I must, moreover, add a passage from the general preface to the recent republication of Mr Disraeli’s works, which I came upon too late to introduce into the body of this book, but which I feel sure the reader, even if he has met with it before, will not be reluctant to reperuse:—
“The sceptical effects of the discoveries of science, and the uneasy feeling that they cannot co-exist with our old religious convictions have their origin in the circumstance that the general body who have suddenly become conscious of these physical truths are not so well acquainted as is desirable with the past history of man. Astonished by their unprepared emergence from ignorance to a certain degree of information, their amazed intelligence takes refuge in the theory of what is conveniently called progress, and every step in scientific discovery seems further to remove them from the path of primæval inspiration. But there is no fallacy so flagrant as to suppose that the modern ages have the peculiar privilege of scientific discovery, or that they are distinguished as the epochs of the most illustrious inventions. On the contrary, scientific invention has always gone on simultaneously with the revelation of spiritual truths; and more, the greatest discoveries are not those of modern ages. No one for a moment can pretend that printing is so great a discovery as writing, or algebra as language. What are the most brilliant of our chemical discoveries compared with the invention of fire and the metals? It is a vulgar belief that our astronomical knowledge dates only from the recent century, when it was rescued from the monks who imprisoned Galileo; but Hipparchus, who lived before our Divine Master, and who, among other sublime achievements, discovered the precession of the equinoxes, ranks with the Newtons and the Keplers; and Copernicus, the modern father of our celestial science, avows himself, in his famous work, as only the champion of Pythagoras, whose system he enforces and illustrates. Even the most modish schemes of the day on the origin of things, which captivate as much by their novelty as their truth, may find their precursors in ancient sages; and after a careful analysis of the blended elements of imagination and induction which characterise the new theories, they will be found mainly to rest on the atom of Epicurus and the monad of Thales. Scientific, like spiritual truth, has ever from the beginning been descending from Heaven to man. He is a being who organically demands direct relations with his Creator, and he would not have been so organised if his requirements could not be satisfied. We may analyse the sun and penetrate the stars; but man is conscious that he is made in God’s own image, and in his perplexity he will ever appeal to our Father which art in Heaven.”
MEMOIR
OF
COLONEL GEORGE MACDONELL, C.B.
The following notice appeared in the Times, May 23, 1870—“In our obituary column of Saturday we announced the death of Colonel George Macdonell, C.B., at the advanced age of ninety. This officer, who was a cadet of the ancient and loyal Scottish house of Macdonell of Glengarry, was the son of an officer who served under the flag, and who, as we have been told, was on the staff, of Prince Charles Edward Stuart at the battle of Culloden, where he was severely wounded. His son, the Colonel now deceased, was born in 1779, or early in the following year; obtained his first commission in 1796, and was nominated a Companion of the Bath in 1817. He saw active service in the war in North America with the 79th Foot, and received the gold medal for the action at Châteaugay; and had he not accepted the retirement a few years since, he would have been, at his death, almost the senior officer in the army holding Her Majesty’s commission. The late Colonel Macdonell, who adhered to the Roman Catholic religion professed by his ancestors, and for which they fought so gallantly under the Stuart banners, married, in 1820, the Hon. Laura Arundell, sister of the Lord Arundell of Wardour, but was left a widower in May 1854.” His son, Colonel I. J. Macdonell, now commands the 71st Highlanders.
I take this opportunity of adding a few facts, not without interest, to the above brief summary of a not uneventful life, as they might otherwise pass unrecorded. In the sentiment of the Gaelic saying—“Curri mi clach er do cuirn” (Wilson, “Archæol. Scot.,” p. 59)—“I will add a stone to your cairn.”
Colonel Macdonell’s father, as stated in the above account, was wounded at Culloden in the thigh, but was able to crawl on all-fours, after the battle, eighteen miles, to a barn belonging to a member of the Grant family. He there remained in concealment for six months, leaving nature to heal the wound; but the search in the neighbourhood in time becoming too hot, he had to decamp, and walked with a stick all the way to Newcastle, where he was not greatly re-assured by meeting a soldier who had just been drummed out of his regiment as a Catholic, with the word “Papist” placarded on his back. He, however, escaped all dangers, and reached Hull, and subsequently Versailles or St Germains, where he remained three years, or at least till the events following the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle dispersed the Prince’s adherents. He then returned to England under the Act of Indemnity, entered the royal army, and was present with General Wolfe at the taking of Quebec. If I remember rightly, he had the good fortune to take an aide-de-camp of Montcalm’s prisoner, with important dispatches.
Colonel Macdonell’s maternal uncle, Major Macdonald (Keppoch), was taken prisoner at the battle of Falkirk. He was said to have been the first man who drew blood in the war. By a curious revenue of fortune, he was carried back into the enemy’s ranks by the horse of a trooper whom he had captured. He was executed at Carlisle, and the circumstances of his execution supplied Sir Walter Scott, I believe, with the incidents which he worked up into the narrative of MacIvor’s execution in “Waverley.” His sword is in the possession of Mr P. Howard of Corby Castle, near Carlisle.
Fortune, however, had in store another revenge; for the Duke of Cumberland being present, many years afterwards, at a ball at Bath, by a most unhappy selection indicated as the person with whom he wished to dance a beautiful girl who turned out to be no other than the daughter of Major Macdonald (afterwards married to Mr Chichester of Calverley) the circumstances of whose execution have just been referred to. She rose in deference to royalty, but replied, in a tone which utterly discomfited, and put his Royal Highness to flight—“No, I will never dance with the murderer of my father!”
With these antecedents, it is needless to add that Colonel G. Macdonell was a warm admirer of the Stuarts, and not unnaturally extended his sympathy and adhesion to the kindred cause of legitimacy in France; and the one event to which he always looked forward, and confidently predicted—the restoration of the monarchy in the person of Henri V.—is now, if not imminent, at least “the more probable of possible events.” There was, however, a belief which somewhat conflicted in his mind with the above anticipation—namely, his unshaken conviction that the Dauphin did not die in the Temple. He was frequently at Holyrood when the palace was occupied by Charles X., and he accompanied the Duchess de Berri to the place of embarkation for her unfortunate expedition to France. Colonel Macdonell also acted as the medium of communication between the French Royalists and the English Government; and on one important occasion conveyed intelligence to Lord Bathurst or Lord Sidmouth respecting the movements of the secret societies in Spain in 1823 some hours before it reached them by the ordinary channel. Part of the communication was made on information supplied by the Abbé Barruel; and in reply, Lord Sidmouth said—“Well, I remember Edmund Burke telling me that he believed every word that Barruel had written, and I fully accept the authority.”