravely, and the queen come necessary. Irma's father, Count Eber
is convinced that she was mistaken. hard, is requested to stand for his district. He
One of the characters is a lackey named agrees, and comes forward as the champion of
Baum, who comes from Walpurga's part of the popular cause. It is just after an electo
the country, but has dyed his hair, so that ral meeting that several letters proclaiming
he may not be recognised by his disreputable his daughter's dishonour are placed in his
family. Baum has struck up a friendship with hands. The proud man has a fit of apoplexy,
Walpurga since she first came to Court; and and his children, who are sent for, find him
after the performance this evening he gives speechless. He will have nothing to do with
her an account of it from the point of view his son; he cannot make himself intelligible
natural to a royal lackey. Walpurga asks to his daughter. At last, while she kneels
the names of the characters. Baum gives her by his bedside, he raises his hand, already
the playbill, and there she reads names that covered with the dews of death, and with his
are familiar to her from the conversations of finger traces “one word on her forehead—a
the king and Irma. short word. She sees it, she hears it, she
Meanwhile Walpurga's year is drawing to reads it; it rests everywhere,—in the air, on
an end. She is not sorry to leave the atmo her forehead, in her brain, in her soul. She
sphere of a Court where such things are done. gives a loud shriek, and falls on the floor.”
But all things are not smooth at home. Her The doctor comes in hastily, and finds him
husband Hansei has nearly been entangled in dead. That moment a band of music strikes
an intrigue with Baum's sister. He has got up before the house, and hundreds of voices
into too great familiarity with the village cry, “Long live our representative, Count
publican, and passes his evenings at the pub Eberhard ''”
lic-house. When Walpurga comes home, she Irma has fled. She writes a full confession
finds that her own child has grown strange to the queen, an eternal farewell to the king,
to her. The village people, with the publican escapes from the Court lackey who is with her,
at their head, want to make much of her, but and wanders in the woods. It is night, and
she sees that it is merely for the sake of her lightning-flashes make a distant glimmer on
earnings. So she and her husband stay away the horizon. Far off she sees the waters of
from the public-house when a feast is got the lake, which glance in the moonbeams,
up in their honour. The village is mortally and in which she hopes to find a resting
offended, and the publican sends Hansei back place. Her footsteps startle the quiet in
his beer-glass, as a sign that he will be no mates of the wood; the cracking of the trees
longer admitted. Walpurga is disenchanted. thrills through her nerves as if it was a sign
Much as she had complained of the ways of of pursuit. At last she is on a precipice
a Court, she begins to see that there may be without a sign of a path. From this she is
something worse in those of a village. Every rescued by a strange woman, and receives
bad feeling here comes out so nakedly, that shelter in a hut. But there is no peace for
she thinks it better to be wicked with some her there. The hut belongs to the family of
decorum. And what she prefers above all is Baum the lackey; the brother, who is at
the peaceful family life she has witnessed in home, is a desperate poacher; and knowing
the house of the chief Court physician, a life Irma's disgrace, he offers her violence. Again
free at once from the evils of high society, and she has to fly, and Esther, who had saved her
from those of the peasantry. In the bitter on the precipice, saves her now from the bro
ness of her heart she exclaims, “I don’t be ther. The wretch wreaks his vengeance on
lieve the great are half as bad as the vil Esther, and Irma, as she escapes down the
lagers.” Their ingratitude leads her to think steep rocky paths, sees her deliverer plunged
of investing the money earned at Court in from above into the lake. The lackey Baum,
some distant purchase. Hansei accordingly and Irma's brother, Bruno, track Irma's foot
steps through the wood. In one place they of the chronicler of the Black Forest. But
find broken branches, in another marks of while there are some thirty towns in Ger
blood, at another her hat is found on the verge many where Court life prevails, and where
of a precipice. A woman’s body has been everything is subordinated to the Court, we
found in the lake, and the two searchers, con must admit that there is considerable ground
vinced that it must be Irma's body, go to for such descriptions. The Germans are
identify it. But no sooner does Bruno catch getting tired of etiquette. They have not
a sight of the face than he gries out “Es time for constant bows and salutes, for court
ther ” His guilt is clear to every one. He ceremonies which cut up a working day, and
it was who first led the unhappy girl astray, Court dresses which make a hole in mode
and his unhappy victim is Baum's sister. rate incomes. They do not wish to be taxed
This is the crisis of the novel, and a short in order to keep up guards that are not
concluding chapter might have told the rest. wanted, and fêtes that are not enjoyable, in
Irma was found by Walpurga as she was order that every one may wear a worthless
about to plunge into the lake, was taken off order, and that classes of men too dignified
to the new farm, and ended her days in a to work may be maintained in a state suited
châlet on the hill above it. Auerbach has to that dignity. Both Freytag and Auerbach
unfortunately been tempted to give Irma's life are of this opinion, and there is no doubt that
at the farm with details as full as the earlier their open expression of it will have an effect
part of the story. No less than 134 pages on the minds of their fellow-countrymen.
are devoted to a diary of Irma's, where she Such cases as that which has just happened
has nothing to tell. Very few readers will at Stuttgart justify any amount of satire.
have any attention to spare for the last 300 Neither the prince in The Lost Manuscript,
pages of the third volume. It is strange nor the king in On the Height, is entitled to
that a writer of such power and such skill be named with the king of Würtemberg; the
as Auerbach should have fallen into such “caricature” of the novelists has been ex
an error. But he has fallen into another, ceeded by real life.”
German truth is indeed
of no less magnitude, in dwelling so minute stranger than German fiction.
ly on the search for Irma, when the reader
knows what has become of her. Two such * We refer to the £ Order of the day to
faults as these detract seriously from the inter the Würtemberg army, issued in Stuttgart on the
est of the concluding volume. They are the 15th of October:
“1. It has been observed with displeasure that,
more to be regretted, as that interest had been when His Majesty enters his box in the Court
excited so strongly, and kept up so well, till theatre, the officers present do not rise all together,
within the last few pages. Perhaps we must but upon one side #: than upon the other. 2.
pardon them, in consideration of Auerbach's Officers are reminded that, when the Queen enters
the royal box after the King, Her Majesty is to be
other merits, and of the difficulties which the saluted separately. 3. It has been repeatedly ob
composition of a three-volume novel present served with displeasure that the guards deliver the
to one who has so long confined himself to salutes prescribed by the regulations too late be
shorter stories. We believe that this is the fore their Majesties. The excuse that the sentry
reason why Paul Heyse has never tried his before the guard-house delayed in turning out the
guard will be no longer accepted, but the com
hand on a novel.
mandant of the post will be made personally re
We have said that this novel of Auer sponsible for the delivery of the salute at the
bach’s may be viewed hopefully, as bridging proper time. 4. As mistakes have occurred in the
over the chasm between country and town salutes to be given to his Royal Highness Prince
life,—as an indication of the author's future Frederick, attention is directed to the fact that the
salutes prescribed for Princes and Princesses of the
course, of the enlargement of his artistic Royal House in the direct line are to be delivered,
range. If Court life had been merely not before Prince Frederick only, but whenever
sketched from the point of view of a peasant his Royal Highness passes the guard-house accom
woman, we should not have been equally panied by his Royal Highness's consort, Princess
Catherine. To avoid error, in case their Royal
hopeful. It is true that Walpurga's ex Highnesses should drive past the post together in a
periences are amusing, especially where she closed carriage, the footman at the back will make
tells the queen that it must be difficult to a sign to the sentry # raising his arm. 5. The
keep house for so many people, as if the excuse that a soldier has omitted the prescribed
salute from ignorance of the King's person will no
queen went round the palace like a farmer's longer be admitted. All soldiers have to make
wife, and entered into all the details of the themselves well acquainted with His Majesty's
royal housekeeping. But the new merits of person. For this purpose exact photographs of His
the book are the author's own views of Majesty are to be obtained at the regimental cost,
phases of life which he has hitherto avoided. and hung up in the barrack-rooms. 6. The ex
He has been accused of “making capital” cuse that the rescribed salutes to their Majesties
were omitted because, being in a close carriage,
out of sarcastic descriptions of the ways of a they were not recognised by the passers-by, cannot
Court, and has been told that this is unworthy be accepted. Soldiers are advised, in case of doubt,
1865. German Novelists: Freytag, Auerbach, Heyse, 175
w
Freytag shows us the tyranny of etiquette, would do for many of the crowned heads of
as practised by a father on his son and succes. Germany —
sor. The Crown Prince may not do any “Full of wit! Yes, I know that. He can
thing that he wants without especial leave, ask a thousand questions, propose a thousand
and if he utters any opinion there is an im problems; at dessert he wants a résumé of ec
mediate inquiry into its origin. He is sent clesiastical history or philosophy, or anything
to a university, although it is the usual cus else that is worth knowing, but will never
tom to put princes in the army of a certain work by himself continuously; never reads a
whole book, but always extracts, essences.
great State, but this army has been closed to And then the skilful melodists of the Court
the Prince. And how has it been closed ? abandon their ideas to him. Don't think that
Let the father speak — I undervalue the king's endeavour. People
“I have been thinking, in spite of the scru have always said to him, You are a genius.
les caused me by his delicate health, of enroll Kings are always persuaded that they are ge
ing him in one of the greater armies. You know niuses, military, political, connoisseurist genius
that there is only one state in which this is es; he has been persuaded that whoever comes
possible. And in that state an unexpected near a prince must put his mind in a Court
difficulty has occurred. There are two regi dress; and thus the king does not see men and
ments in that army which give us a security things as they are, but everything is draped in
the costume that suits him.”
that the Prince would enter into friendly rela
tions with none but officers of family. But one The same cynic gives a history of waiting
of these regiments is commanded by the Kobell dinner for the king —
who left our service some years ago; it is im
possible to make the Prince his subordinate. In “I was at the summer palace; the king had
the other regiment a thing has taken place, at gone out shooting; dinner-time was long pas
the last moment, which was quite unexpected; yet there were no signs of him. There were
in spite of all the opposition of the corps of the chamberlains and ladies of honour, and
officers, a Herr Müller has been thrust in. It is whatever else their titles are, running about the
thus impossible for the Hereditary Prince to park, sitting first on one bench, then on ano
enter the sole army that stands open to us. ther, looking through telescopes, talking, and
‘May I permit myself the question, if the second not keeping to one subject; for these well
obstacle is not to be removed?' asked the High dressed gentlemen and ladies, young and old,
Steward. “They would gladly oblige us, re were as hungry as common people, and there
plied the Prince, “but they do not know how was no sign of the shepherd to put their food
to do it, for the enrolment of the bourgeois in the trough. Your Uncle Willibald appeased
lieutenant was a concession on political grounds." his grumbling inner man with small cakes, so as
‘And it would not be of much avail if the dis not to spoil his appetite. Hours passed, and
turbing element in the name and family of we wandered about like the Jews on the long
Lieutenant Müller was changed?' interposed day of the fast. But we laughed and joked, at
the High Steward. ‘That has also been at least we tried to laugh and joke, and our in
tempted, but it was found that there was no sides grumbled. And your uncle had thirty
willingness in the man's father. An , your horses at home in his stables, and oxen and
Excellence, the inconvenance is just the same. cows in plenty, and broad acres around, yet
You know that I am by no means a purist in here he was serving and waiting, for it was his
these matters, but for the daily camaraderie pride to be head chamberlain. At last the king's
such a proximity would be too unpleasant for shooting-carriage drove up; every one bowed
the Prince. Müller or von Müller, the meal and made a joyous face; and yet the king was
dust remains.” in a bad humour, for a general who was with
him had shot a stag of twelve, and, according
There are many touches in Auerbach's to etiquette, when the king shoots nothing, no
novel which may be compared with this. one else ought to shoot anything. The gene
He talks of the Constitution as not hoffähig– ral was intensely miserable at this good '
and when the noble animal was brought an
not having the right of presentation at Court. deposited in the court of the palace, his head
His king loved the queen as he loved the hung down as sadly as the dead stag's. He
Constitution, but he loved Irma as his own excused himself again and again, and regretted
power, and his own way of interpreting the that his Majesty had not shot it; the king con
Constitution. In the theatre the nobles all ratulated him, but with very forced politeness.
rise to salute the king and queen, without Seeing me, the king asked, ‘Well, how are
any of that unpunctuality which displeased you?' and I replied, “Very hungry, your Ma
jesty!' He chuckled, and the whole Court
the King of Würtemberg; and on the king was horrified at my impropriety.”
sitting down the nobles sit down simultane
ously with him, as if they had been tied to We have met with suspicious resemblances
to Count Eberhard in Auerbach’s earlier
him. The proud republican, Count Eber
hard, gives a description of the king, that stories. The vein of cynicism which runs
through almost everything Auerbach has
to deliver the prescribed salute before every closed written, is apt to show most strongly in
Court carriage.” some one of his characters. There is also a
176* German Novelists : Freytag, Auerbach, Heyse. Dec.
good deal of repetition in the villagers of On scene, we begin to notice Auerbach's old
the Height ; the old meanness and brutality weakness. The good village characters are
are preserved with few variations. At the all idealized; they are more perfect than you
same time the new characters are not merely would expect to find them in any sphere of
new from the novelty of their situation, the life, and they are suited least of all to the
external accidents of dress and condition. one in which they are placed. This is not
They are not transplanted from the Black the case with the good characters in a higher
Forest, and changed into courtiers by a wave station, such as the Doctor and the Colonel.
of the magician's wand. The only one of They have their faults and weaknesses; they
whom this can be said is Count Eberhard, are not idealized. But Walpurga is. It was
and he has lived so long among the peasants the same in Barfüssle. So long as the ac
that he may have unconsciously adopted tions of the subordinate personages were
their ways. His daughter Irma is admirably related, everything was natural. “The hero
drawn, however much she may forfeit our ine's guardian,” says a writer on Germany,
regard by her liaison with the king. We discussing this same book, “does nothing to
have given our readers one portrait of the help her, but is indignant when she herds
king, and though it is sketched by an un geese, because he is accused of having driven
friendly hand, it is no whit exaggerated. her to it; his son turns her out of the house
Other characters, which have cnly a minor at night because his sister's sweetheart has
part in the story, are none the less commend diverted his affections to her ; the sister
able. The trustful yet narrow and revengful knocks her down and hits her in the face;
queen; the noble colonel who offers Irma the whole village is vexed with her and her
his hand when she feels herself unworthy of brother because they don't go to America.”
it; the retired danseuse, whose daughter by But when the hero or the heroine, or the old
the late king marries Irma's brother, and philosophic woman, must be described, we are
whom Bruno in his rage is about to address at once in a different world. Julian Schmidt
as “Miss mother-in-law ; ” Baum, that pat says very truly of Auerbach:—“IIe puts his
tern of Court lackeys, with his dyed hair and own method of induction in the mouths of
his forgotten past; are sketched easily but his characters, and, with all respect for his
clearly, with less power indeed than is shown many years' study of peasant life, we cannot
by Freytag, but not with the same diffuse help remarking that he very often makes his
Il CSS.
peasants speak as a peasant never has spoken,
In 1848 Auerbach passed two stormy never can speak. He does not look on his
months in Vienna, from before the flight of characters as wholes, but puts them together
the Emperor to the capture of the city by out of individual traits which strike him
Windischgrätz. In the diary of this time, forcibly.” It is partly for this reason that
which he published at the end of the same we rejoice at his present transition. In the
year, he records the commencement of the life which goes on around him, and in which
blockade, in words not a little significant of he can mix, he will have less inducement to
his own writings: “Breakfast-time shows us invent paragons of any kind, as he will have
that we are besieged. No milk, and above less opportunity of observing monsters. The
all, no rich cream. It will make thousands one extreme leads necessarily to the other.
remark, what never occurs to them the whole Where there is little in real life to relieve
year round, how thoroughly the city is de the eye, the mind is sure to wander to ideal
pendent on the country life which surrounds creations. The youth of nations, and the
it.” Auerbach's stories have hitherto sup comparative infancy of civilisation, are the
plied the city with this country life, and in times generally marked by great poems; and
the work before us the country is pointedly now that life is more on a level, with fewer
contrasted with the city. The people of the decided exceptions on either side, the ideal
Court follow the example of the villagers, faculty takes refuge in villages, where, by the
“Repeat in large what they practised in small.” side
tues.
of real defects, it creates impossible vir
The landlord of the inn is to the village The third author on our list is more re
what the king is to the capital, and when markable in the way of idealism than Auer
Hansei is excluded from the inn, he feels like bach, but the limits within which he paints
the inhabitant of a small capital who is not are so different, that we must try him by
presentable. The desperate poacher who another standard. A picture by Meissonnier
kills Esther for revenge, and ends by shoot may be more ideal than a picture by Kaul
ing his brother Baum by mistake, is paral bach, though you can point to the model
leled by Bruno, as bad a brother and a worse which served for the one, and the other has
son. So far the resemblance may stand. evidently sprung from the imagination. But
But as soon as good characters come on the the one is so thoroughly in keeping, and so
harmonious, that it impresses you more with of the country round. A deep and regularly
ideal completeness than all the wild inven rounded basin of valley lay at my feet, filled
tions of the other. Paul Heyse was once with the beautiful dark green waves of a deep
taken by an English critic as the representa sea of thickest beechwood. Below, right in
the middle, rose some few pinnacles and chim
tive of realism, a name which also belongs neys of the château, the roofs of which were
to Meissonnier. It is true that nothing in sinking in the wilderness of leaves. It was
Heyse's stories is impossible, or inconsistentlike a fairy tale to see the weathercock on the
with the rest; that the general aspects of little tower glittering in the clear sun of the au
life which he describes are true to life; and tumn evening, as they tell of enchanted castles
that his principal characters are never types sunk in the sea, and their highest pinnacles peer
or abstractions. But with all this his stories ing out of the depths when the air is bright.
are intensely ideal, intensely poetical. The No sound of human life broke out on any side.
atmosphere in which they move allows them The woodpeckers tapped monotonously among
the trees; a careless roe passed me, and looked
to be so. How far that atmosphere could be at me more in wonder than in fear; and ever
preserved in a novel is another question, and branch swamed with forward squirrels, whic
one which, to our regret, Paul Heyse has al pelted the intruder with the husks of beech
ways answered with a decided negative. But nuts. . . . I took a path at random up the
in his last volume two of the stories attain a valley, and soon sank into the most wonderful
greater length than any of his former ones, forest night that had ever rustled over my head.
and of these two, one in particular presents aBut even the forest night has its dreams, and
more crowded canvas, and a greater stir of pasthese had soon entwined me so fast, that I quite
sionate life than he has ventured on before.
forgot where I was and whither I was going,
and let my feet go on heedlessly. They went
The Meran Stories were preceded by four on until they had to stop on the verge of a
volunes, each containing four stories. We broad stream that ran black between the beech
are not sure to which volume we should give es. I could find no further track. The trees
the preference. There is little doubt that stood close together, and their branches, with
most readers prefer the Italian stories, of the matted brushwood, made an impenetrable
which there is one at least in each volume. wall. I turned at once and took another path,
The first series contains a favourite one, then another, and wandered for hours through
the whole bed of the valley, without seeing one
called La Rabbiata, but, in spite of the gene stone of the château gleam through the wilder
ral love for this story, we must own that ness. The moon was already shining through
there are others which we value more highly. the tops of the beeches, and I made up my
The Maiden of Treppi in the second series, mind that I must pass the night under her airy
the Solitaries in the third, and Annina in roof. All of a sudden, when I least expected
it, the wood opened out, and there stood the
the fourth, are also importations from Italy, grey old château as large as life, with its count
from the wild Apennines, the rocks of Capri, less blind windows, like an island in the midst
or the fountains before St. Peter's. Almost
of a sea of green.”
all of Heyse's stories are set in an appropri
ate frame of scenery, and the reader's mind It would not be difficult to choose a com
is tuned to what is coming by the opening panion picture from each of the author's
descriptions. As a sample of these, let us stories. The desolate vistas of the Apen
give the following sketch of an old German nines, the sea views from Capri, the grey
château :— heads of the mountains around Meran, and
the stream plunging turbid through its close
“I had walked for a full hour up the ravine, ravine, the unbroken expanse of the Campag
when it seemed strange to me that the road na with the howl of the pack of pursuing
was entirely neglected, and that no carriage dogs, the mountain pastures of the Bavarian
could have passed along it for more than a year. Alps looking down on the emerald Königs
The fallen leaves of last autumn mouldered
see, the German painter standing by the
away in the deep ruts; here and there I came fountain
on fragments of rock and dead branches, which before St. Peter's and his long yel
a winter storm had hurled down from the edge low hair floating with the floating spray,
of the hollow way; and nothing but the traces might furnish subjects for artistic illustration,
of human steps could be recognised in the tena but that no further touch is needed to give
cious soil. I put an end to my doubts, by the them life and reality. Yet this talent for
thought that a more level road must long have description, this art in framework, is subordi
been made from the château to the plain, al nate to the true art of the story. The cha
though on entering the ravine I had noticed racters live before us, and their hearts are
that there could be no straighter way to the laid bare with a few skilful touches. The
near town. Now, however, that I had come to
the summit of the pass, I was quite undecided, web is so carefully woven that we do not
for half-a-dozen paths met there, and all were know that one touch will dissolve it till the
equally run wild. I climbed an old, large author gives that touch. One of the stories
boughed beech, and now I had my first view in which this merit is most conspicuous is
VOL. XLIII. N-12
the one called Helene Morten. A woman of crisis has occurred in her husband's business.
rare culture and great sensitiveness of frameThree of his ships have been consigned to a
has married a busy pushing merchant in firm in Copenhagen, and while they are half
some seaport of Germany. He is quite in way thither, the news comes that this firm is
ferior to her in mental gifts, and, much as he
on the verge of bankruptcy. If the three
loves her, cannot half appreciate her. She, ships arrive at Copenhagen, they will be
on the other hand, can take but little inter seized as the property of that firm, and the
est in his commercial affairs, and her ex only chance of saving them is to sail in a
treme delicacy forbids her paying a visit to faster ship and overtake them. Helene, who
his favourite ships, even when the sea is cannot bear the sea when it is smooth, and
smooth and they are in harbour. Thus whose interest in her husband's business has
there is a secret mental antagonism between always seemed so small, embarks at once in
husband and wife. When the husband talks pursuit. -
of his success in trade, the money he has This is what the merchant learns from his
“turned over,” or the luck he has had with head clerk. Helene had left strict orders that
a certain venture, he sees that his wife does he was to hear nothing about her voyage, that
not understand him, and is forcing herself to no one was to write to him for fear : mak
take an interest which is alien to her nature. ing him uneasy. The letter on her table was
On the other hand, if she reads one of her not, as he imagined, a farewell to him, but
favourite books to him, or plays one of her was addressed to his friend, in answer to the
favourite airs, the chances are that he is question he had put to her, whether she was
dead beat with his daily work, and goes to happy?. She said that she was happy, how
sleep in the middle. He does not observe happy she could hardly tell. Her only
that she gradually discontinues her favourite trouble was, that some fault of hers must
books and music, or that her sunny bright have caused her husband's sudden journey,
ness of spirits is subsiding. But at last this but she was conscious of no fault, and was
is forced upon his notice. He engages in a innocent of all intention. This letter, which
lawsuit, and the advocate who conducts his the husband reads, shows him the full worth
cause comes to talk matters over with him of the heart he has possessed and lost. He
one evening. The advocate at once recog feels that he has lost it, that Helene will not
nises the rare merits of Helene, and instead return alive from her desperate voyage. And
of discussing business with her husband, when he goes out to look over the stormy
talks with her of books and music. sea, and sees the three ships returning, led
The right chord is touched in Helene's by the fast sailer which had overtaken them
heart. Dwelling on her favourite subjects, almost in sight of Copenhagen, it needs not
with one who appreciates them as she does, the flag half-mast high to tell him that his
she is lured insensibly into her old gaiety, noble wife has sunk under her sufferings.
and her husband sees in one and the same Helene Morten illustrates both the strength
moment that her bright spirits had faded in and weakness of Heyse's art. A musical
his company, and were revived in the com friend of ours observes that the great beauty
pany of his friend. He cannot help feeling of Haydn's symphonies lies in their sur
a little jealous. True, he has full confidence prises. “Haydn,” he says, “takes a theme
in his wife, but it is impossible to avoid see and exhausts it; he gives you every possible
ing that his friend would suit her better. variation on it, and, as it were, worries it to
death; and then, when you think nothing
These feelings grow upon him at every fresh
visit of the advocate, especially as these fresh more can come out of it, he suddenly gives
visits recur with great frequency. At last you a most charming melody, which you
the husband says that business calls him never looked for, and which you thought ab
away from home, and leaves his wife ab solutely impossible from the exhaustion of
. . ruptly. - the motive.” This is what Heyse has done
He settles down for a few days at the place in Helene Morten. At the same time, he is
assigned for this business. The first three too much given to let the chief actor relate
days a letter comes regularly from Helene. the story in the past tense. So many of his
The fourth day there is no letter, and he re stories are told in this way, with an interval
turns instantly. He finds, as he expected, of years between the event and its narration,
the house empty, its mistress gone, and a that there is often a certain coldness in the
letter lying on her writing table. Of course, scenes which should be the most passionate.
he concludes that she has eloped with his It is this characteristic which has led some
friend, and every reader of the story would critics to censure Heyse as being artificial, or
form the same opinion. But here comes the to nickname him the poet of the studio.
extraordinary beauty of Paul Heyse's treat The Saturday Review went further, and pro
ment. Helene has not eloped. A sudden claimed him insipid. Much the same charge
was brought by Wagner against Mendels sight of some ants on his companion's coat.
sohn ; and we have met with men who wa We have to read some way before we find
lued music for its own sake, and yet talked of the meaning of this horror, and the cause of
Mendelssohn as a drawing-room artist, com this misanthropy. It comes out at length
posing in white kid gloves. strangely. The Count has found all his at
The Meran Stories are the best answer to tempts at interesting himself in the girl of
any such charge against Heyse. In the se the ruined castle frustrated. Weber, her
cond of them there is enough sensation for the father, resents them all, guards his daughter
admirers of Miss Braddon, with enough truth carefully, keeps a close watch on the Count.
and passion for a much higher class of read One night the Count and his companion are
ers. We will endeavour to give some idea of in a wine-house, when some young men at
it, though it is told with such art, and the another table begin talking loudly, as young
web is so intricate, that the task we have un men will talk. The hero of the party is a
dertaken is almost impossible. The story handsome lion of Meran, who has succeeded
opens in a deep ravine that plunges from the to the Count's place in the affections of his
slope of the Ifinger into the valley of the faithless charmer. But the young man is
Adige. In summer, the stream, of which now boasting of another conquest, and talks
this ravine is the bed, is almost dry, but in mysteriously of the ruined castle. The Count
spring, with the melting of the snow, or later springs up and calls him to account. The
in the year, when the hail comes down, or young man promises him a meeting which
hurricanes break loose, the whole fury of the is destined not to be kept.
elements is concentrated in the narrow gully; While the Count is wondering at the
the tenacious clay which clothes the sides of mystery of the Weber family, a man in the
the mountain dissolves into a dark-brown corner of the wine-house, who has over
liquid slime, and pours along, carrying away heard the quarrel, volunteers to speak. At
fragments of earth and rock and trunks of his first word the colonel turns pale and
trees in its fury. The earth shakes for miles leaves the room, but the Count remains to
round as the stream thunders into the valley; listen. His informant is landrichter in Meran,
the peasants near rush out, crying “The Naif and knows the whole history of the Webers.
is coming,” and the farmers drive off their They were allowed to change their name on
cattle, or load waggons with their most valu account of a calamity that had happened to
able goods, before the stream overflows. For one of the family. Weber was forester in
as soon as a large rock or tree chokes the ra.the Val Sugana. His elder daughter Anna
vine, the mass of liquid mud rises in a wall was attached to a young man much below
and pours over the surrounding country, her station, an untierling of her father's. At
sweeping off vineyards and orchards, farms the conscription this young man was taken.
and houses. He had promised to return that night to the
Not far from this ravine stands a castle, block-hut, where he had held secret inter
half in ruins, and tenanted by a strange fa views with Anna; but no sooner were the
mily. An old Italian grandmother, a father, recruits enrolled than an order was issued
who is away on shooting excursions, and a forbidding them to leave the barracks that
daughter, are in charge of the ruin, and live night on pain of death. In spite of the
there in entire seclusion. Some mystery at order, the youth slipped out and got to the
taches to them. There is something strange rendezvous, but in coming back he fell down
about the daughter. There is something a precipice, and was found there with his leg
strange in the way the father leaves her broken by the patrols who went out to look
alone, and the watch he keeps on her when for him. Had he confessed the cause of his
they are together. A young Count, who has expedition, he might have been pardoned;
been jilted, and is for a time sick of the world, but he was silent, for he had promised secrecy
is a little taken by the girl, thinks of retiring —and he was shot.
to a castle as a hermitage, and wants to buy An hour after, a tall, handsome girl came
the ruin. The father tries to dissuade him to the room of the young officer who had
from the purchase, and will not let him speak command of the corps of recruits, and who
to the daughter. And the Count's compa had just presided at the execution of the sen
nion, a misanthropic colonel, sneers at the tence. She came to beg her lover's pardon, not
raw cynicism of the jilted young man, and at knowing that it was already too late. The
the fancies in which he looks for consolation. young officer's servant grew curious when
We are introduced to these two men the girl remained a long time closeted with
as they walk up the bed of the Naif. The his master. He listened through the keyhole
colonel points with a chuckle to a horseleech and heard nothing. At last he made some
preying on a snail, as a proof that “nature is excuse to open the door. The girl was on
one with rapine;” but he is horrified at the her knees before the officer. He had a
strange expression on his face, had taken off followed up the young man who boasted of
his neckcloth as if he were choking, and was his conquest. And as this thought occurs to
walking with great strides up and down the the Count, he thinks he hears a shriek for
room. He thrust his servant rudely out, and help. Neither his thoughts nor his ears have
locked the door upon him. In another half deceived him. Weber had listened to the
hour the girl came out, imagining she had boast, and had clung to the track of the young
her lover's pardon. The servant, to whom she man. But again we must let Heyse himself
spoke about it, told her at once that her speak:- -
lover had been shot more than an hour ago. “Aloys racked his brains, but his ideas were
For a moment her eyes seemed to shoot still confused. To the effect of his story was
living fire, but the next moment she burst out
added the roar of the Naif which he was ap
proaching, the ghostly paleness of the moonlight,
in a loud peal of laughter. But a day after
the young officer was not to be found. He and high in front of him the motionless peak of
was tracked to the block-hut, where Anna the Ifinger, over which the clouds were racing
and her lover used to meet, and there his as if the high rock nodded and threatened and
uniform was found rolled in a corner. We shook itself, and meditated a fall which would
bury alike the wicked and the guiltless. Strange
will leave Paul Heyse to tell the upshot of ly enough, when he reached the wooden bridge,
the search:— the youth could not make up his mind to put
“I will be brief. There is a chasm in the his foot on the long beams. They were trem
mountain a little higher. I do not know what bling indeed with the might of the swollen tor
led me to the thought that he must have fallen rent. But he knew that a high piled harvest
down it. But the reality was still worse. Just waggon could cross in safety; what had a single
at this moment the moon came out, and we passenger to fear? And could he not see, fifty
could distinguish every tree a rifle-shot around paces off, enticing and quite in the moonlight,
us. “What's that white thing hanging there?' the château where he was so ardently expect
cried the boy suddenly, and stood as if he was ed? And had he not many and many a night
turned to s one, for he was afraid of ghosts. I shaken off all the trepidations of memory and
cast a sharp glance through the tree-stems, and conscience, as soon as he had passed the secret
could not utter a word, so terrible was the sight. door opening on the south terrace, and entered
A fir-tree, stripped of all its bark at the foot, the loty ante-chamber of his lovely fair, which,
rose by the chasm, and flung out two solitary with its scent of flowers, was far more attractive
boughs at about a man's height from the ground. than the turret-cellar up yonder in those unin
From one of these hung the wretched youth, in habitable ruins? Yet, in spite of these thoughts,
his shirt and trousers; his arms tied tightly be he stood still on the extreme end of the bridge,
hind his back, his feet also tied tightly together, and looked down into the yeasty stream. The
and suspended by a treble no?se to the branch, thick slime which poured furiously through the
while his head just touched the ground, not far rocky bed, broke into a thousand fanciful forms,
from the verge of the abyss, with its floating and, faintly lighted by the moon, whirled like a
hair. But there, between the roots of the fir, mass of melted earth at once heavily and im
some ants had built their heap, and though this petuously into the depths. Here, too, the noise
was half destroyed by footsteps, we saw with a was so loud that the solitary wanderer, in spite
shudder the creatures swarming about the dead of having his ears sharpened by fear, never once
man's head—.” heard the footsteps of another who had followed
him. And now the dark sturdy figure in the
But here the description breaks off coarse jacket stood close behind him; a heavy
abruptly, and no one could wish it pursued. hand was laid on his shoulder, the youth started,
What with her lover's death, and the cruelty and half suppressed a cry of terror, as his hasty
practised on herself, Anna had gone mad. £ met two immovable eyes, that seemed to
She was found at home laughing and singing ook through and through him.”
hysterically, muttering every now and then, The result of this interview may easily be
in low and haunting tones, “The ants the imagined. After a few words the infuriated
ants! don't seare them off, they are only father flings the youth from the bridge into
doing their duty!” The young officer's the thick slimy torrent. The cry which the
father, a colonel—; but here the Count Count fancied he heard was the despairin
interrupts the narrative. He has now learnt shriek for mercy as the wretch was tosse
the secret of his companion, of the misan over. But another cry comes to the ears of
tropy which makes him avoid all other men, Weber. Had any one seen him? He looks
the horror which he felt at the sight of ants, round, and the coast seems clear. Yet a girl
the pallor which overcame him when the living by the Naif, who had been sent out by
judge began his story. her master to see if the torrent was rising,
The Count, however, is quite overcome. had witnessed the whole scuffle; and, when
Just after the quarrel he had gone outside, Weber looked round, had seen his face dis
and had heard that Weber had been sitting tinctly in the clear moonlight. The story
on the bench before the door during the finds its way to the ears of the younger
whole scene. No doubt the father had
daughter, and she too begins to laugh loudly
1865. Plato and the other Companions of Socrates. 181
and hysterically. The same fate has come judge Freytag by his first success; but we
on her as on her sister. The minds of both cannot judge Auerbach by Debit and Credit.
have failed under woes too great for human If Paul Heyse chooses to confine himself to
endurance. a narrow sphere, and almost to reach perfec
We have told this story at some length, and tion where perfection is less worth having,
given these extracts, in order to show what he earns our praise for what he has done,
is to be found in Heyse, and what may be but we may not blame him for what he has
expected of him. We do not wish him to not attempted. One of the wisest of the
abandon the field in which he has earned Germans tells us:—
such laurels, and essay himself in a full novel. “Erkenne, Freund, was er geleistet hat,
But we think that by degrees he may en Und damn erkenne was er leisten wollte.”
large his canvas, as he has been doing of
late, and may steal imperceptibly into some Or, as the English Poet says—
thing more important than the tale or story. “In every work regard the writer's end,
And we think that, on the whole, the con Since none can compass more than they
intend.”
clusion forced on our minds by the other works
we have considered, is equally hopeful. We An observance of these two maxims would
have three authors viewing their art as some prevent much of the shallow criticism which
thing serious, yet recognising the subordina exists, and which does equal harm to authors
tion of their art to nature. If we could be and to readers.
lieve that they would train others to follow
in their steps, we should augur a fair future
for German fiction. But at present we cannot
speak on the point with much confidence.
The followers of all three are apt to exag
gerate the faults of their originals, and to ART. III.—Plato and the other Companions
neglect their beauties. Bald and naked of Socrates. By GEoRGE GRote, F.R.S.,
realism, interminable descriptions of things etc. London: John Murray, 1865.
not worth a line, philosophical discussions on
matters that need not be dreamt of even by THIs book is one sign among many of the
deeper philosophers than Horatio, are more reviving interest of this country in philoso
easily caught from Freytag than his choice phy. “All false philosophy,” says Professor
of subjects, his wit, and his profound view in Ferrier, “is Plato misinterpreted; all true
to character. The imitators of Auerbach philosophy is Plato rightly understood.” If
sicken us with impossible stories of peasant any part of this be true, we have to con
life, bands of brigands headed by the wife of gratulate ourselves that the words of the first
a small farmer, characters which are neither great philosopher are now being discussed
new nor in keeping, and incidents which sin and illustrated so fully. Not to mention the
equally against nature and invention. The excellent editions of some of the Dialogues
followers of Heyse aim at his artistic arrange which have issued from the Oxford press
ment, and become artificial; he subdues pas within the last few years, we have two elabo
sion overmuch, and they leave it out of the rate books by distinguished authors, Dr.
question. Yet, as imitation is the natural Whewell and Mr. Grote, each attempting in
tendency of all beginners, and as Thackeray his own way to set the substance of the Pla
himself admitted that he began by imitating tonic writings before the English reader.
Fielding, the Germans may shake themselves We regret that it is not possible to speak
clear of these faults, and learn instead of copy more favourably of Dr. Whewell's English
1I]9. Plato. If strong English sense, with its
From the authors themselves we have a rough and ready solutions of great questions,
right to expect more than they have given if sound scholarship and boundless-energy
us. But it would be ungrateful to dwell on were enough to represent Plato, he has this,
what we expect when we have so much to and more. But the humour, the subtility,
acknowledge. We trust indeed that we the poetry, somehow evaporates under his
have done them justice, that we have not rough handling. His reverence for Plato
tried them by an exclusively English stand does not prevent him from treating the divine
ard, that we have not pointed out their Dialogues like the exercises of a schoolboy
faults except as a means of leading them to that have to be re-arranged, corrected, and
amendment. If we seem to have treated cut short by the master. Plato's greatest
Freytag more hardly than Auerbach, and work, the Republic, he breaks up into four
both more hardly than Heyse, it is because distinct Essays, and casts the intervening pas
the higher a man attains the more rigorous sages into an Appendix. One can hardly
becomes the standard. We must necessarily express too strong reprobation of the bar
182 Plato and the other Companions of Socrates. Dec.
barism that allows him thus to dismember tions for which he has yet found no rational
and re-arrange a work which has the unity and abstract expression. And even between
of a poem, as well as of a philosophic trea these two, as we see especially from the
tise. Timaeus, there lies a debatable region in
Mr. Grote's book is an attempt of a differ which myths and abstractions mingle together
ent kind, not to translate or reproduce Plato and struggle for the mastery. This varied
as a whole, but simply to give an account of tone and colour of the Platonic thought, this
the discussions contained in each Dialogue, endless shading and doubtful suggestion, this
and to criticise the philosophical results at infinity, which forms the background of all
tained thereby. He seeks to give us Plato that is determinate and fixed, increases won
without his artistic dress–Plato unveiled. derfully his interest and instructiveness, but
The variety, the humour, the poetry of the renders it impossible to do justice to him by
Dialogues, the fresh ' of changing situa an analysis, or indeed in any way but by
tion and character, disappear, and are in translation.
tended to disappear, in a dry analysis, which In some respects, every one must allow
brings into clear light the different points of that the historian of Greece is well fitted for
the argument, but leaves all else in shadow. his task. His knowledge of the Dialogues,
“How does the matter of Plato look without as well as of their “setting” in Greek life, is
the form, and what, so taken, is its absolute all that could be wished. And, what is as
value !” is the question Mr. Grote tries to important, he has a real sympathy with that
answer. A more sympathetic mind might joy of the intellect in his own energy, in the
have shrunk from such a severance of soul mere play of thought for its own sake,
and body, and might, perhaps, question its which fills the Platonic Dialogues. He does
possibility, in the case of a writer in whom not, like Dr. Whewell, weary of the negative
poet and philosopher are so closely bound dialectic, or desire to cut it short, even when
together. There is a point where meta he can see no objective point to which it
physics and poetry meet, or, to express it tends. This fresh self-surrender to the guid
more accurately, the highest truth of philo ance of reason, this fearlessness, and even, to
sophy is a rational and self conscious poetry, a certain extent, carelessness of results, if so
as the highest poetry may be described as an be that the fallow-field of thought is
irrational and unconscious philosophy. This, thoroughly upturned and made ready for
at least, is the Platonic conception of their receiving the seed, is one of the most dis
relation; and a mind that severs matter and tinguished characteristics of the Platonic
form, theory and expression, so decidedly as writings; and if any one wearies of this
Mr. Grote, can scarce represent the thought endless seeking and questioning, he is not
of Plato fairly. Besides this, philosophy was thoroughly in sympathy with Plato, who
in Plato's time still struggling into birth, out seeks to awaken the minds of his readers,
of the symbolic and unreflected forms of not to give them rest, and who holds that
mythology. It had not yet, as with Aristo there is no truth for any one, except that
tle, a definite language and sphere of its which he wins for himself by the working of
own; it did not move apart in an atmosphere his own mind.
of abstraction. Hence an apparent self-con “Plato,” says Mr. Grote, “feels a strong in
tradiction that often occurs in the language terest in the inquiry, in the debate per se, and
of Plato. He is ever warring against the he presumes a like interest in his readers. He
looseness and indefiniteness of popular has no wish to shorten the process, nor to reach
thought, as also against the poets and rheto the the
end and dismiss the question as settled. On
contrary, he claims it as a privilege of philo
ricians, who in his view only give an artificial sophical research that persons in it are noways
completeness and symmetry to this indefi tied to time; they are not like judicial pleaders,
niteness, without really delivering us from it. who, with a clepsydra or water-clock to mea
Yet, on the other hand, he is obliged himself sure the length of each speech, are under slavish
to have recourse to symbol and poetry in dependence on the feelings of the dikasts, and
order to body forth conceptions for which he are therefore obliged to keep strictly to the
has as yet no more accurate language. Plato point. Plato regards the process of inquiry as
walks as far as he can, then flies when he can being in itself both a stimulus and a discipline,
in which the minds both of questioner and re
not walk. In many of the Dialogues, as in spondent, are implicated and improved, each
the Phaedo, we have an entire metaphysical being indispensable to the other; he also repre
discussion, which at the end passes off into a sents it as a process, carried on under the im
dream. There is in him a realm of clear mediate inspiration of the moment, without re
logical distinction and accurate thinking, but #" or knowledge of the result."—Vol. i. p.
around it on every side is a kind of cloud 274.
land, in which float the images of “worlds The merits and defects of Mr. Grote as an
not realized,” or, in other words, of concep interpreter of Plato might almost be guessed
from this passage alone. He is not imagina and a mind at the opposite intellectual pole
tive; he is not even subtle or speculative; from him. We do not of course expect a
delicate distinctions and shades of meaning critic to give up his own judgment to the au
are either obliterated or exaggerated by his thor he is criticising, but we do expect him to
strong but heavy pen; but he has unques show some power of forgetting himself for
tionable vigour and manliness of thought, the moment, and looking at the world through
and for a dialectical combat, an intellectual his author's eyes. Now, Mr. Grote seems to
wrestle between two opinions, no one could us always to judge Plato ab extra ; he scarcely
wish a better spectator or judge. The bold ever attempts to identify himself with him.
ness, too, with which he casts aside all former The unworldiness of the Platonic spirit, if we
commentary, and questions Plato anew, often may so express it, and that characteristic
gives great interest and freshness to his words. transfusion of emotion and thought, which
He has seen for himself, and therefore his has drawn into his school all the poets from
opinion always has the value of originality. Dante to Tennyson, is all but a dead letter to
Let any one who wishes to appreciate his Mr. Grote. We may, by anticipation, take
power read his commentary on the Theaete one example. When in the Republic, Plato,
tus, or, still better, on the Protagoras, upon like half the great moral teachers, down even
which his speculative sympathies have led to our own Carlyle, turns the question,
him to spend his best efforts. Whether we “What is my right 7” into the other ques
agree with his conclusions or no, we must tion, “What is my duty?” (ra oix:io "pārrey),
have our minds braced by the atmosphere and maintains, in deliberate opposition to the
of intellectual energy in which we find our theory of Glaucon, that duties, not rights,
selves, and we cannot come away without are to be considered in the foundation of the
a stronger sense that “the process of in state, Mr. Grote only exclaims against the
quiry is at once a stimulus and a disci strange meaning given to the word justice,
pline.” and finds in it a proof that Plato had not yet
But while the spirit of a Platonic discus advanced to the Aristotelian notion, that
sion is thus vividly brought before us, we justice is virtue viewed as involving relations
cannot say so much for Mr. Grote's treat to other men. Would he not find a similar
ment of those Dialogues in which the spe difficulty when Christ answers the question,
culative or constructive element predomi “Who is my neighbour?” by the counter
nates. We can scarce believe that any one question, “Which then was neighbour to
who has thoroughly studied the Republic him that fell among thieves?” IIow much
will be satisfied with his analysis and criticism of a higher logic is in these inconsequences,
of it. And the Laws fare still worse. Partly aud what a loss to mankind if they had not
it is, as we shall see, that he has a theory been committed ! It is not that Mr. Grote
which prevents him doing full justice to disapproves—that he may have a right to
these Dialogues, and partly that a certain do, when he has shown first that he appre
dogmatic hardness and inflexibility of mind ciates; it is that he has scarcely ever entered
becomes more obvious when brought into one great region of thought in which Plato
contact with the highest expressions of the often moves.
delicate and subtle spirit of Plato. And this The most important and most distinctive
mental inflexibility shows itself also in ano peculiarity of Mr. Grote's book is his division
ther way. It may seem bold to accuse a of the Dialogues. He draws a broad line
great historian of a want of historic sym of distinction between those which, after
pathy—an incapacity of forgetting the as Thrasyllus, he names respectively “Dia
sociations of his own day, and assuming logues of Search,” and “Dialogues of Ex
the spiritual vesture of the past. Yet, we position.” The former are entirely negative
think that even the History of Greece is and critical, and have no end beyond the
not quite free from this defect. We are discussion itself. The latter are affirmative
never allowed altogether to forget the new and dogmatic, full of magisterial decisions on
in the old world; and the image of ancient all points of philosophic doctrine. And
democracy is considerably obscured in our these two classes stand side by side, the off
eyes by the associations of modern Radical spring of different tendencies, and without
ism. And Plato, as we might expect, suffers any connecting link.
even more than Athens from the modernisms
forced upon him, as, for instance, in the com “Some,” he says, “represent all the doubts
and difficulties in the negative Dialogues as ex
mentary on the Theaetetus, where the sophist ercises to call forth the intellectual efforts of the
is made to argue as if he were familiar with reader, preparatory to full and satisfactory solu
Hume and Berkeley. And to the distance tions which Plato has given in the dogmatic
between the modern and ancient world, we Dialogues at the end. The first half of this
have here to add the distance between Plato hypothesis I accept, the last half I believe to
1S4 Plato and the other Companions of Socrates. Dec.
be unfounded. The doubts and difficulties by Socrates. Their distinguishing character

were certainly exercises to the mind of Plato istic is, that the subject is always morals,
himself and were intended as exercises to his and the result negative. Plato is, above
readers, but he has nowhere provided a key to all things, a moral philosopher; his meta
the solution of them. Where he propounds
positive dogmas he does not bring them face to physical inquiries arise, in the first instance,
face with the objections, nor verify their au out of the attempt to determine morals sci
thority by showing that they afford satisfactory entifically. Socrates is the beginning of his
solutions of the difficulties exhibited in his mind; and it is only in seeking a sufficient
negative procedure. The two currents of his basis for the Socratic ethics that he is led
speculation, the affirmative and negative, are gradually into a region of metaphysical
distinct and independent of each other. Where speculation, which Socrates neglected or
the affirmative is specially present (as in Tim al
despised. We have no record of the or
vs) the negative dialectic disappears. . . . .
When Plato comes forward to affirm, his dog der in which the Dialogues were written,
mas are altogether a priori; they enumerate and it has been the subject of endless con
pre-conceptions and hypotheses which derive troversy; but if we take the Socratic ethics,
their hold upon his belief not from any apti on the one hand, and those great construc
tude for solving the objections he has raised, but tive efforts, the Republic, Timaeus, and Jaws,
from deep and solemn sentiment of some kind on the other, as the extreme limits between
or other, religious, aesthetical, ethical, poetical, which the speculation of Plato moves, we
etc. The dogmas are enunciations of some
grand sentiment of the divine, good, just, shall probably commit no error of specula
beautiful, symmetrical, etc., which Plato fol tive importance. And if this be so, we see
lows out into corollaries. But this is a process that Plato, who had been led by the course
in itself, and while he is performing it, the of his thought out of the Socratic sphere of
doubts previously raised are not called up to ideas into a very different region of specula
be solved, but are forgotten, or kept out of tion, returns at the end of his life, with the
sight.”—Vol. i. pp. 270–1. results he has gathered, to apply them to the
This is afterwards more vividly expressed ethical problems of his youth.
The peculiarity of Socrates that strikes us
in his criticisms on the Republic :—
most is that he is a prophet without being a
“While his spokesman, Socrates, was leader dogmatist. The mere search for truth, the
of the opposition, Plato delighted in arming him love of truth for its own sake, received with
with the maximum of cross-examining acute him a religious consecration. He does not
ness, but here Socrates has passed over to the bid his disciples believe; he professes to have
ministerial benches, and . . . no new leader ofnothing to teach them, except that truth is,
opposition is allowed to replace him.”—Vol. iii.
and is the most desirable of possessions. All
p. 165.
he can do for them is to destroy the conceit
Mr. Grote “cuts things in two with an of knowledge that prevents the desire for
axe.” There is a rough similarity with the truth from arising; for “not they that are
facts in this classification, though it would whole need a physician, but they that are sick.”
require endless adaptation and qualification, What was it that led Socrates to attach
cre we could admit it as a fair representation this religious value and necessity to pure sci
of them. Nor, we think, are the two cate ence? Obviously the circumstances of the
gories of “negative dialectic” and “grand time in which he lived, a time when the
sentiment” at all sufficient to indicate the “simple morality of childhood” was no
contents of the Platonic writings. There longer an adequate guide for men. To the
are few of the Dialogues which are purely early Athenian or Spartan, there was no ques
negative, which do not contain some germs of tion of a scientific standard of right. Law,
positive theory, and there are none, except supplemented by custom, furnished him with
perhaps the Laws, which can be quite fairly a guide whose sufficiency it never occurred
described as dogmatic. At the very least, to to him to doubt. The same divine authority
make Mr. Grote's classification valid, we must which had made him citizen of Athens or
introduce between the Dialogues of Search Sparta had fixed the laws under which he
and the Dialogues of Exposition a third class, should live; and to say, “It is our way”
in which he examines the metaphysical (rărpiov yap huiv), was the same thing to
principles of other philosophies, and lays the him as to say, “It is right.” This simple
foundation for his own. These we may call faith was gradually giving way as the culture
the Speculative Dialogues. The meaning of of Greece advanced, and the knowledge of
this name will become clear in the sequel. other cities and nations weakened the force
The Dialogues which correspond most of local tradition. The words “good” and
nearly to Mr. Grote's description of the “Dia “just” began to take a wider meaning, and,
alogue of Search,” are those in which Plato being appealed to by all, they seemed to
remains within the circle of ideas traced out point to some standard above and independ
ent of the peculiarities of any one people. Another aspect of this dialectic has to be
Yet this standard was utterly vague and un mentioned. In destroying the first imperfect
defined, or took its colour from the feelings definitions of such words as Virtue, Goodness,
of the moment. Socrates first clearly de and Justice, Socrates at the same time brought
tected this vagueness and indeterminateness, into clearness the deficiency of the morality
and he first saw how it was to be remedied. that rests on outward law and tradition, and
The only possible substitute for local tradi so emancipated his hearers from that moral
tion and custom, if a more universal standard ity. For these first definitions may be de
were required, was science,—a science which scribed generally as attempts to give a ra
should determine the meaning of those vague tional expression to the traditional moral sen
words which all had in their mouths, and to timent, and their failure must give a death
which all equally attached the highest au blow to that sentiment. In order to procure
thority. If we could define justice and good. an open field for the morality of science,
ness in the abstract, these definitions would Socrates was obliged to hasten the natural
form a measure to which all particular acts decay of the imperfect morality of simple
might be referred. Without such definitions, faith and obedience. This was the danger
it was only unconscious ignorance that could ous side of the negative of Socrates. To over
take upon itself to define what is just and throw the semblance of knowledge without
good. The first thing which Socrates had to the reality was necessarily to overthrow be
do was to make clear what was needed, and lief in the “tradition of the elders,” and this
thereby to make ignorance conscious of itself. was the more hazardous because what he had
Hence he begins invariably with the demand o set in place of it was, not a science of
for a definition of some general term, a de morals, but only the notion of such a science
mand which is generally misunderstood. and the demand for it.
“What is virtue?” says Socrates in the Such was the method of Socrates, as it is ex
Meno. “The virtue of a man,” says Me hibited to us in the first class of Platonic Dia
no, “is to be able to manage the affairs logues. In these Plato is not dealing with the
of state, and to do good to his friends and errors of any particular class of theorists, but
harm to his enemies; and the virtue of a with the idola fori that affect all men alike.
woman is to manage her house well, and to His object is to show the abyss of ignorance ly
be obedient to her husband. And besides, ing beneath the fluent commonplace that forms
there are many other virtues,—the virtue of the philosophy of the market-place and the
a child and of an old man, of a slave and of assembly. Hence the characters introduced
a freeman, so that there is no difficulty in in these Dialogues are generally not sophists,
finding plenty to say about virtue.” “How rhetoricians, or men of special culture, but
lucky I am, O Meno,” answered Socrates. of Tuxávrég, old generals, like Nicias and Laches,
“I asked for one virtue, and you have given or promising young men and boys, like Al
me a complete swarm of them. But you cibiades and Charmides. It is only as the
have not yet explained to me the one point elements of positive theory begin to disclose
of similarity by reason of which all these themselves, as Plato begins to leave the pure
different actions are called virtues.” ly negative attitude that characterized So
Thus driver, by the Socratic dialectic, Meno crates, only when he seeks not merely to
makes a first attempt to gather in one view arouse and stimulate the desire for knowledge,
the loose associations of the word “virtue;’ but also in some measure to satisfy it, that he
but the criticism of Socrates soon makes evi introduces more important personages to re
dent to himself how vague and unmeaning present the tendencies he is opposing. The
has been his use of a word, which he had as names of Protagoras and Gorgias indicate
sumed himself to understand because he could that Plato is no longer assailing the loose
use it freely. The result is a painful con fabric of popular opinion, but dealing with
sciousness of ignorance, but at the same time the more pronounced and self-conscious views
a clear perception of the point in which the of rhetoricians and theorists. We have, as it
ignorance lies, and also, in some degree, of were, got through the looser strata of opinion,
the method by which knowledge has to be and come upon the more definite oppositions
sought. Hence it is an ignorance which does of true and false method. The negative and
not produce despair of truth, but stimulates the positive are sharpened into keener anta
to new inquiry. Socrates is compared by gonism as each becomes clearer to itself,
Meno to the torpedo-fish, because he benumbs and the image of the philosopher is brought
and checks that rhetorical flow of speech into full relief against the image of the
“about it and about it,” which conceals igno sophist.
rance from itself; but, in another point of Mr. Grote's well-known defence of the
view, he is the gadfly who will not let men sophists, which he has repeated and enforced
rest in anything short of the truth. at great length in these volumes, leads us to
186 *
Plato and the other Companions of Socrates. Dec.
ask, What was the meaning of Plato's life and the character of the men who hold
long struggle against them ? If we follow them. This is a distinction Plato himself
the whole course of the Dialogues, we find allows for; his tone varies indefinitely with
-that there are two figures which Plato is the individual he brings on the stage. To
never weary of defining, comparing, and con ward Protagoras and Gorgias he is respectful,
trasting with each other—the philosopher while Euthydemus and Hippias are treated
and the sophist. The point of view from with utter contempt. In the Dialogue called
which the pictures are drawn is often chang Gorgias, I’lato reasons out what he conceives
ed, but the relation between them always to be the logical consequence of the princi
remains the same. The one is the represen. ples of that sophist, yet he does not put
tative of the true, the other of the false these results in the mouth of Gorgias himself,
method of thinking. Yet Plato is apparent and even makes him protest against them.
ly never satisfied that he has found the ulti He only tries to show that they flow neces
mate secret of either; and what he gives as sarily from his admissions, and introduces a
the fundamental contrast in one Dialogue, is bolder disciple to express and defend them.
itself traced back to a deeper root in another. The sophists were all, in Plato's view, in
Finally to define and contrast them is to him volved in the condemnation of a false method
the central and almost insoluble problem of of thinking, and a bad system of education.
philosophy. “It is difficult,” he says (Soph. But they did not all work with equal con
254 A), “clearly to discern the philosopher, sciousness and acceptance of the results they
and equally difficult, though in another way, produced.
clearly to discern the sophist; for the sophist The sophists were the higher teachers of
hides himself in his element, the darkness of Greece in the time of Plato. They were a
non-existence, where our gaze can scarce very diverse body of men, united by a few
penetrate for the gloom, while the philoso general characteristics. The first was, that
pher, ever giving up his mind to the idea of they were philosophical teachers, who had
being, dwells in light unsearchable on which ceased to be in earnest with philosophy.
the common eve cannot endure to look.” They had gathered from the study of the
If we “look upon this picture and upon various schools of thinkers a certain command
that,” we cannot but see that they are both over thought and language which they at
partly ideal. No individual ever combined tempted to convey to their pupils. One or
all the features of the sophist; at most, it is a two of their number reasoned out the nega
picture of certain intellectual tendencies tive results that were involved in the princi
which have a logical coherence or relation to ples of earlier thinkers. But, generally
each other, rather than an account of the speaking, they seem to have turned aside
thoughts of any one mind. For the sophist from speculation, except in so far as philoso
is, as Plato says, a Proteus, sometimes ap phy furnished to them a storehouse of forms
pearing as a rhetorician, like Gorgias, some of thought which could be made useful in
times as a universal genius, like Hippias, education. They taught their pupils not to
sometimes dealing in logical puzzles, like think and to search for truth, but to speak
Euthydemus, or again reappearing in his and to persuade; not philosophy, but rhetoric.
own shape with direct negative theories, Further, they were the most cosmopolite of
which involve the denial of the existence of teachers. They travelled freely about Greece,
any truth but opinion, or any justice but the and were emancipated as much from the
rights of the stronger, like Protagoras and temper of any one state as from the teach
Thrasymachus. If there is any unity through ings of any one school of philosophy. They
out all these phases, it is the unity, not of were to philosophers what the “rabble of
individual character, but of an ideal system seamen” were to the orderly Greek citizen,
of error, which would need many individuals and exhibited that “many-coloured” temper
in order to realize itself. This does not, of of mind, so much dreaded by Greek legisla
course, prove that it is not in a sense a true tors, which had been slightly tinged by many
picture, for there is a family likeness in the influences, and deeply stamped by none.
errors of a time, as well as in its discoveries The many contradictory rules of life which
of truth. The kingdom of Beelzebub is not they had seen in their travels, made it absurd
divided against itself; and it is quite possi in their eyes to hold to the law of any one
ble that a £ thinker should be able to state as absolute truth, yet they did not seek,
generalize the false thinking of an age, and like Socrates, for a scientific principle to re
trace it to one root. place these partial rules. Connected with
But, allowing this, when we pass from the this is the fact that they took pay for their
ideal sophistry to the class of teachers called instructions, on which so much weight is
sophists, we must not overlook the difference laid by Plato and Aristotle. We cannot
between the supposed tendencies of doctrines easily sympathize with this sentiment. We
1865. Plato and the other Companions of Socrates. - 187
do not see why it should be a crime for a scientific view of ethics. Yet there is a
man to take money for intellectual labour, marked difference between the two Dialogues.
any more than for other labour. Yet there | The Protagoras, both in its subject and
are some analogies, such as the fixity of pro method, connects itself very closely with the
fessional fees, which may enable us to under earlier Socratic Dialogues, and gathers to a
stand it. The fact is, that no labour of a head all the principles of morals, which we
high kind was considered payable in Greece definitely know to have been attained by So
or Rome. The general, the statesman, did crates. We might call it Plato's farewell to
not take pay, and still less, in the opinion of pure Socratic principles, for in the Gorgias,
Plato and Aristotle, should the philosopher which stands nearest to it in form and mat
take it. Philosophy, says the latter, is not ter, we have already elements which we know
commensurable with any earthly commodity to be purely Platonic. But the contrast of
in which it can be paid for: at the utmost, rhetoric and science is common to both Dia
the refined payment of honour may be ad logues.
mitted. We may express the feeling in “Do you think,” says Plato (Rep. vi. 492
modern language, by saying that the sophists A), “that a few private sophists could do
degraded a profession into a trade, at a time much harm to the young, if they were not
when the distinction was not merely nominal. helped by that great sophist, the public, that
This also was a prejudice of Greek life from in all its theatres and assemblies is continu
which the sophists had emancipated them ally roaring down the voice of truth?” It is
selves. the view here indicated which the Prota
If then, we gather into one view Plato's goras is designed fully to illustrate. In this
various charges against the sophists, it would Dialogue Plato makes the sophist adopt and
stand somewhat thus:–In the first place, defend the position that the philosophic
their culture is merely rhetorical; professing teacher should be only a kind of refined echo
to teach truth, they do not raise us above the of the popular voice. In a striking myth,
confusions of popular opinion, but merely which has been well explained by Mr. Grote,
conceal it with words. They do not enable Protagoras pictures the “genesis of moral
their pupils to discriminate ends, or discover ity” among men, partly from a divinely im
the real end of life, but merely arm them planted instinct, partly from the influence of
with weapons to attain what they will. They custom and the tradition of the elders. A
produce in the minds of the young a scepti loose general sense of right, which every one
cism, which is both morally and intellectually has more or less, but which never gathers
the very reverse of the doubt produced by the diversity of virtues under one head, or
the Socratic dialectic, for while Socrates refers them to one end, is the form under
humbled by the sense of ignorance, and which ethical knowledge exists, and must ex
stimulated with the idea of science, they ex ist, among men. Every one knows and can
cite and overbalance by a sense of power, teach morality, more or less, and the sophist
and, enabling the pupil to prove all things, is superior to other men only from his
they lead him to believe in none: for a teach greater powers of expressing and developing
ing that aims solely at giving command of the common sentiment. To this unscientific
expression, and never at investigating truth, view of morals, Plato opposes that rigidly
must emancipate individual caprice from all scientific view, which was characteristic of
sense of limit, must wake that “insolence, Socrates. To assert that there is a science
which is the mother of tyranny.” It is pos of morals is to assert that there is a highest
sible that the sophist may not himself teach end of human action, by reference to which
doctrines subversive of morality, but others all the elements of life may be arranged.
will draw these conclusions for him. Finally, Hence virtue with Socrates is one, as it arises
some of them have directly maintained prin from the knowledge of this one end; and
ciples which involve a denial of all science, where this knowledge is absent, all appear
all truth, all thought; and others use a ance of virtue is a delusion. When men are
method of arguing and confuting which can temperate without this knowledge, they are
only be justified on such principles. Thus temperate by a kind of intemperance: when
their educational method is bad; it leads to they are just, they are just by a kind of in
results that overturn all social morality, and justice. “Whatever cometh not of faith is
when we trace it back to its first principles, sin.” But what then is this highest end of
these are found to be utterly sceptical. action? In all our acts we propose to our
These remarks are illustrated by the Dia selves as an aim some satisfaction, something
logues called by the names of Protagoras that pleases us. The end must therefore be
and Gorgias. They are both intended to the greatest amount of pleasure, and as all
illustrate the rhetorical side of sophistry, and alike, good and bad, aim at this, vice can
to contrast it and its tendencies with a truly only consist in ignorance, in mistaking what
188 *
Plato and the other Companions of Socrates. Dec.
the greatest amount of pleasure is; and virtue science of the good cannot be a mere com
is simply knowledge. All facts that contra parison of pleasures, as was maintained in the
dict this can be explained away, if we look Protagoras, but the idea of the good must
not only at the immediate, but at the distant be determined independently, and pleasures
consequences of our actions. The only cause pronounced good or bad according as they
of vice and error is mistaking the real rela agree with it or not. The pleasures of an
tive value of pleasures, and the real cure for individual tell us what he is, not what he
it is a science or art of calculation which shall ought to be. We must first discover the
estimate this relative value truly. idea of man's nature ere we can determine
We are apt to be struck with the con his proper satisfactions. The universal must
trast between the doctrine of this Dialogue, determine the individual, and not vice versa.
that the end of human action is pleasure, and A pure rational science, developing the idea
the teaching of the Gorgias and the Republic. of the good, must be the basis of morals;
We must, however, remember that Plato this idea will give the order and measure of
does not, even in the Republic, suppose a human life, and will determine the proper
real, but only an ideal division between jus limit within which each tendency should be
tice and the pleasure of justice. Every man indulged. The only way to introduce unity
must find satisfaction in that which he pro and harmony into the soul of the individual,
poses to himself as an aim. And so, in one as well as into the state, to exclude all sedi
sense, pleasure is necessarily the end of tion and rebellion, all conflict between one
action. But, on the other hand, pleasure in desire and another, between one citizen and
itself is utterly indefinite; it accompanies another, is to fashion both after this “pattern
our highest as well as our lowest activities. in the mount.” No high morality, indi
How then can individual pleasure (and the vidual or social, can exist except in and
question is here only of individual pleasure) through knowledge of the idea of good; and
form the principle of a science of morals? the hand of the statesman must be guided by
There is no appeal against the judgment of the philosopher, who understands the nature
the man who says, “Eating and drinking is of ideas, and above all this highest idea,
my highest pleasure.” And even if one upon which all the others depend. The
should attain an “art of calculation,” such as problem of morals thus, in Plato's thought,
that demanded by Socrates in the Protago leads back to the metaphysical problem of
ras, still the elements that must enter into the nature of universals, and in order to be a
that calculation are utterly vague, and deter moral philosopher he is obliged to be some
mined only by individual taste and pre thing more. *
ference. By this path we cannot attain the The point on which the whole philosophy
universality of science, which Socrates de of Plato turns is thus the “theory of ideas.”
sires. We are still in the labyrinth of opi With him begins that great controversy of
nion, where nothing is, but everything seems. Nominalists and Realists, whose echoes were
We have not yet escaped the shadow of prolonged through all the middle ages, and
sophistry. taken up in a new form in the philosophy of
To exhibit these thoughts we conceive to modern Germany. Are universals the first
be the motive of the Gorgias, in which we substances or essences of things, or must we
have the contrast of rhetoric and science conceive them as qualities inhering in some
viewed from a new side. The sophist teaches individual subject? This was the question
the art of persuasion, but this art is merely a on which, to the schoolmen, every other
means to one's ends, whatever these may be; question of philosophy seemed to depend,
it does not teach us what ends we should and upon which the best thoughts of men
desire to attain. Nay, it may be the great were spent for centuries. In modern times,
est of curses to possess such an art, inasmuch since Kant, we have seen that it leads back
as, if unaccompanied by knowledge, it may to another question. To ask whether the
lead us to sacrifice the real object of our individual or the universal is the primary re
wish for those counterfeits of it that deceive ality, is to ask what in our thoughts is sub
our senses. The true end of man's desire is jective and what is objective, or, more ex
quite different from the object of his appe actly, what element in knowledge is con
tites, but both alike are attended with plea tributed by the activity of thought, and what
sure. Pleasures are, therefore, not only by the passivity of sensation; in other words,
quantitatively but qualitatively different. it is to ask how far we create the world which
Pleasures may be bad or good according to we perceive. To Plato this contrast was not
the source from which they flow, and we distinctly present, yet if we trace the course
must look beyond the pleasure itself to this of his reasoning from its starting-point in the
source, in order to determine what pleasures generalization of Socrates, we may see how
are really desirable. In other words, the near he approaches to modern points of view.
Socrates found the intellectual world in a question Plato tries to answer, as Kant did
state of chaos, because men had never yet after him, by an analysis of sensation. He
turned their minds from the individuals to tries to show us that what we call sensation
the universal. Their judgments were all contains more than it seems, and that the
particular. They said confidently, “This senses in themselves merely give us a chaos of
man is good, and that is bad,” or “This stone individual impressions which thought reduces
is heavy, and that is light.” “But how,” to order. Sense, he contends, does not ap
said Socrates, “can we tell what is good and prehend anything without thought. It is but
what is bad, what is heavy and what is light, the instrument through which single impres
unless we are able to define goodness and sions are brought to us, but even to compare
badness, heaviness and lightness?” We must these, and to distinguish them from each
fix the meaning of the universal before we other, involves the use of certain ideal forms,
apply it. We must define before we judge. such as being and not-being, likeness and
But Plato took a step further. He said, unlikeness, sameness and difference, unity and
“Even if we have fixed and defined the uni multiplicity, which are purely mental. These
versal in our own minds, we cannot apply it are not attained by sensation, but in the ac
with certainty to the individual of the phe tion of thought or sensation; by reflection.
nomenal world.” The individual cannot be This doctrine is substantially identical, though
defined, for he has no fixed quality. What not so clearly expressed, with the doctrine of
in relation to one thing is light, in another Kant, that sensations are in themselves a
relation appears heavy. What is good may blind and meaningless chaos, which is to us
also in another point of view be bad. Further, as if it were not, and that it is only as the
not only is this true of things, but of our mind by its own activity impresses its forms
thoughts. The same thing appears to one on this chaos, and gathers into a unity its
man sweet, to another sour. Even to the isolated and unconnected moments, that even
same man the same thing appears sweet to sensible perception is possible. At the same
day and sour to-morrow. We cannot, as time, it must be confessed that Plato does
Heraclitus says, step into the same water not often express this doctrine of the genesis
twice. We are changed, and the water is of knowledge in a clear scientific way, but
changed, what remains? Protagoras drew more often through a myth. “Our souls,”
from these premises the conclusion that man he says, “have seen the pure ideas in a pre
is the measure of all things, and that what vious state of existence when they dwelt with
seems to each man is to him true. Appear the divine. The shock of birth into this
ance is the only truth, and error is impos lower world of sense has made us forget
sible; or, in other words, truth is impossible. them, yet not so completely but that they
The answer to this difficulty seemed to be may be recalled to our minds again.” The
indicated by Socrates. While the individual outward phenomenal world is not utterly
object and the individual subject is in perpe divorced from ideas, but has in it faint simi
tual flux, the universal idea remains,—the larities to them, which may awake the slum
universal idea which is the object of thought, bering memories of our souls. Especially in
as well as that in us which is kindred to it. what is beautiful this presence of the idea
That this individual man is both good and shines through its sensible disguise, and the
bad, this water both heavy and light, does desire which the beautiful awakes in us is the
not prove that the ideas of goodness and longing of the soul for its former home. Love
badness, heaviness and lightness, are not is unconscious philosophy. Still, such influ
fixed and everlasting existences. Thus Plato ences are indirect and uncertain in their
is led to make a broad distinction between operation. Their best office is to prepare the
the phenomenal and the real world, between soul for the influence of dialectical cross-ex
the world apprehended by thought and the amination, the Socratic art, which directly
world apprehended by sensation. The world searches and tries the soul of man and calls
of thought is eternal, unchangeable, self-con forth its latent powers. This alone can make
sistent; the world of sensation is transitory, us conscious of the treasure which we have
inconsistent, self-contradictory. in our own minds, and alone can supply the
But, it might be asked, what after all are key to that treasure. So does Plato picture
these ideas but generalizations and abstrac to himself the relation of man's mind to
tions got from individual things And how truth. We must be careful not to confuse
can an abstraction be more than that from the mythic form with the thought which he
which it is abstracted? In the language of seeks to convey by it, though at the same
modern philosophy, are not ideas mere im time we must acknowledge that the use of
pressions that have become permanent by re this form is a proof that he had not brought
petition, and if so, how can an idea be more the thing to scientific clearness before his
than the impressions that gave it birth ? This own mind.
We have now the theory of ideas as it the diversity of ideas. So far from this, in
first presented itself to Plato's mind. Out of deed, he held that there was an idea for every
the chaos and flux of Heraclitus Plato es abstraction that can be made,—ideas of men,
capes into a world of fixed unchangeable es animals, artificial products, relations, and
sences, into which no division or unrest ever even negations. His ideal world, as Aristotle
intrudes. This sensible world of eye and objects, was but the phenomenal world with
ear, where all is change and relativity, is but all motion, change, and life withdrawn. It
half real in Plato's eyes; it is, in his own was the real world petrified. But, in all this,
language, a mixture of being and not-being, he had only exchanged an absolute “One”
of ideas and another element which we can for the greater difficulty of an absolute
scarcely name,—an unintelligible unthinkable “Many.” He had produced an ideal atom
element of which we can only say that it is ism, in which each idea was unchangeably
not ideal. This is the source of all imperfec one, incapable of relation to the others or to
tion, of all division and evil in the world; it the phenomenal world. Moreover, if these
is a brute necessity which intelligence can ideas were out of all relation, how was it pos
never completely overcome. Here we have sible to think or speak of them? For think
the beginning of that dualism which shows ing implies judging, and to judge is to com
itself at a later time in the Neoplatonic phi bine two ideas, to bring them into relation to
losophy. We see it again when in the Re each other. In inventing the ideal theory as
public he speaks of God as being the author an escape from the scepticism of Protagoras,
of good only, and not of evil. For evil is he had only avoided a doctrine that made
thus elevated into an absolute existence, judgment or predication unmeaning, to fall
which from no point of view can be resolved into a doctrine that made it impossible.
into good. We see it again in the asceticism Plato could not be satisfied with this life
of the Phaedo, for asceticism rests on a be less result, which he clearly saw before him.
lief that there is a part of man's nature essen Indeed, the above objections to the ideal
tially evil, and which therefore we do not theory are expressed almost in his own
educate, but crush. Accordingly, the life of words (Parm. 130-5, Soph. 251 B, etc.)
the philosopher is represented as a long effort Accordingly he enters upon an elaborate
of abstraction, by which he strives to separate criticism of the Eleatic doctrine, and also
himself as far as may be from the sensible of his own theory, so far as it coincides
world, and that baser part of himself which with that doctrine. He even speaks of the
is kindred to it: and his death is viewed but “friends of ideas,” that is, of those who
as the last severing of the bonds that prevent hold this very theory of unchangeable un
the soul from soaring to its native region of related ideal atoms, as if they were another
ideas. This is one side of Plato's mind. school of thinkers with whom he could not
The charm of asceticism and abstraction, of identify himself. We cannot therefore agree
the negation that seems to set us free from with Mr. Grote, who believes that Plato saw
the limits of life, that eager aspiration of the the objections to the ideal theory, but made
soul that leads it to regard as a burden even no attempt to answer them. Answer them,
the wings by which alone it can soar, that in indeed, he could not ; but we see in the
finite longing of the spirit to escape from its Philebus, Parmenides, and Sophistes, traces
own shadow, which is the essence of mysti of an attempt to modify the ideal theory so
cism, was known to Plato. But this was, as as to avoid them. The first of these traces
we have said, only one side of his mind. On lies in the demand for a new and higher
the other side was his artistic nature, that kind of dialectic, which he puts into the
bound him to the concrete, and above all his mouth of Socrates in the Parmenides.
Greek love for limit, for definite thought and “It is easy enough,” he says, “to take the
knowledge. He could not rest, like an East objects of the sensible world, and show in them
ern mystic, in the contemplation of pure difference and contradiction, to show that that
being. His speculations must include variety which is one, is also, in another point of view,
as well as unity, must be to him not only many; as, for instance, that I, Socrates, am one
a refuge from the world, but an explanation man, and yet have a left side and a right side;
of it. and so, in another point of view, I am many.
Where is the wonder if that which is one, be
In attempting to escape the scepticism in
cause it participates in the idea of oneness, should
which the lonic philosophy ended, Plato ap also be many, because it participates in the idea
proached very close to the doctrines of theof multiplicity? But if a man should prove to
Eleatics. Shunning the chaos and flux of me that the idea of oneness is (or involves) the
Heraclitus, he nearly lost himself in the ab
idea of multiplicity, and that the idea of likeness
solute of Parmenides. It is true that he involves the idea of unlikeness, this I would won
never, like Parmenides, said “all is one.” der at above all things.”—Parm. 129.
His Socratic education kept him from denying And shortly after (135 E) Parmenides
is made to praise Socrates, because he was of things, each absolute and complete in it
not content with a dialectic that seeks to self: they alone truly are, and being is there
unfold the contradictions of phenomenal ex fore not a separate idea, but a necessary pre
istence, but had demanded a dialectic that dicate of all ideas; while “not-being,” or ne
should deal with the contradictions arising gation, is only an unintelligible substratum,
from the nature of pure ideas, when viewed which we must assume in order to explain
in themselves, and followed out to their logi the phenomenal world. But in the Sophistes
cal development. Now, the historical So we have the notion of a system of thought,
crates was satisfied with a dialectic that in which each idea is determined only by its
showed the contradictions of phenomenal ex difference and relations to other ideas. “Not
istence. The demand for a higher dialectic being” is no longer viewed as an incompre
belongs to Plato alone. hensible matter, that resists the power of
How then does Plato use this new method ideas, but it, as well as “being,” is an idea,
of inquiry, and what results does he get from which is defined by its relations to other
it? This inquiry we must answer very sum ideas.
marily and imperfectly; for to do more would On this new form of the ideal theory, two
take us into some very intricate metaphysical remarks have to be made.
questions. In the long and difficult discus The first is, that if Plato had followed out
sion that concludes the Parmenides, an effort the line of thought here opened up, he would
is made to investigate certain pure ideas in have been led far beyond that dualistic mode
themselves; and the result attained is, that of thought, which is common to him with all
ideas are not absolute atoms without relation the Greek philosophers from Anaxagoras
to each other, but, on the contrary, are essen downwards. He would no longer have fixed
tially relative. In other words, no idea can a wide gulf of separation between ideas and
be conceived except in and through its rela phenomena, between thought and sensation,
tions to other ideas, especially to its contrary. between philosophy and art. He would, above
To take an example, a “one” which is not all, have abandoned that notion of a brute
also “many,” a “being” which does not in irrational matter, which hinders the idea from
volve “not-being” is simply inconceivable. fully realizing itself. Instead of that Mani
On Eleatic principles no thought or speech chaeism which more or less tinges all his
is possible; for if an idea be made absolute, works, and is clearly expressed in the tenth
taken out of relation, it ceases to have any book of the Laws, where he ascribes the
meaning whatever. This result he confirms dominion of the world to two principles, one
in the Philebus, where he says that to define good and one bad: instead of this we should
one idea by itself is impossible; for this have had an optimism like that expressed by
would suppose it to have a nature indepen Hegel in the formula, “All that is rational is
dent of relation, whereas the nature of a thing real, and all that is real is rational.” It is
is only the sum of its relations. The Sophis true that such discussions as those of Plato
tes takes us one step further. If the nature about “being” and “not-being” are apt to
of a thing is only the sum of its relations to seem to us unpractical subtleties, because we
what it is not, or, in other words, only its are accustomed to look at things in the con
distinction from other things, then every crete, and not to trace them back to their
affirmation contains a negation, every “is” ultimate metaphysical forms, as the ancients
implies an “is not.” In the language of Spi were wont to do. But when Plato discusses
noza, determinatio est negatio. And from this the relations of “being” and “not-being,” he
it follows that “not-being” (in the sense of has before him, in a more abstract form, the
difference) is as essential an element of real same matter as is involved in the modern
ity as “being.” question of the “origin of evil.” For, as we
In this doctrine of the “relativity of have said, “not-being” is to Plato that element
thought,” Plato had left far behind him that in the phenomenal world which hinders the
hard and petrified theory of ideas, which is realization of the ideas; it is, in a word, evil;
usually associated with his name. That and when it is shown that “not-being” is it
theory was not really a fixed limit to Plato's self an idea, the phenomenal world ceases to be
speculation, but merely one of the points irrational, and evil to be an absolute existence.
through which it passed. The one doctrine We think it may be shown that Plato, in all
to which Plato always remained faithful is his works, is wavering between these two
the central doctrine of idealism, that being theories, between the dualism of a good and
and knowing, thought and existence, are one; bad, positive and negative principle, and a
but to preserve this central truth he has to rational optimism such as we find in Hegel.
change almost every other point in his sys The numerous contradictions which Mr. Grote
tem. According to his first theory, ideas are finds in the Platonic writings are almost all
unchangeable monads, raised above the flux reducible to this one fundamental difficulty.
192 Plato and the other Companions of Socrates. Tec.
Plato is dualistic when he assigns to the so was the great problem of Socrates also; but
phist a separate realm of delusion apart from to Socrates the good meant was only the
that region of light in which the philosopher highest end of the life and action of man as
dwells; and when he abandons the pheno an individual, and the minor Socratic schools
menal world to opinion as distinguished from were only following out the design of their
science, which deals only with ideas. He is master when they sketched out the character
dualistic, when he divides the soul of man of a “Wise Man” whose life should form an
into a bad and a good half, and treats the ideal for universal imitation. This wise man,
desires as mere hindrances to the action of of whom we hear so much in later times from
pure reason, and when he calls on the philo the Stoics and their Roman pupils, is perhaps
sopher to crush his sensuous nature, or sepa the most dreary and insipid figure in all the
rate himself more and more from its influence, history of philosophy. Morality consists in
till death come to give him the final deliver obligations that arise from the relations of
ance. He is dualistic, finally, when he talks men to each other, and if we attempt to
of art and poetry as mere imitations of the describe an ideal character independent of
appearances of things, shadows of things these relations, it must be a mere bundle of
which are themselves shadows of the true, negations, or an inhuman image of self-de
and therefore at a third remove from truth, pendence, such as was exhibited by some of
and makes himself a partisan in the “old the Cynics, who thought to raise themselves
quarrel” of the philosophers against the poets. above human weakness by cutting themselves
But this, as has been said before, is only one off from all that makes life worth having.
side of Plato's mind, and the weaker side. We can understand how a Roman under the
He rises far above this passionless thought Empire might find comfort and strength in
and monkish morality, which sets spirit and a theory that enabled him to retire into his
matter in interminable duel against each own soul, as into an impregnable fortress that
other. In his great theory of education in no tyranny could invade, no outward cala
the Republic, he does not seek to crush the mity could shake. But not the less is it true
lower nature in order to make room for the that the individual, taken by himself, is an
higher, but makes the due development of abstraction that exhibits not the true nature
the lower the necessary stepping-stone to that of man. “The solitary is a god or a beast.”
of the higher. He leads his citizens through It is only in and through society that the
music and gymnastic to philosophy, and ap higher nature of man is developed and dis
peals to the spirit first through the senses in tinguished from the accidents of his indivi
order that he may prepare it for the direct duality: only in and through social life that
action of dialectic. And in this connexion he is raised above self to the consciousness of
he no longer views art, like a Puritan, as that higher self, to which Socrates really
something that merely heightens the delu pointed, when he defined virtue as self
sion of the phenomenal world, but rather as knowledge. The yvö8, Tsavriv did not de
the first step out of that delusion. Poets are scend from heaven to call men to the know
not the philosopher's enemies, but they present, ledge of their feeble “dividual” selves, but
“as through a glass darkly,” the same image to the knowledge of that better self which is
which the philosopher brings into the clear only developed by the sacrifice of their sepa
light of day. In a kind of sacred madness they rate being to it. In this Aristotle agrees
utter a message which they do not understand, with Plato. He asserts that man is a “social
and cannot interpret. Finally, the love and animal,” and that the individual in himself
passion which outward beauty excites, is not is not a man in the proper sense of the word,
a mere hindrance to that philosophic abstrac any more than a hand fulfils the notion of a
tion which alone brings us in contact with hand when it is severed from the body.
reality, but is itself unconscious philosophy; Hence with Aristotle, as well as Plato, ethics
it is the waking of that impulse, which, be is again merged in politics, from which So
ginning with the love of one beautiful form, crates and the lesser Socratics had partially
leads us to the love of all beautiful forms; then severed it. And if we include in politics, as
to the love of the beautiful souls, of which the Aristotle and Plato did, all the social being
sensible beauty is the garment and symbol; of man, they were undoubtedly right. Their
and which never rests till it finds that prime error was not, as is sometimes said, in this,
val and divine Beauty, that idea of good or that they treated ethics and politics as one
of God, from which all flows and to which all science, but rather in the narrow view they
returns. had of the latter. They were right when
And this leads us to a second remark on they maintained that man's self-dependence
the ideal dialectic of Plato. The idea to must not be conceived so as to exclude his
which all tends in the Platonic philosophy is relation to friends and country. But they
the “idea of good.” To define “the good” erred when they fixed the limits of man's
1865. Plato and the other Companions of Socrates, 193
dependence at the walls of the Greek city, his life in accordance therewith,” but not on
and so sought to chain man's spiritual deve earth. And so the Republic passes at the
lopment to that which was already a form of end out of the reign of politics into that of
the past. The narrow restrictions of the religion, and ends with an aspiration after a
Greek city were not capable of satisfying man more perfect justice than can be attained on
any longer; his interests had already, in earth.
Plato's days, passed beyond them, and only The ultimate result of Plato's speculations
some wider and more comprehensive unity is therefore a kind of failure before the hard
could excite that intense feeling of devotion conditions of the problem he had to solve.
which the city had formerly called forth. Philosophy passes into religion, because it
This is shown by the way in which the tie of cannot answer its own questions. In this
party superseded the tie of citizenship in the point of view we may say that Plato too ends
Peloponnesian War. It is shown at a later with the Socratic confession, that the philoso
date by the rapidity and ease with which pher is wiser than others only because he
Philip of Macedon overcame the Greek knows his own ignorance. Yet this confes
cities. The old civic patriotism was dead, sion in the lips of Plato, has in it an end
and even the eloquence of Demosthenes less depth of meaning that was not in the
could only recall a feeble and transitory imi simple negative of Socrates. Both end with
tation of life. Men were ready for the idea the unanswered question, “What is the
of national, if not of universal unity. Indeed, good?” But this, as has been said, meant
the philosophy of Plato contains in it a prin with Socrates only the complete satisfaction
ciple whose only adequate expression would of the individual soul. Plato, by simply
be a society founded, as modern society par pressing the question home, found that it
tially is founded, on the spiritual equality and opened endlessly into other questions as to
unity of all men. Such a society, Plato, nature and society. He found that human
both by national and philosophical preju ity is man “writ large,” and that the in
dices, was prevented from conceiving. In dividual cannot be comprehended except in
his eyes only the Greeks were capable of po and through society. He found, or seemed
litical union, and of the Grecks only the few to find, a relation between the soul of man,
were capable of the highest education. and the universe, between the microcosmos.
Hence all he can do in his Republic is to and the macrocosmos, and so connected
rebuild the old Greek state in a new shape, ethics with physics. He found, above all,
and by various minor improvements to make that the principle, “virtue is knowledge or
it, so far as may be, the embodiment of his though',” grew, as he considered it, into the
new philosophical principle, -the principle principle that “all is thought,” and that
of subjective morality, which was destined to ethics and politics must ultimately rest upon
destroy it. The Republic is perhaps the an idea of the good, which was the centre
greatest attempt that human genius has ever of unity to the whole universe, the cause:
inade to pour new wine into old bottles. It of being to all things that are, of knowing
may be called a dream or prophecy of the to all that know. The image of a sort of
future, clothed in the form of the past. The “metaphysic of the universe" floated before
ideas of an aristocracy constituted by wis him, but he was unable to do more than
dom and virtue, not by birth and wealth; of draw the first uncertain outline of it, and
a community in which there is no “mine” from this we can only imperfectly gather
and “thine,” but “all things common; ” of how he proposed to fill up the sketch. Yet
a spiritual nature which is deeper than the the hints he lets fall point, we think, to.
distinction of sex, or combined with the un something not very unlike the Hegelian
natural limits and restrictions of the Greek logic. Either there Plato's dream is real
state, its oligarchic contempt for labour, and ized, or nowhere.
its immolation of the lower classes. The Let us gather into one view the notices
artistic unity of the whole can but partially which Plato lets fall as to this higher dia
conceal from us the jarring of antagonistic lectic, whose aim is to unfold the idea of
tendencies, which here, with a kind of intel good. Though first in the order of thought,
lectual violence, are held together. Even this highest science comes last in order of
Plato himself seems to become conscious that time. The philosophical learner in the Re
he is painting an ideal that cannot be real public is made first to pass through a course
ized. “The Rational ” with him “is not the of all the sciences known in Plato's time—
Real, nor the Real the Rational.” The idea arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music,
of the state is merely an Ideal, to which we proceeding from the more abstract to the
may approximate, but which we can never more concrete or complex. When he has.
reach. “Perhaps in heaven a pattern is laid exhausted all the teaching of the special
up for him that wishes to see it, and order sciences, he is to pause and take a general
WOL. XLIII. N–13
view of them all, for it is the capacity for imaginary universe. Accordingly, when Plato
taking general views that most certainly in has to speak on politics, still more when he has
dicates a philosophic mind (5 yap Tuvorrix's to speak on physics, he lowers his tone very
ötaxexrixág). The man who possesses this considerably. If Mr. Grote finds the Repub
synthetic power is alone fit to grapple with lic dogmatic and self-confident in its spirit,
the difficulties of the master-science, that we cannot agree with him. He should at
which is the corner-stone of all other science least have noticed the remark which Plato
—dialectic. In this general survey he ob repeats as to its method. Plato is unwillingly
serves that all the sciences have certain pre dogmatic, so far as he is so, because his own
suppositions which they do not investigate or ideal of science is to him unattainable. Twice
explain. Geometry assumes the notion of in the Republic he regrets that the method he
figure, arithmetic the notion of number. But adopts is unsatisfactory. The science of dia
the science of principles must not be hypo lectic has not yet sufficiently determined
thetical; it must make no assumptions itself; the idea of good, the political or moral ideal,
and it must explain the assumptions of the and consequently he says we must be content
other sciences. It must begin, go on, and with something short of rigid deduction.
end with pure ideas. And the special sciences We must proceed, to some extent, by a kind
become science in the highest sense, only of Wavrsia, by the aid of that poetic con
when their primary postulates have been thus structive faculty, which is the pioneer of phi
explained by it. Dialectic is, therefore, not losophy. And in the Timaeus, his sketch of
merely & priori. It only takes up the matter physical philosophy, his tone is even lower.
of the other sciences, and gives it a rational He claims for it merely the rank of a theory,
order and arrangement. In other words, which is so far probable, as it agrees with
what in the special sciences appear as isolated certain ideal principles. The so-called dog
and disconnected truths, will, in this highest matism of Plato does not, therefore, amount
science, form part of a great system of to an abandonment of his demand for strict
thought. The ideal world of this system, if scientific method; it only shows that, in
Plato had been able to fill up the sketch view of certain difficulties as yet insoluble, he
which he has outlined, would not have been determined provisionally to be content with
something merely imaginary, but an exact something short of it, and not absolutely to
reflection of the phenomenal world; with the refuse to construct till they should be solved.
important difference, however, that that which But this conscious and declared postpone
in the latter is merely fragmentary and dis ment of difficulties is something quite differ
connected, or connected only by the outward ent from dogmatism.
bonds of succession in time or juxtaposition in The method of Plato in the Republic is
space, should in the former have been ar neither inductive nor deductive, in the strict
ranged by the relations of pure ideas to each sense of these words. It is so far inductive
other. The ideal system would have been as he takes in it, for his starting-point, the
nothing but the real world in its ideal order. general outline of a Greek state, and the or
But with Plato, as we have said, this ideal dinary political notions of his country. The
system was little more than a dream. We find, Greek believed that freedom only resided in
indeed, the beginnings of an investigation of cities, and that men could not combine into
ideal relations in the sophist, where the ideas larger societies than the city without becom
of “being and not-being, sameness and dif. ing slaves. The political unit must, be a
ference,” are examined. But, as Hegel has town, no more and no less. Within this
well said, there is a long way between such unity of the city, however, he made a broad
simple abstractions as “being” and “differ distinction between the full citizens, that is,
ence,” and the complex matter of physics, those who governed the city and fought for
ethics, and politics. Mr. Grote justly re. it, and those unprivileged persons, generally
marks that the gulf between metaphysic and slaves, who constituted the working classes.
ethics is too wide to be bridged over, as it is All Greek states were, in this point of view,
in the Philebus, where we pass immediately equally aristocratic. The freedom and eleva
from the abstract opposition of finite and in tion of the few at the expense of the many
finite to the concrete opposition of pleasure was equally the aim of Athens and of Sparta.
and knowledge. The truth is, that a meta All the lower necessities of life were provided
physic of the sciences, such as Plato desires, for by a class of men, sacrificed to them, and
if it be possible at all, is possible only after shut out from all participation in the higher
the special sciences are far on the way to interests, while the citizens, thus elevated, as
completion. To apply the most abstract it were, on the shoulders of the rest, gave
principles at once to the concrete, as Plato themselves up to the only occupations con
does in the Timaeus, and in some degree sidered to be worthy of freemen, war and
e ‘en in the Republic, is to construct an politics, and, in later times, philosophy and
art. This was the Greek notion of a state, a how desire for luxury leads to war, and war
notion which Plato fully accepts and indors again leads to the education of a higher class
es. But though he takes the general or of statesmen and soldiers. A divine chance,
ganism and division of a Greek state as he not man's intent, gives origin, in the first in
found it, he re-models this organism from a tent, to all higher culture, and with it to phi
new point of view, and gives it a new end losophy. The question for Plato, however,
and aim. This aim is education. - is whether this result on which man has stum
The state, in Plato's eyes, as in Aristotle's,
bled, may not be consciously adopted and
is a great educational institution. Statesman
perpetuated as its aim, by a state in which
ship is the art of training souls. All other
philosophy holds the helm.
aims of political activity, such as riches, Man begins in error and delusion, lost
peace, or outward freedom, are not good in amid the chaos of sensations, taking shadows
themselves. They are good or bad according for realities and realities for shadows. By
as they are used; and to say that a states the power of sensible beauty, through nature
man has made a state great because he has and through art, the sense of the invisible
enriched it with tribute, or armed it with awakes in him. By a kind of prophetic in
walls, harbours, or arsenals, is to mistake the stinct he pursues the good, which he does
cook who flatters our palate, for the doctor not know (gavrsvägsvåg Ti siva). Finally,
who seeks to restore and preserve our health. through some divine chance, his eyes are
Hence Sparta is praised for devoting herself opened to the light of philosophy. But this
to the true work of a state, the training of stumbling, uncertain process of self education,
the citizen, even while the character of her might it not be made certain Might not
training is censured. In studying Plato and man's passage to the higher life be guided
Aristotle, this point has ever to be remem by the clear vision of those who have already
bered, that the main work of the state with come to know the truth ? And so, not by a
them is to educate and to civilize; and hence mere flash of poetic inspiration, which ob
we must leave behind us the associations of a scurely detects the higher in the lower, but is
time when this office has been almost entire ever in danger of losing the spirit in the form;
ly taken from it. The influence of the Church not by right opinion, which custom has fixed,
and of a cosmopolitan culture, on the one but which may be unfixed again when circum
hand, and individual liberty and enterprise, stance has broken the yoke of custom, but
on the other, have broken the exclusive by a carefully graduated education, might not
domination of the state over man's life, and a man be led securely to the highest culture of
wide separation has been made between the which his nature is capable? It is the aim of
agencies by which his material interests and the Republic to present the image of such a
those by which his spiritual interests are process of culture, as it might be imparted in
secured. But the city was to the Greek, a state where the philosopher was king.
State, Church, and Society put together. It If Plato had no other claim to remembrance,
was the sole instrumentality by which any he has this enduring one, that he first under
general aim could be secured; and, if educa stood and expressed the full meaning of the
tion was to be made the highest end of life, word Education. He first looked on life as
it was the city alone that could undertake it. one great sphere of culture, and saw how all its
Out of this view flow all the results which parts might receive unity and significance
seem to us most bizarre and strange in their from this idea: all its parts, beginning with
political speculation; as, for instance, Plato's the simplest mythological and poetic forms
assertion that in the ideal state philosophers by which the mind is first opened to the truth,
must be kings and kings philosophers. Who and ending with the widest view of the phi
else should be kings in a university ? losopher, who, in Plato's conception, sees the
Plato recognises, however, that this high world from its central idea, and comprehends
est end of the state was not the motive which it as one whole. *
led to its formation. Men are drawn to Such a culture is possible only to the few.
gether by the impulse of self preservation— It is a luxury which presupposes that the
by the need of each other. But while they necessaries are already provided. It is a door
seek this lower end, they stumble upon a way into the higher life, which is shut to the
higher result. In the words of Goethe, they poor. Hence, as we saw, Plato accepts the
are like Saul, the son of Kish, who went out aristocratic view of the state. The slaves and
to seek his father's asses, and found a king lower classes must be sacrificed, in order that
dom. Sparta aimed at conquering her neigh the higher may have time for education.
bours, but in order to do so, she had to sub Plato makes an advance on the ordinary
mit to a training that had the higher result Greek view, only in so far as he demands that
of making her the model of self command to nature and capacity, not birth or wealth,
all Greece. So in the Republic, Plato traces should determine who are to be the higher
classes; that it should be an aristocracy of form, not in the matter. The matter must be
intellect and character, not of accidental ad the same with that of philosophy itself.
vantages; and then, leaving the working class The great difficulty and crisis of education
to their inevitable fate, with the remark that comes, however, when this sensible form and
the virtue of a peasant or artisan does not its delusion is removed, when the artistic or
matter much to the state, he goes on to con mythological stage of education gives place
sider the education of the real citizens, who to the philosophic. We do not wonder that
alone are capable of education. Plato, living when he did, should find the
In this education there are two great stages, transition from faith to reason so difficult
which we may call loosely the stages of artis and dangerous. He is anxious, above all,
tic and philosophic, or, more exactly, uncon that the faith of childhood should not be
scious and conscious training. In the former disturbed too soon, that mental emancipation
the pupil “sees through a glass darkly;” he should not take place till the character has
is taught through the medium of myths and been confirmed in the love of goodness, and
artistic representations suited to his apprehen is able to bear the shock of doubt without
sion. In the latter the veil is taken away, losing faith in the existence of truth. The
and he deals with pure ideal truth, with the dangers of the period of questioning and
sciences, and, above all, the master science— doubting are nowhere more clearly pictured
dialectic. Art and religion are thus used as than in the seventh book of the Republic.
“schoolmasters” to bring men to philosophy, Indeed, it may be said that the Republic
and the beautiful is treated as a veiled image itself is but one great attempt to solve the
of the good. Plato says that there are two problem, how these dangers are to be success
kinds of discourses, the false and the true, fully met, how the mind may be saved from
and that, in education, the false must come doubt till it be fit to cope with it, and led
first, or, in other words, art and poetry must through it to the higher light of philosophy.
come before philosophic reason. The go The absolute necessity of negative dialectic,
vernors, who are the superintendents of edu and of the doubt it causes, as a means to the
cation, must tell their citizens a “noble lie,” highest education, Plato maintains as firmly
till they become fit to hear the whole truth. as he does in the earlier Dialogues, but he
In relation to this “noble lie,” Plato has has become more sensible of the dangers that
received but scant justice. Commentators accompany it. He has also come to see that
run away with the word “lie,” and its associa philosophy is not the only form, nor the first
tions, and forget that, in Plato's sense, poetry form, in which truth and morality can be con
is a lie. Truth with him is only and solely veyed to the human mind, and that it cannot
what we call “abstract truth,” and what we be made a substitute for the earlier teachings
call “truth of facts” is, in his view, not truth of poetry and mythology. The two stages of
at all, but rather the greatest of all lies. education are each necessary in its time.
Phenomena have reality only so far as the But, granting this, how can man's tuition be
idea permeates and shines through them, so arranged so that doubt shall come just when
far as they are ideal. And art is so far supe the mind is ripe for it? The problem is per
rior to nature as it presents us with a set of haps not susceptible of a universal, nor, even
phenomena, through which the idea shines in the case of an individual, of a perfect so
more clearly. Art is not truth, but it is not lution. You cannot learn to swim without
so deceptive and lying as ordinary reality. entering the water, nor can you teach a mind
It is a lie still, but a “noble” lie. And, as to search for truth without exposing it to the
we cannot teach abstract truth to the young, dangers of doubt. Plato's solution is imprac
or to the multitude, we must teach them by ticable, for it asks the governors to do for
poetic fables the highest truth of which they their subjects what no government could do.
are capable. Plato sees the necessity of my To combine within the same city the extremes
thology as a step in the education of man. of passive obedience and acquiescence in re
What he demands, when he speaks of the ceived doctrine, on the one hand, and of the
necessity of noble lies, is really ' that the most active and questioning spirit of science
deceptive element, which must be present on the other, and yet to arrange that the
when spiritual truth is represented under scepticism and negative criticism of the phi
sensible forms, should be reduced to the small losophers should never disturb the faith of
est possible amount. He would have a re those who are still in the age of faith, would
formed and purified mythology, where the demand nothing short of omniscience. It
poetic impulse should not be left to its own can be done, if at all, not by the external
wayward course, but should be checked and arrangements of a constitution, but by the
guided by the insight of the philosopher, who growing sense of individuals of what is due
stands above it, and knows what it ought to to each other. But though Plato has not
express. The lie must only be in the sensible solved the problem, he has conceived it aright,
and there is perhaps nothing in his writings whole of which he was a member, but the
more permanently interesting than his re fear of an anarchy, in which every one would
marks on this great problem of intellectual lose, might act in place of self-sacrifice in
growth. preserving the unity of the whole. On this
There is still, however, another side on view, a society of men differs from a den of
which the culture of man may be viewed. wild beasts only in this, that they have been
While, intellectually, education is the tran. able to learn from experience that it is more
sition from mere sensible perception to ideal the interest of each to be protected from all
knowledge, morally, it is the transition from the others, than to indulge his natural incli.
selfishness to self-sacrifice. It is the growth nation to rend them, and have therefore set
of the social, as opposed to the individual up law and justice, armed with force, as a
self-asserting tendencies in man. And to this sort of keeper, to see that each is content
moral side of education, Plato gives perhaps with his own share. In fact, we have here
even greater prominence. The Republic is the theory more fully developed by Hobbes.
professedly an attempt to solve the question, Selfishness, plus foresight, are supposed to
“What is justice #" In the first book it is act in the same way as self-sacrifice might act
proved, by a Socratic cross-examination, that among a higher race of beings.
the ordinary or popular conceptions of justice In direct contrast with both these forms of
are wavering and uncertain ; that they re the “selfish” theory, Plato sets before us his
present merely certain indistinct feelings that ideal republic. Society begins partly in sel
have grown up, no one knows how, and are fish impulse, in the need each man has of the
utterly unable to give a distinct account of others. But this impulse in itself could not
themselves, or to be reduced to any self-con hold society together. Plato, like Hobbes,
sistent theory. The morality of custom and considers individual will and impulse as a
tradition cannot be deduced from any princi source of pure anarchy. The difference lies
ple. Is there, then, no such thing as justice in this, that what Hobbes considers to be
or social morality whatever ? and, if so, true of men universally, Plato considers to
whence comes it that men unite to form soci be true only of the “natural” man, the un
etics and states, and what is the bond that educated savage. Hobbes can therefore con
holds these together? The first answer that ceive no order, no remedy for anarchy, ex
presents itself is, that the only bond is force, cept despotism; no unity except that which
—the will of the stronger. Each one seeks to sets the caprice of one in place of the caprice
make his own will prevail over that of others, of many. But Plato believes that by educa
and the stronger wins. This is the theory tion man may be raised above himself, above
which Thrasymachus supports. But, argues individual impulse and caprice. Mr. Grote,
Plato, through the mouth of Socrates, if this in his criticisms on the Republic, says that
absolute and isolated selfishness were the only Plato “contradicts his own findamental
principle of men's action, no society could principle,” when he traces the foundation of
ever arise or maintain itself. There must be society to men's need of each other, and yet
a certain “honour” or justice even among a demands that afterward virtue should be
' band of thieves, if they are to hold together. practised without regard to its consequences
Society exists only as the individual will to the individual. But this is exactly what
learns to sacrifice itself, as the individual Plato intends to do. It is the object of socie
gives up his savage isolation and indepen ty, in his eyes, to raise man from the ab
dence, and submits to be the instrument of the solute selfishness of the savage to the ab
common life. Unlimited selfishness, in which solute self-abnegation of the philosopher. In
every man's hand was against his neighbour, the plan of education which Plato sketches,
would not secure even its own end—the good the outward restraint on the pupil is gradual
of self. This last thought leads to a new ly relaxed as he leaves behind him savage
theory, which is proposed by Glaucon in the impulse and individual caprice. At first, his
second book of the Republic. Granted that every step is checked and strictly regulated by
nnlimited selfishness would be self-destructive, the institutions of the state, but in proportion
may not society be founded on a sort of limit as he learns to subdue the “natural man” his
ed or social selfishness? Cannot we explain power becomes greater. On his entrance on
justice as an outward compact of all the indi the higher class of guardians, he has to
viduals of a state, whereby each withdraws his renounce all rights of person and property,
aggressive claims, on condition of the others and to cease to claim an independent domes
doing the like? Cannot we suppose a society, tic life for himself. And he becomes supreme
founded on selfishness still, but on selfishness governor only when he is so absorbed in the
with its anarchic tendencies bitted and bridled contemplation of pure ideas, so far beyond
by reason ? In such a society each one would all personal interest and ambition, that no
still seek his own good, not the good of the earthly prize can tempt him, and even sove
198 JPlato and the other Companions of Socrates. Dec.
reign rule presents itself to his eyes as a pain which the Greek mind for ages was confined,
ful duty, and not as a privilege. The phi and an unsuccessful struggle; yet, owing to the
losopher has, in Scripture language, “put off greatness of the questions opened up, and the
the old man, with his affections and lusts.” suggestiveness of the answers, even when
He alone is absolutely free, because his indi they fail to be satisfactory, there is perhaps
vidual will is lost in reason, and so, “hav no success in philosophy so instructive as the
ing nothing,” he may safely “possess all failure of Plato.
things.” So long as a man has a life of his In this rapid sketch we have been obliged
own, so long, in Plato's eyes, he is a source to omit the discussion of many interesting
of disturbance and disorder to the common questions raised by Mr. Grote. We have
wealth, so long he must be held in subjection tried rather to exhibit the course of Plato's
to tutors and governors; but when he has thought than to discuss the value of his re
risen above individual care and wish, then he sults. Yet we are conscious how little such
is an universal order in himself, and fit to be a sketch, even if it were much more complete,
trusted with the government of other men. could tell of Plato to those who have not
Passion is subdued in himself, and therefore read him. Platonism is too subtle an essence
he is like a pure voice of reason, to which to be conveyed in such “earthen vessels.”
the jarring self wills of others must yield un There are perhaps philosophers who have
limited submission. When Mr. Grote says given to the world as much original thought
that the morality of Plato is “self-referent,” as Plato, whose speculations form as import
he does not put himself at Plato's point of ant landmarks in the history of philosophy,
view. Plato does not, it is true, speak of but none whose works stand in such perma
sacrificing one's individual will and pleasure nent relations to the human spirit. We might,
to the pleasure or good of others, but rather without very great loss, learn what they have
of sacrificing all individual will to reason, to thought from the accounts of others. But
that higher nature which is incapable of be Platonism no one can fully understand except
ing the object of selfish impulse. And when from the lips of Plato himself. The Dia
ne says that the happiness of the individual logues have been called, in a somewhat out
is to be found in this sacrifice, this is only ano worn phrase, the “Bible of literary men.”
ther way of saying that such a higher na And this partly expresses what we mean.
ture exists. The philosopher of the Republic For as the Bible is not a confession of faith
cannot be selfish or self-referent, for he can or a treatise on doctrine, but a picture of the
scarcely be said to have a self. religious life, its inward trials and difficulties,
Yet we do not deny that there is a certain and its changing relations with the world, so
force in the objection, though we would be we may say that Plato teaches us not philo
inclined to express it differently. The ideal sophy, but the philosophic life. To live in
contrasts on which the argument of the Re the world and influence it, and yet not to be
public rests are of an entirely abstract charac of it, not to be overpowered by its delusion,
ter. The guardians and the common people, or to mistake for eternal truth the passion
the professions and the trades, reason and and the cry of the hour, is a difficulty which
impulse, are set in a bold opposition to each besets the thinker as well as the saint, Plato
other, which belongs to abstract conceptions as well as St. Paul. And there is often more
and not to reality. The governor is con than a formal parallelism between the dan
ceived as having no particular or selfish inter gers of a false use of philosophy given in the
ests; the tradesman as having nothing but Pepublic, and the dangers of an abuse of the
such interests. Yet in Plato's analysis of the principle of faith, as expressed in the Epistle
individual soul, he detects the same elements to the Romans. Who, again, exhibits so
of reason and passion which he had before fully as Plato the difficulty of bridging over
discerned in the state; and if he is right in the gulf between theory and practice? How
this, it would follow that the highest philoso shall the philosopher pursue ideal truth
pher cannot be without some personal desires, without losing all practical influence, or how
nor the lowest slave without some universal shall he bring his thoughts to bear on the
interests. Plato here gives to abstractions actual course of affairs without sacrificing
that absolute and independent character, ideal truth? Much of the inconsistency that
which, in the Sophist, he had denied to them, has been found in him arises really from the
and transfers to the sphere of politics that completeness of his survey of the intellectual
opposition between the ideal and phenomenal life on all its many sides, a completeness al
world which is characteristic of the first form most unattainable without formal contradic
of the ideal theory. Here, too, Plato is not tion. His system would be more symmetri
in complete harmony with himself. Indeed, cal if we had not asceticism and self-culture,
we may say, that his whole philosophy is mysticism and art, side by side in it, but it
a struggle to escape from that dualism within would no longer be an adequate picture of all
1865. Mr. Henry Taylor's Later Plays and Minor Poems. 199
the phenomena of the intellectual life, for model. Our modern comedies have been
“wisdom is justified of her children” alike comedies of wit and manners: they have
in Zeno and Epicurus; and if Plato, with all dealt with the humours, not the heart of
his striving after unity, failed to attain it, he man, and aimed but to combine a skilful plot
failed because human life was too great then, with a brilliant superficial sketch of society.
as it has been found too great now, to be em Such was the comedy of Sheridan, whose
braced in a complete and self-consistent theory. works are perhaps the happiest specimens
of the style to which they belong. But the
Shakspearean comedy was another order of
composition. It differed from his tragedy in
the absence of a sad catastrophe; but in
spite of the gay scenes with which they are
ART. IV.—The Poetical Works of HENRY so delightfully varied, such plays as the Mer
TAYLOR, D.C.L. 3 vols. Chapman & chant of Venice, The Tempest, and As You
Hall. 1864. Like It, are as full of serious purpose as
Shakspeare's tragedies themselves. It is not
THE wealth of the present century in Poetry with wit and manners, but with character and
generally has often been contrasted with poetry, that they deal. Those trifles on the
its comparative poverty in the Drama. In surface of society with which they sport so
most Continental countries the serious drama buoyantly do not hinder them from descend.
has long fallen to a low ebb; and among ing into the heart of the humanities. In
ourselves the number of dramatic aspirants them joy and sorrow are allowed to alternate
has been more remarkable than their success. their voices, as they do in the long dispute of
There has, however, been one conspicuous human life, although the brighter genius has
exception. Philip van Artewelde at once the last word. It is from the imagination
achieved for its author a place in English and the reason that all genuine poetry
literature. It appeared under the title of springs, the imagination claiming in it that
A Dramatic Romance : the public was not first place, which in philosophical inquiry she
intimidated by the challenge of “Two concedes to the move masculine power. The
Parts;” and repeated editions prove that it higher drama is thus competent to measure
had in itthat which holds its own. If the itself with the whole of human life. There
theme was a large one, the handling was is a music in human laughter as well as in
large too; and a style of classical severity, sighs, of which reason alone can discern
no less than an abundance of such practical the law ; and there is a depth in the
thought as is gleaned from the fields of expe humorous which the imagination alone can
rience, showed that the author had not fathom. Ages before a Shakspeare had been
grudged that conscientious labour which raised up to prove the truth of the assertion,
spares labour to the reader. Mr. Taylor the great critic of antiquity had affirmed,
has now republished this work, with four that the intellect capable of the highest
other plays, and his minor poems, in a re greatness in tragedy must be competent in
vised and complete edition. Of these, Isaak comedy no less.
Comnenus and Edwin the Fair have been A Sicilian Summer is as bright and musi
before the world long enough to take their cal as the southern clime it illustrates, and it
place. We shall break new ground, confin is full of that wisdom which is never wiser
ing our remarks to his two more recent than in its sportive moods. It is not, how
dramas, and his minor poems. They are ever, every reader who will appreciate it.
destined, unless we are mistaken, to as high Strength touches all: but strength refined
a place as his earlier works occupy ; but we into grace addresses itself to a select circle.
shall be equally frank in our expressions of Tragic passion, be it remembered, challenges
approval and disapproval. We shall con the personal as well as the imaginative sen
clude with some observations on the compa sibilities; and as such it affects not only a
rative herits and characters of our earlier and better class, but many likewise who, if they
our later drama, and on the relation in which sometimes respond to what is truly great, yet
the author of Philip van Artevelde stands to as frequently burst into raptures at the clum
both. siest appeals. It is far otherwise with those
The two dramas are entitled A Sicilian passages of a finer grain – those delicate
Summer, and St. Clement's Eve. hair-strokes of felicitous thought and fin
A Sicilian Summer occupies a peculiar ished expression, which to be apprehended
position, both in Mr. Taylor's poetry and in at all must be fully appreciated. By many
modern literature. Since the earlier part of poetry is liked best for the accidents with
the seventeenth century we have had but few which the noblest poetry is most willing
comedies after the genuine Shakspearean to dispense. In its inmost essence it reveals
200 Mr. Henry Taylor's Later Plays and Minor Poems. Dec.
itself but to those who prefer the distant Silisco. Choose thou, Ruggiero. See now, if
flute-tone to the rattle of wire and wood, that knave . . . .
and enjoy most the odour that floats upon Conrado, ho! A hundred times I've bid thee
the breeze. To give what wine is over to the poor
About the doors.
The scene of a Sicilian Summer is chiefly Conrado. Sir, this is Malvoisie
at Palermo, where Silisco, Marquis of Male And Muscadel, a ducat by the flask.
spina, in the prodigality of youthful spirits Silisco. Give it them not the less; they'll
and vast wealth, fills his old palace with a never know;
perpetual revel. His generosity and his And better it went to enrich a beggar's blood
magnificence make him the delight of the Than surfeit ours;—Choose thou, Ruggiero!
Ruggiero. I!.
young; but the old prognosticate his speedy I have not heard her songs.
ruin,-a catastrophe not the less probable Silisco. Thou sang'st me once
because the young nobleman, after the A song that had a note of either muse,
fashion of the time, is merchant too. He Not sad, nor gay, but rather both than neither.
charters a ship to Rhodes, mortgaging the What call you it?
remaining portions of his estates to three Aretina. I think, my Lord, 'twas this.
Jews. Spadone, the captain of the ship, Silisco. Yes, yes, 'twas so it ran; sing that, I
conspires to betray at once his employer pray thee.
and his crew. He is to sink his vessel on Arelina sings—
I'm a bird that's free
his return, and escaping in a boat with his
fellow-conspirators, to secrete amid the cata Of the land and sea,
combs near the sea-shore, the jewels and I wander whither I will,
But of on the wing,
ingots of gold which he has brought from I falter and sing,
Rhodes. In the meantime Rosalba, daughter Oh fluttering heart, be still,
of the king's chamberlain, Count Ubaldo, Be still,
comes from Procida to Palermo, accompa Oh fluttering heart, be still.
nied by her chosen friend Fiordeliza. The I'm wild as the wind,
revels at Silisco's palace are soon given ex But soft and kind,
clusively on her account, Fiordeliza being And wander whither I may,
wooed at the same time by Ruggiero, the The eye-bright sighs,
friend of Silisco, though the severest censor And says with its eyes,
of his waste. Count Ubaldo has, however, Thou wandering wind, oh stay,
contracted Rosalba to Ugo, Count of Arezzo, h stay,
the wealthiest of the Sicilian nobles, desiring Thou wandering wind, oh stay.
to preserve her from spendthrifts and fortune Manager. Now, had she clapp'd her hand
hunters, and seeing nothing amiss in a bride upon her heart
groom of between sixty and seventy years. In the first verse, which says “Oh fluttering
At the king's entreaty Ubaldo relents so far heart" . . . .
as to say that he will not insist on his daugh 1st Player. And at “Oh stay had beckoned
ter's engagement if Count Ugo can be in thus, or thus . . . .
duced to forego it, and if Silisco is able on 2d Player. And with a speaking look . . . .
the return of his ship, to redeem his lands It Manager. But no—she could not;—
was not in her.
of Malespina, impledged to Ugo. Silisco is Silisco. You'll not take the gold?
not less successful in his suit, and Rosalba Wear this then for my sake; it once adorn'd
romises to be his, if through a change in The bosom of a Queen of Samarcand,
er father's purpose, she should find herself And shall not shame to sit upon this throne.
free. She leaves her lover, at his own Aretina. My heart, my Lord, would prize a
prayer, till All Saints' Day, to work upon gift of yours,
her father's will. Were it a pebble from the brook.
As an illustration of Silisco's character, we Silisco. What ho!
shall make an extract from the second scene Are not the players in attendance? Ah !
of the play, describing the revels of the A word or two with you, my worthy friends.
1st Girl. Why, Aretina, ’tis the diamond
prodigal:— Was sold last winter for a thousand crowns.
2d Girl. A princely man
“Silisco. Off with these viands and this wine, 3d Girl. In some things; but in others
Conrado;
He's liker to a patriarch than a prince.
Feasting is not festivity: it cloys 1st Girl. I think that he takes us for patri
The finer spirits. Music is the feast - archs,
That lightly fills the soul. My pretty friend, He's so respectful. . . . ."—Vol. iii. p. 5–7.
Touch me that lute of thine, and pour thy voice
Upon the troubled waters of this world. The reader will have discovered that the
Aretina. What ditty would you please to prodigal is neither a sensualist nor a mere
hear, my Lord? trifler. His nature has strength and move
ment in it, and it is only the edge of the Already it is loosen'd, it is gone,—
wave that breaks into froth and loses itself.The cloud, the mist; across the vale of life
Yet his heedlessness tends to worse than the The rainbow rears its soft triumphal arch,
loss of his lands, as is intimated by the re And every roving path and brake and bower
ply of Fra Martino to a friend who has found Is bathed In?
in colour'd light. Come what come
it impossible to refuse him aid in his difficul. I know # world is richer than I thought
ties. By something left to it from paradise;
“Give thou to no man, if thou wish him well, I know this world is brighter than I thought,
What he may not in honour's interest take; Having a window into heaven. Henceforth
Else shalt thou but befriend his faults, allied Life hath for me a purpose and a drift.”—Vol.
Against his better with his baser self.” iii. p. 17.
We shall next introduce our readers to the To return to our analysis of the story:
heroine of the play, and to Fiordeliza. They The venture of the merchant-prince promises
are coming from Procida, and Silisco waits success. In good time his ship reappears
on the sea shore, with Ruggiero, to receive in the offing. All day long it is watched
them. The friends converse of their expect from the harbour tower by one of the Jews.
ed guests:— Then its treacherous captain, Spadone, exc
“Huggiero. In the soft fulness of a rounded cutes his plot. About sunset, the good ship
grace, Maddalena suddenly sinks. Writs are imme
Noble of stature, with an inward life diately sent out by the Jews against Silisco,
Of secret joy sedate, Rosalba stands, who flies for refuge to the catacombs on the
As seeing and not knowing she is seen, seaside. Spadone has already lodged his
Like a majestic child, without a want. booty there. His two accomplices watch for
She speaks not often, but her presence speaks, him in a boat outside; but on the appear
And is itself an eloquence, which withdrawn, ance of Ruggiero, who is walking on the
It seems as though some strain of music ceased
That fill'd till then the palpitating air shore, they take to their oars. Spadone com
With : pulsations; when she speaks in mits his booty to his mistress Aretina, and
eed, leaves her, with directions to send him word
'Tis like some one voice eminent in the choir, as soon as he can safely return. In an agony
Heard from the midst of many harmonies of terror at the crime of which she has just
With thrilling singleness, yet clear accord. heard, Aretina meets Silisco, and is on the
So heard, so seen, she moves upon the earth, point of telling him all she has learned, when
Unknowing that the joy she ministers Spadone, who has lurked near them, stabs
Is aught but Nature's sunshine.
Silisco. - Call you this her. He endeavours to kill Silisco also ; but
The picture of a woman or a Saint? after a short combat, falls covered with
When Cimabue next shall figure forth wounds. Silisco, not knowing with whom he
The hierarchies of heaven, we'll give him this has been engaged, drags him out of the cave,
To copy from. But said you, then, the other leaves him at the door of Gerbetto, the king's
Was fairer still than this?
physician, who lives on the beach, and again
Ruggiero. I may have said it; secretes himself. Ruggiero learns soon after
I should have said, she's fairer in my eyes. from the lips of a half-drowned sailor, sole
Yet must my eyes be something worse than survivor of the Maddalena’s crew, the vil
blind
And see the thing that is not, if the hand lany by which the rest have been destroyed.
Of Nature was not lavish of delights His eye has already been attracted by the
When she was fashion'd. But it were not well signs of guilty terror with which the mate
To blazon her too much; for mounted thus and boatswain fled at his approach; he leaps
In your esteem, she might not hold her place, into a boat, and with the help of the rescued
But fall the farther for the fancied rise.
sailor gives them chase.
For she has faults, Silisco, she has faults; Rosalba finds herself thus deserted by her
And when you see them you may think them
Worse lover, and loses in his ruin all hope of a
Than I, who know, or think I know, their scope. changed intention on the part of her father.
She gives her words the mastery, and flush'd She still resists the marriage with Count
With quickenings of a wild and wayward wit, Ugo, till assured by Gerbetto, on the word
Flits like a firefly in a tangled wood, of the dying Spadone, that Silisco had been
Restless, capricious, careless, hard to catch, faithless to her, and had induced Aretina to
Though beautiful to look at.”—Vol. iii. p. 13. be false also. She then consents to wed
The young Countess lands, and Silisco's Count Ugo. Silisco lies hid on the lands of
fate is changed. It is thus he ruminates:— Malespina, which have now passed into Ugo's
“Hope and Joy, hands. He is there joined by Ruggiero,
My younger sisters, you have never yet who, after giving chase for a night and a day
Been parted from my side beyond the breadth to the fugitives, saw them go down at sea, as
Of a slim sunbeam, and you never shall; he supposed, with Silisco's lost treasures, and
had then himself languished in fever for at his death, presents the will of the deceased
months on the coast of Calabria. Ruggiero Count. It provides that his possessions shall
resolves to make an effort to prevent the devolve on Rosalba if she remains single;
marriage; but it has already taken place be but that if she marries they shall pass to the
fore his tired horse can bear him to Palermo. pilgrim Buonaiuto. That pilgrim is Silisco.
The evening, however, of the marriage-day His suit is not long resisted by Rosalba.
is kept with masque and pageant. Ruggiero Ruggiero, who had been cast off by Fiorde
attends the festival, and removing his mask, liza, and vindictively pursued by the king, in
arraigns the bride for her falsehood. Her consequence of unfounded jealousies, stands
reply brings out the statement made by the forth at the same moment, and with Gerbetto's
dying Spadone respecting Aretina, which aid refutes the charges that had been brought
Ruggiero at once confutes, revealing the against him, receiving from the king pardon
crime of Spadone, in which Silisco's ruin had and restitution, and from Fiordeliza a gift
been the consequence. In the midst of the that he values yet more.
grief of the bride, and her father's anger, the There are many dramatic writers whose
aged bridegroom displays a magnanimity for powers are rendered nugatory by the want of
which none had given him credit. He de one great gift—a light hand. The gift may
clares that he can never recognise as valid seem a slight one, but its absence soon
an engagement contracted under such cir proves its importance. As a specimen of it
cumstances, and that the calamity which has we will quote the following:—
befallen them is the punishment of his own “Fiordeliza. Let me alone, I say; I will not
sin. On the death of his first wife, he had dance.
vowed to go on a pilgrimage to the Holy Rosalba. Not if Ruggiero ask you?
Sepulchre. Upon that pilgrimage he goes Fiordeliza. He indeed!
forth at once, and alone. If the Colossus came from Rhodes a.d ask'd me,
Rosalba, quitting the court, takes refuge Perhaps I might.
Rosalba. Come, Fiordeliza, come;
in the castle of Malespina. There she lives
in a seclusion, partaken only by her friend IYou
think if truth were spoken, ’tis not much
have against that knight.
Fiordeliza. The maiden solitude of the
Fiordeliza. Not much you think;
friends is a charming idyll of rural life, rich Well, be it much or little, ’tis enough;
in fancy, quaint in humour, and set forth He has his faults. -
chiefly in that finer and more delicate prose, Rosalba. Recount me them; what are they?
the cadence of which is hardly less rhythmi Fordeliza. I'll pick you out a few; my
cal than that of verse. At last, word is sent wallet: first, -
He's grave; his coming puts a jest to flight

to her by her father that he who in name As winter doth the swallow.
only has been her husband has died at Rosalba. Something else,
Jerusalem, and that she must return to Pa For this may be a merit; jests are oft
lermo, there to do homage for the lands that Or birds of prey or birds of kind unclean.
have now become her own. She obeys; but Fiordeliza. He's rude; he's stirring ever
before her has returned a pilgrim, Buonaiuto, with his staff
from the Holy Land. The pilgrim is Silisco, A growling great she-bear that he calls Truth.
who, on hearing that Count Ugo had set out Rosalba. The rudeness is no virtue; but for
love
upon a journey, the hardships of which could Of that she-bear, a worser vice might pass.
scarcely be surmounted by the young and Again?
strong, had accompanied him in disguise, and Fordeliza. He's slow,-slow as a tortoise,—
saved his life in numberless dangers. Silisco Once
has returned in time to see Aretina, who He was run over by a funeral.
tells him just before her death that it was Rosalba. He may have failings; but if these
from jealousy, as well as fear, that Spadone I wouldbethat
all
others were as innocent.
had stabbed her, and that the treasures car
ried off from the wreck had not, as he sup Fiordeliza. Oh, others! Say, then, who?
Rosalba. Nay, others—all;
posed, been lost at sea, but were buried in I wish that all mankind were innocent.
the catacombs. The last scene unravels all Fiordeliza. Thou art a dear well-wisher of
the threads of a plot very skilfully woven. mankind,
It is in the royal palace of Palermo. The And, in a special charity, wishest well
king sits on his throne, surrounded by his To that good knight Silisco. What! dost blush?
court, when Rosalba advances at her father's Rosalba. No; though you fain would make
me.
command to receive investiture of Count
Fiordeliza. No! What's this,
Ugo's lands. Is it certain, the chief justici That with an invisible brush doth paint thee
ary demands, that the Count has made no red 2
will ? Gerbetto, who at the king's command Well, I too can be charitable, and wish
had attended Count Ugo, and was with him Silisco were less wicked.
Rosalba. Is he wicked ? “Since that eve

Fiordeliza. Is waste not wickedness? and When, as you landed in the dimpled bay
know'st thou not From Procida, I help'd you from the boat,
The lands of Malespina day by day And touch'd your hand, and as the shallop
Diminish in his hands? rock'd,
Rosalba. True, waste is sin. Embolden'd by your fears I . . . . pardon me,
My mother (and no carking cares had she, I should not make you to remember more,—
Nor loved the world too much nor the world's But since that moment when the frolicsome
goods), Waves
In many a vigil of her last sick-bed Toss'd you towards me,—blessings on their
Bid me beware of spendthrifts, as of men sport !
Thai seeming in their youth not worse thanI have not felt one kindling of a thought,
ight, One working of a wish but you were in it;
Would end not so, but with the season change;
The rising sun, that striking through the lattice
Awaken'd me, awaken'd you within me;
For time, she said, which makes the serious soft,
Turns lightness into hardness.”—Vol. iii. p. 22.
The darkness closing shut us up together:
I saw you in the mountains, fields, and woods;
This theme is resumed in a later part of Flowers breathed your breath, winds chanted
the play, when Silisco, to escape his creditors, with your voice,
flies from the court and takes refuge on the And Nature's beauty clothed itself in yours.
lands of Malespina. It will serve as an illusThen think not that my life, though idly led,
tration of that deep moral seriousness which Is tainted or impure or bound to sense,
underlies the gaiety of this play:— . Or if incapable of itself to soar,
Unworthy to be lifted from the dust
“Ruggiero. Why hither? It can bring you By love of what is lofty.”—Vol. iii. p. 25.
little joy
To look upon the lands that you have lost. Corruption is not cleansed by the mere
Silisco. To look upon the days that I have beauty of purity, for it has filmed the eye
lost, that sees purity. Silisco's refinement of na
Ruggiero, brings me less; and here I thought ture is indicated by his forbearance:—
To get behind them; for my childhood here
Lies round me. But it may not be. By Hea “Pardon me,
vens ! I should not make you to remember more.”
That very childhood bitterly upbraids IIe becomes at the end but that which
The manhood vain that did but travesty,
With empty and unseasonable mirth, potentially he was from the beginning, Ro
Its joys and lightness. From each brake and salba had not failed to detect the inner
bower
strength that lurked beneath the outward
wh: thoughtless sports had lawful time and lightness:
place
The many child rebukes the childish man; “Three long days had past
And more reproof and bitterer do I read (Long though delightful, for they teem'd with
In many a peasant's face, whose leaden looks thoughts
My host the farmer construes to my shame. As Maydays teem with flowers) since I had first
Injustice, rural tyranny, more dark Beheld him, standing in the sunset lights,
Than that of courts, have laid their brutal hands Beside a wreck half-buried in the sand
On those that claim'd my tendance; want and Upon the western shore... I see him now
Vice A radiant creature with the sunset glow
And injury and outrage fill'd my lands, Upon his face, that mingled with a glow
Whilst I, who saw it not, my substance threw Yet sunnier from within. When next we met
To feed the fraudulent and tempt the weak. 'Twas here, as you have said; and then his
Ruggiero, with what glittering words soe'er mien
We smear the selfishness of waste, and count Was lighter, with an outward brightness clad,
Our careless tossings bounties, this is sure, For all the Court was present; yet I saw
Man sinks not by a more unmanly vice The other ardour through.”—Vol. iii. p. 77.
Than is that vice of prodigality—
Man finds not more dishonour than in debt.”— The following passage embodies Mr. Tay
Vol. iii. p. 42. lor's philosophy of art. His poetry, and es
In those self-reproaches we find the deve pecially this play, may be considered as a
lopment of that better life which dawned on practical exemplification of it.
Silisco when he first met Rosalba. The ‘Silisco. We'll have the scene where Brutus
from the bench
change thus worked in him is a very different
one from that imputed to beauty by drama Condemns his son to death. 'Twas you, Rug
tists whose moralizing vein is often at least Madegiero,
me to love that scene.
as dangerous as their immoralities; drama Manager. I think, my Lord,
tists who reform a rake by a virtuous wo We pleased you in it.
man's smile, and confirm the rickety virtue Ruggiero. Oh, you did, you did;
thus produced by the grace of matrimony:— I Yet still with reservations: and might I speak
My untaught mind to you that know your art, that belongs to absolute power. Lisana,
I should beseech you not to stare and gasp however, has been committed to the care
And quiver, that the infection of the sense of Ruggiero by Gerbetto when he follows
May make our flesh to creep; for as the hand Count Ugo on his pilgrimage. Defying the
By tickling of our skin may make us laugh
#: than the wit of Plautus, so these tricks king's displeasure, Ruggiero has saved Lisa
May make us shudder. But true art is this, na by withdrawing her from court when
To set aside your sorrowful pantomime, its snares are closing around her. He places
Pass by the senses, leave the flesh at rest, her in the convent of San Paolo, of which
And working by the witcheries of words his aunt is abbess, and in the stillness of that
Felt in the fulness of their import, call retreat her better mind returns to her, and
Me: spirits from the deep; that pain may
thus
the passion that tormented her takes flight.
Be glorified, and passion flashing out “Ere waned one moon
Like noiseless lightning in a summer's night, Of her novitiate, it had pass'd away
Show Nature in her bounds from peak to Like the soft tumult of a summer storm.”
chasm, She now bids adieu to her deliverer be
Awful, but not terrific.
Manager. True, my Lord : fore taking the veil:—
My very words; ’tis what I always told them. Lisana. O friend beloved,
Now, Folco, speak thy speech. . . . Who propp'd this weak heart in its weakest
Ruggiero. 'Tis a speech hour,
That by a language of familiar lowness Rejoiae with me, and evermore rejoice!
Enhances what of more heroic vein
Is next to follow. But one fault it hath:
Your work is done, your recompense achieved,
A thankful soul is saved.
It fits too close to life's realities, Ruggiero. Lisana, yes;
In truth to Nature missing truth to Art;
For Art commends not counterparts and copies, I will rejoice; I do; though mortal eyes
But from our life a nobler life would shape, Must still have lookings backwards. Yet 'tis
Bodies celestial from terrestrial raise, best :
And teach us, not jejunely what we are, The holiest verily are the sweetest thoughts,
But what we may be when the Parian block And sweetest thoughts were ever of your heart
Yields to the hand of Phidias.”—Vol. iii. p. 7. The native growth.
Lisana. , No more of that, my Lord;
The criticism of Silisco on the histrionic It savours of the blandishments of earth.
art is applicable not less to the art poetic, and Look onward only—up the eminent path
its suggestions were never more needed than To which you led me—which my feet have
trodden
in our day. We live in a “fast age,” but if
“he that runs may read,” it is to be feared With gladness, issuing daily to the light,
Till meeting now the radiance face face,
that he will prefer what is written in the Earth melts, Heaven opens, Angels stretch their
largest and coarsest characters, to what re hands
quires a more steadfast attention. Loud To take me in amongst them, glory breaks
words, big words, odd words, will recommendUpon me, and I feel through all my soul
themselves more than the unobtrusive witch That there is joy, joy over me in Heaven.
eries of common “words felt in the fulness IRuggiero. Then joy too shall be over you
on earth.
of their import.” But what the eye takes
My eyes shall never more behold your face
in as quickly as the advertisements that Till, looking through the grave and gate of
adorn a railway station, it forgets no less death,
rapidly. The poetry that lasts is that which I see it glorified and liked to His
embodies thoughts, but so embodies them Who raised it; but I will not waste a sigh
that they sink at once upon the slumbering On what, if seeing, I should see to fade.
feeling and wake it into life. But the Lisana. Farewell! my Master calls me.
thoughts which have this talismanic power Ruggiero. Fare you well.
must be something more than striking, or I pace a lower terrace; but some flowers
From yours fling down to me, at least in prayer.”
even original thoughts. They must be true Vol. iii. p. 80.
thoughts. Thoughts of a lower class may be
had in any numbers, thick as the “motes that We now proceed to Mr. Taylor's latest
people the sunbeam,” and darken what they tragedy, St. Clement's Eve. This play takes
so people, but they are barren thoughts. up the tale of European society where it was
The extracts we have given are not suffi left off in Philip van Artevelde, but illus
cient to illustrate the singular variety of this trates it as it existed in France, not Flanders.
play, but we can find room for only one more. Charles the Sixth, the boy-king, by whom so
It should be premised that Lisana is the bright a light was thrown over the second
daughter of Gerbetto, the king's physician. part of Van Artevelde, is presented to us
The king has formed an attachment to her, again, but this time in eclipse. He was sub
and pursues it with all the unscrupulousness ject to recurring fits of madness, during which
the kingdom was torn to pieces by the rival he has found ready-made in his theme. A
ries of the Duke of Burgundy, the king's favourite book is generally one fortunate in
cousin, and the Duke of Orleans, his brother. its subject, as well as one that makes the most
It was perhaps about the worst and most of that subject. The poet works against the
anarchical period of the middle ages. The tide unless the theme and the characters he
king was loved by his people, and deserved describes work with him, and tend to a result
their love, for in the intervals of his malady which, though painful, still is such as the
he devoted himself to their interests with a higher imagination can muse on with satis
tender and profound solicitude. He is de faction and peace. There must be a due pro
scribed in this play with a mournful pathos. portion of sunshine to the shadow, and even
The Duke of Burgundy is a man of blood, the saddest events must be something more
fierce, with a shrewd intellect (the instrument than sad; they must illustrate poetical justice;
of ungovernable passions), a domineering they must set forth the ways of God to man;
pride, and a will that knows no law. The they must leave behind them the sense that
Duke of Orleans has not escaped the conta the world we inhabit, though it has its sor
mination of a dissolute court, more disposed rows, has yet its method and order, that it is
to respect religion in its outward forms than a region into which angels of chastisement
to obey its commands, but he has about him are indeed sent as well as angels of love and
much that is good, and more that is specious. joy, but that it is not a jungle beset by wild
He is frank, generous, loyal, and devotedly beasts, or a labyrinth—the haunt of mocking
attached to his brother, whom he resembles spirits.
in his personal beauty and in love for his A perfect tragic theme is one that presents
country. His kindly and courteous manners us with greatness in all forms. There must
make him a favourite of the people, while his be great sorrows, but there should also be
learning and accomplishments recommend great characters; there should be a scope for
him to the clergy. He represents the chivalry great energies: the event should be the re
of his age; but it was a chivalry dying out. sult of great, even though of erring, pas
The spirit of self-sacrifice, the virtuous zeal, sions, not of petty infirmities and base machi
and the reverence for purity had left it, and nations. Many a striking theme does not in
consequently the child-like faith of the mid clude such materials, abundant as it may be
dle ages was daily becoming more enervated in stirring action and picturesque positions,
with those childish superstitions from which just as many a fair landscape is deficient in
neither orthodoxy nor heterodoxy secures the that which a picture requires. Let the subject
unspiritual and sensual. Chivalry retained include the characteristics we have named,
its bright accost and winning grace, but the and very numerous defects, with which the
graver heart had departed from it, and the critic may cavil, will detract but little from
savage fierceness of the feudality it had co the reader's pleasure. He will recur to the
vered was working out again through the work when the first effect of surprise, and
thin disguise. the admiration produced by the sense of diffi
St. Clement's Eve is, in power and ability, culties overcome, have worn off. A poet will
among the best of Mr. Taylor's dramas, but be wise to choose a theme that does much
in some respects it is less satisfactory than it for him. It is the one for which he can
is remarkable. Both in its success and its do most, as, in the long-run, it is the best
shortcomings it signally illustrates the philo land which best repays the husbandman's
sophy of the drama. It is as masculine a toil.
work as Philip van Artevelde. It is also far The subject of St. Clement's Eve combines
more condensed, and the action is more rapid. the barbarism of prolonged civil war with the
But the subject throws a gloom over the play corruptions of a court, and exhibits a social
darker than that which tragedy requires. condition in which simplicity has ceased to
We leave it with a feeling of sadness, the re exist, while refinement has not yet come. It
sult not merely, or chiefly, of a fatal catastro supplies but one wholly noble character, that
phe, but of the absence of noble characters of the hermit, Robert de Menuot. Montar
sufficient to balance the ignoble and the wick gis and Burgundy are men without con
ed. We have no right to quarrel with a dra science or honour, or even that regard for repu
matist either for selecting a corrupt period of tation which often passes for honour. The
history for illustration, or for faithfully repre two monks, or supposed monks, are equally
senting it, yet he certainly loses not a little prompt at the burning of a witch or the
by such a selection. Whatever the pride of composition of a philtre. Such characters,
art may affirm, the abiding charm of a poem in their due place, may doubtless be portrayed
will ever bear a proportion to the moral both justly and usefully. But the interests
beauty it enshrines,—not merely the beauty of the drama require, and as it seems to us,
which the poet has created, but that which historic truth no less, that specimens of a
nobler order of character should be also in

pearance of exaggeration, of its merits. Its
troduced in a compensating measure. The manliness might startle a literary age as effe
best periods have their villains, and the worst minate as ours. Not a few of its readers
have often their saints and heroes: nature will exclaim—
commonly produces such intermingling, and “What doth the eagle in the coop,
art requires it. The chronicles of the time The bison in the stall ?”
described, full as they are of violence and
In its vigour, both of thought and of lan
wrong, delight us also with many a trait of guage, it possesses a merit which to some
generosity, magnanimity, loyalty, fidelity, and will be lost in its strangeness—a strangeness
self-abnegation, which need no aid from the like that which we find in the organic re
romance of chivalry to give them interest. mains of a remote age. That vigour belongs,
Virtue becomes perfected by the very trials not only to the serious scenes, but to the
and temptations to which it is subjected, and lighter also, which are of a very different
though at particular periods injustice and character from those of A Sicilian Summer,
wrong may occupy an unusual prominence and preserve something of fierceness even in
upon the surface of society, yet true virtue mirth. Its songs have the buoyancy, terse
must co-exist with these, both in high places ness, and dramatic impulse which belong to
and in low, or society could...not long continue those of Mr. Taylor's earlier plays. In none
to exist. It has but small place in this play. of his works, perhaps, is his style so con
Even characters so rarely presented to us that summate. It is at once classical and idioma
their vices contribute nothing to the carrying tic, and it has the polish, with the weight of
out of the plot, are sketched in colours of steel. Above all, it is invariably clear, let
arbitrary gloom. The Archbishop of Paris ting the thoughts shine through it, like ob
is made a servile old pedant. This is gratui jects seen through transparent air. This last
tous. The metropolitan sees were in those characteristic is becoming rare in our day,
ages commonly occupied either by men of owing, in some measure, to the very degree
ability and force of character, or by the to which some particular merits of style have
representatives of some great family-by one, been carried. At present, in not a little of
in short, whose faults were not likely to be our popular poetry, language has been so
those of a schoolmaster turned courtier.
strained in search of expressiveness, and has
We find here something of that confusion thus become such a richly-coloured medium,
between the middle ages and the ancien that it sometimes seems to be a beautiful sub
régime which M. de Montalembert alludes to stitute for thought rather than a revealer of
as so common. Such bishops would have thought, thus resembling those water-colour
been less easily found in the middle ages than drawings in which the aérial effects swallow
in the seventeenth century, when in most
parts of Europe an oriental despotism had up mountain and plain, and in which the pic
ture might be described as mist with trees in
risen up upon the ruins of feudalism. In still it. In this play, condensation has, we think,
more repulsive colours is the Abbess of the been carried too far. The introduction of a
Celestines represented, and little as we see of few interstitial scenes would be useful, not
her, we are left with the painful impression only as thus allowing the enrichment of
that she has worse faults than those which
seek a palliation in passion. poetry and philosophic thought, but yet
more in suspending the course of an action
“That liberty she grants herself, good soul, so rapid as to hurry us out of breath. That
She not denies to others,” action is occupied chiefly by the jealousies
of the royal cousins; and we have not room
is a comment made upon her by a friend; to trace it in details. They had also their
and we find her stimulating the vanity and occasional reconciliations, one of which is
increasing the danger of a pupil intrusted to thus humorously described:—
her charge, who has attracted the admira
tion of the Duke of Orleans. This might “To-day they rode together on one horse,
Each the other's livery. To-morrow
surely have been avoided without represent They in are to sleep together in one bed.
ing the abbess either as a saintly Hildegarde, The People stare and deem the day is nigh
or even as a nun “wise and witty,” and with When lamb and lion shall lie down together.
more aptitude for the day's work than fit De Chevreuse. Rode one horse!
ness for a place in romance. Of the younger D'Acelin. Yea, Orleans before
female characters, Flos, though energetic and And Burgundy behind.
sparkling, is not intended to interest our Gris-mez. 'Twas so they rode:
Two witches on one broomstick rode beside
deeper sympathies.
them;
We have spoken strongly of what we But riding past an image of Our Lady
deem the fault of the theme in this play. It The , '" Snorted and the broomstick
is more difficult to speak, without the ap Take.
1865. Mr. Henry Taylor's Later Plays and Minor Poems, 207
De Cassinel. Would I were sure my gout The King. Good hermit, by God's mercy we
would be as brief are spared
As their good fellowship. To hear thee, and not only with our ears
De Vierzon. To see grim John But with our mind.
Do his endeavour at a gracious smile, Burgundy. If there be no offence,
Wasworth a ducat; with his trenchant teeth But take thou heed to that.
Clinch'd like a rat-trap. Robert. What God commands,
De Cassinel. Ever and anon How smacks it of offence? But dire offence
They open'd to let forth a troop of words There were if fear of Man should choke God's
Scented and gilt, a company of masques word.
Stiff with brocade, and each a pot in hand I heard and saw, and I am here to speak.
Filled with wasp's honey.” Nigh forty days I sped from town to town,
Hamlet to hamlet, and from grange to grange,
The most characteristic illustration which And wheresoe'er I set my foot, behold!
we can give of St. Clement's Eve is the fol The foot of war had been before, and there
lowing denunciation of both the Royal Dukes Did nothing grow, and in the fruitless fields
Whence ruffian hands had snatch'd the beasts
pronounced by Robert the Hermit before the of draught
Council. We regard it also as the finest Women and children to the plough were yoked;
piece of poetry in the play, and as such ex The very sheep had learnt the ways of war,
tract it uncurtailed:— And soon as from the citadel rang out
The larum peal, flock'd to the city gates;
“Robert. King and my gracious Sovereign, And tilth was none by day, for none durst forth,
unto whom But wronging the night season which God gave
I bend the knee as one ordain'd of God, To minister sweet forgetfulness and rest,
A message hath been given me, and I am bid Was labour and a spur. I journey'd on,
To tell thee in what sort. St. Jerome's Day, And near a burning village in a wood
My vows perform'd, I sail'd from Palestine, Were huddled 'neath a drift of blood-stain'd
With favouring winds at first; but the tenth SnOW
night -
The houseless villagers: I journey'd on,
A storm arose and darkness was around And as I pass'd a convent, at the gate
And fear and trembling and the face of death. Were famish'd peasants, hustling each the other,
Six hours I knelt in prayer, and with the Half fed by famish'd nuns: I journey'd on,
seventh And 'twixt a hamlet and a church the road
A light was flash’d upon the raging sea, Was black with biers, for famine-fever raged:
And in the raging sea a space appeard I journey'd on—a trumpet's brazen clang
Flat as a lake, where lay outstretch'd and white Died in the distance; at my side I heard
A woman's body; thereupon were perch'd A child's weak wall that on its mother's breast
Two birds, a falcon and a kite, whose heads Droop'd its thin face and died; then peal'd to
Bare each a crown, and each had bloody beaks, heaven
And blood was on the claws of each, which The mother's funeral cry, ‘My child is dead
clasp'd, For lack of food; he hunger'd unto death;
This the right breast and that the left, and each
A soldier ate his food, and what was left
Fought with the other, nor for that they ceased He trampled in the mire; my child is dead!
To tear the body. Then there came a cr Hear me, O God! a soldier kill'd my child !
Piercing the storm-‘Woe, woe for rance, See to that soldier's quittance—blood for blood!
woe, woel Visit him, God, with thy divine revenge!'
Thy mother France; how excellently fair The woman ceased; but voices in the air,
And in how foul a clutch !'. Then slence; then, Yea, and in me a thousand voices cried,
‘ Robert of Menuot, thou shalt surely live, ‘Visit him, God, with thy divine revenge!'
For God hath work to give thee; be of good Then they too ceased, and sterner still the Voice
cheer; Slow and sepulchral that the word took up—
Nail thou two planks in figure of a cross ‘Him, God, but not him only, nor him most;
And lash thee to that cross and leap, and lo! Look Thou to them that breed the men of
Thou shalt be cast upon the coast of France; blood,
Then take thy way to Paris; on the road, That breed and feed the murderers of the realm.
See, hear, and when thou com'st to Paris, Look Thou to them that, hither and thither tost
speak.' Betwixt their quarrels and their pleasures, laugh
“To '' ?' quoth I. Was answer made, ‘The At torments that they taste not; bid them learn
or *
ng. That there be torments terribler than these
I question'd, ‘What?’ ‘That thou shalt see, Whereof it is Thy will that they shall taste,
declare, So they repent not, in the belly of Hell.'
And what God puts it in thy heart to speak So spake the Voice, then thunder shook the
That at the '' thy soul deliver.’ wood,
Then leap'd I in the s a lash'd to a cross, And lightning smote and splinter'd two tall
And drifting half a day I came to shore trees
At Sigean, on the coast of Languedoc, That tower'd above the rest, the one a pine,
And parting thence barefooted journey’d hither An ash the other. Then I knew the doom
For forty days save one, and on the road Of those accursed men who sport with war
I saw and heard, and I am here to speak. And tear the body of their mother, France.
Trembling though guiltless did I hear that With that I couch'd and sprang and sprang and
doom, couch'd,
Trembling though guiltless I; for them I quaked My soul rejoicing.
Of whom it spake; O Princes, tremble ye, Iolande. May God grant, dear Flos,
For ye are they ! Oh, hearken to that Voice! Your mice shall not prove bloodhounds."
Oh cruel, cruel, cruel Princes, hear! [Vol. iii. p. 135.
For ye are they that tear your mother's flesh; Too soon it turns out that there was room
Oh, flee the wrath to come ! Repent and live!
Else know your doom, which God declares for the warning. Flos is betrayed and de
through me, serted by her lover Montargis. Wooed by
Perdition and the pit hereafter; here another, she tells him that, before he wins
Short life and shameful death.”—Vol. iii. p. her favour, he must avenge her wrong:
125-8.
“Give me thy hand again. It is too white.
We cannot better illustrate the two chief I dedicate this hand to truth and love,
And hatred and revenge. White as mine
female characters of the play than by the own!
following passage. Iolande has been giving Dye it and bring it back to me to-morrow,
friendly counsel to Flos, whose wayward And I will clasp it to my heart. Farewell!”
temper and love of worldly pleasures excite Father Renault moralizes well:—
her alarm —
“How Swift
“Iolande. Last night I had a dreadful dream. The transformation whereby carnal love
I thought Is changed to carnal hate! I have heard it said,
That borne at sunrise on a fleece of cloud, There is no haunt the viper more affects
I floated high in air, and looking down, Than the forsaken bird's nest.”
Beheld an ocean-bay girt by green hills, We know not how far we can recognise in
And in a million wavelets tipp'd with gold Iolande, the heroine of the play, an excep
Leapt the soft pulses of the sunlit sea.
And lightly from the shore a bounding bark, tion to the general darkness that character
Festive with streamers fluttering in the wind, izes it. At first she has a delightful fresh
Sail'd seaward, and the palpitating waves ness, and a purity capable of “disinfecting”
Fondly like spaniels flung themselves upon her, the bad air in which she lives. She is ten
Recoiling and returning in their joy. der in heart and soaring in aspirations, one
And on her deck sea-spirits I descried of those who, if reproached as visionaries,
Gliding and lapsing in an undulant dance, might reply, with the author of Guesses at
From whom a choral gratulating strain Truth, “Yes, a visionary, because he sees.”
Exhaled its witcheries on the wanton air.
Still sail'd she seaward, and ere long the bay But fate and fortune conspire to take from
Was left behind; but then a shadow fell her the respect of others and her own. She
Upon the outer sea—a shadowy shape— has been saved by Orleans from Montargis,
The shadow bore the likeness of the form who attempted to carry her off, and she loves
Of the Arch-fiend. I shudder'd for the bark, her preserver before she knows he has a wife.
And stretch'd my hands to heaven, and strove On the discovery she breaks the tie; but her
to pray,
But could not for much fear. The shadow heart is neither restored to liberty (as in so
grew
noble a nature it must soon have been), nor
Till sea and sky were black; the bark plunged left in peace with its sorrow and its humilia
Oil tion. Orleans implores her—“O pious fraud
And clove the blackness; then the fleece of of amorous charity”—if she renounces him,
cloud at least to befriend his sick brother. At his
That bore me, melted, and I fell and fell, entreaty she undertakes to exorcise the king's
And falling I awoke. malady by means of certain miraculous wa
Flos. Yes, Iolande,
You're ever dreaming dreams, and when they're ters enclosed in a reliquary, the healing vir
bad -
tue of which depends upon the spotless pu
They're always about me. I too can dream, rity in heart and life of her by whose hand
But otherwise than you. The god of dreams they are sprinkled upon the sufferer's brow.
Who sleeps with me is bligthe and débonnaire, She makes the attempt, and fails. The ordi
Else should he not be partner of my bed. nary reader will account for her failure, not
I dreamt I was a cat, and much caress'd, by her unworthiness, but by the circumstance
And fel with dainty viands; there was cream, that she was but a dupe, practised on by im
And fish, and flesh, and porridge, but no mice; postors. This is not her view of the subject,
And I was fat and sleek, but in my heart
There rose a long and melancholy mew nor the hermit's; and if accepted as just,
Which meant, ‘I must have mice; and there though it exculpates the victim, it leaves her
withal death wholly unredeemed by poetic justice.
I found myself transported to the hall In Shakspeare, imposture is treated with the
Of an old castle, with the rapturous sound contempt so sorry a thing deserves; it is ex
Of gnawing of old wainscot in my ears; hibited, detected, and flung aside. The ca
tastrophe of a tragedy is never made to de All accidents of Nature to itself.

pend on it. In this play the noble efforts of Aurora comes in clouds, and yet the cloud
the hermit for the restoration of France are Dims not, but decks her beauty. Furthermore
frustrated, and the most interesting charac Whate'er shall single out a personal self
ters swept into ruin by instrumentalities too Takes with a subtler magic. So of shape;
Perfect proportion, like unclouded light,
petty for such a catastrophe. Is but a faultless model; small defect
We have another fault to find with this
Conjoint with excellence, more moves and
part of the plot. It forces our sympathies wins, -
into a painful region of poetic casuistry. Making the heavenly human. . . . .

The struggle between human love and hea I spared no pains.
venly love, where each so easily puts on Look closer; mark the hyacinthine blue
the semblance of the other, is perplexing to Of many veins irriguous, swelling here,
There branching and so softening out of sight.
the imagination. We know not how far we Nor is it ill conceited. You may mark
are to condemn, and how far we may pity. The timbrel drooping from her hand denotes
There is a pity which is “akin to love,” and The dance foregone; a fire is in her eye
another pity which is “akin to contempt;" Which tells of triumph, and voluptuous grace
and in the misty region of insincere and Of motion is exchanged for rapturous rest.”—
equivocal action and passion, the two run Vol. iii. p. 170.
into each other. The poetry that describes This picture has very serious consequences.
or adumbrates such conflicts of spirit and Montargis, pretending zeal for a friend,
flesh, belongs to what, in writers very differ “Whose soul
ent from Mr. Taylor, sometimes claims the Lies in the hollow of her Grace's hand
name of “psychological poetry.” There are Soft fluttering like a captured butterfly,”
struggles in human nature which even the
author of Hamlet would have shrunk from persuades the painter to lend it to him. It is
exhibiting in tragedy. There are regions in the portrait of the Duke of Burgundy's wife,
the human heart, open to the Divine Eye from whom he has long been estranged. Re
alone, into which reverence and humanity solved to procure the assassination of Orleans,
forbid poetry to enter. The hopes and aims who had rescued Iolande from him, Montargis
of Iolande are noble; her heart was liege secretly conveys this portrait into a chamber
fully given to heavenly things, and was wor of the Duke of Orleans's palace, reported to be
thy of a human love also that should have hung round by the portraits of all those ladies
elevated, not degraded her. There is some who had successively surrendered their virtue
thing, we think, beneath the generosity of to a prince as dissolute as he was captivating;
art (equally great when it dares and when it and having carefully prepared the train, he
forbears), in the exhibition of a contest like introduces the Duke of Burgundy into the
that to which she is subjected—one entered apartment, among the boasts of which is this
witness to his dishonour. This is the critical
upon so unwittingly, waged so bravely, and
yet ending so ignominiously, as well as dis scene, upon which the plot of St. Clement's
astrously. Our estimate of her, and therefore Eve turns; and there are few passages in the
of the real nature of her struggle, rests upon English drama in which a vehement outburst
that which is itself ambiguous, if we throw of passion is more intensified by every art of
ourselves back into the sympathies of the skilful delay and artificial stimulus. To ap
time described. Are we to regard the mira preciate the full force of this scene, one must
culous relic simply as an imposture ? If so, previously be acquainted with the ferocious,
a second spite of fortune has placed a noble though by no means callous, character of
and innocent being in a position painfully Burgundy. He is thus described early in the
equivocal. But by the only elevated charac piece—
ters in the play, the healing agency is to the “Other clay,
last moment supposed to be supernatural. Dug from some miry slough or sulphurous bog,
In that case, its failure would be the condem With many a vein of mineral poison mix'd,
Went to the making of Duke Jean-Sans-Peur.
nation of one who, with deficient purity, had This knew the crafty Amorabaquin.
dared to profane it. When captives by the hundred were hewn
In many parts of Mr. Taylor's poetry we down,
find a singularly keen appreciation of the 'Twas not rich ransom only spared the Duke.
kindred art of painting. The following de 'Twas that a dying Dervise prophesied
scription will at once enable the reader to de Moreshed
Christian blood should by his mean be
termine the school to which the picture de Than ere by Bajazet with all his hosts.
scribed belongs. We are much mistaken if it Therefore it was to France he sent him back
be not the Venetian.
With gifts, and what were they? 'twas bow
“Painter. There is a power in beauty which strings made
subdues Of human entrails.”—Vol. iii. p. 111.
WOL. XLIII. N–14
210 Mr. Henry Taylor's Later Plays and Minor Poems. De
This is the man who, after years of contest A blot, a blur, I know not what . . .
with his cousin of Orleans, has been forced Burgundy. That mole.
into a temporary reconciliation with him. As But Oh see, Montargis, look at her, she smiles,
not on me, but never more on me!
daring in his wild fits of half savage frolic as Oh, would to God that she had died the day
in ambition, he has entered the palace, nay, That first I saw that smile and trusted her;
the inmost and secret chamber, of one whom
he knew to have been his successful rival in
There. £wing the whole world of wome
alse,
power, but whom he has never suspected of Still trusted her, and knowing that of the fals
rivalry in love. The first sight of the “galaxy The fairest are the falsest, trusted still,
of glowing dames” delights him:— Still trusted her—Oh my besotted soul!
Trusted her only–Oh my wife, my wife!
“Ha! were it not a frolic that should shake Believing that of all the Devil's brood
Grim Saturn's self with laughter, could That twist and spin and spawn upon this earth
we bring She was the single Saint—the one unfallen
The husbands hither, each to look round and Of this accursed Creation—oh my wife!
spy Oh the Iscariot kiss of those false lips!
The blazon of his dire disgrace.” With him too—to be false with him—my bane
My blight from boyhood.
Then comes a series of pictures, accompanicd Montargis. Verily therein
by corresponding descriptions of character, Was foul-play worse befoul’d; no arts but his,
presented in a few masterly touches, and And theirs who taught him, with their ring
strangely contrasting, by the tranquillity that and rods,
belongs to such delineations, with the storm Powders #" potions, would have breach'd the
that follows:— Wa.
Of that fair c'tadel.
“Burgundy. And then the next! Burgundy. I'll have his blood . . .
Montargis. Which * This ? Ere the sun sets.
Burgundy. She with the timbrel dangling Montargis. . A later hour were better;
from her hand. We want not daylight for a deed like this.
Montargis. I know not this; this was not Burgundy. I sleep not till he's dead. Com
here before. thou with me
The one beyond it - -
And take thy warrant.
Burgundy. Not so fast; this face Montargis. Sir, at your command.
I surely must have seen, though not, it may be, Burgundy. Look here, Montargis;
For some time past; it hath a princely grace [Drawing his sword
And lavish liberty of eye and limb, Should a breath be breathed
With something of a soft seductiveness That whispers of my shame, the end is this.
Which very strangely to my mind recalls [Stabs the portrait in the heart."
The idle days of youth; that face I know, Vol. iii. p. 179–181.
Yet know not whose it is.
Montargis. - Nor I, my Lord; A succession of stirring scenes follows
Albeit the carriage of the neck and head The populace of Paris, infuriated by the re.
Is such as I have somewhere seen.
Burgundy. But where ?
turn of the king's madness, demands the
death of the maiden who had undertaken his
Familiar seems it though in foreign garb,
And whether it be Memory recalls cure. The Duke of Burgundy, sitting in
Or Fancy feigning Memory . . . Death of my council, pledges his word that she shall die.
soul! To save her Orleans hastens to the council,
It is my wife. attended only by his page. As he makes his
Montargis. Oh no, my Lord, no, no, way in the dusk, through the snow-covered
It cannot be her Highness. streets, Montargis, who, after receiving Bur.
Burgundy. Cannot—cannot—
gundy's warrant, has lain in wait within the
Why, no, it cannot. For my wife is chaste, gate of a house, springs upon his prey, and
And never did a breath of slander dim
Her pure and spotless fame; no, no, it cannot;
slays him. All Paris is in commotion, and
the crowds soon swarm around the council
By all the Angels that keep watch above
It cannot be my wife . . . and yet it is. chamber where the Duke of Burgundy is sit
I tell thee, Bastard of Montargis, this, ting with the king's uncles, the Dukes of
''
. This picture is the of my wife. Bourbon and Berri, and the Titular King of
Montargis. And I, my Lord, make answer it Sicily. The chamberlain, entering, announces
is not. the murder. The Provost of Paris, who fol
I would as soon believe that Castaly lows him, demands permission to search for
Had issued into Styx. Besides, look here, the assassin in all places alike, the royal resi
There is a mole upon the neck of this
Which is not on your wife's. dences, in spite of their ordinary privilege,
Burgundy. That mole is hers; not being excepted. The other royal dukes
Taat mole convicts her. consent. Burgundy alone refuses, and on
Montargis. What? a mole? Well yes, being challenged by the rest, suddenly avows
Now that I think of it, some sort of smirch, his guilt, leaves the council, and with his at
1865. Mr. Henry Thylor's Later Plays and Minor Poems. 211
tendants escapes from Paris. In the mean given because they wore a picturesque cos
time the body of Orleans has been carried to tume. The defects of those ages, far from
the convent of the Celestines, where Iolande being concealed or palliated, will ever be
watches beside it. Montargis, who enters with most lamented by those who most appreciate
a warrant for her apprehension and death, their great compensating merits. One of
is himself stabbed by De Wezelay. Imme their most celebrated vindicators has made
diately afterwards a tumult is heard without. this frank confession:—“By the side of the
The infuriated crowd, rolling on like a raging opened heavens, hell always appeared; and
sea, have reached and beleaguered the con beside those prodigies of sanctity which are
vent. The hermit entreats lolande to fly by so rare elsewhere, were to be found ruffians
the wicket. She answers— scarcely inferior to those Roman emperors
“It is I # whom Bossuet calls ‘monsters of the human
Must speak and vindicate the fame of him race.’” In the feudal system, the barbaric,
Whose lips are silent;" it is true, was “scotched, not killed,” by the
chivalry which expressed the Christian cha
and advances to the window, when an arrow racter of the time. But the good existed as
from below strikes her, and she falls. Once well as the bad, and each attained a heroic
more the hermit speaks— growth. The general hardihood of the time
“Arise, if horror have not stark'd your limbs, gave a dreadful hardihood to crime also, and
And bear we to the Chapel reverently probably in no small degree occasioned the
These poor remains. In her a fire is quench'd terrible severity with which crimes were
T''edburn'd too bright, with either ardour punished; for mild punishments would have
Divine and human. In the grave with him exercised but a small deterring effect upon
men whose sport was war, and who seldom
I bury hope; for France from this time forth
Is but a battle-field, where crime with crime, counted upon dying in their beds. It was
Vengeance with vengeance grapples; till one not an age of respectability, and little pains
sword were taken to conceal offences,—often, it may
Shall smite the neck whence grow the hun be, more trouble was taken to conceal vir
dred heads, tues. Men did not then value themselves on
And one dread mace, weighted with force and consistency. Immense crimes were often
fraud
Shall's in this nation to a dismal peace.”— followed by intense repentance; high aspira
tions were strangely blended with fierce ani
Vol. iii. p. 198.
mal instincts; refined and coarse feelings
In St. Clement's Eve, as well as Philip were tenants of the same breast; the whole
van Artewelde, Mr. Taylor has dealt with a human character was large as well as strong,
corrupt period of the middle ages, but in and its passions swung through a wide arc,
none of his works has he given us a favour and touched the most opposite extremes.
able picture of them. He is drawn to them The same men were self-sacrificing and cruel,
by their-manliness and their quaintness, and and nature was often trampled under foot by
these qualities he sketches with a graphic those who yet bore no doubtful allegiance to
touch, but their deeper and more noble cha a supernatural ideal, to whom, in their seri
racteristics he seldom delineates. How is ous moods, earthly life was a shadow of life
this to be accounted for ? In part, perhaps, eternal, and who regarded all that was not
on the principle of reaction. The contempt sacred as the licensed field of a rough boy
with which the middle ages were so long play. The strange contrasts between the
treated had, before he began to write, been different elements that made up what are
succeeded by an enthusiasm equally unreason called the “middle ages,” and the very dif.
able. In neither instance had a calm philo ferent character of the periods included under
sophy pronounced its verdict. The middle that comprehensive term, render an impartial
ages had been revived in the form of melo estimate of them a difficult thing. Mr. Tay
drama, and become the fashion. Second lor has not, we think, yet presented us with
class poets and romancers had made them such an estimate, vividly as he has touched
their spoil; every scene-painter had tried his many of their special traits; and we trust
brush on them; but it was only their more he will yet discharge the remaining portion
exaggerated and outward traits that had been of his debt to a period of society so important
painted, and admiration had been lavished on historic grounds, and which has furnished
alike on the worthless and on worth. The him with such rich poetical materials.
justness of Mr. Taylor's genius seems to have
been offended by this paltering with truth In estimating Mr. Taylor's position among
for the sake of effect, and his sense of human the English poets, both of recent and earlier
ity to have resented the wrongs of serfs
whose oppressors have too often been for * Montalembert, The Monks of the West.
days, and in comparing the modern drama tastrophe; and in approaching it we should
tists with those of the time of Elizabeth, we have felt as men do when their boat is
must bear in mind that the dramatists of the swept towards the rapids. In Ford's work
earlier period are themselves to be divided we see little of the Princess, and care little
into two classes. Shakspeare by himself con for her; nor is there anything in her cha
stitutes one of these, while the whole of his racter to suggest the marvellous conclusion
contemporaries and immediate successors con which thus stands up like a precipice with:
stitute the other. The rest, with all their out a mountain-range to back it. This want
differences of species, are still generically of judgment in our early dramatists is often
one, while Shakspeare is a genus in himself. a moral even more than an intellectual de
Each of Shakspeare's greater plays is, in the ficiency. It proceeds from too great a love
highest sense of the word, a poem as well as of the startling, and too slight a sense of
a play. It possesses an interior unity (little the becoming, the fitting, and the orderly.
as Shakspeare thought of what are techni Another difference between Shakspeare
cally called the unities), a unity proceeding and his contemporaries is the amount of ex
from the one great idea that created the travagance and rant in the latter. Strength
whole, the predominant sentiment that in was the great quality our early dramatists va
' it, and the exquisite subordination of lued. When it came to them in the form of
the details to the general effect.* This unity, real passion, they knew how to exhibit it in
piercing at once and comprehensive, belongs perfection, intermixing the most delicate with
alone to great creative genius, and Shak the most vigorous touches. In the absence
speare's contemporaries were without it. of real passion, they were often content with
Ben Jonson, with all his learning and classi its coarse imitation. Giovanni, in a too cele
cal predilections, lacked it as much as Mar brated play, makes his appearance at the
low or Webster. Shakspeare worked “from revel with the heart of Annabella, whom he
within;” the process was one of growth, and has just slain, on the point of his dagger!
the unity latent in the parent germ mani Yet this outrage against all genuine passion,
fested itself in every leaf and spray of the as well as against decency, almost immedi
developed plant. This is the secret of that ately follows a scene of the truest pathos.
marvellous judgment which equalled his ima The same exaggerated love, either of
gination itself. Starting with a genuine strength itself, or of bombast mimicking
idea, he shrank instinctively from whatever strength, prevented Shakpeare's contempora
obscured it, whether by disproportion or by ries from even aiming at his profound con
incongruity. The other dramatists worked ception of character. Their own characters
“from without,” and mechanically. They were formed on a different principle, and
found their materials in life and books, and one for their coarser purposes more effective.
with great ability, but without a true inspira To a great extent they are but abstractions,
tion, they combined them. In multitudes of vividly described as are the circumstances
cases the result is a painful discord; in few among which they are placed. In The
is it a complete harmony. Broken Heart, Bassanes is not a jealous man
The reader who turns to their Plays in so much as jealousy itself embodied, while
a complete edition, after reading the splen Shirley's Traitor is not an example of fear
did fragments detached from them in Lamb's less perfidy, but its impersonation. In the
Specimens, will often think the finished work comedies the characters are often not even
more fragmentary than the fragments. Again representations of qualities; they are but the
and again, the finest scenes in our early drama embodiment of some personal whim or tran
lose half their value from the inappropriate sient folly of society. Thus, in Ben Jon
ness of their position. Take, for instance, son's Epicane, the chief character, Morose,
Ford's best play, The Broken Heart : no might be defined as “a nervous gentleman's
thing can exceed in suppressed passion the dislike to noise in the street.” How differ
concluding scene, in which the Princess, re ent is this from Shakspeare ! Before his
ceiving secretly and successively the tidings mighty mind there ever stood the great idea
of the death of her father, of her friend, of humanity; and each of his characters is
and of her lover with a Spartan's fortitude, worked out of that one manifold type. In
replies indifferently, keeping up the court pa shaping it, as much is withdrawn from the
eant almost to the moment of her death. universal as is necessary to mould the par
hakspeare would have cast the whole play ticular, but the universal remains. This is
so as to have foreshadowed the dreadful ca the cause of the infinite light and shadow
of Shakspeare's characters; in them the pas
* The reader who refers to Coleridge's Lectures
on the English Drama, and to those by Schlegel, sions are influences working in conjunction
will find the most philosophic comparative esti with all else that belongs to the moral being,
mate of Shakspeare and his contemporaries. not tempests blowing on them from with
1865. Mr. Henry Thylor's Later Plays and Minor Poems. 213
out. Characters thus delineated are so soften which Milton borrowed in his Comus; yet
ed and rounded off by imperceptible grada it is disgraced by whole scenes of ribaldry;
tions, that they can only be effective in the and in the Maid's Tragedy the grief of the
hand of a genius who combines with the forsaken Aspatia is similarly dishonoured.
force of nature her variety, grace, and sub Massinger offends less than most of the other
tlety. Those only can appreciate the strength dramatists, yet in his Fhtal Dowry vice al
shown by Shakspeare, who appreciate also the most rejects the plea of temptation; and
profundity, the completeness, the many-sided even his Virgin Martyr is deformed by the
ness, and the refinement, which he never con excrescence of scenes which were reverently
descended to sacrifice in order to gain the ap omitted in a recent and separate edition of
pearance of strength. that play.
The most important point of diversity re Such offences have commonly, when not
mains to be noticed—the moral sense. The condoned by the false charity of indifference,
true greatness of Shakspeare is by nothing so been regarded only from the moral point of
proved as by his superiority to his contempo view. The boundless injury inflicted by
raries in this respect. Shakspeare does not them on literature has hardly been adverted
bring out his moral in didactic vein; but the to. The Greeks were so well aware of the
great moral that always belongs to nature relations between virtue and the liberal arts,
herself belongs to him who best knew how to that even when the morals of Paganism were
exhibit her. In him there are no moral con at the lowest, a high moral standard was
fusions, no substitution of rhetorical sentiment maintained in serious literature. The indi
for just feeling, no palliation of vice, no simu rect losses sustained by our early dramatists,
lations of virtue. The dramatic form of com in consequence of their defects in this mat
position by necessity gives a great promi ter, were even worse than the direct ones.
nence to the passions, and must also keep in They found in coarseness and license so easy
the background that region of the super a means of amusing the audience, that they
natural and the infinite in the immediate were rarely forced to elicit their own deeper
presence of which the passions are cowed. powers. Strength to excite, and ribaldry to
But from that remote and awful background amuse, sufficed, and they too often spared
no doubtful flashes are sent to bear wit themselves the trouble of addressing the finer
ness that this life, with all its tumults, is cir affections, the reason, or the moral sense of
cled by a vaster one. There are occasionally their audience. Their works consequently,
moral blemishes in Shakspeare's plots, and in spite of some splendid exceptions, lacked
there is not seldom a license of language to those passages of quiet beauty, of pathos, of
be seriously regretted; but this last is far philosophy, of imaginative grace, and of
less than in the other writers of his time, nor moral power, which are our principal induce
do we know how much of it is owing to the ments to return to a book when the interest
interpolations of those players whom he of story is exhausted. The same fault
commands to deliver “no more than is set blunted the best faculties of the early drama
down for them.” tists, and allowed many others to lie fallow.
It is far otherwise with almost all Shak The moral sense thus obscured, man was
speare's contemporaries. When, some half known to them in his animal relations chiefly.
century ago, our earlier dramatic writers To them the passions were but appetites in
emerged once more from obscurity, the pub tellectualized and directed to exclusive ob.
lic thought that all their offences ought to jects. They knew little of the connexion of
be condoned to make up for the neglect the passions with the affections and the mo
under which they had long lain. But the ral sense; in other words, all in them that is
interests of literature itself require that in ennobling, and all that subjects itself to law
such cases justice should be done. The sins they ignored. Hence those causeless changes
of our dramatists in the reign of Elizabeth from evil to good, or from passion to passion,
and James the First were not exceptional, which evince so superficial a knowledge of
nor were they but superficial blemishes. The human nature. Hence that lack of grada
plays of Charles the Second's time were so tion, and those movements, fierce and lawless
far worse, that they possessed no compensat as the movements of beasts. They knew
ing merits; but their positive offences could man socially, but did not also know him in
hardly prove more fatal both to the interests his personality, and therefore their know
of poetry and of society. In multitudes of ledge was empirical. The inner scope of
our early plays the whole plot turns upon man's faculties had escaped them. In man,
vice in its grossest forms, or a second and for example, the faculty of Observation does
foul plot is joined to a sound one, like a not act separately, but in subordination to
dead body bound to a 'i one. Fletcher's that interior wisdom which alone teaches him
Faithful Shepherdess is rich in poetry from how to observe;—they, on the other hand,
frequently delineate it as though the observ that of Father John, which is moral ! How
ing eye were that of a dog, not that of a different is the grave and resolute courage of
man. The faculty of Reflection, similarly, Artevelde from that of Van den Bosch, which
as they delineate it, works apart from that is animal, or that of Gilbert Matthew, which
mens melior which alone sustains it with the is sullen pride, or that of Orleans, which is
true food of reason, and inspires its nobler chivalrous, or that of the Hermit, which is
aims. In the absence of spiritual insight, spiritual zeal!
society as delineated by them was often a To return to some of our earlier remarks :
thing gregarious rather than human. Ima the specialty of Mr. Taylor's genius appears
gination emptied her urns to bathe and irra to us to consist in its uniting the masculine
diate the wastes of the senses: the under strength of our early drama with the richer
standing directed those actions the root of variety, the thoughtfulness, and the purer
which was in the appetites; but the inmost sentiment of our later poetry. Others among
spirit of the spectator starved amid abun our modern poets have carried farther, some
dance, for the same hand which pampered one, some another merit of that poetry. His
the body had “sent leanness into the soul.” characteristic consists in his being a connect
That these early dramatists were men of great ing link between the two periods. It would
intellects and great energies cannot be denied. be curious to compare the different modes in
They possessed all gifts, had they but known which the poets of different periods have
how to use them aright; and their genius gone through their poetic education. In our
could have failed in no attempt, had it cared own time it has been the fashion to say that
to subject itself to the true and the good. Nature is the only true instructress, and that
But the imagination which works for the the mountains and forests are the colleges in
senses loses its spiritual heritage, and sells its which her sons must graduate. Our earlier
birthright for a mess of pottage. dramatists generally began with the universi
Their offences were those of their age, for ties, and then precipitated themselves upon
they did not rise superior to it. Our age has the society of the metropolis as exhibited at
offences of a different kind, and our litera the theatres, where they often combined a
ture reflects them. Their offences would not great deal of undigested learning with not a
be tolerated in our day; but while acknow little of debauchery. In such a career there
ledging the moral improvement evinced by was more to develop the intelligence than to
modern literature, we have yet almost al discipline that part of our being in which the
ways to lament an inferiority, on the part intellect and the moral sense blend; that
of our recent poets, as regards intellectual part of it from which the most permanent
keenness and energy. That inferiority of it poetry proceeds. We can imagine that, at
self has disqualified them for the higher least for some departments of poetry, the
drama. Ben Jonson said of a young com training of professional, public, or official life,
petitor, “My son Cartwright writes all like may be as auspicious as either of the other
a man.” Among our modern dramatic aspi. modes. It occupies the mind with persons
rants some have written like women, and at once and with things, and thus disciplines
some like philosophers, but few like men. at the same time the faculties of observation
Mr. Taylor is an exception. His genius is and reflection. For dramatic poetry, which
characterized by robust strength, and the at heart is ever a serious thing, we suspect it
drama is plainly its native region. We know to be, in its place, the best school; and it has
of nothing in our earlier dramatists more the advantage also of being a safe, in propor
manly and vigorous than many passages in tion as it is an arduous one. Imagination
his writings, such as, to refer to the plays cannot be created even by mountains and
not included in our criticism, the last scene forests; and where it exists, its products will
in Edwin the Fair, or that in which the be great and healthy in proportion to the
dying Van den Bosch addresses the downcast vigour of the whole moral being to which it
Burghers after his defeat. His characters are is wedded; for high poetry is the offspring,
real characters. In ideality they seem to us not of the imagination only, but of the whole
sometimes deficient, but never in reality; and moral being.
they are not merely superficially described,—
a thing too common among the attempts of The relation in which Mr. Taylor stands
modern dramatists, -but evoked and exhibit to our other modern poets must be very im
ed with the hand of power. It is this reality perfectly understood without an acquaintance
which makes one character wholly different with his minor poems, in which his resem
from another, even when they have most in blance to them is chiefly to be found. With
common. How nnlike, for instance, is the the exception of the exquisite lyrics scattered
statesmanlike wisdom of Clarenbald from through their plays, the minor poems of our
that of Wulfstan, which is metaphysical, or early dramatists are less known than they
deserve to be. As might have been ex He could be bland, attractive, frankly gay,
pected, they are for the most part narrative. Insidiously soft; but aye beneath
In Mr. Taylor's, the meditative vein predomi Was fire which, whether by cold ashes
nates. He has given us fewer than we screen'd,
Or lambent flames that lick'd whom at a word
could wish for; but these have a character They might devour, was unextinguish'd
of selectness, as if they had been drawn from still.”—Vol. ii. p. 214.
a larger store. The longest is called the
Eve of the Conquest. The night before the theThe record of Harold's early life concluded,
terrible battle and fatal overthrow are
battle of Hastings, Harold sends to a neigh.
bouring convent for his daughter Edith; and, described. The poem ends thus:
while the army slumbers around them, re “In Waltham Abbey on St Agnes' Eve
lates to her the chief incidents in his life, A stately corpse lay stretch'd upon a bier.
commanding her to record them, and thus The arms were cross'd upon the breast; the
vindicate his fame:— face
“The Many, for whose dear behoof I lose

Uncoverd, by the taper's trembling light
Show'd dimly the pale majesty severe
The suffrage of the Few, are slow to praise Of him whom Death, and not the Norman
A fallen friend, or vindicate defeat.
To-day the Idol am I of their loves; Duke,
Had conquer'd; him the noblest and the last
But should I be to-morrow a dead man, Of Saxon Kings; save one the noblest he;
My memory, were it spotless as the robes The last of all. Hard by the bier were seen
That wrapp'd the Angels in the Sepulchre, Two women, weeping side by side, whose
Should see corruption.” arms
The theme is one of warlike labours and of Clasped each the other. Edith was the one.
political wiles; but with these a brighter With Edith Adeliza wept and pray’d.”—Vol.
thread is interwoven. The following is the iii. p. 220.
description of the Duke of Normandy's Eloquence in poetry is a quality as rare
daughter, whose affections had fastened them as that counterfeit of manly eloquence,
selves upon Harold while he was sojourning, rhetoric, once was common among us. If
half as guest, and half as captive, at her we associate the latter with Pope and his
father's court:— imitators, including much of what Lord
“Of these the first Byron wrote in the heroic couplet, to the
In station and most eminently fair, former must be conceded a place among the
Was Adeliza, daughter of the Duke. merits of Dryden. Among our more recent
A woman-child she was: but womanhood
By gradual afflux on her childhood gain'd,
poets a splendid specimen of poetic eloquence
And like a tide that up a river steals will be found in Southey's “Ode written
And reaches to a lilied bank, began during the Negotiations for Peace with
To lift up life beneath her. As a child Buonaparte in 1814.” This quality is among
She still was simple, –rather shall I say the characteristics of Mr. Taylor's poetry.
More simple than a child, as being lost As an illustration of it, the ode entitled
In deeper admirations and desires. Heroism in the Shade may be cited. We
The roseate richness of her childish bloom can but make room for the last stanza:
Remain'd, but by inconstancies and change
Referr'd itself to sources passion-swept. “What makes a hero?—Not success, not fame,
Such had I seen her as I pass'd the gates Inebriate merchants and the loud acclaim
Of Rouen, in procession on the day Of glutted avarice,—caps toss'd up in the
I landed, when a shower of roses fell al"
Upon my head, and looking up I saw Or pen of journalist with flourish fair,
The fingers which had scatter'd them half Bells peal’d, stars, ribands, and a titular name—
spread These, though his rightful tribute, he can
Forgetful, and the forward-leaning face spare;
Intently fix’d and glowing, but methought His rightful tribute not his end or aim,
More serious than it ought to be, so young Or true reward; for never yet did these
And midmost in a show.”—Vol. iii. p. 212. Refresh the soul or set the heart at ease.
What makes a hero ?–An heroic mind
Not less graphic is a very different por. Express'd in action, in endurance proved:
trait, that of William :— And if there be pre-eminence of right,
“His eye was cold and cruel, yet at times Derived through pain well suffer'd, to the
It flash'd with merriment; his bearing bold, height
And, save when he had purposes in hand, Of rank heroic, 'tis to bear unmoved
Reckless of those around him, insomuch Not toil, not risk, not rage of sea or wind,
He scarce would seem to know that they Not the brute fury of barbarians blind,
were there. . But worse,—ingratitude and poisonous
Yet was he not devoid of courtly arts, darts
And when he wished to win, or if it chanced Launch'd by the country he had served
and loved :
Some humour of amenity came o'er him,
216 JMr. Henry Taylor's Later Plays and Minor Poems. TDec.
This with a free unclouded spirit pure, “Thoughtfully by the side Ernesto sate
This in the strength of silence to endure, Of her whom, in his earlier youth, with heart
A dignity to noble deeds imparts Then first exulting in a dangerous hope,
Beyond the gauds and trappings of Dearer for danger, he had rashly loved.
renown : That was a season when the untravell'd spirit,
This is the hero's complement and Not way-worn nor way-wearied, nor with
crown; soil
This ": one struggle had been wanting Nor stain upon it, lions in its path
Stil ?
Saw none,—or seeing, with triumphant trust
One glorious triumph of the heroic will, In its resources and its powers, defied,—
One self-approval in his heart of hearts.” Perverse to find provocatives in warnings
—Vol. iii. p. 254. And in disturbance taking deep delight.
The predominant characteristic, however, By sea or land he then saw rise the storm
With a gay courage, and through broken
of Mr. Taylor's minor poems, is a certain lights, -
meditative pathos. They have something in Tempestuously exalted, for awhile

them of Wordsworth; but the thoughts are His heart ran mountains high, or to the roar
less discursive and less philosophical; some Of shatter'd forests sang superior songs
thing also of Southey, but the texture is finer With kindling, and what might have seem'd to
and firmer. In the conciseness of their some,
diction lies chiefly the difference between Auspicious energy;—by land and sea
them and such of our modern poetry as they He was way-foundered—trampled in the dust
His many-colour'd hopes—his lading rich
most resemble. In some pieces, as in Lago Of precious pictures, bright imaginations,
Varese, descriptive poetry is blended with In absolute shipwreck to the winds and waves
personal interest; the lovely scene there Suddenly rendered.”
described seems to be impersonated in the
youthful “native of the clime,” who forms How does the lady of his love look on the
wreck?—
the centre of the picture, and mitigates its
pensiveness, though she cannot remove it. “Of this she saw not all—she saw but little—
The Lago Lugano, written in a stanza wholly That which she could not choose but see she
original, is likewise a descriptive poem ; but SaW–
it gradually rises into a strain of statesman And o'er her sunlit dimples and her smiles
like thought, in which the “moral liberty” of A shadow fell—a transitory shade—
light and humble hearts is contrasted with And when the phantom of a hand she clasp'd
the “civil liberty” of charters and statutes, At parting, scarce responded to her touch,
and a strong preference expressed for the She sigh’d—but hoped the best.” – Vol. iii.
former:— p. 259.
“From pride plebeian and from pride high-born, The ode with which the volume ends is
From pride of knowledge no less vain and very fine: but there is another piece which
weak, we regard as, on the whole, the most charac
From overstrain'd activities that seek teristic of Mr. Taylor's minor poems. Few
Ends worthiest of indifference or scorn,
From pride of intellect that exalts its horn poems are at once so true to nature, and to
that art which nature owns. The metre
In contumely above the wise and meek,
Exulting in coarse cruelties of the pen,is a rare one — that of Lycidas; and the
From pride of drudging souls to Mammon long interwoven periods, with their rhymes
sworn, recurring at wide intervals, like the chime of
Where shall we flee and when 7” funeral-bells far off, are in harmony with the
Where pride is, the poet affirms that free elegiac strain:—
dom cannot be, except in name: “In Remembrance of the Hon. Edward Ernest
“For Independence walks Williers.
With staid Humility aye hand in hand, I.
Whilst Pride in tremor stalks.”
“A grace though melancholy, manly too,
Two Ways of Life is a dramatic scene, in Moulded his being: pensive, grave, serene,
which the descriptive and the meditative vein O'er his habitual bearing and his mien
are blended with the personal; and the com Unceasing pain, by patience temper'd, threw
parative merits of the life domestic and the A shade of sweet austerity. But seen,
life monastic are discussed — with as much In happier hours and by the friendly few,
impartiality as can be expected from two That curtain of the spirit was withdrawn,
lovers. And fancy light and playful as a fawn,
And reason imp'd with inquisition keen,
Ernesto is a love poem replete with power Knowledge long sought with ardour ever new,
and pathos. It has no events, but the two And wit love-kindled, show'd in colours true
characters it describes are finely discrimi What genial joys with sufferings can consist.
nated:— Then did all sternness melt as melts a mist
1865. Pindar and his Age.
Touch'd by the brightness of the golden dawn, ART. W.—PINDAR AND HIs AGE.
Aérial heights disclosing, valleys green,
And sunlights thrown the woodland tufts be ALMost the only fact of Pindar's personal
tween, history which is known on indisputable evi
And flowers and spangles of the dewy lawn. dence, is that he was born during the Pyth
II. ian Festival, for he tells us this himself; fur
And even the stranger, though he saw not these, ther, all the grammarians are agreed that this
Saw what would not be willingly pass'd by. happened at Cynoscephalae, a village of
In his deportment, even when cold and shy, Boeotia, where the holy water of Dirce ran
Was seen a clear collectedness and ease, sparkling half round Thebes. Beyond this
A simple grace and gentle dignity, all is uncertain. The traditional stupidity of
That fail'd not at the first accost to please; a succession of writers, who copied, ampli
And as reserve re'ented by degrees, fied, abridged, distorted the obscure jottings
So winning was his aspect and address,
His smile so rich in sad felicities, of their predecessors, has provided posterity
with a choice of three fathers for the Theban
Accordant to a voice which charm'd no less,
That who but saw him once remember'd long, poet, Pagondas, Scopelinus, Daiphantus, and
And some in whom such images are strong a couple of mothers, Myrto and Cleidice.
Have hoarded the impression in their heart Then we do not know whether his brother
Fancy's fond dreams and Memory's joys among, was called Erotion or Eritimis, and as the
Like some loved relic of romantic song, last seems the less probable of the two, one
Orcherish'd masterpiece of ancient art. cannot depend on the statement of the versi
III.
fier who mentions him, that he was a distin
guished huntsman, wrestler, and pugilist.
His life was private; safely led, aloof Again, the date of Pindar's birth and the du
From the loud world,—which yet he understood ration of his life are uncertain. The ancients
Largely and wisely, as no worldling could. are divided between 522 and 508 B.C. for the
For he by privilege of his nature proof
Against false glitter, from beneath the roof former, and eighty years and sixty-six for the
Of privacy, as from a cave, survey'd latter; the moderns are naturally in favour
With steadfast eye its flickering light and shade, of the more picturesque age, and this hypo
And gently judged for evil and for good. thesis is supported by the facts that it agrees
But whilst he mix’d not for his own behoof best with the dates which it seems most con
In public strife, his spirit glow’d with zeal, venient to assign to the various poems; and
Not shorn of action, for the public weal,—
For truth and justice as its warp and woof, that Isth. vi. 40, where the poet looks for
For freedom as its signature and seal. ward to a calm old age, would be rather
His life thus sacred from the world, discharged more appropriate to a man of sixty-eight than
From vain ambition and inordinate care, a man of fifty-four. The notices of Pindar's
In virtue exercised, by reverence rare youth take us into a region of more interest
Lifted, and by humility enlarged, ing conjectures, if not of perfect certainty.
Became a temple and a place of prayer. We should really like to know how much
In latter years he walk'd not singly there; instruction he received from Myrtis and Co
For one was with him, ready at all hours
His griefs, his joys, his inmost thoughts to share, rinna, the poetesses of Boeotia, before he
Who buoyantly his burthens help'd to bear, learnt to defeat them; and whether Myrtis
And deck'd his altars daily with fresh flowers. took her defeat as philosophically as her
rival, who pronounced that they were both
IV. to blame for contending with Pindar, as, after
But farther may we pass not; for the ground all, they were only women. It would be satis
Is holier than the Muse herself may tread; factory to ascertain whether his vocation was
Nor would I it should echo to a sound in part determined by the fact that his family
Less solemn than the service for the dead.
belonged to an hereditary guild of pipers; but
Mine is inferior matter,-my own loss,— we have no means of testing the statement
The loss of dear delights for ever fled, of Thomas Magister, who informs us, with an
Of reason's converse by affection fed,
Of wisdom, counsel, solace, that across air of superior knowledge, that Pindar's
Life's dreariest tracts a tender radiance shed. schoolmaster had been mistaken for his fa
Friend of my youth! though younger yet my ther. If the poet really took the place of
guide, Agathocles or Apollodorus at Athens, in
How much by thy unerring insight clear training the cyclic chorus at the early age
I shaped my way of life for many a year, of sixteen, that would be an interesting proof
What thoughtful friendship on thy deathbed died! that his practical skill in music was greater
Friend of my youth, whilst thou wast by my side than is implied in an ancient story, to the
Autumnal days still breathed a vernal breath; effect that a rude fellow once asked him why
How like a charm thy life to me supplied
All waste and injury of time and tide, he made songs when he could not sing,
How like a disenchantment was thy death!” whereupon he answered that shipbuilders
218 Pindar and his Age. Dec.
made rudders though they could not limits. He was employed to compose a
steer. -
Paean even at Ceos, the country of his elder

There is another problem, the solution of rival, Simonides; we have fragments of
which would throw great light, not only Scolia or catches composed for Alexander of
upon Pindar's personal history, but on the Macedonia; and probably he had done simi
whole course of Greek civilisation. It is cer lar work for Hiero before 477 B.C., when he
tain that in Pindar's poetry we find traces of composed Pyth. II, the first of four triumphal
Orphic and Pythagorean ideas; did he learn Odes for the Syracusan Court to inform that
these ideas by an Orphic or Pythagorean potentate of his success at the Theban Iolaia,
initiation, or by some less formal process? and to warn him against the artifices of
When he speaks of a mystical cycle of three Simonides and Bacchylides, who were en
lives to be traversed before the final deliver deavouring to undermine their absent rival in
ance, of the under world, whose sun rises at a position which must have been already lu
the setting of the sun of earth, of the vigil crative. To make good his position he
of the soul during the body's sleep, is he visited Sicily in 475 B.C., not without reluc
treading upon forbidden ground, hinting at tance, if we may believe that he was recom
what he had learnt under a pledge of secre mended to make the same use of his oppor
cy, or is he only expressing the thoughts tunities as Simonides, and replied that he
which had once been the common property liked to be his own master, which he could
of all who had an affinity for them, until cer not be in a despot's house.
tain hierophants had attempted to confine He had formerly called his Cean rivals a
them to a privileged circle of communicants? couple of jackdaws, towards whom everything
We know that in the latter part of the last was fair when they chattered against the di
century secret societies were actually found vine bird of Zeus; but personal acquaint
ed or reorganized to inculcate the notions ance seems to have softened his animosity,
about the perfectibility and sovereignty of for in Ol. 1, composed when he was sharing
mankind which were circulating in all the Hiero's hospitality with them, he is content
literature of the period. In the same way, to class himself with the men who sport
the craving for purification, and the current round Hiero's friendly board, in songs which
preconceptions about the terms on which it threw a new lustre upon the life of their
was possible, preceded the organization of host; and in his subsequent compositions
new mysteries to minister to new needs, the there is nothing which can be proved to re
remodelling of ancient ceremonies to make flect upon them. Be this as it may, he had
them harmonize with younger life. An in returned to continental Greece before 468
stance of this process may be found in theB.C., when he composed an ode to celebrate
prosecution of Æschylus for divulging the the victory of the prophet and warrior
mysteries, because one or two of his playsAgesias, whose mule-chariot had sustained
touched upon legends which were beginning the reputation of Sicily, which was supposed
to be reserved for initiated hearers. His de to excel in mules, while the horse-chariots of
fence was satisfactory and simple; he knew Cyrene stood highest. The same year Hiero
nothing, he said, of the special sanctity of gained his only Olympic chariot victory, but
those particular legends, as he had never Pindar was not permitted by the fates, or not
been initiated; but the self-respect of Athe invited by his patron, to celebrate this
nian jurors required that the defendant's crowning success, for which he had prayed
brother should come into court to merit their four years before.
personal compassion by exhibiting the stump Meanwhile other distinctions had not been
of the hand hewn off as he grasped the ships wanting. Soon after the victories of Salamis
in which the Persians were to fly from Mara. and Plataea he had ventured to contrast the
thon. glory of Athens and the misery of Thebes.
At the age of twenty, Pindar was em His countrymen fined him for the supposed
ployed by the Aleuadae of Thessaly, who disloyalty; but the Athenians paid, or more
claimed their descent from Perseus and than paid, the fine, and made him their hon
Heracles, and were suspected of appealing to orary proxenus, an example which was fol
the memory of the former hero to gild their lowed by other States. Some of the ancients,
submission to the Persian king, to celebrate, not satisfied with this, pleased themselves
in company with other poets, one of the vic with supposing that the statue of him at
tories gained in the same day by Hippo. Athens was erected in his lifetime, and that
crates, a young clansman who seems to have the Lacedaemonians were compelled, by a
been a special favourite with the heads of the metrical inscription, to respect his house
house. during an imaginary sack of Thebes.
Gradually his popularity extended itself His loyalty to his country does not seem to
throughout Greece, and even beyond its have been affected by her severity: the only
1865. Pindar and his Age. 219
mournful passages of his poetry are inspired themselves out to hire, and every song had
by her calamities. He seems to have re lucre in its looks.
gretted the downfall of the Spartal, party The poems of Pindar were divided into
which had condemned him; he rejoiced in seventeen books, probably by Aristarchus, as
the hope, never destined to be realized, that follows—(1) Hymns sung by a chorus stand
his reputation might practically refute the ing round the altar; (2.) Paeans, originally
proverb already current about Boeotian swine. appropriated to Apollo and Artemis as the
Pindar married Timoxena, and had a son averters of evil, though one of Pindar's
and two daughters: the former was called Paeans was addressed to Dodonean Jove;
Daiphantus, probably after the real name of (3.4) Dithyrambs and other Bacchic songs,
Pindar's father, in accordance with a well for a Cyclic chorus; (5) Prosodia or Pro
known Grecian custom ; the latter were cessional Songs, belonging to the same class
named Eumetis and Protomache. He died as the Paeans; (6.) Enthronismoi, which
in the theatre at Argos, in the arms of Boeckh views as a species of Prosodia, songs
Theoxenus, a beautiful boy of Tenedos. for the procession which carried the holy
There is an epigram to the effect that his image to set it up on its throne, appealing to
wise daughters must have been very un Ol. vi. 91. According to Dissen, they were
happy when they brought their father's ashes connected with the orgies of the great
home. Of course, the poet may have been mother, when the mystic chorus set the neo
malicious, and meant to insinuate that the phyte upon a throne, and danced around
daughters had sense to feel themselves ne him. In this case they would be related to
glected in their father's repeated absences, es the Parthenia; (7.) Songs for Maidens, in
pecially as they seem to have been left un honour of Cybele and her constant attendant
provided with husbands; which would agree Pan, concerning which Pindar tells us, in an
with another story, that he refused one of interesting fragment, that the maidens often
them to a thriving neighbour, because he sang their praises beside his door; the
thought him scarcely a likely man to thrive scholiast is not content without an express
long. explanation that Pindar's daughters were
The forty-four complete poems which probably of the number. The Daphne
have come down to us were composed for the phorica (8.) were also sung by maidens when
most part between 480 and 456 B.C., though the sacred laurel bough was dedicated at
one is as early as 502 B.C., and two are as Delphi to Apollo. Then there were the
early as 452. He wrote his first Olympic Hyporchemata (9.10.), choral songs accom
ode when he was thirty-eight, his last when panied with mimic action, one collection of
he was seventy; and though he continued which, from their sombre character, were re
to live and write for ten years, he produced garded as tragic dramas by some ancient
no more triumphal odes; perhaps he was out critics. There were the convivial songs
of fashion, perhaps he preferred writing (11, 12.), the Encomia, sung in praise of dis
hymns. The triumphal odes were written tinguished men by a xöuog, which often
principally for the four great festivals to which followed an Epinician ode; the Scolia or
every Greek State was expected to send a catches, which differed from the Encomia in
Theoria; but Pyth. II. was written for the not being choral, though the Scolia of Pin
Theban Iolaia, Nem. Ix. for the Sicyonian dar are antistrophic. These were also often
Pythia, Nem. x. for the Argive Hecatombaea, composed at the same time as the Epinicia;
while Nem. x1 is for the sacrifice offered by e.g., the first fragment of the Scolia is for the
Aristagoras on coming into office as Pry same occasion as Ol. xIII.; the third for the
tanis. It is curious to think that but for same occasion as Isthm. II. There were the
these three odes, ignorantly inserted out of “magnificent Dirges” (13.) contrasted by
their proper place, we might never have re Dionysius with the “pathetic” Laments of
alized that strangers were proud to be Simonides. Lastly, there were the four
admitted to local contests which never at books of Epinicia, which divide themselves
tained or approached the dignity of national naturally into four classes according as the
festivals. Sometimes, as in Pyth. x1, Pindar were sung on the scene of victory, like Ol.
was paid according to a direct bargain; Iv., or in the return of the triumphal proces
oftener he wrote on an understanding that sion, like Ol. v., or when the victor celebrated
the friends who were united with him in the his Epinicia at the return of the festival, like
ties of hospitality were to be liberal of pre Ol. xi., Pyth. III., or Isth. II, where the poet
sents while he was liberal of praise; some exhorts Thrasybulus to keep up the memory
times writing was a labour of love, to be of his father's fame, although it cannot but be
postponed, with a blush and a smile, to en associated with recollections of the fallen
gagements which paid better, as he had fallen despotism; or lastly, for some less definite
on degenerate days, when the Muses had let occasion, like Pyth II. and Ol. VI, composed
'r a festival of the Tamidae at Stymphalus, commemorated,—first, the odes for the cha
where Agesias appeared after his success at riot race (with the excusable deviation intro
Olympia before returning to Syracuse, as the duced by Aristophanes);” then those for vic
poet said, “from home to home.” It is tories with single horses or mule-carriages;
natural to think that this class of poems must lastly, those which commemorate successes
have approximated rather closely to the in wrestling, racing, and boxing, in the Pen
Encomia. We have only fragments, more or tathlum and the Pancratium, implying dp=7,
less characteristic, of the first twelve books but not so plainly implying 5-80g.
(with the possible exception of the Enthro But if we wish to study Grecian history in
nismoi, the second series of Bacchic poems, Pindar, it is intolerable to have the AEginetan
and the so-called tragic dramas), besides a odes, stretching over twenty years, with their
collection of 187 quotations or allusions, remarkable unity of tone and feeling, dispersed
varying in length from four or five lines in different collections; we should like to read
down to single words, and belonging to them in their chronological order from Isthm.
classes which cannot be ascertained. VII. to Ol. v III. and Nem. VIII.; we should
The Epinicia or Periodos are complete, like to read the odes for Hiero as follows:
with the exception of some Isthmian odes, Pyth. II., Pyth. I., III., Ol. 1.
which only survive in fragmentary quotations. If, again, we read with a purely literary
Perhaps they owe their preservation to theirinterest, if it be our only object to trace the
development of Pindar's genius from its
popularity as a part of a series of school clas
sics among the literati of the lower empire;naive exuberance in youth to its sterile ma
for in the family of MSS. on which the Al jesty in age, we should desire a stricter
dine edition of 1513 was based, we find the chronological arrangement of his poems, be
Epinicia preceded by the Ajax Electra and ginning with Pyth. x. and ending with Ol.
CEdipus of Sophocles, and followed by the Iv., v. Then we should be able to see how
Alexandra of £ the obscure, and long Pindar continued to deal in such arti
other works of the Alexandrine school, and fices as the Pillars of Heracles, the foundation
part of the Homeric poems. The neeessity laid for song, the peerless worth of gold and
of a selection was imposed by the scanty lei water; how far practice enabled him to
sure or industry of those for whom it was adapt himself to the comprehension of “the
made; but the selection, once made, could general,” for whom his strains lacked an in
not but enhance the pre-eminence on which terpreter, although they had a voice for the
it originally rested. The fragments of his wise.
Cean rivals contain as exquisite poetry as any It is certainly a proof of the marvellous
thing in Pindar, and we have no means of force and energy of the Pindaric poetry, that
measuring the extent of his superiority; but it has kept its ground in spite of its own
the superiority itself was real. Their ideas obscurity, in spite, too, of the merciless
were not too numerous to be carefully elabo handling of Byzantine critics, who scolded
rated, while his very fragments bear traces their author for the irrelevance of his mythi
of a press of thought to which they seem to cal illustrations, when they failed to trace the
have been strangers; he sang because his connexion, and wasted a great deal of in
mind was full; they filled their minds that genuity in defacing his metres in the effort to
they might sing. piece out combinations which they could
When it was once determined to treat Pin scan, while utterly defacing if not disregard
dar as the sole representative of the Grecian ing the antistrophic system as really observed
lyre, there was much to be said for the selec by him.
tion of the Epinicia from the rest of his poetry, After a course of Demetrius Triclinius we
for they were his only works not directly con wish for the genial ignorance of Horace:—
nected with either the worship or the revelry “Fervet immensusque ruit profundo
of Paganism, and we may believe that, in Pindarus ore,—
addition to this, they formed the most varied Laurea donandus Apollinari,
and interesting class of his writings. Seu per audaces nova Dithyrambos
But if the selection was judicious, it is im Verba devolvit, numerisque fertur
possible to praise the arrangement. It would Lege solutis.” +
be convenient to the cursory reader, but it It is startling indeed to hear of the law
has ceased to be possible to read Pindar cur lessness of the most elaborate of poets, and a
sorily. If willing and able to read simply for modern reader would be more struck by the
amusement, and for such floating impressions
of Grecian life as we can pick up by the way, * He placed Ol. I., which commemorates a vic
it is very convenient to have the odes for each tory with one horse, before Ol. 11, which comme
morates a victory with four, because it contains an
festival in separate books, arranged in each account of the institution of the games.
book according to the dignity of the contest + Carm. Iv. ii.
volume of the stream than its depth. Pin labours merited the praise of Boeckh, while
dar's words may come from the heart, but isolated extracts would obviously give an im
you do not see them coming; they are all perfect, not to say an unjust idea of continu
ready upon his tongue, ready to be poured ous works. But our limits will allow a short
out. It would be difficult to find elsewhere discussion of the graceful fragment of Bishop
so much fire and so little feeling, so much Heber, who translated Ol. I-VI, which will re
wisdom and so little thought. Still there is pay criticism, for it is very characteristic of
a real difference between the copiousness of its amiable author and of English scholarship
Pindar and the volubility of Ovid; a Pin and culture. There we learn that the odes
daric ode is much harder to scan than an of Pindar were not chanted by a hired chorus,
Horatian. according to the absurd fancy of the later
At Rome, Pindar was admired, but he was Greeks, whose surprising ignorance of their
not imitated. English poets have been less own antiquities is established by many other
modest and less merciful: without copying instances, but recited by the poet himself,
the timid example of Horace, they accepted seated in the iron chair long preserved at
his precepts with improvements of their own. Delphi, and accompanied by one or more
Horace had determined that Pindar's num musicians, whom he sometimes apostrophised
bers baffled human fingers. Cowley deter. in the course of his improvisation, as is proved
mined to write in numbers which should by the case of AEneas, Ol. VI. We learn less
baffle human ears. A Pindaric ode of the than nothing of the relations of Pelops and
seventeenth century was a composition in Poseidon, for clerical delicacy did not re
which there were very long lines and very quire Heber to omit the episode, but only to
short lines, the reader never knowing when mistranslate it.
or why either was coming, and where the Of his general style of translation, it
lines taken separately differed from prose would not be too much to say that it often
rather by intricacy of sense than harmony of recalls Tate and Brady, with one important
sound. It is to be remembered, however, difference; they dilute with dishwater, and
that Cowley and Crashaw were misled to he dilutes with rosewater. For instance,
some extent by the vicious scansion * scarcely Heber is aware that pixoševots, as the begin
caricatured by Boeckh, which was introduced ning of Ol. III., is more than “hospitable;”
by the later Greek metrists, who thought it and he is afraid that “the guest-loving Tyn
much more probable that every other line daridae” is neither English nor poetry, so he
should end in the middle of a word, than turns it into
that different movements should be combined
“Those brave twins of Leda's shell
in the same line.
The stranger's holy cause defending.”
Gray's Pindaric Odes are poetry, which is
more than can be said for Cowley's, or even Then, at the end of the same strophe,
Jeremy Taylor's verse; but his uniform Iam Pindar boasts that a tune which he has dis
bic or Trochaic movements differ as much covered is shining-new, in one word. By
from the rapid, shifting, manifold music of the help of a reading too bad for Boeckh even
Pindar, as the affected abruptnesses and de to reject, if not a positive false quantity, this
liberate sublimities of the eighteenth cen becomes
tury philosopher differ from the audacious “Worthy of silent awe, a strange sweet har
abandon and occasional enthusiasm of the mony,”
old Greek, who lived when it was still optional in eight words! -
to believe in philosophy. -
But a longer extract, free from such casual

Of professed translators, it would be cruel blemishes, will give a better idea of Heber's
to dwell upon the efforts of last century, strength and weakness as a translator of
which succeeded, in the words of Johnson, Pindar:—
in reproducing Pindar's smoke without his
fire; and we have not space for a detailed “Such honour earn'd by toil and care
May best his anciént wrongs repair,
examination of the versions of Cary, who is And wealth sustained by pride
accurate and spirited, but always rough and May laugh at fortune's fickle power,
sometimes lame, -and of Thiersch, whose And blameless in the tempting hour
Of syren ease abide—
2-räuev citr Led by that star of heavenly ray,
row Bagúñi Kupávas Which best may light our mortal way
āppa rouá O'er life's unsteady tide.”*
#ofaaawAarot
'Aoxtaixa
This extract explains itself; it reads just
dataw öpetAópevov IIv like the moral reflections in The Lay of the
6övt r" at #9, oupov £uvor.
PYTH. Iv. 2, seq. * Ol. II. 51, seq.
Last Minstrel or Marmion ; and it is strik There is quite enough truth for an epigram
ing that Heber's translation should remind in the saying of Coleridge, that Pindar and
us more of his contemporary than his origi Herodotus represent respectively the sacer
nal. On the whole, he was not unfortunate dotal and the popular view of Paganism, while
in the model, whom we know he deliberately AEschylus is the poet of the philosophic mys
adopted. Scott and Pindar coincided as tics. AEschylus is a transcendentalist. It is
nearly as was possible for a Christian and a true that Pindar lived in his religion, and
Pagan in their view of life and their ideal Herodotus wished if possible to live safe out
of excellence; but Scott wrote to be read in side it, and so far their respective tenden
English drawing-rooms, and Pindar wrote to cies may be called clerical and secular; but
be sung and danced in Grecian festivals. sacerdotalism, in our sense, did not exist, for
Scott lived in a sensible work-a-day world though Paganism had its sacraments, they
that had definitively ignored the old legendary were not generally necessary to salvation, and
principles of action; the past was nothing the teachers of antiquity hardly held them
to him but a memory, a regret, a shadow selves answerable for the souls of their hear
which perpetually eluded his grasp. It is ers. AEschylus has no claim to a peculiar
little to say that for Pindar the present still illumination, he is mysterious but not mys
rested firmly upon the past, the past encom tical; Pindar, though obscure, is not myste
passed and overshadowed the present. Al rious, but the fragment upon the Eleusinian
most any of the men with whom he lived mysteries in the Dirges, and the great pass
might have turned his little world upside age in Ol. II, upon the other life and the
down any day in the wildest style of legen judgment to come, border closely on the
dary heroism, if he thought it worth his mystical.
while to try, and Pindar's poetry is full of Or we may say that the religion of Pindar,
warnings that it was not worth while. But AEschylus, Herodotus, was in itself identical,
Heber proceeds with a lofty translation of that its outward providential aspects take a
the loftiest passage in all Pindar's poetry— cheerful or a gloomy hue as seen by Pindar
“For whoso holds in righteousness the throne, or Herodotus, while Æschylus inculcates its
He in his heart hath known spiritual and personal aspects with a fanatical
How the foul spirits of the guilty dead submission which is near akin to revolt. We
In chambers dark and dread may go on to explain their several positions,
Of nether earth abide, and penal flame, by calling Æschylus an Athenian reactionist,
Where he, who none may name, Pindar a Dorian conservative, and Herodotus
Lays bare the soul in stern necessity, an Asiatic Greek of the decadence, who was
Seated in judgment high, saddened by the memory of two conquests of
The minister of God, whose arm is there,
In Heaven alike and Hell, almighty every his country, depressed even by the thought
where! of the many great barbaric monarchies which
But who the thrice-renewed probation had flourished and withered in their turn,
Of either world may well endure, who had done homage to too many religions
To keep with righteous destination to have hope and joy in his own; while
The soul from all transgression pure; Pindar had nursed his imagination upon the
To such and such alone is given splendours of Sicily and the stiff dignity of
To walk the rainbow paths of heaven, AEgina, the prosperity of Corinth, and the
To that tall city of Almighty time,
Where ocean's balmy breezes play, patriotism of Athens, and had always lived
And, flashing to the western day, among the untransplanted, untransplantable
The gorgeous blossoms of such blessed clime, memories of Grecian legend.
Now in the happy isles are seen But reaction and conservatism are in
Sparkling through the groves of green; appropriate terms when we speak of a
And now all glorious to behold, country not conscious of its own history.
Tinge the wave with floating gold.” Herodotus is playful, if not hopeful; he is
Here again Heber tells us that it is unlawful saddening, but he is not sad. The inter
to name the rig, whom Pindar simply ab pretation of Pindar, the member of the triad
stains from naming, and is careful to explain who has been most admired and least under
that he is the minister of God, while Pindar stood, does not turn upon modern war-cries
rather represents him as supplying the de like sacerdotalism or conservatism, but upon
fects in the administration of Zeus. Pindar's the question, answered in the affirmative by
highest idea of the glories of Elysium is that Dissen, How far was he “artis suae et conscius
all the plants have golden flowers; Heber et compos?” At the outset it may be said
does not forget to relieve the gorgeous blos. that the criterion to which Dissen appeals is
soms upon groves of green, and only ventures absurdly severe. Pindar could not have
to hint that they tinge the wave with float written a line after he liad stated in his own
ing gold. mind the more or less complicated sentence
which the ode was to illustrate; and if that victor's success and the return of the tri
ceremony had been an indispensable prelimi umphal procession; while in their procession
nary, instead of an insurmountable hindrance, to the Altis, victors were almost always
Pindar would not have been a greater artist, obliged to content themselves with the tra
but a less. Poe was not a great artist, and ditional lines of Archilochos thrice re
his Raven is scarcely a great poem; but it peated:- -
was written to scale, and its author lived to

publish a statement of his plan, while 'o 22xxivors xxie 4,2% H¢2xxins
Tennyson could hardly explain the construc aúrós rex Iox2% aixanta duo,
tion of In Memoriam or Maude. ***AAa xxxxivizt.
In reality, Pindar is a more favourable
instance than the Homeric poems of the In the almost solitary instance” when
dictum of F. A. Wolf, so elaborately con Pindar has pro ided a special ode for this
troverted by his illustrious scholars, that it occasion, he begins by an apostrophe to
was long before the Greeks attained the con Zeus, whose providence had brought him to
ception of a poetic whole. For, with the the ground, and proceeds to take credit for
exception of a small minority, posterity has his own readiness to serve a friend at a
been unanimous in its admiration of the moment's notice. Haste and imperfection
artistic symmetry of the Odyssey, and even are not unnatural incidents to the most
the Iliad, and in its indulgence to the sup primitive forms of art, and lyric poetry is
posed irregularities of genius in the Epinicia certainly the earliest form of poetry amongst
of Pindar. They are undoubtedly far more all nations, the only poetry of savage nations.
attractive than the works of Robert Brown It is the poetry of impression, and begins
ing ; but, if we may trust the poet and his before the object-matter of those impressions
ablest editors, they have proved in general as has been recounted in elaborate epics. The
unintelligible. In reality, Pindar is a con Vedas are older than the Mahabharata, the
summate artist in a somewhat imperfect style Lament for Linus was older than the Iliad;
of art. It would be true to say of poetry and it continues when epics have dwindled
that it consists in representing one thing so into idylls or expanded into histories, and
as to recall many, but in early poetry the dramas have subsided into novels or been
many tend to obscure the one. Hence the condensed into monologues or sublimated
Homeric poetry luxuriates in similes and into philosophies. It may derive these im
metaphors; hence the Scaldic poetry formed pressions from outward nature, as in the
a complete language for itself, in which poetry of Keats and Shelley; from personal
blood was always the dew of pain, gold feeling, like Alcaeus singing—
always the fire of the sea, and, worse still, a “Dura navis,
woman always a wearer of the fire of the Dura fugae mala, dura belli;”
sea. Hence, too, Pindar's thoughts are
overloaded with a profusion of illustrations or from the events of a national struggle, like
which fail to illustrate, with mythical narra. Tyrtaeus or the song of Deborah; or from
tives which might seem irrelevant when the merely personal distinctions and successes.
glow of sympathy which united the poet and It may derive them, again, from national pride
his audience was suspended. It is possible or philosophical aspiration, as in the changing
for ingenious critics to prove now that poetry of Horace; or from broad aspects of
everything in an ode of Pindar implies a what is deepest and most permanent in hu
series of coherent statements, and contributes man life, as in the best of the Elizabethan
to produce one harmonious impression; but lyrics or Wordsworth's Ode on Immortality.
Of course this classification is not intended
the poet and his audience were alike un
conscious of the former fact, and consequently to be either exclusive or exhaustive; of course,
the application of the legends he introduces too, the personality of the poet must always
is seldom brought out into clear relief, and be admitted to colour the song; but the im
the poet is frequently reduced to apologize portance of this last element is more com
monly exaggerated than under-estimated.
for digressions which were, after all, less real
than apparent, though it is probable that his Dramatic poetry must be, and epic poetry
naive confessions pleased his audience better may be, far more subjective than lyric poetry
than an anticipation of Dissen's prolegomena. need be. Certainly the subjective element
To these considerations we must add the does not predominate in Pindar. He does
fact that all the triumphal odes, except those not sing of himself, but of the world; even
written to commemorate victories long past, when he moralizes in his own person his re
were rather hurriedly composed, for the flections are always meant to be adopted by
poem had to be finished and the chorus
trained in the limited time between the * Ol. IV.
his patrons, and these digressions are far from four distinct heads, with reference—(a) to
numerous, and never long. He always has the general propositions which underlie Pin
tens to return to the glory of the victor, dar's poetry; (b) his employment of legends;
whom he has to celebrate either in his per
son or his family, or in the historical or le
''the way in which the legends are treated;
d.) the arrangement of the several parts of
gendary glories of the country to which he each poem. Dissen scarcely approaches the
belongs, or of the contest in which he had consideration of the spirit of Pindar or the
triumphed. Then the praise has always to general style and colouring of his poetry,
be adapted to the special circumstances of the and Boeckh” expressly resigns the task to
individual victor. Hiero has to be consoled other hands; but they throw a flood of light
for his sickness, perhaps for his bereavement. on Pindar's method of construction, the por
Thrasydaeus is to be cheered after his suffer tion of his art which had hitherto been most
ings under the late usurpation at Thebes. completely misunderstood, the portion, we
Telesicrates is to be congratulated on his ap may add, in which an ordinary reader is most
proaching marriage, or perhaps, we should completely helpless. For his art in this re
say, recommended to marry. Psaumis is to spect is so elaborate that we cannot be sure
be defended against the charge of extravagant that it was always perceived either by the
affectation for keeping a stud in his old age. audience or the poet himself. It would be a
The adaptation descends to the minutest de real beauty that Ol. xiii. 85, where we are
tails; the poet gives a metrical direction for told that “gods accomplish by their power,
the music to strike up, as in Ol. 1.; the Muses that one winneth lightly what we had trowed
and Graces are called to throw a blaze of could never be, and sworn it,” is appropriate
glory on Alcimidas as the torches threw a not only to Bellerophon, but to Xenophon's
glow over the evening feast; funeral services hopes of an cquestrian victory, though no
were always held at sunset, and the poet does body had ever noticed it before Dissen, which,
not forget in his Dirge that the sun of the if true, would only show that Pindar had
dead is rising. Indeed Pindar's poetry would thrown himself into the situation more com
be almost monotonons without this genial pletely than he knew. On the other hand,
versatility; the shafts of praise, the gale of every reader can feel for himself the original
song, the Muses car, the Pillars of Heracles, ity of Pindar's exordiums, the fiery rapidity
sometimes impassable to the hero and some of his narratives, the glow of his descriptions,
times to the bard, above all, the endless re and the loftiness of his exhortations.
petition of worth and wealth, wealth and On his own subject Dissen's essay is some
fame, undoubtedly form a valuable repertory, what tedious, but this prolixity of the whole
but Pindar rings the changes upon them quite arises almost entirely from the completeness
often enough; perhaps it is only charitable of the parts, which makes it easier and fairer
to remember that his poems were intended to give specimens than to attempt a sum
to be sung at different places and at different mary. Pindar's two great topics of praise
times, not to be collected and read through. are 5x80g and dp=7%, manifested in the glory
These commonplaces formed his stock in with which the gods and the singer reward
trade, just as the constant epithets and ever the victor's piety and energy, energy some
recurring formulas of the epic poets formed times shown in his manful endurance of the
their stock in trade; and if Pindar's be more sufferings of the wrestling-match or the pane
obtrusively displayed, this may have been ratium, sometimes in the spirit with which,
because he had to excite admiration, and they like Agesias or Herodotus, he drove his own
had only to satisfy curiosity. It would not chariot, sometimes in his early achievements
be absurd to compare his poetry to a Doric in war, as in the odes for Hiero and
temple, whose grand, bold outlines, coarsely Chromius. The courage which is always in
copied, seem simple even to poverty, while it some form or other attributed to the victor,
is scarcely possible to deface the varied com and supposed to be rewarded by the victory,
binations, the ever fresh originality of the is rarely unconnected with other virtues;
bas-reliefs with which it is adorned. No sometimes it is the fruit of piety, the gift of
illustration can be perfect, and the defect of gods, as in the case of Epharmostus, the re
this is that it does not do Pindar justice. presentative of a long line of Socrian heroes;
The Panathenaic frieze did not support the sometimes it is represented as inextricably
Parthenon, but the mythical narratives con blended with prudence, as in the recapitula
tribute much to the construction of the tion of the mythic glories of Corinth, Ol.
Epinicia. xIII.; sometimes with a just and peaceable
On this subject little can be said here be
yond a few selections taken almost at random * He observes in the Preface to his third vol
from the masterly essay of Dissen, who has ume, published 1821, that the introduction of
discussed all the most important odes under Thiersch in some degree supplied the deficiency.
1865. Pindar and his Age, 225
spirit, as in Isth. VII, where the AEginetans, abuse of kingly power such as Arcesilas
whose courage won the prize at Salamis, are might furnish soon; Jason furnished an ex
moved to intercede for Thebes, which was in ample of youthful moderation, such as, on the
danger of being involved in the fate of its whole, Arcesilas had furnished hitherto, for
Medising citizens. Sometimes the other vir wherever Arcesilas is directly addressed or
tue is temperance, the opposite of insolence mentioned, Pindar is ready with hearty
and license, as in Pyth. xi, where, after though measured commendation, his advice
praising self-control and deprecating the ca is given freely but not reproachfully.
lamitous splendour of Agamemnon and the The whole legend, the longest in Pindar,
guilty power of AEgisthus and Clytaemnestra, is appropriate, for the prophecy of the foun
the poet extols the valour and the blessed dation of Cyrene from Thera is bound up
ness of Castor and Iolaos, trusting that his with the voyage of the Argonauts, and with
audience will not forget their innocence, the origin of Pindar's own gens, the AEgidae.
Again, in Pyth. Ix. and Nem. v. he com The treatment of the legends in Pindar may
memorates the chastity of Apollo, and Cy be compared to the narrative episodes of
rene, and Peleus, rewarded in one case by the Homer. The legend of the Argonauts is told
magnificent destiny of the city to which the at great length, not for its own sake, but to
nymph gave her name, in the other by the bring out the glorious example of Jason and
marriage with Thetis, and the glory of the illustrious auguries of the future of
Achilles. It is to be observed that all this Cyrene. So Phoenix relates the quarrel of
class of poems are addressed to the young. Meleager at great length, to prove to
Sometimes we see the fortune of the vic Achilles that human passion is unprofitable,
tor, with its alternate successes and reverses, that human promises are untrustworthy.
bound up with the destinies of his country or But there are points of dissimilarity too. In
his race, as in the odes for Thero and Dia the Iliad we have beginning, middle, and
goras, where the poet dwells on the misfor end, but Pindar avoids this as much as pos
tunes which always mar the glories of sible; he is anxious to let us see that his
Rhodes, because Diagoras had chanced to primary business is with Arcesilas, not the
wound an antagonist mortally, and the pro Argonauts. Phoenix is not afraid that
gress of the Athenian party had endangered Achilles will think he is telling a story in
the pre-eminence of his house at Rhodes; stead of making a speech.
and consoles Thero for the suffering caused The ode is arranged as follows: First,
by family quarrels and the impending war Pindar sets forth how the chariot victory at
with Hiero, by the everlasting felicity which Delphi is due to the blessing of the Delphian,
always crowns the adversities of the house of which had always rested on the Euphemidae,
Cadmus in this world and the next. But the and given Arcesilas the prosperity long ago
legends are by no means introduced with ex predicted by Media at Lake Tritonis, where a
clusive reference to the victor's country or god in human form delivered a clod of earth
family, for instance, Thrasydaeus was not to the father of the race; and her oracle was
specially concerned in the misfortunes of the fulfilled by Battus and his line. Then Pindar
house of Atreus; Hiero had not inherited the is struck with the propriety of explaining the
guilt of Ixion nor the error of Coronis with origin and course of the expedition to which
its terrible punishment. And though these he has been led to allude, and here everything
cases are exceptional, and the legends gene is passed over cursorily which does not illus
rally bear some historical relation to the vic trate the dutiful character of Jason, and the
tor, the closest connexion lies in the circum wonderful favours and deliverances which re
stances known to the audience or described warded it. When this has been done he
by the poet, which always illustrates the same cuts short the rest; says he cannot travel by
sentiment, whether the illustration be drawn the beaten way, he knows a shorter path to
from the history of the victor or some mythic the goal; whereupon we are informed that
narrative, from the real or the ideal world. in Lemnos the Argonauts mingled with the
Thus in Pyth. Iv, the arrangement between women who slew their lords, and the race of
Jason and Pelias exemplifies the dignity and the Euphemidae began, whom Apollo sent to
advantage of settling family disputes peacea colonize Cyrene in wisdom. And now Ar
bly, and Pindar hoped that the reconciliation cesilas is to learn the wisdom of CEdipus. A
between Arcesilas and Damophilus would stately oak is maimed by the loss of its
exemplify it anew. The fact, not mentioned, boughs, but they prove its original grandeur,
but presumably known at Cyrene, that the whether they feed a winter fire or prop a
Aloidae perished by each other's hands, illus stranger's palace. Direct exhortations suc
trates the evil of family dissensions, as the ceed to heal the wounds of Cyrene, and re
quarrel of the Euphemidae was illustrating it store Damophilus, one of the stateliest
then. Pelias furnished an example of the branches of the parent tree.
WOL. XLIII. N–15
The construction of other odes of a less ărăgspor ri 6 sig; ri 5' 60 rig; oxiāg vap
ambitious character is naturally simpler. For ăvăporog dx}. Brav aiyxa 6,6460-og #7.8m,
instance, in Ol. 1. the poet begins and ends Xaurpov qāyyog #rsariv dvöpöv xa usix+xos alóv.
with the praises of Hiero's glory, which Aiyiva, pixa uársp, #xsu%pø gráž!
ought to content his amplest desires; the róxiv rávös xàugs Aixa, xpéovri gov Alax:
middle part is taken up with the origin of IIwasi re zdya33, Texauāv, giv t''Axixxsi.”
the Olympic games, which gives occasion to
contrast the fall of Tantalus, which is express Other odes end with the personal praise of
ly ascribed to his being tempted to pride by the victor, like Ol. Ix:—
prosperity, with the continued prosperity of ăvău bâ $500 astyauávov
Pelops, who remained, though we are not où Traiírepov Xp?". Exagrov. ivri yüp #734.
told so, within the safe limits of humanity. #65v #60: repairspal,
Again, in Pyth. VIII, the glory of Aristo gia 6' 0.0% aravrag äuus Spéls,
menes, and the hope of peace for Ægina, is us?.jra goqial uáv
the beginning, middle, and end of the poem: airs vaí toàro 6 poopépov &#xov,
bnt he glances aside to do honour to the #pèrov 'puta Sapriory,
AEacidae; and then, after returning to his róvã dvápa daiuovía yeydusy
immediate subject, he weaves in the history £xsipa, 0.31%ulov, "pāvr' dxáv,
of Amphiaraus and Alcmaeon, as a type of Alavršov #y 6aić's 'IN46a vixãv £rsørspávors
the hereditary virtue of Aristomenes, before £30 p.6v.t
he recounts his victories, and commends
AEgina to the keeping of the AEacidae. Sometimes the praise is for the victor's
But ingenuity, by itself, is not poetry, and family, as in Nem. v., and that delicious lit
Pindar's reputation was won, not by the con tle morceau, Ol. xiv.:—
structive skill, which was underrated then
05uidriov 'zag, Āgr’ dssósiv, unzár, piys:
and scarcely noticed since, but by the impetu si 63 0.1601
ous grace which has carried so many genera
tions willing captives in the chariot of the továv, dyā ā' oria Tsivov rpèg guyev xopxariou,
Muses, as it threaded a mighty maze that *%ray 7: viv xai ray-pariou pé%a #xsiv'Ezi
seemed without a plan. Very few listeners 6alpo dir%av
were sufficiently intellectualized to detect the vixãvr' dpsrāv, rpoS poifiv d'Aloxoff
skilful arrangement of the ode just referred dvdāov rońvra qipsy are pavágara gèv gov3a's
to, many were too inattentive to feel its full Xàpitfiv.:
effect, but all must have been impressed as ——usXavors (āa vöv 65uov
the chorus struck up — +sp?sqāvas $9,85, 'Axoi, ratpi x\urav påpoig'
4×ppov ‘Aquxia, Aixag dyys).jav,
£ psyltrárox 3%av=p,
Kasjöauov 5 pp ióoia' viev sirms, or oivšav
£ov7.5v 7s xal ro?\suov xâxtols rap sióšov IIidag
#xolta x}\afögg Ursprávag, #1-spávors xvöigov did?....v rrspoid, Xairav Š
IIvélévixov ruffy 'Aptrouévs. 5&su. * *
* All creatures of a day: what is man, great or
rü yöp 7% ua),Aaxov £p;a rs xal rads:y 0.100s small? The shadow of a dream. But when
#Tigrata warp, q}v &rp=xsi. glory cometh from on high, light shineth for a man
* 5', 373rov rig dysfuxov withal, and a time of sweet tranquility. AEgina,
xapóiq xárov #v=}.47m, kindly mother, guide this city evermore, with
*paysia Čutusvāov liberty to speed and Zeus to aid; with princely
AEacus and Peleus, and stout Telamon, and with
Bravrićaita xpåre Tiësis Achilles too.
£8piv #y #vr??'." + Any matter finished without God is none the
worse for silence. For there are many ways, and
They must have held their breath for awe at one way goeth beyond another; one training will
the last solemn epode, though they had been not bring up all of us alike. Wisdom's roads are
prize thou bearest be bold, pro
laughing at the thought of Aristomenes four steep; but for the this
aloud that man was born not without
antagonists slinking home by back lanes only claim
God, so stout of hand and stark of limb, with va
seven lines ago:— lour in his looks, who also crowned the altar of
Oilean Ajax in his feast of victory.
* O kindly Quietness, daughter of Righteous # If thou comest to Themistius to sing of him,
ness, cities are magnified by thee, who hast the shrink no longer, spread all the sails aloft, spare
master-keys of counsel '' of war, receive the not to tell aloud that he won at Epidaurus a
honour of Pythian victory for Aristomenes' sake. double meed of valour in boxing and the pancra
For thou hast knowledge what time doth chime in tium, bringing garlands of flowery leafage to the
truly to give and take alike the gentle deed: threshold of AEacus, and blest by the golden
whenever any layeth ungentle fury to his heart, haired Graces.
thou meetest the might of foes with sternness, Now come Echo with the message of renown
overthrowing violence in the deep. to the black-walled mansion of Persephone, to tell
1865. Pindar and his Age, 227
Sometimes he ends with prayers for fur v. bears witness, proofs of diminished enter
ther triumph, as in Pyth. v., sometimes with prise, perhaps of failing power.
blended prayers for his patron and himself, Pindar was regarded by the ancients as a
as in Ol. 1, where he desires that Hiero may model of the avornpov yivos, rather on ac
ever be the first of Greeks for power, and count of his rapidity than his self-restraint,
himself for wisdom; or Ol. v.I., where he asks for he is brief and often unadorned, not from
the blessing of Poseidon on Agesias' voyage a resolution to eschew ornament, but from
and his own poetry. the press of thought. His art is temperate
But Bindar's Odes do not always conclude but not severe, audacious but scarcely extra
in a manner so satisfactory to modern read vagant. Pindar is not turgid, though such
ers; the termination is often curt, though expressions as #3pw opóway xv.28áxor,” when
never abrupt; the poet leaves off sooner than he means that the donkey set up a dis
we expected, though not sooner than he in cordant bray, are rather like it; he was only
tended, with a short, sudden sentence. It is twenty years old when he wrote this, but
needless to multiply instances, but Olymp. there is a great deal in his poetry which
III, Pyth. II, Nem. VII, will show ' would almost be attainable to turgid poets.
ciently what we mean. Phrases like dorov op$6xoxw, i)xoudow doros
The Exordiums, on the other hand, are Juvov, Rowto/dputyyos doods, ozoworêveud r’āotöd
uniformly beautiful; perhaps they show more 56-paugov, Voyspov'Apxiaozor 6apvaayo's #26taw
than anything else the wonderful freshness wawdusro,t were not hard to coin in , a
and variety of Pindar's genius, for they con language so flexible as the Greek of the
tain the only part of his materials which was fifth century B.C., and, if we may trust
properly his own, while his legends and his Aristophanes, they became the sole qua
ethical reflections, though the use he made lification of the dithyrambic poets of his
of them was original, were the common pro day, and Pindar in his old age seems to
perty of his age. But we recognise his rich have been dependent upon them for the effect
inventiveness when he bids us “hearken, for of sublimity which he had once known how
he is breaking up the fields of the Graces to produce
and of Aphrodite with soft rolling eyes on Though thereby more reason
is every distinctive
to thinkmeans.
that
his journey to the everlasting navel of loud these phrases degenerated into common
rocking earth, where the fortunate Emmeni places, they are for the most part untranslat
dae, who dwell by the river of Acragas, ay, able; and this points to an important differ
and Xenocrates too shall find a treasury of ence between ancient and modern poetic art.
songs for Pythian victory, builded in Apol When a poet of the fifth century B.C. wished
lo's rich golden vale, that neither wintry
storm when it comes driving on a blustering
£
to show off, he tried to crystallize
incorporeal, too indefinite often to be calle
army of rattling cloud, nor the winds shall a quality, in an almost material unity of
sweep away, as they beat with gathered phrase; when a poet of the nineteenth cen
sand and stones upon the sea's recesses;” tury wishes to show off, he tries to. body
when he tells us “he will build, setting gold forth material scenes and substances in im
en pillars in the vestibule of his well-walled material words. The difference is in favour
bower, as though it were a stately hall, for of the ancients, so far as it shows that they
he must shed upon his work's beginning a recognised more clearly than we the distinc
face to shine afar;"# when he speaks of “the tion between separate arts, and were more
steeds which lay the foundation for song;"| spiritual in their appreciation of poetry.
“of the bowl in which, for the second time,
he mixes the Muses wine for Lampo's sons;”$ “Heard melodies are sweet; but those unheard
Are sweeter, therefore ye soft pipes play on,
or vaunts his winged song above the motion Not to the sensual ear, but more endeared
less work of the statuary. Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone.";
All these odes belong to the period of his
Keats' soul was soothed by the harmony of
manhood, falling between 494 and 468 B.C. the sculptured musicians, but he never even
If we turn from them to 'Exarnp. ixiprars fancied he heard their music, as we hear the
6povrä, äxauawzóxoôos Zsi," written sixteen roar of the sea in a shell. A mediaeval
years later, we seem to trace beneath the cathedral and the Dies Irae may make the
practised skill, of which every line in Ol. Iv,
same impression upon our minds,
architecture frozen music?
for is not
But they make.
Cleudamus, when thou seest him, of his son, be
cause at the vale of glorious Pisa he hath crowned that impression through wholly different
him his young locks with plumes of famous
mastery. * Pyth. x 36.
* Pyth. vi. 1, sqq. |$ Ol. vi., sqq. + of n. 7, Pyth. x. 58: Ol. Iv. 2; Frag. 47;
t Pyth. vii. 8. Isthm. v. 2. Pyth. IL 55.
$ Nem. v. 1. "I Ol. vi. 1. # Ode on a Grecian urn.
senses; nay, the impression may be made That is picturesque writing too—upon a sub
upon the mind without the senses being es: ject where word-painting would be impossi
pecially affected. Keats did not care for the ble. But after he had returned from Sicily,
outline of the sculptured pipes; in readin where perhaps he was influenced to some
Pindar we scarcely ever think of what the extent by Simonides, we find actual word
performance was like, how the music, the painting in Pindar. The description of the
singing, and the dancing must have appealed new-born Iamus" hidden in the rushes, in the
to eye and ear, scarcely even try to realize thickest of the thorn-bushes, where the light
what the poetry would sound like read aloud: shed by the violets (or rather gillyflowers)
we attend to nothing but the thoughts of the fell tawny red and flushed with purple upon
poet and his audience. his dainty body, might almost have been
Hence the praise of Donaldson, that Pin written in rivalry with the exquisite fragment
dar sets the unseen before our eyes with a upon Danaë. In Pyth. Iv., composed about
vivid precision, to which nothing but Dante two years later, in which Pindar seems to
can be compared, cannot be accepted without have wished to exhibit a supreme specimen
modification. Dante sometimes gives us pic of his powers in order to impress Arcesilas
tures, but oftener he draws a map with such with the value of the praise enlisted in his
extreme accuracy that we cannot help draw service by his exiled kinsman, we find a more
ing the picture for ourselves. Pindar's writ elaborate, if not a more effective specimen of
ing impresses us as painting might have done, the same style —
because it is direct and vivid, but there is * 3’ &pa x86"
very little word-painting. ixit' aix"air" Biêukai" &” irrayao, i28&s
Beira, at xenvoag π 2, #xe wazar 8’44% repá, "w £zew,
.4%xić's ral & xa: & Te Mayvita" ix.1%gies &puéčetoa Sawreir
ev >sk * /
wova'ika; t , ~~76, yviols,

&up B rap}axis writy to 23izzowra; #362vs.
is in one sense a picturesque phrase; to talk •93 wouá, Taizzee wee8#wres 6xert’ &yazei.
of Hiero culling the prime of every virtue, &xx &raw wait ov xztaiëvrzov: 7.4%a 3’ £évs
and bright moreover with the bloom of * ******** *
poesy, recalls the picture of the splendour of
his outward life, but it does not depict the iz748 yawa; &rapuãxteto witéé"yes
iy 27.2% xxx82, ros 4xxov.t
splendour of his inward life.
Ká'uov zápal, X**Az ** 'OAvazruč3a, 4% via: Of course Heber does justice, and more than
Tig, justice, to Pindar as a word-painter. We
Iva Te At vo&#2 Tevri 2, #4064x2" N*****, have seen how he translates the description
its avy ‘Hpaxx#24 &pizroyo” of Elysium out of the manner of the Book of
Revelation into that of Lalla Rookh. He
**, Mexi", zt"
1 Marpi} x & to- ** Taizro#3sely
is 429*
f* a
translates the description of Iamus charm
$nzavpá, 2, replaxx. iriaazi Aokias.t ingly into the manner of Walter Scott; but
Surely that is picturesque writing, but where 858psyuévos is too bold for him, and he does
are the pictures? not know that “violets” mean gillyflowers, so
he writes—
7 - /
to 8pora y ys xixpital
- */ *
“Where morn her watery radiance threw,
reinas
* *
ou ri Savátov,
* - / • * * / 73° * * Now golden bright, now deeply blue,
253 47%two, &uipxy or 67s, raid & exiov, Upon the violet flower."
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4Tetost ov, & yaë Texevrazewer floa 6’ 4xxor'
*/ But if we wish to see the full difference
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between the picturesque of Pindar and the
modern romantic picturesque, we cannot do
* Ol. I. 13-15.
better than turn to the prayer of Pelops, Ol.
I. 71–74 :
+ Pyth. xi. 1–5.—Come, daughters of Cadmus,
come, ye sisters of the goddesses, come, Semela * Ol. vi. 54-56.
from the streets of Olympus, come, Ino Lucothea
from the bower of the Nereids under sea, come to + Pyth. Iv. 78–85—“But he came in time a
. Melia with the mother of Heracles, the worthiest wonderful man, with a brace of spears, and a gar
child, unto the shrine that Loxias honoured above ment about him of double fashion—the country
all the treasury of golden tripods. garb of the magnates fitting his sightly limbs, and
# Ol. II. 30–34–Truly no term of death, is de a wrapper of leopard skin for a defence against
clared for the children of men, no peaceable day, stinging showers. His hair was not shorn nor his
the daughter of sunshine when we shall depart shining tresses gone, they flashed all down his
before good fortune fail, for labour and hearts-ease back. And speedily anon he went to make trial
-come to men upon the changeful stream of change of his steadfast soul standing when the multitude
ful days. was full in the market-place.”
1865. Bindar and his Age. 229
“But in the darkness first he stood

Athens, or an Alexander weep for other
Alone beside the hoary flood.” worlds to conquer.
So far so well; though “flood” is nothing But the preaching of Pindar is evidence
but a rhyme to “stood,” and now at least a of the disease at its height; nearly all for
bad one. whom he writes need to be warned against
unbounded desires, to be congratulated on
“And raised to him the suppliant cry, having attained all that is attainable; the
The hoarse, earth-shaking deity.” Bassidae of staid Ægina are as insatiable as
The suppliant cry is more like an Asiatic the despots of Sicily; the aged Psaumis is
than a Greek of the heroic age, for Homer's as likely to yield to ambition as the youth
heroes sob but never whine, and the epithet ful Aristagoras. Nothing could be a greater
‘hoarse' is altogether inadmissible; the poet contrast to the hopeless peace which always
heard the voice of the sea-god in the deep forms the background of the energetic life of
clear sound of the mass of falling water, not the Homeric poems. There Achilles orders the
in the grating angry roar of the undertow as funeral games for his friend with cheerful cour
it scours the beach; but perhaps this is tesy, though that friend has warned him that
hypercriticism. It is, however, startling to they are soon to meet again in the dreary
hear how Heber goes on— under-world. Ulysses is thankful to be permit
ted to recover his kingdom and his wife, how
“Nor called in vain, through cloud and storm, ever much he suffers, and however long he
Half seen, a huge and shadowy form, waits; he does not murmur at the solitary pil
The god of waters came,”
grimage, which must purchase Poseidon's
when Pindar only says, “So he appeared to leave to spend a calm old age in peace at home.
him hard at his foot.” None expects permanently to alter his po
This is worse treatment than Homer ever sition; none is afraid of leaving it before
received from Pope, for the spirit of the death, unless exposed to the encroachments
Homeric poetry is not by any means so of others without a son to defend his old
exclusively classical as the spirit of Pindar. age. Thersites is an exception in the Iliad;
Pindar wrote for men who had received the but the Našpoc drparog of Pindar might have
highest classical culture; the Homeridae been made of Thersites'. The high are ever
sung to a people which had not yet formed ready to devour the low, and the low are on
any distinct idea of culture, and therefore the watch to tear the high to pieces. The
was not classical. poems of Pindar are full of exhortations not
The period of some seventy years between to provoke envy by insolence, and to dis
the battle of Marathon and the siege of regard the envy which snarls vainly at
Potidaea, was the culminating period of Gre deserved success. All are impressed with an
cian life, when the conceptions of the overweening sense of their actual littleness,
individual, the State, and the nation were all their potential greatness. “Godlike,” in
developed, and still worked together in some form or other, is the commonest term of
unstable equilibrium, before the inevitable praise in Homer, but in Pindar it disappears.
disruption, when the unity of the nation was His heroes are only too godlike in their
dissolved by the restless activity of the State, desires; but he and they are conscious that
and the unity of the State was dissolved by their achievements are not divine. Homer's
the restlessness of individual will, and still heroes rate the gods as pettish children rate
Inore, of individual thought. It was a time their nurses, but they never dream of
of boundless ambition, for it seemed to be a possessing their greatness. Pindar's heroes,
season of unlimited possibilities. The types to judge from his repeated admonitions,
of their age are to be found in a Themis were envious as well as respectful. The fear
tocles, plundering the AEgean in the name of death continues, for the upper world is
of Athens; in a Pausanias, eager to be the too bright to leave, though the under
slave of Xerxes and the lord of Greece; world has ceased to be dreary; for the
in an Hiero, the master of all Sicily, and slow}\ov, which is unsubstantial for Homer,
panting still for more. For the Greek mind has become immaterial for Pindar; but still
was emancipated from the narrowness of men like to have time to carry out their
childhood; it perceived that the desires plans, time to enjoy their success; and they
of man are infinite, and its fever fit was do not yet know that no plans are carried
severe if not long. It received its quietus out completely, that success is always dis
in the efforts and disasters of the Pelopon appointing, and therefore they do not like to
nesian war, when the combatants on both die; but even this milder fear is not unmixed
sides were animated by fear and hate, not with flashes of a strange longing, death is
hope, though an Alcibiades might still perfect peace at last, who knows but it may
dream of ruling the Mediterranean from give much else that life denied ?
All are familiar with the reward of Cleo to reign, though it could not profitably gov
bis and Biton. Pindar tells a similar story ern, had been overthrown by the impetuous
of Agamedes and Trophonius, who built the logic of popular and regal passions. The
temple of Delphi, and asked the god for their sons of Diagoras were hunted from Rhodes;
wages. He promised to pay them on the of all the States whose citizens had asked
seventh day, meanwhile they were to make the praise of Pindar, none had escaped the
merry. They did as they were bidden, and calamities of faction or war except Opus,
the seventh day they laid them down to which was protected by her insignificance,
sleep, and died. They say that Pindar sent and Argos, which was safe in her selfishness,
to Delphi to ask what was best for a man, while Corinth was secure in her institutions.
and the prophetess answered that if he Over Pindar's own country the storm swept
made that song, he knew. still more heavily. She experienced the
The prime of Pindar's manhood coincided lawless despotism of a knot of men who
with the earlier, fresher, healthier half of this betrayed her to the Persian, and almost
stormy period, and he lived to within ten involved her in their own ruin after the
years of its close. Before he died, Athens Persian had been chased backward to the
had ceased to be the loyal yoke-fellow of Hellespont. She experienced the suicidal li
Sparta, the city of the violet crown, who had cense of an untrained, unchecked democracy,
laid the foundations of liberty for Greece at which attained the supremacy which it
Marathon and Salamis; she was now the abused by foreign force, without even such
despot city, the inveterate enemy of Thebes, preparation for power as was implied in
whose commons she had intoxicated, in spite conquering it.
of Pindar's warning voice, with the sweets of Sicily had not to endure such humiliations
transgression, whose end was utter bitterness. as Thebes. Indeed, she attained to an unex
True, her guilty greatness had received a ampled degree of splendour, but her destiny
shock which proved irreparable at Coronea, exposed her to calamities not less real at the
but she had rallied and appeared stronger time, and still more lasting in their effects.
and more formidable than ever; Samos was The institutions of all the Greek colonies
enslaved and become the private property of were necessarily arbitrary, and conventional
a fragment of the Athenian people. Thuria respect ill supplied the place of the tradition
and Amphipolis had been founded, and the al sacredness of the hereditary codes of Con
material magnificence of the city had reached tinental Greece. Thus the restraining force
its highest point. Her great houses, whose was weaker, while the play of national life
praises he had sung in brief and guarded was freer, and national growth more rapid.
strains, when the triumphal processions of In Sicily, where the life of the Greek com
their children threaded the busy streets and munities was not dwarfed by great inland
£ crowds, had degenerated into the monarchies or powerful native tribes, the
eaders or the victims of the many-headed tendency to restlessness was stronger than
beast; AEgina, the ancient rival of Athens, elsewhere, and consequently her whole in
who had been united with her for a moment ternal history till the Roman conquest is
by the perils and glories of Salamis, had nothing but a series of constitutional failures.
been rapidly outgrown and ruthlessly van Pindar saw the rough soldier Gelo snatch
quished by the policy which saw nothing in Gela from the children of Hippocrates, whose
the gallant little island but an eyesore to predecessor's power was founded on the im
Peiraeus. Yet her fall had not been inglori pressive mysticism which had restored a body
ous. Pindar, who had so often sung the of exiles to a distracted city, and bequeath
glory of her tutelary AEacidae, and vindicated his prize to Hiero, after whose death it made
them against the injustice of lying rhapso trial of the harsh, eager despotism of Thrasy
dists, who had no local traditions to guide bulus, before it could attain to liberty. He
their songs, was able to persuade himself that saw Zancle betrayed by Hippocrates to the
success had crowned the valour of her navy Samian exiles, who inflicted on their Sicilian
in the sea-fight which preceded the last fatal friends what they had suffered from their
siege; and he and all Peloponnese were will Persian enemies, while the treacherous des
ing to forget how partial the success had pot abandoned his treacherous allies to his
been, how fruitless it must prove. brother despot, Anaxilaus of Rhegium.
The line of Battus was quenched in blood He saw Camarina, which had been ruined
at Cyrene in consequence of the same ten by the jealousy of Syracuse, restored by the
dencies to family dissension and autocratic despot of her rival Gela, deserted again at
sclfishness as those which Pindar had re the order of his successor, when he trans
buked, after the curious constitution of De ferred his capital to Syracuse, and finally
monax, based upon the supposition that the restored by £. 1n his days Agri
house chosen by Apollo had a divine right gentum and Himera were subdued by the
mercenaries of the princely Thero, who did citizens of Naxos and Catana had been
his friends more pleasure than Pindar could removed to Leontini to clear the ground
ever reckon up; whose father AEmesidamus for the experiment. There is some reason
had disputed the heritage of Hippocrates to think that the project was given up in
with Gelo, and accepted defeat with reckless Hiero's lifetime, as three years after the
bravery; and Thero's son was expelled from foundation, we find Chromius, the governor
both his cities by Hiero, and executed at of the city, perhaps as the associate, more
Megara for his crimes. He saw, too, Syra probably as the successor, of Dinomenes,
cuse humbled on the Helorus, and her who seems to have been an unambitious
oligarchical order of proprietors expelled, man, for though he survived his father, he
soon to be restored by Gelo, the true founder took no part in the disputes which followed
of Syracuse, who first discerned its claim to his death. Hiero's new city did not survive
be the capital of Sicily. To vindicate that his dynasty, as a constitutional monarchy or
claim he transplanted thither all the in otherwise, and the violence which prepared
habitants of Camarina, half the inhabitants its foundation added largely to the confusion
of Gela, and the conquered oligarchs of which the Gelonian dynasty left behind it;
Euboea and Megara, while the commons but the experiment is interesting, both in
were sold into slavery beyond the limits of itself, and as a partial anticipation of the
the island. According to Herodotus he more successful efforts of Alexander and his
thought the people a bad neighbour; his successors to found free Greek cities under a
ideal was an order of privileged citizens de monarchy, which, like Antioch and Alexan
pendent upon his dynasty, with nothing dria, survived the dynasties of their founders,
below them but serfs to cultivate the soil. and sometimes, like Seleucia, attained an
His ideal was realized by the course of independent life.
events which he helped to prepare, and the In spite of all the misfortunes which
realization caused the long anarchy of Sicily; visited the numerous States to which Pindar
but he was worshipped as a hero after his was bound by ties of sympathy, his career
death, and not altogether unjustly. He had seems to have been a happy one. In the
committed few crimes in a situation where two conquests of his country by the con
most men would have committed many; federate Greeks after Plataea, and the
he had broken the power of the Cartha Athenians after OEnophyta, he scarcely
ginians in Sicily for two generations on the allows himself two lines of sorrow. “Let
Himera; and, by transferring the political us cease from bootless misery and publish
centre of the island to the eastern coast, he something sweet, though after pain.” “I
contributed more than could be seen at the endured unspeakable anguish, but now
time to delay the Carthaginian conquest till Poseidon hath given me sunshine, after
Rome was ready to dispute it. His brother storm; I will fit a crown upon my head and
Hiero, who, against his wish, usurped the sing.”f He was a spectator at the Olympic
power after his death, is said to have been game of life, applauding freely, but staking
yet more illiterate than himself, till attacked nothing; the shepherd of the Muses’ golden
by the lingering illness which sometimes flocks, which he fed, for one to-day and
stung him into paroxysms of fierce, moody another to-morrow, and so he was interested
suspicion, and sometimes drove him to take in all and attached to nothing. His charac
refuge in the slighted embraces of the venal ter co-operated with his circumstances to
and forgiving muse. His ambition led him assure his merited independence and repose.
to conceive the project of a war with Thero, Though over-eager for praise, because detrac
on the prospect of which Pindar condoled tion was irritating to one conscious of his
with the latter potentate in Ol. II., but the own worth, he was not really dependent on
war itself was averted by the mediation of the verdict of others. Though over-ready
the courtly Simonides, who suggested that for pay, he was content at bottom with his
the brother despots had better unite to Theban orchard, and the favour of the gods.
punish Thero's rebels in Himera. Hiero's His position as a festival poet was like that
reign was the closing period of splendour for of the great preachers at the court of Louis
the sons of Dinomenes, the saviours of xiv.–he might be as lofty as he would in
Sicily. Pindar lived to see the expulsion exhortation, but he had to beware how he
of Thrasybulus, the last survivor, and the hinted at blame. It is a remarkable proof
slaughter of their friend, the prophet of his courage that he calls Hiero's position
Agesias. He witnessed the complete failure at Syracuse by its simple, odious name
of Hiero's attempt to found a kingdom (Tupovvig), for the first and only time in Pyth.
for his son Dinomenes at AEtna, with a II, when volunteering his first triumphal ode
Spartan constitution for the ten thousand
citizens all of pure Doric blood, as the Ionic * Isthm. vii. 7, 8. +. Isthm. VI. 37.
for a Sicilian court, and exposed to the great is replenished with stately kings and valiant
est risk of altogether losing Hiero's favour. men of their hands, and such as are mighty
After this we may believe, with Boeckh, that by wisdom, and for all after time (when this
Ixion's history is introduced because Hiero second life is over) they are called holy heroes
was likely to copy his double sin of incest among men.”
and parricide. Simonides might preach to Pindar's consolations are not always so
the lordly Aleuadae that a faultless man, four austere. It is impossible not to feel the
square and blameless, could not be found on soothing tone of Ol. v., so well adapted to
earth; the gods alone were always sinless, comfort Psaumis in an old age, which must
because always free; it was enough for have often seemed tame and £ After
mortals to mean well and never to do wrong the fall of the Gelonian dynasty, Sicily must
by choice; but that is not Pindar's teaching have been like a house the day after a party
to kings. All his comfort for them is, that —dull even to those who disapprove of its
the past may be forgotten though it cannot yesterday gaiety, like Psaumis, who had
be undone. He admits, indeed, the well-worn small cause to love the dynasty which had
plea that necessity makes all fair; but he desolated Camarina. As his freedom is
applies it” to the girls of many guests, whose never morose, his courtesy is never servile.
hearts often flutter up to the Mother of the It may be thought, indeed, that his praise of
Loves in heaven, who had been the slaves of Hiero is exaggerated, for our scanty notices
man, and were now the slaves of Aphrodite, represent him chiefly as fretful, suspicious,
dedicated by Xenophon to a life not honour and cruel. But there is no evidence that he
able then and shameful now, in gratitude for gloated upon suffering like a Phalaris, or in
the honour which the goddess had given him. flicted it with the calculating indifference of
To Hiero he speaks in higher, sterner lan a Napoleon; and though sometimes alarmed
guage. f “Leaden satiety deadens eager or irritated into acts from which better men
hope; and it is the heaviest hearing in the would have shrunk, he was not therefore in
city for the secret heart when good things capable of sincere and not ineffectual admira
fall to another. Notwithstanding, since envy tion of what Pindar also admired. To have
is better than compassion, strain after honour expelled the brutal Thrasydaeus from Agri
still. Rule the host with the rudder of gentum and Himera, and restored those cities
righteousness; forge thy speech on the anvil to even a tributary freedom ; to have driven
of truth. Many are under thy hand—many back the Tyrrhenian armament from Cumae,
sure witnesses for good or evil; but abiding and to have delivered Locri from Anaxilaus,
in thy bounteous nature, if thou delight at may well have seemed acts of heroic virtue
all in always hearing pleasant praise, be not to a genial contemporary, especially when we
soon weary of cost. Be not deceived, friend, remember that Hiero preserved Rhegium for
by covetous complaisance; nothing, save the the children of Anaxilaus. It was natural
fame that sounds when men are gone, de for Pindar, with his admiration of prosperity,
clareth the life of the departed, both in speech to believe that Hiero was, what he calls him
and song. Croesus’ kindly worth doth not repeatedly, the foremost man of his age,
decay, but the voice of hate weigheth every quite the greatest, and almost the best.
where on Phalaris, the pitiless spirit that After all, his promises of Elysium are for
burned men in the brazen bull.” What Thero, whose worst crime was to have
admirable courtesy there is in the words, avenged his son harshly at Himera, and who
“abiding in thy bounteous nature!” making was worshipped with heroic honours at
the praise the foundation of the advice. So, Agrigentum, even after his son's expulsion.
too, Arcesilas has the courage of youth and We have said that the period of Pindar's
the wisdom of age; he is a wise physician, manhood coincided with the culminating
and therefore Pindar is confident that he period of Grecian life, and Grecian life finds
will heal the wounds of Cyrene by gentle its fullest and most adequate expression in his
ness. Again, how cheering is the fragment! poetry; it is not only that he addresses a
of the noble dirge composed, most likely, for wider audience than the Attic dramatists,
some man of rank with blood on his hands. and deals with a wider range of subject, but
How cheering, and yet, too, just, to remit the he represents his age as a whole, and brings
years of penance underground: “When out its positive as well as its negative side;
Persephone shall have accepted at the hands the faith that created the Parthenon as well
of any the penalty for woe of old, after eight as the disputes which echoed in the Agora.
years she sendeth up the souls of such back In the dramatists, all tranquil assured be
to the light of day again. Of them mankind lief is gone. Æschylus, while he inculcates
belief and submission, puts the best argu
* Frag. 87. + Pyth. I. ad fin. ments on the wrong side, for, like Pascal, he
# Frag. 98. despises himself for being compelled to sub
mit and believe. Sophocles understands and the Muses were born; and Cadmus, after
obeys, and sometimes admires, but he does many miseries, heard them singing, and
not reverence or love; a stranger upon earth, Harmonia was given him to wife. If the
he is always just, and sometimes compassion hymn really was like this, one wonders that
ate, but, on the whole, he stands calmly Corinna had the heart to tell the young
watching the world sweep by without a wish poet, “it was proper to sow handfuls, not
to guide or change its course. sackfuls.”
“It's wiser being good than bad, In his maturity he would praise nothing but
It's safer being meek than fierce, ox30s and aper,” rooiros āpera's Bečatóaxuévos,
It's fitter being sane than mad.” the tokens of divine favour, since any imita
tions of excellence human study and training
There is the beginning and end of his teach may achieve are worthless. He is never
ing; while Euripides is wholly eaten up by weary of pouring scorn on 66%ral dparai :
the question, “Que sais-je ?” only he is sen. for grace and merit are not mutually exclu
sitive and sentimental, whereas Montaigne sive conceptions with him; on the contrary,
took everything coolly. Pindar would not they are inseparable; the only real superi
have represented his age if he had not been ority must come from the gods, for they
bitten by the incipient scepticism; the alone possess it: “For what is thy confi
disease attacked him in a characteristic form; dence in wisdom, whereby man prevaileth a
with all his faith in Zeus and Heracles he little over man? For there is no way for
could not but think it hard that Geryon spirit of flesh to search out the counsels of
should be put to death for nothing worse gods: he was born of a mortal mother;”
than making a brave fight for his own cattle; unreal superiority which some accident or
and he even ventures to praise the valiant infatuation may overthrow at any moment, is
rebel “among friends,” though he resigns not a fitting subject for either praise or
himself to the conclusion that “custom is pride. It is natural to ask how, on such
king of all.” terms, any superiority could be a fitting sub
But the predominant tone of his poetry is ject for pride, pride not unmixed with con
joyous, and even hopeful, more so than any tempt, for when Pindar is teaching a boy
thing in Pagan literature, for of course the how to wear his honours, he seldom forgets
raptures of Plato and the triumphant faith the shame of his defeated rivals. In the first
of Epictetus do not belong to Paganism any place we may observe that though pride in
more than the ecstasies of Shelley or the se the glory given is allowable, 58pig, according
rene gladness of Goethe belong to Christi to Pindar, is sure to be severely punished; in
anity. Paganism, properly so called, seems the second place, even upon Christian princi
to approach a filial conception of the rela ples, self-admiration and pleasure in the ad
tions between heaven and earth for the first miration of others might be permitted to one
and last time in Pindar. He is jealous for who had attained the summit of human per
the glory of the gods and heroes: “he fection, as Pindar continually assures his
cannot bear to call any of the blessed glut.
tonous; mischief lights speedily upon railers.”
friends that they have done. But #
reverend grace, grace, who cherisheth life,
He can praise the AEacidae for ever, but has who worketh all gentleness for mortals,
no words for the crimes of Peleus and Tela though great, is not unlimited: she cannot
mon. And the honour of the immortals is give man everything.
the happiness of man; in the magnificent
hymn, so ingeniously reconstructed in out #y dvöpóv, Sv Asāv yévog #x utig ó rvéousy
line by Dissen, after the poet had chosen the uarp's dupárspor disipys' 53 rāta x5xpluśva
marriage of Harmonia out of all the legend 6 vauig, &g to uiv 0.06 v, 56 XáXxsog dødba?:g
alāv #60;
ary glories of Thebes, in tracing her parent
age he told of all the loves of Zeus: how the Léval otpavág d?\xi ri rp0%pápousy £urav Ž
wāyav
Destinies' golden horses bare Themis first up vãov 'rol
the awful ladder of heaven to be the mother of b%iv dèavaroig,
the truthful Hours, whose frontlets are golden xairsp ibausplay ox sióires oftā usrå växrag
and their fruit exceeding bright; and then ăului Tóruog
one came, and then another, until at last ofay riv #ypals öpausiv rori graduav. §
Hera came, and was received with such ex * Ol. II. 58.
ceeding splendour that all the gods prayed Frag. 33,
Zeus to create other gods worthy to sing of Ol. vi. 76, vii. 11, I. 30.
his great magnificence; and then Apollo and Nem. vi. 1 sq.—“One race of men, one race
of gods, we both draw our life from one mother,
but all diversity of power doth sunder us, for the
* Apparent Failures, Robert Browning. one is verily nothing, but the brazen heaven
+ Ol. 1, 51. # Frag. 5–9, abideth evermore a mere foundation. Neverthe
234 Dec.
Pindar and his Age.
*/ * -
These words contain the problem which Pin fi re retray weig' #4ivolta
w * **
x2A&v.
dar's poetry has to solve, of which, like many 8vata čvarcizi xpéret.
other philosophies and poetries, it has no
thing to offer beyond an approximate and pro The limitation of our happiness is really,
visional solution. Perhaps even this is too from one side, a cheering consideration, for
much ; perhaps the problem is left unsolved its perfection is attained the sooner; we may
altogether, and Pindar is satisfied to restate it rest and be thankful, in the fullest sense of
in a way which shall take away the desire for the words, with nothing more to desire or
a solution. He has two methods of effecting achieve, and very much to enjoy. Complete
this, one exoteric and one esoteric. We will satisfaction is possible; for the best the old
take the latter first, because it carries us enemy of the good is driven away far from
farthest, and because of the very significant the homes and thoughts of Pindar and Phy
fact that it remained esoteric, that Pindar lacides, or if prosperity be not unchequered it
only dwelt on it in a single triumphant ode, is only the more secure. In both cases peace
and in the fragments of dirges quoted by is to be found, not by looking up, as true re
Christians and Platonisers. ligions say, not by looking inwards, as mys
It is briefly this: weak and miserable as is ticism says, but by looking round and down
the life of man, felicity may be attained here wards. Glory given by song and purchased
and hereafter by virtue and piety (especially by liberality to the singer is the reward of
by those who have been admitted to a mys the laborious wrestling-match and the costly
tical initiation), and what more would one horse-race, the remedy of all the calamities
have than the happiness of Elysium and the of life; and glory may be ours, living and
love of the dwellers in Olympus? but after dead; it is the curse of the miser to die in
all, it is true that a man can desire more than glorious. For the hero (and every ispovixng
all that gods can give, though it is safest and is a hero to Pindar and to Greece) has need
happiest to forget the truth;” to turn to the of the singer as the singer has need of the
painless, toilless dwellings of such as rejoiced hero; and we have seen that song may
in uprightness, where they sojourn with such journey with a cheerful message to the black
as are honourable in heaven; to the still walled mansion of Persephone.
more glorious mansions of Elysium with their Pindar is not only the greatest lyric poet
golden flowers by land and sea, prepared for of antiquity; he is the great saint of the
such as after their lives of innocence can ac Pagan world, the man who loved the gods
complish the way of Jove unto the tower of best and received their richest blessings, for
Cronos; to think of the bright suburb of Paganism cast out Socrates as Mediaevalism
the city of Persephone where the sun rises cast out Savonarola. In the boyhood of the
when it sets for us, where the denizens spend Theban poet, bees were seen to hive their
their time in rosy meadows renewing the honey between his lips as he slept. In his
sports and cheerful worship which were their manhood Pan was heard singing a hymn of
joy on earth # of the blessed deliverance his on the mountains, and the mother of the
from labour for the spirit which only is from gods came to take up her dwelling at his
heaven, that slept when the limbs were busy, door. In his old age he sent a hymn by the
but revealed judgment coming on for weal or ambassadors of Thebes to Ammon, and bade
woe in many dreams as they slept $ to re them ask what was best for a man; before
member that the prosperity of the blessed is the ambassadors had returned he knew, for
no hireling to flee away. Persephone came to him in the visions of the
But the commoner solution is simpler, and night, to tell him that since he had praised
even more satisfactory:— all the immortal gods but her, he should
f w \
xpire ral d' &Ax& 31& Baiuova &vāpā, make her amends within ten days in her own
kingdom, whence his spirit was sent back to
3% Ji to 42%, 4ate,
- • * •r s *recite the hymn to a Theban woman in her
* * */
Aoûva rotwal way 71 toy & Arviz toy stayësi guy 32.8%,
** * * f * sleep, who wrote it down when she awoke.
f
* Tig to x47%ay A4%, izX, &xeūzh. Long after his death, the prophet daily pro
Azz,! wa
wateve Zet£vg yews{zéar Trá, r *'%é13,
i
claimed at Delphi, before he shut the temple,
“Let Pindar the poet go into the banquet of
less we are not all unlike immortals, either in na
ture or in lofty spirit, albeit we know not what
£ destiny has marked for us to run to either by * Isthm. Iv. 12–18.—The judgment of men's
ay, or yet by night.” In spite of the authority of valour cometh from the gods. Verily two things
Boeckh, Dissen, and Donaldson, it is hard, as only feed life's prime most sweetly on the pastures
pointed out by Matthia, to translate the first line, of prosperity, namely, to receive good things and
“There is one race of men, another of gods,” giv be well reported of withal. Seek not to become
ing an entirely different sense to £ and ptás. as Zeus; all is thine if a portion of these delights
* Ol. ii. 66–82. Frag. 95. should fall to thee. Mortal lot is meet for mortal
# Frag. 96. Frag. 99. men.
1865. On the “Gothic” Renaissance in English Literature. 235
the god,” so antiquity believed, and in such strength upon the violence of the storms of
matters belief is everything. time. Horace was almost absolutely right in
Historical analogies, like material pros his statement of his own and his rival's
perity, may be useful if little valued. A claims:
curious, and not uninstructive parallel, might “Multa Dircaeum levat auracygnum
be drawn between Pindar of Cynoscephalae Tendit, Antoni, quoties in a tos
and Bernard of Clairvaux. Both lived when
Nubium tractus: ego, apis Matinae
artistic culture was high and mechanical More modoque
progress slow, at the close of a period of help Grata carpentis thyma per laborem
less turbulence and tyrannical anarchy, in the Plurimum, circa nemus uvidique
bright dawn of a day that was to witness the Tiburis ripas operosa parvus
organization of society, the slow beginnings Carmina fingo.”
of knowledge, the pulverization of faith; both It would be absurd to claim for him Pin
were the trusted counsellors of the great, and dar's rich intricacy of arrangement, his in
both sincerely renounced secular greatness; exhaustible, resistless energy; bnt Horace's
both gave poetical expression to the highest humility and self-knowledge trained him to a
life of their age; both poured magnificent loving elaboration, a slowly-distilled sweetness,
scorn on those who hastened, like an Arista which are all his own, and sometimes exalted
goras or an Abelard, “to gather wisdom's him to a majesty of thought and language,
unripe fruits;” but one was a Pagan, the the more impressive because due only to the
other a Christian.
grandeur of the theme. Reading Pindar is
It is more obvious to compare the greatest like a journey in the wind and sun; we are
lyric poet of Greece with the only great lyric eager to go on, but never so happy as to wish
poet of Rome. Of course, it is plausible to to pause and enjoy. Reading Horace is like
represent Horace as a mere skilful imitator, resting in a mossy dell on a summer's evening,
for Roman literature, like modern architec with nightingales to sing us to sleep. The
ture, imposed on itself the thankless task of monotony of Horace is charming, but we tire
filling up a borrowed plan with borrowed de of Pindar's repetitions; for we feel that one
tails. But in reality, however many motives was a pensive man, ever brooding over the
Horace borrowed from Pindar, or Alcaeus, his same thoughts; while the other was a ready
originality is not impaired. Pindar's own artist, producing the same wares as often as
topics are not particularly interesting, apart required. Pindar is wonderful, but Horace
from the use he makes of them, for in lyric is lovable, or many generations have been
poetry the feeling is everything, the topics wrong in their love.
nothing; in all lyric poetry worthy of the
name, the feeling is determined by the cir
cumstances of the poet. Horace was a re
fined, voluptuous Roman, Pindar was a man
ly Greek, Alcaeus almost a brutal savage. ART. VI.—ON THE “GoTHIC” RENAIssANCE
Syracuse was greater than Hiero, but Augus IN ENGLISH LITERATURE, AND SOME OF ITS
tus was greater than Rome; he was almost EFFECTs on PopULAR TASTE.
the god of Horace; Hiero was only the
friend of Pindar. 1. British Essayists of the Eighteenth Cen
Pindar's poetry is always steady in its tury.
cheerful, lofty independence, while Horace 2. Works of H. WALPoLE, W. Scott,
oscillates between swelling aspirations and CHARLEs LAMB, CHARLEs DICKENs, etc.
gentle ianguors or sweet intoxication; and
we look in vain in Pindar for the sentimental IN most cultivated countries and ages,
halo which gilds Horace's triumphs when there has existed, in more or less prominent
Augustus has conquered the Barbarians, or relation to other modes of mental develop
the poet is # to conquer his sins, or dis ment, a certain literature of fancy and humour,
guises his backslidings when seduced by which, growing up side by side with the
pleasure or dismayed by death. Hence a key more ideal or scientific productions of the
note borrowed from the Greek, as in Hor. Od. time, aims at no extended flight, but rests on
I. xii., xxxvii., is often the prelude to a Roman given results, established fashions, and such
harmony; and even in more sustained imita general views of life and its bearings as are
tions, we should seldom be willing to spare already familiar to the public to which it ad
the copy. Though the beginning of Pyth. dresses itself. Such literature may be various
v1. is fresher and grander than the beginning in its modes of utterance. It may choose the
of Hor. Od. III. xxx, yet Horace makes us language of satire or of sentiment. It may
feel the stability of the tower of fame even
more clearly than Pindar, who spends his * OD. IV. ii. 25.
236 On the “Gothic” Renaissance in English Literature. Dec
aim at reforming the actual state of men's implied in the recipient as well as in thi
notions and habits, and pointing out anoma agent. The student labours with the ambi
lies which prescriptive conventionalism has tion of discovery as well as with the stimulus
partially disguised; or, on the other hand, it of curiosity. The poet or romancer creates
may dwell on those portions of prevailing in his readers that expansion of the ima
thought with which the writer is in sympathy, ginative faculty which, when the style and
and emit tenderness or humour, in reference, subject possess novelty, gives effort as well as
half expressed and half understood, to cer pleasure to the mind. But the humorist'
tain conspicuous tendencies of the day. In task requires no effort, no exertion for its
either case, it is on the traditional, and often comprehension. Whatever fanciful patterns
superficial ways of thinking of the educated he may trace on his canvas, whatever fresh
men and women around, that the basis of al ness his quaint unexpected treatment may
lusion rests; and the writer's turn of fancy give to his topics, the groundwork must be
implies observation of human nature, not so familiar, and the allusions comprehensible
much in its abstract principles, as in its con at the merest glance. The taste of his day
nexion with temporary conditions of society has been already built up by a regular pro
and mental training. cess of education, and he has only to work
It follows that this literature, though with it at his will, avoiding in the license of
readily enough appreciated, for better or his conceptions any such innovation as would
worse, by contemporaries, requires for its due starthe or confuse his readers, if he would
estimate by the inquirer who loves to know not fail in his object. Facility is the essence
the why and the how of fancy's preferences, of his task; facility, that is, as far as con
some insight into those preliminary stages of cerns the impression made by his work;
mental development which have led, in the but assuredly it requires some quality very
order of history, to its formation. True it is, different from the facility of an ordinary
indeed, that fashion in letters, as in other scribbler to blend the familiar with the un
things, would sometime appear to be a mat familiar, the fortuitous with the permanent,
ter of almost accidental caprice; the whim in such guise as to secure a lasting reputation
of a monarch, the eccentricity of a student for his productions when temporary fashions
may give birth to it; but in such cases it is shall have passed away. Even while he
seldom either wide or enduring in its reign. dallies with the familiar stock of ideas, the
Literary taste worthy of the name, is an af. ground may be shaking under his feet;
fair of growth and education; a result of and if he has not allied his humour with
gradually converging influences and of intel something more than mere conventionalism,
ligible human sympathies. . It must have he may be doomed to sink into the most ig.
learned to eliminate, out of the complex noble of all limbos, the limbo of vapid tri
aspects of the world and its affairs, certain flers, before the next generation shall have
features to which men's fancy will be ready winged its flight.
to attach the sense of beauty and fitness, and For taste is evanescent in literature as in
from these work out its own results, cause other things; and this is true notwithstand
and effect at the same time. So founded and ing the vital hold which the great potentates
so trained, it will give a character to the of genius have retained over human sym
notions and feelings of whole generations of athies from generation to generation.
mankind, and £ in no small degree “What!” it may be asked, “can taste ever
even the moral judgments of the many who change its verdict in respect of such writers as
do not seek below the surface of the social cur a Milton or a Shakspeare?” Within certain
rent for their views of propriety in conduct. limits, and to a certain extent, unquestionably
Glancing, the , historically, at the rise and it can do so, and has done so. Even the
progress of literary taste, we shall be brought genius of Shakspeare and Milton expressed
to infer, as it seems to us, that in every itself under conditions which were suited
fresh development science and research first only to the stage of civilisation and opinion
make solid acquisitions; that imagination then attained by their own contemporaries. Un
seizes on certain characteristic features of the bounded as is an Englishman's worship of
new material as groundwork for romance; the one, profound as is his admiration for the
and that humour, lastly, weaves her light other, would any one attempting a work of
and airy fabric out of the familiar substance. genius now, choose either the topics or the
Or, to vary the metaphor, science heaps up treatment of these great masters of the art
the pyre; imagination fires it with the torch divine? Prejudice apart, can we affirm that
of romance; lastly, humour sports in the either Hamlet or The Paradise Lost, master
lambent glow and brightness of the pervading pieces though they are, accord thoroughly
illumination. Now, in the two first of these with the canons of taste now accepted for all
processes, some amount of mental exertion is practical purposes by the educated world?
We question the fact on different grounds, had the effect of stimulating fancy in a fresh
and to a different extent; for this we feel direction.
glory in confessing, that Shakspeare's im Taste, then, we repeat, is evanescent in
mortal verse presents far rarer instances of literature as in other things; and learning
superannuation, so to speak, than that of may be at work preparing a revolution, while
Milton, or any other poet of past days we canthe established code of aesthetics still governs
name. It is in his dramatic plots and situa the workings of imagination and of humour.
tions, matters in which he cared not to be This was the case during the latter half of
original or consistent, that we find him fre the eighteenth century in England; and the
quently out of harmony with our modern sys purpose of our present paper will be to note
tems of theatric law. His higher flights of the formation of the new taste which then
poetry, his portraitures of strong emotion, set in, glancing at it first in its rudimental
express the workings of the human heart in stages, and then in its later developments;
imagery suited for all time. But Milton, in and to indicate some characteristic points in
his more elaborate and learned style, does which the humour and fancy of this our later
fairly represent—apart from mere manner age differs from those of the century preced
isms of affectation, of which he had none, or 11) o'.
obsolete quaintnesses of diction, of which he The parents of the elder generation living
had not many—differences of artistic touch amongst us, were born into a world, the
between his times and our own, which are choicest mental recreation of which still con
real and palpable. We select, as an instance sisted mainly of the numerous Essays, which
of our meaning, a passage of stately measure, now, in their attire of sober brown calf, fill
and lively and varied illustration, and we some of the least frequented corners of a
only ask the reader to divest his mind of all “gentleman's library,” and to the practised
previous association with the renown of Mil eye are to be recognised almost instinctively
ton's verse, and with the incomparable por by their dimensions, their colour, and their
traiture of the “archangel ruined,” to which honoured but not solicited place on the
this is a prelude, and say, Would the allu shelves. A complete collection of the best
sions in the following short passage be at all known and most popular of these essays
to the purpose, in kindling the imaginative would extend to not less than forty volumes.
enthusiasm of a nineteenth century reader? Historically, they are distributable into three
Would they be such as would occur to any cycles: the Tatler, Spectator, and Guardian
save a very fantastic nineteenth century poet of the close of Queen Anne's and beginning
as pre-eminently appropriate to his theme ! of George I.'s reign; Dr. Johnson's Rambler
Satan is reviewing his troops of fallen angels and Idler, Hawkesworth’s Adventurer, Gold
in hell:— smith's Citizen of the World, Moore's World,
“And now his heart
Colman's Connoisseur, all in the last decade
Distends with pride, and hard'ning in his of George II.; and the Mirror and Lounger
strength of Henry Mackenzie, the Observer, and many
Glories: for never since created man others besides, which made their appearance
Met such embodied force, as named with these, from 1779 onwards to near the end of the
Could merit more than that small infantry century. In these essays, accordingly, we
Warr'd on by cranes; though all the giant may expect to find, partly by the proof posi
brood
tive of constant citation, partly by proof nega
Of Phlegra with th' heroic race were join'd, tive of marked omission, what were the sort
That fought at Thebes and Ilium, on each side of references and allusions in matters of taste
Mix'd with auxiliar gods; and what resounds
In fable or romance of Uther's son, which were current among our ancestors,—
Begirt with British and Armoric knights; the standards which they accepted as ortho
And all who since, baptized or infidel, dox; the class of ideas which they rejected
Jousted in Aspramont or Montalban, as uncouth, or passed over as unobserved or
Damasco, or Marocco, or Trebisond, irrelevant. And we cite these periodical
Or whom Biserta sent from Afric shore, writings, and not novels or tales, as the true
When Charlemain with all his peerage fell representatives of the dilettante literature of
By Fontarabia.”
their day, first, because novels, properly so
It is not that the allusions here are to ob called, were of later date than many of them;
scure or unknown subjects, but simply that secondly, because novels, in Fielding's and
they magnify a set of ideas whose vividness Richardson's time, were simply delineations
is of the past; and that the progress of of character and adventure, not as they now
thought and restlessness of inquiry have are, over and above this, the vehicles of
opened up new departments of knowledge speculative generalities; and, thirdly, because
and new aspects of old facts, since the days these essays themselves frequently contained
when Milton's mind was stored, which have certain germs of the fanciful or philosophical
238 On the “Gothic” Renaissance in English Literature. Dec.
novel characteristic of later times. Thus in they constituted the one standard of appro
the Spectator we have the half-burlesque, priate illustration and indisputable authority.
half-sentimental description of Sir Roger de The poetic art of Virgil, the invention of
Coverley and his doings and sayings, in which Homer, the wisdom of Socrates, the criticism
Addison, by one of those sympathetic strokes of Longinus, the philosophy of Aristotle,
which mark true genius, anticipated the pic united to form a court of popular appeal
turesque old-world likings which are now so from whose dicta there was no escaping.
commonly taken for granted. At a later The “wisdom of the ancients,” and the
date, the purely sentimental cast of fiction, or genius of the ancients, were lauded in pro
as some would call it, the subjective style of portion to the progress which the polite
composition, is distinctly outlined in various world considered itself to be making in the
sketches and narratives contained in the es true principles of taste beyond the know
says of the “Man of Feeling.” With Mack ledge and practice of the generations pre
enzie and Sterne, indeed, the transition to ceding. It did not occur to that polite
the modern novel of sentiment may be said world anxiously to inquire where and in how
to have been fully made, in all particulars far the Greeks and Romans were right in
save that one of reference to previous condi their principles, nor how their position in
tions of social history, to which we desire the world's history came to affect their con
now to direct more especial attention. ceptions of human culture. Simply they
Now, in all the discursive belles-lettres of were the classics; and, being the classics,
the eighteenth century, there is more or less, had as divine a right over the province of
it cannot fail to be perceived, a certain tone taste as Tory politicians once held a Stuart
derived from the traditions of classical litera to have over the laws and liberties of Eng
ture, shown in a constant allusion to ancient land:—and this species of classic conven
poets, historians, and philosophers, an implied tionalism continued to be the orthodox test
admission of their authority as supreme in all of elegant education while the old state of
disputed points, and often a direct imitation things lasted; that is to say, before the
of their style and method. It is no doubt a French Revolution and its stupendous re
formal kind of adhesion throughout. There sults had startled mankind out of all their
is something stilted and unreal about it. It former proprieties. Now be it observed, we
is the loyalty of the trained pupil, not of the differ, indeed, entirely from those who assert
enthusiastic votary. It seldom makes very that it was that great crisis in European his
active demands on the imagination, or even tory and society, which, throwing the pre
on the minor quality of fancy. The truth is, ceding constitution of the world to an im
that to understand the Past as past, was not measurable distance, first awoke, from con
the curiosity or the relaxation of that day. trast, that interest in bygone thoughts and
Moral and metaphysical inquiries were the habits of life which is so marked a feeling of
real stimulus to thought; and the classic al our age. That interest had, as we conceive,
lusions which blended with them, however been in fact growing for a long time before,
graceful and apposite, were essentially of a and would eventually have supplanted the
conventional type." Still, as we have said, quasi-classical fashions of our great-grand
fathers, even if the change of taste had not
* There is an eloquent passage in one of Sir been precipitated, as it no doubt was, by the
Edward Lytton's novels upon the literary charac great political convulsion aforesaid. But of
ter of the eighteenth century. “At that time,” he
says, “reflection found its natural channel in meta this in its place. At present we wish to
physical inquiry or political speculation, both point out distinctly the fact of the change.
valuable, perhaps, but neither profound. It was a Let any one read two or three essays in the
bold, and a free, and an inquisitive age, but not Spectator or Rambler, and then a few of
one in which thought ran over its set and station. those by Charles Lamb, or let him dip into
ary banks, and watered even the common flowers
of verse; not one in which Lucretius could have the works of Dickens or Thackeray, or those
embodied the dreams of Epicurus; Shakspeare of almost any of the lesser humorists of our
lavished the mines of a £ wisdom upon own generation. Setting aside such peculia
his fairy palaces and enchanted isles; or the beau rities of allusion as might naturally belong to
tifier of this common earth” (Wordsworth) “have
called forth
- “The motion of the spirit that impels irregular pile of verse, full of dim-lighted cells and
All thinking things, all objects of all thought;" winding galleries, in which what treasures lie con
cealed ! That was an age in which poetry took
or disappointment and satiety” (Byron) “have one path and contemplation an other; those who
hallowed their human griefs by a pathos wrought were addicted to the latter pursued it in its ortho
from whatever is magnificent, and grand, and dox roads; and many, whom Nature, perhaps, in
lovely in the unknown universe; or the specula tended for poets, the wizard Custom converted in
tions of a great but visionary mind” (Shelley to speculators or critics."—The Disowned, chap.
“have raised, upon subtlety and doubt, a vast an XIV.
the different states of society a hundred even with old Greece and Rome: of “Gothic,”
years earlier or later, what will strike him as or old English antiquarianism there was pro
the most characteristic difference in the set fessedly and boastingly nothing. The very
ting of the two pictures, in the atmospheric word Gothic was, with our great-grandfathers,
conditions, so to speak, of the two regions of synonymous with utter and contemptible bar
taste? Surely it is this: that whereas in barism : *
these our actual times there is an ever wake

“La Fable offre à l'esprit mille agrémens divers:
ful sympathy with the past of history and Là, tous les noms heureux semblent nés pour
society, a feeling sometimes reverential, some les vers;
times regretful, sometimes compassionate, Ulysse, Agamemnon, Oreste, Idomenée,
always keen and sensitive, an interest not Helene, Menelas, Paris, Hector, Enée;
only in the great actions, but in the every O! le plaisant projet d'un Poete ignorant
Qui de tant de Héros va choisir Childebrand!”
day lives, the homes, the streets, the cos
tume, the occupations, the follies, the most So sung the poetical satirist of a forei
trifling gossip of our ancestors, whether re kingdom, unconscious that Childebrand's day
mote or only a few generations separated was yet to come,—that the Gothic renais
from us, in the standard writings of the sance was looming in the future.
eighteenth century, on the other hand, this In the older generation whom we can our
interest is entirely mute, as though a whole selves remember, among ladies and gentlemen
department of intelligent curiosity had been who did not affect deep study, but only a fair
as yet unopened. The style in which the share of refined cultivation, the fruit of train
writers of the “Augustan age” of our litera ing under these influences was still apparent,
ture looked back on the England of the past in a somewhat pedantic conversance with the
was that of immeasurable and self-satisfied hackneyed stories of heathen mythology, in
superiority. Nothing, it seemed to them, the remembrance of readings, more or less
was to be learned from those epochs of twi extensive, in such books as Melmoth's trans
light civilisation; then why waste time in lations of Cicero and Pliny, Mrs. Carter's
deciphering their paltry riddles? These Epictetus, Plutarch's Lives, Homer and Vir
were the authorities who voted Shakspeare gil as versified by our English poets. These
an inspired barbarian,” and would only en studies, and such as these, were the creden
dure his genius in the travesties of Dryden. tials of a good education eighty, or even
These were the authorities whose histrionic seventy years ago; and by them literary
conceptions were satisfied with Hamlet in the taste, except in some few daring spirits, was
full dress-coat of St. James's, and the Roman guided, controlled, suggested. The cultiva
stoic giving himself the mortal wound in tion of the softer sex was assuredly very in
“long gown, flowered wig, and lacquered considerable in those days compared with the
chair.” For though their models of taste results it displays now ; yet we may venture
and fancy were formed chiefly on scholastic to assert that the “elegant young female” to
traditions, yet in the classical notions which whom a paper in the Spectator was the pre
men affected in the days of Anne and the scribed sedative of each successive morning,”
early Georges, there was no spirit of antiqua and whose tastes were trained in strict ac
rian criticism, no real intelligent sympathy cordance with the intellectual standard therein
displayed, would in some chapters of acquire
* Oliver Goldsmith, a generation later, was
ment have been entitled to put to shame
scarcely more enlightened in his estimate of Shak many a pupil of the present day advanced in
speare. “‘Dryden and Rowe's manner, sir, said German and geology, and distinguished in the
he poor player to the Vicar of Wakefield, ‘are class-rooms of a ladies' college. Did not
quite out of fashion; our taste has gone back a Ogilby's Virgil and Dryden's Juvenal occupy
whole century. Fletcher, Ben Jonson, and all the the most honoured places on the bookshelves
lays of Shakspeare are the only things that go
£, ‘How I said I (the Vicar is the narrator), of that model to her sex described by Ad
“is it possible the present age can be pleased with dison, the well-read Leonora, even at a date
that antiquated dialect, that obsolete humour, when women required the popular moralist's
those overcharged characters, which abound in special castigation to rouse them out of their
the works you mention?’ ‘Sir, returned my com
panion, “the public think nothing about dialect, ignorance?
It would be curious, though beside our
or humour, or character, for that is none of their
business. present purpose, to trace how these airs and
They only go to be amused, and find
themselves happy when they can enjoy a panto graces of classical pedantry in our lighter
mime under the sanction of Jonson's or Shak
speare's name.’” It is evident, however, even * Miss Berry speaks of herself as in the habit of
from this F: that whatever the creed of the reading (when a child, in 1775) a Saturday paper
arbiters of literary taste might be, the unsophisti in the Spectator every Sunday morning, to £
eated populace relished Shakspeare scarcely less grandmother. -
than his own contemporaries had done. + Spectator, No. 37.

240 On the “Gothi” Renaissance in English Literature. Dec.
literature were themselves, in accordance of Chevy Chace he discerned workings of true

with the process which we set out with indi poetry, for which he was not afraid to claim
cating, —a result of the laborious classical re the admiration of his contemporaries, though,
naissance of the fifteenth century in Europe; in accordance with the loyalty to classical
how, after the learned had laid broad and precedents which was the creed of his age,
deep foundations, and poets had imitated the he sought to establish the merits of the bal
classics in their verse, the superstructure of lad in question rather on its imagined coinci
sentiment and fancy rose, displacing those dences with the style and treatment of Virgil
whimsical extravagances of mediaeval chro than on its spirited description of Border life
nicle and fable, which, when printing first and habits; indeed, he owns that without
began, were the staple of the press, and such corroboration his favourable judgment
which, even in Shakspeare's time, had by no of this out-of-the way minstrelsy would natu
means lost their hold over the popular mind. rally have laid him open to the charge of sin
It would be curious next to trace how a cer gularity. For if Chevy Chace had been writ
tain blending took place between the older ten in the Gothic manner, he says, “which is
taste and what was then the new, and how the delight of all our little wits, whether
the eclectic fancy of the Scudéris and Calpre writers or readers, it would not have hit the
nédes in France formed a school of stilted taste of so many ages, and have pleased the
romance, partly chivalrous, partly classic, readers of all ranks and conditions.” But
which moulded the taste of the age in that what then did Addison mean by the Gothic
country, and to a certain extent in England manner? it may here be asked; for he
too, till Boileau and Addison and common speaks as if a style so called were really in vogue
sense gave it the death-blow. In England, at the date of his own writing—a style clearly
too, we say; for the spirit of French imita not the same with the rough old English bal
tion, introduced under the second Charles, lad style of Chevy Chace. The special meaning
continued long to infect English habits, which Addison attached to the term Gothic
whether in letters or in social intercourse, will be apparent if we compare this passage
notwithstanding the episode of the Silent in the Spectator with others in which the
Dutchman and his anti-Gallican propensities. same word is used by him. For instance, in
“We conquered France,” said Pope, “but felt one of his criticisms, where he is occupied in
our captive's charms; distinguishing between “true wit,” “false
Her arts and letters triumph'd o'er our arms.” wit,” and “mixed wit,” he adduces Martial
among the ancients, and Cowley among the
Thus in the Spectator we often come upon. moderns, as eminent instances of this last,
traces of the warfare which the best writers and then proceeds, “I look upon these writ
of the age were still waging against the ab ers as Goths in poetry, who, like those in
surd affectations öf a waning fashion. It architecture, not being able to come up to
passed away, and then the gauge of all good the beautiful simplicity of the old Greeks and
composition and elegant imagery became, as Romans, have endeavoured to supply its
we have noticed, a greater or less conformity place with all the extravagances of an irre
with the modes of ancient literature; while gular fancy.” And again, “Our general taste
invention, reduced to topics of quiet social in England is for epigram, turns of wit, and
speculation and humour, gave us the prelude forced conceits, which have no manner of in
to much of the essay-writing and novel-writ fluence, either for the bettering or enlarging
ing of our own time. the mind of him who reads them, and have
It is on the succeeding revolution in been carefully avoided by the greatest
Fancy's wheel that we now wish to fix atten writers, both among the ancients and
tion. Our aim is to show how, while classi moderns. I have endeavoured, in several of
cal taste (to use the language of the schools) my speculations, to banish this Gothic taste,
still ruled the hour, an undergrowth of ro which has taken possession among us.”
mantic taste struck root, subtending the ac From these indications, it is clear that
cepted fashions, and pushing forth a new “Gothic.” poetry and “Gothic" art were not
vegetation, which was soon to contest the in Addison's view what, fifty years later, they
place of the old and effete foliage. were in the view of Horace Walpole. Addi.
A hint of the coming change may be dis son seems to have understood the word as
cerned where least we might expect it, even expressive of a certatn blending of the un
in the early pages of the Spectator. Addi couth and the whimsical, of which there were
son, notwithstanding the prejudices of his age many instances in his day and that preced
against “Gothicism,” was too much a man ing; and of which the school of poets, called
of genius not to possess sensibility for the by Johnson the “metaphysical school,” were
vigorous and the picturesque wherever it
might be found; and in the rough old ballad * No. 409.
perhaps the most systematic artists. The origin and character between mediaeval poetry
real aim and meaning of a Gothic revival, in and the poetry of Greece and Rome.
the sense of a due appreciation of the elements By the time Percy entered the field, indeed,
of beauty to be found in the self-developed much had been going on in other departments
culture of the northern nations, has been yet of taste to foster the glimmering interest in
unexplained by the philosophy of criticism; these memorials of an age of “barbarism.”
and in the interim the progress of real know Shenstone and Horace Walpole, in the middle
ledge and taste was hampered, as so often hap of the century, successfully sought to intro
pens, by pretension and imposture, and by the duce a reform into the arts of landscape gar
confusion of a vague nomenclature. dening and architecture, of which the chief
Meanwhile, Addison's criticism on Chevy characteristics were an attention to the na-.
Chace may in all probability have been the tural features of scenery and a revival of the
seed which bore fruit half a century later in “Gothic" principles of art. In the World, a
the collections of Percy, afterwards Bishop of fashionable periodical of 1753–1755, formed
Dromore, who, in 1765, published his Re on the orthodox model of the Spectator, we
liques of Ancient Poetry; at all events, Percy find a fancy for Gothic architecture mentioned
cites Addison's remarks as a precedent and an as a recent and prevalent whim, likely to be
excuse for his own undertaking. The apolo displaced by a still later whim for Chinese
getic tone of his preface throughout sounds construction and decoration. The writer in
not a little singular to our ears in the present the World speaks of both with equal con
-day. In connexion with the subject before tempt; but while the Chinese fancy, an
us, it is very significant. exotic imported after Lord Anson's voy
“In a polished age like the present,” he age in 1744, proved itself a mere transi-'
says, “I am sensible that many of these re tory caprice and passed away, Gothicism, the
liques of antiquity will require great allowances purer kind—for here, as so often happens,
to be made for them.” And then, after citing real knowledge was struggling with preten
Dr. Johnson, Warton, and other literary sion—held its ground. Horace Walpole was
characters, as taking an interest in his work, its most efficient advocate and champion.
he adds: “The names of so many men of Writing from Worcestershire just at this
learning and character, the editor hopes, will time, he says:—“Gothicism, and the restora
serve him as an amulet to guard him from tion of that architecture, and not of the bas
every unfavourable censure for having bestow tard breed, spreads extremely in this part of
ed any attention on a parcel of old ballads. the world.” And when in Yorkshire he ex
It was at the request of many of these gentle claims with kindling enthusiasm at sight of
men, and of others eminent for their genius the ancient remains, “O what quarries for
and taste, that this little work was undertaken. working in Gothic " His letters are full of
To prepare it for the press has been the this new taste, which for many years was
amusement of, now and then, a vacant hour quite the passion of his life. He worked out
amid the leisure and retirement of rural life, his own conceptions in what, though it seems
and hath only served as a relaxation from to us now but a spurious and flimsy imitation
graver studies. . . . . The editor hopes he of mediaeval art, was doubtless one of the
need not be ashamed of having bestowed most important initiatory steps in that re
some of his idle hours on the ancient litera naissance movement which has to so great an
ture of our own country() or in regaining extent given the law to our modern aesthetics
from oblivion some pieces (though but the —the famous toy of Strawberry. And not
amusements of our ancestors) which tend to only in architecture and decoration, but in
place in a striking light their taste, genius, literature also, Horace Walpole may be said,
sentiments, or manners.” Hopes he need not perhaps by his zeal, to have deserved the
be ashamed of critical researches than which meed of originality in this revival more than
none are more highly estimated now, alike by any of his contemporaries, while, by his lively
poet, philologist, historian, and man of taste, fancy, he almost anticipated the popularizing
as furnishing indispensable aid towards one of process of time on the materials before him.
the most cherished objects of our time—the Within the ten years succeeding the publi
appreciation of the historic Past. cation of Percy's Reliques, appeared Dr.
Still, Percy's tone of apology was an ad Johnson's and Steevens's editions of Shak--
vance upon the confusion of Addison's ideas speare, and Warton's History of English Poe.
respecting old English ballads. Percy, at try, both most important labours, as turning
least, did not fall into the error of supposing up the as yet nearly virgin soil of English
that the merit of Chevy Chace depended philological research. Antiquarianism in the
upon its supposed resemblance to the style various departments of literature and art
and sentiments of Virgil. On the contrary, now began to form a school of ardent disci
he clearly indicates the essential diversity of ples. Dr. Johnson, with senterious conde
WOL, XLIII. N–16
scension, uttered his celebrated dictum, When the broken arches are black in night,
“Whatever withdraws us from the power of And each shafted oriel glimmers white;
our senses, whatever makes the past, the When the cold light's uncertain shower
distant, or the future, predominate over the Streams on the ruin’d central tower;
When buttress and buttress alternately
present, advances us in the dignity of think Seem framed of ebon and ivory;
ing beings. . . . That man is little to be en When silver edges the imagery
vied whose patriotism would not gain force And the scrolls that teach thee to live and die;
upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety When distant Tweed is heard to rave,
would not grow warmer among the ruins of And the owlet to hoot o'er the dead man's
Iona.” Shenstone, devoted to song-writing grave,
as well as landscape-gardening, found the Then go; but go alone the while,
hunt after old abbeys and old ballads congenial Then view St. David's ruin'd pile,
And home returning, soothly swear
to his sense of the picturesque both in scenery Was never scene so sad and fair.”
and verse. Captain Francis Grose, from 1773
to 1776, made the tour of England and The sentiment soon, in fact, came to be far
Wales, and published its results in four quarto more commonly professed from affectation
volumes of Antiquities, elaborately got up than ignored from indifference; for who, pre
with descriptions and plates. Gough and tending to any nineteenth century cultiva
Pennant prosecuted their topographical in tion, would not have been ashamed to own
that a mediaeval work of art, as such—a
vestigations. The Society of Antiquaries
put forth in 1770 the first volume of their poem, a picture, a relic, a building, a chroni
Archaeologia. All tended in the same direc cle of past days—exercised no more spell
tion. Then, after a short interval, followed over him than the yellow cowslip did over
the era of the German classics, and of in the rude soul of Peter Bell? How many
quiry into the antiquities of Teutonic fable; lisping ladies, we may be sure, were wont to
and, contemporaneously with these, the stu echo Scott's genuine enthusiasm when lioniz
pendous wars and convulsions of the French ing visitors over the ruins of Melrose Abbey !
Revolution, giving that impetus to the imagi “There is no telling,” he used to say, “what
native faculty which is never so effectually treasures are hid in that glorious old pile. It
supplied as by the vivid experiences and is a famous place for antiquarian plunder.
sharp vicissitudes of human fate. There are such rich bits of old-time sculp
So the train was laid, and preparation ture for the architect, and old-time story for
made ready for the glowing romance of the poet. There is as rare picking in it as in
Walter Scott. The Northern Enchanter a Stilton cheese; and in the same taste—the
mouldier the better.”
fired with the torch of his genius the pyre
heaped up by the labour and research of pre Nevertheless, in 1812, Scott's own lan
vious students. He first, to any noteworthy guage on the new development of taste his
degree, popularized the new education of days had witnessed bore something of the
taste. He brought a poet's soul to bear on character of advocacy, as though its results
ideas of feudality and chivalry, and on the were not yet fully credited with the world at
many picturesque aspects of historic and tra large. We allude to a prefatory essay in one
ditional lore; and from his time, not mediae of his republications of old literature.
val research only, but mediaeval sentiment, “The present age,” he says, “has been so
may be said to have fairly become a primary distinguished for research into poetical antiqui
element in our aesthetic culture. ties, that the discovery of an unknown bard is,
Silenced
now was the orthodox jargon of the past in certain chosen literary circles, held as curious
about the “barbarous productions of a Gothicas an augmentation of the number of fixed stars
would be esteemed by astronomers. It is true,
genius,” and the dread of their superseding in
these ‘blessed twinklers of the night’ are so far
the realm of taste that “simplicity which removed from us, that they afford no more light
distinguished the Greek and Roman arts as than serves barely to evince their existence to
eternally superior to those of every other the curious investigator; and in like manner
nation” (World, vol. iii. p. 81). Greek and the pleasure derived from the revival of an ob
Roman art, indeed, was not deposed from its scure poet is rather in preportion to the rarity
claims to man's homage, but room was con of his volume than to its merit; yet this plea
sure is not inconsistent with reason and princi
ceded in the realm of beauty for another andple. We know by every day's experience the
not less influential potentate. How does onepeculiar interest which the lapse of ages confers
blast from the clarion of the “romantic” upon works of human art. The clumsy strength
muse proclaim her attributes!— # the ancient castles, which, when raw from
the hand of the builder, inferred only the op
“If thou would'st view fair Melrose aright, pressive power of the barons who reared
Go visit it by the pale moonlight;
For the gay beams of gladsome day * See Washington Irving's Recollections of Ab
Gild but to flout the ruins grey. botsford.
them, is now broken by partial ruin into proper imagery. He loved antiquity; but it was
subjects for the poet or the painter. . . . . The rather for its every-day life than for its ro
monastery, too, which was at first but a fantas mantic aspects, and principally for the genial
tic monument of the superstitious devotion of traits of humanity he could detect in the
monarchs, or of the purple pride of fattened
abbots, has gained, by the silent influence of deeds and sayings of other times. He was
antiquity, the power of impressing awe and more at home in the metropolis than else
devotion. . . . . If such is the effect of time in where; and more at home with the common
adding interest to the labours of the architect, doings of men than with their exalted feats of
if partial destruction is co-opensated by the ad historic renown. His mind was steeped in
ditional interest of that which remains, can we Elizabethan literature, and in all that was odd
deny his exerting a similar influence upon those and out of the way in that of the succeeding
subjects which are sought after by the biblio period. His quaint humour fed itself with
grapher and poetical antiquary? The obscure
poet, who is detected by their keen research, perpetual references to the human life that
had co-existed with those old folios on his
may indeed have possessed but a slender por
tion of that spirit which has buoyed up the love of which he was wont so enthusiastically
works of distinguished contemporaries during to descant. As he walked the streets of
the course of centuries. Yet still his verses London, the murky edifices on every side
shall, in the lapse of time, acquire an interest were to him full of sentiment and association.
which they did not possess in the eyes of his And here, if it is not too Ruskinesque a
own generation. . . . . The mere attribute of
antiquity is of itself sufficient to interest the classification, we are inclined to distinguish
fancy, by the lively and powerful train of asso between an earlier and a later development
ciations which it awakens.”* of the retrospective taste, under the terms
not indeed to be taken with too technical
If these observations upon the taste of the strictness—of the Romance of Stone and
day, which take so much for granted that the Romance of Brick, and to assign the
Bishop Percy dared only timidly to suggest, origin of the latter in a great measure to the
do notwithstanding appear somewhat trite to reveries of the visionary East India House
us fifty years later still, it is because the clerk. The South Sea House and its official
retrospective sentiment has become so much underlings, the Inner Temple and its old
more a matter of course now, than it was benchers, Christ's Hospital and its juvenile
even at the date of the publication of alumni—what congenial food did these and
Rokeby. suchlike topics furnish to the fancy of Lamb;
We come now to the third stage of What a potent flavour of sentiment and ro
the assimilating process which we set out mance do the mingled pathos and playfulness
with describing; and as we have indicated of his conceptions infuse into scenes and per
Horace Walpole's as on the whole the most sons whom no partiality can characterize as in
representative name in the first, or exploring themselves picturesque! Listen to the open
stage, and that of Walter Scott as the ing paragraphs of his essay on the South Sea
greatest in the second, or inventive stage, House—“most musical, most melancholy:”—
so, if we were to point to any productions as
specially marking the epoch when the ideas “Reader, in thy passage from the Bank,
of the “Romantic” type of literature had where thou hast been receiving thy half-yearly
become sufficiently inwoven with the mental dividend (supposing thou art a lean annuitant.
like myself), to the Flower Pot, to secure a
texture of the age to afford material for the place for Dalston, or Shacklewell, or some other
familiar allusions in which popular humour, thy suburban retreat norther , didst thou
fancy, or satire, are wont to be conveyed, we never observe a melancholy-looking, handsome
should have no hesitation in selecting the brick and stone edifice to the left, where Thread
writings of Charles Lamb. needle Street abuts upon Bishopsgate? I dare
When Lamb published the earliest of his say thou hast often admired its magnificent
Essays of Elia, about 1820, the popularizing portals ever gaping wide, and disclosing to view
process had, it is evident, already made con a grave court, with cloisters and pillars, with
few or no traces of goers-in or comers-out—a
siderable advance. Imbued, as Lamb's mind desolation something like Balclutha's.
was, with a haunting passion for old times “This was once a house of trade, a centre of
and old-world fancies, he would have been busy interests. The throng of merchants was
an inexplicable whim and oddity to his gene here—the quick pulse of gain—and here some
ration, had not that generation become forms of business are still kept up, though the
familiarized to a considerable extent with the soul be long since fled. Here are still to be
£ over which his humour skimmed. seen stately porticoes, imposing staircases,
offices roomy as the state apartments in palaces
ow Lamb can hardly be said to have —deserted, or thinly peopled with a few strag
possessed any strong turn for mediaeval gling clerks; the still more sacred interiors of
court and committee-rooms, with venerable
* See Lockhart's Life of Scott, vol. iii. p. 30. faces of beadles, doorkeepers, directors seated
in form on solemn days (to proclaim a dead But what we do assign to him is the master
dividend), at long worm-eaten tables that have humorist's grace and fancy in handling this
been mahogany, with tarnished gilt-leather
coverings, supporting massy silver inkstands, and other aspects of antiquarianism, and the
long since dry; the oaken wainscots hung with first happy blending of them with the moral
pictures of deceased governors and sub-gover izing sportiveness proper to a popular phi
nors, of Queen Anne, and the two first monarchs losopher. As a teacher in the school of
of the Brunswick dynasty; huge charts, which moral aesthetics, he founded a class-room of
subsequent discoveries have antiquated; dusty his own, and other lecturers have not been
maps of Mexico, dim as dreams, and soundings slow to follow his method. That the particu
of the Bay of Panama!” lar composition of fancy which he initiated,
Pertinent too it is to our present subject does pervade our literature to a very great
to remark the manner in which he proceeds extent at the present day, will not be ques
to describe the personages whose forms min tioned. We do not mean that the one species
gle with these dreary memories of decadence. of sentimental antiquarianism has extinguish
Their interest is made to depend, not on the ed the other, but only that the modern pas
abstract merits or peculiarities of each in sion for retrospective dalliance has gone on
dividual, but on these in an historic point of enlarging its sphere, till, from at first embrac
view, and purely as connected with their ing little save the monk-and-baron-haunted
class-development. It is as a South Sea relics of the middle ages, it has come more
House clerk, and inhabitant of that gloomy recently to invest with a romance of its own
tenement, not as a man in the more general every pile of human habitation connected
sense, like the Eusebiuses and Ignotuses of with roticeable peculiarities of past life and
our elder humorists, that we care to contem character. It is in this department that
plate the insignificant Thomas Tame, with his Leigh Hunt—dubbed on other grounds the
stoop of condescension and inward sense of King of Cockneydom—distinguishing him
heraldic glory, or arithmetical John Tipp and self, and that play is given to the fancies of
his beloved “fractional farthing,” or epi so vast a company of sentimental topograph
grammatic Henry Man, or vocal, rattling ers and biographers, and of humorists more
Plumer. The romance in the background or less worthy of the title, in our day.” It is
of all this “Balclutha” was the South Sea in this department especially that the genius
Bubble, blown and dispersed sixty years” be of Charles Dickens has found its happiest ex
fore the degenerate days of which Lamb ercise. Dickens's conceptions of individual
speaks, but which had once given life and character are extravagant and grotesque;
importance to the desolate precincts. but his sketches of locality, and of class
It is beyond the scope of our present re life as connected with locality, are wonder
marks to attempt any wider consideration of fully graphic and powerful. That they
the effect which the modern retrospective abound in every volume of his writings it
impulse has produced on our literature, — is unnecessary to state, for who is not well
most marked and varied in the fields of phi acquainted with undoubtedly the most popu
lology and history, where the industry of the lar serials of the serial-loving Victorian era !
pioneer has gone on side by side with the And that in the pedigree of literary ideas
ingenuity of the constructor, the research they owe their style and colouring to the
which digs up the literary bones of past ages previous inspiration of Charles Lamb, will
with the skill which adjusts and explains be, we think, sufficiently obvious to any
them, till literary “revival” has become al reader of such passages as the following,
most methodized to a science. We confine taken almost at random from the two earli
ourselves here simply to the province of local est of his tales. The first is a description of
description and allusion, as a special instance London inns in the old days of the road, be
of the sort of sentiment produced by this fore the establishment of the fast-coach sys
powerful direction of intellectual sympathy. tem, which, when Pickwick was written, had
We do not claim for Charles Lamb any not yet broken down before the inexorable
special inventiveness in selecting this vein of advance of steam and rail, though its days
humour to work in. It was, as we have were already numbered, and its sphere con
shown, pointed out by the previous education tracted:—
of taste, and other writers may have been as
early as he was in divining its capabilities. the“There are in London several old inns, once
head-quarters of celebrated coaches, in the
* The first of Lamb's Essays of Elia was published * A glance, for instance, at the table of contents
about 1820. In that concerning the South Sea of such a book as Timbs's Walks and Talks about
House, he says he is writing of his memories forty London (1865), will show how fertile a branch of the
ear back. The great year of the South Sea “bookmaker's" stock-in-trade the popular taste
ubble was, as every one knows, 1720. for antiquities supplies.
*
days when coaches performed their journeys in have been at one time tenanted by persons cf
a graver and more solemn manner than they do better condition than their present occupants;
in these times, but which have now degenerated but they are now let off by the week in floors
into little more than the abiding and booking or rooms, and every door has almost as many
places of country waggons. The reader would plates or bell-handles as there are apartments
look in vain for any of these ancient hostel within. The windows are for the same reason
ries among the Golden Crosses and Bull and sufficiently diversified in appearance, being or
Mouths which rear their stately fronts in the namented with every variety of common blind
improved streets of London. If he would light and curtain that can easily be imagined; while
upon any of these old places, he must direct his every doorway is blocked up and rendered
steps to the obscurer quarters of the town; nearly impassable by a motley collection of
and there, in some secluded nooks, he will find children and porter pots of all sizes, from the
several still standing with a kind of gloomy baby in arms and the half-pint pot, to the full
sturdiness amidst the modern innovations which grown girl and half-gallon can.”
surround them.
And here we would revert to the earlier
“In the Borough especially, there still re
main some half-dozen old inns, which have pre portion of our argument, and take occasion,
served their external features unchanged, and from examples such as these, to remind the
which have escaped alike the rage for public reader how different from anything to be
improvement, and the encroachments of private found in the works of our elder wits and
speculation. Great, rambling, queer old places essayists is the tone of humour adopted by
they are, with galleries and passages and stair
cases wide enough and antiquated enough to these favourite popular writers of our day—
furnish materials for a hundred ghost-stories, different just in this attribute of local senti
supposing we should ever be reduced to the la ment and association. To make the contrast
mentable necessity of inventing any, and that more appreciable, we recommend the reader
the world should exist long enough to exhaust to turn to two numbers of the famous peri
the innumerable veracious legends connected odical already so often cited. We cannot
with old London Bridge, and its adjacent neigh dip into the pages of the Spectator, and not
bourhood on the Surrey side.” perceive that Addison was as true a lover of
the London of his time as Charles Lamb was
Next let us glance at a sketch, in the true
retrospective-picturesque, of an out-of-the-way at a later epoch, and felt, like that delightful
square in the metropolis. The humour—of writer, and others who have caught his
which we have space to give an inadequate spirit, the genuine humorist's delight in
notion only—is distinguished from that of speculating upon life and character in spots
Lamb by being broader, more farcical, less where men do congregate, and the humorist's
quaintly meditative; but it bears a like refer solace in forgetting the burden of self-contem
ence to the accessories of place and associa plation in sympathy for the moving crowds.
tion :— Some of his pleasantest papers are descriptive
of the population and the localities as he
“Although a few members of the graver pro knew them. Thus, in one he sketches the
fessions live about Golden Square, it is not distinctive politics of the different quarters of
exactly in anybody's way to or from anywhere. the metropolis. A report being spread of
It is one of the squares that have been; a the death of Louis xiv., whose wars and am
quarter of the town that has gone down in the bitions had made him as great a bugbear to
world, and taken to letting lodgings. . .
“In that quarter of London in which Golden England then, as a mightier conqueror on
Square is situated, there is a bygone, faded, the throne of France became a century after
tumble-down street, with two irregular rows of wards, the short-faced gentleman takes occa
tall, meagre houses, which seem to have stared sion to visit the various coffee-houses of the
each other out of countenance years ago. The town and city. At St. James's he finds an
very chimneys appear to have grown dismal inner knot of theorists collected round the
and melancholy, from having had nothing bet steam of the coffee-pot, disposing of the whole
ter to look at than the chimneys over the way. Spanish monarchy, and providing for all the
Their tops are battered, and broken, and black
ened with smoke; and here and there some line of Bourbon in less than a quarter of an
hour. At St. Giles's a board of disaffected
taller stack than the rest, inclining heavily to
one side, and toppling over the roof, seems to French gentlemen “sit” upon the life and
meditate taking revenge for half a century's death of the Grand Monarque, and discuss
neglect, by crushing the inhabitants of the gar their own and their friends' chances of re-es
rets beneath. The fowls who peck about the tablished fortunes from his demise. At
kennels, jerking their bodies hither and thither Will's, the resort of wits and authors, the
with a gait which none but town fowls are ever names of Boileau, Racine, and Corneille, are
seen to adopt, and which any country cock or
hen would be puzzled to understand, are per brought in with reference to the event, and
regrets are expressed that they had not lived
fectly in keeping with the crazy habitations of
their owners. . . . to lament it in fitting elegies. At a coffee
“To judge from the size of the houses, they house near the Temple two young lawyers
246 On the “Gothic” Renaissance in English Literature. Dec
-
debate pro and con, with professional acu if such thoughts may have suggested them
men, the claims to the Spanish succession, of selves from time to time, it would seem that,
the Emperor of Austria, and the Duke of | not having been yet worked up into literary
Anjou. In Fish Street, the fishmonger poli “staple,” they were considered wholly inap
tician anticipates an improved sale of pil propriate to be put forth in works designed
chards in consequence of the event. Hn to attract the popular sympathies. It might
Cheapside, the bank-speculator laments his be curious matter of speeulation, perhaps, to
recent sale out of the Funds, which the guess how many and what kind of thoughts
French monarch's death would infallibly send || even now float before the twilight moods of
upwards; and so on. The scenery in the our mind, which make no present impression,
background, the London haunts specified, but belong to a class of ideas destined to form
had, it is evident, their charm for Addison, the literary “staple” of another age. But
but it was an unconscious charm; to make this by the way. We think it is very evi.
them matter of definite literary description dent, as regards our eighteenth century an
would not have occurred to him as relevant cestors aforesaid, that the estimate they
to the tastes of his readers. It was on the formed of their relation to their ancestors,
figures of the piece that the beholder's eye was, on the whole, that of a self-satisfied su
was to be riveted; the localities were dashed periority, which scorned any reference to the
in as necessary but subordinate adjuncts. past, as possessing, in the mere fact of its
And the same remark applies to another historical existence, special grounds for our
paper to which, for a moment, we invite the sympathy or curiosity. On this subject
reader's attention, where he narrates a pere Johnson himself was, in some moods of his
grination by boat and coach through the pugmaeious mind, very little of a philosopher.
thoroughfares of the metropolis, and de “Great abilities,” he said, “are not requisite
scribes the different classes of the population, for an historian, for in historical composition
high and low, pursuing their several avoca all the greatest powers of the human mind
tions during several portions of the twenty are quiescent. IIe has facts ready to his
four hours. “The hours of the day and hand, so that there is no exercise of inven
night are taken up in the cities of London tion. Imagination is not required in any
and Westminster by people as different from high degree,—only about as mnch as is used
cach other as those who are born in dif in the lower kinds of poetry. Some pene
ferent centuries. Men of six of the clock tration, accuracy, and colouring will fit a man
give way to those of nine; they of nine to for the task, if he can give the application
the generation of twelve; and they of twelve which is necessary.” He would have been
disappear and make room for the fashiona content with Faust's summary of the matter
ble world, who have made two of the clock which constitutes history:—
the noon of the day.” It is a really graphic “Ein Kehrichtfasz und eine Rumpelkammer,
description: the fleet of market-gardeners Und höchstens eine Haupt- und Staatsaction,
plying the river with their goods for sale; Mit trefflichen pragmatischen Maximen,
the night hackney-coachmen dispersing in Wiesie den Puppen wohl im Munde ziemen.”
the Strand; the young fruit-buyers jostling
cach other in Covent Garden; the eager bus Once more. Of Addison's graver essays
tle of the Exchange; the ragged ballad none has been more vaunted for its solemn
singer at the corner of Warwick Street; the grace than that on visiting the tombs in
fine ladies flaunting from shop to shop Westminster Abbey. But in reading it one
through St. James's Street and Long Acre. cannot fail to mark how devoid its tone and
And it is precisely the material, which sup treatment are of any of the antiquarian senti
plies food for what we have called the “ro ment professed by the moralists of our time.
mance of brick” in our days; for the men The thoughts which the contemplation of
and women of Queen Anne's time have for that venerable pile suggest to Addison, grand
us that very ancestral prestige which we and impressive thoughts though they are,
think so much of and their haunts are conse have reference to mortality in the general
crated ground to our fancy. But the de sense, in its moral and religious aspects only:
scription itself, as penned by Addison, was local or historical circumstance have no
not inspired by any analogous sentiment. place in them, save as enlarging the acces.
For aught that we can see, the contemplative sories of time and space within which the
moralist of the eighteenth century's morning, philosopher regards our human fate. The
never spent a thought or a care on what his sermon is in the buried dust, but not in the
forefathers of the Tudor and Stuart days, not stones which encase it.
to mention times more remote, ordinarily Still there were places, and there were oc
imagined or enacted in the scenes through
which his own daily footsteps led him. Or * Life, by Boswell (Croker's edition), vol. i. p. 438
1865. On t “Gothic” Renaissance in English Literature. 247
casions, which could hardly fail to awaken in lors, bishops, and judges! Here only is human
some measure the dormant instinct of ro life | Here only the life of man is a rational
mantic association with the older chapters of being ! Here men understand, and are em
English life, even in those non-retroverting ployed in works worthy their noble nature.
This transitory being passes away in an employ
days; and it will not perhaps be without ment not unworthy of a future state,—the con
amusement to exhibit somewhat in detail a
comparison of sentiment between successive
£
Each man
of the great decrees of Providence.
lives as if he were to answer the
observers on visiting the most famous and questions made to Job: ‘Where wast thou
venerable and picturesque of all our provin when I laid the foundation of the earth ? Who
cial cities; the home of Britain's choicest shut up the sea with doors, and said, Hitherto
learning, from the first dawning rays of the thou shalt come and no farther? Such specu
lations make life agreeable, make death wel
middle ages to the broad daylight of these come.”
latter times; the seat of “that ancient insti
tution,” to use the recent words of one of her Next we have Pope describing, in some
most gifted sons while smarting from her un what ornate and careful language, a visit to
kindness, where are “represented, more nobly Oxford from Nuneham, Lord Harcourt's seat,
perhaps, and more conspicuously than in any where at times he was wont to reside. Pope
other place, at any rate with more remarka assuredly was not without the poetic sym
ble concentration, the most prominent fea pathy which yearns towards the past; but to
tures that relate to the past of England.” him it was an emotion calling for claborate
Sir Richard Steele's description of his visit to display, scarcely the overflow of habitual
Oxford, with which we begin, is, as might be thought:—
anticipated, the least coloured by any tinc “The moon rose in the clearest sky I ever
ture of antiqualian sentiment; but then it saw ; by whose solemn light I paced on slowly,
should be mentioned that his purpose in this without company, or any interruption to the
essay is ironical, and is properly a satire range of my thoughts. About a mile before I
upon certain ill-maintained pretensions to reached Oxford, all the bells toll'd in different
learning in the academicians of his day:— notes; the clocks of every college answered one
another, and sounded forth (some in a deeper,
“As I am called forth by the immense love I some a softer tone) that it was eleven at night.
bear to my fellow-creatures, and the warm in All this was no ill preparation to the life I have
clination I feel within me, to stem, as far as I led since, among those old walls, venerable gal
can, the prevailing torrent of vice and igno leries, stone porticoes, studious walks, and soli
rance, so I cannot more properly pursue that tary scenes of the university. I wanted nothing
noble impulse than by setting forth the excel but a black gown and a salary to be as mere
lency of virtue and knowledge in their native a book-worm as any there. I conformed
and beautiful colours. For this reason I made
myself to the college hours, was rolled up in
my late excursion to Oxford, where those quali books, lay in one of the most ancient, dusky
ties appear in their highest lustre, and are the parts of the university, and was as dead to the
only pretences to honour and distinction. world as any hermit of the desert. If anything
Superiority is there given in proportion to men's was alive or awake in me, it was a little vanity,
advancement in wisdom and learning; and that such as even those good men used to entertain
just rule of life is so universally received among when the monks of their own order extolled
those happy people, that you shall see an Earl their piety and abstraction. For I found myself
walk bareheaded to the son of the meanest arti
received with a sort of respect, which this idle
ficer, in respect to seven years' more worth and part of mankind, the learned, pay to their own
knowledge than the nobleman is possessed of species, who are as considerable here as the
In other places they bow to men's fortunes, but busy, the gay, and the ambitious are in your
here to their understandings. It is not to be world.” +
expressed how pleasing the order, the discipline,
the regularity of their lives is to a philosopher The next pilgrim we summon from the
who has by many years' experience in the land of shades is Horace Walpole, writing in
world, learned to contemn everything but what 1753. The spirit of retrospective sympathy
is revered in this mansion of select and well
is conspicuously at work in the few sentences
taught spirits. The magnificence of their
palaces, the greatness of their revenues, the in which he sums up his observations:—
sweetness of their groves and retirements, seem “On my way I dined at Park Place, and lay
equally adapted for the residence of princes and at Oxford. As I was quite alone, I did not
philosophers; and a familiarity with objects of care to see anything; but as soon as it was dark
splendour, as well as places of recess, prepares I ventured out, and the moon rose as I was
the inhabitants with an equanimity for their fu wandering through the colleges, and gave me a
ture fortunes, whether humble or illustrious. charming venerable Gothic scene, which was
How was I pleased when I looked round at not lessened by the monkish appearance of the
St. Mary's, and could, in the faces of the in old Fellows stealing to their pleasures. . . . .
genuous youth, see ministers of state, chancel The whole air of the town charms me; alrd
* Gladstone's speech at the South Lancashire
election, July 18, 1865. * Tatler, No. 39. + Pope's Letters, L 133.
what remains of the true Gothic an-Gibbs'd dent, we apprehend, that the sympathetic
, and the profusion of painted glass, were enter interest in the past which Lamb thus elo
tainment enough to me. . . . . We passed quently describes, had been a growing taste
four days most agreeably, and I believe saw since the middle of the eighteenth century,
more antique holes and corners than Tom
Hearne did in threescore years. You know my and was not wholly the result of that star
rage for Oxford. If King's College would not tling catastrophe which is wont to stand be
take it ill, l don't know but I should retire fore literary historians as the great gulf
thither, and profess Jacobitism, that I might fixed between old-world and modern ways of
enjoy some venerable set of chambers.” thinking. That it was helped forward and
Lastly, let us linger and dream with melli received a more definite character by that
rtuous Lamb, and hear him, in his own un event we do not dispute. Undoubtedly the
rivalled music, declare the nature of the spell overthrow of old institutions and authoritative
which gave the glory to his vision:— creeds did tend, in imaginative natures, to
“To such a one as myself, who has been de endue past things and persons with that tinc
frauded in his young years of the sweet food of ture of romance to which the prosaic present
academic institution, nowhere is so pleasant to seldom attains. But the mine had been
while away a few idle weeks at, as one or opened; revived Gothicism had won its dis
other of the universities. Their vacation too, ciples; the rising literature of Germany, with
at this time of the year, falls in so pat with ours. all its fascinating mysteries of chivalry and
Here I can take my walks unmolested, and
fancy myself of what degree or standing I legend, would have found its vent, war or no
please. I seem admitted ad eundem. I fetch war. We should have missed some inspired
up past opportunities. I can rise at the chapel flights, some kindling imaginations. On the
bell, and dream that it rings for me. In moods other hand, we might have antedated the
of humility, I can be a sizar, or a servitor. calmer investigations of a later day. “AN
When the peacock vein rises, I strut a gentle TIQUITY, THoU wonDRoUs CHARM "we should
man commoner. In graver moments, I proceed still have exclaimed with Charles Lamb.
Master of Arts. Indeed, I do not think I am And will not the time come when an
much unlike that respectable character. I have
seen your dim-eyed vergers, and bedmakers in tiquity too shall have ceased to exert its
spectacles, drop a bow or curtsey as I pass, witching spell? Not, indeed, on the most
wisely mistaking me for something of the sort. imaginative minds, on those to whom the
go about in black, which favours the notion.past, the present, and the future each possess
inly in Christ Church reverend quadrangle, I imperishable sources of ideal power, but on
can be content to pass for nothing short of a the multitude who think their thoughts at
seraphic doctor. second hand, and require a certain amount of
“The walks at these times are so much one's
freshness in the ground-work of their mental
own—the tall trees of Christ's, the groves of
Magdalen! The halls deserted, and with open entertainment. Does not the rapid disappear
doors, inviting one to slip in unperceived, and ance of one after another crazy monument of
pay a devoir to some founder, or noble or royal the elder days, and the re-clothing in modern
benefactress (that should have been ours), brilliancy of others, point to a time when
whose portrait seems to smile upon their over present inventiveness will be all in all, past
looked beadsman, and to adopt me for their achievements nothing? Even now, when
own. Then to take a peep in by the way at wandering through the aisles of some reno
the butteries and sculleries, redolent of antique vated cathedral, or witnessing, in some speci
htspitality; the immense caves of kitchens,
kitchen fireplaces, cordial recesses; ovens whose men of nineteenth-century Gothic, the imita
first pies were baked four centuries ago, and tive skill of a Pugin or a Scott, is it the re
spits which have cooked for Chaucer! Not the trospective sentiment that kindles in us most,
meanest minister aniong the dishes but is hal or is it the admiration of tact and design in the
lowed to me through his imagination, and the adaptations that have supplied former decay,
cook goes forth a manciple. and raised the old art to life in modern
“Antiquity thou wondrous charm, what combinations? New houses of Parliament
art thou ?—that, being nothing, art everything !
When thou wert, thou wert not antiquity; then have sprung up where the old halls of St.
thou wert nothing, but hadst a remoter anti Stephen's once stood. New offices are dis.
# as thou calledst it, to look back to with placing the dingy tenements where Walpole
blind veneration; thou thyself being to thyself and Bolingbroke once swayed the destinies
flat, jejune, modern / What mystery lurks in of Britain. Trim railway stations obliterate
this retroversion ? or what half-Januses are we
the memory of old-world hostelries, and
that cannot look forward with the same idolatry steam movement gives travellers scant time or
with which we for ever revert! The mighty opportunity to think on local traditions, or on
future is as nothing, being everything! the past
is everything, being nothing!” * anything save the business of the passing
From what has been said, it will be evi moment and the prospects of the future.
And so the lingering fancy that dwells among
* Essay on Oxford in the Vacation. the ghosts of dead generations may—it is
1865. The Cattle Plague. 249
no impossible contingency—cease one day to that we find incidental notices of some of

fascinate the busy world. Nay, will the them even in this country.
genuine faculty of humour itself find the lei The fourteenth century was particularly
sure which seems indispensable to its subsis remarkable in England for the frequent oc
tence, when the culminating point shall have currence of human plagues. Fifteen times at
been reached of that material civilisation least, during that century, did black death
which, though now it aids and impels dis and its kindred plagues ravage Europe, some
covery of earth's buried secrets, threatens in times preceded, sometimes followed, by griev
its own imperious demands to absorb more ous murrains among cattle. In the two years
and more man's small span of life and force 1348–1349 a plague of great intensity at
of brain in the schemes and competitions of tacked the horned cattle in England. They
the moment : died by thousands, and the herdsmen, panic
stricken, fled from their herds, which roamed
wildly about the country, carrying the plague
into every district. Many attempts were made
to confine the diseased cattle, but with little
effect, owing to the belief that they could com
ART. VII.—THE CATTLE PLAGUE. municate the plague to man. The harvest
in these years was luckily plentiful, but, not
1. First Report of the Commissioners ap withstanding the abundance of grain, the
pointed to inquire into the Origin and dearth of cattle was severely felt, and the hor
Nature of the Cattle Plague. Presented rors of famine were added to those of the
to Her Majesty, 9th November 1865. plagues among men and beasts. About a
2. Reports to the Lord Provost and Magis century later the murrain among cattle was
trates of Edinburgh on the Cattle Plague. prevalent throughout Europe, and once more
October 1865.
3. Sur les Résultats de l'Inoculation de la fell upon this country. It was again accom
panied by a plague among men. But on this
Peste Bovine, effectuée en Russie depuis occasion the human plague, or “sweating sick
l'année 1853. Paris, 1863. ness,” chiefly fell upon the middle and upper
classes of society, who were thus punished for
PLAGUEs among cattle, like plagues among their gluttony and riotous living; and its ac
men, have in all ages excited marked attention companying murrain among cattle does not
in the countries which they have attacked. appear to have caused such panic in the
“A grievous murrain” which smote the cattle poorer classes as on the occasion of its pre
of Egypt was one of the means employed to
soften the heart of the obdurate Pharaoh. vious visit, when their spirits were weighed
down by repeated assaults of black death.
Classical authors frequently allude to pests The years 1348 and 1480 produced no
among oxen, as every one who has read Ho chroniclers of these murrains, so that we are
mer, Plutarch, Livy, and Virgil will well re unable either to identify or to differentiate
member. Even the contagious character of between them and the cattle plague of our
these plagues is described by Columella, in his own time. The preventive measures used
De Re Rustica, at the beginning of the by the Governments of both periods are how
Christian era; while Vegetius, three centuries ever identical. The separation of diseased
later, enlarges upon this theme, and prescribes from sound stock, so long since recommended
the course adopted by our rulers in the nine by Vegetius, was then adopted as now ; and
teenth century, that plague-stricken beasts the free use of the pole-axe to slaughter sus
should “with all diligence and care be sepa pected animals was encouraged then, as it has
rated from the herd, and be put apart by been in the Order of Council during the
themselves, and that their carcasses be bu present year.
ried.” It is not, however, our purpose to Till the last year of the reign of Queen
describe the frequent plagues which have de Anne, our country was not again visited by
vastated Europe in the middle ages. The any extensive murrain among cattle. This
ninth century was particularly afflicted with plague, like its successors in 1745, 1768, and
them, Charlemagne having sown their seeds 1865, first appeared in the neighbourhood of
broadcast during the movements of his army, London, and swept off many cattle. But the
as Fracastorius and Weierus have fully re pole-axe was used unsparingly; the slaugh
corded. We would leap over the history of tered cattle were buried deep under the earth;
these ancient plagues altogether, were it not and the plague was soon stamped out, without
extending its ravages much beyond the home
* In the year 376 the cattle plague was all over
Europe, and Cardinal Baronius assures us that no counties. Thirty years later the plague once
cattle escaped, except such as were marked on the more invaded the country and held it with a
forehead with the sign of the Cross. firm grip for twelve years; but before re
250 The Cattle Plague. Del
counting the evil that it did then, and the murrain. The armies of the Allies, unde
experience which it has left for our guidance Marlborough and Prince Eugene, frequentl
now, it is necessary to become acquainted carried it in their train, or received it in th
with its general prevalence in Europe during capture of commissariat cattle from th
the eighteenth century, for it is from this French. Holland, from 1713 to 1723, los
period that our scientific knowledge of the more than 200,000 cattle, and then had
murrain begins to be developed. period of repose from its ravages. In a
The wars which prevailed during the eight most every instance during this century, w
eenth century diffused the plague all through find the plague spreading with violenc
Europe, as a natural consequence of the parks whenever Russian and Austrian troops pene
of cattle which were formed in the rear of trated westward, or when the troops of othe
the armies. The years 1711 to 1714 were countries commingled with the formel
especially remarkable for the mortality caused either in war or peace. This was speciall
by the plague in Western Europe, no less observed in the War of Succession, on th
than one million five hundred thousand cat death of Charles v1. in 1740. It is familia
tle having perished by the murrain during to every reader of history, that the Hunga
these years. On the 17th August 1711, Count rians warmly espoused the cause of Mari
Trajan Borromeo, a canon of 'adua, S&W a Theresa, and as the tide of war surged back
stray and way-worn ox upon his estate, and, wards and forwards, the Hungarian cattl
instigated by humane motives, gave it shelter used to feed the Austrian armies, carrie
in a cowshed. This ox was soon reclaimed with them the seeds of the plague, an
by its owner, who stated that it had strayed again spread them broadcast over Europe
from an Hungarian ; herd belonging to the Frederick the Great, in his frequent encout
commissariat of the Austrian army. About ters with the Austrians and Russians, too.
a week after this unlucky visit, the cattle in the back this cattle plague, as his Nemesis, t
shed which had sheltered the Hungarian beast Prussia. In eight years after the death o
began to sicken, and shortly afterwards died of the Emperor Charles VI, the west and cen
a malignant pest. The season was fine, and tre of Europe alone lost three millions o
unusually dry; but the pest spread rapidly horned beasts. This was a period of interest t
through the Count's herds, and from them England, and demands careful consideration
extended widely, passing on to Milan, Ferra Late in the year 1744, or more probably
ra, the Campagna of Rome and Naples, early in 1745, a murrain broke out amon,
travelled through Sardinia and Piedmont, English cattle. The writers of that period
then through Dauphiny into France, traversed especially Mortimer, the secretary of th
Switzerland, scaled the Mountains of the Ty Royal Society, and Layard, the eminent phy
rol, spread over Germany, and penetrated sician, agree in ascribing its importation t
into Holland, from whence it is supposed two white calves brought over from Hollan
to have been imported into England. Italy by a farmer living at Poplar near London
did not get rid of it for seven years. Pope Shortly after the arrival of these calves
Clement x1, lost 30,000 cattle in his States some cows on the same farm sickened. Th
during this period, and was so affected by the
distemper spread among the cattle in th
losses, that he published regulations for the
lower part of Essex, and soon reached Lon
suppression of the plague, on which our owndon, which now, through the metropolita
Privy Council, during the existing attack, market, passed it into different parts of th
have made little improvement. The Pope country. Still it did not travel rapidly, fol
ordered diseased cattle to be slaughtered, although the Government issued a Commis
sion in November to prevent its spread, th
their hides to be slashed, so that they might
not be used for making leather, and their powers of the Commission extended only t
carcasses to be buried along with quicklime.
Middlesex. Inspectors, who were butcher
But, instead of the £20 penalty which our and cowkeepers, were appointed to examin
Privy Council exact for an infringement of cowsheds, in order to separate sick an
the order, the Pope ordained that every man sound beasts. The former were killed an
infringing these rules should be sent to the buried twelve feet under ground, their hide
gallows if he were a laic, and to the galleys being well slashed, and their carcasse
if he were an ecclesiastic. And yet, with covered with two bushels of quicklime. A
these Draconic laws, it took the Pope seven compensation by the Government of fort.
years to expel the plague from his States. shillings, or about half the average price c
During this period, Piedmont lost 80,000 cattle at the period, was given for eac
oxen, and the neighbouring countries in a slaughtered beast. The progress of the dis
like proportion. temper was so slow that Government did no
The wars of Louis XIV., until his death in treat it as a national evil until one year afte
1715, aided much in the propagation of the its outbreak. In February 1746, an Ac
was passed, enabling the King to issue Orders by oath. No such passes shall be issued
in Council for its suppression, and the first unless the distemper has ceased for six weeks
Order is dated on the 12th of March in that on the pastures or sheds of the cattle-owner.
year. This Order states that his Majesty These measures produced a very partial
had consulted the learned men of his domi effect, so that a new Act was passed in 1747,
nion, who agreed that they knew of no cure giving to the King increased powers. This
for the disease; and it even deprecates the Act was followed by continuing and extend
attempts at cure, “for while means are used ing Acts up to 1757. Many other Orders
to save the sick, the disease spreads among in Council were issued during this period,
the sound, and is increased more and more bewailing local apathy, and urging increased
in proportion to the numbers seized with it.” exertion. Sometimes all the fairs in the
Hence the pole-axe was made the radical country are stopped for two or three months;
cure in 1746, as it has been by our present at other times the stoppage is limited to
Government one hundred and twenty years country fairs, fat stock being still allowed to
afterwards. This first Order in Council then be exposed for immediate slaughter. A few
proceeds to give directions, which have ob counties got rid of the pestilence, but the
viously dictated those issued in the present neighbouring counties harboured it, and
year, and are little more than a transcript of passed over to the adjacent ones; so now
the rules laid down by Pope Clement x1.* arose a war of county against county, the
Plague-stricken beasts are to be killed and healthy district proscribing the infected one,
buried with lime; the litter infected by them watching its roads and every outlet, so that
must be burned, and the sheds in which they no beasts, either sick or sound, should be
died are to be cleansed, fumigated with sul allowed to pass. In the second year of the
phur or gunpowder, and washed over with plague, 100,000 head of cattle perished in
vinegar and water. Men who tended ailing Lincolnshire; in the third year, Nottingham
beasts are not to go near sound stock till shire lost 40,000, and Cheshire 30,000, while
they have changed their clothes and washed many other counties suffered in similar pro
their bodies. Convalescent cattle are not to portion. In the face of these heavy losses,
be brought in contact with sound stock for a the Government gathered itself up for a des
month. Travelling cattle are to be stopped perate effort, and at the end of I749 prohi
on the highways for examination, and the bits the movement of all stock, whether fat
sick beasts must be slaughtered. The local or lean; permitting slaughter only within
authorities, who are intrusted with the exe two miles of where any beast may be, on
cution of this order, may appoint inspectors the 14th January 1750. The object of this
to see the rules enforced. Eight months prohibition was to let the disease burn itself
passed, but the local authorities failed to out without the possibility of extension.
justify the confidence reposed in them. So But London and Westminster made a huge
a second Order in Council laments the want clamour, fearing a famine, for roads were
of local co-operation, and directs that, after then few and bad, and dead meat could not
the 27th December 1746, “No person do reach these cities in good condition. The
send or drive any ox, bull, cow, calf, steer, or opposition to the Order became so great that
heifer, to any fair, market, or town in Eng it was revoked before it came into operation.
land; or do buy, sell, or expose for sale, any The Privy Council now became faint-hearted,
ox, etc., except fat cows and oxen ready for and left the war to counties, only interfering
immediate slaughter.” The Order further now and then in cases of grave evil-doing.
directs that no fatted cattle shall be allowed So the disease wore itself out by pure ex
to be taken from an infected herd; and to haustion, the animals susceptible to its in
insure this order being obeyed, all cattle fluence having mostly perished, until, in
going for slaughter must be provided with February 1759, a general thanksgiving an
passes, or clean bills of health, given by a nounced its cessation, no cases having oc
Justice of the Peace, upon information sworn curred in the previous year, and a few only
in 1757.
* But the Pope stole his ideas from Vegetius, There is no record of the losses which the
who took them from Virgil, and he from country experienced during the twelve years.
Varro:—
“At length whole herds to death at once it The system of compensation for slaughtered
sweeps; animals would appear to offer a means of re
High in the stalls it piles the loathsome heaps, cord, but it was soon abandoned, as it led to
Dire spectacle!, till sage experience found the most serious frauds. Every animal suf
To bury deep the carrion in the ground. fering from disease of any kind was knocked
Useless their hides; nor from the flesh the
flame on the head, and classed as a plague-stricken
Could purge the filth, nor steams the savour beast, in order to insure Government com
tame.”-VIRGIL, Georg. iii. 556. pensation. A more serious evil still re
252 The Cattle Plague. Dec.
sulted; for the payment of losses dimi. ended his statistical inquiry, more than two
nished the motive to exertion, on the part hundred millions of horned cattle were cut
of local authorities, for the extirpation of the off by the disorder in Western Europe.
murrain. The Treasury I' therefore, The plague followed, as we have seen, in
afford no clue to the number of cattle which the wake of Russian and Austrian armies,
succumbed to the plague, but it must have and was propagated by them to allied or op
reached to upwards of 500,000. posing armies. The questions now arise:—
It is curious to read the Gentleman's Ma Are these plagues the natural consequence of
gazine from 1745 to 1757, and see how his aggregations of cattle following in the rear of
tory repeats itself. We find in it apparently armies, under circumstances of over-march
the same energetic correspondents who now ing and bad feeding; or have they a com
send their lucubrations to the Times, protest mon birthplace from which they spread?
ing against the use of the pole-axe, advocat The first question may safely be answered in
ing or opposing the system of compensation the negative, for armies operating at a dis
for slaughtered cattle, framing insurance tance from Russian and Austrian commissa
societies, fighting against ideas of contagion riats never experience this form of disease.
and importation of the disease, and describ During the warlike reigns of Louis xiv. and
ing all kinds of cure. We have not yet seen Louis xv., the pest was six times in France,
one method of cure tried in 1865 which was but from 1800 to 1814 it was free from the
not tried and found wanting in the plague of scourge, although still engaged in active war
1745. Even Miss Burdett Coutts' liberal fare. The distemper was only again intro
treatment of the cows at Holly Lodge, with duced when the French armies came into colli
calomel, yeast, castor-oil, porter, port, brandy, sion with the Austrian and Russian troops;
and whisky, is to be found in these old chro and it left France in 1816, after the withdrawal
nicles. Copious bleeding and setons in the of the allied forces. During this time Ger
neck were, of course, from the habit of the many was grievously smitten with the plague.
time, much resorted to; two quarts of blood, A further answer to the question is obtained
morning and evening, being not thought too by the experience of the wars in India, Al
much, till it was observed that bled beasts giers, and America,” where no cattle plague
never recovered. Even Mr. Graham's sweat appears as a consequence of moving armies.
ing system was well known, but did not But English commissariat cattle were seized
yield favourable results. We do not recol with it in the Crimea as soon as we came
lect to have seen any proofs that the disorder in contact with Russian troops.
made its way over to Ireland during this pe We come now to the second question, Has
riod, though there are some customs now this plague a birthplace? The experience of
extant among the Irish peasantry which a century tells us that the steppes of Euro
incline us to believe that they at one time pean Russia form either its birthplace or its
suffered from the murrain. Thus, lighting nursery. The lower third part of the Dnie
bonfires on the eve of St John's Day, and per, with its numerous affluents, until it emp
pitching into them, probably as a sacrifice, ties itself into the Black Sea, is surrounded
live hedgehogs, those traditional cow-suckers, by Russian provinces, which breed about
and chasing cattle with burning wisps of eight millions of cattle to feed on the luxuri
straw, show the old methods of burning a ant herbage of the steppes. Among these
plague out of a country, and getting up per herds this cattle plague or “Rinderpest”
spiration in affected beasts. constantly prevails, though by no means so
It will be seen that the experience of the virulently as 'it does when it penetrates
plague of 1745 is highly valuable, though Western Europe. As soon as the good
most discouraging, both as to the use of pre season begins, merchants, who are gene
ventive and curative measures. It is certain rally Jews, buy up cattle in the steppes
that the distemper then was entirely identi and carry them to fairs for sale. Some of
cal with that prevailing now, for the old the most notable of these fairs are held in
descriptions of the symptoms, and of the Beltzy in Bessarabia, Elizabetgrad in Kerson,
morbid anatomy, do not leave the least Balta in Podolia, and Berditchev in Volhy
ground for doubt. nia. Balta has at least 500,000 head of cattle
With this description of the long plague at its fairs in a single season. From these
in England, and referring to Dossie's essay centres of traffic, great herds of cattle are
of 1771 for an account of the short outbreak driven to feed the populations of Russia
in 1768, we must conclude our historical re
trospect, and pass to subjects more immedi
ately interesting to us. We may merely tirpated * America, indeed, claims credit for having ex
the plague recently in Massachusetts; but
mention, as the result of careful inquiries by on reading the description it is clear that this at
Dr. Faust, that, from 1711 to 1796, when he tack was not the rinderpest but pleuro-pneumohia.
Proper, Poland, and Hungary with its de Kurnthen and Venice. At this moment it is
pendencies. Our interest in the cattle which still in Hungary, and has attacked sheep as
are distributed through Russia is limited, for, well as horned beasts. This has been a pe.
with the exception of the famous Revel car culiarity of the recent irruption of the pest,
go, we have no direct dealings in live cattle for before 1863 Poland also had never ex
with that empire, though it may be well to perienced its extension to sheep.
mention that the steppe cattle rarely reach We draw attention to these facts, because
as far as St. Petersburg. But it is otherwise it must be apparent that the completion of
as regards Poland and Hungary, for the the two great lines of railway which, travers
former receives infected stock, which may ing Southern and Central Germany, connect
pass the Prussian frontiers, and the latter Rotterdam and Hamburg with Pesth and
supplies weekly the metropolitan market Lemberg, have opened up to us the supplies
with the long-horned breed of oxen. The of Hungary and Galicia, and have vastly in
Russian provinces of Podolia, the Ukraine, creased the danger of a constant importation
and Volhynia, annually supply Poland with of this plague. In fact, through Rotterdam,
about 30,900 head of cattle of the steppe and under the name of Dutch beasts, we have
kind; and though Poland fights manfully of late frequently recognised in the metro
against the introduction of the pest, it fre politan market the long-horned oxen of
quently crosses over her borders and commits Hungary. If we have been rightly informed
devastation among the native herds. Cattle by an official on the Galician railway, there
for immediate slaughter are admitted into is scarcely any quarantine for beasts destined
Poland after three days’ quarantine, but lean for exportation, the old rules being now
cattle, and those destined for exportation, un found inapplicable to the modern demands of
dergo twenty-one days' detention. Our Con speedy transit. It seems to be quite certain
sul at Warsaw, writing on 4th April 1857, that steppe oxen can carry about on their
draws the attention of the Foreign Office to hides the virus of the plague, without them
this subject:—“I beg very particularly to selves being necessarily smitten by it, al
draw your Lordships' attention to this part of though, on being overdriven, underfed, or
the subject, it being beyond doubt that badly watered on their journey, the plague
vast numbers of steppe cattle find their breaks out with virulence. Scientific men
way, in consequence of the railway exten have kept this poisonous matter for three,
sion, to all parts of Germany, a few days six, and even eleven months without any de
after the Austrian and Prussian frontier terioration of its properties, the proof being
has been passed by them. The trade in that it still possessed the power of communi
live stock is very active, and every new cating the distemper to an ox by inoculation.
mile of railway tends to produce, on the It is quite possible, therefore, that an animal
Continent of Europe, an equalization in the might carry about the poison in a dry state
price of cattle, similar to what we have al on its skin, hoofs, or horns, and that the
ready seen in England on a smaller scale.” contagium only begins to reproduce itself
Luckily for this country, Prussia, when she under favourable conditions for its growth.
is at peace, has hitherto been a rampart There are not a few people in this country,
against the extension of the plague, for the who, in spite of the evidence of men of
police measures to destroy diseased cattle, science, persist in believing that the murrain
and even dogs and birds, which might carry which now prevails is a disease of spontane
infection over the borders, are prompt and ous origin, or of home growth, quite different
severe. But smuggling still takes place, so from the plague of 1745, and not identical
that the disease occasionally breaks out in with the cattle distemper of Germany called
the border villages. Round these military Rinderpest, or, as it is known in France, the
cordons are drawn, and the pest is stamped typhus contagieux des bêtes a cornes. It is
out with merciless rigour. necessary to convince such people of the ab
Austria has never been so successful in her solute identity of these murrains, otherwise
preventive measures. Nearly a hundred all the experience so dearly won by England
thousand steppe cattle are believed to pass in the last century will be lost to them, and
annually into Galicia and Hungary. Every that acquired by foreign States, who, un
six or seven years the pest appears to ravage happily for them, are more familiar with the
the herds of the latter country. In the three disease than this country, cannot be brought
years 1849–1851, it attacked 300,000 head to bear for the common advantage of the
of cattle, while in 1863 it was more severe public. To remove such doubts, we insert
than on any previous occasion, having seized descriptions of the symptoms of the plague
on 14 per cent. of all the cattle in Austria, at present in the country, of that in Poland
with the exception of Silesia, Bohemia, by Professor Seifman, and of the old plague
Upper Austria, Salzburg and the Tyrol, of 1745, by Dr. Layard, from his Essay of
1757. The official description used in the has yet been published in this country. The
Orders in Council, and understood to be disease is justly described as chiefly affecting
drawn up by Professor Simonds, is as fol the mucous membranes, there being a gene
lows:— ral congestive but non-inflammatory vascu
“The cattle show great depression of the
larity of these membranes, especially in the
vital powers, frequent shivering, staggering gait, alimentary tract. The disease is not analo
cold extremities, quick and short breathing, gous either to typhoid or typhus fever, as has
drooping head, reddened eyes, with a discharge been often asserted ; but more so to an in
from them, and also from the nostrils, of a ternal mucous scarlatina. The stomachs of
mucous nature, raw-looking places on the inner the animal generally contain an enormous
side of the lips, and roof the mouth, diarrhoea or
mass of dry undigested food, often amounting
dysenteric purging.” to one or two hundred pounds in weight, so
The Polish Professor's description of the that this acts as a sponge to absorb new
symptoms, as displayed in pest-stricken liquid food or medicine, and resists their ab
beasts of his country, is similar, though dif: sorption into the system. The complete ar
ferently expressed:— rest of the digestive functions is owe of the
marked characteristics of the disease.
“The beast eats little, stops its rumination, The mode in which the distemper is com
becomes nervous; the mucous membranes, gum, municated from sick to sound beasts is more
mouth, etc., throw out pimples; there is a run
interesting to us at present than either its
ning at the eyes and nose, and this running
diagnosis or pathology. No one, who has
after a time gives out an offensive smell; an of
given to it a real study, can doubt for a mo
fensive diarrhoea ensues, the beast coughs, be
ment that it is eminently contagious. By
comes thinner, sometimes grinds its teeth, lies
down with its head at one side, and dies with
this we mean that there is a specific entity
out effort.” which causes the disease, and has the power
Layard, in his Essay On the Contagious of propagating its own species rapidly under
Listemper among the Horned Cattle, anno favourable circumstances. Rather than give
1757, p. 24, says: our own views on this head, we prefer to
quote those very clearly expressed by Dr.
“The first appearance of this infection is a Simon, the medical officer of heaith to the
decrease of appetite; a poking out of the neck,
implying some difficulty in deglutition; a shak Privy Council:—
ing of the head as if the ears were tickled, a “The several zymotic diseases are aetiologi
hanging down of the ears, a dulness of the eyes. cally quite distinct from one another. How their
After that, a stupidity and unwillingness to
move, great debility, total loss of appetite, a respective first contagia arose is, as regards
running at the eyes and nose. A con nearly all of them, quite unknown. This, in
stant diarrhoea, roofs of their mouths and barbs pathology, is just such a question as in physi
ulcerated. They groan much, are worse in the ology is ‘the origin of species. Indeed, it is
evening, and mostly lie down.” hardly to be assumed as certain that these ap
parently two questions may not be only two
Of the three accounts, we prefer that of phases of one. Hourly observation tells us that
old Layard as being the best description of the contagium of small-pox will breed small
the disease as most frequently seen by us, al pox, that the contagium of typhus will breed
typhus, that the contagium of syphilis will breed
though there are small variations; for syphilis, and so forth; that the process is as
example, the outward eruptions, which Lay regular as that by which dog breeds dog, and
ard states were not unfrequent along the cat cat, as exclusive as that by which dog never
limbs, are not so characteristic of the present breeds cat, nor cat dog; and, prospectively, we
attack. We might, in the same way, give are able to predict the results of certain expo
three anatomical descriptions, which would sures to contagion as definitely as the results of
show the identity of the disease in the time any other chemical experiment. But, retro
of Layard with that now prevalent in Eng spectively, we have not the same sort of cer
tainty, for we cannot always trace the parent
land and abroad, but these might be too age of a given case of small-pox or measles.
much for the patience of the general reader. And here, notwithstanding the obvious difficul
We refer with approbation to the description ties of proof either way, some persons will dog
of the dissections given by Dr. Smart in the matize that there must have been an overlooked
excellent and practical Report of the Edin inlet for contagium, while others will dogmatize
burgh Committee, over which Dr. Andrew that there must have been in the patient's body
Wood presided. This committee worked an independent origination of the specific
with uncommon energy, and produced a re chemical change. Presuming (as may pretty
confidently be presumed) that in the history of
port in about a week after they were ap mankind there was once upon a time a first
pointed by the Lord Provost and Magistrates small-pox case, a first typhus case, a first
—a report which, in reality, contains the syphilis case, etc., and admitting our entire ig
best description of the morbid anatomy that norance as to the combination of circumstances
under which those first cases respectively came period of incubation is usually from five to
into existence, we have no scientific reasons for seven days, although, occasionally, it varies
denying that new “spontaneous generations of from three to nine days; during this time the
such contagia may take place. But as regards
some of the diseases, there are conclusive rea animal enjoys nearly its usual health, and
sons against supposing that this is of frequent might readily be sold and transported as a
occurrence. Where we can observe isolated sound beast. It is alleged that an animal in
populations (this applies just as much to measles the incubative stage may communicate the
as to small-pox), we find very long periods disease.
elapse without any new rise of certain ‘species’ We have as yet not indicated the amount
of disease (and 120 years have elapsed in the of the mortality of the plague, for it, in fact,
case of the murrain, and the same thing occurred varies much in different countries. One law
with regard to the measles in the Faroe
Islands). For instance, in 1846, the contagium has been made out with tolerable certainly,–
of measles was imported by a sick sailor into that the more the bovine plague advances
from the Russian steppes to the north or
one of the Faroe Islands, and led to an epidemic
which attacked more than 6000 out of the 7782 west, the more its malignity increases. This
inhabitants, sparing only the persons who pre is only consonant with the experience of
viously had had the disease, and 1500 who were other diseases, such as small-pox, which proves
kept out of reach of contagion; but before that fatal enough with us, but acts as the most
time there had not for sixty-five years been in
those islands a single case of measles. It is the malignant pest when it deserts its usual
same thing in the steppe murrain.” source, and sojourns among the South Sea
islanders or American Indians. The Rinder
In fact, nothing can be more definite than pest, in its native steppes, carries off about
the contagious virus of the cattle plague. It one-half, or 50 per cent, of the cattle which
has been known from remote antiquity, for, it attacks; when it reaches Hungary, the
whenever we have an accurate description of mortality rises to 65 per cent.; and in our
it, the characters of the pest are essentially own country it is upwards of 90 per cent.
the same; it reproduces itself with as much Numerous attempts have been made to
definiteness as one mushroom gives birth to mitigate the severity of the disease by inocu
another. The contagion is swift and subtle lation. This was extensively practised in the
in the highest degree, and travels about with last century all over Europe, but with such
such stealthiness that its presence is often bad results that it was forbidden by law in
unsuspected, until it has passed into the blood various countries. A sound animal may
of its victims, and manifests itself by terriblyeasily be inoculated by scarifying the skin,
destructive effects. At first there is no diffi and rubbing into the wound some of the
culty in tracking the course of the distemper, mucous matter which runs from the eyes or
for it travels with animals, which have come from the nose. It is usual to do this in the
from some known centre of infection, to other inside of the ear, but sometimes a hollow
sound beasts which have sojourned with needle is introduced into the dewlap, the
them. But, after a time, its spread cannot matter being passed in by this means. When
be clearly traced. Dogs and sheep which a beast has been thus inoculated, the period
have been near infected cattle have been of incubation is the same as when it receives
known to carry the contagion to great dis the poison by contagion. The symptoms are
tances; even pigeons and hens, which have generally as severe, and the mortality is not
looked for grains in the excrements of lessened. But there is this advantage, that an
diseased cattle, have become the unsuspected infected herd may be made to pass through
media to pass over the contagion to sound the disease in eight days, instead of having it
oxen. The attendants on sick beasts carry lingering about the premises for a month or
the contagious virus on their clothes, hands, two, with increased chances of spreading the
and even their hair, to healthy cattle; the infection through the country. The inocu
veterinary surgeon does not escape from being lating matter, if protected from air, can, as
considered a dreadful vehicle of infection. we have already stated, be kept for several
Still waters and running streams, which have months unchanged.
received the drainage of infected sheds or Although our own experience in inoculation
pastures, become channels for propagating is very discouraging, that of Russia is much
the contagium; and the wind carries with it more favourable, and holds out the hope that
particles of virus from one farm to another, in time the pest may be as much repressed at
at least for a distance of two hundred yards. its birthplace, as the small-pox has been by
The public roads on which sick cattle have vaccination. Professor Jessen of Dorpat has
travelled become altogether infected for given the results of Russian experiments in
sound cattle which may be driven over them. the pamphlet which we have placed at the
This subtle poison enters into the body of a head of this article, and other scientific in
beast, and incubates for a fixed time. The vestigators, such as Haller, Vicq d'Azyr,
Abildgaard, Adami, Wiborg, and Kausch have virus is taken from the sheep, and passed
added considerably to our knowledge of this back again to cattle.
important subject. One of their main results Having now become acquainted with an
is, that the intensity of the inoculating virus outline of the history of the pest and of its
decreases, according as it passes through a general characters, we are in a position to
succession of beasts, or, as it is technically examine with advantage the irruption which
termed, through successive “generations.” it has made into our country this year, the
Thus, at the Veterinary School of Charkow best and speediest means of getting rid of it,
50 per cent, or the normal number, of steppe and the precautions which ought to be
oxen died at the first inoculation, but after adopted to prevent its recurrence.
the inoculating matter had passed through The disease first appeared in this country
six cows, the seventh generation, or running at Lambeth, in the metropolis, on the 24th
from the nose of the sixth inoculated cow, of ydal'nn se subsequently, on the 27th of
only produced one death in thirteen cases. June, in two other dairies in Islington and
In 1853 upwards of a thousand beasts were Hackney. But all of these dairies had, on
inoculated with matter of the seventh genera the 19th of June, bought fresh cows in the
tion, and not more than sixty died. In 1854 metropolitan market, so that the source of
it was determined to inoculate oxen in the contagion was clearly traceable to it, the
steppes themselves, and a large number were usual variations in the period of incubation
so treated, with the astonishing success that being allowed. But how came the seeds of
not a single animal died. . This was a pecu the disease into the London market? The
liarly favourable year; but, notwithstanding veterinary surgeons, led by Spooner, Simonds,
the exceptional character of the result, it and Gamgee, reply without hesitation that it
holds out hopes that means may be dis was introduced by a cargo of Russian cattle
covered to mitigate the intensity of the virus. which had been imported from Revel a short
Although none of these inoculated animals time before the plague was manifested; and
died in 1854, and few even sickened, they it becomes important to examine this case
were all found to be efficiently protected closely, for doubtless this was the first cargo
against future attacks of the disease. Many of Russian cattle which reached England, and
of them were confined in the same sheds one part of Russia, though a part far removed
with beasts suffering from the Rinderpest at from Revel, is the seat of the distemper.
intervals for several years, but none of them Twenty-six days before the first outbreak,
received the contagion. In 1857 the Grand and eighteen before the cows had been
Duchess Helen founded an institution for ino bought in the metropolitan market, a portion
culation on her property of Karlowka in of the Revel cargo had been exposed and
Poltava, with such success that only 3 per sold, though none of them went to the in
cent. of the inoculated animals died. It fected dairies, as they were only fit for
must, however, be distinctly borne in mind immediate slaughter. The cargo numbered
that these favourable results have only been originally 321 head of cattle, besides sheep.
obtained with oxen of the steppe race. Cat They were all bought in the province of
tle of other races are much more unfavour Esthonia except thirteen, that province being
ably disposed to inoculation. Before mitiga quite free from the plague. These thirteen
tion of the virus appears in their case, it animals came from St. Petersburg, according
must pass through from thirteen to fifteen gen to the agent, although his principal denies
erations. Drouyn de L'Huys, in his proposal this statement. St. Petersburg is some dis
for a Sanitary Congress at Constantinople, tance from Revel, and notwithstanding that
with the view of damming up cholera at its they came in four horse waggons, a week
source, so that it may not reach Europe, has must have lapsed in their march, for the dis
given us a hint, which might be well applied tance is 200 miles. The pest had been in
to the cattle plague. Why should Central the neighbourhood of the capital last Novem
and Western Europe be periodically devas ber, though not for several months previous
tated by this murrain, when it might be pre to the transaction. The agent found four
vented by the inoculation of the cattle in the of the beasts not in a condition to travel
steppes? We may mention, in conclusion of with him, so they were sold at Revel to
this part of our subject, that sheep and goats butchers; the nature of their illness does not
may readily be inoculated from cattle. Some appear. On the 23d of May the cargo
times they resist the disease; but in six cases, started from Revel, and arrived at Hull upon
tried under our own inspection, all the sheep the 28th. One beast sickened on the route,
took the distemper in its most virulent form, but recovered on the administration of
and all of them died. Unfortunatly, according brandy. On the arrival of the steamer, the
to Professor Röll of Vienna, there is no miti cattle were specially examined by two vete
gation of the disease, when the inoculating rinary surgeons, who passed them as sound
and free from disease. At Hull 146 cattle able for its growth, so that we may hope,
were sold and sent to the Midland Counties, though only faintly, that this has been a year
into none of which did they introduce the peculiarly favourable to the development of
disease. The remaining 175 were sent to the murrain. We know that typhus fever
London and sold on the 2d of June. We propagates itself most extensively in dry sea
are already aware that the period of incuba sons, and the dryness of the summer may
tion of the contagion is eight days, but have been one cause of the extension of the
during the nine days of transit from Revel to murrain throughout the country. The ex
London these oxen showed no plague. The tent of the ravages of the plague is only im
Customs authorities were on the alert, and perfectly known, for it is the interest of cow
had sent special instructions to Hull for the keepers to keep their losses concealed lest
examination of this particular cargo, so that their credit should suffer. It is true that,
the two highly intelligent veterinary inspec under penalty, they must report to the Coun
tors who examined them could not have failed cil Office when plague attacks their sheds,
to have detected the plague had it been but if the cowkeeper has fifty cattle he often
present in the herd. This cargo left no in allows forty-five to die or be slaughtered, and
feetion on its departure from Hull, and took reports the remaining five to Government.
none with those cattle which were trans If we are to believe the official reports, only
mitted to the Midland Counties, Nor is it 5086 cattle perished of the disease or were
till eighteen days after their sale in the Lon slaughtered in consequence of it in the me
don market that the disease appears. The tropolis up to the end of October; but com
whole story breaks down; its only support petent authorities assert that this is con
having been the statements of the agent, siderably less than half the true number. In
who fancied that the sick oxen at Revel and fact, of 15,000 head of cattle kept in London
the beast that showed signs of indisposition and its neighbourhood before the attack, it
on board, might have had the plague. This may be asserted without much misgiving
man had never seen the disease, and his that 12,000 have perished. Large establish
statement was an afterthought, made when he ments lost their whole stock, even when, as
had quarrelled with his employer. The name in the case of Lord Granville's and Miss
of Russia frightened our veterinary surgeons, Burdett Coutts' dairies, they were carefully
who for some years had foreseen the possi tended.
bility of the importation of the pest, and Early in July the Metropolitan market be
naturally connected its appearance with this gan to infect various parts of the country.
cargo; indeed, it is unfortunate for us that In fact, all the first cases of the disease in the
the explanation is not so simple. But we English counties were traceable to diseased
might be put off our guard altogether if we beasts bought in London. One case must
accepted a false solution of the problem, for serve as an example: Mr. Leeds, of Whit
it is perhaps more probable, and certainly well, in Norfolk, bought twenty-six Dutch
more to be feared, that the disease may have bullocks in the metropolitan market on the
come to us in our traffic with Galicia and 1st of July; and Mr. Gooch, writing to Pro
Hungary, both of which pest-infected coun fessor Simonds at the end of the month,
tries send to the London market constant says:
supplies of cattle. Her Majesty's Consul “Mr. Leeds has lost thirteen out of the twen
General at Hamburg states that Hungarian ty-six Dutch beasts. When they first came
cattle did introduce the plague to Utrecht, in home he divided them into two lots, -one at
Holland, last May, and suggests that it may Whitwell of eighteen, and eight at Themble
have passed from that country to England. thorpe, about four miles distant. First, as re
Whether this be true or not, it is certain that gards the Whitwell lot, they have all had the
the first beasts which were found to be af disease, and eight are dead; the remaining ten
flicted with it in London, were newly bought appear to be recovering: some have been very
Dutch cows. It will be obvious that for the bad. They were mixed with four others, which
have all taken it, and one has died, one better,
future, with the increasing facilities of rail the other two suffering, and I do not think they
way traffic, it must be difficult to prevent will live. At Whitwell there is a common adjoin
the importation of the pest into this country. ing Mr. Leeds with about thirty cattle on it;
At the same time, Professor Röll gives us a two are attacked and are not likely to recover,
few grains of comfort by stating that, though the others showing symptoms of the disease.
often imported into Austria, the cases are Out of the other lot five are dead, and the three
are recovering. I have been called to two farms
sporadic in certain years, and that it only be in thatlocality where the disease has broken out,
comes generally diffused in years when conta —one dead and several others bad; and have
gious diseases '' men show a severe type. heard of another farmer having it. I find at
Cholera has been hovering about Europe, North Walsham a dealer bought thirty-eight
and seems ready to take root in places favour Irish buds, about £5 each. Thirty-six are
WOL. XLIII, N-17
258 The Cattle Plague. Dec
dead; and from this lot it has spread to several less susceptible to its influence, and take it in
farms adjoining where these laid, and the stock a less malignant form than our cattle. Eng
are dying fast. I have not at present heard land is deficient in organization to comba
about any more in Norfolk, if I should I will the invasion, has neither in number nor in
write and say how it goes on.”
quality an army of veterinary surgeons fitted
Norfolk fought valiantly against the disease, to take the field against the invader, so tha.
stopped its markets, established an insurance there is nothing to justify us in the expecta
society, and stamped the disease out wherever tion that we shall be dealt with less severely
it could; but about a thousand beasts have than Austria. Hence it is highly probable
already been returned to the Government as that, in the third year of the murrain, we
attacked by the distemper; how many more also may have, like Austria, 14 per cent. of al
may have been without being included in the our cattle attacked in a single year. This
returns we have no means of judging. The extension of the distemper, with a mortality
influence of the London market was not con of 90 per cent, would produce a money loss
fined to the neighbourhood of the metropolis, of upwards of £8,000,000. It may be ar.
but extended to great distances, even Scot gued that our comparison is unfair, because
land having first received its infection directly the plague is almost naturalized in Hungary
from some foreign cows bought in London It is quite true that the plague is very fre
and sent to Edinburgh. As the disease pro quently in Austria and but rarely in England
gressed, however, so many local centres were but this is simply owing to the proximity o
created that the influence of the London mar the former country to the Russian nursery o
ket became less perceptible. Up to the end the contagion. We have already shown that
of October, 18,000 cases of disease had been the history of the plague in 1865 is but a close
reported to Government throughout the repetition of its history in 1745, when it
country, although, for the reasons we have dwelt among us for twelve years. Then, as
stated, this estimate is far under the truth. now, the people grumbled at the government
Of all the animals in the farms or sheds into interference with cattle traffic, even a year
which the distemper entered, 44 per cent. after the plague broke out, but most bitterly
have been already attacked, and of this only did they in the end regret that they did not
a trifle above 4 per cent. have recovered, the aid that Government to extirpate the murrain
rest having died from the disease, or having when its proportions rendered repressive
been slaughtered in anticipation of it, or be measures possible.
'ing still under its influence, with a fate unde This leads us to consider what the Govern
termined at the date of the return. Although ment of the present day have already done,
these figures are ghastly enough as represent and what it is proposed they should do, to
iug the mere beginning of a murrain, which expel the murrain from our shores. We
has not yet gathered headway in the country, cannot give information on the first head
they would not be alarming if they represent more concisely than Mr. Arthur Helps, the
‘ed the finality of the plague, for little more Clerk of the Council, has done in the fol.
ithan one in a thousand of the cattle in the lowing passage:—
kingdom have succumbed to the attack. “The date of the first notice to me of the
But believing that we are only at the begin
ning of our troubles, the plague assumes to requested was
outbreak the 10th of July. I immediately
Professor Simonds to institute an in.
us an aspect of more than ordinary gravity. quiry into it. I received his report on the 14th
The number of horned cattle in this coun of July. I was then directed by the Lords o
try is supposed to be between seven and the Council to ask the law-officers to draw up
eight millions, and their estimated value may an Order in Council so as somewhat to embrac.
be taken at £70,000,000. We can only con the views of Professor. Simonds; they wer
jecture our probable losses by the experience two-fold: first, that all persons, cow-keeper
of other countries, when the plague has and others, where there was disease, shoul
passed over their borders, and taken up its give notice of it; and, secondly, that a powe
should be given to inspectors to examine. Th
abode with them for several years. Austria Lords of the Council had several meetings, an
is in this unhappy position at present, for the on the 24th of July they issued their firs
plague penetrated into it in 1861, was par order; that was the order which directed tha
tially repressed in 1862, and broke out with all persons having any diseased animal shoul
increased virulence in 1863, during which report the fact to the Clerk of the Privy Coun
year Hungary and its dependencies had the cil, and that he should appoint, inspectors, an
plague in 14 per cent. of all their cattle. that these inspectors should have power t
enter the premises and examine. The diseas
‘Can we expect a more favourable result? increased, and went beyond the metropolita
Austria has excellently organized measures for district, upon which, on the 11th of August, th
the suppression of the pest, and this cannot Lords of the Council issued another order, sti
be said of our country; her cattle are both applying only to the metropolitan district. I
-
that order the chief additional provision was advance of public opinion, which even yet
that no animal labouring under the disorder has not comprehended the magnitude of the
should be removed from the premises on which danger. The Council wisely, in our opinion,
the disorder had broken out without the license
of an inspector. The disease still kept spread did not establish a system of compensation
ing, and on the 11th of August an order was for cattle slaughtered with the view of stamp
published which applied to the remaining parts ing out the disease, but, without such com
of England and Wales, other than the Metropoli pensation, were they justified in empowering
tan Police district. In this order the local autho inspectors to slaughter? The importance of
rity was defined, and the principal local authority stamping out the disease, in its incipient
in the country were the Justices acting in and stage, might have justified this measure at
for the petty sessional division of the county. the outset, but it has been too long persisted in.
They were allowed in cases where the disease Even Continental Governments, with their ar
had appeared within their jurisdiction to ap
point an inspector. Then certain rules were bitrary powers, only slaughter when the num
iven for the inspector, similar to those which ber of affected cattle does not exceed ten, al
ad existed in the metropolitan district, name though exceptions to this rule are sometimes
ly, that no person should remove, without the permitted, and then the owners are compen
license of the said inspector, any animal labouring sated either directly by the Government, or
under the disease. There was, however, in this through a system of compulsory mutual in
order a very important provision made with surance. Besides, such strong measures can
respect both to the burial and the disinfection only be intrusted to the administration of
of the premises. On the 18th of August the
provisions which had been made for England skilled and discreet men, and the supply of
and Wales were extended to Scotland. On the these in the country was not equal to the
25th of August there was an order passed af demand. Upon a failure of veterinary surgeons,
fecting Ireland, namely, that no cattle (and it is butchers and shoemakers have been appoint
stated that ‘the word cattle shall be interpreted ed inspectors. It is not wonderful that owners
to mean any cow, heifer, bull, bullock, ox, or of pedigree stock, or even common farmers,
calf') were to be removed ‘from any port or should look with alarm on extensive powers
place within that part of the United Kingdom vested in such irresponsible and ignorant men.
called Great Britain, to any port or place within
that part of the United Kingdom called Ire When veterinary surgeons could be procured,
land. On the 26th of August another order were they always sufficient for the trust re
was passed, of which the important part was posed in them : Our Veterinary Colleges
this, not only that the Justices should have have excellent men as professors, and have
power to name an inspector when the disease educated excellent pupils. This could not
was absolutely in the district, but when they be otherwise with such men as Professors
should ‘have reason to apprehend the ap Spooner, Simonds, Dick, Warnell, and Gam
roach of the said disease to the district.”
here was also in this order a power given to gee in the English and Scotch colleges,—men
the inspector ‘to seize and slaughter, or cause who dignify their profession and obtain for it
to be slaughtered, any animal labouring under the respect of men of science. But the race
such disease. There were then minor orders of pupils which they are creating have not
assed, forbidding the importation of skins into yet rendered extinct the cow-leech and horse
£. Lastly, on the 22d of September, an doctor, who, under the name of veterinary
order was passed consolidating all the previous surgeons, are not unfrequently appointed in
orders, modifying them in some small matters,
and adding two important ' one at spectors by local authorities. It is not there
fore surprising that the hardship to the farm
fecting the metropolitan cattle market, and the
other giving the local authority the power to er of slaughtering his cattle without compen
prevent the animals defined, or some specified sation has become unsupportable. The pole
description thereof from entering a market or axe is certainly the most radical of cures
a fair within the jurisdiction of that local au when one or two cattle have been seized for
thority. The disease was then supposed to the first time in a new district; but it be
extend to sheep and lambs, upon which an comes unmitigated barbarism when applied
order was passed prohibiting sheep or lambs to a whole country over which the murrain
from being imported into Ireland from Great has been diffused; for it must be borne in
Britain. There was then a smaller order passed
for the island and barony of Lewis in the coun mind that it is already in thirty-five out of
ty of Ross, protecting it from cattle of any the forty English counties, and in twenty out.
kind coming into that island. Those were all of the thirty-two Scotch counties. We are
the orders which were passed.” not objecting to the slaughtering of cattle by
the farmers to insure their use as dead meat
It will be seen from the above passage before the disease lays hold of them, but to
that no cause of complaint on the ground the compulsory powers of slaughter by un
of apathy can be laid to the charge of the skilled inspectors. The latter ought cer
Privy Council, or of its indefatigable clerk, tainly to have more powers than # now
Mr. Helps. Their action was prompt and in possess to proscribe districts and insure their
isolation when infected, and not to liberate missioners speak for themselves, even at some
them till they have clean bills of health; but length:—
we find that we are anticipating a future “To interfere with the circulation of fat stock
branch of our subject. is to interfere directly with the meat market;
The Privy Council having failed in pre and to embarrass it is to raise, for a time at
venting the extension of the plague, found it least, the price of meat. To require that every
advisable to recommend to the Queen that a bullock sold for slaughter shall be slaughtered
Royal Commission should be issued to investi. on the premises of the seller, will undoubtedl
in a multitude of cases be inconvenient to bot
gate into the origin and nature of the disease, farmer and butcher. There will be difficulties
and to frame regulations with a view of pre about the actual slaughtering, about the disposal
venting its spread and of averting any future of hides and offal, about transport; and these
outbreak of it. This commission was issued difficulties appear still more serious when we
by her Majesty on the 29th of September, consider the manner in which the live-meat
and was addressed to certain members of trade is now carried on through salesmen and
both Houses of Parliament and men of scien jobbers, and the vast quantities of fat cattle con
tific and medical attainments.” The Com tinually in motion to and from London, and
from one market to another throughout the
missioners did not allow the grass to grow midland and northern counties. A iarge sys
under their feet; they sat daily for a month tem of trade and transport will have to be de
after their appointment, and on the 31st ranged, and many new arrangements to be
October issued their first report, unaccom made, and the cost of effecting these changes
panied, however, by the mass of evidence on the spur of the moment must fall to a con
siderable extent on the consumer of meat.
which it is understood they have collected
from all parts of the kingdom and from “If the distinction be admitted, however, many
abroad, and which is now in the hands of other questions arise. In the first place, how
is it to be enforced ? If a privilege is conceded
the printer. Unfortunately the Commission to cattle destined for the butcher, how are we
ers have not been unanimous in their re
to make sure that a particular animal is really
port, Lords Spencer and Cranborne, Mr. destined for the butcher, or that he will be
Read and Dr. Bence Jones, being dissen slaughtered immediately, or slaughtered at all;
tients from one important recommendation or that he will not scatter infection on his road?
in it, while Mr. M'Clean holds aloof alto May he be driven home by the nearest country
gether, and makes a separate report, to the butcher who will buy him, or must he be sent
effect that there is no reason for alarm, and to market? May he go to any market, or only
therefore no cause for action. We will en to one where conveniences for slaughtering and
for careful inspection are, or can be provided?
deavour to indicate their general conclu May he, if unsold, be sent home again, or trans
sions, with a running commentary upon ported from one market to another, or if not,
them. what chance will the seller have, should the
After referring to the history of the plague market be overstocked, of making a fair bar
and its remarkably contagious nature, the gain? In considering these points, it must be
Commissioners point out that the disease, borne in mind that a butcher has, as some
widely extended as it now is, can only be witnesses have remarked to us, facilities which
a farmer has not for concealing infection; and
arrested by stopping for a time the move that he has not those motives for being on his
ments of cattle. The majority of the Com guard against it which the farmer has. A far
missioners desire that this stoppage should mer who brings home a diseased animal may
be absolute; the minority are contented with probably lose his whole herd. But it is often
preventing movement of lean or store stock, the butcher's interest to ask no questions.
while they would permit fat cattle to go to “Answers more or less complete may be
fairs and markets for immediate slaughter. furnished on all the points above enumerated,
and precautions may be devised with a view
Both the majority and minority agree that to each of them. In general terms, it may be
the traffic in lean stock must be prevented stated that such precautions must in the main
for a period; they diverge only on the policy rest on some or all of the following expedients:
of applying these restrictions to cattle fit for —On a modified adoption of the Cordon sys
the butcher. Let the majority of the Com tem; on the imposition of new and peculiar
legal obligations upon butchers, and probably
upon drovers, railway companies, and the au
* The names of Her Majesty's Commissioners are
as follows:—Earl Spencer, K.G., Lord Cranborne, thorities in charge of markets; lastly, on a
M.P., Right Hon. Robert Lowe, M.P., Lyon Play system, more or less extensive, of permits,
fair, C.B., C. S. Read, M.P., R. Quain, #. certificates, or declarations. We ought not,
Bence Jones, M.D., E. A. Parkes, M.D., Thomas however, to shrink from distinctly saying that
Wormald, President of College of Surgeons, Robert no answers can be given which, in our judg
Ceely, Surgeon, Charles Spooner, Principal of ment, are perfectly satisfactory, and no precau
Veterinary College, and J. R. M'Clean, President tions invented on which it is possible entirely to
of Institution of Civil Engineers, with Mr. Mon rely, and that we believe it to be best for the
tagu Bernard, Secretary. country, and even for the interests which will
suffer most in the first instance, that the pro upon the accuracy of which, experience warns
hibition against the circulation of cattle should us, little reliance can be placed. The liberty to
be maintained in its integrity. remove cattle for particular purposes is sure to
“We have stated frankly the difficulties and be extended and abused for other purposes. A
sacrifices for which the country must be pre man has only to profess an intention in accord
pared, should this proposition be carried into ance with the law, in order, by a little dexteri
effect. Of these difficulties the one which will ty, to obtain under such a system the utmost
probably be felt most strongly relates to the facility for violating the law. It will be a
supply of food to the great towns. Fears have long time before the rules are understood, and
been expressed that to close the metropolitan the period in which they are violated through
market, for instance, against the influx of cattle ignorance will be succeeded by the period in
from the country, would create a famine. We which they are evaded by design. England is
have already seen that the attempt to close the probably the worst country in the world for
markets of London and Westminster during the the working of a system of certificates, permits,
plague which raged here in the reign of George licenses, and passports; and the temptation to
II. was given up on account of the clamour violate the rules will be very great, for the
which it created; and it may be argued that the ught that naturally occurs to every one
the same thing would happen now. Circum whose herd is attacked, is to conceal the exist
stances, however, have widely changed. In the ence of the disease until he has got rid of those
days of George II., meat could only be trans animals which do not show symptoms of its
ported to London alive; even the roads along presence. . To the objection, true as far as it
which the cattle travelled were what we should goes, that the embarrassment thus thrown in the
now think few and bad; there was little or no way of trade will probably tend to raise the
importation from abroad, and some difficulty price of meat, it may be answered, first, that
must have been often found in supplying the such a rise in the price of meat will afford, at
wants of the metropolis by the ordinary means the expense of the community, the means of
of communication. Now, every place where reimbursing the trade for the sacrifices it has
fat cattle are fed in large numbers is approached made for the common benefit; and, secondly,
by railways, which can transport dead as well that the immense destruction of cattle which
as live meat; and it seems no unreasonable de such a measure alone is calculated to prevent is
mand to require that, for the sake of averting a likely to raise the price of meat to a higher
calamity of almost incalculable magnitude, Lon point, and for a longer time, than a regulation
don should be content to be supplied with dead which really does little more than change the
meat from the provinces, instead of constituting place of slaughter from large towns to grazing
herself the hotbed of infection by receiving districts. In the period from 1745 to 1757, al
twice a week great throngs of living cattle. This most every measure, short of the one which we
change is indeed in itself economical and ad are considering, was tried in vain. The disease
vantageous, and appears to be gradually taking at first advanced slowly, but it lasted twelve
place as a natural consequence of the extension years, and then died out apparently from want
of the railway system. There is obviously an of animals susceptible of its influence, although
immense waste of labour in bringing the live the difficulty of communication from one part
animal to London, in order that certain portions of England to another offered at that time the
of its carcass may be consumed as human food; fairest chance for the success of palliative mea
dead meat is more easily carried than the living sures. England has now to contend with the
creature, and it seems quite as reasonable to plague under disadvantages never experienced
carry the butcher to the ox as to bring the ox by any other country. The density of her
to the butcher. We are informed that, from population, the # quantity of her horned
Aberdeen alone, which is distant from London sock, and, above all, the enormous facility of
(by cattle-train) some thirty-six hours, upwards communication by railroad, make her peculiarly
of 1000 carcasses are sent up weekly during liable to the ravages of a contagious disorder,
eight months of the year, and 300 or 400 during and render the prospect of eradicating it within
the remaining four months, and special cattle any reasonable time, either by slaughter or by
trains leave Aberdeen on this errand five days curative and disinfecting measures, almost hope
in the week. Nor is it to be forgotten that less. For these reasons we feel ourselves com
London is at present fed in a great measure pelled to recommend to Your Majesty that such
with foreign cattle. From the 16th of Septem measures shall be taken as may be requisite to
ber to the 18th of October last, both inclusive, invest, with as little delay as possible, some
the number of English beasts in the market high officer of Your Majesty's Government
was but 14,645 to 20,185 foreign. It must with the power of suspending for a limited time
further be observed—and this is the most im the movement of cattle from one place in Great
portant point—that a general prohibition is ca Britain to another, for extending or shortening
pable of being thoroughly enforced. The mere such period, and for renewing the prohibition
presence of a beast on any highway will be as often as circumstances may render neces
sufficient to prove the infraction of the rule. sary.”
Any plan which, while laying down the gene
ral prohibition, admits exceptions in favour of
£ removed to particular places or for par before The case is excellently and tersely placed
ticular purposes, must rest upon the ascertain us, and we should be at once in a
ment of facts more or less complicated, to be position to deal with it, were it not necessary
proved by certificates from local authorities, to describe the alternative propositions of the
minority of the Commission. This minority a country must be of brief continuance if they
has the support of Earl Spencer, the chair are to be strictly enforced; but they must be
man of the Commission, who is said to have large and sweeping if they are to be brief.
conducted its inquiries with much skill and Such are the restraints urged by the majority
judgment. The dissentients admit that the of the Commissioners, and we proceed to re
temporary stoppage of all movement in cattle fer to them.
would be more effectual in extirpating the The total stoppage of movement of cattle
disease than any measure which could be is a simple idea, one readily understood, and
proposed, but they do not believe it to be only capable of evasion by palpable contu
practicable, and contend that it would in macy, but it must be accompanied by many
volve an interference with the course of trade difficulties and inconveniences which the
at variance with our national habits, and Commissioners have foreseen, and by many
would involve difficulties and dangers of the more which cannot be foreseen. Is the sa
most formidable kind. They therefore sup crifice which the country is called upon to
port the alternative measures of the report make not greater than the evil which is to be
by which fat cattle markets are alone to be averted by it? An answer to this question
permitted. Cattle, however, are only to go depends upon the impression of the magni
to such markets from healthy districts, and tude of the danger with which we are threat
therefore they must have passes, or clean ened. Those who point to the small number
bills of health, before markets or railways of animals which have hitherto perished, as
will be permitted to receive them. Un a proof that the plague has terrified us be
healthy districts are to be put under ban by yond measure, will scout at the recommenda
notice in the Gazette, and all egress of cattle tion of the Commission, and consider it the
from them is to be strictly prohibited. presumptuous scheme of theoretical men, un
We have now the two main recommenda acquainted with the realities and necessities
tions of the report before us. The report of of the world in which they live. Farmers,
the minority relies wholly on the measures cattle-dealers, butchers, jobbers, drivers, and
pursued from 1745 to 1757, and which were even the market committees of our corpora
then found signally inoperative. Referring tions, will aid them in the cry against this
to that period, Youatt tells us that “the re despotic interference with business and
strictions with regard to the sale or removal traffic. This race of men have shown singu
of cattle, and communication between differ lar incredulity as to the reality of the plague,
ent districts, were so frequently evaded, that till it actually reached their own localities,
it was either impossible or impolitic to exact and even then consoled themselves with the
the penalties.” Certainly we are in no more belief that it was a mere summer attack,
favourable position now to enforce such which would leave the country as soon as the
measures. If they were found inoperative at cold weather came. But the cold weather
a time when transit was comparatively diffi has come, and the plague increases, for this
cult, how are they to be carried out now in a is one of its peculiarities, that it advances
country intersected everywhere with high with equal strides, sometimes even at a
ways and railroads, and coasted by steamers? greater rate, in cold as in warm weather.
The very system of passes is so obnoxious to We, on the other hand, who consider that
the feelings of our population, that it could the distemper has not yet got headway, and
not be sufficiently explained within the next has not yet gathered itself up for its raid
three months so as to make it understood, or, through the country, welcome any measure
if understood, adopted, with the determina which proposes to deal radically with the
tion of local authorities that the passes should murrain, before its proportions become un
not be evaded. Such measures must dege manageable. The object of the Commission
nerate, as they did in the years from 1750 to is the same as that of a fire-brigade when
1757, into petty wars between counties, one brought on the scene of an extensive con
county proscribing another because it is in flagration. They know how hopeless it is to
fected. The meeting in Forfarshire, presided extinguish the flames till the combustibles on
over by Lord Dalhousie in October, shows fire are consumed, so they at once proceed to
that this disposition to exclude stock from cut off all communication from surrounding
other counties is growing. Argyleshire has parts, leaving the fire to burn itself out with
already got a prohibition against importation, out extending the area of its mischief. Three
and Forfarshire was on the verge of trying to months of stoppage of movement of cattle
obtain similar restrictions, while Elgin has would do this effectually in the case of the
petitioned for them. Such local efforts will plague. But these will be three months of
be both irritating and useless unless they are suffering to some, of great inconvenience to
part of a general and well-conceived plan. many, and of high price of meat to all.
Restraints on the usual business and traffic of Surely this would be more tolerable than an
equally high price of meat for a long term of less likely that individual farmers throughout
years. If the sacrifice be made, it must be the country will be uniformly equal to the
begun at once, for it is only in cold weather trust reposed in them. Observe what will
that we can get a sufficient supply of dead be the consequence of a single case of ne
meat from abroad to aid us in our deficien glect. We have seen that in all probability
cies at home, and to enable our home sup the disorder was introduced into this country
plies also to be conveyed from place to place. by a single infected beast. Now if on the
It is in winter too that the stoppage of move liberation of cattle traffic, a single farm, nay,
ment will cause the least inconvenience to even a single cowshed, remains unpurified
farmers, as there is comparatively little transit without disinfection, the country has been
of store or lean cattle at this period of the year. called upon for a great sacrifice in vain, for
We must not forget, however, that the the foul place will become the new centre
suspension of cattle traffic is only a means to from which contagion will radiate. It was
an end. To understand how that end is to in fact from such infected localities that the
be reached, it will be well to follow out the disease sprang up so continually, after being
analogy of the fire somewhat more closely. subdued, during the last century. Let us see
It would be useless to cut off the communi what Layard says on the subject, even in
cations from a conflagration, if on the first 1757, the twelfth year of the plague:—
cessation of the outburst of the flames, we
“The disease, thank God, is considerably
proceed to build a new combustible house on abated; and only breaks out now and then in
the red-hot embers as a foundation, and have such places where, for want of proper cleansing
all our former dangers renewed. Our chief after the infection, or carelessness in burying
objection to the report of the Commissioners the carcasses, the putrid fomes is still preserved,
is that they have not been sufficiently strong and is ready, at a proper constitution of the air,
in the representation of this important fact, or upon being uncovered, to disperse such a
although they do make a passing allusion to quantity of effluvia, that all the cattle which
have not had it will be liable to infection.”—
it in the following sentence, not in the body LAYARD, The Distemper among Horned Cattle,
of the report, but in a supplement to it:— p. XX.
“Every one who has had the plague in his
premises should feel the responsibility which It is quite clear that it will be useless for
rests upon him to destroy, by careful cleansing the Government to order a stoppage in the
and disinfection, every trace of the disorder movement of cattle, until they are provided
which may be left on his pastures or stalls, or with a proper organization to take advantage
on his cattle, their horns, hides, manure, and of the opportunity offered to them. Un
litter. Under favourable circumstances for its questionably they cannot do otherwise than
reservation, the contagious poison has been trust largely to local authorities, but there
# with all its virulence unimpaired, for many must be, at the same time, a system of intel
months. Unless, therefore, each person uses
his utmost effort to extinguish the seeds of the ligent supervision on the part of Government,
plague which lurk about his farm, they may with the view of instructing localities as to
become a centre of contagion, which will again their duties during the short period at their
spread it abroad through the country, and ren disposal, and there must be an efficient in
der unavailing the sacrifice necessary for the spection to see that sanitary resources have
speedy suppression of this terrible scourge.” been properly applied. And when the
This in fact is the end to be attained, country is liberated from the interdict as to
while the suspension of traffic is only the traffic, there must be a keen eye to detect the
means of securing it. Yet we find in the spots which are sure to be found with the
report no single recommendation on the seeds of disease lurking in them, and a
subject. The whole of the first part of the prompt hand to pluck them out at the mo
report may be considered as a homily on the ment of germination. For this purpose
text, “Put not your trust in local author Government ought to possess the power to
ties.” We have shown that, in the reign of proclaim large districts, even whole counties,
George II., the Privy Council then found as infected, and to exclude them fromi libera
they did not respond in a prompt and ener tion, should a single case of the distemper
getic manner to the appeals of the Govern appear within a month of the general libera
ment. And yet the Commissioners would tion of traffic; for, by thus making a whole
apparently leave to individuals, without aid county responsible for the eradication of the
or supervision, the task of destroying all the murrain, a weight of public opinion will be
seeds of contagion after death has reaped its brought to bear on supine districts and indi
harvest. But if local authorities, even under viduals.It may be useful here to give the
the influence of public opinion, cannot be methods by which disinfection may be ef
roused from their apathy, or quickened into fected, according to the Commissioners:
intelligence, in the face of a great crisis, it is “1. When animals attacked with the plague
have become convalescent, they ought to be lopment. We no longer fear their importa
kept apart from sound beasts for three weeks, tion even in the porous cotton which comes
and even then not to be permitted to associate to us from plague-infected Egypt. These
with them till they have been thoroughly wash facts are certain, though there are still a very
ed with (Macdougal's) disinfecting soap, or few medical men who contend that the dis
with a weak tepid solution of chloride of lime.
The whole body, hoofs and horns, should be appearance of the plague from this country
horoughly washed, and the nostrils and mouth is owing “to large cycles of chemical changes
sponged out. in the atmosphere,” and not to our hygienic
“2. During all the time that animals suffer improvements. A fine-sounding phrase is
from the disease, the litter fouled by them, with this to drop like the veil of Isis between
the dung and discharge on it, should be burned, learned physicians and the vulgar, in order
and not be allowed to mix with other manure.
It contains the poison in a concentrated form, to persuade the latter that there is priestly
and it is questionable whether it can be disin mystery behind it. When an old plague re
fected efficiently. appears, as the diphtheria has done after the
“3. The sheds in which the diseased animals lapse of a hundred years, be assured that we
have been must be thoroughly purified and dis are punished for the violation of some sani
infected. The roof and walls should be washed tary law, which we would do well to discover
with lime. The floor and wood-work, after be and obey, without waiting for “cyclical
ing thoroughly washed with water containing changes” to unravel the mystery. There is
washing soda, should be again washed all over
with a solution of chloride of lime, containing 1 much to be done, however, before we can get
lb. to a pailful. our cattle into a sanitary condition sufficient
“4. The hides and horns of animals which to resist even great plagues. Our cattle, be
have died of the disease ought to be buried sides being housed filthily, are made gluttons
with the animal, according to the Orders in Coun by their mode of fattening, and are thus
cil. But the hides and horns of those which have
rendered prone to disease. When the upper
been killed to escape the spread of the inspec classes in the thirteenth century lived a glut
tion must be dipped in, or thoroughly mopped tonous and unruly life, black death put on a
all over, and, in the case of the hides, on both
sides, with water containing 4 lbs. of chloride disguise, and came to them in the garb of
of lime to three pailfuls of water. Unless this “sweating sickness,” but with a scythe quite
be done with care, a most fertile source of con as keen for cutting down the well-conditioned
tagion will be preserved. members of society as it had used for the
“5. The attendants upon diseased beasts poorer classes. Here is our difficulty in im
should not be allowed to go near the sound ani pressing farmers with the necessity of im
mals in the same farm.” -
proving the hygienic condition of their cattle.

They point to the cattle-sheds of Lord Gran
We have little doubt in our own minds ville and Miss Burdett Coutts, or like exam
that, though this disease is of foreign impor ples, and say the plague attacks the well-kept
tation, its rapid growth and spread is owing cattle as well as those which are foully kept.
to our gross neglect of sanitary laws as re The same arguments were used in the middle
gards our cattle. They are looked upon by ages, when the poor beggar in the street and
the farmer in the double light of flesh-mak the alderman at his civic feast were struck
ing and manure-producing beasts. This is down together. Set fire to a poor man's
right and natural, but it is neither natural house and that of his rich neighbour is likely
nor right that the stalls in which the beasts to join in the conflagration. Introduce into
are fed should be made the storehouse for this this country an intensely contagious pest
manure. Even when this is not done, it is among cattle, and the force of the plague will
headed up in the yard in close proximity to extend to all sides presenting fuel to it. What
the cattle. The animal economy is much the we want to achieve is, to make our cattle in
same in men and beasts. If men herd among combustible to this fire, as we have already
the manure voided by themselves, we know done with men in the case of human plague.
how soon pestilence would ravage them. In Yet vast must be our hygienic improvements
the middle ages, when men were stalled like before we can look tranquilly at the murrain in
oxen on rush-covered floors, “black death” its native steppes. We may proceed, however,
swept them away with its terrible scythe. to indicate some sanitary ameliorations in the
This disease ceased to visit the country alto words of the Commissioners:— -
gether when improvements in our social and

civic habits removed the personal and public “1. As no successful plan of treatment has
filth, which formed the soil, in which the seeds yet been proposed, the owners of cattle must,
of plague were sown and fructified from fifteen in the meantime, rely chiefly upon those hygie
nic measures which the experience acquired in
to seventeen times in one century. The other diseases shows to be important in prevent
seeds of this human pest are as plentiful now ing the spread of contagion, and in diminishing
as ever, but the soil is wanting for their deve the intensity and area of an attack, when, in
spite of such measures, they invade a locality tain stations, where the cattle may be taken
hitherto uninfected. In the case of the cattle out to be fed and watered. At the same
plague it is certain that no sanitary precautions time, they are well aware that the inconveni
can prevent the spread of the disease when it ence of loading and unloading the trucks is
is actually introduced; still, from analogy, we
may draw the conclusion that some effect may too great to permit of this resource. The
be produced on the rapidity of the spread, or on real difficulty lies in the vile nature of the
the virulence of the disease, by placing cattle in trucks themselves. Small ingenuity would
the conditions most favourable to health. be required to place cattle in trucks so that
“2. With this view it is important to secure they might drink out of troughs attached to
strict cleanliness, good drainage, efficient ven them, and which might be filled with water
tilation, and to prevent overcrowding in all while the engine itself is taking in a fresh
cattle-sheds and cowhouses. No accumulations
of litter fouled by the voiding of animals should
supply. But such a simple device is much
be permitted in, or oven close to the houses or beyond the humanity of railway directors,
sheds in which cattle are kept. Chloride of who, as long as they can obtain cattle accord
lime, carbolic acid, or the powder containing ing to the present rude system of transport,
carbolate of lime, and sulphite of lime (in plain choose to consider them as inanimate objects,
English, “Macdougall's Disinfecting Powder)' to be treated with as little consideration as
should be used. The latter is probably the bales of merchandise. Nor is the system of
best; it contains a well-known disinfecting sub transport by steamers much better, as regards
stance which is formed when sulphur is burned, comfort and accommodation, even should the
and also a strongly antiseptic material, kreasote, weather remain favourable. Some steamers
from coal far. The sheds themselves should be
swept and washed daily, and sprinkled with there are, wholly devoted to cattle traffic, in
disinfectants. But such purification of the which fair accommodation is provided, but, as
air of cattle-sheds or houses will be insufficient a rule, it is as wretched as can well be con
to preserve health if the cattle be overcrowded. ceived. Even in the case of well-appointed
Pure air and nourishing diet are of great im ships, the beasts suffer severely in bad weather.
portance in protecting animals from the attacks Two vessels reached Lowestoft in 1863, hav
of disease. Pure water, derived from sources
uncontaminated by drainage from surrounding ing embarked 608 beasts and 800 sheep; on
dung-heaps, or from the absorption of vitiated their arrival 300 beasts and 230 sheep were
air which hovers around them and in the sheds dead. These cattle broke loose on the long
of cattle, is equally essential. voyage and trampled each other to death.
“Every farmer should look to the housing of Urgent as are these sanitary questions, we
his cattle in the present emergency, as he wouldare unable to pursue them further. We have
look to the housing of his own family, if cholera
shown that, both on the higher ground of
or other formidable disease were in his neigh humanity, and on the lower ground of self
bourhood. Thorough cleanliness of the houses,
good drainage, freedom from evil smells, nou interest, it is important that we should take
rishing diet with pure air and water, cannot advantage of the calamity under which we
give immunity from the disease, but they may suffer, by improving the hygienic conditions
offer obstacles to its propagation.” of the cattle which form so large a 'part of
our daily food. Most reverently do we look
These are far from all the sanitary improve upon this murrain among our flocks as a
ments necessary. The mode in which cattle judgment, though not in the light of a fatal
are transported by railway and steamer to ist, who would bow helplessly under it; or as
our great public markets is a disgrace to a fanatic, who conceives it has been brought
our civilized nation. Trucks of the rudest on in consequence of some irrelevant sin
description are used on our railways, and into against which he has a personal abhorrence.
them the poor unwilling beasts are driven by The God of the human race, “whose are the
savage force, being huddled together indis cattle on a thousand hills,” governs this
criminately, and often remain in them thirty world by wise and beneficent laws, which are
or forty hours, in some cases fifty hours, with sufficient, when obeyed, to insure the well
out fodder and without drink. When the being of His creatures. The violation of
poor, thirsty, bellowing beasts are driven into these laws inflicts upon us the penalties at
a siding in sight of water, they often become tached to their transgression, and it is our
quite frantic in hopeless efforts to reach this duty to discover, understand, and obey them.
necessary of life. A cabman in London is By the public prayers which we now make
fined if he keeps his horse too long without that this plague may be removed from us,
water, but railway directors escape with im we hope to have our minds enlarged, so as in
punity for their inhumane treatment of the some measure to comprehend the wisdom of
cattle intrusted to their charge. It is true the Creator, and to follow His rules with
that they try to throw the responsibility off simple obedience. By this means we may
their own shoulders, by offering to the owners again place ourselves in harmony with the
of the cattle that the trains may stop at cer laws which govern the animal economy.
IND EX T 0 W 0 L, XL III.
A. military science, 53; Frederic's qualities as a

ADDIsoN, on “Gothicism” in literature, 240 et seq. commander—his harshness towards his officers
—the constitution of his army, 53, 54; cruelty
B. of the treatment to which his troops were sub
jected shown by Thackeray, 54; discipline of
BRADDoN, Miss,—her numerous novels, and the the Prussian soldiers, 55; Frederic's home
manner of their reception by the press, 92; ana policy, ib.; commerce—free trade—war-budget,
lysis of “Lady Audley's Secret,” 92-96; “Au 56, 57; state of the country at the close of the
rora Floyd,” 96; nature of the plot, 96, 97; por Seven Years' Conflict, 57; Frederic's character
traits of the characters, 97, 98; “Eleanor's marred by his unhappy boyhood, 58, his pecu
Victory,” 98; theory about a face, 99; “John liarities—resemblance to Richelieu, 59; Carlyle's
Marchmont's Legacy, ib.; heroes of the novel, failure to delineate his character—striking pas
ib.; “Henry Dunbar," 100, 101; “The Doctor's sage in reference to the close of all, 59,60; Mr.
Wife,” 101 ; sketch of the story, 101, 102.; Carlyle's theory of government, 60; how are
“Only a Clod,” 102, 103; critique on Miss Brad heroes to be secured? 61; his charges against
don's novels, 104; varied opinions of reviewers constitutional government, 61, 62; how England
as to their merits, ib.; tested by a purely lite is served, 62,63; Prussia under Frederic's sway,
rary standard, her novels are the least valuable 63; her present position, 63, 64; liberty in
among works of fiction, ib.; her tales to be Prussia, 64; results of Mr. Carlyle's teaching,
classed with police reports and divorce cases, 64, 65.
105. See p. 179. -
Cattle Plague,—plagues in England in the four
Brodie, Sir Benjamin Collins, Bart, 65; birth and teenth century, 249; diffusion of the plague all
parentage, ib.; professional studies, 66; entered through Europe consequent on the wars prevail
St. George's Hospital, under Sir Everard Home, ing in the early part of last century, 250;
ib.; introduction to science, 67; lectures on murrain among English cattle in 1745, ib.;
anatomy, etc.—his physiological researches, 67, Government measures thereanent, 251; the losses
68; poisons, 68; animal heat. 69, 70; value of his then unrecorded, ib.; has the plague a birth
researches, 70; his physiological writings, 71; place? 252; continental centres of traffic, 253;
his choice between science and practice, 72; the virus all but indestructible, ib.; three ac
mutual relations of science and practice, ib ; his counts of the symptoms, 254; Dr. Simon on the
daily life, 73; his influence, written and unwrit mode in which the distemper is communicated
ten, 74; Brodie and Cooper, 74, 75; his metho from sick to sound beasts, 254, 255; amount of
dus medendi, 75, 76; his care of his own health, mortality, 255; inoculation, 255, 256; first ap
76; marks of esteem bestowed on him, 76, 77; his pearance of the plague in Britain, 256; infection
last illness and death, 77.
spreading from the metropolis, 257; our defi
Burlesque Poetry; the Burlesque in Literature; ciency in organization to combat the invasion,
were the ancients acquainted with burlesque 258; Government action on the subject, 258,
writing? 31; specimens of this style in English 259; appointment of Royal Commission, 260;
Literature, 32; “The Turnament of Totten recommendations of Commissioners, 260, 261;
ham,” 32, 33; Milton, Butler, and Dryden, 33, necessity of the suspension of cattle traffic for a
34; Pope, Prior, and Swift, 34; analysis of time, 262; necessity of Government supervision,
Prior's “Alma,” 35-40. 263; methods by which disinfection may be ef
Butler's “Hudibras,” 31 et seq. fected, 263, 264; its rapid growth and spread
C.
due to our neglect of sanitary laws, 264; hy
gienic improvements necessary, 264, 265; dis
CARLYLE, Thomas,—his history of Frederic the graceful modes by which our cattle are trans
Great, 40; Carlyle's tone and spirit degenerat ported, 265.
ing, 40, 41; his doctrine—the eighteenth cen - Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 129-167; characteris
tury, 41, 42; the literary merit of this work, tics of the eighteenth century, 129; its philoso
42; his research, 42,43; sketch of Catherine II. phy, 130; Coleridge's reaction, ib.: Edinburgh
and her husband, 43; the varied character Review, ib.; Mr. Mill's essay on Coleridge, 131 ;
brought before us, 44; the “Life of Frederic," Coleridge's parentage, ib.; his school-time, 132;
as a work of art, ib.; the deterioration of Mr. Christ's Hospital, 132, 133; Lamb's description
Carlyle's style, 44, 45; his love of nicknames, of him, 134; enters Jesus College, Cambridge,
45; how he disposes of all objections to ib.; service in the 15th Light Dragoons, 135;
Frederic's faithlessness, 46; his false sentiment, ib., first friendship with Southey, ib.; the Pantiso
his disregard of plain morality, and misrepre cratic dream, 135, 136; his marriage, and the
sentation of facts, 47; the twofold purpose of “Bread and Cheese question,” 136; life at Bris
his book, 48; the influences at work in the Seven tol—The Watchman, ib; preaching in Unitarian
Years' War, 48,49; Frederic's “claims” on Si Chapels, 137; Hazlitt's description of him, ib.;
lesia, 49, 50; his invasion of it quite un leaves Bristol and settles at Nether Stowey,
justifiable, though defended by Mr. Carlyle, 51; 138; correspondence with Cottle the publisher,
Macaulay's view of this matter, ib.; Frederic's ib.; becomes recipient of an '' of £150,
policy in order to retain Silesia, 52; the parti 139; visit to Germany along with Wordsworth,
tion of Poland, and Mr. Carlyle's defence of it, ib.; translates Schiller's Wallenstein in London,
52, 53; interest of this work to students of the 140; joins Wordsworth in a tour among the
Index 267
lakes, ib.; contributes to the Morning Post, ib. ; script" and “On the Height," ib.; story of “On
migrates with his family to the lakes, and settles the Height.”ib.: Irma and Walpurga, Court life,
at Greta Hall, where he is soon joined by Southey, 172; Emilia Galotti, ib.; Baum the lackey,
140, 141; joins Wordsworth and his sister in 173; Count Eberhard, ib.; flight of Irma, 173,
their first tour in Scotland, 141; visits Malta for 174; German etiquette, 174; waiting dinner
health, 142; return by Rome, ib.; meets with for the king, 175, country and city life in Ger.
Scott, Byron, etc., ib.: The Friend, 143; descrip many, 176; idealism, 176, 177; Paul Heyse and
tion of Coleridge by De Quincey on first seeing the “Meran Stories,” 177; pictures of scenery,
him in 1807, ib.; opium-taking, 144; goes to live ib.: “Helene Morten,” 178; a sensational story,
at Highgate with the family of Mr. Gilman, a 179; a young Count and the Weber family, 179,
physician, ib.; 'résumé of his work during his 180; conclusions, 181; maxims of criticism, ib.
time there, 145; his last days, 145, 146; acknow Goldsmith's estimate of Shakspeare, 239.
ledgments of indebtedness to Coleridge, by Scott, “Gothic renaissance in English Literature, see
Arnold, Hare, etc., 146; would he better have English Literature.
stuck to poetry? 147; his four poetic epochs, ib.; Government, Carlyle's theory of; see Carlyle.
characteristics of each period, 147-149; his judg Grote's Plato; see Plato.
ments on the poetry of others, 149; criticism of H.
Wordsworth and Shakspeare, 149 150; his pc HARTLEY, 152.
litical philosophy: Mr. Mill's view of it, 151 ;
what was Coleridge's ultimate metaphysical Hero-worship, 61.
£p' ib.; British metaphysics popular L.
efore his time, 152; causality, ib.; Mr.
Mill's theory of the origin of our belief in caus LAMB, Charles, 132-134, 243.
ality, 153; Coleridge's materialism, 152; sen Locke, philosophy of 129.
sationalism,-intellectual misgivings, 153; escape M.
from sensationalism, 154; Kant's philosophy ib.; MILI. John Stuart,—his Examination of Hamilton's
the Reason, 155; ultimate aim of Coleridge's me Philosophy, 1 ; his place in philosophical dis.
taphysics, 156; his definition of faith, 156, 157; cussion, ib.; the two philosophical tendencies,
practical in the highest sense, 157; his moral 2; the Scotch philosophical discussion, 3 ;
theory—argument against utilitarianism,157,158; Masson's and Grote's new works, 3, 19; reasons
political principles grounded not on reason, but by which Mr. Mill justifies his undertaking. 3;
expediency, 158, 159; his religious views, 159; three groups of metaphysical questions, 4, 5;
puts the moral evidence of religion first, 160; in and three groups of logical questions, 5, 6; his
what sense did he make conscience the test of metaphysical indictment, 6; strictures on it, 7;
religious truth? 161; his doctrine of original the Hamilton metaphysics charged by Mr. Mili
sin, 163; of redemption, 164; the one aim of all with inconsistency with itself, 7, 8; conscious
his religious teaching, 166; depth of thought ness versus relativity, 8; representative con
characteristic of all his works, ib.; what he left sciousness, 9; the “facts of consciousness,” 10 ;
incomplete remains so still, ib. Berkeley and the Hamiltonian theory of matter,
Cooper, Sir Astley, 75. 11; theories of matter by Hamilton and Mr.
E Mill, 11, 12; problem of externality in the senses,
Edinburgh Review, 130, 141. 13; percepts – externality—what? 13, 14;
Eighteenth century, Carlyle on, 41,42; character matter a system of sensible symbols, 14; reflec.
istics of, 129, 130; literature, 237. tive realism, 15; Berkeleyism of Mr. Mill, 16;
English Literature, “Gothic" renaissance in, 235; his final inexplicability, 18; incipient self-con
rise and progress of literary taste, 236; taste in sciousness, 19; second group of metaphysical
literature evanescent, ib. ; Shakspeare and questions, 20; Mr. Mill's philosophy an analytic
Milton, 236, 237; literature of the eighteenth self-conscious phenomenalism, 21; Hamilton and
century, 237 seq., Goldsmith's estimate of Shak Mill on “necessary truths,” ib.; the criticism of
speare, 239; the “Gothic.” renaissance looming “necessary truths," ib., dogmatic and tentative
in the future, ib.; Addison and “Gothicism,” methods in philosophy, 22, 23; the mode in
240; Percy’s “Reliques of Ancient Poetry,” which each of the two philosophers treats the
241; Shenstone and '. Walpole, ib.; Dr. propositions whose authority warrants belief, 23,
Johnson, Warton, Grose, 241, 242; Sir Walter 24; third group of metaphysical questions, 24;
Scott, 242; his observations on the literary the Relativity of human knowledge, ib;—does
taste of his day, 242, 243; Charles Lamb's Hamilton teach it # 25; Mill's “unknown cause”
Essays, 243; Leigh Hunt, Charles Dickens, and Hamilton's “unconditioned,” 26; both re
244; Addison and Lamb on the London of their cognise faith amid an unknown, 27; the rule of
respective times, 245; comparisons of senti “excluded middle” and the unconditioned, 28;
ment between Sir Richard Steele, Pope, Walpole, “inconceivability,” and its three kinds, 29; Mr.
and Lamb, as shown in their observations on Mansell's professed applications of Hamiltonian
visiting Oxford, 247, 248; their past, present, ism, 29, 30; the logical questions, 30; See also
and future, 248. pp. 131, 151, 153.
P.
F
PINDAR and his age,—uncertainty as to the date of
FREDERIC the Great; see Carlyle. his birth and the duration of his life, 217; how
“Frost and Fire,” 105. are the traces of Orphic and £ ideas
G in his poetry to be accounted for 1,218, his
GERMAN Novelists, 167; theories about the Novel, popularity throughout Greece, 219; his family,
ib.; Freytag's “Debit and Credit," ib.; Frey ib.; the seventeen books of his poetry, ib.; the
tag's principles, 168; respective merits of “De Epinicia and the AEginetan odes, 220; character
bit and Credit” and “The Lost Manuscript,” istics of his poetry, 220, 221; English translations
169; analysis of the latter, 170; repetition of cha. of Pindaric Odes, 221; Heber's version of the
racters, 171; parallel between “The Lost Manu first six Olympic odes, ib.; quotations showing
268 Index.
his qualities as a translator, 221, 222; Pindar, of one day's sport, 80, 81; qualities of a sal
' and Herodotus, 222; interpretation mon-fisher, 81; adventure with a fish, 81, 82;
of Pindar, ib.; lyric and epic poetry, 223; Pin is the grilse a young salmon? 83; ancient abun
dar's genial versatility, 224; Dissen's Essay on dance of salmon, 83, 84; causes of its decay, 85;
Pindar, ib.; Pindar's two great topics of praise, the question of close-time, 85, 86; salmon legis
ib.; the odes for Hiero and Diagoras, ib.; the lation partial, 86; different modes of fishing 86,
legend of the Argonauts, 225; the epodes of 87; its natural enemy, the seal, 87; recent legisla
Pindar, 226; his exordiums, 227; difference tion, ib.; the Duke of Roxburghe's bill, 88; sal
between ancient and modern poetic art, ib.; mon-law in England and Scotland, 88,89; main
the picturesque in Pindar, 228; difference rovisions of the Irish law, 89; future salmon
between it and the modern romantic pictures tle, egislation, 90; value of the salmon as food, ib.;
ib.; Homer and Pindar, 229; the times of Pin mischief caused by stake and bag nets, ib.; pro
dar and their influence on his poetry, 230-233; posal for joint fishings, 91; advantages to be
the problem his poetry has to solve, 2.34; at derived from its adoption, ib.; a plea for grilse,
tempted solutions, ib.; Pindar the great saint 92; Mr. Russel's work on the Salmon, ib.
of the Pagan world, ib.; analogy between him Scott, Sir Walter, on literary taste, 242.
and St. Bernard of Clairvaux, 235; Pindar and Shakspeare and his contemporaries, 149, 212, 213,
Horace, ib. 239.
Plato and the Companions of Socrates, 181; varied Socrates; see Plato.
tone and colour of the Platonic thought, 182; Southey and Coleridge, 135 et seq.
Mr. Grote as an interpreter of Plato ib.; classi T.
fication of the Dialogues, 183; defects of Grote's
classification, 184; method of Socrates, 184, 185; TAYLoR, Henry, —his Poetical Works, 199; low
the Sophists, 185, 186; who they were, 186; condition of dramatic literature during the pre
Plato's charges against them, 187; the ‘ Prota sent century, ib.; recent dramas by Mr. Taylor,
goras' and ‘Gorgias, ib.; the end of human ib.; scene of “A Sicilian Summer,” and dramatis
action, 187, 188; the theory of ideas, 188, 189; personae, 200; extracts: illustrative of Silisco's
consequences of the ideal theory, 190; Plato and character, ib.; Rosalba, the heroine of the play,
the Eleatics, ib.; new form of the ideal theory, and her friend Fiordeliza, 201; analysis of the sto
191; remarks on the ideal dialectic of Plato, 191, ry, 201, 202; specimen of the author's # hand
192; conflicting tendencies in his writings, 192; as a dramatist, 202, 203; illustration of deep mo
truth and falsity of the ‘Republic, 193; ulti ral seriousness underlying the gaiety of this play,
mate result of his speculations, ib.; the higher 203; Rosalba's influence on Silisco, ib.; passage
dialectic, 193, 194; Plato's Inethod in the ‘Re embodying Mr. Taylor's philosophy of art, 203,
public, 194; the end of the ideal State, 195; 204; Ruggiero and Lisana, 204; the drama of
process of culture – Education, ib.; Plato's “St. Clement's Eve,” 205; its characteristics, ib.;
“noble lie,” 196; the problem of intellectual the fault of its theme, 206; merits of the play,
growth, ib.; the moral basis of the State, 197; ib.; Robert the Hermit's denunciation of the
permanent value of the Platonic "' 198. Royal Dukes given as an illustration, 207, 208;
Prior, Matthew, Poetical Works of; see Burlesque passage illustrating the two chief female charac
Poetry. ters, 208; strictures on the plot, 208,209; au
Prussia under Frederic the Great; see Carlyle. thor's appreciation of the art of painting, 209;
character of Burgundy, ib.; a series of pictures,
R.
210; the middle ages as dealt with in poetry,
RussEL, Mr. Alex, on the Salmon, 77-92. 211; Mr. Taylor's place among English poets, 211,
S. 212; Shakspeare and his contemporaries, 212
214; Mr. Taylor's characteristics, 214; his minor
SENSATION Novelists; see Braddon. poems, 214-217.
Salmon, the, its importance gastronomically and Thackeray, 54.
commercially, 77; its habits as described by Mr. W.
St. John, 78; the sport of salmon-fishing, ib.;
rod-fishing for salmon as described by Mr. Rus WALPo LE, Horace, 241.
sel, 79; compared with other sport, 80; notes Wordsworth, 130, 135 138 et seq., 149.
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The North British Review

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NORTH BRITISH REVIEW,

VOLUME XLII.-X L11

ART. I.—THR RISE AND PROGREss oF THE stance, a head-waiter of an establishment

Where he and his oft tholed pains,

difficult to conceive. But the adaptability of

celebrated in his time, Navagerio or Nauge

a sacrifice thus incurred by him. One of his

This playful allusion to the double relation “WOTUM SALOMONIS.

Where thy son Mars his state majestic keeps:

(Pasquier.) Et quand de ce beau couple il nait enfans,

JFrom the Greek. DoUBLE VISION UTILISED.

with cleverness and brevity, to produce its 9. La Asamblea Española de 1854 y La

several reactionary laws,—the most important

The Minister of Marine.

8vo, Longman and Co. To return for a few moments to Wind

C 72 Topography of the Chain of Mont Blanc. Marc

4. On the E., the valley of Ferret; ch

Trient. | Bionassay. “Glacier.” Laneuvaz.

chain. The only parts of the range of Mont Blanc,

known and thought in the world cannot be of

theory of Catholicism. Mr. Arnold's mind is open to foreign

distinctly enough what he was, but we get no “Condemned by himself—refuted by himself

before on the general subject, when words and

imposture we have seldom come across— 2. Sketches Contributed to Bell's Life.

When, however, we come to consider th Punch, not on the popular one.

NORTH BRITISH REVIEW.

one of his eyes bound up to rest the other.

126 F. A. Wolf. June,

mer—here we see Heyne's influence—had meeting. Then the Doctor triumphed. At

experiment. It was a new university. was to be a school for breeding masters of

toilsome occupation of school-teacher en These languages, Latin especially, had been

“A perfection of arts and manufactures, as

144 F. A. Wolf. June,

nishings. Instead of balancing each other,

mensely over Bentley's striking out as spuri 9. The Economist.

ESTIMATED WEEKLY EXPENDITURE OF AN ARTISAN, HIS WIFE, AND THREE CHILDREN.

1854. 1857. 1861.

1854." 1860. 1864.

Mutton, per lb., . • 4.0 0 2+ £0 0 4} | £0 0

156 The New Gold Mines, and Prices, June,

1849. 1859. March 1861.

1865. Three Women of Letters. 167

1865. Three Women of Letters. 169

Again, to compare the “emancipation” of with him; sought no amusement, no dress;

such creditable causes. Nay, some might be

others S. T. Coleridge, who, as she records,

1865. England and Norway in the Eleventh Century. 191

some; there were no posts, no letters, no When we Thingmen meet in fray

take, as we know from other accounts that he * Bromton in Twysden, p. 959.

beard's daughter. N'd

ETHELRED THE UNRRADY, d. 1016: Wulfnoth the Child.

HALFDAN WHITELEGs, d. 710.

King of Norway, Westfold, d. 927. mihn.

Elizabeth : Ellisif. Vladimir, d. 1052. Wsevolof, Grand bat. in Russia,

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