Yea, they mean something, these Solicitor-Generals and Tichborne bonds:—a Partridge-shooting, Salmon-preserving, Dilettante Aristocracy have said so much, have said so with lifting of hands and Reverence—we fear somewhat of the Rotatory Calabash kind. They mean this much, which is perhaps somewhat other than Double-barrelled Dilettantisms would have them mean. They mean this much. This England of ours believes no longer in Truth, believes rather in a kind of Sham Truth, a stucco business, much to be lamented; at least, by all such as hold their soul for a purpose other than to save salt, to keep them from Rottenness, Stinking, and utter Unsavouryness. “They say unto us ‘make brick,’ and no straw is given unto thy servants.” So might cry our men of law, lacking Truth to work upon; but for straw they cry not, thinking to make brick without straw; and they make no brick, rather Falsity, Puffery, and Unnature.
O, great Roger! these matters of thine call with a tolerably audible voice of Proclamation, and a universal “oyez,” and we English Microcosms may know that it was verily meant in earnest that same Phenomenon, and had its reasons for appearing there—Just and Unjust cause—Dikaios and Adikos Logos—trying to settle or get themselves settled, incessantly protesting against each being the other, and with it may be another kind of Logos from the great Universe with silent continual Beckonings trying to revenge itself, revancher itself, make itself good again.
For does not the Universe hold an inarticulate Sympathy with Justice, yearning that meum be mine tuum thine. That meum be mine! There is surely something Respectable in that.
And what is the outcome, ask Practical men, of all this? What is the import of the matter to us who are not Rogers? Verily, my friends, this—that England is in a state of Chronic Atropos, hath made her a covering of Asses-ears, Midas-leavings, Sermons, parchment and what not, hoping to sleep through it in such caloric apparel in this Glass house of hers, knowing that glass is no conductor—to Heaven’s lightning at least.
The Outcome of ninety-one days’ sittings, Red-tape Philosophies, Club-room jaw-clackings, and Infernal Babel of Telegraphs and Morning Stars is little other than—for Rogers Newgate and the Blackness of Darkness, for those who are not Rogers, discovery of Chronic Atropos in a Rampant state, wholly Insuppressible, Irrepressible, and Mad.
After all, is not Insanity just what is the matter with this English Bull just now? Is there Sanity at all among us butchers, bakers and candlestick-makers, red tape dummies, black crape ludicrousnesses, Puseyisms, Benthamee Radicalisms, Church and Statisms, Dilettantisms, Mammonisms, double-barelled Aristocracies, and inane Chimæras generally? Literature is, perhaps, the Sanest thing we have just at present, at least tolerabler, impressibler, beneficenter than mere Chaos, articulate or inarticulate. Writers, at least, have a Meaning, must have a Meaning; state some Fact or Facts, or what they take for Fact or Facts, intelligibly, so that men may say “Thus thinks a Man, whether he think wrong or right.”
And the Tichborne Trial was mad, utterly mad, with no Truth, hardly even Untruth in it, but Confusion and Roaring as of the Pit and Abyss of stupidity.
Did the Insanity thereof dawn upon many, think you? One might have hoped so, have hoped that such had been the Outcome which Practical Men require. One might have hoped that the sense of the World, Judicial, Social, and Otherwise, would have got itself resuscitated from Asphyxia, or proved for ever irresuscitable. But, instead thereof, we have Times Subscription-list actually now present, and Impending Ominous Perjury-trials, fresh Chaotic Incongruities, diabolic Floppings and Caterwaulings hitherto thought moribund, scattering incalculable Contagion.
Thus clearly doth this Roger matter preach its lesson to mankind, teaching and preaching clearly as these Words writ down here the Unveracity of Demiurgurships, of Solicitor-Generals, and such Parchment Kings.
But, my friends, such things will not last, at least not longer than Doomsday in the afternoon. It is very notable, Demiurgurship of Judges, that loud Inane Actuality with justice in its pocket, which rolls along there with trumpeters blaring round it, and all the world escorting it as mute or vocal Flunkey—go thy way. Escort it not thou, my brother. Say unto it rather, “Loud blaring Nonentity, no force of wigs, spectacles, and trumpets can make thee an Entity. Thou art a Nonentity and deceptive Simulacrum.” Storm-clothed Caverns Cheese and Earwigs! French and Phrygians, Zero. Ba! Moo! Hee Haw! Hee Haw.