De Quincey's views on war will doubtless be astounding to most persons who have never given the subject any very particular attention. Deluded by the false doctrines of peace societies, they doubtless regard war as an evil, at once inhuman and unnecessary. Altogether hostile to this idea is the position of De Quincey; he solemnly declares that war neither can be abolished nor ought to be. 'Most heartily,' says he, 'and with my profoundest sympathy, do I go along with Wordsworth in his grand lyrical proclamation of a truth not less divine than it is mysterious, not less triumphant than it is sorrowful, namely, that among God's holiest instruments for the elevation of human nature is 'mutual slaughter' among men; yes, that 'Carnage is God's daughter.'' 'Any confederation or compact of nations for abolishing war would be the inauguration of a downward path for man.' 'There is a mystery in approaching this aspect of the case which no man has read fully. War has a deeper and more ineffable relation to hidden grandeurs in man than has as yet been deciphered. To execute judgments of retribution upon outrages offered to human rights or to human dignity, to vindicate the sanctities of the altar and the sanctities of the hearth—these are functions of human greatness which war has many times assumed, and many times faithfully discharged. But behind all these there towers dimly a greater. The great phenomenon of war it is—this, and this only—which keeps open in man a spiracle—an organ of respiration—for breathing a transcendent atmosphere, and dealing with an idea that else would perish—viz., the idea of mixed crusade and martyrdom, doing and suffering, that finds its realization in such a battle as that of Waterloo—viz., a battle fought for interests of the human race felt even where they are not understood; so that the tutelary angel of man, when he traverses such a dreadful field, when he reads the distorted features, counts the ghastly ruins, sums the hidden anguish, and the harvests
'Of horror breathing from the silent ground,'
nevertheless, speaking as God's messenger, blesses it, and calls it very good.'
Startling as these assertions may appear at first sight, they are, notwithstanding, profoundly philosophical; all history proclaims their solemn truth—is, in fact, totally inexplicable and confused on any other supposition. History is by no means merely biography condensed; far from it; biography is concerned with the shifting and ephemeral career of individual men; but history, far transcending that lowly sphere, records the revolution and progress of principles; these succeed each other in everlasting succession, like the revolution of day and night; and individuals rise into importance only as they stand related to, are the agents of, this progress. The future is forever supplanting the present; the feud is immortal—the antagonism inevitable; if effete ideas and principles, which have accomplished their mission, refuse to retire and peaceably give place to their legitimate successors, conflict arises of necessity—a conflict in which the usurper must finally triumph, or the wheels of human progress will be effectually blocked. War, then, is necessary to the advance of humanity. Although De Quincey discerns the absolute extinction of war only at the 'infinite and starry distance of the Millennium,' still, as its enginery is becoming more and more destructive, its danger and expense increasing, as the progress of civilization is gradually effacing the darker stains from human society, and luring it from the path of violence by the charm of luxurious repose, the necessity of war will gradually disappear—its total decline approach. We would remark in passing that De Quincey is altogether too captious in his criticisms upon French ideas of war. So far as the majority of men are concerned, whether Englishmen or Frenchmen, little pain is taken to search out the philosophy of events. But Cousin, in his 'Course of History,' has asserted, even more peremptorily than De Quincey himself, the divine mission of war. He essentially declares that carnage is always and of necessity God's daughter: to this extreme doctrine Mr. de Quincey would doubtless demur, averring that 'by possibility' such might not be the case.
Still profounder insight is disclosed in the article on 'Christianity as an Organ of Political Movement.' It was a chance perusal of this essay that first turned our attention to De Quincey's writings, and we involuntarily exclaimed, as did he when first falling upon Ricardo's work, 'Thou art the man!' The object in view is to distinguish accurately between the Christian and pagan idea of religion. There has been great confusion on this point. What is involved in the term religion as used by a Christian? According to De Quincey there are four elements: 1st. A form of worship; 2d. An idea of God; 3d. The idea of a relation subsisting between God and His creatures; 4th. A doctrinal part. Now, of these cardinal elements, only one, that of worship, was present in pagan religions, and even this was so completely distorted, arose from impulses so utterly despicable, as to be positively immoral in its tendencies. The gods were, to their worshippers, dreadful realities—monsters of crime, at once powerful and vindictive—the very footballs of unhallowed passion; hence worship was not the result of love or reverence, or even of a regard to future interests, but it was simply an expedient to shun danger immediately behind—a mock truce between immortal foes, which either party might violate at pleasure. 'Because the gods were wicked, man was religious; because Olympus was cruel, earth trembled; because the divine beings were the most lawless of Thugs, the human being became the most abject of sycophants.' Even in the most solemn mysteries no such thing as instruction was known—'the priest did not address the people at all.' Hence all moral theories, all doctrinal teaching was utterly disjoined from ancient religions—that was resigned to nature—and, consequently, powerless alike to instruct men or command their respect, they had no inherent, self-sustaining energy, but were built upon a mere impulse, and that impulse was the most abject terror. Where, then, lurks the transcendent power of Christianity as an organ of political movement? Simply in the fact that it brings men into the most tender and affecting relations with God, and, over and above this, that it rests upon a dogmatic or doctrinal basis. These features were never suspected even as possible until Christianity revealed them. Hence Christianity 'carried along with itself its own authentication; since, while other religions introduced men simply to ceremonies and usages, which could furnish no aliment or material for their intellect, Christianity provided an eternal palæstra, or place of exercise, for the human understanding vitalized by human affections: for every problem whatever, interesting to the human intellect, provided only that it bears a moral aspect, immediately passes into the field of religious speculation. Religion had thus become the great organ of human culture.' Of this profound distinction De Quincey was the original discoverer.
It is known, of course, to every literary person, that Bentley attempted to amend Milton's 'Paradise Lost,' and that, on the whole, he made a very signal failure. It has been a matter of great surprise on the part of many, that one who is so confessedly superior in the criticism of classical poetry, whose ear was so exquisitely sensitive and accurate when awakened by ancient lyres, should prove himself such a driveller in the presence of the grandest cathedral-music of modern times. Coleridge took occasion to observe that it was only our ignorance that prevented Bentley's emendations and innovations from appearing as monstrous and unnatural in the poetry of the ancients as in that of John Milton. The charge appears very plausible and damaging at first sight. We notice it in order to exhibit De Quincey's marvellous sagacity in detecting the true relation of things: he utterly dissipated the force of the cavil by simply stating the actual bearings of the two classes of poetry. Ancient poetry was darkly austere and practical; the imagination was fettered by a grim austerity; the merely passionate—that which proceeds from the sphere of the sensibilities alone—finds no resting place in its vast domain; but in the poetry of Milton the element of passion is triumphant; hence Bentley, with his icy, critical, matter-of-fact temperament, could never appreciate Milton's majestic flights. We cannot refrain from quoting, at this point, De Quincey's acute and beautiful parallel between Grecian and English tragedy:
'The kind of feeling which broods over the Grecian tragedy, and to court which the tragic poets of Greece naturally spread all their canvas, was more nearly allied to the atmosphere of death than of life. This expresses rudely the character of awe and religious horror investing the Greek theatre. But to my own feeling the different principle of passion which governs the Greek conception of tragedy, as compared with the English, is best conveyed by saying that the Grecian is a breathing from the world of sculpture, the English a breathing from the world of painting. What we read in sculpture is not absolutely death, but still less is it the fulness of life. We read there the abstraction of a life that reposes, the sublimity of a life that aspires, the solemnity of a life that is thrown to an infinite distance. This last is the feature of sculpture which seems most characteristic: the form which presides in the most commanding groups 'is not dead, but sleepeth:' true; but it is the sleep of a life sequestrated, solemn, liberated from the bonds of time and space, and (as to both alike) thrown (I repeat the words) to a distance which is infinite. It affects us profoundly, but not by agitation. Now, on the other hand, the breathing life—life kindling, trembling, palpitating—that life which speaks to us in painting—this is also the life that speaks to us in English tragedy. Into an English tragedy even festivals of joy may enter; marriages, and baptisms, or commemorations of national trophies: which, or anything like which, is incompatible with the very being of the Greek. In that tragedy what uniformity of gloom; in the English what light alternating with depths of darkness! The Greek, how mournful; the English, how tumultuous! Even the catastrophes how different! In the Greek we see a breathless waiting for a doom that cannot be evaded; a waiting, as it were, for the last shock of an earthquake, or the inexorable rising of a deluge: in the English it is like a midnight of shipwreck, from which, up to the last and until the final ruin comes, there still survives the sort of hope that clings to human energies.'
It is not to be expected that we can fully traverse and explore this vast section of De Quincey's writings; that would be a task beyond our present resources; and, consequently, we are compelled to pass unnoticed keen dissections of history; ingenious, although sometimes untenable, theories regarding the Essenes, the supposed expressions for eternity in the Scriptures, the character of Judas Iscariot, the doctrine of demons, the principles of casuistry, style, and rhetoric; the discussions of various points in philosophy and logic; the prodigality of erudition displayed in the articles on Plato, Homer, Dinner Real and Reputed, Bentley; the transcendent critical skill revealed in the little paper entitled 'The Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth,' in the essays on Shakspeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Lamb, and others; the minute dissections of feeling and passion scattered broadcast throughout his writings. We shall content ourselves with merely adducing another illustration of our author's extremely speculative and metaphysical cast of mind, and then close this section of the review. This is taken from that touchingly beautiful chapter in the 'Autobiographic Sketches,' entitled 'The Afflictions of Childhood.' De Quincey, even in his childhood, was profoundly sensitive, and capable of forming the most ardent attachments. Tender and absorbing was the love which had sprung up between himself and his sister Elizabeth; she was the joy of his life—she was supreme in his affections. At the age of nine years she suddenly sickened and died; De Quincey, although younger by three years, was overwhelmed with unspeakable agony. When his sister had been dressed for the grave, he stole silently and alone into her chamber to look once more upon her beautiful face, to kiss once more her sweet lips: while standing by the bedside he is suddenly struck down in a trance, and his description of the scene is one of the noblest prose poems in the English language. But even here, amid the absorbing disclosures of a frantic sorrow, when the mighty swell of passion had reached its culmination, and a solemn Memnonian wind, 'the saddest that ear ever heard,' began to arise, and the seals of a heavenly vision were about to be unloosed—even here he pauses, philosophically to 'explain why death, other conditions being equal, is more profoundly affecting in summer than in other parts of the year'!
We have said that De Quincey was an eminent master of the historic art. His power in this direction is signally displayed in his account of 'The Household Wreck,' 'The Spanish Nun,' 'The First Rebellion,' and the 'Flight of a Tartar Tribe.' 'The Household Wreck' is a powerful and dramatic narrative, but the plot is somewhat confused; on the whole, it is decidedly inferior to the 'Spanish Nun.' The nun is a bona-fide historical personage, and her career is delineated with surprising effect. She was the daughter of a Spanish hidalgo, who pitilessly carried her in infancy to the Convent of St. Sebastian, where she remained until the age of fifteen; the quietude of that cloistered life her stormy spirit could no longer brook; she eloped, assumed male attire, became the page of a nobleman, at whose house she saw that 'old crocodile,' her father, who was now searching with mock solicitude for his absconded daughter; exposure was imminent; no safety remained until the ocean divided her from Spain, and her plans were formed at once; the nun embarked for South America, doubled Cape Horn, was shipwrecked on the coast of Peru; finally arrived at Paita; killed a man in a street encounter; escaped death only by promising to marry a lady who had fallen in love with her; once again there was no security but in flight; she joined a cavalry regiment commanded by her own brother, to whom she was unknown; him she unwittingly killed in a midnight duel; then follow the terrific passage of the Andes, the fearful tragedies at Tucuman and Cuzco, her return to Europe in compliance with royal and papal commands; she approaches the port of Cadiz; myriads upon myriads line the shore and cover the houses to catch a glimpse of the martial nun; cardinals and kings and popes hasten to embrace her; the thunders of popular welcome arise wherever she appears; but the nun finds no rest; terrific memories rankle in her bosom, and blast her repose; again she embarks for America; but then, how closed that career, so tragically tempestuous? The nun reached Vera Cruz; she took her seat in the boat to go ashore; no more is known; her fate is concealed in impenetrable mystery; 'the sea was searched for her—the forests were ransacked. The sea made no answer—the forests gave up no sign.' These incidents, which are historical verities, are wrought up into a narrative of absorbing power.
In De Quincey's brief sketch of the 'First Rebellion' are found some graphic historical paintings. The following is his description of the panic at Enniscorthy, at the moment when the rebels had carried the place by assault: