Mr Holcroft may be considered from this time as a public character; for the remainder of his life in a great measure received its colour from his conduct on this occasion, and from the opinion and feelings of the public with respect to him. These were of course much divided. That he had been accused of high-treason, was sufficient to draw forth the hatred, execrations, and unqualified abuse of one party; that he was an object of the open and rankling animosity of this party, was in like manner the cause of the favour he received from the violent and vulgar of the opposite party. But there was a third class of persons, inferior in number, as they necessarily would be, of whom Mr Holcroft might perhaps be considered as the head, namely, those, who being detached either by inclination or situation, from the violence of either party, admired him for the firmness and honesty of his behaviour, and for the bold but benevolent tendency of his principles. His principles, indeed, were of such a kind, that they could not but strike and win upon the admiration of young and ingenuous minds, of those whose hearts are warm, and their imaginations strong and active, and whose generous and aspiring impulses seem almost to demonstrate the efficacy of disinterested and enlightened motives over the human mind, till it is hardened, depressed, distorted from its original direction, and bowed down under the yoke of example and prejudice. In this view of the subject, indeed, we should be tempted to assert, that men do not become what by nature they are meant to be, but what society makes them. The generous feelings, and higher propensities of the soul are, as it were, shrunk up, seared, violently wrenched, and amputated, to fit us for our intercourse with the world, something in the manner that beggars maim and mutilate their children, to make them fit for their future situation in life.

That love of truth and virtue which seems at all times natural to liberal minded youth, was at this time carried to a pitch of enthusiasm, as well by the extraordinary events that had taken place, as by the romantic prospects of ideal excellence which were pictured in the writings of philosophers and poets. A new world was opening to the astonished sight. Scenes, lovely as hope can paint, dawned on the imagination: visions of unsullied bliss lulled the senses, and hid the darkness of surrounding objects, rising in bright succession and endless gradations, like the steps of that ladder which was once set up on the earth, and whose top reached to heaven. Nothing was too mighty for this new-begotten hope: and the path that led to human happiness seemed as plain—as the pictures in the Pilgrim’s Progress leading to Paradise. Imagination was unable to keep pace with the gigantic strides of reason, and the strongest faith fell short of the supposed reality. This anticipation of what men were to become, could not but have an influence on what they were. The standard of morality was raised high: and this circumstance must excite an ardent emulation in the minds of many persons to set an example of true and disinterested virtue, unshackled by the prejudices or interests of those around them. The curb of prudence was taken off; nor was it thought that a zeal for what was right could be carried to an excess. There is no doubt that this system would be taken advantage of by the selfish and hypocritical to further their own views at the expense of others: but it is equally certain that it would add new force to the practice of virtue in the liberal and well-disposed mind.

Kind feelings and generous actions there always have been, and there always will be, while the intercourse of mankind shall endure: but the hope, that such feelings and such actions might become universal, rose and set with the French revolution. That light seems to have been extinguished for ever in this respect. The French revolution was the only match that ever took place between philosophy and experience: and waking from the trance of theory to the sense of reality, we hear the words, truth, reason, virtue, liberty, with the same indifference or contempt, that the cynic who has married a jilt or a termagant, listens to the rhapsodies of lovers.[[14]]

The ‘Narrative of Facts,’ was shortly after followed by the ‘Letter to Mr Windham,’ in consequence of the expression ‘acquitted felon,’ applied by him to the persons lately tried. This letter is written in the spirit of a philosopher addressing a philosopher. It is certainly one of the best productions of the day. It is temperate, firm, acute, and forcible. Of the spirit in which it is written, equally remote from insipid affectation, or vulgar abuse, the introductory paragraph may be given as an example. It is as follows.

‘Sir, The members of the House of Commons have arrogated to themselves many customs and privileges; which they consider, some as rights to indulge in parliamentary invective, and others, as limitations to those rights. Personalities affecting members of that house, are contrary to order; but men, unprotected by the sanctified walls of St. Stephen’s chapel, may be the objects of assertions, which, if made any where else, would subject the authors of them to such correction as the law affords; or as honour, half idiot, half demon, demands. For my own part, I should never attempt to unsheath the sword of the law, much less the sword of the assassin: at least, if it were possible to oblige me to the former, the case must indeed be extreme. Under such defence as the law affords, I have been, and may again be obliged to shield myself against false charges; for I have no better public protection. But that a man of keen sensibility, and quick apprehension, whose distinctions and discriminations are frequently so fine drawn, and so shaded, that like colours in the rainbow, their mingled differences cannot be discerned; that a man who labours to be so cautious in his logic, should so often be hurried into the spleen of a cynic, the rashness of a boy, and the petulance of a child, is something extraordinary. There may be many such characters, but they are seldom so situated, as to obtrude themselves so frequently and forcibly as you have done into public notice. However, when they do, they are well worthy the attention of the politician and the philosopher, the man of business and the man of science. My purpose in this address, is not to write a libel, or to display my talents for satire. It has a more worthy purpose. It is to warn you and the nation against the effervescence of your passions. The intemperance of public men is tremendously awful at all times; but when it plunges millions into all the miseries of war, it rises into inexpressible horror. It is strange, that from real benevolence of intention, mischiefs which fable ascribes to fiends, should be the result. Yet this apparent paradox has of late been too repeatedly, and too carefully proved. You, Sir, and that extraordinary man, Mr Burke, whose kind, but erroneous heart, whose splendid, but ill-employed talents, have led you astray, are among the examples.’

It was not my intention to have troubled the reader with any farther remarks on the subject of the trial; but there is one passage in Mr Holcroft’s letter, which exposes the sophistry and the injustice of the phrase, which is the subject of it, in so clear and masterly a manner, that I cannot forbear quoting it.

‘Figure to yourself, Sir, the first on the list of these acquitted felons, Hardy. What were his views? What his incitements? A man of no learning, excellent in his morals, simple in his manners, and whether they were wise or foolish, highly virtuous in his intentions. Do you imagine he meant to make himself prime minister? Were these the marks of a prime minister? Had he the daring spirit, the deep plans, and the towering genius of a Cromwell? No one will affirm things so extravagant. He was a good and an active man in his endeavour to procure a parliamentary reform. This he thought, and I think, would have been the greatest of public blessings. For this he was tried, and declared NOT GUILTY. The whole country rang with the verdict, and the affections of the people were divided between joy at his deliverance and their own, and the contemplation of an innocent man, who had so long been in danger of the most dreadful and barbarous death, the merciless law decrees. Compare such a man to an “acquitted felon,” who has escaped by the means you have enumerated: a man, who so far from exciting the benevolent wishes of a whole people, keeps all who ever heard his name in a state of dread, lest he should meet them on the highway, or break into their houses by night, and murder them in their sleep. Some such action, perhaps many such, he has already committed. At last he is taken; and knowing no better mode, they hope by his death to be freed from their fears. They are disappointed: a flaw in the indictment, a misnomer, or some technical blunder is committed: he is set free, and they are again subject to his depredations, and to all their former terrors. Will you affirm, Sir, that there are any common qualities, any kindred sympathies, any moral resemblance, between such a man and Thomas Hardy?—Whatever the feelings of the people of England were before these trials, be assured they cannot now endure a repetition of such odious falsehoods. You could not be then ignorant of the public sentiment, and in your burning haste to do right, you could not be guilty of this intolerable wrong, were your imagination less heated, and your intercourse with different ranks of people more general. You may perhaps now and then hear a dissentient voice: but you usually mix with men, who, like the parrot educated on-board a man-of-war, can only repeat the same outrages, and the same insults. You hear nothing else, and nothing else can you say. Would, Sir, you would keep better company!’

The very just distinction which Mr Holcroft draws between the errors of such men as Pitt and Dundas, who were actuated almost entirely by interest and ambition, and those of men, like Burke or Windham,[[15]] who were actuated almost entirely by imagination, system, and reasoning, shews that the letter-writer himself was not a vulgar politician; joining in the common cry of a party.

CHAPTER V

‘Love’s Frailties’ came out in the beginning of 1794, at Covent-Garden. This play met with indifferent success, of which the principal cause was a supposed allusion to political subjects in some passages. One of these in particular excited the most violent resentment: ‘A sentence in itself so true,’ says Mr Holcroft, ‘as to have been repeated under a thousand different modes; and under a variety of forms and phraseology, to have been proverbial in all countries.’ This obnoxious passage was the one, in which Craig Campbell, when insulted by a fashionable coxcomb, who asks what profession he was bred to, says that ‘he was bred to the most useless, and often the most worthless, of all professions, that of a gentleman.’ In this comedy, the author has more pointedly than in any other, set up the claims of worth and virtue, against the arrogant assumptions of wealth and rank. That virtue alone confers true dignity, has however been the common-place theme of teachers of morality and religion, in all ages. But such at this time, was the irritation of party feeling, that to exhibit the force of this trite maxim on the stage, seems to have been regarded as an innovation on common sense, and as big with the seeds of social disorganisation.