The tribute children were generally collected between the ages of seven and nine. They were at first lodged in the Sultan’s palace, and carefully instructed in the principles and forms of the Mohammedan religion under the ablest teachers, selected by Orkhan, who studied their dispositions and mental capacities. They then entered on a course of elementary knowledge and gymnastics. As their mental capacities were developed, and their physical strength increased, they were divided into several classes. Some, destined to become “men of the pen,” were educated in legal and administrative knowledge, and from them the officials in the civil and financial administration were usually selected. Many became secretaries of state, judges and viziers. Another division was disciplined as “men of the sword,” and the celebrated corps of janissaries was at first composed of select individuals from this body. This college of conquering missionaries, when formed by Orkhan, consisted of only one thousand, but before the end of his reign it had increased to three thousand; and when Mohammed II. took Constantinople, the number had attained twelve thousand. The tribute children were also numerous in the ranks of the cavalry, artillery, and police soldiers of the empire. Never, indeed, was so terrible an instrument of absolute power created so rapidly and so completely beyond all external influence as that which Orkhan formed. The tribute children were all members of the household of the Othoman Sultan. They had no ties of family or country, and felt no responsibility but what they owed to the prophet and the Sultan. At the beck of the Sultan, and with a fetva of the mufti, they were ready to strike down the proudest noble of the Seljouks, to shed the purest blood of the Arabs, and to trample on all the hereditary feelings and prejudices of the courts of the Caliphs. Against the Christian nations they were animated with the most fervent zeal; for it was a principal part of their education to infuse an enthusiastic wish to extend the empire of Islam. Thus Orkhan made Christian parents the most active agents in destroying the Christian religion. It is impossible to reflect on this lamentable occurrence without feeling that, had the Greek emperors and the orthodox priests of the period given their subjects and their parishioners as good an education as Orkhan gave his slaves, the attacks of the Turks might have been triumphantly repulsed.
That the system of education pursued in the palace of Orkhan must have derived some of its excellent qualities from the family system of Othman’s household, cannot be doubted. The Othoman tribe was not morally corrupted, like the society of the Seljouk Turks; the history of their empire bears strong testimony to the fact during several generations. The Othoman sultans were, during the early period of the empire, educated on the same system, and in the same manner, as the tribute children, and no state can show such a long succession of hereditary sovereigns remarkable for great talent. The Othoman institutions testify the sagacity of Orkhan and Murad I. more than their rapid conquests. Bayezid the Thunderbolt, though his rash pride caused the defeat of Angora and the ruin of the empire for a time, was liberal and generous to his Christian subjects, whom he admitted freely to his society. Mohammed I., who restored the empire ruined by his father’s ambition, was a staunch friend and a kind master, though, in his hostilities, as old Phrantzes says, he was as obstinately persevering as a camel. Murad II. distinguished himself by his attention to the administration of justice, and swept away many of the abuses which, under the Greek emperors, had exhausted the fortunes of the Christians. If any of his pashas or judges oppressed the Christians in his dominions they were severely punished. Mohammed II., the conqueror of Constantinople, united the activity of youth with the sagacity of age, both as a warrior and a statesman. He possessed considerable literary and scientific knowledge, and had made great progress in astrology, then the fashionable science both among Christians and Mussulmans. He was fond of reading, and spoke the Turkish, Arabic, Persian, Greek, Latin, and Sclavonian languages with fluency. Such is the character of the early sultans for six generations, as transmitted to us in the pages of their mortal enemies, the Byzantine Greeks. Other authorities tell us that these infidels were ready to receive suggestions for the improvement of their army and their civil administration, and that they were indefatigably engaged in submitting new ideas in the civil administration, and new inventions in the art of war, to the most rigorous examination. Activity and intelligence were stimulated in every branch of the public service by the example of the prince. The consequences form the staple of early Othoman history. New combinations in war and politics presented themselves daily to every Turkish pasha, which called for a prompt decision; and as it was incumbent on him to transmit a report of the reasons which had determined his conduct to an able and despotic master, he soon learned prudence in counsel as well as promptitude in action. For two centuries we find nothing vague and indefinite in the operations of the Othoman sultans, or of the pashas intrusted with the command of their armies. The first modern school of generals and statesmen was formed in the Othoman empire.
The general causes of the decline of the Othoman empire are well known. The janissaries, instead of being tribute children, were transformed into a garde nationale, like what we have seen flourish and disappear at Paris. But the logical principles of a paternal monarchy still exist at Constantinople. The Sultan is connected with his people, but can have no ties of family. He ought not to be the son of a free woman, but the child of a slave, destitute of every family tie, in order that no personal attachments and family sympathies may interfere with the cares of administration.
At the present moment we hear it asserted on all sides, that the Othoman administration is making great progress in restoring energy and intelligence in the government. Yet there are some who insist that the progress is small; that it is an empire without roads, and a government without a people; a central administration which every subject, be he Christian or Mussulman, detests for its financial rapacity and systematic contempt for justice. Inshallah! there is some truth on both sides, but it is not exactly our clue to separate the wheat from the tares, as they resemble one another so much at Stamboul as to confound the skill of European diplomatists. We know to our cost that there is no road either to Brusa or Adrianople fit for a French diligence, and that an abortive attempt was made to form a road from Trebizond to Erzeroum.
The great feature of the Othoman empire at the present day is this, that capital cannot be profitably employed in the improvement of the soil, and, strange to say, this peculiar feature of its social condition is common to the new-created monarchy of Greece, and to no other European state. Trade often flourishes, cities increase in population and wealth, gardens, vineyards, and orchards grow up round the towns from the overflow of commercial profits, but the canker is in the heart of the agricultural population; a yoke of land receives the same quantity of seed it did a hundred years ago, and the same number of families cultivate the same fields. This is the most favourable view of the case; but the fact is, that many of the richest plains of Thrace, Macedonia, and Asia Minor, are uncultivated, and have only the wolf and the jackal for their tenants. In Greece, too, under the scientific administration of King Otho, and with a representative government à la Française, we see the plains of Thebes, Messenia, and Tripolitza, present the same agricultural system which they did under the Othoman government, and agriculture in general quite as much neglected and more despised. Now the line of demarcation between civilisation and barbarism really consists in the profitable investment of capital in the soil. The agricultural population is the basis of a national existence, and unless the soil produce two bushels of wheat from the same surface where one formerly grew, and fatten two sheep where one merely gathered a subsistence, a nation gains little in strength and wellbeing though its cities double their population. The political and social problem, with regard to the governments of Constantinople and Athens, which now requires a solution, is, to determine the causes that prevent the cultivation of wheat on the European and Asiatic coasts of the Archipelago, and in the fertile island of Cyprus. The provinces between the Danube and the Don were in a similar condition when Akerman, Okzakoff, and Azof, were Turkish pashaliks; under the Russian government, they supply France and England with grain. Now, the grain-growers of Turkey could furnish half the grain exported at present from the Black Sea, and they could obtain much higher prices for their produce in consequence of the great saving of freight to consumers. Even the fertile districts of Bithynia and Thrace, bordering on the Sea of Marmora, than which there are no finer corn-districts in the world, cannot furnish Constantinople with a regular supply of wheat; and the Osmanlees would often suffer famine in the capital of their empire, unless they were provisioned from the provinces taken from them by the Moskof gaiour.
For our part, we must say that it is not unreasonable to entertain some doubts of the improvement which has manifested itself in the Othoman administration proving permanent, until we see some increase of the agricultural population. When the citizens of Stamboul and Athens begin to colonise the country, it will be time enough to talk of the regeneration of the Othoman power. And unless the population of the kingdom of Otho of Bavaria, which possess all the advantages to be derived from universal suffrage, joined to the inestimable liberty of walking about the streets with pistols and Turkish knives stuck in the belt, begin to abandon its passion for coffeehouses, and find pleasure and profit in the cultivation of the fields, the improvement of the Greek nation will not be generally admitted, even though Athens become a clean, elegant, and flourishing city. There must be an evident increase in the amount of the produce of the soil from a given number of acres, before those who study the political history of nations can be persuaded of the feasibility of the project of restoring a Greek empire.
MACAULAY’S SPEECHES.[[9]]
As we never had the good fortune of moving in that circle of society to which the power of retailing anecdote, with minute circumstantiality, was considered as the proper passport—as we never were invited to listen to the small scandals of the group collected at Holland House, or the smaller delivery of the contents of commonplace books, which, in less renowned Whig coteries, is considered the perfection of sprightly converse—we are not ashamed to acknowledge our momentary oblivion of the party, who, in the sonorous verse and rounded periods of a brother dramatist, recognised his own thunder. We cannot at this moment accurately remember whether it was the figurative Puff or Plagiary, or the real Cumberland, who preferred that accusation; and, therefore, we frankly admit, that we lie at the mercy of those gentlemen who consider a slip in an anecdote, or an erroneous name and date in a fragment of gossip, as the evidence of deficient education, and the token of unpolished intercourse. We allude to the story in question merely because the preface to Mr Macaulay’s collected speeches exhibits a curious specimen of the wrath which may be excited by another method of conveyance. It is not the appropriation of his thunder, but the non-appropriation of it, which seems to have roused Mr Macaulay to a point of very vehement indignation. It appears that a London publisher, Mr Vizetelly, availing himself of a licence which the law permits—namely, that of reprinting speeches which have been publicly delivered—conceived that the issue of a collection of Mr Macaulay’s speeches might possibly prove a paying speculation. He reprinted, as we are given to understand, from “Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates,” a number of these orations; but, in his preliminary advertisement he appears to have announced that he did so “by special permission.” That phrase ought not to have been used; or if used, it should have been accompanied by a distinct reference to the party who granted the permission. Nine out of ten of the reading public would certainly conclude, from the terms employed, that Mr Macaulay, not the proprietor of Hansard, had authorised the publication; and, so far, there is just ground for complaint. It was not only natural, but proper, and due to himself, that Mr Macaulay should have taken steps to disavow any connection with, or any countenance given to the enterprise of the enigmatical publication. But he has not contented himself with a broad disclaimer. Stung to the quick by some absurd blunders which the self-constituted editor has committed, and which are specially referred to in the preface, in terms of vehement indignation, he has thought it necessary for his own fame to suspend “a work which is the business and the pleasure of my life, in order to prepare these speeches for publication.” It is no compliment to Mr Macaulay to say that the public will not thank him for having done so. The desire and eagerness, on the part of the public, to receive a new instalment of his History, is only equalled by their repugnance to peruse speeches upon subjects the interest of which has long gone by—a repugnance not lessened by the impression that, even when new, the speeches were not of a superlative degree of merit. We are sorry that because Vizetelly—whom Mr Macaulay supposes to be actuated by a desire of attaining the same distinction which was formerly enjoyed by Curll—should have mistaken Pundits for Pandects, and magnified the city of Benares into an oriental nation—because he has made the gifted orator “give an utterly false history of Lord Nottingham’s Occasional Conformity Bill”—or because he has represented him as saying “that Whitfield held and taught that the connection between Church and State was sinful,” whereas Whitfield never said anything of the kind, nor was Mr Macaulay so ignorant as to have averred that he did,—we say we are sorry that because Vizetelly did these things, our brilliant, though tardy historian, should have considered his reputation so dangerously imperilled, as to depart from his legitimate and most interesting labours, for the purpose of presenting us with a mediocre and uninspiring volume of speeches. It is true that he avers reluctance, nay, even disinclination to the task. If that were his real feeling, he need not have troubled himself much about the speculations of Vizetelly. During the last twenty years, many public speakers—nay, some men who may be classed as real orators—all of them far more distinguished than Mr Macaulay, for power, energy, pathos, wit, and influence, have gone to their graves; and yet no attempt has been made, though the absence of copyright in speeches might have encouraged the speculation, to publish their works in a collected form. If we want to form an idea of the styles of the late Earl Grey, or Lord Durham, or Sir Francis Burdett, we must necessarily have recourse to the Mirror of Parliament. The filial piety of their relatives, great as it was, did not lead them to the generous error of supposing that their speeches would hereafter rank with those of Demosthenes or Cicero. In our own day no man, as a popular orator, equalled Daniel O’Connell; yet where are his collected speeches?—and be it remembered that popular oratory is essentially Demosthenic, and that O’Connell could produce a greater effect upon a mixed audience—which is the test of oratory—than any other man of our time. Where are Shiel’s speeches? In Hansard—where, we hesitate not to say, the speeches of every man of the slightest eminence in public life ought to be allowed to remain, without separate collection, at least during his own lifetime, and until his career is accomplished. Indeed, there are many prudential reasons, at the present day, against the collection of senatorial speeches. No one has proposed to issue those of the late Sir Robert Peel, although there can be no doubt that such a publication would afford some curious subjects for commentary. It would serve the same purpose as the ancient collections of commonplaces—loci communes, loci rerum, &c.—from which the tyro in rhetoric might draw arguments adapted for immediate use on either side of a question. In such a collection all possible pros and contras would be found, not drily stated, but set forth with elaborate ingenuity. One speech would give the Protestant, and another the Catholic side of the question—one while we should find the orator supporting agriculture against manufactures—another, manufactures against agriculture; the zeal and sincerity being in both cases the same. Then, what a charming miscellany Sir James Graham has it in his power to offer to the public! What deftness—what dexterity—what amazing complexity of tergiversation would be exhibited by a collection of his Parliamentary speeches! We feel almost inclined to advise Mr Vizetelly to ransack Hansard for the Netherby harangues; the more so because Mr Macaulay, in his own edition, has taken care to insert nothing calculated to irritate Sir James. That is not altogether fair, and it is certainly the reverse of valorous. Mr Macaulay had occasion, in his place in Parliament, to direct vigorous speeches both against Sir Robert Peel and against Sir James Graham. He tells us now in his preface that “it was especially painful to me to find myself under the necessity of recalling to my own recollection, and to the recollection of others, the keen encounters which took place between the late Sir Robert Peel and myself;” and he pays a very handsome compliment to the memory of the deceased statesman. That is graceful, amiable, and, we doubt not, entirely sincere. Nevertheless he publishes verbatim, what he said in debate against Sir Robert Peel, who is no more; whereas we find no trace of his famous speech in the letter-opening case, directed against Sir James Graham, who is the living colleague of Lord John Russell. The omission may be accidental; or Mr Macaulay may think the speech in question not so felicitous as to be worth recording. If the latter, we differ from him. It was a spirited speech—much more nettlesome and pungent than threefourths of those which he has included in the present volume; and we have no doubt that Sir James Graham, if appealed to, will corroborate our opinion. Be it observed, however, that we do not by any means maintain that Mr Macaulay was bound to reprint his diatribe against Sir James. We make these remarks for the purpose of showing how unwise it is for any man to become the editor of his own speeches; seeing that he must either give huge offence to the living, or let them escape scot-free, whilst he repeats his strictures on the dead. After all, we think he would have acted prudently in submitting to the “great wrong,” which Mr Vizetelly, under the tacit sanction of the law, which in theory is held to countenance no wrong, has found it his interest to inflict. We rather fear that he has been too hasty in intermitting his historical labours. Had some excessively imprudent speculator in literature chosen to risk his capital by reprinting from Hansard the speeches of Lord John Russell or of Lord Aberdeen, we are certain that Mr Macaulay, if consulted on the subject, would have advised these eminent statesmen—even although the ignoramus of an editor had distorted the nature of their arguments, and substituted Pandects for Pundits—to abstain from putting forth their lucubrations in a collected form. We have that confidence in his judgment and discretion, when called upon to advise others in matters of a literary nature, that we cannot doubt such would have been the tenor of his recommendation. But, unfortunately, in regarding matters personal to themselves, the great majority of mankind use glasses materially differing in focus from those which they assume when investigating the affairs of others; and it is painful to remark that, on this occasion, Mr Macaulay has acted as his own optician. It would have been much wiser in him to have allowed Mr Vizetelly to have disposed of as many copies as the public would take, without more remonstrance than a simple disclaimer, than to have fastened upon the blunders about Benares, and Whitfield, and Lord Nottingham’s Bill, as so many apologies for bringing forward a revised and collected series of his speeches.
He has done so, however; and we have now to consider him as a man, who, by no means verging towards the end of his career—for we trust he may long be spared to delight the public by the elaborate compositions of a mind naturally highly gifted, greatly improved by exercise, and prodigiously stored with information—has deliberately chosen to set forth his claims to be ranked in the scale of orators. Whether Mr Macaulay may choose to believe that we are sincere, or not, in the opinion we are about to express, is, to us, of little consequence. Politically, of course, we differ from him in many respects. We cannot even challenge, what is generally understood to be the opinion of his own party, that he is not qualified to act in the capacity of a leading statesman, or member of the Cabinet. We believe his mind to be of that cast, that it does not readily and aptly conform itself to present exigencies. It is too much wedded to the past, and to mere party traditions and intrigues. Let a crisis arrive, demanding immediate and decided action, and Mr Macaulay will be found puzzling back to the Revolution Settlement of 1688, or some other event of lesser consequence about the same date; and descanting on the conduct of the leading Whig Lords of that period, and the way in which they managed to juggle and forswear themselves; and from these premises he would form conclusions applicable to the present times. The Whig party leaders are notoriously addicted to tradition, but Mr Macaulay’s ideas go back a great deal farther than is convenient even for their purpose. They, naturally enough, do not want the aid of history farther than concerns their immediate guidance; and they would be glad to sink altogether the memory of dynastical questions, and begin with Fox, who is the proper god of their idolatry. Mr Macaulay, by resolutely harking back to forgotten eras, frightfully embarrassed his colleagues in the Cabinet, when he ranked as a minister. It was an excessive bore to be told what Danby did or would have done, or what Halifax meditated, or William of Orange proposed, when the point at issue was something referring to our own day, arising out of entirely novel circumstances, and having nothing whatever in common with the policy that actuated statesmen at a time when rival dynasties placed in dispute the true succession to the crown. In reality, however, it is no disparagement to Mr Macaulay to say that, from the peculiar turn of his mind, the nature of his pursuits, and the intenseness of his literary habits, he has failed in acquiring even a moderate reputation as a statesman. To the public, his withdrawal or exclusion from office ought to be anything but matter of regret; since it is better, both for his own fame and for the literary reputation of our country, that he should be employed in illustrating its annals according to his own views and conviction, than if he were participating in the labours of Molesworth, Wood, and the other eminent individuals who drone away their time in the Cabinet. As an historian, he has already made himself a name far more enduring than that of any mere politician, and he can very well afford to abandon the honours and responsibilities of office to inferior men who regard that alone as the summit of earthly ambition. And we know, and are pleased to know, from his own statement and from the assurance of his friends, that he feels anything but regret at having exchanged the harassments of office for the literary leisure, which he knows so well and so effectively to employ. We are only sorry that he has thought fit, in this very marked and unusual manner, to invite public discussion of his claims to be considered as an orator. As an historian, and historical writer, he has already received, in the pages of the Magazine, a warm and deserved tribute. Without acknowledging the soundness of all his views—indeed, while questioning many, and decidedly objecting to some, both as regards facts and conclusion—we have been, and are ready to bear testimony to his talent, his research, the vigour of his style, and the occasional brilliancy of his pictures. That he is a literary artist of high rank and position, we have admitted most cheerfully, and, we know, have said so cordially. But he now comes before us in another character. The historian requests—nay, demands—that we shall regard him as a public speaker, and assign him his proper place in the roll of orators. In doing so, he certainly departs from his own familiar walk, challenges comparison, which it would have been wise to have avoided—and provokes criticism which otherwise would not have been exerted. When men play many parts, it is inevitable, unless in the case of such a phœnix as the Admirable Crichton, that some one part must be vastly inferior to the others. As an historian, an essayist, and a vivid versifier, we are inclined to rank Mr Macaulay high. We cannot admit that he is an orator in the strict sense of the term. As a public speaker, he has almost invariably failed in realising the expectations excited by his literary renown.
We must, as we are aware, assign sufficient reasons for that opinion; and we shall be met, at the outset, by the fact, that a speech from Macaulay is considered as an event. So it is; and so, too, in the House of Commons, would be deemed a speech from Sir Charles Wood, did that parody of a statesman confine himself to a single harangue in the year. Mr Macaulay, we know, will not suspect us of any intention of comparing him with the present President of the Board of Control. We are in no danger of mistaking Hyperion for a satyr. But the truth is, that men who have been thrust, whether by interest or not, into high official situations, are as likely, if they practise general reticence, to be listened to in the House of Commons, as are men of exalted intellect; and that an elderly proser, who speaks only once in each session, has a better chance of an audience than the glib and voluble orator who starts up in every debate. In public life Mr Macaulay has shown great discretion. During the last twenty years he has spoken but seldom, and never without careful and elaborate preparation; therefore, when it becomes known that he is about to address the House, he is sure to meet with a large, respectful, and attentive audience. Nor is this to be wondered at, on other grounds; for, independently of his high celebrity, Mr Macaulay’s speeches are much better worth listening to than the majority of those now delivered in the House of Commons. The language is correct and well-chosen, the arguments are carefully arranged, and there is none of that hesitation, repetition, and digression, which frequently disfigures the efforts of those who have less leisure beforehand to prepare and adjust their speeches. The curiosity of the audience is excited by the eminence of the speaker, and they are well assured that what he is about to lay before them will bear the peculiar and unmistakable impress of his style. And so it does; but then the genius of Mr Macaulay is not of the oratorical kind. He can impart information—that is, he can summon to the aid of his arguments whole lists of precedents, some of them not very applicable, and countless parallels, or instances which he alleges to be such. These give, at all events, an air of profundity to his discourse, and cannot be called inappropriate to the mouth of an historian. But upon a mixed audience they can produce very little effect, for this reason, that they are not familiar with one out of ten of the cases which he cites, or the incidents to which he refers; and, consequently, they must either receive them on trust, or disregard them altogether. We do not think, as some of his associates have alleged, that Mr Macaulay intends to make a parade of his acquired learning. We rather incline to hold that, as is common with men who addict themselves greatly to any particular branch of study, he takes it for granted that the whole world is studying in the same direction, and is not conscious that he is throwing an extravagant quantity of historical pearls—or, it may be, paste—before his audience. Such at least is our belief; for we are not willing to suppose that Mr Macaulay would condescend to that very low kind of pedantry, not unusual among country preachers and schoolmasters, which seeks to astonish by the assumption of superior learning. “It was in this way,” said Mr Macaulay, in one of his earlier speeches, “that Charles II. was forced to part with Oropesa, and that Charles III. was forced to part with Squillacci.” Very likely it was; but how many of the House of Commons had ever heard of Oropesa or Squillacci? How many were familiar with the events he referred to? Probably not one. He would have produced the same effect upon their reason and understanding, have influenced their convictions quite as powerfully, if he had told his audience that Mumbo-jumbo and Arimaspes had been dismissed by Don John, or Peter of Portugal. Let us refer to that passage in his speech on the Dissenters’ Chapels Bill, which the ignorant Vizetelly mangled. The speech is evidently a favourite with Mr Macaulay, and we presume he has restored it in its integrity. Addressing himself to the point, that prescription constitutes a good title to property, he brings into the compass of one page such a mass of illustration from all ages, nations, and institutions, that we cease to be shocked at the barbarism of the Vizetellian blunder, especially when we observe that the Jurists who framed the Code of Justinian are referred to in the same sentence with the Pundits of Benares. Indeed, we think that Mr Vizetelly is fairly entitled to stand upon the very excuse which the legally-inclined Mr Bartoline Saddletree proponed, when challenged by Reuben Butler for an error on the same subject.