“True and tender is the North.”
In the dark days of the Stuarts, witness the noble struggles of the Covenanters and the Puritans for civil and religious liberty.
Notwithstanding mixtures and amalgamations of blood, as a general rule the distinctive tendencies of race survive, and, good or bad, as the case may be, reappear in new and unexpected forms. Even habit becomes a second nature, the traces of which, centuries with their changes cannot altogether obliterate.
On the other side of the Atlantic, the Puritan Fathers, their descendants, and men like them, have been the salt of the north; while many of the planters of the south, tainted with cavalier blood, continue to foster slavery—“that sum of all villanies”—and glory in being man-stealers, man-sellers, and murderers, although cursed of God, and execrated by all right thinking men. John Brown of Harper’s Ferry, who was the other day judicially murdered, we would select as an honoured type of the noble, manly, brave, truth-loving, God-fearing Scandinavian—The Times and Athenæum notwithstanding.[[57]] His heroism in behalf of the poor despised slave had true moral grandeur in it—it was sublime. America cannot match it. Washington was great—John Brown was greater. Washington resisted the imposition of unjust taxes on himself and his equals, but was a slave-holder; John Brown unselfishly devoted his energies—nay, life itself—to obtain freedom for the oppressed, and to save his country from just impending judgments. The one was a patriot; the other was a patriot and philanthropist. The patriotism of Washington was limited by colour; that of Brown was thorough, and recognised the sacred rights of man. He was hanged for trying to accomplish that which his murderers ought to have done—nay, deserved to be hanged for not doing—hanged for that which they shall yet do, if not first overtaken and whelmed in just and condign vengeance; for the cry of blood ascends. He was no less a martyr to the cause of freedom than John Brown of Priesthill, who was ruthlessly shot by the bloody Claverhouse. These two noble martyrs, in virtue alike of their name and cause, shall stand together on the page of future history, when their cruel murderers and the abettors of them have long gone to their own place. For such deeds there shall yet be tears of blood. The wrongs of Italy are not to be named in comparison with those of the slave. Let those who boast of a single drop of Scandinavian blood in their veins no longer withhold just rights from the oppressed—rights which, if not yielded at this the eleventh hour, shall be righteously, though fearfully, wrested from the oppressors, when the hour of retribution comes.[[58]]
Perhaps the two most striking outward resemblances between Britons and Scandinavians may be found in their maritime skill, and in their powers of planting colonies, and governing themselves by free institutions, representative parliaments, and trial by jury.
The Norse rover—bred to the sea, matchless in skill, daring, loving adventure and discovery, and with any amount of pluck—is the true type of the British tar. In light crafts, the Northmen could run into shallow creeks, cross the North Sea, or boldly push off to face the storms of the open Atlantic. These old Vikings were seasoned “salts” from their very childhood—“creatures native and imbued unto the element;” neither in peace nor war, on land nor sea, did they fear anything but fear.
“Tameless spirits of the past!
Boldest and noblest of earth’s kind were ye—
Conquerors of nations—fathers of a race
Of giant princes.”[[59]]