SONG
Whene'er with haggard eyes I view
This dungeon that I'm rotting in,
I think of those companions true
Who studied with me at the U—
—niversity of Gottingen,
—niversity of Gottingen.
[Weeps and pulls out a blue kerchief, with which he wipes his eyes; gazing tenderly at it, he proceeds:—]
Sweet kerchief, checked with heavenly blue,
Which once my love sat knotting in!—
Alas! Matilda then was true!
At least I thought so at the U—
—niversity of Gottingen,
—niversity of Gottingen.
[At the repetition of this line Rogero clanks his chains in cadence.]
Barbs! barbs! alas! how swift you flew,
Her neat post-wagon trotting in!
Ye bore Matilda from my view;
Forlorn I languished at the U—
—niversity of Gottingen,
—niversity of Gottingen.
This faded form! this pallid hue!
This blood my veins is clotting in!
My years are many—they were few
When first I entered at the U—
—niversity of Gottingen,
—niversity of Gottingen.
There first for thee my passion grew,
Sweet, sweet Matilda Pottingen!
Thou wast the daughter of my Tu-
tor, law professor at the U—
—niversity of Gottingen,
—niversity of Gottingen.
[A]Sun, moon, and thou, vain world, adieu!
That kings and priests are plotting in:
Here doomed to starve on water gru—
el, never shall I see the U—
—niversity of Gottingen,
—niversity of Gottingen.
[During the last stanza Rogero dashes his head repeatedly against the walls of his prison, and finally so hard as to produce a visible contusion. He then throws himself on the floor in an agony. The curtain drops, the music still continuing to play till it is wholly fallen.]
[A] This verse is said to have been added by the younger Pitt.
THE FRIEND OF HUMANITY AND THE KNIFE-GRINDER
FRIEND OF HUMANITY
Needy Knife-grinder! whither are you going?
Rough is the road; your wheel is out of order—
Bleak blows the blast; your hat has got a hole in't,
So have your breeches!
Weary Knife-grinder! little think the proud ones
Who in their coaches roll along the turnpike
Road, what hard work 'tis crying all day, "Knives and
Scissors to grind O!"
Tell me, Knife-grinder, how you came to grind knives?
Did some rich man tyrannically use you?
Was it some squire? or parson of the parish?
Or the attorney?
Was it the squire, for killing of his game? or
Covetous parson, for his tithes distraining?
Or roguish lawyer, made you lose your little
All in a lawsuit?
Have you not read the 'Rights of Man,' by Tom Paine?
Drops of compassion tremble on my eyelids,
Ready to fall, as soon as you have told your
Pitiful story.
KNIFE-GRINDER
Story? God bless you! I have none to tell, sir;
Only last night a-drinking at the Chequers,
This poor old hat and breeches, as you see, were
Torn in a scuffle.
Constables came up for to take me into
Custody; they took me before the justice;
Justice Oldmixon put me in the parish-
Stocks for a vagrant.
I should be glad to drink your honor's health in
A pot of beer, if you will give me sixpence;
But for my part, I never love to meddle
With politics, sir.
FRIEND OF HUMANITY
I give thee sixpence! I will see thee damned first—
Wretch! whom no sense of wrongs can rouse to vengeance!
Sordid, unfeeling, reprobate, degraded,
Spiritless outcast!
[Kicks the Knife-grinder, overturns his wheel, and exit in a transport of republican enthusiasm and universal philanthropy.]
ON THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION
From the 'Speech on Parliamentary Reform'
Other nations, excited by the example of the liberty which this country has long possessed, have attempted to copy our Constitution; and some of them have shot beyond it in the fierceness of their pursuit. I grudge not to other nations that share of liberty which they may acquire: in the name of God, let them enjoy it! But let us warn them that they lose not the object of their desire by the very eagerness with which they attempt to grasp it. Inheritors and conservators of rational freedom, let us, while others are seeking it in restlessness and trouble, be a steady and shining light to guide their course; not a wandering meteor to bewilder and mislead them.
Let it not be thought that this is an unfriendly or disheartening counsel to those who are either struggling under the pressure of harsh government, or exulting in the novelty of sudden emancipation. It is addressed much rather to those who, though cradled and educated amidst the sober blessings of the British Constitution, pant for other schemes of liberty than those which that Constitution sanctions—other than are compatible with a just equality of civil rights, or with the necessary restraints of social obligation; of some of whom it may be said, in the language which Dryden puts into the mouth of one of the most extravagant of his heroes, that
"They would be free as Nature first made man,
Ere the base laws of servitude began,
When wild in the woods the noble savage ran."
Noble and swelling sentiments!—but such as cannot be reduced into practice. Grand ideas!—but which must be qualified and adjusted by a compromise between the aspirings of individuals and a due concern for the general tranquillity;—must be subdued and chastened by reason and experience, before they can be directed to any useful end! A search after abstract perfection in government may produce in generous minds an enterprise and enthusiasm to be recorded by the historian and to be celebrated by the poet: but such perfection is not an object of reasonable pursuit, because it is not one of possible attainment; and never yet did a passionate struggle after an absolutely unattainable object fail to be productive of misery to an individual, of madness and confusion to a people. As the inhabitants of those burning climates which lie beneath a tropical sun, sigh for the coolness of the mountain and the grove; so (all history instructs us) do nations which have basked for a time in the torrid blaze of an unmitigated liberty, too often call upon the shades of despotism, even of military despotism, to cover them,—
"—O quis me gelidis in vallibus Hæmi
Sistat, et ingenti ramorum protegat umbra!"
a protection which blights while it shelters; which dwarfs the intellect and stunts the energies of man, but to which a wearied nation willingly resorts from intolerable heats and from perpetual danger of convulsion.
Our lot is happily cast in the temperate zone of freedom, the clime best suited to the development of the moral qualities of the human race, to the cultivation of their faculties, and to the security as well as the improvement of their virtues;—a clime not exempt, indeed, from variations of the elements, but variations which purify while they agitate the atmosphere that we breathe. Let us be sensible of the advantages which it is our happiness to enjoy. Let us guard with pious gratitude the flame of genuine liberty, that fire from heaven, of which our Constitution is the holy depository; and let us not, for the chance of rendering it more intense and more radiant, impair its purity or hazard its extinction!
ON BROUGHAM AND SOUTH AMERICA
I now turn to that other part of the honorable and learned gentleman's [Mr. Brougham's] speech; in which he acknowledges his acquiescence in the passages of the address, echoing the satisfaction felt at the success of the liberal commercial principles adopted by this country, and at the steps taken for recognizing the new States of America. It does happen, however, that the honorable and learned gentleman being not unfrequently a speaker in this House, nor very concise in his speeches, and touching occasionally, as he proceeds, on almost every subject within the range of his imagination, as well as making some observations on the matter in hand,—and having at different periods proposed and supported every innovation of which the law or Constitution of the country is susceptible,—it is impossible to innovate without appearing to borrow from him. Either, therefore, we must remain forever absolutely locked up as in a northern winter, or we must break our way out by some mode already suggested by the honorable and learned gentleman; and then he cries out, "Ah, I was there before you! That is what I told you to do; but as you would not do it then, you have no right to do it now."
In Queen Anne's reign there lived a very sage and able critic named Dennis, who in his old age was the prey of a strange fancy that he had himself written all the good things in all the good plays that were acted. Every good passage he met with in any author he insisted was his own. "It is none of his," Dennis would always say: "no, it's mine!" He went one day to see a new tragedy. Nothing particularly good to his taste occurred till a scene in which a great storm was represented. As soon as he heard the thunder rolling over his head he exclaimed, "That's my thunder!" So it is with the honorable and learned gentleman: it's all his thunder. It will henceforth be impossible to confer any boon, or make any innovation, but he will claim it as his thunder.
But it is due to him to acknowledge that he does not claim everything; he will be content with the exclusive merit of the liberal measures relating to trade and commerce. Not desirous of violating his own principles by claiming a monopoly of fore-sight and wisdom, he kindly throws overboard to my honorable and learned friend [Sir J. Mackintosh] near him, the praise of South America. I should like to know whether, in some degree, this also is not his thunder. He thinks it right itself; but lest we should be too proud if he approved our conduct in toto, he thinks it wrong in point of time. I differ from him essentially; for if I pique myself on anything in this affair, it is the time. That at some time or other, States which had separated themselves from the mother country should or should not be admitted to the rank of independent nations, is a proposition to which no possible dissent could be given. The whole question was one of time and mode. There were two modes: one a reckless and headlong course by which we might have reached our object at once, but at the expense of drawing upon us consequences not lightly to be estimated; the other was more strictly guarded in point of principle, so that while we pursued our own interests, we took care to give no just cause of offense to other Powers.