Beneath that stone the Ambassador whose doings and sufferings we have witnessed sleeps quietly—the sleep of clay and dust. Of all those agonies and vanities: emotions once so real and vibrant—of that personality so impulsive, so susceptible to flattery, so prone to anger and fear—remains only a pale reflection in the letters we have deciphered. Out of those fussy despatches he who cares may still call up the phantom of Sir John Finch: there, if anywhere, he still lives—a soul infinitely pathetic.
For Sir John was nowise great; and such elements of greatness as may have been in him were frustrated by his one life-long attachment. From the time he met Baines, Finch lost every chance of self-development and self-realisation. Tied, heart and mind, to that monotonous, masterful pedagogue, he never used his own powers. The universe had contracted round him to the narrow circle limited by that pedant’s exiguous vision. How completely Baines kept the world, its inhabitants, and its interests from Finch may be seen from the fact that, after seven years’ residence, our Ambassador knew almost as little of Turkey as on the day of his landing. During all those years the realities about him took a second place in his thoughts: the first place was filled by abstractions according to Sir Thomas: on Sundays the twain composed essays on Theology, and on week-days they talked what Sir Thomas imagined to be Philosophy. Life-long tutelage must have a debilitating, devitalising effect; and it can hardly be questioned that the benignant Baines exercised over his friend a most malignant influence. Not intentionally, of course: Baines, we are persuaded, meant well; but much of the mischief done on this planet is done by people who mean well.
It was a sound instinct that made Finch shy at public life. As a diplomat he displayed all the faults of one to whom zeal and judgment had not been given in equal proportions. He was not born for diplomacy: certainly not for Turkish diplomacy. In all those oscillations of mood and fluctuations of the will which he so naïvely betrayed when wrought up by his feelings, we see a temperament very ill adapted to a profession which requires above all things coolness and firmness. That he failed at Constantinople cannot be disguised. But, despite his foibles and his friend, he would have done as well as any average ambassador, if he had had no exceptional difficulties to contend with. So much is clear from his history: as long as the sun shines and the waters are smooth, we see him steering on, happily enough; as soon as the tempest bursts, the helm slips from his hold and he flounders on in thick darkness, inward and outward—a fair-weather pilot, like many another. To drop metaphor, the man—everything reckoned—was essentially a victim of circumstances: chief among them the death of Ahmed Kuprili. Even more mediocre natures would have succeeded under that Grand Vizir; under Kara Mustafa only talents of the very first order could have availed. And it is poignant to reflect what a trifle would have turned Sir John’s failure into a success: had he accepted the Turkish Embassy when it was first offered to him, in 1668, his career at Constantinople would have terminated before the death of Ahmed—on such little ironies hang the destinies of poor mortals.
FOOTNOTES:
[290] Finch to Sunderland, Nov. 6-16, 1680.
[291] Finch to Jenkins, July 25, 27, 1681.
[292] Chandos to Jenkins, Sept. 23, St. Vet. 1681.
[293] Malloch’s Finch and Baines, p. 72.
[294] Finch to Jenkins, Sept. 22, Oct. 14-24.
[295] Ibid.