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BLACKWOOD'S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
No. CCCXLV. JULY, 1844. VOL. LVI.
CAUSES OF THE INCREASE OF CRIME.
If the past increase and present amount of crime in the
British islands be alone considered, it must afford grounds for
the most melancholy forebodings. When we recollect that since the
year 1805, that is, during a period of less than forty years, in
the course of which population has advanced about sixty-five
per cent in Great Britain and Ireland, crime in England
has increased seven hundred per cent, in Ireland about eight
hundred per cent, and in Scotland above three thousand six
hundred per cent;1 it is difficult to say what is
destined to be the ultimate fate of a country in which the
progress of wickedness is so much more rapid than the increase of
the numbers of the people. Nor is the alarming nature of the
prospect diminished by the reflection, that this astonishing
increase in human depravity has taken place during a period of
unexampled prosperity and unprecedented progress, during which
the produce of the national industry had tripled, and the labours
of the husbandman kept pace with the vast increase in the
population they were to feed—in which the British empire
carried its victorious arms into every quarter of the globe, and
colonies sprang up on all sides with unheard-of rapidity—in
which a hundred thousand emigrants came ultimately to migrate
every year from the parent state into the new regions conquered
by its arms, or discovered by its adventure. If this is the
progress of crime during the days of its prosperity, what is it
likely to become in those of its decline, when this prodigious
vent for superfluous numbers has come to be in a great measure
closed, and this unheard-of wealth and prosperity has ceased to
gladden the land?
1: See No. 343, Blackwood's Magazine, p. 534, Vol.
lv.
To discover to what causes this extraordinary increase of
crime is to be ascribed, we must first examine the localities in
which it has principally arisen, and endeavour to ascertain
whether it is to be found chiefly in the agricultural, pastoral,
or manufacturing districts. We must then consider the condition
of the labouring classes, and the means provided to restrain them
in the quarters where the progress of crime has been most
alarming; and inquire whether the existing evils are
insurmountable and unavoidable, or have arisen from the
supineness, the errors, and the selfishness of man. The inquiry
is one of the most interesting which can occupy the thoughts of
the far-seeing and humane; for it involves the temporal and
eternal welfare of millions of their fellow-creatures;—it
may well arrest the attention of the selfish, and divert for a
few minutes the profligate from their pursuits; for on it depends
whether the darling wealth of the former is to be preserved or
destroyed, and the exciting enjoyments of the other arrested or
suffered to continue.
2: Table showing the number of committments for serious
crimes, and population, in the year 1841, in the
under-mentioned counties of Great Britain;—
I.—PASTORAL.
Names of Counties.
Population in 1841.
Commitments for serious crime in 1841.
Proportion of committments to population.
Cumberland,
178,038
151
1 in 1,194
Derby,
272,217
277
1 in 964
Anglesey,
50,891
13
1 in 3,900
Carnarvon,
81,093
33
1 in 2,452
Inverness-shire,
97,799
106
1 in 915
Selkirkshire,
7,990
4
1 in 1,990
Argyleshire,
97,371
96
1 in 1,010
Total,
785,399
680
1 in 1,155
II.-AGRICULTURAL AND MANUFACTURING.
Names of Counties.
Population in 1841.
Commitments for serious crime in 1841.
Proportion of committments to population.
Shropshire,
239,048
416
1 in 574
Kent,
548,337
962
1 in 569
Norfolk,
412,664
666
1 in 518
Essex,
344,979
647
1 in 533
Northumberland,
250,278
226
1 in 1,106
East Lothian,
35,886
38
1 in 994
Perthshire,
137,390
116
1 in 1,181
Aberdeenshire,
192,387
92
1 in 2,086
Total,
2,160,969
3,163
1 in 682
III.-MANUFACTURING AND MINING.
Names of Counties.
Population in 1841.
Commitments for serious crime in 1841.
Proportion of committments to population.
Middlesex,
1,576,636
3,586
1 in 439
Lancashire,
1,667,054
3,987
1 in 418
Staffordshire,
510,504
1,059
1 in 482
Yorkshire,
1,591,480
1,895
1 in 839
Glamorganshire,
171,188
189
1 in 909
Lanarkshire,
426,972
513
1 in 832
Renfrewshire,
155,072
505
1 in 306
Forfarshire,
170,520
333
1 in 512
Total,
6,269,426
12,067
1 in 476
—PORTER'S Parl. Tables, 1841, 163; and
Census 1841.
The table in the note exhibits the number of commitments for
serious offences, with the population of each, of eight
counties—pastoral, agricultural, and manufacturing—in
Great Britain during the year 18412. We take the
returns for that year, both because it was the year in which the
census was taken, and because the succeeding year, 1842, being
the year of the great outbreak in England, and violent strike in
Scotland, the figures, both in that and the succeeding year,
may be supposed to exhibit a more unfavourable result for the
manufacturing districts than a fair average of years. From this
table, it appears that the vast preponderance of crime is to be
found in the manufacturing or densely-peopled districts, and that
the proportion per cent of commitments which they exhibit, as
compared with the population, is generally three, often five
times, what appears in the purely agricultural and pastoral
districts. The comparative criminality of the agricultural,
manufacturing, and pastoral districts is not to be considered as
accurately measured by these returns, because so many of the
agricultural counties, especially in England, are overspread with
towns and manufactories or collieries. Thus Kent and Shropshire
are justly classed with agricultural counties, though part of the
former is in fact a suburb of London, and of the latter
overspread with demoralizing coal mines. The entire want of any
police force in some of the greatest manufacturing counties, as
Lanarkshire, by permitting nineteen-twentieths of the crime to go
unpunished, exhibits a far less amount of criminality than would
be brought to light under a more vigilant system. But still there
is enough in this table to attract serious and instructive
attention. It appears that the average of seven pastoral counties
exhibits an average of 1 commitment for serious offences out of
1155 souls: of eight counties, partly agricultural and partly
manufacturing, of 1 in 682: and of eight manufacturing and
mining, of 1 in 476! And the difference between individual
counties is still more remarkable, especially when counties
purely agricultural or pastoral can be compared with those for
the most part manufacturing or mining. Thus the proportion of
commitment for serious crime in the pastoral counties of
Anglesey, is
1 in 3900
Carnarvon,
1 in 2452
Selkirk,
1 in 1990
Cumberland,
1 in 1194
In the purely agricultural counties of
Aberdeenshire, is
1 in 2086
East-Lothian,
1 in 994
Northumberland,
1 in 1106
Perthshire,
1 in 1181
While in the great manufacturing or mining counties of
Lancashire, is
1 in 418
Staffordshire,
1 in 482
Middlesex,
1 in 439
Yorkshire,
1 in 839
Lanarkshire,
1 in 8323
Renfrewshire,
1 in 306
3: Lanarkshire has no police except in Glasgow, or its
serious crime would be about 1 in 400, or 350.
Further, the statistical returns of crime demonstrate, not
only that such is the present state of crime in the densely
peopled and manufacturing districts, compared to what obtains in
the agricultural or pastoral, but that the tendency of matters is
still worse;4 and that, great as has been the increase
of population during the last thirty years in the manufacturing
and densely peopled districts, the progress of crime has been
still greater and more alarming. From the instructive and curious
tables below, constructed from the criminal returns given in
Porter's Parliamentary Tables, and the returns of the
census taken in 1821, 1831, and 1841, it appears, that while in
some of the purely pastoral counties, such as Selkirk and
Anglesey, crime has remained during the last twenty years nearly
stationary, and in some of the purely agricultural, such as Perth
and Aberdeen, it has considerably diminished, in the
agricultural and mining or manufacturing, such as Shropshire and
Kent, it has doubled during the same period: and in the
manufacturing and mining districts, such as Lancashire,
Staffordshire, Yorkshire, and Renfrewshire, more than
tripled in the same time. It appears, from the same
authentic sources of information, that the progress of crime
during the last twenty years has been much more rapid in the
manufacturing and densely peopled than in the simply densely
peopled districts; for in Middlesex, during the last twenty
years, population has advanced about fifty per cent, and serious
crime has increased in nearly the same proportion, having swelled
from 2480 to 3514: whereas in Lancashire, during the same period,
population has advanced also fifty per cent, but serious crime
has considerably more than doubled, having risen from 1716
to 3987.
4: Table, showing the comparative population, and committals
for serious crime, in the under-mentioned counties, in the
years 1821, 1831, and 1841.
I.—PASTORAL
1821.
1831.
1841.
Pop.
Com.
Pop.
Com.
Pop.
Com.
Cumberland,
156,124
66
169,681
74
178,038
151
Derby,
213,333
105
237,070
202
272,217
277
Anglesey,
43,325
10
48,325
8
50,891
13
Carnarvon,
57,358
12
66,448
36
81,893
33
Inverness,
90,157
...
94,797
35
97,799
106
Selkirk,
6,637
...
6,833
2
7,990
4
Argyle,
97,316
...
100,973
41
97,321
96
II.—AGRICULTURAL AND MANUFACTURING.
1821.
1831.
1841.
Pop.
Com.
Pop.
Com.
Pop.
Com.
Shropshire,
266,153
159
222,938
228
239,048
416
Kent,
426,916
492
479,155
640
548,337
962
Norfolk,
344,368
356
390,054
549
412,664
666
Essex,
289,424
303
317,507
607
344,979
647
Northumberland,
198,965
70
222,912
108
250,278
226
East Lothian,
35,127
...
36,145
23
35,886
38
Perthshire,
139,050
...
142,894
140
137,390
116
Aberdeenshire,
155,387
...
177,657
161
192,387
92
III.—MANUFACTURING AND MINING.
1821.
1831.
1841.
Pop.
Com.
Pop.
Com.
Pop.
Com.
Middlesex,
1,144,531
2,480
1,358,330
3,514
1,576,636
3,586
Lancashire,
1,052,859
1,716
1,336,854
2,352
1,667,054
3,987
Staffordshire,
345,895
374
410,512
644
510,504
1,059
Yorkshire,
801,274
757
976,350
1,270
1,154,111
1,895
Glamorgan,
101,737
28
126,612
132
171,188
189
Lanark,
244,387
...
316,849
470
426,972
513
Renfrew,
112,175
...
133,443
205
155,072
505
Forfar,
113,430
...
139,666
124
l70,520
333
—PORTER'S Parl. Tables, and Census 1841.
Here, then, we are at length on firm ground in point of fact.
Several writers of the liberal school who had a partiality for
manufactures, because their chief political supporters were to be
found among that class of society, have laboured hard to show
that manufactures are noways detrimental either to health or
morals; and that the mortality and crime of the manufacturing
counties were in no respect greater than those of the pastoral or
agricultural districts. The common sense of mankind has uniformly
revolted against this absurdity, so completely contrary to what
experience every where tells in a language not to be
misunderstood; but it has now been completely disproved by the
Parliamentary returns. The criminal statistics have exposed this
fallacy as completely, in reference to the different degrees of
depravity in different parts of the empire, as the
registrar-general's returns have, in regard to the different
degrees of salubrity in employments, and mortality in rural
districts and manufacturing places. It now distinctly appears
that crime is greatly more prevalent in proportion to the numbers
of the people in densely peopled than thinly inhabited
localities, and that it is making far more rapid progress in the
former situation than the latter. Statistics are not to be
despised when they thus, at once and decisively, disprove errors
so assiduously spread, maintained by writers of such
respectability, and supported by such large and powerful bodies
in the state.
Nor can it be urged with the slightest degree of foundation,
that this superior criminality of the manufacturing and densely
peopled districts is owing to a police force being more generally
established than in the agricultural or pastoral, and thus crime
being more thoroughly detected in the former situation than the
latter. For, in the first place, in several of the greatest
manufacturing counties, particularly Lanarkshire in Scotland,
there is no police at all; and the criminal establishment is just
what it was forty years ago. In the next place, a police force is
the consequence of a previous vast accumulation or crime,
and is never established till the risk to life and insecurity to
property had rendered it unbearable. Being always established by
the voluntary assessment of the inhabitants, nothing can be more
certain than that it never can be called into existence but by
such an increase of crime as has rendered it a matter of
necessity.
We are far, however, from having approached the whole truth,
if we have merely ascertained, upon authentic evidence, that
crime is greatly more prevalent in the manufacturing than the
rural districts. That will probably be generally conceded; and
the preceding details have been given merely to show the extent
of the difference, and the rapid steps which it is taking. It is
more material to inquire what are the causes of this superior
profligacy of manufacturing to rural districts; and
whether it arises unavoidably from the nature of their respective
employments, or is in some degree within the reach of human
amendment or prevention.
It is usual for persons who are not practically acquainted
with the subject, to represent manufacturing occupations as
necessarily and inevitably hurtful to the human mind. The
crowding together, it is said, young persons, of different sexes
and in great numbers, in the hot atmosphere and damp occupations
of factories or mines, is necessarily destructive to morality,
and ruinous to regularity of habit. The passions are excited by
proximity of situation or indecent exposure; infant labour early
emancipates the young from parental control; domestic
subordination, the true foundation for social virtue, is
destroyed; the young exposed to temptation before they have
acquired strength to resist it; and vice spreads the more
extensively from the very magnitude of the establishments on
which the manufacturing greatness of the country depends. Such
views are generally entertained by writers on the social state of
the country; and being implicitly adopted by the bulk of the
community, the nation has abandoned itself to a sort of despair
on the subject, and regarding manufacturing districts as the
necessary and unavoidable hotbed of crimes, strives only to
prevent the spreading of the contagion into the rural parts of
the country.
There is certain degree of truth in these observations; but
they are much exaggerated, and it is not in these causes that the
principal sources of the profligacy of the manufacturing
districts is to be found.
The real cause of the demoralization of manufacturing towns is
to be found, not in the nature of the employment which the people
there receive, so much as in the manner in which they are brought
together, the unhappy prevalence of general strikes, and the
prodigious multitudes who are cast down by the ordinary
vicissitudes of life, or the profligacy of their parents, into a
situation of want, wretchedness, and despair.
Consider how, during the last half century, the people have
been brought together in the great manufacturing districts of
England and Scotland. So rapid has been the progress of
manufacturing industry during that period, that it has altogether
out-stripped the powers of population in the districts where it
was going forward, and occasioned a prodigious influx of persons
from different and distant quarters, who have migrated from their
paternal homes, and settled in the manufacturing districts, never
to return.5 Authentic evidence proves, that not less
than two millions of persons have, in this way, been
transferred to the manufacturing counties of the north of England
within the last forty years, chiefly from the agricultural
counties of the south of that kingdom, or from Ireland. Not less
than three hundred and fifty thousand persons have, during the
same period, migrated into the two manufacturing counties of
Lanark and Renfrew alone, in Scotland, chiefly from the Scotch
Highlands, or north of Ireland. No such astonishing migration of
the human species in so short a time, and to settle on so small a
space, is on record in the whole annals of the world. It is
unnecessary to say that the increase is to be ascribed chiefly,
if not entirely, to immigration; for it is well known that such
is the unhealthiness of manufacturing towns, especially to young
children, that, so far from being able to add to their numbers,
they are hardly ever able, without extraneous addition, to
maintain them.
5: Table showing the Population in 1801, 1891, and 1841, in
the under-mentioned counties of Great Britain.
1801
1821
1841
Increase in forty years.
Lancashire,
672,731
1,052,859
1,667,054
994,323
Yorkshire, W.R.,
565,282
801,274
1,154,101
588,819
Staffordshire,
233,153
343,895
510,504
277,351
Nottingham,
140,350
186,873
249,910
109,560
Warwick,
208,190
274,322
401,715
193,155
Gloucester,
250,809
335,843
431,383
180,574
2,070,515
2,995,066
4,412,667
2,343,782
Lanark,
146,699
244,387
434,972
288,273
Renfrew,
78,056
112,175
155,072
77,016
224,755
356,562
590,044
365,289
—Census of 1841. Preface, p. 8 and 9.
Various causes have combined to produce demoralization among
the vast crowd, thus suddenly attracted, by the alluring prospect
of high wages and steady employment, from the rural to the
manufacturing districts. In the first place, they acquired wealth
before they had learned how to use it, and that is, perhaps, the
most general cause of the rapid degeneracy of mankind. High wages
flowed in upon them before they had acquired the artificial wants
in the gratification of which they could be innocently spent.
Thence the general recourse to the grosser and sensual
enjoyments, which are powerful alike on the savage and the sage.
Men who, in the wilds of Ireland or the mountains of Scotland,
were making three or four shillings a-week, or in Sussex ten,
suddenly found themselves, as cotton-spinners, iron-moulders,
colliers, or mechanics, in possession of from twenty to thirty
shillings. Meanwhile, their habits and inclinations had undergone
scarce any alteration; they had no taste for comfort in dress,
lodging, or furniture; and as to laying by money, the thing, of
course, was not for a moment thought of. Thus, this vast addition
to their incomes was spent almost exclusively on eating and
drinking. The extent to which gross sensual enjoyment was thus
spread among these first settlers in the regions of commercial
opulence, is incredible. It is an ascertained fact, that above a
million a-year is annually spent in Glasgow on ardent
spirits;6 and it has recently been asserted by a
respectable and intelligent operative in Manchester, that, in
that city, 750,000 more is annually spent on beer and
spirits, than on the purchase of provisions. Is it surprising
that a large part of the progeny of a generation which has
embraced such habits, should be sunk in sensuality and
profligacy, and afford a never-failing supply for the prisons and
transport ships? It is the counterpart of the sudden corruption
which invariably overtakes northern conquerors, when they settle
in the regions of southern opulence.
6: ALISON on Population, ii. Appendix A.
Another powerful cause which promotes the corruption of men,
when thus suddenly congregated together from different quarters
in the manufacturing districts, is, that the restraints of
character, relationship, and vicinity are, in a great measure,
lost in the crowd. Every body knows what powerful influence
public opinion, or the opinion of their relations, friends, and
acquaintances, exercises on all men in their native seats, or
when living for any length of time in one situation. It forms, in
fact, next to religion, the most powerful restraint on vice, and
excitement to virtue, that exists in the world. But when several
hundred thousand of the working classes are suddenly huddled
together in densely peopled localities, this invaluable check is
wholly lost. Nay, what is worse, it is rolled over to the other
side; and forms an additional incentive to licentiousness. The
poor in these situations have no neighbours who care for them, or
even know their names; but they are surrounded by multitudes who
are willing to accompany them in the career of sensuality. They
are unknown alike to each other, and to any
persons of respectability or property in their vicinity.
Philanthropy seeks in vain for virtue amidst thousands and tens
of thousands of unknown names; charity itself is repelled by the
hopelessness of all attempts to relieve the stupendous mass of
destitution which follows in the train of such enormous
accumulation of numbers. Every individual or voluntary effort is
overlooked amidst the prodigious multitude, as it was in the
Moscow campaign of Napoleon. Thus the most powerful restraints on
human conduct—character, relations, neighbourhood—are
lost upon mankind at the very time when their salutary influence
is most required to enable them to withstand the increasing
temptations arising from density of numbers and a vast increase
of wages. Multitudes remove responsibility without weakening
passion. Isolation ensures concealment without adding to
resolution. This is the true cause of the more rapid
deterioration of the character of the poor than the rich, when
placed in such dense localities. The latter have a neighbourhood
to watch them, because their station renders them
conspicuous—the former have none. Witness the rapid and
general corruption of the higher ranks, when they get away from
such restraint, amidst the profligacy of New South Wales.
In the foremost rank of the causes which demoralize the urban
and mining population, we must place the frequency of those
strikes which unhappily have now become so common as to be of
more frequent occurrence than a wet season, even in our humid
climate. During the last twenty years there have been six great
strikes: viz. in 1826, 1828, 1834, 1837, 1842, and 1844. All of
these have kept multitudes of the labouring poor idle for months
together. Incalculable is the demoralization thus produced upon
the great mass of the working classes. We speak not of the actual
increase of commitments during the continuance of a great strike,
though that increase is so considerable that it in general
augments them in a single year from thirty to fifty per
cent.7 We allude to the far more general and lasting
causes of demoralization which arise from the arraying of one
portion of the community in fierce hostility against another, the
wretchedness which is spread among multitudes by months of
compulsory idleness, and the not less ruinous effect of depriving
them of occupation during such protracted periods. When we
recollect that such is the vehemence of party feeling produced by
these disastrous combinations, that it so far obliterates all
sense of right and wrong as generally to make their members
countenance contumely and insult, sometimes even robbery,
fire-raising, and murder, committed on innocent persons who are
only striving to earn an honest livelihood for themselves by hard
labour, but in opposition to the strike; and that it induces
twenty and thirty thousand persons to yield implicit obedience to
the commands of an unknown committee, who have power to force
them to do what the Sultan Mahmoud, or the Committee of Public
Safety, never ventured to attempt—to abstain from labour,
and endure want and starvation for months together, for an object
of which they often in secret disapprove—it may be
conceived how wide-spread and fatal is the confusion of moral
principle, and habits of idleness and insubordination thus
produced. Their effects invariably appear for a course of years
afterwards, in the increased roll of criminal commitments, and
the number of young persons of both sexes, who, loosened by these
protracted periods of idleness, never afterwards regain habits
of regularity and industry. Nor is the evil lessened by the blind
infatuation with which it is uniformly regarded by the other
classes of the community, and the obstinate resistance they make
to all measures calculated to arrest the violence of these
combinations, in consequence of the expense with which they would
probably be attended—a supineness which, by leaving the
coast constantly clear to the terrors of such associations, and
promising impunity to their crimes, operates as a continual
bounty on their recurrence.
7: Commitments:—
Lanarkshire.
Lancashire.
Staffordshire.
Yorkshire.
1836
451
2,265
686
1,252
18378
565
2,809
909
1,376
1841
513
3,987
1,059
1,895
18429
696
4,497
1,485
2,598
PORTER'S Parl. Tables, xi. 162.—Parl. Paper
of Crime, 1843, p. 53.
8: Strike.
9: Strike.
Infant labour, unhappily now so frequent in all kinds of
factories, and the great prevalence of female workers, is another
evil of a very serious kind in the manufacturing districts. We do
not propose to enter into the question, recently so fiercely
agitated in the legislature, as to the practicability of
substituting a compulsory ten-hours' bill for the twelve hours'
at present in operation. Anxious to avoid all topics on which
there is a difference of opinion among able and patriotic men, we
merely state this prevalence and precocity of juvenile labour in
the manufacturing and mining districts as a fact which all
must deplore, and which is attended with the most unhappy effects
on the rising generation. The great majority, probably
nine-tenths, of all the workers in cotton-mills or printfields,
are females. We have heard much of the profligacy and
licentiousness which pervade such establishments; but though that
may be too true in some cases, it is far from being universal, or
even general; and there are numerous instances of female virtue
being as jealously guarded and effectually preserved in such
establishments, as in the most secluded rural districts. The real
evils—and they follow universally from such employment of
juvenile females in great numbers in laborious but lucrative
employment—are the emancipation of the young from parental
control, the temptation held out to idleness in the parents from
the possibility of living on their children, and the
disqualifying the girls for performing all the domestic duties of
wives and mothers in after life.
These evils are real, general, and of ruinous consequence.
When children—from the age of nine or ten in some
establishments, of thirteen or fourteen in all—are able to
earn wages varying from 3s. 6d. to 6s. a-week, they soon become
in practice independent of parental control. The strongest of all
securities for filial obedience—a sense of
dependence—is destroyed. The children assert the right of
self-government, because they bear the burden of
self-maintenance. Nature, in the ordinary case, has effectually
guarded against this premature and fatal emancipation of the
young, by the protracted period of weakness during childhood and
adolescence, which precludes the possibility of serious labour
being undertaken before the age when a certain degree of mental
firmness has been acquired. But the steam-engine, amidst its
other marvels, has entirely destroyed, within the sphere of its
influence, this happy and necessary exemption of infancy from
labour. Steam is the moving power; it exerts the strength; the
human machine is required only to lift a web periodically, or
damp a roller, or twirl a film round the finger, to which the
hands of infancy are as adequate as those of mature age. Hence
the general employment of children, and especially girls, in such
employments. They are equally serviceable as men or women, and
they are more docile, cheaper, and less given to strikes. But as
these children earn their own subsistence, they soon become
rebellious to parental authority, and exercise the freedom of
middle life as soon as they feel its passions, and before they
have acquired its self-control.
If the effect of such premature emancipation of the young is
hurtful to them, it is, if possible, still more pernicious to
their parents. Labour is generally irksome to man; it is seldom
persevered in after the period of its necessity has passed. When
parents find that, by sending three or four children out to the
mills or into the mines, they can get eighteen or twenty
shillings a-week without doing any thing themselves, they soon
come to abridge the duration and cost of education, in order to
accelerate the arrival of the happy period when they may live on
their offspring, not their offspring on them. Thus the purest and
best affections of the heart are obliterated on the very
threshold of life. That best school of disinterestedness and
virtue, the domestic hearth, where generosity and
self-control are called forth in the parents, and gratitude and
affection in the children, from the very circumstance of the
dependence of the latter on the former, is destroyed. It is worse
than destroyed, it is made the parent of wickedness: it exists,
but it exists only to nourish the selfish and debasing passions.
Children come to be looked on, not as objects of affection, but
as instruments of gain; not as forming the first duty of life and
calling forth its highest energies, but as affording the first
means of relaxing from labour, and permitting a relapse into
indolence and sensuality. The children are, practically speaking,
sold for slaves, and—oh! unutterable horror!—the
sellers are their own parents! Unbounded is the
demoralization produced by this monstrous perversion of the first
principles of nature. Thence it is that it is generally found,
that all the beneficent provisions of the legislature for the
protection of infant labour are so generally evaded, as to render
it doubtful whether any law, how stringent soever, could protect
them. The reason is apparent. The parents of the children are the
chief violators of the law; for the sake of profit they send them
out, the instant they can work, to the mills or the mines. Those
whom nature has made their protectors, have become their
oppressors. The thirst for idleness, intoxication, or sensuality,
has turned the strongest of the generous, into the most malignant
of the selfish passions.
The habits acquired by such precocious employment of young
women, are not less destructive of their ultimate utility and
respectability in life. Habituated from their earliest years to
one undeviating mechanical employment, they acquire great skill
in it, but grow up utterly ignorant of any thing else. We speak
not of ignorance of reading or writing, but of ignorance in still
more momentous particulars, with reference to their usefulness in
life as wives and mothers. They can neither bake nor brew, wash
nor iron, sew nor knit. The finest London lady is not more
utterly inefficient than they are, for any other object but the
one mechanical occupation to which they have been habituated.
They can neither darn a stocking nor sew on a button. As to
making porridge or washing a handkerchief, the thing is out of
the question. Their food is cooked out of doors by persons who
provide the lodging-houses in which they dwell—they are
clothed from head to foot, like fine ladies, by milliners and
dressmakers. This is not the result of fashion, caprice, or
indolence, but of the entire concentration of their faculties,
mental and corporeal, from their earliest years, in one limited
mechanical object. They are unfit to be any man's
wife—still more unfit to be any child's mother. We hear
little of this from philanthropists or education-mongers; but it
is, nevertheless, not the least, because the most generally
diffused, evil connected with our manufacturing industry.
But by far the greatest cause of the mass of crime of the
manufacturing and mining districts of the country, is to be found
in the prodigious number of persons, especially in infancy, who
are reduced to a state of destitution, and precipitated into the
very lowest stations of life, in consequence of the numerous ills
to which all flesh—but especially all flesh in
manufacturing communities—is heir. Our limits preclude the
possibility of entering into all the branches of this immense
subject; we shall content ourselves, therefore, with referring to
one, which seems of itself perfectly sufficient to explain the
increase of crime, which at first sight appears so alarming. This
is the immense proportion of destitute widows with
families, who in such circumstances find themselves immovably
fixed in places where they can neither bring up their children
decently, nor get away to other and less peopled localities.
The proportion of widows and orphans to the entire population,
though without doubt in some degree aggravated by the early
marriages and unhealthy employments incident to manufacturing
districts, may be supposed to be not materially different in one
age, or part of the country, from another. The widow and the
orphan, as well as the poor, will be always with us; but the
peculiar circumstance which renders their condition so deplorable
in the dense and suddenly peopled manufacturing districts is,
that the poor have been brought together in such prodigious
numbers that all the ordinary means of providing for the relief
of such casualties fails; while the causes of mortality among
them are periodically so fearful, as to produce a vast and sudden
increase of the most destitute classes altogether outstripping
all possible means of local or voluntary relief. During the late
typhus fever in Glasgow, in the years 1836 and 1837, above 30,000
of the poor took the epidemic, of whom 3300 died.11 In
the first eight months of 1843 alone, 32,000 persons in Glasgow
were seized with fever.12 Out of 1000 families, at a
subsequent period, visited by the police, in conjunction with the
visitors for the distribution of the great fund raised by
subscription in 1841, 680 were found to be widows, who, with
their families, amounted to above 2000 persons all in the most
abject state of wretchedness and want.13 On so vast a
scale do the causes of human destruction and
demoralization act, when men are torn up from their native seats
by the irresistible magnet of commercial wealth, and congregated
together in masses, resembling rather the armies of Timour and
Napoleon than any thing else ever witnessed in the transactions
of men.
—COWAN'S Vital Statistics of Glasgow, 1388, p
8, the work of a most able and meritorious medical gentleman
now no more.
12: Dr Alison on the Epidemic of 1843, p. 67.
13: Captain Millar's Report, 1841, p. 8.
Here, then, is the great source of demoralization,
destitution, and crime in the manufacturing districts. It arises
from the sudden congregation of human beings in such fearful
multitudes together, that all the usual alleviations of human
suffering, or modes of providing for human indigence, entirely
fail. We wonder at the rapid increase of crime in the
manufacturing districts, forgetting that a squalid mass of two or
three hundred thousand human beings are constantly precipitated
to the bottom of society in a few counties, in such circumstances
of destitution that recklessness and crime arise naturally, it
may almost be said unavoidably, amongst them. And it is in the
midst of such gigantic causes of evil—of causes arising
from the extraordinary and unparalleled influx of mankind into
the manufacturing districts during the last forty years, which
can bear a comparison to nothing but the collection of the host
with which Napoleon invaded Russia, or Timour and Genghis Khan
desolated Asia—that we are gravely told that it is to be
arrested by education and moral training; by infant schools and
shortened hours of labour; by multiplication of ministers and
solitary imprisonment! All these are very good things; each in
its way is calculated to do a certain amount of good; and their
united action upon the whole will doubtless, in process of time,
produce some impression upon the aspect of society, even in the
densely peopled manufacturing districts. As to their producing
any immediate effect, or in any sensible degree arresting the
prodigious amount of misery, destitution, and crime which
pervades them, you might as well have tried, by the schoolmaster,
to arrest the horrors of the Moscow retreat.
That the causes which have now been mentioned are the true
sources of the rapid progress of crime and general demoralization
of our manufacturing and mining districts, must be evident to all
from this circumstance, well known to all who are practically
conversant with the subject, but to a great degree unattended to
by the majority of men, and that is,—that the prodigious
stream of depravity and corruption which prevails, is far from
being equally and generally diffused through society, even in the
densely peopled districts where it is most alarming, but is in a
great degree confined to the very lowest class. It is from
that lowest class that nine-tenths of the crime, and nearly all
the professional crime, which is felt as so great an evil in
society, flows. Doubtless in all classes there are some wicked,
many selfish and inhumane men; and a beneficent Deity, in the
final allotment of rewards and punishments, will take largely
into account both the opportunities of doing well which the
better classes have abused, and the almost invincible causes
which so often chain, as it were, the destitute to recklessness
and crime. But still, in examining the classes of society on
which the greater part of the crime comes, it will be found that
at least three-fourths, probably nine-tenths, comes from the very
lowest and the most destitute. It is incorrect to say crime is
common among them; in truth, among the young at least, a tendency
to it is there all but universal. If we examine who it is that
compose this dismal substratum, this hideous black band of
society, we shall find that it is not made up of any one
class more than another—not of factory workers more than
labourers, carters, or miners—but is formed by an aggregate
of the most unfortunate or improvident of all classes,
who, variously struck down from better ways by disease, vice, or
sensuality, are now of necessity huddled together by tens of
thousands in the dens of poverty, and held by the firm bond of
necessity in the precincts of contagion and crime. Society in
such circumstances resembles the successive bands of which the
imagination of Dante has framed the infernal regions, which
contain one concentric circle of horrors and punishments within
another, until, when you arrive at the bottom, you find one
uniform mass of crime, blasphemy and suffering. We are
persuaded there is no person practically acquainted with the
causes of immorality and crime in the manufacturing districts,
who will not admit that these are the true ones; and that the
others, about which so much is said by theorists and
philanthropists, though not without influence, are nevertheless
trifling in the balance. And what we particularly call the public
attention to is this—Suppose all the remedies which
theoretical writers or practical legislators have put forth and
recommended, as singly adequate to remove the evils of the
manufacturing classes, were to be in united operation,
they would still leave these gigantic causes of evil untouched.
Let Lord Ashley obtain from a reluctant legislature his
ten-hours' bill, and Dr Chalmers have a clergyman established for
every 700 inhabitants; let church extension be pushed till there
is a chapel in every village, and education till there is a
school in every street; let the separate system be universal in
prisons, and every criminal be entirely secluded from vicious
contamination; still the great fountains of evil will remain
unclosed; still 300,000 widows and orphans will exist in a few
counties of England amidst a newly collected and strange
population, steeped in misery themselves, and of necessity
breeding up their children in habits of destitution and
depravity; still the poor will be deprived, from the suddenness
of their collection, and the density of their numbers, of any
effective control, either from private character or the opinion
of neighbourhood; still individual passion will be inflamed, and
individual responsibility lost amidst multitudes; still strikes
will spread their compulsory idleness amidst tens of thousands,
and periodically array the whole working classes under the
banners of sedition, despotism, and murder; still precocious
female labour will at once tempt parents into idleness in middle
life, and disqualify children, in youth, for household or
domestic duties. We wish well to the philanthropists: we are far
from undervaluing either the importance or the utility of their
labours; but as we have hitherto seen no diminution of crime
whatever from their efforts, so we anticipate a very slow and
almost imperceptible improvement in society from their
exertions.
Strong, and in many respects just, pictures of the state of
the working classes in the manufacturing districts, have been
lately put forth, and the Perils of the Nation have, with
reason, been thought to be seriously increased by them. Those
writers, however, how observant and benevolent soever, give a
partial, and in many respects fallacious view, of the
general aspect of society. After reading their doleful
accounts of the general wretchedness, profligacy, and
licentiousness of the working classes, the stranger is
astonished, on travelling through England, to behold green fields
and smiling cottages on all sides; to see in every village signs
of increasing comfort, in every town marks of augmented wealth,
and the aspect of poverty almost banished from the land. Nay,
what is still more gratifying, the returns of the sanatary
condition of the whole population, though still exhibiting a
painful difference between the health and chances of life in the
rural and manufacturing districts, present unequivocal proof of a
general amelioration of the chances of life, and, consequently,
of the general wellbeing of the whole community.
How are these opposite statements and appearances to be
reconciled? Both are true—the reconciliation is easy. The
misery, recklessness, and vice exist chiefly in one
class—the industry, sobriety, and comfort in another. Each
observer tells truly what he sees in his own circle of attention;
he does not tell what, nevertheless, exists, and exercises a
powerful influence on society, of the good which exists in the
other classes. If the evils detailed in Lord Ashley's speeches,
and painted with so much force in the Perils of the
Nation, were universal, or even general, society could not
hold together for a week. But though these evils are great,
sometimes overwhelming in particular districts, they are far from
being general. Nothing effectual has yet been done to arrest them
in the localities or communities where they arise; but they do
not spread much beyond them. The person engaged in the
factories are stated by Lord Ashley to be
between four and five hundred thousand: the population of the
British islands is above 27,000,000. It is in the steadiness,
industry, and good conduct of a large proportion of this immense
majority that the security is to be found. Observe that
industrious and well-doing majority; you would suppose there is
no danger:—observe the profligate and squalid minority; you
would suppose there is no hope.
At present about 60,000 persons are annually committed, in the
British islands, for serious offences14 worthy of
deliberate trial, and above double that number for summary or
police offences. A hundred and eighty thousand persons annually
fall under the lash of the criminal law, and are committed for
longer or shorter periods to places of confinement for
punishment. The number is prodigious—it is frightful. Yet
it is in all only about 1 in 120 of the population; and from the
great number who are repeatedly committed during the same year,
the individuals punished are not 1 in 200. Such as they are, it
may safely be affirmed that four-fifths of this 180,000 comes out
of two or three millions of the community. We are quite sure that
150,000 come from 3,000,000 of the lowest and most squalid of the
empire, and not 30,000 from the remaining 24,000,000 who live in
comparative comfort. This consideration is fitted both to
encourage hope and awaken shame—hope, as showing from how
small a class in society the greater part of the crime comes, and
to how limited a sphere the remedies require to be applied;
shame, as demonstrating how disgraceful has been the apathy,
selfishness, and supineness in the other more numerous and better
classes, around whom the evil has arisen, but who seldom
interfere, except to RESIST all measures calculated for its
removal.
It is to this subject—the ease with which the
extraordinary and unprecedented increase of crime in the empire
might be arrested by proper means and the total inefficiency of
all the remedies hitherto attempted, from the want of practical
knowledge on the part of those at the head of affairs, and an
entirely false view of human nature in society generally, that we
shall direct the attention of our readers in a future Number.
The museum of Palermo is a small but very interesting
collection of statues and other sculpture, gathered chiefly, they
say, from the ancient temples of Sicily, with a few objects
bestowed out of the superfluities of Pompeii. In the lower room
are some good bas-reliefs, to which a story is attached. They
were discovered fifteen years ago at Selinuntium by some
young Englishmen, the reward of four months' labour. Our guide,
who had been also theirs, had warned them not to stay after the
month of June, when malaria begins. They did stay. All (four)
took the fever; one died of it in Palermo, and the survivors were
deprived by the government—that is, by the king—of
the spoils for which they had suffered so much and worked so
hard. No one is permitted to excavate without royal license;
excavation is, like Domitian's fish, res fisci.
Even Mr Fagan, who was consul at Palermo, having made some
interesting underground discoveries, was deprived of them. We saw
here a fine Esculapius, in countenance and expression exceedingly
like the Ecce Homo of Leonardo da Vinci, with all that
god-like compassion which the great painter had imparted without
any sacrifice of dignity. He holds a poppy-head, which we do not
recollect on his statue or gems, and the Epidaurian snake is at
his side. Up-stairs we saw specimens of fruits from Pompeii,
barley, beans, the carob pod, pine kernels, as well as bread,
sponge, linen: and the sponge was obviously such, and so was the
linen. A bronze Hercules treading on the back of a stag, which he
has overtaken and subdued, is justly considered as one of the
most perfect bronzes discovered at Pompeii. A head of our
Saviour, by Corregio, is exquisite in conception, and such as
none but a person long familiar with the physiognomy of suffering
could have accomplished. These are exceptions rather than
specimens. The pictures, in general, are poor in interest; and a
long gallery of casts of the chef-d'oeuvres of
antiquity possessed by the capitals of Italy, Germany, England,
and France, looks oddly here, and shows the poverty of a country
which had been to the predatory proconsuls of Rome an
inexhaustible repertory of the highest treasures of art. A VERRES
REDIVIVUS would now find little to carry off but toys made of
amber, lava snuff-boxes, and WODEHOUSE'S MARSALA—one of
which he certainly would not guess the age of, and the
other of which he would not drink.
LUNATIC ASYLUM.
We saw nothing in this house or its arrangements to make us
think it superior, or very different from others we had visited
elsewhere. The making a lunatic asylum a show-place for strangers
is to be censured; indeed, we heard Esquirol observe, that
nothing was so bad as the admission of many persons to see the
patients at all; for that, although some few were better for the
visits of friends, it was injurious as a general rule to give
even friends admittance, and that it ought to be left
discretionary with the physician, when to admit, and
whom. Cleanliness, good fare, a garden, and the
suppression of all violence—these have become immutable
canons for the conduct of such institutions, and fortunately
demand little more than ordinary good feeling and intelligence in
the superintendent. But we could not fail to observe a sad want
of suitable inducement to occupation, which was apparent
throughout this asylum. That not above one in ten could read, may
perhaps be thought a light matter, for few can be the resources
of insanity in books; yet we saw at Genoa a case where it
had taken that turn, and as it is occupation to read, with how
much profit it matters not. Not one woman in four, as usually
occurs in insanity, could be induced to dress
according to her sex; they figured away in men's coats and
hats! The dining-room was hung with portraits of some merit, by
one of the lunatics; and we noticed that every face, if indeed
all are portraits, had some insanity in it. They have a
dance every Sunday evening. What an exhibition it must be!
The vegetables here are of immense growth. The fennel root
(and there is no better test of your whereabouts in Italy) is
nearly twice as large as at Naples, and weighs, accordingly,
nearly double. The cauliflowers are quite colossal; and they have
a blue cabbage so big that your arms will scarcely embrace it. We
question, however, whether this hypertrophy of fruit or
vegetables improves their flavour; give us English
vegetables—ay, and English fruit. Though
Smyrna's fig is eaten throughout Europe, and Roman
brocoli be without a rival; though the cherry and
the Japan medlar flourish only at Palermo, and the
cactus of Catania can be eaten nowhere else; what country
town in England is not better off on the whole, if quality alone
be considered? But we have one terrible drawback; for whom
are these fruits of the earth produced? Our prices are
enormous, and our supply scanty; could we forget this, and
the artichoke, the asparagus, the peas and beans of London and
Paris, are rarely elsewhere so fine. To our palates the
gooseberry and the black currant are a sufficient
indemnity to Britain for the grape, merely regarded as a
fruit to eat. Pine-apples, those "illustrious foreigners,"
are so successfully petted at home, that they will
scarcely condescend now to flourish out of England.
Nectarines refuse to ripen, and apricots to have
any taste elsewhere. Our pears and apples are
better, and of more various excellence, than any in the world.
And we really prefer our very figs, grown on a fine
prebendal wall in the close of Winchester, or under
Pococke's window in a canon's garden at chilly
Oxford. Thus has the kitchen-garden refreshed our patriotism,
and made us half ashamed of our long forgetfulness of home. But
there are good things abroad too for poor men; the rich may live
any where. An enormous salad, crisp, cold, white, and of
delicious flavour, for a halfpenny; olive oil, for fourpence a
pound, to dress it with; and wine for fourpence a gallon to make
it disagree with you;15 fuel for almost nothing, and
bread for little, are not small advantages to frugal
housekeepers; but, when dispensed by a despotic government, where
one must read those revolting words motu proprio at the
head of every edict, let us go back to our carrots and potatoes,
our Peels and our income-tax, our fogs and our frost. The country
mouse came to a right conclusion, and did not like the fragments
of the feast with the cat in the cupboard—
Give me again my hollow tree,
My crust of bread, and liberty."
15:
——Lactuca innatat acri
Post vinum stomacho.—HOR.
Fish, though plentiful and various, is not fine in any part of
the Mediterranean; and as to thunny, one surfeit
would put it out of the bill of fare for life. On the whole,
though at Palermo and Naples the pauper starves not in the
streets, the gourmand would be sadly at a loss in his requisition
of
delicacies and variety. Inferior bread, at a penny a pound, is
here considered palatable by the sprinkling over of the crust
with a small rich seed (jugulena) which has a flavour like
the almond; it is also strewn, like our caraway seeds in
biscuits, into the paste, and is largely cultivated for
that single use. The capsici, somewhat similar in flavour
to the pea, are detached from the radicles of a plant with a
flower strikingly like the potatoe, and is used for a similar
purpose to the jugulena.
This island was the granary of Athens before it nourished
Rome; and wheat appears to have been first raised in Europe on
the plains of eastern Sicily. In Cicero's time it returned
eightfold; and to this day one grain yields its eightfold of
increase; which, however, is by a small fraction less than our
own, as given by M'Culloch in his "Dictionary of Commerce." We
plucked some siligo, or bearded wheat, near Palermo, the
beard of which was eight inches long, the ear contained sixty
grains, eight being also in this instance the average increase;
how many grains, then, must perish in the ground!
In Palermo, English gunpowder is sold by British sailors at
the high price of from five to seven shillings per English pound;
the "Polvere nostrale" of the Sicilians only fetches 1s.
8d.; yet such is the superiority of English gunpowder, that every
one who has a passion for popping at sparrows, and other
Italian sports, (complimented by the title of La
caccia,) prefers the dear article. When they have killed off
all the robins, and there is not a twitter in the whole
country, they go to the river side and shoot
gudgeons.
The Palermo donkey is the most obliging animal that ever wore
long ears, and will carry you cheerfully four or five miles an
hour without whip or other encouragement. The oxen, no
longer white or cream-coloured, as in Tuscany, were originally
importations from Barbary, (to which country the Sicilians are
likewise indebted for the mulberry and silk-worm.)
Their colour is brown. They rival the Umbrian breed in the
herculean symmetry of their form, and in the possession of horns
of more than Umbrian dimensions, rising more perpendicularly over
the forehead than in that ancient race. The lizards here are such
beautiful creatures, that it is worth while to bring one away,
and, to pervert a quotation, "UNIUS Dominum sese
fecisse LACERTAE." Some are all green, some mottled like a
mosaic floor, others green and black on the upper side, and
orange-coloured or red underneath. Of snakes, there is a
Coluber niger from four to five feet in length, with a
shining coat, and an eye not pleasant to watch even through
glass; yet the peasants here put them into their Phrygian
bonnets, and handle them with as much sang-froid as one
would a walking-stick.
The coarse earthen vessels, pitchers, urns, &c., used by
the peasants, are of the most beautiful shapes, often that of the
ancient amphora; and at every cottage door by the
road-side you meet with this vestige of the ancient arts of the
country.
The plague which visited Palermo in 1624 swept away 20,000
inhabitants; Messina, in 1743, lost 40,000. The cholera, in 1837,
destroyed 69,253 persons. The present population of the whole
island is 1,950,000; the female exceeds the male by about three
per cent, which is contrary to the general rule. It is said that
nearly one-half the children received into the foundling hospital
of Palermo die within the first year.
Formerly the barons of Sicily were rich and independent, like
our English gentlemen; but they say that, since 1812, the king's
whole pleasure and business, as before our Magna Charta
times, have been to lower their importance. In that year a revolt
was the consequence of an income-tax even of two per cent, for
they were yet unbroken to the yoke; but now that he has saddled
property with a deduction, said to be eventually equal to
fifteen per cent, if not more; now that he doubles the impost on
the native sulphur, which is therefore checked in its sale; now
that he keeps an army of 80,000 men to play at soldiers with; now
that he constitutes himself the only referee even in questions of
commercial expediency, and a fortiori in all other cases,
which he settles arbitrarily, or does not settle at all;
now that he sees so little the signs of the times, that he will
not let a professor go to a science-congress at Florence or
Bologna without an express permission, and so ignorant as to have
refused that permission for fear of a political bias; now
that he diverts a nation's wealth from works of charity or
usefulness, to keep a set of foreigners in his pay—they no
doubt here remember in their prayers, with becoming gratitude,
"the holy alliance," or, as we would call it, the mutual
insurance company of the kings of Europe, of which
Castlereagh and Metternich were the honorary secretaries.
The Erba Bianca is a plant like southernwood,
presenting a curious hoar-frosted appearance as its leaves are
stirred by the wind. The Rozzolo a vento is an ambitious
plant, which grows beyond its strength, snaps short upon its
overburdened stalk, and is borne away by any zephyr, however
light. Large crops of oats are already cut; and oxen of
the Barbary breed, brown and coal-black, are already dragging the
simple aboriginal plough over the land. Some of these fine cattle
(to whom we are strangers, as they are to us) stood gazing at us
in the plain, their white horns glancing in the sun; others,
recumbent and ruminating, exhibit antlers which, as we have said
before, surpass the Umbrian cattle in their elk-like length and
imposing majesty. Arrived at the bottom of our long hill, we pass
a beautiful stream called Fiume freddo, whose source we
track across the plain by banks crowned with Cactus and
Tamarisk. Looking back with regret towards Alcamo,
we see trains of mules, which still transact the internal
commerce of the country, with large packsaddles on their backs;
and when a halt takes place, these animals during their drivers'
dinner obtain their own ready-found meal, and browse away on
three courses of vegetables and a dessert.
SICILIAN INNS.
"A beautiful place this Segeste must be! One could
undergo any thing to see it!" Such would be the probable
exclamation of more than one reader looking over some
landscape annual, embellished with perhaps a view
of the celebrated temple and its surrounding scenery; but find
yourself at any of the inexpressibly horrid inns of Alcamo
or Calatafrini, (and these are the two principal stations
between Palermo and Segeste—one with its 12,000, the other
with its 18,000 inhabitants;) let us walk you down the main
street of either, and if you don't wish yourself at Cheltenham,
or some other unclassical place which never had a Latin name, we
are much mistaken! The "Relievo dei Cavalli" at Alcamo
offers no relief for you! The Magpie may prate on
her sign-post about clean beds, for magpies can be made to
say any thing; but pray do not construe the "Canova
Divina" Divine Canova! He never executed any thing for
the Red Lion of Calatafrini, whose "Canova" is a low
wine-shop, full of wrangling Sicilian boors. Or will you place
yourself under the Eagle's wing, seduced by its nuovi
mobili e buon servizio? Oh, we obtest those broken
window-panes whether it be not cruel to expose new
furniture to such perils! For us we put up at the "Temple
of Segeste," attracted rather by its name than by any promise
or decoy it offers. Crabbe has given to the inns at Aldborough
each its character: here all are equal in immundicity, and all
equally without provisions. Some yellow beans lie soaking to
soften them. There is salt-cod from the north, moist and putrid.
There is no milk; eggs are few. The ham at the Pizzicarolo's is
always bad, and the garlicked sausage repulsive. Nothing is
painted or white-washed, let alone dusted, swept, or scoured. The
walls have the appearance of having been pawed over by new
relays of dirty fingers daily for ten years. This is a very
peculiar appearance at many nasty places out of Sicily,
and we really do not know its pathology. You tread
loathingly an indescribable earthen floor, and your eye, on
entering the apartment, is arrested by a nameless production of
the fictile art, certainly not of Etruscan form, which is
invariably placed on the bolster of the truck-bed destined
presently for your devoted head. Oh! to do justice to a Sicilian
locanda is plainly out of question, and the rest of our
task may as well be sung as said, verse and prose being alike
incapable of the hopeless reality:—
"Lodged for the night, O Muse! begin
To sing the true Sicilian inn,
Where the sad choice of six foul cells
The least exacting traveller quells
(Though crawling things, not yet in sight,
Are waiting for the shadowy night,
To issue forth when all is quiet,
And on your feverish pulses riot;)
Where one wood shutter scrapes the ground,
By crusts, stale-bones, and garbage bound;
Where unmolested spiders toil
Behind the mirror's mildew'd foil;
Where the cheap crucifix of lead
Hangs o'er the iron tressel'd bed;
Where the huge bolt will scarcely keep
Its promise to confiding sleep,
Till you have forced it to its goal
In the bored brick-work's crumbling hole;
Where, in loose flakes, the white-wash peeling
From the bare joints of rotten ceiling,
Give token sure of vermin's bower,
And swarms of bugs that bide their hour!
Though bands of fierce musquittos boom
Their threatening bugles round the room,
To bed! Ere wingless creatures crawl
Across your path from yonder wall,
And slipper'd feet unheeding tread
We know not what! To bed! to bed!
What can those horrid sounds portend?
Some waylaid traveller near his end,
From ghastly gash in mortal strife,
Or blow of bandit's blood-stained knife?
No! no! They're bawling to the Virgin,
Like victim under hands of surgeon!
From lamp-lit daub, proceeds the cry
Of that unearthly litany!
And now a train of mules goes by!
"One wretch comes whooping up the street
For whooping's sake! And now they beat
Drum after drum for market mass,
Each day's transactions on the place!
All things that go, or stay, or come,
They herald forth by tuck of drum.
Day dawns! a tinkling tuneless bell,
Whate'er it be, has news to tell.
Then twenty more begin to strike
In noisy discord, all alike;—
Convents and churches, chapels, shrines,
In quick succession break the lines.
Till every gong in town, at last
Its tongue hath loos'd, and sleep is past.
So much for nights! New days begin,
Which land you in another Inn.
O! he that means to see Girgenti
Or Syracuse!—needs patience plenty!"
Crossing a rustic bridge, we pass through a garden (for it is
no less, though man has had no spade in it) of pinks, marigolds,
cyclamens, and heart's-ease, &c. &c.; the moist meadow
land below is a perfect jungle of lofty grasses, all fragrant and
in flower, gemmed with the unevaporated morning dew, and
colonized with the Aphides, Alticæ, and swarms of the most
beautiful butterflies clinging to their stalks. Gramina
læta after Virgil's own heart, were these. Their elegance and
unusual variety were sufficient to throw a botanist into a
perfect HAY fever, and our own first paroxysm only went off,
when, after an hour's hard collecting, we came to a place which
demanded another sort of enthusiasm; for THERE stood
without a veil the Temple of Segeste, with one or two
glimpses of which we had been already astonished at a distance,
in all its Dorian majesty! This almost unmutilated and glorious
memorial of past ages here reigns alone—the only building
far or near visible in the whole horizon; and what a position has
its architect secured! In the midst of hills on a bit of
table-land, apparently made such by smoothing down the summit of
one of them, with a greensward in front, and set off behind by a
mountain background, stands this eternal monument of the noblest
of arts amidst the finest dispositions of nature. There is
another antiquity of the place also to be visited at
Segeste—its theatre; but we are too immediately
below it to know any thing about it at present, and must leave it
in a parenthesis. To our left, at the distance of eight miles,
this hill country of harmonious and graceful undulation ends in
beetling cliffs, beneath which the sea, now full in view, lies
sparkling in the morning sunshine. We shall never, never forget
the impressions made upon us on first getting sight of Segeste!
Pæstum we had seen, and thought that it exhausted all that
was possible to a temple, or the site of a temple. Awe-stricken
had we surveyed those monuments of "immemorial antiquity" in that
baleful region of wild-eyed buffaloes and birds of
prey—temples to death in the midst of his undisputed
domains! We had fully adopted Forsyth's sentiment, and held
Pæstum to be probably the most impressive monument on earth; but
here at Segeste a nature less austere, and more RIANTE in its
wildness, lent a quite different charm to a scene which could
scarcely be represented by art, and for which a reader could
certainly not be prepared by description. We gave an
antiquarian's devoutest worship to this venerable survivor of
2000 years, and of many empires—we felt the vast
masses of its time-tried Doric, and even the wild flowers within
its precincts, its pink valerians; its erba di vento, its
scented wallflower. The whole scene kept our admiration long
tasked, but untired. A smart shower compelled us to seek shelter
under the shoulder of one of the grey entablatures: it soon
passed away, leaving us a legacy of the richest fragrance, while
a number of wild birds of the hawk kind, called "chaoli" from
their shrill note, issued from their hiding-places, and gave us
wild music as they scudded by!
A few bits of wall scattered over the corn-fields are all that
now remains of the dwellings of the men who built this temple for
their city, and who, by its splendour, deluded the Athenians into
a belief of greater wealth than they possessed.
Our ascent to the theatre, the day after, proved to be a very
steep one, of half an hour on mule-back; in making which, we
scared two of those prodigious birds, the ospreys, who,
having reconnoitred us, forthwith began to wheel in larger and
larger sweeps, and at last made off for the sea. We found the
interior of the theatre occupied by an audience ready for our
arrival; it consisted of innummerable hawks, the chaoli
just mentioned, which began to scream at our intrusion. The
ospreys soon returned, and were plainly only waiting our
departure to subside upon their solitary domain. We would not be
a soft-billed bird for something in this neighbourhood; no song
would save them from the hawks' supper. Having luxuriated on the
24th of May for full four hours in this enchanting neighbourhood,
we were sorry to return to our inn—and such an inn! We
departed abruptly, and probably never to return; but we shall
think of Segeste in Hyde Park, or as we pass the candlestick
Corinthians of Whitehall. Thucydides16 relates that a
prevailing notion in his time was, that the Trojans after
losing Troy went first to Sicily, and founded there
Egesta and Eryx. Now, as on the same authority the first
Greek colony was Naxos, also in Sicily, Greeks and
Trojans (strange coincidence!) must have met again on new
ground after the Iliad was all acted and done with, like a
tale that is told.
16: Vide THUCYDIDES, Book iv. chap. 15.
On our return towards Palermo, one of our party having a touch
of ague, we crossed the street to the apothecary, (at
Calatafrini, our night's halt,) and smelling about his musty
galenicals, amidst a large supply of malvas which were
drying on his counter, the only wholesome-looking thing amidst
his stores, we asked if he had any quinine. "Sicuro!"
and he presented us with a white powder having a slightly bitter
taste, which, together with an ounce of green tea, to be
dispensed in pinches of five grains on extraordinary occasions,
comes, he says, from the East. On our observing that the quinine,
if such at all, was adulterated, and that this was too bad in a
country of malaria, where it was the poor man's only protection,
he looked angry; but we rose in the esteem of peasants in the
shop, who said to each other—"Ed ha ragione il Signor."
Wanting a little soda, we were presented with
sub-carbonate of potash as the nearest approach to it—a
substitution which suggested to us a classical recollection from
Theocritus; namely, that in this same Sicily, 2000 years ago, a
Syracusan husband is rated by his dame for sending her
soda for her washing in place of potash, the very converse
of what our old drug-vender intended to have washed our inside
withal.
The Roman Catholic religion patronises painting oddly here;
not a cart but is adorned with some sacred subject. Every
wretched vehicle that totters under an unmerciful load, with one
poor donkey to draw six men, has its picture of Souls in
Purgatory, who seem putting their hands and heads out of the
flames, and vainly calling on the ruffians inside to stop.
We read Viva la Divina Providenza, in flaming characters
on the front board of a carriole, while the whip is goading the
poor starved brute who drags it; for these barbarians in the rear
of European civilization, plainly are of opinion that a cart with
a sacred device shall not break down, though its owner
commit every species of cruelty.
The next day found us again installed at our old quarters in
Palermo, where, during our brief remaining stay, we visit a
conchologist, before which event we had no notion that Sicily was
so rich in shells. Two sides of a moderately large room are
entirely devoted to his collection. Here we saw a piece of wood
nearly destroyed by the Teredo navalis, or sailor's bore,
who seems more active and industrious here than elsewhere, and
seldom allows himself to be taken whole. Out of hundreds of
specimens, three or four perfect ones were all that this
collector could ever manage to extract, the molluscous
wood-destroyer being very soft and fragile. His length is about
three inches, his thickness that of a small quill; he lodges in a
shell of extreme tenuity, and the secretion which he ejects is,
it seems, the agent which destroys the wood, and pushes on bit by
bit the winding tunnel. But his doings are nothing to the working
of another wafer-shelled bivalve, whose tiny habitations are so
thickly imbedded in the body of a nodule of flint as to
render its exterior like a sieve, diducit scopulos aceto.
What solvent can the chemist prepare in his laboratory comparable
to one which, while it dissolves silex, neither harms the insect
nor injures its shell. Amongst the fossils we notice
cockles as big as ostrich eggs, clam-shells twice the size of the
largest of our Sussex coast, and those of oysters which rival
soup-plates. We had indeed once before met with them of equal
size in the lime-beds at Corneto. Judging by the
oysters, there must indeed have been giants in
those days. But this collection was chiefly remarkable for its
curious fossil remains of animals from Monte
Grifone. In this same Monte Grifone, which we went to visit,
is one of the largest of the caves of bones of which so many have
been discovered—bones of various kinds, some of small, some
of very large animals, mixed together pell-mell, and constituting
a fossil paste of scarcely any thing besides. None of the
geologists, in attempting to explain these deposits, sufficiently
enter into the question of the origin of the enormous
quantity, and close juxtaposition, of such
heterogeneous specimens.
By eight o'clock we are on board the Palermo steamer,
which is to convey us hence to Messina. The baked deck,
which has been saturated with the sun's heat all day, is now
cooling to a more moderate warmth, and soothing would be the
scene but for the noise of women and children. Large liquid stars
twinkle here and there, like so many moons on a reduced scale,
over the sea, and the night is wholly delightful! A bell rings,
which diminishes our numbers, and somewhat clears our deck. The
boats which carry off the last loiterers are gone, shaking
phosphorus from their gills, and leaving a train of it in
their tails; and the many-windowed Pharos of the harbour has all
its panes lit up, and twinkles after its own fashion. Round the
bay an interrupted crescent of flickering light is reflected in
the water, strongest in the middle, where the town is thickest,
and runs back; and far behind all lights comes the clear outline
of the darkly defined mountain rising over the city. Our own
lantern also is up, the authorities have disappeared, Monte
Pelegrino begins to change its position, we are in motion, and a
mighty light we are making under us, as our leviathan, turning
round her head and snuffing the sea, begins to wind out of
the harbour. A few minutes more, and the luminous tracery of the
receding town becomes more and more indistinct; but the sky is
all stars, and the water, save where we break its
smoothness, a perfect mirror. Wherever the paddles play, there
the sea foams up into yellow light and gerbes of
amber-coloured fireballs, caught up by the wheels, and flung off
in our track, to float past with incredible rapidity. Men are
talking the language of Babel in the cabin; there is amateur
singing and a guitar on deck—Orion is on his
dolphin—adieu, Palermo!
APPROACH TO MESSINA.
The Italian morning presents a beautiful sight on deck to eyes
weary and sore with night, as night passes on board steamers. We
pass along a coast obviously of singular conformation, and to a
geologist, we suppose, full of interest. We encounter a herd of
classical dolphins out a-pleasuring. We ask about a pretty little
town perched just above the sea, and called Giocosa. By
its side lies Tyndaris—classical enough if we spell
it right. The snow on Etna is as good as an inscription, and to
be read at any distance; but what a deception! they tell us it is
thirty miles off, and it seems to rise immediately from behind a
ridge of hills close to the shore. The snow cone rises in the
midst of other cones, which would appear equally high but for the
difference of colour. Patti is a picturesque little
borgo, on the hillside, celebrated in Sicily for its
manufacture of hardware. In the bay of Melazzo are taken
by far the largest supplies of thunny in the whole Mediterranean.
From the embayed town so named you have the choice of a
cross-road to Messina, (twenty-four miles;) but who would abridge
distance and miss the celebrated straits towards which we are
rapidly approaching, or lose one hour on land and miss the
novelties of volcanic islands, and the first view of Scylla and
Charybdis? It is but eight o'clock, but the awning has been
stretched over our heads an hour ago. As to breakfast—the
meal which is associated with that particular hour of the
four-and-twenty to all well regulated minds and
stomachs—it consists here of thin veneers of
old mahogany-coloured thunny, varnished with oil, and relieved by
an incongruous abomination of capers and olives. The cold fowls
are infamous. The wine were a disgrace to the sorriest tapster
between this and the Alps, and also fiery, like every thing else
in this district. Drink it, and doubt not the old
result—de conviva Corybanta videbis. (Oh, for
muffins and dry toast!) Never mind, we shall soon be at Messina.
And now we approach a point from which the lofty Calabrian coast
opposite, and the flinty wall of the formidable Scylla, first
present themselves, but still as distant objects. In another half
hour we are just opposite the redoubtable rock; and here we turn
abruptly at right angles to our hitherto course, and find
ourselves within the straits, from either side of which
the English and the French so often tried the effect of cannon
upon each other. It is now what it used to be—fishing
ground. The Romans got their finest muræna from the whirlpools of
Charybdis.17 The shark (cane di mare)
abounding here, would make bathing dangerous were the water
smooth; but the rapid whirlpools through which our steam-boat
dashes on disdainfully, would, at the same time, make it impossible
to any thing but a fish. A passenger assured us he had once seen
a man lost in the Vistula, who, from being a great swimmer,
trusted imprudently to his strength, and was sucked down by a
vortex of far less impetuosity, he thought, than this through
which we were moving. From this point till we arrived at Messina,
as every body was ripe for bathing, the whole conversation turned
naturally on the Messina shark, and his trick of snapping at
people's legs carelessly left by the owners dangling over the
boat's side. We steam up the straits to our anchorage in about
three-fourths of an hour. The approach is fine, very fine. A
certain Greek, (count, he called himself,) a great traveller, and
we afterwards found not a small adventurer, increases the
interest of the approach, by telling us that the hills before us,
bubbling up like blisters on chalcedony, have a considerable
resemblance, though inferior in character, to those which
embellish the Bosphorus and the first view of Constantinople.
Inferior, no doubt, in the imposing accessories of mosque and
minaret, and of cypresses as big as obelisks, which, rising
thickly on the heights, give to the city of Constantinople an
altogether peculiar and inimitable charm. Messina is beautifully
land-locked. The only possible winds that can affect its port are
the north-west and south-east. In summer it is said to enjoy more
sea breeze than any other place on the Mediterranean. Our Greek
friend, however, says that Constantinople is in this respect not
only superior to Messina, but to any other place in the seas of
Europe. Pity that the fellows are Turks! We did not find much to
interest us within the walls of Messina. There was, to be sure, a
fine collection of Sicilian birds, amongst which we were
surprised to see several of very exotic shape and plumage. One
long-legged fellow, dressed in a dirty white Austrian uniform,
with large web-feet, on which he seemed to rest with great
complacency, particularly arrested our attention. He stood as
high as the Venus di Medici, but by no means so
gracefully, and thrust his thick carved beak unceremoniously in
your face. His card of address was Phoenicopterus
antiquorum. The ancients ate him, and he looked as if he
would break your nose if you disputed with him. A very large
finch, which we have seen for sale about the streets here and
elsewhere in Sicily, rejoices in the imposing name of
Fringilla cocco thraustis. He wears his black cravat like
a bird of pretension, as he evidently is. The puffin (Puffinus
Anglorum) also frequents these rocks, though a very long way
from the Isle of Wight. No! Messina, though very fine, is not
equal to Palermo, with its unrivaled Marina,
compared to which Messina is poorly off indeed, in her straggling
dirty commerce-doing quay. We went out to see a little garden,
which contains half a dozen zare-trees and as many beautiful
birds in cages. We are disappointed at the poverty of our dessert
in this region of fruitfulness—a few bad oranges, some
miserable cherries, and that abomination the green almond. We
observe, for the first time, to-day folks eating in the streets
the crude contents of a little oval pod, which contains one or
two very large peas, twice the size of any others. These are the
true cicer, the proper Italian pea. Little bundles of them
are tied up for sale at all the fruit stalls, and men are seen
all the day long eating these raw peas, and offering them to each
other as sugar-plums.
17:
"Virroni muræna datur, quo maxima venit
Gurgite de Siculo: nam dum se continet Auster,
Contemnunt mediam tem eraria lina Charybdim."
JUVENAL, Sat. v. 99.
In the Corso we see a kind of temporary theatre, the deal
sides of which are gaudily lined with Catania silk, and on its
stage a whole dramatis personæ of sacred puppets. It is
lighted by tapers of very taper dimensions, and its stalle
are to be let for a humble consideration to the faithful or the
curious. It turns out to be a religious spectacle, supported on
the voluntary system—but there is something for your money.
A vast quantity of light framework, to which fireworks, chiefly
of the detonating kind, are attached, are already going off, and
folk are watching till it be completed. Then the evening's
entertainment will begin, and a miser indeed must he be, or
beyond measure resourceless, who refuses halfpence for such
choice festivities. Desirous to make out the particular
representation, we get over the fence in order to examine the
figures of the drama on a nearer view. A smartly dressed saint in
a court suit, but whom mitre and crosier determine
to be a bishop, kneels to a figure in spangles, a virgin as fond
of fine clothes as the Greek Panageia; while on the other side,
with one or two priests in his train, is seen a crowd in civil
costume. A paper cloud above, surrounded by glories of glass and
tinsel, is supported by two solid cherubs equal to the occasion,
and presents to the intelligent a representation of—we know
not what! Fire-works here divide the public with the
drum—to one or other all advertisement in Sicily is
committed. A sale of fish and flesh, theatric entertainments,
processions, and church invitations, are all by tuck of drum, or
by squib and cracker. How did they get on before the invention of
gunpowder? If a new coffeehouse is established, a couple of drums
start it advantageously, and beat like a recruiting party up and
down the street, to the dismay of all Forestieri. The drum
tells you when the thunny is at a discount, and fire-works
are let off at fish stalls when customers are slack.
An old tower, five miles off, is called the telegraph. People
go there for the panorama at the expense of three horses and two
hours; but you are repaid by two sea views, either of which had
been sufficient. Messina, its harbour, the straits, the opposite
coast of Calabria, Scylla, and Rhegium, (famed for its
bergamot,) are on the immediate shore, and a most striking chain
of hills for the background, which, at a greater distance, have
for their background the imposing range of the Abruzzi.
The Ãolian islands rise out of the sea in the happiest positions
for effect. Stromboli on the extreme right detaches his
grey wreath of smoke, which seems as if it proceeded out of the
water, (for Stromboli is very low,) staining for a moment the
clear firmament, which rivals it in depth of colour. Some of the
volcanic group are so nearly on a level with the water, that they
look like the backs of so many leviathans at a halt. The sea
itself lies, a waveless mirror, smooth, shining, slippery, and
treacherous as a serpent's back—"miseri quibus intentata
nites," say we.
JOURNEY TO TAORMINA.
We left Messina under a sky which no painter would or could
attempt; indeed, it would not have looked well on paper, or out
of reality. There are certain unusual, yet magnificent
appearances in nature, from which the artist conventionally
abstains, not so much from the impotence of art, as that the
nearer his approach to success the worse the picture. At one time
the colours were like shot or clouded silk, or the beautiful
uncertainty of the Palamida of these shores, or the matrix of
opal; at another, the Pacific Ocean above, of which the
continuity is often for whole months entire, was broken
into gigantic continents and a Polynesia of rose-coloured islands
that no ships might approach; while in this nether world the
middle of the Calabro-Sicilian strait was occupied by a
condensation of vapour, (one could never profane them by the term
of sea-mist or fog,) the most subtile and
attenuated which ever came from the realms of cloud-compelling
Jove. This fleecy tissue pursued its deliberate progress from
coast to coast, like a cortege of cobwebs carrying a deputation
from the power-looms of Arachne in Italy to the
rival silk-looms at Catania. We pass the dry beds of mountain
torrents at every half mile, ugly gashes on a smooth road; and
requiring too much caution to leave one's attention to be engaged
by many objects altogether new and beautiful. The rich yellow of
the Cactus, and the red of the Pomegranate, and the
most tender of all vegetable greens, that of the young
mulberry, together with a sweet wilderness of unfamiliar
plants, are not to be perfectly enjoyed on a fourfooted animal
that stumbles, or on a road full of pitfalls. We shall only say
that the Cynara cardunculus, (a singularly fine thistle or
wild artichoke;) the prickly uncultivated
love-apple, (a beautiful variety of the Solanum,)
of which the decoction is not infrequently employed in nephritic
complaints; the Ferula, sighing for occupation all along
the sea-shore, and shaking its scourge as the wind blows; the
Rhododendron, in full blossom, planted amongst the
shingles; the Thapsia gargarica, with its silver umbel,
looking at a short distance like mica, (an appearance caused by
the shining white fringe of the capsule encasing its seed,) and
many other strange and beautiful things, were the constant
attendants of our march. We counted six or seven varieties of the
spurge, (Euphorbium,) each on its milky stem, and in
passing through the villages had Carnations as large as
Dahlias flung at us by sunburnt urchins posted at their
several doors. The sandy shore for many miles is beautifully
notched in upon by tiny bays like basins, on which boats lie
motionless and baking in the sun, or oscillate under a
picturesque rock, immersed up to its shoulders in a green
hyaloid, which reflects their forms from a depth of many
fathoms. On more open stretches of the shore, long-drawn ripples
of waves of tiny dimension are overrunning and treading on one
another's heels for miles a-head, and tapping the anchored boat
"with gentle blow." The long-horned oxen already spoken of, toil
along the seaside road like the horses on our canal banks, and
tug the heavy felucca towards Messina—a service, however,
sometimes executed by men harnessed to the towing-cord, who, as
they go, offend the Sicilian muses by sounds and by words that
have little indeed of the Δωριζ
αοιδα. The gable ends of cottages
often exhibit a very primitive windmill for sawing wood within
doors. It is a large wheel, to the spokes of which flappers are
adjusted, made of coarse matting, and so placed as to profit by
the ordinary sea breeze; and, while the wind is thus
sawing his planks for him, the carpenter, at his door,
carries on his craft. We pass below not a few fortresses abutting
over the sea, or perched on the mountain tops. Many of these are
of English construction, and date from the occupation of the
island during the French war: in a word, the whole of this
Sicilian road is so variously lovely, that if we did not know the
cornice between Nice and Genoa, we should
say it was quite unrivaled, being at once in lavish possession of
all the grand, and most of the milder elements of landscape
composition. It is long since it became no wonder to us that the
greatest and in fact the only, real pastoral poet should have
been a Sicilian; but it is a marvel indeed, that, having
forgotten to bring his Eclogues with us, we cannot,
through the whole of Sicily, find a copy of Theocitus for sale,
though there is a Sicilian translation of him to be had at
Palermo. As he progresses thus delightfully, a long-wished for
moment awaits the traveller approaching towards
Giardini—turning round a far projecting neck of
land, Etna is at last before him! A disappointment,
however, on the whole is Etna himself, thus introduced. He looks
far below his stature, and seems so near, that we would
have wagered to get upon his shoulders and pull his ears, and
return to the little town to dine; the ascent also, to the eye,
seems any thing but steep; nor can you easily be brought to
believe that such an expedition is from Giardini a three days'
affair, except, indeed, that yonder belt of snow in the midst of
this roasting sunshine, has its own interpretation, and cannot be
mistaken. Alas! In the midst of all our flowers there was, as
there always is, the amari aliquid—it was occasioned
here by the flies. They had tasked our improved
capacity for bearing annoyances ever since we first set foot in
Sicily; but here they are perfectly incontrollable,
stinging and buzzing at us without mercy or truce, not to be
driven off for a second, nor persuaded to drown themselves on any
consideration. Verily, the honey-pots of Hybla itself seem to
please these troublesome insects less than the flesh-pots
of Egypt.
The next day begins inauspiciously for our ascent to Taormina;
but the attendants of the excursion are already making a great
noise, without which nothing can be done in either of the two
Sicilies. A supply of shabby donkeys are brought and mounted,
and, once astride, we begin to ascend, the poor beasts tottering
under our weight, and by their constant stumbling affording us
little inclination to look about. It takes about three-fourths of
an hour of this donkey-riding to reach the old notched wall of
the town. Two Taorminian citizens at this moment issue from under
its arch, in their way down, and guessing what we are, offer some
indifferent coins which do not suit us, but enable us
to enter into conversation. We demand and obtain a
cicerone, of whom we are glad to get rid after three
hours' infliction of his stupidity and endurance of his
ignorance, without acquiring one idea, Greek, Roman, Norman, or
Saracen, out of all his erudition. After going through the whole
tour with such a fellow for a Hermes, we come at last upon the
far-famed theatre, where we did not want him. Here, however, a
very intelligent attendant, supported by the king of Naples on a
suitable pension of five baiocchi a-day, takes us out of the
hands of the Philistine, and with a plan of the ground to aid us,
proceeds to give an intelligible, and, as appears to us, a true
explanation of the different parts of the huge construction, in
the area of which we stand delighted. He directed our attention
to a large arched tunnel, under and at right angles to the
pulpita, and we did not want direction to the thirty-six niches
placed at equal distances all round the ellipse, and just over
the lowest range of the CUNEI. All niches were, no doubt, for
statues; but these might also have been, it pleases some to
suppose, for the reverberation of applause; and they quote
something about "Resonantia Vasa" from Macrobius, adding,
that such niches were once probably lined with brass. Of bolder
speculatists, some believe the kennel to have been made
with a similar intention. Others hold that it may have been a
concealed way for introducing lions and tigers to the arena! Now,
what if it were a drain for the waters, which, in bad
weather, soon collect to a formidable height in such a situation?
Whether for voice, or wild beasts, or drainage, or none of these
objects, there it is. As to the first, we cannot help being
sceptical. Did it ever occur to an audience to wish the noise
they make greater, and contrive expedients for making
it so?
We are here high up amidst the mountains, where, we are to
remember, as the ancients came not to spend, like ourselves, an
idle hour, but to consume most of the day, shelter would
be wanted. Two large lateral spaces, or as it were, side
chambers, have received this destination at the hands of the
antiquary, and have been supposed lobbies for foul weather or for
shade at noon. We were made to notice by our guide, what we
should else have overlooked, how the main passage described above
communicates with several smaller ones in its progress, and that
a small stair was a subsequent contrivance or afterthought meant
to relieve, on emergency, the overcharged large one; its
workmanship and style showed it plainly to have been added when
the edifice had already become an antiquity. This
altogether peculiar and most interesting building has also
suffered still later interpolations: a Saracenic frieze runs
round the wall; so that the hands of three widely different
nations have been busy on the mountain theatre, which received
its first audience twenty-five centuries ago! The view
obtained from this spot has often been celebrated, and deserves
to be. Such mountains we had often seen before; such a sky is the
usual privilege of Sicily; these indented bays, which
break so beautifully the line of the coast, had been an object of
our daily admiration; the hoary side of the majestic Etna, and
Naxos with its castellated isthmus, might be seen from
other elevated situations; and the acuminated tops of
Mola, with its Saracenic tower, were commanded by neighbouring
sites—Taormina alone, and for its own sake,
was the great and paramount object in our eyes, and possessed us
wholly! We had been following Lyell half the day in
antediluvian remains; but what are the bones of
Ichthyosauri or Megalotheria to this gigantic
skeleton of Doric antiquity, round which lie scattered the
sepulchres of its ancient audiences, Greek, Roman, and
Oriental—tombs which had become already an object of
speculation, and been rifled for arms, vases, or gold rings,
before Great Britain had made the first steps beyond painted
barbarism!
The eruptions of Etna have all been recorded. Thucydides
mentions one of them episodically in the Peloponesian war. From
the cooled caldron that simmers under all that snow, has
proceeded all the lava that the ancients worked into these their
city walls. The houses of Taurominium were built of and upon
lava, which it requires a thousand years to disintegrate.
After dinner we walk to Naxos, saluting the statue of the
patron of a London parish, St Pancras, on our way. He
stands on the beach here, and claims, by inscription on his
pedestal, to have belonged to the apostolic times, St Peter
himself having, he says, appointed him to his bishopric. He is
patron of Taormina, where he has possessed himself of a Greek
temple; and he also protects the faithful of Giardini. Lucky in
his architects has been St Pancras; for many of our
readers are familiar with his very elegant modern church in the
New Road, modelled, if we have not forgotten, on the Erechtheum,
with its Pandrosean Vestries, its upright tiles, and all
the subordinate details of Athenian architecture. We met
here the subject of many an ancient bas relief done into
flesh and blood—a dozen men and boys tripping along the
road to the music of a bagpipe, one old Silenus leading
the jocund throng, and the whole of them, as the music, such as
it was, inspired, leaping about and gesticulating with incredible
activity. It was a bacchanalian subject, which we had seen on
many a sarcophagus, only that the fellows here were not
quite naked, and that we looked in vain for those nascent
horns and tails by which the children of Pan and Faunus ought to
be identified. We always look out for natural history.
Walking in a narrow street, we saw a tortoise, awake for the
season, come crawling out to peep at the poultry; his hybernation
being over, he wants to be social, and the hens in astonishment
chuckle round him, and his tortoiseshell highness seems pleased
at their kind enquiries, and keeps bobbing his head in and out of
his testudo in a very sentimental manner. Women who want
his shell for combs do not frequent these parts, and so,
unless a cart pass over him as he returns home, he is in
clover.
A bird frequents these parts with a blue chest, called
Passer solitarius; he abounds in the rocky crevices. The
notes of one, which was shown to us in a cage, sounded sweetly;
but, as he was carnivorous, the weather was too hot for us to
think of taking him away. We saw two snakes put into the same
box: the one, a viper, presently killed the other, and much the
larger of the two. Serpents, then, like men, do not, as
the Satirist asserts, spare their kind. We are
disappointed at not finding any coins, nor any other good
souvenirs, to bring away with us. The height of Taormina
is sufficient to keep it from fever, which is very prevalent at
Giardini below. Its bay was once a great place for catching
mullet for the Roman market. It seems to have been the
Torbay of Sicily. Some fish love their ease, and rejoice
not in turbulent waters. The muræna, or lamprey, on the
contrary, was sought in the very whirlpools of Charybdis.
The modern Roman, on his own side of Italy, has few turbot, but
very good ones are still taken off Ancona, in the Adriatic, where
the spatium admirabile Rhombi, as the reader will, or
ought to recollect, was taken and sent to Domitian at Albano by
Procaccio or Estafetta. Juvenal complains that the
Tyrrhene sea was exhausted by the demand for fish, though there
was no Lent in those times. If the Catholic clergy insist
that there was, we beg to object, that the keepers thereof
were probably not in a condition to compete with the
Apiciuses of the day, who bought fish for their
bodies', and not for their SOULS' SAKE.
CATANIA.
Tum Catane nimium ardenti vicina Typhæo.
After a pleasant drive of twenty miles, we find ourselves at
Aci-Reale, where a street, called "Galatea," reminds us
unexpectedly of a very classical place called Dean's Yard, where
we once had doings with Acis, as he figures in Ovid's
Metamorphoses. We were here in luck, and, having purchased
some fine coins of several of the tyrants of Sicily from the
apothecary, proceeded on our way to Catania. In half an hour we
reach the basaltic Isles of the Cyclops, and the Castle of Acis,
whom the peasants hereabouts tell you was their king, when Sicily
was under the Saracenic yoke. The river Lecatia, now lost,
is supposed formerly to have issued hereabouts, in the port of
Ulysses. Our next move placed us amidst the silk-slops of
Catania. We have hardly been five minutes in the town, when
offers abound to conduct us up Ãtna, in whom, as so much national
wealth, the inhabitants seem to take as much interest as in her
useful and productive silk-looms. Standing fearless on the
pavement of lava that buried their ancient city, they point up
with complacency to its fountains above. The mischievous exploits
of Ãtna, in past times, are in every mouth, and children learn
their Ãtnean catechism as soon as they are breeched. Ãtna here is
all in all. Churches are constructed out of his quarried
viscera—great men lie in tombs, of which the stones
once ran liquid down his flames—snuff is taken out of lava
boxes—and devotion carves the crucifix on lava, and numbers
its beads on a lava rosary—nay, the apothecary's mortar was
sent him down from the great mortar-battery above, and the
village belle wears fire-proof bracelets that were once
too hot to be meddled with. Go to the museum, and you will call
it a museum of Ãtnean products. Nodulated, porous, condensed,
streaked, spotted, clouded, granulated lava, here assumes the
colour, rivals the compactness, sustains the polish, of jasper,
of agate, and of marble; indeed it sometimes surpasses, in
beautiful veinage, the finest and rarest Marmorean specimens. You
would hardly distinguish some of it, worked into jazza or vase,
from rosso antico itself. A very old and rusty armoury
may, as here, be seen any where; but a row of formidable shark
skulls, taken along the coast, and some in the very port of
Catania, are rarities on which the ciceroni like to
prelect, being furnished with many a story of bathers curtailed
by them, and secure a large portion of attention, especially if
you were just thinking of a dip. A rather fine collection of
bronzes has been made from excavations in the neighbourhood,
which, indeed, must always promise to reward research. A figure
of Mercury, two and a half feet high, and so exactly similar to
that of John of Bologna, that his one seemed an absolute
plagiarism, particularly attracted our attention on that account.
The great Italian artist, however, had been dead one hundred and
fifty years before this bronze was dug up. Next in importance to
the bronzes, we esteem the collection of Sicilian, or
Græco-Sicilian vases, though inferior in number and selectness to
those of the Vatican, or Museo-Borbonico. There is also some
ancient sculpture, and some pretty mosaic. Of this composition is
a bathfloor, where a family of Cupids, in the centre of the
pavement, welcome you with a utere feliciter, (may it do
you good.) Round the border, a circle of the personified
"months" is artistically chained together, each bearing
his Greek name, for fear of a mistake—names not half
so good as Sheridan's translation of the Revolutionary
calendar—snowy, flowy, blowy—showery, flowery,
bowery—moppy, croppy, poppy—breezy, sneezy, freezy.
In Catania, we find no lack of coins, nor of sharp-eyed dealers,
who know pretty generally their value throughout Europe; but, in
order to be quite sure of the price current, ask double
what they take from one another, and judge, by your abatement of
it, of the state of the market elsewhere. Now mind, sir, when
they present you the most impudent forgeries, you are not to get
into a passion; but, glancing from the object to the vender,
quietly insinuate your want of absolute conviction in a
"che vi pare di questa moneta." He now looks at it again,
and takes a squint at you; and supposing you smell a rat,
probably replies that certainly he bought it for
genuine; but you have suggested a doubt, and the
piece really begins, even to him, to look suspicious,
"anzi à me." You reply coolly, and put it down—"That
was just what I was thinking;" and so the affair passes quietly
off. And now you may, if you happen to be tender-hearted,
say something compassionate to the poor innocent who has been
taken in, and proceed to ask him about another; and when
you see any thing you long to pocket, enquire what can he afford
to let a brother collector (give him a step in rank) have
it for; and so go on feeling your way, and never "putting
your arm so far out that you cannot comfortably draw it back
again." He will probably ask you if you know Mr B——
or C——, (English collectors,) with whom he has
had dealings, calling them "stimabili signori;" and, of
course, you have no doubt of it, though you never heard of them
before. It is also always conciliative to congratulate him on the
possession of such and such rare and "belle cose;" and if
you thus contrive to get into his good graces, he will deal with
you at fair prices, and perhaps amuse you with an account
of such tricks as he is not ashamed to have practised on
blockheads, who will buy at any cost if the die is fine.
Indeed, it has passed into an aphorism among these
mezzo-galantuomini, as their countrymen call them, that a
fine coin is always worth what you can get for it.
We heard the celebrated organ of St Benedict, which has been
praising God in tremendous hallelujahs ever since it was put up,
and a hundred years have only matured the richness of its tones.
Its voice was gushing out as we entered the church, and filling
nave and aisle with a diapason of all that was soft and soothing,
as if a choir of Guido's angels had broke out in harmony.
A stream of fresh water issues under the old town-wall, and an
immense mass of incumbent lava, of at least ninety feet high,
impends just above its source, the water struggling through a
mass of rock once liquefied by fire, in as limpid a rill as if it
came from limestone, and so excellent in quality that no other is
used in Catania. Women with buckets were ascending and descending
to fetch supplies out of the lava of the dead city below, for the
use of the living town above. Moreover, this is the only point in
Catania where the accident of a bit of wall arresting for some
time the progress of the lava current, has left the level of the
old town to be rigidly ascertained.
Here, as at Aci-Reale, balconies at windows, for the
most part supported by brackets, terminating in human heads, give
a rich, though rather a heavy, appearance to the street. Much
amber is found and worked at Catania. It has been lately
discovered in a fossil state, and in contiguity with fossil wood;
but we were quite electrified at the price of certain
little scent-bottles, and other articles made of this production.
You see it in all its possible varieties of colour, opacity, or
transparency. The green opalized kind is the most prized, and
four pounds was demanded for a pair of pendants of this colour
for earrings. Besides the yellow sort, which is common every
where, we see the ruby red, which is very rare: some varieties
are freckled, and some of the sort which afforded subjects for
Martial, and for more than one of the Greek anthologists, with
insects in its matrix. This kind, they say, is found
exclusively on the coast of Catania. There are such pieces the
size of a hand, but it is generally in much smaller bits. Amber
lies under, or is formed upon the sand, and abounds most
near the embouchure of a small river in this
neighbourhood. Many beautiful shells, fossils, and other objects
of natural history, appear in the dealers' trays; and polished
knife-handles of Sicilian agate may be had at five dollars
a dozen.
THE LAST OF THE KNIGHTS.
DON JOHN AND THE HERETICS OF FLANDERS.
It would almost seem as though chivalry were one of the errors
of Popery; so completely did the spirit of the ancient orders of
knighthood evaporate at the Reformation! The blind enthusiasm of
ignorance having engendered superstitions of every kind and
colour, the blow struck at the altar of the master idol proved
fatal to all.
In Elizabeth's time, the forms and sentiment of chivalry were
kept up by an effort. The parts enacted by Sidney and Raleigh,
appear studied rather than instinctive. At all events, the
gallant Sir Philip was the last of English knights, as he was the
first of his time. Thenceforward, the valour of the country
assumed a character more professional.
But a fact thus familiar to us of England, is more remarkable
of the rest of Europe. The infallibility of Rome once assailed,
every faith was shaken. Loyalty was lessened, chivalry became
extinct; expiring in France with Henri IV. and the
League—in Portugal with Don Sebastian of Braganza—and
in Spain with Charles V., exterminated root and branch by the pen
of Cervantes.
One of the most brilliant effervescences, however, of those
crumbling institutions, is connected with Spanish history, in the
person of Don John of Austria;—a prince who, if consecrated
by legitimacy to the annals of the throne, would have glorified
the historical page by a thousand heroic incidents. But the
sacrament of his baptism being unhappily unpreceded by that of a
marriage, he has bequeathed us one of those anomalous
existences—one of those incomplete destinies, which
embitter our admiration with disappointment and regret.
On both sides of royal blood, Don John was born with
qualifications to adorn a throne. It is true that when his infant
son was entrusted by Charles V. to the charge of the master of
his household, Don Quexada, the emperor simply described him as
the offspring of a lady of Ratisbon, named Barbara Blomberg. But
the Infanta Clara Eugenia was confidentially informed by her
father Philip II., and confidentially informed her satellite La
Cuea, that her uncle was "every way of imperial lineage;" and but
that he was the offspring of a crime, Don John had doubtless been
seated on one of those thrones to which his legitimate brother
Philip imparted so little distinction.
Forced by the will of Charles V. to recognize the
consanguinity of Don John, and treat him with brotherly regard,
one of the objects of the hateful life of the father of Don
Carlos seems to have been to thwart the ambitious instincts of
his brilliant Faulconbridge. For in the boiling veins of the
young prince abided the whole soul of Charles V.,—valour,
restlessness, ambition; and his romantic life and mysterious
death bear alike the tincture of his parentage.
Even his master feat, the gaining of the battle of Lepanto,
brings chiefly to our recollection that the author of Don Quixote
lost his hand in the action; and in the trivial page before us,
we dare not call our hero by the name of "Don Juan," (by which he
is known in Spanish history,) lest he be mistaken for the popular
libertine! And thus, the last of the knights has been stripped of
his name by the hero of the "Festin de Pierre," and of his
honours by Cervantes, as by Philip II. of a throne.—
Hard fate for one described by all the writers of
his time as a model of manly grace and Christian virtue! How
charming is the account given by the old Spanish writers of the
noble youth, extricated from his convent to be introduced on the
high-road to a princely cavalier, surrounded by his retinue, whom
he is first desired to salute as a brother, and then required to
worship, as the king of Spain! We are told of his joy on
discovering his filial relationship to the great emperor, so long
the object of his admiration. We are told of his deeds of prowess
against the Turks at Lepanto, at Tunis against the Moor. We are
told of the proposition of Gregory XIII. that he should be
rewarded with the crown of Barbary, and of the desire of the
revolted nobility of Belgium, to raise him to their tottering
throne; nay, we are even assured that "la couronne d'Hibernie"
was offered to his acceptance. And finally, we are told of his
untimely death and glorious funeral—mourned by all the
knighthood of the land! But we hear and forget. Some mysterious
counter-charm has stripped his laurels of their verdure. Even the
lesser incidents of the life of Don John are replete with the
interest of romance. When appointed by Philip II. governor of the
Netherlands, in order that he might deal with the heretics of the
Christian faith as with the faithful of Mahomet, such deadly
vengeance was vowed against his person by the Protestant party
headed by Horn and the Prince of Orange, that it was judged
necessary for his highness to perform his journey in disguise.
Attired as a Moorish slave, he reached Luxembourg as the
attendant of Ottavio Gonzaga, brother of Prince Amalfi, at the
very moment the troops of the king of Spain were butchering eight
thousand citizens in his revolted city of Antwerp!—
The arrival of the new governor afforded the signal for more
pacific measures. The dispositions of Don John were
humane—his manners frank. Aware that the Belgian provinces
were exhausted by ten years of civil war, and that the pay of the
Spanish troops he had to lead against them was so miserably in
arrear as to compel them to acts of atrocious spoliation, the
hero of Lepanto appears to have done his best to stop the
effusion of blood; and, notwithstanding the counteraction of the
Prince of Orange, the following spring, peace and an amnesty were
proclaimed. The treaty signed at Marche, (known by the name of
the Perpetual Edict,) promised as much tranquillity as was
compatible with the indignation of a country which had seen the
blood of its best and noblest poured forth, and the lives and
property of its citizens sacrificed without mercy or
calculation.
But, though welcomed to Brussels by the acclamations of the
people and the submission of the States, Don John appears to have
been fully sensible that his head was within the jaws of the
lion. The blood of Egmont had not yet sunk into the earth; the
echoes of the edicts of Alva yet lingered in the air; and the
very stones of Brussels appeared to rise up and testify against a
brother of Philip II.!
Right thankful, therefore, was the young prince when an excuse
was afforded for establishing himself in a more tenable position,
by an incident which must again be accounted among the romantic
adventures of his life. For the sudden journey of the fascinating
Margaret of Valois to the springs of Spa, on pretence of
indisposition, was generally attributed to a design against the
heart of the hero of Lepanto.
A prince so remarkable for his gallantry of knighthood, could
do no less than wait upon the sister of the French king, on her
passage through Namur; and, once established in the citadel of
that stronghold of the royalists, he quitted it no more. In
process of time, a camp was formed in the environs, and
fortresses erected on the banks of the Meuse under the inspection
of Don John; nor was it at first easy to determine whether his
measures were actuated by mistrust of the Protestants, or
devotion to the worst and most Catholic of wives of the best and
most Huguenot of kings.
The blame of posterity, enlightened by the journal of Queen
Margaret's proceedings in Belgium, (bequeathed for our
edification by the alienated queen of Henri IV.,) has accused Don
John of blindness, in the right-loyal reception bestowed on her,
and the absolute liberty accorded her during her residence
at Spa, where she was opening a road for the arrival of her
brother the Duke of Alençon. It is admitted, indeed, that her
attack upon his heart met with defeat. But the young governor is
said to have made up in chivalrous courtesies for the
disappointment of her tender projects; and Margaret, if she did
not find a lover at Namur, found the most assiduous of
knights.
Many, indeed, believe that his attentions to the French
princess were as much a feint as her own illness; and that he was
as completely absorbed in keeping at bay his heretic subjects, as
her highness by the desire of converting them into the subjects
of France. It was only those admitted into the confidence of Don
John who possessed the clue to the mystery.
Ottavio Gonzaga, on his return from a mission to Madrid with
which he had been charged by Don John, was the first to acquaint
him with the suspicions to which the sojourn of Margaret had
given rise.
"I own I expected to find your highness in better cheer," said
he, when the first compliments had been exchanged. "Such marvels
have been recounted in Spain of your fêtes and jousts of honour,
that I had prepared myself to hear of nothing at headquarters but
the silken pastimes of a court."
"Instead of which," cried Don John, "you find me, as usual, in
my steel jerkin, with no milder music at command than the
trumpets of my camp; my sole duty, the strengthening of yonder
lines," continued he, (pointing from a window of the citadel,
near which they were standing, commanding the confluence of the
Sambre and Meuse,) "and my utmost diversion, an occasional charge
against the boars in yonder forest of Marlagne!"
"I cannot but suppose it more than occasional,"
rejoined Gonzaga; "for I must pay your highness the ill
compliment of avowing, that you appear more worn by fatigue and
weather at this moment, and in this sunless clime, than at the
height of your glorious labours in the Mediterranean! Namur has
already ploughed more wrinkles on your brow than Barbary or
Lepanto."
"Say rather in my heart!" cried the impetuous prince.
"Since you quitted me, six months ago, my dear Gonzaga, I have
known nothing but cares! To you I have no scruple in avowing,
that my position in this country is hateful. So long accustomed
to war against a barbarous enemy, I could almost fancy myself as
much a Moor at heart, as I appeared in visage, when in your
service on my way to Luxembourg, whenever I find my sword
uplifted against a Christian breast!—Civil war, Ottavio, is
a hideous and repugnant thing!"—
"The report is true, then, that your highness has become
warmly attached to the people of these rebel provinces?" demanded
Gonzaga, not choosing to declare the rumour prevalent in Spain,
that an opportunity had been afforded to the prince by the
Barlaimont faction, of converting his viceroyalty into the sway
of absolute sovereignty.
"So much the reverse, that the evil impression they made on me
at my arrival, has increased a hundred-fold! I abhor them yet
more and more. Flemings or Brabançons, Hainaulters or Walloons,
Catholic or Calvinist, the whole tribe is my aversion; and
despite our best endeavours to conceal it, I am convinced the
feeling is reciprocal!"
"If your highness was equally candid in your avowals to the
Queen of Navarre," observed Gonzaga gravely,—"I can
scarcely wonder at the hopes she is said to entertain of having
won over the governor of Mons to the French interest, during her
transit through Flanders."
"Ay, indeed? Is such her boast?" cried the prince, laughing.
"It may indeed be so!—for never saw I a woman less
scrupulous in the choice or use of arms to fight her battles.
But, trust me, whatever her majesty may have accomplished, is
through no aiding or abetting of mine."
"Yet surely the devoted attentions paid her by your
highness"—
"My highness made them appear devoted in proportion to
his consciousness of their hollowness! But I promise you, my dear
Ottavio, there is no tenderer leaning in my heart towards
Margaret de Valois, than towards the most thicklipped of the
divinities who competed for our smiles at Tunis." Gonzaga
shrugged his shoulders. He was convinced that, for once, Don John
was sinking the friend in the prince. His prolonged absence had
perhaps discharged him from his post as confidant.
"Trust me," cried the young soldier, discerning his
misgivings—"I am as sincere in all this as becomes our
friendship. But that God has gifted me with a happy temperament,
I should scarcely support the disgusts of my present calling. It
is much, my dear Gonzaga, to inherit as a birthright the brand of
such an ignominy as mine. But as long as I trusted to conquer a
happier destiny—to carve out for myself fortunes as
glorious as those to which my blood all but entitles me—I
bore my cross without repining. It was this ardent hope of
distinction that lent vigour to my arm in battle—that
taught prudence to my mind in council. I was resolved that even
the base-born of Charles V. should die a king!"—
Gonzaga listened in startled silence. To hear the young
viceroy thus bold in the avowal of sentiments, which of late he
had been hearing imputed to him at the Escurial as the direst of
crimes, filled him with amazement.
"But these hopes have expired!" resumed Don John. "The
harshness with which, on my return triumphant from Barbary, my
brother refused to ratify the propositions of the Vatican in my
favour, convinced me that I have nothing to expect from Philip
beyond the perpetual servitude of a satellite of the King of
Spain."
Gonzaga glanced mechanically round the chamber at the emission
of these treasonable words. But there was nothing in its rude
stone walls to harbour an eavesdropper.
"Nor is this all!" cried his noble friend. "My discovery of
the unbrotherly sentiments of Philip has tended to enlighten me
towards the hatefulness of his policy. The reserve of his
nature—the harshness of his soul—the austerity of his
bigotry—chill me to the marrow!—The Holy Inquisition
deserves, in my estimation, a name the very antithesis of
holy."
"I beseech your highness!" cried Ottavio
Gonzaga—clasping his hands together in an irrepressible
panic.
"Never fear, man! There be neither spies nor inquisitors in
our camp; and if there were, both they and you must even
hear me out!" cried Don John. "There is some comfort in
discharging one's heart of matters that have long lain so heavy
on it; and I swear to you, Gonzaga, that, instead of feeling
surprised to find my cheeks so lank, and my eyes so hollow, you
would rather be amazed to find an ounce of flesh upon my bones,
did you know how careful are my days, and how sleepless my
nights, under the perpetual harassments of civil war!—The
haughty burgesses of Ghent, whom I could hate from my soul but
that they are townsmen of my illustrious father, the low-minded
Walloons, the morose Brugeois, the artful Brabançons—all
the varied tribes, in short, of the old Burgundian duchy, seem to
vie with each other which shall succeed best in thwarting and
humiliating me. And for what do I bear it? What honour or profit
shall I reap on my patience? What thanks derive for having wasted
my best days and best energies, in bruising with my iron heel the
head of the serpent of heresy? Why, even that Philip, for some
toy of a mass neglected or an ave forgotten, will perchance give
me over to the tender questioning of his grand inquisitor, as the
shortest possible answer to my pretensions to a
crown,—while the arrogant nobility of Spain, when roused
from their apathy towards me by tidings of another Lepanto, a
fresh Tunis, will exclaim with modified
gratification—'There spoke the blood of Charles the
Fifth! Not so ill fought for a bastard!'"
Perceiving that the feelings of his highness were chafed, the
courtier, as in vocation bound, assured him he underrated the
loyalty towards him of his fellow countrymen of the Peninsula;
and that his services as governor of the Low Countries were fully
appreciated.
"So fully, that I should be little surprised to learn the axe
was already sharpened that is to take off my head!" cried Don
John, with a scornful laugh. "And such being the exact state of
my feelings and opinions, my trusty Gonzaga, I ask you whether I
am likely to have proved a suitable Petrarch for so accomplished
a Laura as the sister of Henry III?"—
"I confess myself disappointed," replied the
crafty Italian.—"I was in hopes that your highness had
found recreation as well as glory in Belgium. During my sojourn
at the court of Philip, I supported with patience the somewhat
ceremonious gravity of the Escurial, in the belief that your
highness was enjoying meanwhile those festal enlivenments, which
none more fully understand how to organize and adorn."
"If such an expectation really availed to enliven the
Escurial," cried Don John recklessly, "your friendship must
indeed possess miraculous properties! However, you may judge with
your own eyes the pleasantness of my position; and every day that
improves your acquaintance with the ill blood and ill condition
of this accursed army of the royalists, ill-paid,
ill-disciplined, and ill-intentioned, will inspire you with
stronger yearnings after our days of the Mediterranean, where I
was master of myself and of my men."
"And all this was manifested to Margaret, and all this will
serve to comfort the venomous heart of the queen
mother!"—ejaculated Gonzaga, shrugging his shoulders.
"Not a syllable, not a circumstance! The Queen of Navarre was
far too much engrossed by the manoeuvres of her own bright eyes,
to take heed of those of my camp."
"Your highness is perhaps less well aware than might be
desirable, of how many things a woman's eyes are capable of
doing, at one and the same time!"—retorted the Italian.
"I only wish," cried Don John impatiently, "that instead of
having occasion to read me those Jeremiads, you had been here to
witness the friendship you so strangely exaggerate! A ball, an
excursion on the Meuse, a boar hunt in the forest of Marlagne,
constitute the pastimes you are pleased to magnify into an
imperial ovation."
"Much may be confided amid the splendour of a
ball-room,—much in one poor half hour of a greenwood
rendezvous!"—persisted the provoking Ottavio.
Fain would Gonzaga have pursued the conversation, which had
taken a turn that promised wonders for the interest of the
despatches he had undertaken to forward to the Escurial, in
elucidation of the designs and sentiments of Don
John,—towards whom his allegiance was as the kisses of
Judas! But the imperial scion, (who, when he pleased, could
assume the unapproachability of the blood royal,) made it
apparent that he was no longer in a mood to be questioned. Having
proposed to the new-comer (to whom, as an experienced commander,
he destined the colonelship of his cavalry,) that they should
proceed to a survey of the fortifications at Bouge, they mounted
their horses, and, escorted by Nignio di Zuniga, the Spanish
aide-de-camp of the prince, proceeded to the camp.
The affectionate deference testified towards the young
governor by all classes, the moment he made his appearance in
public, appeared to Gonzaga strangely in contradiction with the
declarations of Don John that he was no favourite in Belgium. The
Italian forgot that the Duke of Arschot, the Counts of Mansfeld
and Barlaimont, while doffing their caps to the representative of
the King of Spain, had as much right to behold in him the devoted
friend of Don John of Austria, as he to regard them
as the faithful vassals of his government.
A fair country is the country of Namur!—The confluent
streams—the impending rocks—the spreading forests of
its environs, comprehend the finest features of landscape; nor
could Ottavio Gonzaga feel surprised that his prince should find
as much more pleasure in those breesy plains than in the narrow
streets of Brussels, as he found security and strength.
On the rocks overhanging the Meuse, at some distance from the
town, stands the village of Bouge, fortified by Don John; to
attain which by land, hamlets and thickets were to be traversed;
and it was pleasant to see the Walloon peasant children run
forth from the cottages to salute the royal train, making their
heavy Flemish chargers swerve aside and perform their lumbering
cabrioles far more deftly than the cannonading of the rebels, to
which they were almost accustomed.
As they cut across a meadow formed by the windings of the
Meuse, they saw at a distance a group formed, like most groups
congregated just then in the district, of soldiers and peasants;
to which the attention of the prince being directed, Nignio di
Zuniga, his aide-de-camp, was dispatched to ascertain the cause
of the gathering.
"A nothing, if it please your highness!" was the reply of the
Spaniard—galloping back, hat in hand, with its plumes
streaming in the breeze;—that the Prince's train, which had
halted, might resume its pace.
"But a nothing of what sort?" persisted Don John, who
appreciated the trivialties of life very differently from those
by whom he was surrounded.
"A village grievance!—An old woman roaring her lungs out
for a cow which has been carried off by our
troopers!"—grumbled the aide-de-camp, with less respect
than was usual to him.
"And call you that a nothing?"—exclaimed his
master. "By our lady of Liesse, it is an act of cruelty and
oppression—a thing calculated to make us hateful in the
eyes of the village!—And many villages, my good Nignio,
represent districts, and many districts provinces, and provinces
a country; and by an accumulation of such resentments as the
indignation of this old crone, will the King of Spain and the
Catholic faith be driven out of Flanders!—See to it! I want
no further attendance of you this morning! Let the cow be
restored before sunset, and the marauders punished."
"But if, as will likely prove the case, the beast is no longer
in its skin?"—demanded the aide-de-camp. "If the cow should
have been already eaten, in a score of messes of pottage?"
"Let her have compensation."
"The money chest at headquarters, if it please your highness,
is all but empty," replied Nignio, glancing with a smile towards
Gonzaga,—as though they were accustomed to jest together
over the reckless openness of heart and hand of their young
chief.
"Then, by the blessed shrine of St Jago, give the fellows at
least the strappado," cried Don John, out of all patience. "Since
restitution may not be, be the retribution all the heavier."
"It is ever thus," cried he, addressing himself to Gonzaga, as
the aide-de-camp resumed his plumed beaver, and galloped off with
an imprecation between his lips, at having so rustic a duty on
his hands, instead of accompanying the parade of his royal
master. "It goes against my conscience to decree the chastisement
of these fellows. For i' faith, they that fight, must feed; and
hunger, that eats through stone walls, is apt to have a nibble at
honesty. My royal brother, or those who have the distribution of
his graces, is so much more liberal of edicts and anathemas than
of orders on the treasury of Spain, that money and rations are
evermore wanting. If these Protestants persist in their stand
against us, I shall have to go forth to all the Catholic cities
of the empire, preaching, like Peter the hermit, to obtain
contributions from the pious!"
"His Majesty is perhaps of opinion," observed Gonzaga, "that
rebels and heretics ought to supply the maintenance of the troops
sent to reduce them to submission."
"A curious mode of engaging their affections towards either
the creed or prince from which they have revolted!" cried Don
John. "But you say true, Ottavio. Such are precisely the
instructions of my royal brother; whom the Almighty soften with a
more Christian spirit in his upholding of the doctrines of
Christianity!—I am bidden to regard myself as in a
conquered country. I am bidden to feel myself as I may have felt
at Modon or Lepanto. It may not be, it may not be!—These
people were the loyal subjects of my forefathers. These people
are the faithful followers of Christ."
"Let us trust that the old woman may get back her cow, and
your highness's tender conscience stand absolved,"—observed
Gonzaga with a smile of ill-repressed derision. "I fear, indeed,
that the Court of the Escurial is unprepared with sympathy for
such grievances."
"Gonzaga!"—exclaimed Don John, suddenly reining up his
horse, and looking his companion full in the face, "these are
black and bitter times; and apt to make kings, princes, nobles,
ay, and even prelates, forget that they are men; or rather that
there be men in the world beside themselves."—Then allowing
his charger to resume its caracolling, to give time to his
startled friend to recover from the glow of consciousness burning
on his cheek,—he resumed with a less stern inflexion. "It
is the vexation of this conviction that hath brought my face to
the meagreness and sallow tint that accused the scorching sun of
Barbary. I love the rush of battle. The clash of swords or
roaring of artillery is music to me. There is joy in contending,
life for life, with a traitor, and marshaling the fierce
battalions on the field. But the battle done, let the sword be
sheathed! The struggle over, let the blood sink into the earth,
and the deadly smoke disperse, and give to view once more the
peace of heaven!—The petty aggravations of daily
strife,—the cold-blooded oppressions of conquest,—the
contest with the peasant for his morsel of bread, or with his
chaste wife for her fidelity,—are so revolting to my
conscience of good and evil, that as the Lord liveth there are
moments when I am tempted to resign for ever the music I love so
well of drum and trumpet, and betake myself, like my royal
father, to some drowsy monastery, to listen to the end of my days
to the snuffling of Capuchins!"
Scarce could Ottavio Gonzaga, so recently emancipated from the
Escurial, refrain from making the sign of the cross at this
heinous declaration!—But he contained himself.—It was
his object to work his way still further into the confidence of
his royal companion.
"The chief pleasure I derived from the visit of the French
princess to Namur," resumed Don John, "was the respite it
afforded from the contemplation of such miseries and such
aggressions. I was sick at heart of groans and
murmurs,—weary of the adjustment of grievances. To behold a
woman's face, whereof the eyes were not red with weeping, was
something!"—
"And the eyes of the fair Queen of Navarre are said to be of
the brightest!" observed Gonzaga with a sneer.
"As God judgeth my soul, I noted not their hue or brightness!"
exclaimed Don John. "Her voice was a woman's—her bearing a
woman's—her tastes a woman's. And it brought back the
memory of better days to hear the silken robes of her train
rustling around me, instead of the customary clang of mail; and
merry laughs instead of perpetual moans, or the rude oaths of my
Walloons!"
An incredulous smile played on the handsome features of the
Italian.—
"Have out your laugh!" cried Don John. "You had not thought to
see the lion of Lepanto converted into so mere a
lap-dog!—Is it not so?"
"As little so as I can admit without the disrespect of denial
to your highness,"—replied Gonzaga, with a low obeisance.
"My smile was occasioned by wonder that one so little skilled in
feigning as the royal lion of Lepanto, should even hazard the
attempt. There, at least—and there alone—is Don John
of Austria certain of defeat!"
"I might, perhaps, waste more time in persuading you that the
air of Flanders hath not taught me lying as well as compassion,"
replied the Infant; "but that yonder green mound is our first
redoubt. The lines of Bouge are before you."
Professional discussion now usurped the place of friendly
intercourse. On the arrival of the prince, the drums of
headquarters beat to arms; and a moment afterwards, Don John was
surrounded by his officers; exhibiting, in the issuing of his
orders of the day, the able promptitude of one of the first
commanders of his time, tempered by the dignified courtesy of a
prince of the blood.
Even Ottavio Gonzaga was too much engrossed by the tactical
debates carrying on around him, to have further thought of the
mysteries into which he was resolved to penetrate.
Amid the jovialty of such an entertainment, Gonzaga
entertained little doubt of learning the truth. The rough
railleries of such men were not likely to respect so slight a
circumvallation as the honour of female reputation; and the
glowing vintage of the Moselle and Rhine would bring forth the
secret among the bubbles of their flowing tides. And, in truth,
scarcely were the salvers withdrawn, when the potations of these
mailed carousers produced deep oaths and uproarious laughter;
amid which was toasted the name of Margaret, with the enthusiasm
due to one of the originators of the massacre of St Bartholomew,
from the most Catholic captains of the founder of the Inquisition
of Spain.
The admiration due to her beauty, was, however, couched in
terms scarcely warranted on the lips of men of honour, even by
such frailties as Margaret's; and, to the surprise of Gonzaga, no
restraint was imposed by the presence of her imputed lover. It
seemed an established thing, that the name of Margaret was a
matter of indifference in the ears of Don John!
That very night, therefore, (the banquet being of short
continuance as there was to be a field-day at daybreak, under the
reviewal of the prince,) Ottavio Gonzaga, more than ever to seek
in his conjectures, resolved to address himself for further
information to Nignio; to whom he had brought confidential
letters from his family in Spain, and who was an ancient brother
in arms.
Having made out without much difficulty, the chamber occupied
by the Spanish captain, in a tower of the citadel overlooking the
valley of the Sambre, there was some excuse for preventing his
early rest with a view to the morrow's exercises, in the plea of
news from Madrid.
But as the Italian anticipated, ere he had half disburdened
his budget of Escurial gossip, Nignio de Zuniga had his own
grievances to confide. Uppermost in his mind, was the irritation
of having been employed that morning in a cow-hunt; and from
execrations on the name of the old woman, enriched with all the
blasphemies of a trooper's vocabulary,—it was no difficult
matter to glide to the general misdemeanours and malefactions of
the sex. For Gabriel Nignio was a man of iron,—bred in
camps, with as little of the milk of human kindness in his nature
as his royal master King Philip; and it was his devout
conviction, that no petticoat should be allowed within ten
leagues of any Christian encampment,—and that women were
inflicted upon this nether earth, solely for the abasement and
contamination of the nobler sex.
"As if that accursed Frenchwoman, and the nest of jays, her
maids of honour, were not enough for the penance of an unhappy
sinner for the space of a calendar year!"—cried he, still
harping upon the old woman.
"The visit of Queen Margaret must indeed have put you to some
trouble and confusion," observed Gonzaga carelessly. "From as
much as is apparent of your householding, I can scarce
imagine how you managed to bestow so courtly a dame here in
honour; or with what pastimes you managed to entertain her."
"The sequins of Lepanto and piastres of his holiness were not
yet quite exhausted," replied Nignio. "Even the Namurrois came
down handsomely. The sister of two French kings, and
sister-in-law of the Duke of Lorraine, was a person for even the
thick-skulled Walloons to respect. It was not money that
was wanting—it was patience. O, these Parisians! Make me
monkey-keeper, blessed Virgin, to the beast garden of the
Escurial; but spare me for the rest of my days the honour of
being seneschal to the finikin household of a queen on her
travels!"
Impossible to forbear a laugh at the fervent hatred depicted
in the warworn features of the Castilian captain, "I' faith, my
clear Nignio," said Gonzaga, "for the squire of so gallant a
knight as Don John of Austria, your notions are rather those of
Mahound or Termagaunt! What would his highness say, were he to
hear you thus bitter against his Dulcinea?"
"His Dulcinea!"—ejaculated the aide-de-camp with
a air of disgust. "God grant it! For a princess of Valois blood,
reared under the teaching of a Medici, had at least the
recommendations of nobility and orthodoxy in her favour."
"As was the case when Anna di Mendoça effected the conquest
over his boyish affections, so generously pardoned by his royal
brother!—But after such proof of the hereditary aspirings
of Don John, it would be difficult to persuade me of his
highness's derogation."
"Would I could say as much!"—exclaimed Nignio,
with a groan. "But such a cow-hunt as mine of this morning, might
convince the scepticism of St Thomas!"
"What, in the name of the whole calendar, have the affections
of the prince in common with your exploit?" said Gonzaga. "Would
you have me infer that the son of Charles V. is enamoured of a
dairy wench?"—
"Of worse! of a daughter of the
Amalekites!"—cried Nignio—stretching out his widely
booted legs, as though it were a relief to him to have
disburthened himself of his mystery.
"I have not the honour of understanding you," replied the
Italian,—no further versed in Scripture history than was
the pleasure of his almoner.
"You are his highness's friend, Gonzaga!" resumed the
Spanish captain. "Even among his countrymen, none so near his
heart! I have therefore no scruple in acquainting you with a
matter, wherein, from the first, I determined to seek your
counteraction. Though seemingly but a straw thrown up into the
air, I infer from it a most evil predilection on the part of Don
John;—fatal to himself, to us, his friends, and to the
country he represents in Belgium."
"Nay, now you are serious indeed!" cried his companion,
delighted to come to the point. "I was in hopes it was some mere
matter of a pair of rosy lips and a flaunting top-knot!"
"At the time Queen Margaret visited Namur," began the
aide-de-camp—
"I knew it!" interrupted Gonzaga, "I was as prepared for it as
for the opening of a fairy legend—'On a time their lived a
king and queen'—"
"Will you tell the story, then, or shall
I?"—cried Nignio, impatient of his interruption.
"Yourself, my pearl of squires! granting me in the
first place your pardon for my ill manners."—
"When Margaret de Valois visited Namur," resumed Nignio, "the
best diversions we had to offer to so fair and pious a princess
were, first a Te Deum in the cathedral for her safe
journey; next, an entertainment of dancing and music at the town
hall—and a gallant affair it was, as far as silver
draperies, and garlands of roses, and a blaze of light that
seemed to threaten the conflagration of the city, may be taken in
praise. The queen had brought with her, as with malice
prepense, six of the loveliest ladies of honour gracing the
court of the Louvre"—
"I knew it!"—again interrupted Gonzaga;—and
again did Nignio gravely enquire of him whether (since so well
informed) he would be pleased to finish the history in his own
way?
"Your pardon! your pardon!" cried the Italian, laying his
finger on his lips. "Henceforward I am mute as a carp of the
Meuse."
"It afforded, therefore, some mortification to this astutious
princess,—this daughter of Herodias, with more than all her
mother's cunning and cruelty in her soul,—to perceive that
the Spanish warriors, who on that occasion beheld for the first
time the assembled nobility of Brabant and Namur, were more
struck by the Teutonic charms of these fair-haired daughters of
the north, (so antipodal to all we are accustomed to see in our
sunburned provinces,) than by the mannered graces of her
pleasure-worn Parisian belles."—
"Certain it is," observed Gonzaga, (despite his recent
pledge,) "that there is no greater contrast than between our
wild-eyed, glowing Andalusians, and the slow-footed, blue-eyed
daughters of these northern mists, whose smiles are as moonshine
to sunshine!"
"After excess of sunshine, people sometimes prefer the calmer
and milder radiance of the lesser light. And I promise you that,
at this moment, if there be pillows sleepless yonder in the camp
for the sake of the costly fragile toys called womankind,
those jackasses of lovelorn lads have cause to regret the sojourn
of Queen Margaret in Belgium, only as having brought forth from
their castles in the Ardennes or the froggeries of the Low
Country, the indigenous divinities that I would were at this
moment at the bottom of their muddy moats, or of the Sambre
flowing under yonder window!"—
"It is one of these Brabançon belles, then, who"—
Gabriel Nignio de Zuniga half rose from his chair, as a signal
for breaking off the communication he was not allowed to pursue
in his own way.—Taking counsel of himself, however, he
judged that the shorter way was to tell his tale in a shorter
manner, so as to set further molestation at defiance.
"In one word," resumed he, with a vivacity of utterance
foreign to his Spanish habits of grandiloquence, "at that ball,
there appeared among the dancers of the Coranto, exhibited before
the tent of state of Queen Margaret, a young girl whose tender
years seemed to render the exhibition almost an indiscretion; and
whose aerial figure appeared to make her sojourn there, or any
other spot on earth a matter of wonder. Her dress was simple, her
fair hair streamed on her shoulders. It was one of the angels of
your immortal Titian, minus the wings! Such was, at least,
the description given me by Don John, to enable me to ascertain
among the Namurrois her name and lineage, for the satisfaction
(he said) of the queen, whose attention had been fascinated by
her beauty."
"And you proceeded, I doubt not, on your errand with all the
grace and good-will I saw you put into your commission of this
morning?"—cried Gonzaga, laughing.
"And nearly the same result!—My answer to the enquiry of
his highness was verbatim the same; that the matter was
not worth asking after. This white rose of the Meuse was not so
much as of a chapteral-house. Some piece of provincial obscurity
that had issued from the shade, to fill a place in the royal
Coranto, in consequence of the indisposition of one of the noble
daughters of the house of Croy. Still, as in the matter of the
cow-hunt, his highness had the malice to persist! And next day,
instead of allowing me to attend him in his barging with the
royal Cleopatra of this confounded Cydnus of Brabant, I was
dispatched into all quarters of Namur to seek out a pretty child
with silken hair and laughing eyes, whom some silly grandam had
snatched out of its nursery to parade at a royal fête.—Holy
St Laurence! how my soul grilled within my skin!—I did, as
you may suppose, as much of his highness's pleasure as squared
with my own; and had the satisfaction of informing him, on his
return, that the bird had fled."—
"And there was an end of the matter?"—
"I hoped so! But I am not precisely the confessor his highness
is likely to select when love constitutes the sin. At all events,
the bustle of Margaret's departure for Spa, the care of the royal
escort, and the payment of all that decency required us to take
upon ourselves of the cost of our hospitality, engrossed my time
and thoughts. But the first time the Infant beset me, (as he has
doubtless done yourself,) with his chapter of lamentations over
the sufferings of Belgium,—the lawlessness of the
camp—the former loyalty of the provinces—the
tenderness of conscience of the heretics,—and the
eligibility of forbearance and peace,—I saw as plain as
though the word were inscribed by the burning finger of Satan,
that the turkois eyes and flaxen ringlets were the text of all
this snivelling humanity!'
"Blessings on the tender consciences of the heretics, who were
burning Antwerp and Ghent, and plundering the religious houses
and putting their priests to the sword!" ejaculated Gonzaga.
"The exigencies of the hour, however, left little leisure to
Don John for the nursing of his infant passion; and a few weeks
past, I entertained hopes that, Queen Margaret being safe back at
her Louvre, the heart of the Prince was safe back in its place;
more especially when he one day proposed to me an exploit
savouring more of his days of Lepanto than I had expected at his
hands again. Distracted by the false intelligence wherewith we
were perpetually misled by the Brabançon scouts, Don John
determined on a sortie in disguise, towards the intrenchments of
the enemy, betwixt the Sambre and Dyle. Rumour of the
reinforcements of English troops dispatched to the heretics by
Queen Elizabeth at the instance of the diet of Worms, rendered
him anxious; and bent upon ascertaining the exact cantonments of
Colonel Norris and his Scottish companies, we set forward before
daybreak towards the forest of Marlagne, as for a hunting
expedition; then exchanging our dresses for the simple suits of
civilians at the house of the verderer, made our way across the
Sambre towards Gembloux."
"A mad project!—But such were ever the delight of our
Quixote!"—cried Gonzaga.
"In this instance, all prospered. We crossed the country
without obstacle, mounted on two powerful Mecklenburgers; and
before noon, were deep in Brabant. The very rashness of the
undertaking seemed to restore to Don John his forgotten hilarity
of old! He was like a truant schoolboy, that has cheated his
pedagogue of a day's bird-nesting; and eyes more discerning than
those of the stultified natives of these sluggish provinces, had
been puzzled to detect under the huge patch that blinded him of
an eye, and the slashed sleeve of his sad-coloured suit that
showed him wounded of an arm, the gallant host of Queen Margaret!
'My soul comes back into me with this gallop across the breezy
plain, unencumbered by the trampling of a guard!' cried the
Prince. 'There is the making in me yet of another Lepanto! But
two provinces remain faithful to our standard: his highness of
Orange and the Archduke having filched, one by one, from their
allegiance the hearts of these pious Netherlanders; who can no
better prove their fear of God than by ceasing to honour the king
he hath been pleased to set over them. Nevertheless, with
Luxembourg and Namur for our vantage-ground, and under the
blessing of his holiness, the banner under which I conquered the
infidel, shall, sooner or later, float victorious under this
northern sky!'
"Such was the tenour of his discourse as we entered a wood,
halfway through which, the itinerary I had consulted informed me
we had to cross a branch of the Dyle. But on reaching the
ferry-house of this unfrequented track, we found only two
sumpter-mules tied to a tree near the hovel, and a boat chained
to its stump beside the stream. In answer to our shouts, no
vestige of a ferryman appeared; and behold the boat-chain was
locked, and the current too deep and strong for fording.
"Where there is smoke there is fire! No boat without a
boatman!" cried the Prince; and leaping from his horse, which he
gave me to hold, and renewing his vociferations, he was about to
enter the ferry-house, when, just as he reached the wooden porch,
a young girl, holding her finger to her lips in token of silence,
appeared on the threshold!"
"She of the turkois eyes and flaxen ringlets, for a hundred
pistoles!"—cried Gonzaga. "Such then was the bird's nest
that made him so mad a truant!"
"As she retreated into the house," resumed Nignio, without
noticing the interruption, "his highness followed, hat in hand,
with the deference due to a gouvernante of Flanders. But as the
house was little better than a shed of boards, by drawing a
trifle nearer the porch, not a syllable of their mutual
explanation escaped me.
"'Are you a follower of Don John?'—was the first demand
of the damsel. 'Do you belong to the party of the
States?'—the next; to both which questions, a negative was
easily returned. After listening to the plea, fluently set forth
by the prince, that he was simply a Zealand burgess, travelling
on his own errand, and sorely in fear of falling in (God wot)
with either Protestants or Papists, the damsel appeared to hail
the arrival of so congenial an ally as a blessing; acquainted him
with a rash frankness of speech worthy of his own, that she was
journeying from the Ardennes towards the frontier of Brabant,
where her father was in high command; that the duenna her
companion, outwearied by the exercise, was taking her siesta
within; for that her pacing nag, having cast a shoe on
reaching the wood, the ferryman had
undertaken to conduct to the nearest smithy the venerable
chaplain and serving-man constituting her escort.
"'Half a league from hence,' said she, 'my father's people are
in waiting to escort me during the rest of my journey.'
"' Yet surely, gentle lady,' observed the prince, 'considering
the military occupation of the province, your present protection
is somewhat of the weakest?'—
"'It was expressly so devised by my father,' replied the
open-hearted girl. 'The Spanish cavaliers are men of honour, who
war not against women and almoners. A more powerful attendance
were more likely to provoke animosity. Feebleness is sometimes
the best security.'
"'Home is a woman's only security in times like
these!'—cried the prince with animation.
"'And therefore to my home am I recalled,' rejoined the young
girl, with a heavy sigh. 'Since my mother's death, I have been
residing with her sister in the Ardennes. But my good aunt having
had the weakness to give way to my instances, and carry me to
Namur last summer, to take part in the entertainments offered to
the Queen of Navarre, my father has taken offence at both of us;
and I am sent for home to be submitted to sterner keeping.'
"You will believe that, ere all this was mutually explained,
more time had elapsed than I take in the telling it; and I could
perceive by the voices of the speakers that they had taken seats,
and were awaiting, without much impatience, the return of the
ferryman. The compassion of the silly child was excited by the
severe accident which the stranger described as the origin of his
fractures and contusions; nor need I tell you that the persuasive
voice and deportment of Don John are calculated to make even a
more experienced one than this pretty Ulrica forget his unseemly
aspect and indigent apparel."
"And all this time the careful gouvernante snored within, and
the obsequious aide-de-camp held at the door the bridles of the
Mecklenburgers"—
"Precisely. Nor found I the time hang much heavier than the
prince; for at first mistrustful, like yourself, that the
reconnaissance into which he had beguiled me was a mere pretext,
I was not sorry to ascertain, sigh by sigh, and word by word, the
grounds on which he stood with the enemy. And you should have
heard how artfully he contrived to lead her back to the fêtes of
Namur; asking, as with the curiosity of a bumpkin, the whole
details of the royal entertainments! No small mind had I to rush
in and chuck the hussy into the torrent before me, when I heard
the little fiend burst forth into the most genuine and
enthusiastic praises of the royal giver of the feast,—'So
young, so handsome, so affable, so courteous, so passing the
kingliness of kings.' She admitted, moreover, that it was her
frantic desire of beholding face to face the hero of Lepanto,
which had produced the concession on the part of her kinswoman so
severely visited by her father.
"'But surely,' pleaded this thoughtless prattler, 'one may
admire the noble deportment of a Papist, and perceive the native
goodness beaming in his eyes, without peril of salvation? This
whole morning hath my father's chaplain (who will be here anon)
been giving scripture warrant that I have no right to importune
heaven with my prayers for the conversion of Don John:—Yet,
as my good aunt justly observes, the great grandson of Mary of
Burgundy has his pedestal firm in our hearts, beyond reach of
overthrow from all the preachments of the Reformers'"—
"And you did not fling the bridles to the devil, and rush in
to the rescue of the unguarded soldier thus mischievously
assailed?"—cried Gonzaga.
"It needed not! The old lady could not sleep for ever; and I
had the comfort to hear her rouse herself, and suitably reprehend
the want of dignity of her charge in such strange familiarity
with strangers. To which the pretty Ulrica replied, 'That it was
no fault of hers if people wanted to convert a child into a
woman!' A moment afterwards and the ferryman and cortège arrived
together; and a more glorious figure of fun than
the chaplain of the heretic general hath seldom bestridden a
pacing nag! However, I was too glad of his arrival to be
exceptious; and the whole party were speedily embarked in the
ferry, taking their turn as the first arrived at the spot, which
we twain abided, watching the punt across the stream, which, in
consequence of the strength of the current, it was indispensable
to float down some hundred yards, in order to reach the opposite
shore.
"Hat in hand stood the prince, his eyes fixed upon the
precious freight, and those of Ulrica fixed in return upon her
new and pleasant acquaintance; when, Jesu Maria!—as every
thing that is evil ordained it,—behold, the newly-shod
palfrey of the pretty Brabançonne, irritated, perhaps, by the
clumsy veterinaryship of a village smithy, began suddenly to rear
and plunge, and set at defiance the old dunderhead by whom it was
held!—The ass of a ferryman, in his eagerness to lend his
aid, let go his oar into the stream; and between the awkwardness
of some and the rashness of others, in a moment the whole party
were carried round by the eddy of the Dyle!—The next, and
Ulrica was struggling in the waters"—
"And the next, in the arms of the prince, who had plunged in
to her rescue!"—
"You know him too well not to foresee all that follows. Take
for granted, therefore, the tedious hours spent at the
ferry-house, in restoring to consciousness the exhausted women,
half-dead with cold and fright. Under the unguarded excitement of
mind produced by such an incident, I expected indeed every moment
the self-betrayal of my companion; but that evil we
escaped. And when, late in the evening, the party was
sufficiently recovered to proceed, I was agreeably surprised to
find that Don John was alive to the danger of escorting the fair
Ulrica even so far as the hamlet, where her father's people were
in waiting."
"And where he had been inevitably recognized!"—
"The certainty of falling in with the troopers of Horn,
rendered it expedient for us to return to Namur with only half
the object of his highness accomplished. But the babble of the
old chaplain had acquainted us with nearly all we wanted to
know,— namely, the number and disposal of the Statists, and
the position taken up by the English auxiliaries."
"And this second parting from Ulrica?"—
"Was a parting as between friends for life! The first had been
the laughing farewell of pleasant acquaintance. But now, ere she
bade adieu to the gallant preserver of her life, she shred a
tress of her silken hair, still wet with the waters of the Dyle,
which she entreated him to keep for her sake. In return, he
placed upon her finger the ruby presented to him by the Doge of
Venice, bearing the arms of the republic engraved on the setting;
telling her that chance had enabled him to confer an obligation
on the governor of the Netherlands; and that, in any strait or
peril, that signet, dispatched in his name to Don John of
Austria, would command his protection."
"As I live, a choice romance!—almost worthy the pages of
our matchless Boccaccio!" cried the Italian. "A thousand pities
but that the whole batch of Orangeists had been carried down the
Dyle!—However, the enemy's lines lie between them. They
will meet no more. The Calvinist colonel has doubtless his
daughter under lock and key; and his highness has too much work
cut out for him by his rebels, to have time for peeping through
the keyhole.—So now, good-night.—For love-tales are
apt to beget drowsiness; and i'faith we must be a-foot by break
of day."
And having betaken himself to the chamber provided for him,
Ottavio Gonzaga lost not an hour or a syllable, in transcribing
all he had learned from the Spanish aide-de-camp; that the state
of mind and feeling of the young viceroy might be speedily laid
open to the full and uncongenial investigation of his royal
brother of the Escurial.
Part II.
A fortnight afterwards, was fought that famous battle of
Gembloux, which added a new branch to the laurels of Don John of
Austria; and constitutes a link of the radiant chain of military
glories which binds the admiration of Europe to the soil of one
of the obscurest of its countries!—Gembloux, Ramillies,
Nivelle, Waterloo, lie within the circuit of a morning's journey,
as well as within the circle of eternal renown.
By this brilliant triumph of the royalists, six thousand
men-at-arms, their standards, banners, and artillery, were lost
to the States. The cavalry of Spain, under the command of Ottavio
Gonzaga, performed prodigies of valour; and the vanguard, under
that of Gaspardo Nignio, equally distinguished itself. But the
heat of the action fell upon the main body of the army, which had
marched from Namur under the command of Don John; being composed
of the Italian reinforcements dispatched to him from Parma by
desire of the Pope, under the command of his nephew, Prince
Alexander Farnese.
It was noticed, however, with surprise, that when the generals
of the States—the Archduke Matthias, and Prince of
Orange—retreated in dismay to Antwerp, Don John, instead of
pursuing his advantage with the energy of his usual habits,
seemed to derive little satisfaction or encouragement from his
victory. It might be, that the difficulty of controlling the
predatory habits of the German and Burgundian troops wearied his
patience; for scarce a day passed but there issued some new
proclamation, reproving the atrocious rapacity and lawless
desperation of the army. But neither Gonzaga nor Nignio had much
opportunity of judging of the real cause of his cheerlessness;
for, independent of the engrossing duties of their several
commands, the leisure of Don John was entirely bestowed upon his
nephew, Alexander Farnese, who, only a few years his junior in
age, was almost a brother in affection.
To him alone were confided the growing cares of his
charge—the increasing perplexities of his mind. To both
princes, the name of Ulrica had become, by frequent repetition, a
sacred word; and though Don John had the comfort of knowing that
her father, the Count de Cergny, was unengaged in the action of
Gembloux, his highness had reason to fear that the regiment of
Hainaulters under his command, constituted the garrison of one or
other of the frontier fortresses of Brabant, to which it was now
his duty to direct the conquering arms of his captains.
The army of the States having taken refuge within the walls of
Antwerp, the royalists, instead of marching straight to Brussels,
according to general expectation, effected in the first instance
the reduction of Tirlemont, Louvain, D'Arschot, Sichem, and
Diest,—Nivelle, the capital of Walloon Brabant, next
succumbed to their arms—Maubeuge, Chimay,
Barlaimont;—and, after a severe struggle, the new and
beautiful town of Philippeville.
But these heroic feats were not accomplished without a
tremendous carnage, and deeds of violence at which the soul
sickened. At Sichem, the indignation of the Burgundians against a
body of French troops which, after the battle of Gembloux, had
pledged itself never again to bear arms against Spain, caused
them to have a hundred soldiers strangled by night, and their
bodies flung into the moat at the foot of the citadel; after
which the town was given up by Prince Alexander to pillage and
spoliation! Terrified by such an example, Diest and Leeuw
hastened to capitulate. And still, at every fresh conquest, and
while receiving day after day, and week after week, the
submission of fortresses, and capitulation of vanquished chiefs,
the anxious expectation entertained by Don John of an appeal to
his clemency accompanying the Venetian ring, was again and again
disappointed!—
At times, his anxieties on Ulrica's account saddened him into
utter despondency. He felt convinced that mischance had overtaken
her. All his endeavours to ascertain the position of
the Count de Cergny having availed him nothing, he trusted that
the family must be shut up in Antwerp, with the Prince of Orange
and Archduke; but when every night, ere he retired to a soldier's
rugged pillow, and pressed his lips to that long fair tress which
seemed to ensure the blessings of an angel of purity and peace,
the hopes entertained by Don John of tidings of the gentle Ulrica
became slighter and still more slight.
He did not the more refrain from issuing such orders and
exacting such interference on the part of Alexander Farnese, as
promised to secure protection and respect to the families of all
such officers of the insurgent army as might, in any time or
place, fall into the hands of the royalists.
To Alexander, indeed, to whom his noble kinsman was scarcely
less endeared by his chivalrous qualities than the ties of blood,
and who was fully aware of the motive of these instructions, the
charge was almost superfluous. So earnest were, from the first,
his orders to his Italian captains to pursue in all directions
their enquiries after the Count de Cergny and his family, that it
had become a matter of course to preface their accounts of the
day's movements with—"No intelligence, may it please
your highness, of the Count de Cergny!"
The siege of Limbourg, however, now wholly absorbed his
attention; for it was a stronghold on which the utmost faith was
pinned by the military science of the States. But a breach having
been made in the walls by the Spanish artillery under the command
of Nicolo di Cesi, the cavalry, commanded in person by the Prince
Alexander, and the Walloons under Nignio di Zuniga, speedily
forced an entrance; when, in spite of the stanch resistance of
the governor, the garrison laid down their arms, and the greater
portion of the inhabitants took the oath of fealty to the
king.
Of all his conquests, this was the least expected and most
desirable; in devout conviction of which, the Prince of Parma
commanded a Te Deum to be sung in the churches, and
hastened to render thanks to the God of Battles for an event by
which further carnage was spared to either host.
"Be their blood upon their head!" was the spontaneous
ejaculation of the prince, after perusing the despatch. Then,
turning to the officers by whom he was escorted, he explained, in
a few words, that the fortress of Dalem, which had replied to the
propositions to surrender of Du Mont only by the scornful voice
of its cannon, had been taken by storm by the Burgundians, and
its garrison put to the sword.
"Time that some such example taught a lesson to these
braggarts of Brabant!"—responded Nignio, who stood at the
right hand of Prince Alexander. "The nasal twang of their
chaplains seems of late to have overmastered, in their ears, the
eloquence of the ordnance of Spain! Yet, i'faith, they might be
expected to find somewhat more unction in the preachments of our
musketeers than the homilies of either Luther or Calvin!"
He spoke unheeded of the prince; for Alexander was now engaged
apart in a colloquy with his faithful Rinaldo, who had
respectfully placed in his hands a ring of great cost and
beauty.
"Seeing the jewel enchased with the arms of the Venetian
republic, may it please your highness," said the soldier, "I
judged it better to remit it to your royal keeping."
"And from whose was it plundered?" cried the prince, with a
sudden flush of emotion.
"From hands that resisted not!" replied Rinaldo gravely. "I
took it from the finger of the dead!"
"And when, and where?"—exclaimed the prince, drawing him
still further apart, and motioning to his train to resume their
march to the States' house of Limbourg.
"The tale is long and grievous, may it please your highness!"
said Rinaldo. "To comprise it in the fewest words,
know that, after seeing the governor of Dalem cut down in a brave
and obstinate defence of the banner of the States floating from
the walls of his citadel, I did my utmost to induce the Baron de
Cevray, whose Burgundians carried the place, to proclaim quarter.
For these fellows of Hainaulters, (who, to do them justice, had
fought like dragons,) having lost their head, were powerless; and
of what use hacking to pieces an exhausted carcass?—But our
troops were too much exasperated by the insolent resistance and
defiance they had experienced, to hear of mercy; and soon the
conduits ran blood, and shrieks and groans rent the air more
cruelly than the previous roar of the artillery. In accordance,
however, with the instructions I have ever received from your
highness, I pushed my way into all quarters, opposing what
authority I might to the brutality of the troopers."
"Quick, quick!"—cried Prince Alexander in anxious
haste—"Let me not suppose that the wearer of this ring fell
the victim of such an hour?"—
It was in passing the open doors of the church that my ears
were assailed with cries of female distresses:—nor could I
doubt that even that sanctuary (held sacred by our troops
of Spain!) had been invaded by the impiety of the German or
Burgundian legions!—As usual, the chief ladies of the town
had placed themselves under the protection of the high altar. But
there, even there, had they been seized by sacrilegious
hands!—The fame of the rare beauty of the daughter of the
governor of Dalem, had attracted, among the rest, two daring
ruffians of the regiment of Cevray."
"You sacrificed them, I trust in GOD, on the
spot?"—demanded the prince, trembling with emotion. "You
dealt upon them the vengeance due?"
"Alas! sir, the vengeance they were mutually dealing, had
already cruelly injured the helpless object of the contest!
Snatched from the arms of the Burgundian soldiers by the fierce
arm of a German musketeer, a deadly blow, aimed at the ruffian
against whom she was wildly but vainly defending herself; had
lighted on one of the fairest of human forms! Cloven to the bone,
the blood of this innocent being, scarce past the age of
childhood, was streaming on her assailants; and when, rushing in,
I proclaimed, in the name of God and of your highness, quarter
and peace, it was an insensible body I rescued from the grasp of
pollution!"
"Unhappy Ulrica!" faltered the prince, "and oh! my more
unhappy kinsman!"
"Not altogether hopeless," resumed Rinaldo; "and apprized, by
the sorrowful ejaculations of her female companions when relieved
from their personal fears, of the high condition of the victim, I
bore the insensible lady to the hospital of Dalem; and the utmost
skill of our surgeons was employed upon her wounds. Better had it
been spared!—The dying girl was roused only to the
endurance of more exquisite torture; and while murmuring a
petition for 'mercy—mercy to her father!' that
proved her still unconscious of her family misfortunes, she
attempted in vain to take from her finger the ring I have had the
honour to deliver to your highness:—faltering with her last
breath, 'for his sake, Don John will perhaps show mercy to
my poor old father!'"—
Prince Alexander averted his head as he listened to these
mournful details.
"She is at rest, then?"—said he, after a pause.
"Before nightfall, sir, she was released."—
"Return in all haste to Dalem, Rinaldo," rejoined the prince,
"and complete your work of mercy, by seeing all honours of
interment that the times admit, bestowed on the daughter of the
Comte de Cergny!"
Weary and exhausted as he was, not a murmur escaped the lips
of the faithful Rinaldo as he mounted his horse, and hastened to
the discharge of his new duty. For though habituated by the
details of that cruel and desolating warfare to spectacles of
horror—the youth—the beauty—the
innocence—the agonies of Ulrica, had touched him to the
heart; nor was the tress of her fair hair worn next the heart of
Don John of Austria, more fondly treasured, than the one this
rude soldier had shorn from the brow of death, in the ward of a
public hospital, albeit its silken gloss was tinged with
blood!— Scarcely a month had elapsed after the
storming of Dalem, when a terrible rumour went forth in the camp
of Bouge, (where Don John had intrenched his division of the
royalist army,) that the governor of the Netherlands was attacked
by fatal indisposition!—For some weeks past, indeed, his
strength and spirit had been declining. When at the village of
Rymenam on the Dyle, near Mechlin, (not far from the ferry of the
wood,) he suffered himself to be surprised by the English troops
under Horn, and the Scotch under Robert Stuart, the unusual
circumstance of the defeat of so able a general was universally
attributed to prostration of bodily strength.
When it was soon afterwards intimated to the army that he had
ceded the command to his nephew, Prince Alexander Farnese, regret
for the origin of his secession superseded every other
consideration.
For the word had gone forth that he was to die!—In the
full vigour of his manhood and energy of his soul, a fatal blow
had reached Don John of Austria!—
A vague but horrible accusation of poison was generally
prevalent!—For his leniency towards the Protestants had
engendered a suspicion of heresy, and the orthodoxy of Philip II.
was known to be remorseless; and the agency of Ottavio Gonzaga at
hand!—
But the kinsman who loved and attended him knew better. From
the moment Prince Alexander beheld the ring of Ulrica glittering
on his wasted hand, he entertained no hope of his recovery; and
every time he issued from the tent of Don John, and noted the
groups of veterans praying on their knees for the restoration of
the son of their emperor, and heard the younger soldiers calling
aloud in loyal affection upon the name of the hero of Lepanto,
tears came into his eyes as he passed on to the discharge of his
duties. For he knew that their intercessions were in
vain—that the hours of the sufferer were numbered. In a
moment of respite from his sufferings, the sacraments of the
church were administered to the dying prince; having received
which with becoming humility, he summoned around him the captains
of the camp, and exhorted them to zeal in the service of Spain,
and fidelity to his noble successor in command.
It was the 1st of October, the anniversary of the action of
Lepanto, and on a glorious autumnal day of golden sunshine, that,
towards evening, he ordered the curtains of his tent to be drawn
aside, that he might contemplate for the last time the creation
of God!—
Raising his head proudly from a soldier's pillow, he uttered
in hoarse but distinct accents his last request, that his body
might be borne to Spain, and buried at the feet of his father.
For his eyes were fixed upon the glories of the orb of day, and
his mind upon the glories of the memory of one of the greatest of
kings.
But that pious wish reflected the last flash of human reason
in his troubled mind. His eyes became suddenly inflamed with
fever, his words incoherent, his looks haggard. Having caused
them to sound the trumpets at the entrance of his tent, as for an
onset, he ranged his battalions for an imaginary field of battle,
and disposed his manoeuvres, and gave the word to charge against
the enemy.18 Then, sinking back upon his pillow, he
breathed in subdued accents, "Let me at least avenge her innocent
blood. Why, why could I not save thee, my Ulrica!"—
18: The foregoing details are strictly historical.
It was thus he died. When Nignio de Zuniga (cursing in his
heart with a fourfold curse the heretics whom he chose to
consider the murderers of his master) stooped down to lay his
callous hand on the heart of the hero, the pulses of life were
still!—
There was but one cry throughout the camp—there was but
one thought among his captains:—"Let the bravest knight of
Christendom be laid nobly in the grave!" Attired in the suit of
mail in which he had fought at Lepanto, the body was placed on a
bier, and borne forth from his tent on the shoulders of the
officers of his household. Then, having been saluted by the
respect of the whole army, it was transmitted from post to post
through the camp, on those of the colonels of the regiments of
all nations constituting the forces of Spain.—And which of
them was to surmise, that upon the heart of the dead lay the
love-token of a heretic?—A double line of troops, infantry
and cavalry in alternation, formed a road of honour from the camp
of Bouge to the gates of the city of Namur. And when the people
saw, borne upon his bier amid the deferential silence of those
iron soldiers, bareheaded and with their looks towards the earth,
the gallant soldier so untimely stricken, arrayed in his armour
of glory and with a crown upon his head, after the manner of the
princes of Burgundy, and on his finger the ruby ring of the Doge
of Venice, they thought upon his knightly qualities—his
courtesy, generosity, and valour—till all memory of his
illustrious parentage became effaced. They forgot the prince in
the man,—"and behold all Israel mourned for Jonathan!"
A regiment of infantry, trailing their halberts, led the
march, till they reached Namur, where the precious deposit was
remitted by the royalist generals, Mansfeldt, Villefranche, and
La Cros, to the hands of the chief magistrates of Namur. By these
it was bourne in state to the cathedral of St Alban; and during
the celebration of a solemn mass, deposited at the foot of the
high altar till the pleasure of Philip II. should be known
concerning the fulfilment of the last request of Don John.
It was by Ottavio Gonzaga the tidings of his death were
conveyed to Spain. It was by Ottavio Gonzaga the king intimated,
in return, his permission that the conqueror of Lepanto should
share the sepulture of Charles V., and all that now remains to
Namur in memory of one of the last of Christian knights, the
Maccabeus of the Turkish hosts, who expired in its service and at
its gates, is an inscription placed on its high altar by the
piety of Alexander Farnese, intimating that it afforded a
temporary resting place to the remains of DON JOHN of
AUSTRIA.19
Such is the account given in a curious old history
(supplementary to those of D'Avila and Strada) of the wars of
the Prince of Parma, published at Amsterdam early in the
succeeding century. But a still greater insult has been offered
to the memory of one of the last of Christian knights, in
Casimir Delavigne's fine play of "Don Juan d'Autriche," where
he is represented as affianced to a Jewess!
POEMS AND BALLADS OF GOETHE.
No. I.
It may be as well to state at the outset, that we have not the
most distant intention of laying before the public the whole mass
of poetry that flowed from the prolific pen of Goethe, betwixt
the days of his student life at Leipsic and those of his final
courtly residence at Weimar. It is of no use preserving the whole
wardrobe of the dead; we do enough if we possess ourselves of his
valuables—articles of sterling bullion that will at any
time command their price in the market—as to worn-out and
threadbare personalities, the sooner they are got rid of the
better. Far be it from us, however, to depreciate or detract from
the merit of any of Goethe's productions. Few men have written so
voluminously, and still fewer have written so well. But the curse
of a most fluent pen, and of a numerous auditory, to whom his
words were oracles, was upon him; and seventy volumes, more or
less, which Cotta issued from his wareroom, are for the library
of the Germans now, and for the selection of judicious editors
hereafter. A long time must elapse after an author's death,
before we can pronounce with perfect certainty what belongs to
the trunk-maker, and what pertains to posterity. Happy the
man—if not in his own generation, yet most assuredly in the
time to come—whose natural hesitation or fastidiousness has
prompted him to weigh his words maturely, before launching them
forth into the great ocean of literature, in the midst of which
is a Maelstrom of tenfold absorbing power!
From the minor poems, therefore, of Goethe, we propose, in the
present series, to select such as are most esteemed by competent
judges, including, of course, ourselves. We shall not follow the
example of dear old Eckermann, nor preface our specimens by any
critical remarks upon the scope and tendency of the great
German's genius; neither shall we divide his works, as
characteristic of his intellectual progress, into eras or into
epochs; still less shall we attempt to institute a regular
comparison between his merits and those of Schiller, whose finest
productions (most worthily translated) have already enriched the
pages of this Magazine. We are doubtless ready at all times to
back our favourite against the field, and to maintain his
intellectual superiority even against his greatest and most
formidable rival. We know that he is the showiest, and we feel
convinced that he is the better horse of the two; but talking is
worse than useless when the course is cleared, and the start
about to commence.
Come forward, then, before the British public, O many-sided,
ambidextrous Goethe, as thine own Thomas Carlyle might, or could,
or would, or should have termed thee, and let us hear how the
mellifluous Teutonic verse will sound when adapted to another
tongue. And, first of all—for we yearn to know
it—tell us how thy inspiration came? A plain answer, of
course, we cannot expect—that were impossible from a
German; but such explanation as we can draw from metaphor and
oracular response, seems to be conveyed in that favourite and
elaborate preface to the poems, which accordingly we may term
the
INTRODUCTION.
The morning came. Its footsteps scared away
The gentle sleep that hover'd lightly o'er
me;
I left my quiet cot to greet the day
And gaily climb'd the mountain-side before
me.
The sweet young flowers! how fresh were they and
tender,
Brimful with dew upon the sparkling lea;
The young day open'd in exulting splendour,
And all around seem'd glad to gladden me.
And, as I mounted, o'er the meadow ground
A white and filmy essence 'gan to hover;
It sail'd and shifted till it hemm'd me round,
Then rose above my head, and floated over.
No more I saw the beauteous scene unfolded—
It lay beneath a melancholy shroud;
And soon was I, as if in vapour moulded,
Alone, within the twilight of the cloud.
At once, as though the sun were struggling through,
Within the mist a sudden radiance started;
Here sunk the vapour, but to rise anew,
There on the peak and upland forest parted.
O, how I panted for the first clear gleaming,
That after darkness must be doubly bright!
It came not, but a glory round me beaming,
And I stood blinded by the gush of light.
A moment, and I felt enforced to look,
By some strange impulse of the heart's
emotion;
But more than one quick glance I scarce could brook,
For all was burning like a molten ocean.
There, in the glorious clouds that seem'd to bear her,
A form angelic hover'd in the air;
Ne'er did my eyes behold vision fairer,
And still she gazed upon me, floating
there.
"Do'st thou not know me?" and her voice was soft
As truthful love, and holy calm it sounded.
"Know'st thou not me, who many a time and oft,
Pour'd balsam in thy hurts when sorest
wounded?
Ah well thou knowest her, to whom for ever
Thy heart in union pants to be allied!
Have I not seen the tears—the wild endeavour
That even in boyhood brought thee to my
side?"
"Yes! I have felt thy influence oft," I cried,
And sank on earth before her, half-adoring;
"Thou brought'st me rest when Passion's lava tide
Through my young veins like liquid fire was
pouring.
And thou hast fann'd, as with celestial pinions,
In summer's heat my parch'd and fever'd
brow;
Gav'st me the choicest gifts of earth's dominions,
And, save through thee, I seek no fortune
now.
"I name thee not, but I have heard thee named,
And heard thee styled their own ere now by
many;
All eyes believe at thee their glance is aim'd,
Though thine effulgence is too great for
any.
Ah! I had many comrades whilst I wander'd—
I know thee now, and stand almost alone:
I veil thy light, too precious to be squander'd,
And share the inward joy I feel with none."
Smiling, she said—"Thou see'st 'twas wise from
thee
To keep the fuller, greater revelation:
Scarce art thou from grotesque delusions free,
Scarce master of thy childish first
sensation;
Yet deem'st thyself so far above thy brothers,
That thou hast won the right to scorn them!
Cease.
Who made the yawning gulf 'twixt thee and others?
Know—know thyself—live with the
world in peace."
"Forgive me!" I exclaim'd, "I meant no ill,
Else should in vain my eyes be
disenchanted;
Within my blood there stirs a genial will—
I know the worth of all that thou hast
granted.
That boon I hold in trust for others merely,
Nor shall I let it rust within the ground;
Why sought I out the pathway so sincerely,
If not to guide my brothers to the bound?"
And as I spoke, upon her radiant face
Pass'd a sweet smile, like breath across a
mirror;
And in her eyes' bright meaning I could trace
What I had answer'd well and what in error,
She smiled, and then my heart regain'd its lightness,
And bounded in my breast with rapture high:
Then durst I pass within her zone of brightness,
And gaze upon her with unquailing eye.
Straightway she stretch'd her hand among the thin
And watery haze that round her presence
hover'd;
Slowly it coil'd and shrunk her grasp within,
And lo! the landscape lay once more
uncover'd—
Again mine eye could scan the sparkling meadow,
I look'd to heaven, and all was clear and
bright;
I saw her hold a veil without a shadow,
That undulated round her in the light.
"I know thee!—all thy weakness, all that yet
Of good within thee lives and glows, I've
measured;"
She said—her voice I never may forget—
"Accept the gift that long for thee was
treasured.
Oh! happy he, thrice-bless'd in earth and heaven,
Who takes this gift with soul serene and
true,
The veil of song, by Truth's own fingers given,
Enwoven of sunshine and the morning dew.
"Wave but this veil on high, whene'er beneath
The noonday fervour thou and thine are
glowing,
And fragrance of all flowers around shall breathe,
And the cool winds of eve come freshly
blowing.
Earth's cares shall cease for thee, and all its riot;
Where gloom'd the grave, a starry couch be
seen;
The waves of life shall sink in halcyon quiet;
The days be lovely fair, the nights
serene."
Come then, my friends, and whether 'neath the load
Of heavy griefs ye struggle on, or whether
Your better destiny shall strew the road
With flowers, and golden fruits that cannot
wither,
United let us move, still forwards striving;
So while we live shall joy our days illume,
And in our children's hearts our love surviving
Shall gladden them, when we are in the
tomb.
This is a noble metaphysical and metaphorical poem, but purely
German of its kind. It has been imitated, not to say travestied,
at least fifty times, by crazy students and purblind
professors—each of whom, in turn, has had an interview with
the goddess of nature upon a hill-side. For our own part, we
confess that we have no great predilection for such mysterious
intercourse, and would rather draw our inspiration from tangible
objects, than dally with a visionary Egeria. But the fault is
both common and national.
The next specimen we shall offer is the far-famed Bride of
Corinth. Mrs Austin says of this poem very happily—"An
awful and undefined horror breathes throughout it. In the slow
measured rhythm of the verse, and the pathetic simplicity of the
diction, there is a solemnity and a stirring spell, which chains
the feelings like a deep mysterious strain of music." Owing to
the peculiar structure and difficulty of the verse, this poem has
hitherto been supposed incapable of translation. Dr Anster, who
alone has rendered it into English, found it necessary to depart
from the original structure; and we confess that it was not
without much labour, and after repeated efforts, that we
succeeded in vanquishing the obstacle of the double rhymes. If
the German scholar should perceive, that in three stanzas some
slight liberties have been taken with the original, we trust that
he will perceive the reason, and at least give us credit for
general fidelity and close adherence to the text.
THE BRIDE OF CORINTH.
I.
A youth to Corinth, whilst the city slumber'd,
Came from Athens: though a stranger there,
Soon among its townsmen to be number'd,
For a bride awaits him, young and fair:
From their childhood's years
They were plighted feres,
So contracted by their parents' care.
II.
But may not his welcome there be hinder'd?
Dearly must he buy it, would he speed.
He is still a heathen with his kindred,
She and her's wash'd in the Christian creed.
When new faiths are born,
Love and troth are torn
Rudely from the heart, howe'er it bleed.
III.
All the house is hush'd. To rest retreated
Father, daughters—not the mother quite;
She the guest with cordial welcome greeted,
Led him to a room with tapers bright;
Wine and food she brought
Ere of them he thought,
Then departed with a fair good-night.
IV.
But he felt no hunger, and unheeded
Left the wine, and eager for the rest
Which his limbs, forspent with travel, needed,
On the couch he laid him, still undress'd.
There he sleeps—when lo!
Onwards gliding slow,
At the door appears a wondrous guest.
V.
By the waning lamp's uncertain gleaming
There he sees a youthful maiden stand,
Robed in white, of still and gentle seeming,
On her brow a black and golden band.
When she meets his eyes,
With a quick surprise
Starting, she uplifts a pallid hand.
VI.
"Is a stranger here, and nothing told me?
Am I then forgotten even in name?
Ah! 'tis thus within my cell they hold me,
And I now am cover'd o'er with shame!
Pillow still thy head
There upon thy bed,
I will leave thee quickly as I came."
VII.
"Maiden—darling! Stay, O stay!" and, leaping
From the couch, before her stands the boy:
"Ceres—Bacchus, here their gifts are heaping,
And thou bringest Amor's gentle joy!
Why with terror pale?
Sweet one, let us hail
These bright gods—their festive gifts
employ."
VIII.
"Oh, no—no! Young stranger, come not nigh me;
Joy is not for me, nor festive cheer.
Ah! such bliss may ne'er be tasted by me,
Since my mother, in fantastic fear,
By long sickness bow'd,
To heaven's service vow'd
Me, and all the hopes that warm'd me here.
IX.
"They have left our hearth, and left it lonely—
The old gods, that bright and jocund train.
One, unseen, in heaven, is worshipp'd only,
And upon the cross a Saviour slain;
Sacrifice is here,
Not of lamb nor steer,
But of human woe and human pain."
X.
And he asks, and all her words cloth ponder—
"Can it be, that, in this silent spot,
I behold thee, thou surpassing wonder!
My sweet bride, so strangely to me brought?
Be mine only now—
See, our parents' vow
Heaven's good blessing hath for us besought."
XI.
"No! thou gentle heart," she cried in anguish;
"'Tis not mine, but 'tis my sister's place;
When in lonely cell I weep and languish,
Think, oh think of me in her embrace!
I think but of thee—
Pining drearily,
Soon beneath the earth to hide my face!"
XII.
"Nay! I swear by yonder flame which burneth,
Fann'd by Hymen, lost thou shalt not be;
Droop not thus, for my sweet bride returneth
To my father's mansion back with me!
Dearest! tarry here!
Taste the bridal cheer,
For our spousal spread so wondrously!"
XIII.
Then with word and sign their troth they plighted.
Golden was the chain she bade him wear;
But the cup he offer'd her she slighted,
Silver, wrought with cunning past compare.
"That is not for me;
All I ask of thee
Is one little ringlet of thy hair."
XIV.
Dully boom'd the midnight hour unhallow'd,
And then first her eyes began to shine;
Eagerly with pallid lips she swallow'd
Hasty draughts of purple-tinctured wine;
But the wheaten bread,
As in shuddering dread,
Put she always by with loathing sign.
XV.
And she gave the youth the cup: he drain'd it,
With impetuous haste he drain'd it dry;
Love was in his fever'd heart, and pain'd it,
Till it ached for joys she must deny.
But the maiden's fears
Stay'd him, till in tears
On the bed he sank, with sobbing cry.
XVI.
And she leans above him—"Dear one, still thee!
Ah, how sad am I to see thee so!
But, alas! these limbs of mine would chill thee:
Love, they mantle not with passion's glow;
Thou wouldst be afraid,
Didst thou find the maid
Thou hast chosen, cold as ice or snow."
XVII.
Round her waist his eager arms he bended,
Dashing from his eyes the blinding tear:
"Wert thou even from the grave ascended,
Come unto my heart, and warm thee here!"
Sweet the long embrace—
"Raise that pallid face;
None but thou and are watching, dear!"
XVIII.
Was it love that brought the maiden thither,
To the chamber of the stranger guest?
Love's bright fire should kindle, and not wither;
Love's sweet thrill should soothe, not torture,
rest.
His impassion'd mood
Warms her torpid blood,
Yet there beats no heart within her breast.
XIX.
Meanwhile goes the mother, softly creeping,
Through the house, on needful cares intent,
Hears a murmur, and, while all are sleeping,
Wonders at the sounds, and what they meant.
Who was whispering so?—
Voices soft and low,
In mysterious converse strangely blent.
XX.
Straightway by the door herself she stations,
There to be assured what was amiss;
And she hears love's fiery protestations,
Words of ardour and endearing bliss:
"Hark, the cock! 'Tis light!
But to-morrow night
Thou wilt come again?"—and kiss on
kiss.
XXI.
Quick the latch she raises, and, with features
Anger-flush'd, into the chamber hies.
"Are there in my house such shameless creatures,
Minions to the stranger's will?" she cries.
By the dying light,
Who is't meets her sight?
God! 'tis her own daughter she espies!
XXII.
And the youth in terror sought to cover,
With her own light veil, the maiden's head,
Clasp'd her close; but, gliding from her lover,
Back the vestment from her brow she spread,
And her form upright,
As with ghostly might,
Long and slowly rises from the bed.
XXIII.
"Mother! mother! wherefore thus deprive me
Of such joy as I this night have known?
Wherefore from these warm embraces drive me?
Was I waken'd up to meet thy frown?
Did it not suffice
That, in virgin guise,
To an early grave you brought me down?
XXIV.
"Fearful is the weird that forced me hither,
From the dark-heap'd chamber where I lay;
Powerless are your drowsy anthems, neither
Can your priests prevail, howe'er they pray.
Salt nor lymph can cool
Where the pulse is full;
Love must still burn on, though wrapp'd in
clay.
XXV.
"To this youth my early troth was plighted,
Whilst yet Venus ruled within the land;
Mother! and that vow ye falsely slighted,
At your new and gloomy faith's command.
But no God will hear,
If a mother swear
Pure from love to keep her daughter's hand.
XXVI.
"Nightly from my narrow chamber driven,
Come I to fulfil my destined part,
Him to seek for whom my troth was given,
And to draw the life blood from his heart.
He hath served my will;
More I yet must kill,
For another prey I now depart.
XXVII.
"Fair young man! thy thread of life is broken,
Human skill can bring no aid to thee.
There thou hast my chain—a ghastly token—
And this lock of thine I take with me.
Soon must thou decay,
Soon wilt thou be gray,
Dark although to-night thy tresses be.
XXVIII.
"Mother! hear, oh hear my last entreaty!
Let the funeral pile arise once more;
Open up my wretched tomb for pity,
And in flames our souls to peace restore.
When the ashes glow,
When the fire-sparks flow,
To the ancient gods aloft we soar."
After this most powerful and original ballad, let us turn to
something more genial. The three following poems are exquisite
specimens of the varied genius of our author; and we hardly know
whether to prefer the plaintive beauty of the first, or the light
and sportive brilliancy of the other twain.
FIRST LOVE.
Oh, who will bring me back the day,
So beautiful, so bright!
Those days when love first bore my heart
Aloft on pinions light?
Oh, who will bring me but an hour
Of that delightful time,
And wake in me again the power
That fired my golden prime?
I nurse my wound in solitude,
I sigh the livelong day,
And mourn the joys, in wayward mood,
That now are pass'd away.
Oh, who will bring me back the days
Of that delightful time,
And wake in me again the blaze
That fired my golden prime?
WHO'LL BUY A CUPID?
Of all the wares so pretty
That come into the city,
There's none are so delicious,
There's none are half so precious,
As those which we are binging.
O, listen to our singing!
Young loves to sell! young loves to sell!
My pretty loves who'll buy?
First look you at the oldest,
The wantonest, the boldest!
So loosely goes he hopping,
From tree and thicket dropping,
Then flies aloft as sprightly—
We dare but praise him lightly!
The fickle rogue! Young loves to sell!
My pretty loves who'll buy?
Now see this little creature—
How modest seems his feature!
He nestles so demurely,
You'd think him safer surely;
And yet for all his shyness,
There's danger in his slyness!
The cunning rogue! Young loves to sell!
My pretty loves who'll buy?
Oh come and see this lovelet,
This little turtle-dovelet!
The maidens that are neatest,
The tenderest and sweetest,
Should buy it to amuse 'em,
And nurse it in their bosom.
The little pet! Young loves to sell!
My pretty loves who'll buy?
We need not bid you buy them,
They're here, if you will try them.
They like to change their cages;
But for their proving sages
No warrant will we utter—
They all have wings to flutter.
The pretty birds! Young loves to sell!
Such beauties! Come and buy!
SECOND LIFE.
After life's departing sigh,
To the spots I loved most dearly,
In the sunshine and the shadow,
By the fountain welling clearly,
Through the wood and o'er the meadow,
Flit I like a butterfly.
There a gentle pair I spy.
Round the maiden's tresses flying,
From her chaplet I discover
All that I had lost in dying,
Still with her and with her lover.
Who so happy then as I?
For she smiles with laughing eye;
And his lips to hers he presses,
Vows of passion interchanging,
Stifling her with sweet caresses,
O'er her budding beauties ranging;
And around the twain I fly.
And she sees me fluttering nigh;
And beneath his ardour trembling,
Starts she up—then off I hover.
"Look there, dearest!" Thus dissembling,
Speaks the maiden to her lover—
"Come and catch that butterfly!"
In the days of his boyhood, and of Monk Lewis, Sir Walter
Scott translated the Erl King, and since then it has been a kind
of assay-piece for aspiring German students to thump and hammer
at will. We have heard it sung so often at the piano by
soft-voiced maidens, and hirsute musicians, before whose roaring
the bull of Phalaris might be dumb, that we have been accustomed
to associate it with stiff white cravats, green tea, and a
superabundance of lemonade. But to do full justice to its
unearthly fascination, one ought to hear it chanted by night in a
lonely glade of the Schwartzwald or Spessart forest, with the
wind moaning as an accompaniment, and the ghostly shadows of the
branches flitting in the moonlight across the path.
THE ERL KING.
Who rides so late through the grisly night?
'Tis a father and child, and he grasps him tight;
He wraps him close in his mantle's fold,
And shelters the boy from the biting cold.
"My son, why thus to my arm dost cling?"
"Father, dost thou not see the Erlie-king?
The king with his crown and long black train!"
"My son, 'tis a streak of the misty rain! "
"Come hither, thou darling! come, go with me!
Fair games know I that I'll play with thee;
Many bright flowers my kingdoms hold!
My mother has many a robe of gold!"
"O father, dear father and dost thou not hear
What the Erlie-king whispers so low in mine ear?"
"Calm thee, my boy, 'tis only the breeze
Rustling the dry leaves beneath the trees!"
"Wilt thou go, bonny boy! wilt thou go with me?
My daughters shall wait on thee daintilie;
My daughters around thee in dance shall sweep,
And rock thee, and kiss thee, and sing thee to
sleep!"
"O father, dear father! and dost thou not mark
Erlie-king's daughters move by in the dark?"
"I see it, my child; but it is not they,
'Tis the old willow nodding its head so grey!"
"I love thee! thy beauty charms me quite;
And if thou refusest, I'll take thee by might!"
"O father, dear father! he's grasping me—
My heart is as cold as cold can be!"
The father rides swiftly—with terror he
gasps—
The sobbing child in his arms he clasps;
He reaches the castle with spurring and dread;
But, alack! in his arms the child lay dead!
Who has not heard of Mignon?—sweet, delicate little
Mignon?—the woman-child, in whose miniature, rather than
portrait, it is easy to trace the original of fairy Fenella? We
would that we could adequately translate the song, which in its
native German is so exquisitely plaintive, that few can listen to
it without tears. This poem, it is almost needless to say, is
anterior in date to Byron's Bride of Abyos
MIGNON.
Know'st thou the land where the pale citron grows,
And the gold orange through dark foliage glows?
A soft wind flutters from the deep blue sky,
The myrtle blooms, and towers the laurel high.
Know'st thou it well?
O there with thee!
O that I might, my own beloved one, flee!
Know'st thou the house? On pillars rest its beams,
Bright is its hall, in light one chamber gleams,
And marble statues stand, and look on me—
What have they done, thou hapless child, to thee?
Know'st thou it well?
O there with thee!
O that I might, my loved protector, flee!
Know'st thou the track that o'er the mountain goes,
Where the mule threads its way through mist and snows,
Where dwelt in caves the dragon's ancient brood,
Topples the crag, and o'er it roars the flood.
Know'st thou it well?
O come with me!
There lies our road—oh father, let us flee!
In order duly to appreciate the next ballad, you must fancy
yourself (if you cannot realize it) stretched on the grass, by
the margin of a mighty river of the south, rushing from or
through an Italian lake, whose opposite shore you cannot descry
for the thick purple haze of heat that hangs over its glassy
surface. If you lie there for an hour or so, gazing into the
depths of the blue unfathomable sky, till the fanning of the warm
wind and the murmur of the water combine to throw you into a
trance, you will be able to enjoy
We intend to close the present Number with a very graceful,
though simple ditty, which Goethe may possibly have altered from
the Morlachian, but which is at all events worthy of his genius.
Previously, however, in case any of the ladies should like
something sentimental, we beg leave to present them with as nice
a little chansonette as ever was transcribed into an
album.
THE VIOLET.
A violet blossom'd on the lea,
Half hidden from the eye,
As fair a flower as you might see;
When there came tripping by
A shepherd maiden fair and young,
Lightly, lightly o'er the lea;
Care she knew not, and she sung
Merrily!
"O were I but the fairest flower
That blossoms on the lea;
If only for one little hour,
That she might gather me—
Clasp me in her bonny breast!"
Thought the little flower.
"O that in it I might rest
But an hour!"
Lack-a-day! Up came the lass,
Heeded not the violet;
Trod it down into the grass;
Though it died, 'twas happy yet.
"Trodden down although I lie,
Yet my death is very sweet—
For I cannot choose but die
At her feet!"
THE DOLEFUL LAY OF THE NOBLE WIFE OF ASAN AGA.
What is yon so white beside the greenwood?
Is it snow, or flight of cygnets resting?
Were it snow, ere now it had been melted;
Were it swans, ere now the flock had left us.
Neither snow nor swans are resting yonder,
'Tis the glittering tents of Asan Aga.
Faint he lies from wounds in stormy battle;
There his mother and his sisters seek him,
But his wife hangs back for shame, and comes not.
When the anguish of his hurts was over,
To his faithful wife he sent this message—
"Longer 'neath my roof thou shalt not tarry,
Neither in my court nor in my household."
When the lady heard this cruel sentence,
'Reft of sense she stood, and rack'd with anguish:
In the court she heard the horses stamping,
And in fear that it was Asan coming,
Fled towards the tower, to leap and perish.
Then in terror ran her little daughters,
Calling after her, and weeping sorely,
"These are not the steeds of Father Asan;
'Tis thy brother Pintorovich coming!"
And the wife of Asan turn'd to meet him;
Sobbing, threw her arms around her brother.
"See the wrongs, O brother, of thy sister!
These five babes I bore, and must I leave them?"
Silently the brother from his girdle
Draws the ready deed of separation,
Wrapp'd within a crimson silken cover.
She is free to seek her mother's dwelling—
Free to join in wedlock with another.
When the woful lady saw the writing,
Kiss'd she both her boys upon the forehead,
Kiss'd on both the cheeks her sobbing daughters;
But she cannot tear herself for pity
From the infant smiling in the cradle!
Rudely did her brother tear her from it,
Deftly lifted her upon a courser,
And in haste, towards his father's dwelling,
Spurr'd he onward with the woful lady.
Short the space; seven days, but barely seven—
Little space I ween—by many nobles
Was the lady—still in weeds of mourning—
Was the lady courted in espousal.
Far the noblest was Imoski's cadi;
And the dame in tears besought her brother—
"I adjure thee, by the life thou bearest,
Give me not a second time in marriage,
That my heart may not be rent asunder
If again I see my darling children!"
Little reck'd the brother of her bidding,
Fix'd to wed her to Imoski's cadi.
But the gentle lady still entreats him—
"Send at least a letter, O my brother!
To Imoski's cadi, thus imploring—
I, the youthful widow, greet thee fairly,
And entreat thee, by this selfsame token,
When thou comest hither with thy bridesmen,
Bring a heavy veil, that I may shroud me
As we pass along by Asan's dwelling,
So I may not see my darling orphans."
Scarcely had the cadi read the letter,
When he call'd together all his bridesmen,
Boune himself to bring the lady homewards,
And he brought the veil as she entreated.
Jocundly they reach'd the princely mansion,
Jocundly they bore her thence in triumph;
But when they drew near to Asan's dwelling,
Then the children recognized their mother,
And they cried, "Come back unto thy chamber—
Share the meal this evening with thy children;"
And she turn'd her to the lordly bridegroom—
"Pray thee, let the bridesmen and their horses
Halt a little by the once-loved dwelling,
Till I give these presents to my children."
And they halted by the once-loved dwelling,
And she gave the weeping children presents,
Gave each boy a cap with gold embroider'd,
Gave each girl a long and costly garment,
And with tears she left a tiny mantle
For the helpless baby in the cradle.
These things mark'd the father, Asan Aga,
And in sorrow call'd he to his children—
"Turn again to me, ye poor deserted;
Hard as steel is now your mother's bosom;
Shut so fast, it cannot throb with pity!"
Thus he spoke; and when the lady heard him,
Pale as death she dropp'd upon the pavement,
And the life fled from her wretched bosom
As she saw her children turning from her.
MY FIRST LOVE.
A SKETCH IN NEW YORK.
"Margaret, where are you?" cried a silver-toned voice from a
passage outside the drawing-room in which I had just seated
myself. The next instant a lovely face appeared at the door, its
owner tripped into the room, made a comical curtsy, and ran up to
her sister.
"It is really too bad, Margaret; pa' frets and bustles about,
nearly runs over me upon the stairs, and then goes down the
street as if 'Change were on fire. Ma' yawns, and will not hear
of our going shopping, and grumbles about money—always
money—that horrid money! Ah! dear Margaret, our shopping
excursion is at an end for to-day!"
Sister Margaret, to whom this lamentation was addressed, was
reclining on the sofa, her left hand supporting her head, her
right holding the third volume of a novel. She looked up with a
languishing and die-away expression—
"Poor Staunton will be in despair," said her sister. "This is
at least his tenth turn up and down the Battery. Last night he
was a perfect picture of misery. I could not have had the heart
to refuse to dance with him. How could you be so cruel,
Margaret?"
"Alas!" replied Margaret with a deep sigh, "how could I help
it? Mamma was behind me, and kept pushing me with her elbow.
Mamma is sometimes very ill-bred." And another sigh burst from
the overcharged heart of the sentimental fair one.
"Well," rejoined her sister, "I don't know why she so terribly
dislikes poor Staunton; but to say the truth, our gallopade lost
nothing by his absence. He is as stiff as a Dutch doll when he
dances. Even our Louisianian backwoodsman here, acquits himself
much more creditably."
And the malicious girl gave me such an arch look, that I could
not be angry with the equivocal sort of compliment paid to
myself.
"That is very unkind, Arthurine," said Margaret, her checks
glowing with anger at this attack upon the graces of her
admirer.
"Don't be angry, sister," cried Arthurine, running up to her,
throwing her arms round her neck, and kissing and soothing her
till she began to smile. They formed a pretty group. Arthurine
especially, as she skipped up to her sister, scarce touching the
carpet with her tiny feet, looked like a fairy or a nymph. She
was certainly a lovely creature, slender and flexible as a reed,
with a waist one could easily have spanned with one's ten
fingers; feet and hands on the very smallest scale, and of the
most beautiful mould; features exquisitely regular; a complexion
of lilies and roses; a small graceful head, adorned with a
profusion of golden hair; and then large round clear blue eyes,
full of mischief and fascination. She was, as the French say,
à croquer.
"Heigho!" sighed the sentimental Margaret. "To think of this
vulgar, selfish man intruding himself between me and such a noble
creature as Staunton! It is really heart-breaking."
"Not quite so bad as that!" said Arthurine. "Moreland, as you
know, has a good five hundred thousand dollars; and Staunton has
nothing, or at most a couple of thousand dollars a-year—a
mere feather in the balance against such a golden weight."
"Love despises gold," murmured Margaret.
"Nonsense!" replied her sister; "I would not even despise
silver, if it were in sufficient quantity. Only think of the
balls and parties, the fêtes and pic-nics! Saratoga in the
summer—perhaps even London or Paris! The mere thought of it
makes my mouth water."
"Talk not of such joys, to be bought at such a price!" cried
Margaret, quoting probably from some of her favourite novels.
"Well, don't make yourself unhappy now," said Arthurine.
"Moreland will not be here till tea-time; and there are six long
hours to that. If we had only a few new novels to pass the time!
I cannot imagine why Cooper is so lazy. Only one book in a year!
What if you were to begin to write, sister? I have no doubt you
would succeed as well as Mrs Mitchell. Bulwer is so fantastical;
and even Walter Scott is getting dull."
"Alas, Howard!" sighed Margaret, looking to me for sympathy
with her sorrows.
"Patience, dear Margaret," said I. "If possible, I will help
you to get rid of the old fellow. At any rate, I will try."
Rat-tat-tat at the house door. Arthurine put up her finger to
enjoin silence, and listened. Another loud knock. "A visit!"
exclaimed she with sparkling eyes. "Ha! ladies; I hear the rustle
of their gowns." And as she spoke the door opened, and the Misses
Pearce came swimming into the room, in all the splendour of
violet-coloured silks, covered with feathers, lace, and
embroideries, and bringing with them an atmosphere of
perfume.
The man who has the good fortune to see our New York belles in
their morning or home attire, must have a heart made of quartz or
granite if he resists their attractions. Their graceful forms,
their intellectual and somewhat languishing expression of
countenance, their bright and beaming eyes, their slender
figures, which make one inclined to seize and hold them lest the
wind should blow them away, their beautifully delicate hands and
feet, compose a sum of attraction perfectly irresistible. The
Boston ladies are perhaps better informed, and their features are
usually more regular; but they have something Yankeeish about
them, which I could never fancy, and, moreover, they are dreadful
blue-stockings. The fair Philadelphians are rounder, more
elastic, more Hebe-like, and unapproachable in the article of
small-talk; but it is amongst the beauties of New York that
romance writers should seek for their Julias and Alices. I am
certain that if Cooper had made their acquaintance whilst writing
his books, he would have torn up his manuscripts, and painted his
heroines after a less wooden fashion. He can only have seen them
on the Battery or in Broadway, where they are so buried and
enveloped in finery that it is impossible to guess what they are
really like. The two young ladies who had just entered the room,
were shining examples of that system of over-dressing. They
seemed to have put on at one time the three or four dresses worn
in the course of the day by a London or Paris fashionable.
It was now all over with my tête-à -tête. I could only
be de trop in the gossip of the four ladies, and I
accordingly took my leave. As I passed before the parlour door on
my way out, it was opened, and Mrs Bowsends beckoned me in. I
entered, and found her husband also there.
"Are you going away already, my dear Howard?" said the
lady.
"There are visitors up stairs."
"Ah, Howard!" said Mrs Bowsends.
"The workies20 have carried the day," growled her
husband.
20: The slang term applied to the mechanics and labourers, a
numerous and (at elections especially) a most important class
in New York and Philadelphia.
"That horrid Staunton!" interrupted his better half. "Only
think now'—
"Our side lost—completely floored. But you've heard of
it, I suppose, Mister Howard?"
I turned from one to the other in astonished perplexity, not
knowing to which I ought to listen first.
"I don't know how it is," whined the lady, "but that Mr
Staunton becomes every day more odious to me. Only think now, of
his having the effrontery to persist in running after Margaret!
Hardly two thousand a-year "—
"Old Hickory is preparing to leave Hermitage
already.21 Bank shares have fallen half per cent in
consequence," snarled her husband.
21: The name of General Jackson's country-house and
estate.
They were ringing the changes on poor Staunton and the new
president.
"He ought to remember the difference of our positions," said
Mrs B., drawing herself up with much dignity.
"Certainly, certainly!" said I. "And the governor's election is
also going desperate bad," said Mr Bowsends.
"And then Margaret, to think of her infatuation! Certainly she
is a good, gentle creature; but five hundred thousand dollars!"
This was Mrs Bowsends.
"By no means to be despised," said I.
The five hundred thousand dollars touched a responsive chord
in the heart of the papa.
"Five hundred thousand," repeated he. "Yes, certainly; but
what's the use of that? All nonsense. Those girls would ruin a
Croesus."
"You need not talk, I'm sure," retorted mamma. "Think of all
your bets and electioneering."
"You understand nothing about that," replied her husband
angrily. "Interests of the country—congress—public
good—must be supported. Who would do it if we"—
"Did not bet," thought I.
"You are a friend of the family," said Mrs Bowsends, "and I
hope you will"—
"Apropos," interrupted her loving husband. "How has your
cotton crop turned out? You might consign it to me. How many
bales?"
"A hundred; and a few dozen hogsheads of tobacco."
"Some six thousand dollars per annum," muttered the papa
musingly; "hm, hm."
"As to that," said I negligently, "I have sufficient capital
in my hands to increase the one hundred bales to two hundred
another year."
"Two hundred! two hundred!" The man's eyes glistened
approvingly. "That might do. Not so bad. Well, Arthurine is a
good girl. We'll see, my dear Mr Howard—we'll see. Yes,
yes—come here every evening—whenever you like. You
know Arthurine is always glad to see you."
"And Mr and Mrs Bowsends?" asked I.
"Are most delighted," replied the couple, smiling
graciously.
I bowed, agreeably surprised, and took my departure. I was
nevertheless not over well pleased with a part of Mr Bowsends'
last speech. It looked rather too much as if my affectionate
father-in-law that was to be, wished to balance his lost bets
with my cotton bales; and, as I thought of it, my gorge rose at
the selfishness of my species, and more especially at the stupid
impudent egotism of Bowsends and the thousands who resemble him.
To all such, even their children are nothing but so many bales of
goods, to be bartered, bought, and sold. And this man belongs to
the haut-ton of New York! Five-and-twenty years ago he
went about with a tailor's measure in his pocket—now a
leader on 'Change, and member of twenty committees and
directorships.
But then Arthurine, with her seventeen summers and her lovely
face, the most extravagant little doll in the whole city, and
that is not saying a little, but the most elegant,
charming—a perfect sylph! It was now about eleven months
since I had first become acquainted with the bewitching creature;
and, from the very first day, I had been her vassal, her slave,
bound by chains as adamantine as those of Armida. She had just
left the French boarding-school at St John's. That, by the by, is
one of the means by which our mushroom aristocracy pushes itself
upwards. A couple of pretty daughters, brought up at a
fashionable school, are sure to attract a swarm of young fops and
danglers about them; and the glory of the daughters is reflected
upon the papa and mamma. And this little sorceress knew right
well how to work her incantations. Every heart was at her feet;
but not one out of her twenty or more adorers could boast that he
had received a smile or a look more than his fellows. I was the
only one who had perhaps obtained a sort of passive preference. I
was allowed to escort her in her rides, walks, and drives; to be
her regular partner when no other dancer offered, and suchlike
enviable privileges. She flirted and fluttered about me, and hung
familiarly on my arm, as she tripped along Broadway or the
Battery by my side. In addition to all these little marks of
preference, it fell to my share of duty to supply her with the
newest novels, to furnish her with English Keepsakes and American
Tokens and Souvenirs, and to provide the last fashionable songs
and quadrilles. All this had cost me no small sum; but I consoled
myself with the reflection, that my presents were made
to the prettiest girl in New York, and that sooner or later she
must reward my assiduities. Twice had fortune smiled upon me; in
one instance, when we were standing on the bridge at Niagara,
looking down on the foaming waters, and I was obliged to put my
arm round her waist, for fear she should become dizzy and fall
in—in doing which, by the by, I very nearly fell in myself.
A similar thing occurred on a visit we made to the Trenton falls.
That was all I had got for my pains, however, during the eleven
months that I had trifled away in New York—months that had
served to lighten my purse pretty considerably. It is the fashion
in our southern states to choose our wives from amongst the
beauties of the north. I had been bitten by the mania, and had
come to New York upon this important business; but having been
there nearly a year, it was high time to make an end of matters,
if I did not wish to be put on the shelf as stale goods.
This last reflection occurred to me very strongly as I was
walking from the Bowsends' house towards Wall Street, when
suddenly I caught sight of my fellow-sufferer Staunton. The
Yankee's dolorous countenance almost made me smile. Up he came,
with the double object of informing me that the weather was very
fine, and of offering me a bite at his pigtail tobacco. I could
not help expressing my astonishment that so sensitive and
delicate a creature as Margaret should tolerate such a habit in
the man of her choice.
"Pshaw!" replied the simpleton. "Moreland chews also."
"Yes, but he has got five hundred thousand dollars, and that
sweetens the poison."
"Ah!" sighed Staunton.
"Keep up your courage, man; Bowsends is rich."
The Yankee shook his head.
"Two hundred thousand, they say; but to-morrow he may not have
a farthing. You know our New Yorkers. Nothing but bets,
elections, shares, railways, banks. His expenses are enormous;
and, if he once got his daughters off his hands, he would perhaps
fail next week."
"And be so much the richer next year," replied I.
"Do you think so?" said the Yankee, musingly.
"Of course it would be so. Mean time you can marry the
languishing Margaret, and do like many others of your fellow
citizens; go out with a basket on your arm to the Greenwich
market, and whilst your delicate wife is enjoying her morning
slumber, buy the potatoes and salted mackerel for breakfast. In
return for that, she will perhaps condescend to pour you out a
cup of bohea. Famous thing that bohea! capital antidote to the
dyspepsia!"
"You are spiteful," said poor Staunton.
"And you foolish," I retorted. "To a young barrister like you,
there are hundreds of houses open."
"And to you also."
"Certainly."
"And then I have this advantage—the girl likes me."
"I am liked by the papa and the mamma, and the girl too."
"Have you got five hundred thousand dollars?"
"No."
"Poor Howard!" cried Staunton, laughing.
"Go to the devil!" replied I, laughing also.
We had been chatting in this manner for nearly a quarter of an
hour, when a coach drove out of Greenwich Street, in which I saw
a face that I thought I knew. One of the Philadelphia steamers
had just arrived. I stepped forward.
"Stop!" cried a well-known voice.
"Stop!" cried I, hastening to the coach door.
It was Richards, my school and college friend, and my
neighbour, after the fashion of the southern states; for he lived
only about a hundred and seventy miles from me. I said good-by to
poor simple Staunton, got into the coach, and we rattled off
through Broadway to the American hotel.
"For heaven's sake, George!" exclaimed my friend, as soon as
we were installed in a room, "tell me what you are doing here.
Have you quite forgotten house, land, and friends? You
have been eleven months away."
"True," replied I; "making love—and not a step further
advanced than the first."
"The report is true, then, that you have been harpooned by the
Bowsends? Poor fellow! I am sorry for you. Just tell me what you
mean to do with the dressed-up doll when you get her? A young
lady who has not enough patience even to read her novels from
beginning to end, and who, before she was twelve years old, had
Tom Moore and Byron, Don Juan perhaps excepted, by heart.
A damsel who has geography and the globes, astronomy and Cuvier,
Raphael's cartoons and Rossini's operas, at her finger-ends; but
who, as true as I am alive, does not know whether a mutton chop
is cut off a pig or a cow—who would boil tea and
cauliflowers in the same manner, and has some vague idea that
eggs are the principal ingredient in a gooseberry pie."
"I want her for my wife, not for my cook," retorted I, rather
nettled.
"Who does not know," continued Richards, "whether dirty linen
ought to be boiled or baked."
"But she sings like St Cecilia, plays divinely, and dances
like a fairy."
"Yes, all that will do you a deal of good. I know the family;
both father and mother are the most contemptible people
breathing."
"Stop there!" cried I; "they are not one iota better or worse
than their neighbours."
"You are right."
"Well, then, leave them in peace. I have promised to drink tea
there at six o'clock. If you will come, I will take you with
me."
"Know then already, man. I will go, on one condition; that you
leave New York with me in three days."
"If my marriage is not settled," replied I.
"D——d fool!" muttered Richards between his
teeth.
Six o'clock struck as we entered the drawing-room of my future
mother-in-law. The good lady almost frightened me as I went in,
by her very extraordinary appearance in a tremendous grey gauze
turban, fire-new, just arrived by the Henri Quatre packet-ship
from Havre, and that gave her exactly the look of one of our
Mississippi night-owls. Richards seemed a little startled; and
Moreland, who was already there, could not take his eyes off this
remarkable head-dress. Miss Margaret was costumed in pale green
silk, her hair flattened upon each side of her forehead a la
Marguerite, (see the Journal des Modes,) and looking
like Jephtha's daughter, pale and resigned, but rather more
lackadaisical, with a sort of "though-absent-not-forgot" look
about her, inexpressibly sentimental and interesting. The
contrast was certainly rather strong between old Moreland, who
sat there, red-faced, thickset, and clumsy, and the airy slender
Staunton, who, for fear of spoiling his figure, lived upon
oysters and macaroon, and drank water with a rose leaf in it.
I had brought the languishing beauty above described, Scott's
Tales of my Grandfather, which had just appeared.
"Ah! Walter Scott!" exclaimed she, in her pretty melting
tones. Then, after a moment's pause, "The vulgar man has not a
word to say for himself;" said she to me, in a low tone.
"Wait a little," replied I; "he'll improve. It is no doubt his
modest timidity that keeps his lips closed."
Margaret gave me a furious look.
"Heartless mocker!" she exclaimed.
Meanwhile Richards had got into conversation with Bowsends.
The unlucky dog, who did not know that his host was a violent
Adams-ite, and had lost a good five thousand dollars in bets and
subscriptions to influence the voices of the sovereign people at
the recent election, had fallen on the sore subject. He began by
informing his host that Old Hickory would shortly leave the
Hermitage to assume his duties as president.
"The blood-thirsty backwoodsman, half horse, half alligator"
interrupted Mr Bowsends.
"Costs you dear, his election," said Moreland laughing.
"Smokes out of a tobacco pipe like a vulgar German,"
ejaculated Mrs Bowsends.
"Not so very vulgar for that," said blundering Moreland;
"tobacco has quite another taste out of a pipe."
I gave him a tremendous dig in the back with my elbow.
"Do you smoke out of a tobacco pipe, Mr Moreland?" enquired
Margaret in her flute-like tones.
Moreland stared; he had a vague idea that he had got himself
into a scrape, but his straightforward honesty prevented him from
prevaricating, and he blurted out—"Sometimes, miss."
I thought the sensitive creature would have swooned away at
this admission; and I had just laid my arm over the back of her
chair to support her, when Arthurine entered the room. She gave a
quick glance to me; it was too late to draw back my arm. She did
not seem to notice any thing, saluted the company gaily and
easily, tripped up to Moreland, wished him good
evening—asked after his bets, his ships, his old dog
Tom—chattered, in short, full ten minutes in a breath.
Before Moreland knew what she was about, she had taken one of his
hands in both of hers. But they were old acquaintances, and he
might easily have been her grandfather. Meanwhile Margaret had
somewhat recovered from the shock.
"He smokes out of a pipe!" lisped she to Arthurine, in a tone
of melancholy resignation.
"Old Hickory is very popular in Pennsylvania," said Richards,
resuming the conversation that had been interrupted, and
perfectly unconscious, as Moreland would have said, of the shoals
he was sailing amongst. "A Bedford County farmer has just sent
him a present of a cask of Monongahela."
"I envy him that present," cried Moreland. "A glass of genuine
Monongahela is worth any money."
This second shock was far too violent to be resisted by
Margaret's delicate nerves. She sank back in her chair, half
fainting, half hysterical. Her maids were called in, and with
their help she managed to leave the room.
"Have you brought her a book?" said Arthurine to me.
"Yes, one of Walter Scott's."
"Oh! then she will soon be well again," rejoined the
affectionate sister, apparently by no means alarmed.
Now that this nervous beauty was gone, the conversation became
much more lively. Captain Moreland was a jovial sailor, who had
made ten voyages to China, fifteen to Constantinople, twenty to
St Petersburg, and innumerable ones to Liverpool and through his
exertions had amassed the large fortune which he was now
enjoying. He was a merry-hearted man, with excellent sound sense
on all points except one—that one being the fair sex, with
which he was about as well acquainted as an alligator with a
camera-obscure. The attentions paid to him by Arthurine seemed to
please the old bachelor uncommonly. There was a mixture of
kindness, malice, and fascination in her manner, which was really
enchanting; even the matter-of-fact Richards could not take his
eyes off her.
"That is certainly a charming girl!" whispered he to me.
"Did not I tell you so?" said I. "Only observe with what
sweetness she gives in to the old man's humours and fancies!"
The hours passed like minutes. Supper was long over, and we
rose to depart; when I shook hands with Arthurine, she pressed
mine gently. I was in the ninety-ninth heaven.
"Now, boys," cried worthy Moreland, as soon as we were in the
streets, "it would really be a pity to part so early on so joyous
an evening. What do you say? Will you come to my house, and knock
the necks off half a dozen bottles?"
We agreed to this proposal; and, taking the old seaman between
us, steered in the direction of his cabin, as he called his
magnificent and well-furnished house.
"What a delightful family those Bowsends are!" exclaimed
Moreland, as soon as we were comfortably seated beside a blazing
fire, with the Lafitte and East India Madeira sparkling on the
table beside us. "And what charming girls! 'You're getting
oldish,' says I to myself the other day, 'but you're still fresh
and active, sound as a dolphin. Better get married.' Margaret
pleased me uncommonly, so I"—
"Yes, my dear Moreland," interrupted I, "but are you sure that
you please her?"
"Pshaw! Five times a hundred thousand dollars! I tell you
what, my lad, that's not to be met with every day."
"Fifty years old," replied I. "Certainly, fifty years old,
but stout and healthy; none of your spindle-shanked
dandies—your Stauntons"—
But Staunton smokes cigars, and not Dutch pipes."
"I give that up. For Miss Margaret's sake, I'll burn my nose
and mouth with those damned stumps of cigars."
"Drinks no whisky," continued I. "He is president of a
temperance society."
"The devil fly away with him!" growled Moreland; "I wouldn't
give up my whisky for all the girls in the world."
"If you don't, she'll always be fainting away," replied I,
laughing.
"Ah! It's because I talked of the Monongahela that she began
with her hystericals, and went away for all the evening! That's
where the wind sits, is it? Well, you may depend I ain't to be
done out of my grog at any rate."
And he backed his assertion with an oath, swallowing off the
contents of his glass by way of a clincher. We sat joking and
chatting till past midnight during which time I flattered myself
that I gave evidence of considerable diplomatic talents. As we
were returning home, however, Richards doubted whether I had not
driven the old boy rather too hard
"No matter," replied I, "if I have only succeeded in ridding
poor Margaret of him."
Cool, calculating Richards shook his head.
"I don't know what may come of it," said he; "but I do not
think you are likely to find much gratitude for your
interference."
The next day was taken up in arranging matters of business
consequent on the arrival of Richards. At least ten times I tried
to go and see Arthurine, but was always prevented by something or
other; and it was past tea-time when I at last got to the
Bowsends' house. I found Margaret in the drawing-room, deep in a
new novel.
"Where is Arthurine?" I enquired.
"At the theatre, with mamma and Mr Moreland," was the
answer.
"At the theatre!" repeated I in astonishment. They were
playing Tom and Jerry, a favourite piece with the enlightened
Kentuckians. I had seen the first scene or two at the New Orleans
theatre, and had had quite enough of it.
"That really is sacrificing herself!" said I,
considerably out of humour.
"The noble girl!" exclaimed Margaret. "Mr Moreland came to
tea, and urged us so much to go"—
"That she could not help going, to be bored and disgusted for
a couple of hours."
"She went for my sake," said Margaret sentimentally. "Mamma
would have one of us go."
"Yes, that is it," thought I. Jealousy would have been
ridiculous. He fifty years old, she seventeen. I left the house,
and went to find Richards.
"What! Back so early?" cried he.
"She is gone to the theatre with her mamma and Moreland."
Richards shook his head.
"You put a wasp's nest into the old fellow's brain-pan
yesterday," said he. "Take care you do not get stung
yourself."
"I should like to see how she looks by his side," said I.
"Well, I will go with you. The sooner you are cured the
better. But only for ten minutes."
There was certainly no temptation to remain longer in that
atmosphere of whisky and tobacco fumes. It was at the Bowery
theatre. The light swam as though seen through a thick fog; and a
perfect shower of orange and apple peel, and even less agreeable
things, rained down from the galleries. Tom and Jerry were in all
their glory. I looked round the boxes, and soon saw the charming
Arthurine, apparently perfectly comfortable, chatting with old
Moreland as gravely, and looking as demure and self-possessed, as
if she had been a married woman of thirty.
"That is a prudent young lady," said Richards; "she has an eye
to the dollars, and would marry Old Hickory himself, spite of
whisky and tobacco pipe, if he had more money, and were to ask
her."
I said nothing.
"If you weren't such an infatuated fool," continued my
plain-spoken friend, I would say to you, let her take her own
way, and the day after to-morrow we will leave New York."
"One week more," said I, with an uneasy feeling about the
heart. At seven the next evening I entered what
had been my Elysium, but was now, little by little, becoming my
Tartarus. Again I found Margaret alone over a romance. "And
Arthurine?" enquired I, in a voice that might perhaps have been
steadier.
"She is gone with mamma and Mr Moreland to hear Miss Fanny
Wright."
"To hear Miss Fanny Wright! the atheist, the revolutionist!
What a mad fancy! Who would ever have dreamed of such a
thing!"
This Miss Fanny Wright was a famous lecturess, of the Owenite
school, who was shunned like a pestilence by the fashionable
world of New York.
"Mr Moreland," answered Margaret, "said so much about her
eloquence that Arthurine's curiosity was roused."
"Indeed!" replied I.
"Oh! you do not know what a noble girl she is. For her sister
she would sacrifice her life. My only hope is in her."
I snatched up my hat, and hurried out of the house.
The next morning I got up, restless and uneasy; and eleven
o'clock had scarcely struck when I reached the Bowsends' house.
This time both sisters were at home; and as I entered the
drawing-room, Arthurine advanced to meet me with a beautiful
smile upon her face. There was nevertheless a something in the
expression of her countenance that made me start. I pressed her
hand. She looked tenderly at me.
"I hope you have been amusing yourself these last two days,"
said I after a moment's pause.
"Novelty has a certain charm," replied Arthurine. "Yet I
certainly never expected to become a disciple of Miss Fanny
Wright," added she, laughing.
"Really! I should have thought the transition from Tom and
Jerry rather an easy one."
"A little more respect for Tom and Jerry, whom we
patronize—that is to say, Mr Moreland and our high
mightiness," replied Arthurine, trying, as I fancied, to conceal
a certain confusion of manner under a laugh.
"I should scarcely have thought my Arthurine would have become
a party to such a conspiracy against good taste," replied I
gravely.
"My Arthurine!" repeated she, laying a strong accent on
the pronoun possessive. "Only see what rights and privileges the
gentleman is usurping! We live in a free country, I believe?"
There was a mixture of jest and earnest in her charming
countenance. I looked enquiringly at her.
"Do you know," cried she, "I have taken quite a fancy to
Moreland? He is so good-natured, such a sterling character, and
his roughness wears off when one knows him well."
"And moreover," added I, "he has five hundred thousand
dollars."
"Which are by no means the least of his recommendations. Only
think of the balls, Howard! I hope you will come to them. And
then Saratoga; next year London and Paris. Oh! it will be
delightful."
"What, so far gone already?" said I, sarcastically.
"And poor Margaret is saved!" added she, throwing her arms
round her sister's neck, and kissing and caressing her. I hardly
knew whether to laugh or to cry.
"Then, I suppose, I may congratulate you?" said I, forcing a
laugh, and looking, I have no doubt, very like a fool.
You may so," replied Arthurine. "This morning Mr Moreland
begged permission to transfer his addresses from Margaret to your
very humble servant."
"And you?"—
"We naturally, in consideration of the petitioner's many
amiable qualities, have promised to take the request into our
serious consideration. For decorum's sake, you know, one must
deliberate a couple of days or so."
"Are you in jest or earnest, Arthurine?"
"Quite in earnest, Howard."
"Farewell, then!"
"'Fare-thee-well! and if for ever
Still for ever fare-thee-well!'"
said Arthurine, in a half-laughing, half-sighing tone. The
next instant I had left the room.
On the stairs I met the beturbaned Mrs Bowsends, who led the
way mysteriously into the parlour.
"You have seen Arthurine?" said she. "What a dear, darling
child!—is she not? Oh! that girl is our joy and
consolation. And Mr Moreland—the charming Mr Moreland! Now
that things are arranged so delightfully, we can let Margaret
have her own way a little."
"What I have heard is true, then?" said I.
"Yes; as an old friend I do not mind telling you—though
it must still remain a secret for a short time. Mr Moreland has
made a formal proposal to Arthurine."
I do not know what reply I made, before flinging myself out of
the room and house, and running down the street as if I had just
escaped from a lunatic asylum.
"Richards," cried I to my friend, "shall we start
tomorrow?"
"Thank God!" exclaimed Richards. "So you are cured of the New
York fever? Start! Yes, by all means, before you get a relapse.
You must come with me to Virginia for a couple of months."
"I will so," was my answer.
As we were going down to the steam-boat on the following
morning, Staunton overtook us, breathless with speed and
delight.
"Wish me joy!" cried he. "I am accepted!"
"And I jilted!" replied I with a laugh. "But I am not such a
fool as to make myself unhappy about a woman."
Light words enough, but my heart was heavy as I spoke them.
Five minutes later, we were on our way to Virginia.
HYDRO-BACCHUS.
Great Homer sings how once of old
The Thracian women met to hold
To "Bacchus, ever young and fair,"
Mysterious rites with solemn care.
For now the summer's glowing face
Had look'd upon the hills of Thrace;
And laden vines foretold the pride
Of foaming vats at Autumn tide.
There, while the gladsome Evöe shout
Through Nysa's knolls rang wildly out,
While cymbal clang, and blare of horn,
O'er the broad Hellespont were borne;
The sounds, careering far and near,
Struck sudden on Lycurgus' ear—
Edonia's grim black-bearded lord,
Who still the Bacchic rites abhorr'd,
And cursed the god whose power divine
Lent heaven's own fire to generous wine.
Ere yet th' inspired devotees
Had half performed their mysteries,
Furious he rush'd amidst the band,
And whirled an ox-goad in his hand.
Full many a dame on earth lay low
Beneath the tyrant's savage blow;
The rest, far scattering in affright,
Sought refuge from his rage in flight.
But the fell king enjoy'd not long
The triumph of his impious wrong:
The vengeance of the god soon found him,
And in a rocky dungeon bound him.
There, sightless, chain'd, in woful tones
He pour'd his unavailing groans,
Mingled with all the blasts that shriek
Round Athos' thunder-riven peak.
O Thracian king! how vain the ire
That urged thee 'gainst the Bacchic choir
The god avenged his votaries well—
Stern was the doom that thee befell;
And on the Bacchus-hating herd
Still rests the curse thy guilt incurr'd.
For the same spells that in those days
Were wont the Bacchanals to craze—
The maniac orgies, the rash vow,
Have fall'n on thy disciples now.
Though deepest silence dwells alone,
Parnassus, on thy double cone;
To mystic cry, through fell and brake,
No more Cithaeron's echoes wake;
No longer glisten, white and fleet,
O'er the dark lawns of Taÿgete,
The Spartan virgin's bounding feet:
Yet Frenzy still has power to roll
Her portents o'er the prostrate soul.
Though water-nymphs must twine the spell
Which once the wine-god threw so well—
Changed are the orgies now, 'tis true,
Save in the madness of the crew.
Bacchus his votaries led of yore
Through woodland glades and mountains hoar;
While flung the Maenad to the air
The golden masses of her hair,
And floated free the skin of fawn,
From her bare shoulder backward borne.
Wild Nature, spreading all her charms,
Welcomed her children to her arms;
Laugh'd the huge oaks, and shook with glee,
In answer to their revelry;
Kind Night would cast her softest dew
Where'er their roving footsteps flew;
So bright the joyous fountains gush'd,
So proud the swelling rivers rush'd,
That mother Earth they well might deem,
With honey, wine, and milk, for them
Most bounteously had fed the stream.
The pale moon, wheeling overhead,
Her looks of love upon them shed,
And pouring forth her floods of light,
With all the landscape blest their sight.
Through foliage thick the moonshine fell,
Checker'd upon the grassy dell;
Beyond, it show'd the distant spires
Of skyish hills, the world's grey sires;
More brightly beam'd, where far away,
Around his clustering islands, lay,
Adown some opening vale descried,
The vast Aegean's waveless tide.
What wonder then, if Reason's power
Fail'd in each reeling mind that hour,
When their enraptured spirits woke
To Nature's liberty, and broke
The artificial chain that bound them,
With the broad sky above, and the free winds around
them!
From Nature's overflowing soul,
That sweet delirium on them stole;
She held the cup, and bade them share
In draughts of joy too deep to bear.
Not such the scenes that to the eyes
Of water-Bacchanals arise;
Whene'er the day of festival
Summons the Pledged t' attend its call—
In long procession to appear,
And show the world how good they are.
Not theirs the wild-wood wanderings,
The voices of the winds and springs:
But seek them where the smoke-fog brown
Incumbent broods o'er London town;
'Mid Finsbury Square ruralities
Of mangy grass, and scrofulous trees;
'Mid all the sounds that consecrate
Thy street, melodious Bishopsgate!
Not by the mountain grot and pine,
Haunts of the Heliconian Nine:
But where the town-bred Muses squall
Love-verses in an annual;
Such muses as inspire the grunt
Of Barry Cornwall, and Leigh Hunt.
Their hands no ivy'd thyrsus bear,
No Evöe floats upon the air:
But flags of painted calico
Flutter aloft with gaudy show;
And round then rises, long and loud,
The laughter of the gibing crowd.
O sacred Temp'rance! mine were shame
If I could wish to brand thy name.
But though these dullards boast thy grace,
Thou in their orgies hast no place.
Thou still disdain'st such sorry lot,
As even below the soaking sot.
Great was high Duty's power of old
The empire o'er man's heart to hold;
To urge the soul, or check its course,
Obedient to her guiding force.
These own not her control, but draw
New sanction for the moral law,
And by a stringent compact bind
The independence of the mind—
As morals had gregarious grown,
And Virtue could not stand alone.
What need they rules against abusing?
They find th' offence all in the using.
Denounce the gifts which bounteous Heaven
To cheer the heart of man has given;
And think their foolish pledge a band
More potent far than God's command.
On this new plan they cleverly
Work morals by machinery;
Keeping men virtuous by a tether,
Like gangs of negroes chain'd together.
Then, Temperance, if thus it be,
They know no further need of thee.
This pledge usurps thy ancient throne—
Alas! thy occupation's gone!
From earth thou may'st unheeded rise,
And like Astræa—seek the skies.
MARTIN LUTHER.
AN ODE.
Who sits upon the Pontiff's throne?
On Peter's holy chair
Who sways the keys? At such a time
When dullest ears may hear the chime
Of coming thunders—when dark skies
Are writ with crimson prophecies,
A wise man should be there;
A godly man, whose life might be
The living logic of the sea;
One quick to know, and keen to feel—
A fervid man, and full of zeal,
Should sit in Peter's chair.
Alas! no fervid man is there,
No earnest, honest heart;
One who, though dress'd in priestly guise,
Looks on the world with worldling's eyes;
One who can trim the courtier's smile,
Or weave the diplomatic wile,
But knows no deeper art;
One who can dally with fair forms,
Whom a well-pointed period warms—
No man is he to hold the helm
Where rude winds blow, and wild waves whelm,
And creaking timbers start.
In vain did Julius pile sublime
The vast and various dome,
That makes the kingly pyramid's pride,
And the huge Flavian wonder, hide
Their heads in shame—these gilded stones
(O heaven!) were very blood and bones
Of those whom Christ did come
To save—vile grin of slaves who sold
Celestial rights for earthy gold,
Marketing grace with merchant's measure,
To prank with Europe's pillaged treasure
The pride of purple Rome.
The measure of her sins is full,
The scarlet-vested whore!
Thy murderous and lecherous race
Have sat too long i' the holy place;
The knife shall lop what no drug cures,
Nor Heaven permits, nor earth endures,
The monstrous mockery more.
Behold! I swear it, saith the Lord:
Mine elect warrior girds the sword—
A nameless man, a miner's son,
Shall tame thy pride, thou haughty one,
And pale the painted whore!
Earth's mighty men are nought. I chose
Poor fishermen before
To preach my gospel to the poor;
A pauper boy from door to door
That piped his hymn. By his strong word
The startled world shall now be stirr'd,
As with a lion's roar!
A lonely monk that loved to dwell
With peaceful host in silent cell;
This man shall shake the Pontiff's throne:
Him Kings and emperors shall own,
And stout hearts wince before
The eye profound and front sublime
Where speculation reigns.
He to the learned seats shall climb,
On Science' watch-tower stand sublime;
The arid doctrine shall inspire
Of wiry teachers with swift fire;
And, piled with cumbrous pains,
Proud palaces of sounding lies
Lay prostrate with a breath. The wise
Shall listen to his word; the youth
Shall eager seize the new-born truth
Where prudent age refrains.
Lo! when the venal pomp proceeds
From echoing town to town!
The clam'rous preacher and his train,
Organ and bell with sound inane,
The crimson cross, the book, the keys,
The flag that spreads before the breeze,
The triple-belted crown!
It wends its way; and straw is sold—
Yea! deadly drugs for heavy gold,
To feeble hearts whose pulse is fear;
And though some smile, and many sneer,
There's none will dare to frown.
None dares but one—the race is rare—
One free and honest man:
Truth is a dangerous thing to say
Amid the lies that haunt the day;
But He hath lent it voice; and, lo!
From heart to heart the fire shall go,
Instinctive without plan;
Proud bishops with a lordly train,
Fierce cardinals with high disdain,
Sleek chamberlains with smooth discourse,
And wrangling doctors all shall force,
In vain, one honest man.
In vain the foolish Pope shall fret,
It is a sober thing.
Thou sounding trifler, cease to rave,
Loudly to damn, and loudly save,
And sweep with mimic thunders' swell
Armies of honest souls to hell!
The time on whirring wing
Hath fled when this prevail'd. O, Heaven!
One hour, one little hour, is given,
If thou could'st but repent. But no!
To ruin thou shalt headlong go,
A doom'd and blasted thing.
Thy parchment ban comes forth; and lo!
Men heed it not, thou fool!
Nay, from the learned city's gate,
In solemn show, in pomp of state,
The watchmen of the truth come forth,
The burghers old of sterling worth,
And students of the school:
And he who should have felt thy ban
Walks like a prophet in the van;
He hath a calm indignant look,
Beneath his arm he bears a book,
And in his hand the Bull.
He halts; and in the middle space
Bids pile a blazing fire.
The flame ascends with crackling glee;
Then, with firm step advancing, He
Gives to the wild fire's wasting rule
The false Decretals, and the Bull,
While thus he vents his ire:—
"Because the Holy One o' the Lord
Thou vexed hast with impious word,
Therefore the Lord shall thee consume,
And thou shalt share the Devil's doom
In everlasting fire!"
He said; and rose the echo round
"In everlasting fire!"
The hearts of men were free; one word
Their inner depths of soul had stirr'd;
Erect before their God they stood
A truth-shod Christian brotherhood,
And wing'd with high desire.
And ever with the circling flame
Uprose anew the blithe acclaim:—
"The righteous Lord shall thee consume,
And thou shalt share the Devil's doom
In everlasting fire!"
Thus the brave German men; and we
Shall echo back the cry;
The burning of that parchment scroll
Annull'd the bond that sold the soul
Of man to man; each brother now
Only to one great Lord will bow,
One Father-God on high.
And though with fits of lingering life
The wounded foe prolong the strife,
On Luther's deed we build our hope,
Our steady faith—the fond old Pope
Is dying, and shall die.
TRADITIONS AND TALES OF UPPER LUSATIA.
No. II
THE FAIRY TUTOR.
Discreet Reader!
You have seen—and 'tis no longer ago than
YESTERDAY!—you must well remember the picture—which
showed you from the rough yet delicate—the humorous yet
sympathetic and picturesque—the original yet insinuating
pencil of a shrewd and hearty Lusatian mountaineer—the
aerial, brilliant, sensitive, subtle, fascinating, enigmatical,
outwardly—mirth-given, inwardly—sorrow-touched,
congregated folk numberless—of the Fairies
Proper!—showed them at the urgency of a rare and strange
need—clung, in DEPENDENCY, to one fair, kind, good and
happily-born Daughter of Man!—And what wonder?—The
once glorious, but now forlorn spirits, leaning for one
fate-burthened instant their trust upon the spirits ineffably
favoured!—What wonder! that often as the revolution of ages
brings on the appointed hour, the rebellious and outcast children
of heaven must sue—to their keen
emergency—help—oh! speak up to the height of the
want, of the succour! and call it a lent ray of grace,
from the rebellious and REDEEMED children of the earth!—And
see, where, in the serene eyes of the soft Christian maiden, the
hallowing influence shines!—Auspiciously begun, the awed
though aspiring Rite, the still, the multitudinous, the mystical,
prospers!—Gratefully, as for the boon inexpressibly
worth—easily, as of their own transcending
power—promptly, as though fearing that a benefit
received could wax cold, the joyful Elves crown upon the bright
hair of their graciously natured, but humanly and womanly weak
benefactress—the wedded felicity of pure love!
And the imaginary curtain has dropped! Lo, where it rises
again, discovering to view our stage, greatly changed, and, a
little perhaps, our actors!—Once more, attaching to the
HUMAN DRAMA, slight, as though it were structured of cloud, of
air, the same light and radiant MACHINERY! Once more, only that
They, whom you lately saw tranquil, earnest even to
pathos—"now are frolic"—enough and to
spare!—Once more—THE FAIRIES.
And see, too—where, centring in herself interest and
action of the rapidly shifting scenery—ever again a
beautiful granddaughter of Eve steps—free and fearless, and
bouyant and bounding—our fancy-laid boards!—Ah! but
how much unresembling the sweet maid!—Outwardly, for
lofty-piled is the roof that ceils over the superb head of the
modern Amazon, Swanhilda—more unlike within. Instead
of the clear truth, the soul's gentle purity, the "plain and holy
Innocence" of the poor fairy-beloved mountain child—SHE, in
whose person and fortunes you are invited—for the next
fifty minutes—to forget your own—harbours, fondly
harbours, ill housemates of her virginal breast! a small,
resolute, well-armed and well confederated garrison of unwomanly
faults. Pride is there!—The iron-hard and the iron-cold!
There Scorn—edging repulse with insult!—and
envenoming insult with despair!—leaps up, in eager answer
to the beseeching sighs, tears, and groans of earth-bent
Adoration. And there is the indulged Insolency of a
domineering—and as you will precipitately augur—an
indomitable Will! And there is exuberant SELF-POWER, that,
from the innermost mind, oozing up, out, distilling, circulating
along nerve and vein, effects a magical metamorphosis! turns the
nymph into a squire of arms; usurping even the clamorous and
blood-sprinkled joy of man—the tempestuous and terrible
CHASE, which, in the bosom of peace, imaging war, shows in the
rougher lord of creation himself, as harsh, wild, and turbulent!
Oh, how much other than yon sweet lily of the high Lusatian
valleys, the shade-loving Flower, the good Maud—herself
looked upon with love by the glad eyes of men, women,
children, Fairies, and Angels! oh, other indeed! And yet, have
you, in this thickly clustered enumeration of unamiable
qualities, implicitly heard the CALL which must fasten, which has
fastened, upon the gentle Maud's haughty
antithesis—the serviceable regard, and—the FAVOUR,
even of THE FAIRIES.
The FAVOUR!!
Hear, impatient spectator, the simple plot and its brief
process. You are, after a fashion, informed with what studious,
persevering, and unmerciful violation of all gentle decorum and
feminine pity, the lovely marble-souled tyranness has, in the
course of the last three or four years, turned back from her
beetle-browed castle-gate, one by one, as they showed themselves
there—a hundred, all worthily born—otherwise more and
less meritorious—petitioners for that
whip-and-javelin-bearing hand. You are NOW to know, that upon
this very morning, an embassy from the willow-wearers
all—or, to speak indeed more germanely to the matter, of
the BASKET-BEARERS22, waited upon their beautiful
enemy with an ultimatum and manifesto in one, importing first a
requisition to surrender; then, in case of refusal to capitulate,
the announcement that HYMEN having found in CUPID an inefficient
ally, he was about associating with himself, in league offensive,
the god MARS, with intent of carrying the Maiden-fortress by
storm, and reducing the aforesaid wild occupants of the
stronghold into captivity—whereunto she made
answer—
——our castle's strength
Will laugh a siege to scorn—
herself laughing outrageously to scorn the senders and the
sent This crowning of wrong upon wrong will the Fairies, in the
first place, wreak and right.
22: To German ears—to SEND A BASKET—is to REFUSE
A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE.
But further, later upon the same unlucky day, the Kingdom of
Elves, being in full council assembled in the broad light of the
sun, upon the fair greensward; ere the very numerous, but not
widely sitting diet had yet well opened its
proceedings—"tramp, tramp, across the land," came, flying
at full speed, boar-spear in hand, our madcap huntress; and
without other note of preparation sounded than their own thunder,
her iron-grey's hoofs were in the thick of the sage assembly,
causing an indecorous trepidation, combined with devastation dire
to persons and—wearing apparel.
This wrong, in the second place, the Fairies will wreak and
right.
And all transgression and injury, under one procedure, which
is—summary; as, from the character of the judges and
executioners, into whose hands the sinner has fallen, you would
expect; sufficiently prankish too. With one sleight of their
magical hand they turn the impoverished heiress of ill-possessed
acres forth upon the highway, doomed to earn, with strenuous
manual industry, her livelihood; until, from the winnings of her
handicraft, she is moreover able to make good, as far as this was
liable to pecuniary assessment, the damage sustained under foot
of her fiery barb by the Fairy realm; comfort with handsome
presents the rejected suitors; and until, thoroughly tame, she
yields into her softened and opened bosom, now rid of its
intemperate inmates, an entrance to the once debarred and
contemned visitant—LOVE.
As to the way and style of the Fairy operations that carry out
this drift, comparing the Two Tales, you will see, that omitting,
as a matter that is related merely, not presented, that
misadventure under the oak-tree—there is, in the chamber of
Swanhilda, but a Fairy delegation active, whilst under the Sun's
hill whole Elfdom is in presence; in that resplendent hollow,
wearing their own lovely shapes; within the German castle-walls,
in apt masquerade. There they were grave. Here, we have already
said, that they are merry. There their office was to feel and to
think. Here, if there be any trust in apparitions, they drink,
and what is more critical for an Elfin lip—they eat!
Lastly, to end the comparisons for our well-bred,
well-dressed, and right courtly cavalier, who transacted between
the Fairy Queen and the stonemason's
daughter, him you shall presently see turned into a sort of Elfin
cupbearer or court butler; not without fairy grace of person and
of mind assuredly; not without a due innate sense of the
beautiful, as his perfumed name (SWEETFLOWER) at the outset warns
you; and, as the proximity of his function to her Majesty's
person—for we do not here fall in with any thing like
mention of a king—would suggest, independently of the
delicately responsible part borne by him in the action, the chief
stress of which you will find incumbent upon his capable
shoulders.
Such, in respect of the subject, is, thrice courteous and
intelligent reader, the second piece of art, which we are glad to
have the opportunity of placing before you, from our clever
friend Ernst Willkomm's apparently right fertile easel. The
second, answering to the first, LIKE and UNLIKE, you perceive, as
two companion pictures should be.
But it would be worse than useless to tell you that which you
have seen and that which you will see, unless, from the
juxtaposition of the two fables, there followed—a moral.
They have, as we apprehend, a moral—i.e. one moral,
and that a grave one, in common between them.
Hitherto we have superficially compared THE FAIRIES' SABBATH
and the FAIRY TUTOR. We now wish to develope a profounder analogy
connecting them. We have compared them, as if ESTHETICALLY; we
would now compare them MYTHOLOGICALLY—for, in our
understanding, there lies at the very foundation of both tales A
MYTHOLOGICAL ROOT—by whomsoever set, whether by Ernst
Willkomm to-day, or by the population of the Lusatian
mountains—three, six, ten centuries ago; or, in unreckoned
antiquity, by the common Ancestors of the believers, who, in
still unmeasured antiquity, brought the superstition of the
Fairies out of central Asia to remote occidental Europe.
This ROOT we are bold to think is—"A DEEPLY SEATED
ATTRACTION, ALLYING THE FAIRY MIND TO THE PURITY AND INTEGRITY OF
THE MORAL WILL IN THE MIND OF MEN." And first for the Tale which
presently concerns us:—THE FAIRY TUTOR.
SWEETFLOWER will beguile us into believing that the
interposition of the Fairies in our Baroness's domestic
arrangements, grows up, if one shall so hazardously speak, from
TWO seeds, each bearing two branches—namely, from two
wrongs, the one hitting, the other striking from,
themselves—BOTH which wrongs they will AVENGE and AMEND. We
take up a strenuous theory; and we deny—and we
defy—SWEETFLOWER. Nay, more! Should our excellent friend,
ERNST WILLKOMM, be found taking part, real or apparent, with
SWEETFLOWER, we defy and we deny Ernst Willkomm. For in this
mixed case of the Fairy wrong, we distinguish, first, INJURIES
which shall be retaliated, and, as far as may be, compensated;
and secondly, a SHREW, who is to be turned into a WIFE,
being previously turned out of a shrew.
We dare to believe that this last-mentioned end is the thing
uppermost, and undermost, and middlemost in the mind of the
Fairies; is, in fact, the true and the sole final cause of
all their proceedings.
Or that the moral heart of the poem—that root in
the human breast and will, from which every true poem springs
heavenward—is here the zeal of the spirits for morally
reforming Swanhilda; is, therefore, that deep-seated
attraction, which, as we have averred, essentially allies the
inclination of the Fairies to the moral conscience in our own
kind.
One end, therefore, grounds the whole story, although two and
more are proposed by Sweetflower. It is one that
satisfies the moral reason in man; for it is no less than
to cleanse and heal the will, wounded with error, of a human
creature. That other, which he displays, with mock emphasis, of
restitution to the downtrodden fairyhood, is an exotic, fair and
slight bud, grafted into the sturdier indigenous stock. For let
us fix but a steady look upon the thing itself, and what is there
before us? a whim, a trick of the fancy, tickling the fancy. We
are amused with a quaint calamity—a panic of caps and
cloaks. We laugh—we cannot help it—as the pigmy
assembly flies a thousand ways at once—grave councillors
and all—throwing terrified somersets—hiding
under stones, roots—diving into
coney-burrows—"any where—any where"—vanishing
out of harm's—if not out of dismay's—reach. In a tale
of the Fairies, THE FANCY rules:—and the interest of such a
misfortune, definite and not infinite, is congenial to the spirit
of the gay faculty which hovers over, lives upon surfaces, and
which flees abysses; which thence, likewise, in the moral sphere,
is equal to apprehending resentment of a personal wrong, and a
judicial assessment of damages—but NOT A DISINTERESTED
MORAL END.
What is our conclusion then? plainly that the dolorous
overthrow of the fairy divan is no better than an
invention—the device of an esthetical artist. We hold that
Ernst Willkomm has gratuitously bestowed upon us the
disastrous catastrophe; that he has done this, knowing the
obligation which lies upon Fancy within her own chosen domain to
create, because—there, Fancy listens and reads. The
adroit Fairy delineator must wile over and reconcile the most
sportive, capricious, and self-willed spirit of our
understanding, to accept a purpose foreign to that spirit's
habitual sympathies—a purpose solemn and austere—THE
MORAL PURPOSE OF RESCUING A SIN-ENTANGLED HUMAN SOUL.
Or, if Ernst Willkomm shall guarantee to us, that the
reminiscences of his people have furnished him with the materials
of this tale; if he is, as we must needs hope, who have freely
dealt with you to believe that he is—honest: honest both as
to the general character, and the particular facts of his
representations—if, in short, the Lusatian Highlanders do,
sitting by the bench and the stove, aver and protest that the
said Swanhilda did overturn both council-board and
councillors—then we say, upon this occasion, that which we
must all, hundreds of times, declare—namely, that The
Genius of Tradition is the foremost of artists; and further,
that in this instance an unwilled fiction, determined by a
necessity of the human bosom, has risen up to mantle
seriousness with grace, as a free woodbine enclasps with her
slender-gadding twines, and bedecks with her sweet bright
blossoms, a towering giant of the grove.
It will perhaps be objected, that the moral purity and
goodness that are so powerful to draw to themselves the regard
and care of the spiritual people, are wanting in the character of
the over-bold Swanhilda. We have said that her faults are
the CALL to the Fairies for help and reformation: but we may
likewise guess that Virtue and Truth first won their love. It
must be recollected that the faults which are extirpated from the
breast of our heroine, are not such as, in our natural
understanding of humanity, dishonour or sully. Taken away, the
character may stand clear. It is quite possible that this gone,
there shall be left behind a kind, good, affectionate, generous,
noble nature.
We are free, or, more properly speaking, we are bound to
believe, that thus the Fairies left Swanhilda.
As for Maud, we know—for she was told—that the
Fairies loved her for herself ere they needed her aid. Hanging as
it were upon that wondrous power to help which dwelt within
her—her simple goodness—may we not say that the
Fairies discover an ENFORCED attraction, when they afterwards
approach the maiden for their own succour and salvation; as they
do, a FREE attraction, when, in the person of Swanhilda, they
disinterestedly attach themselves to reforming a fault for the
welfare and happiness of her whom it aggrieves?
We will now proceed, as in our former communication, to adduce
instances from other quarters, confirming the fairy delineations
offered by our tale; or which may tend generally to bring out its
mythological and literary character.
Two points would suggest themselves to us in the tale of the
Fairy Tutor, as chiefly provoking comparison. The first
is:—The affirmed Presidency of the Fairies over human
morals, viewed as a Shape of the Interest which they
take in the uprightness and purity of the human will.
The second is:— The Manner and Style of their
operations: or, THE FAIRY WAYS. In which we chiefly
distinguish—1, The active presence of the Sprites in a
human habitation. 2, Their masquerading. 3, Their dispatch of
human victuals. 4, The liability of Elfin limbs to human
casualties. 5, The personality of that saucy Puck, our tiny
ambassador elf.
We are at once tempted and restrained by the richness of
illustration, which presents itself under all these heads. The
necessity of limitation is, however, imperious. This, and a wish
for simplicity, dispose us to throw all under one more
comprehensive title.
Perhaps the reader has not entirely forgotten that in the
remarks introductory to THE FAIRIES' SABBATH, having launched the
question—what is a Fairy?—we offered him in the way
of answer, eight elements of the Fairy Nature. Has he
quite forgotten that for one of these—it was the
third—we represented the Spirit under examination, as ONE
WHICH AT ONCE SEEKS AND SHUNS MANKIND?
The cursory treatment of this Elfin criterion will now
compendiously place before the reader, as much illustration of
the two above-given heads as we dare impose upon him.
The popular Traditions of entire Western Europe variously
attest for all the kinds of the Fairies, and for some orders of
Spirits partaking of the Fairy character, the singularly
composed, and almost self-contradictory traits of a
seeking implicated and attempered with a shunning;
of a shunning with a seeking. The inclination of our Quest will
be to evidences of the seeking. The shunning will, it need
not be doubted, take good care of itself.
The attraction of the Fairy Species towards our own is,
1. Recognised—in their GENERIC DESIGNATIONS.
2. Apparent—in their GOOD NEIGHBOURHOOD with us.
3. IN THEIR FREQUENTING AND ESTABLISHING THEMSELVES in the places
of our habitual occupancy and resort.
4. IN THEIR CALLING OR CARRYING US into the places of their
Occupancy and Resort; whether to return hither, or to
remain there.
5. BY THEIR ALIGHTING UPON THE PATH, worn already with some
blithe or some weary steps, OF A HUMAN DESTINY;—as
friendly, or as unfriendly Genii.
We collect the proofs: and—
1. Of their GENERIC APPELLATIVES, a Word!
One is tempted to say that THE NATIONS, as if conscious of the
kindly disposition inhering in the spiritual existences toward
ourselves, have simultaneously agreed in conferring upon them
titles of endearment and affection. The brothers Grimm
write—"In Scotland they [The Fairies] are called The
Good People, Good Neighbours, Men of Peace; in
Wales—The Family, The Blessing of their Mothers, The
Dear Ladies; in the old Norse, and to this day in the Faroe
islands, Huldufolk (The Gracious People;) in
Norway, Huldre;23 and, in conformity with these
denominations, discover a striving to be in the proximity of men,
and to keep up a good understanding with them."24
23: May we for HULDRE read HULDREFOLK; and understand the
following, or the Folk of HULDRE? Huldre
means the Gracious Lady: she is a sort of Danish and
Norwegian Fairy-Queen.—See GRIMM'S German
Mythology, p. 168. First edition.
24: The Brothers GRIMM: Introduction to the Irish Fairy
Tales.
2. THIS GOOD NEIGHBOURHOOD, to which these last words point,
is interestingly depicted by the Traditions.
In Scotland and Germany the Fairies plant their habitation
adjoining that of man—"under the
threshold"—and in such attached Fairies an alliance is
unfolded with us of a most extraordinary kind. "The closest
connexion" (id est, of the Fairy species with our own) "is
expressed," say the Brothers Grimm, "by the tradition, agreeably
to which the family of the Fairies ORDERED ITSELF ENTIRELY AFTER
THE HUMAN to which it belonged; and OF WHICH IT WAS AS IF A COPY.
These domestic Fairies kept their marriages upon the same
day as the Human Beings; their children were born
upon the same day; and upon the same
day they wailed for their dead."25
25: The Brothers GRIMM: Introduction to the Irish Fairy
Tales.
Two artlessly sweet breathings of Elfin Table, from the
Helvetian Dales,26 lately revived to your fancy the
sinless—blissful years, when gods with men set fellowing
steps upon one and the same fragrant and unpolluted sward, until
transgression, exiling those to their own celestial abodes, left
these lonely—a nearer, dearer, BARBARIAN Golden
Age—wherein the kindly Dwarf nation stand representing the
great deities of Olympus.
26: See The Dwarfs upon the Maple-Tree, and The
Dwarfs upon the Crag-Stone, in the former paper.
The healthful pure air fans restoration again to us. We lay
before you—
GERMAN TRADITIONS
No. CXLIX The Dwarfs' Feet.
"In old times the men dwelt in the valley, and round about
them, in caves and clefts of the rock, the Dwarfs, in amity
and good neighbourhood with the people, for whom they
performed by night many a heavy labour. When the country folk,
betimes in the morning, came with wains and implements, and
wondered that all was ready done, the Dwarfs were hiding in the
bushes, and laughed out loud. Frequently the peasants were angry
when they saw their yet hardly ripe corn lying reaped upon the
field; but when presently after hail and storm came on, and they
could well know that probably not a stalk should have escaped
perishing, they were then heartily thankful to the provident
Dwarfs. At last, however, the inhabitants, by their sin, fooled
away the grace and favour of the Dwarfs. These fled, and since
then has no eye ever again beheld them. The cause was this
following:—A herdsman had upon the mountain an excellent
cherry-tree. One summer, as the fruit grew ripe, it befell that
the tree was, for three following nights, picked, and the fruit
carried, and fairly spread out in the loft, in which the herdsman
had use to keep his cherries. The people said in the village,
that doth no one other than the honest dwarflings—they come
tripping along by night, in long mantles, with covered feet,
softly as birds, and perform diligently for men the work of the
day. Already often have they been privily watched, but one may
not interrupt them, only let them, come and go at their listing.
By such speeches was the herdsman made curious, and would fain
have wist wherefore the Dwarfs hid so carefully their feet, and
whether these were otherwise shapen than men's feet. When,
therefore, the next year, summer again came, and the season that
the Dwarfs did stealthily pluck the cherries, and bear them into
the garner, the herdsman took a sackful of ashes, which he
strewed round about the tree. The next morning, with daybreak, he
hied to the spot; the tree was regularly gotten, and he saw
beneath in the ashes the print of many geese's feet. Thereat the
herdsman fell a-laughing, and made game, that the mystery of the
Dwarfs was bewrayed; but these presently after brake down and
laid waste their houses, and fled deeper away into their
mountain. They harbour ill-will toward men, and withhold from
them their help. That herdsman which had betrayed the Dwarfs
turned sickly and half-witted, and so continued until his dying
day!"
There! Plucked amidst the lap of the Alps from its own
hardily-nursed wild-brier, by the same tenderly-diligent
hand27 that brought home to us those other
half-disclosed twin-buds of Helvetian tradition, you behold a
third, like pure, more expanded blossom. Twine the three, young
poet! into one soft-hued and "odorous chaplet," ready and meet
for binding the smooth clear forehead of a Swiss Maud!—or
fix it amidst the silken curls of thine own dove-eyed, innocent,
nature-loving—Ellen or Margaret.
27: Of Professor Wyes.
These old-young things—bequests, as they look to
be—from the loving, singing childhood of the earth, may
lawfully make children, lovers, and songsters of us all; and
will, if we are fond, and hearken to them.
In that same "hallowed and gracious time," lying YON-SIDE our
chronologies,
"When the world and love were young,
And truth on every shepherd's tongue,"
the men and the Dwarfs had unbroken intercourse of
borrowing and lending. Many traditions touch the matter.
Here is one resting upon it.
No. CLIV. The Dwarfs near Dardesheim.
"Dardesheim is a little town betwixt Halberstadt and
Brunswick. Close to the north-east side, a spring of the clearest
water flows, which is called the Smansborn,28 and
wells from a hill wherein formerly the Dwarfs dwelled. When the
ancient inhabitants of the place needed a holiday dress, or any
rare utensil for a marriage, they betook them to this Dwarf's
Hill, knocked thrice, and with a well audible voice, told their
occasion, adding—
'Early a-morrow, ere sun-light,
At the hill's door, lieth all aright.'
28: For LESSMANSBORN, i.e. LESSMANN'S WELL.
The Dwarfs held themselves for well requited if somewhat of
the festival meats were set for them by the hill. Afterward
gradually did bickerings interrupt the good understanding that
was betwixt the Dwarfs' nation and the country folk. At the
beginning for a short season; but, in the end, the Dwarfs
departed away; because the flouts and gibes of many boors grew
intolerable to them, as likewise their ingratitude for kindnesses
done. Thenceforth none seeth or heareth any Dwarfs more."
In Auvergne, Miss Costello has just now learned, how
the men and the Fairies anciently lived upon the friendliest
footing, nigh one another: how the knowledge and
commodious use of the Healing Springs was owed by
the former to these Good Neighbours: how, of yore, the powerful
sprites, by rending athwart a huge rocky mound, opened an
innocuous channel for the torrent, which used with
its overflow to lay desolate arable ground and pasturage: how
they were looked upon as being, in a general sense, the
protectors against harm of the country: and, in fine, how the
two orders of neighbours lived in long and happy communion of
kind offices with one another; until, upon one unfortunate day,
the ill-renowned freebooter, Aymerigot Marcel, with his ruffianly
men-at-arms, having approached, by stealth, from his near-lying
hold, stormed the romantically seated rock-mansion of the
bountiful pigmies: who, scared, and in anger, forsook the land.
Ever since the foul outrage, only a straggler may, now and then,
be seen at a distance.
Thus, too, the late Brillat-Savarin, from a sprightly,
acute, brilliant Belles-letteriste, turned, for an hour, honest
antiquary, lets us know how, upon the southern bank of the Rhone,
flowing out from Switzerland, in the narrowly-bounded and, when
he first quitted it, yet hidden valley of his birth:—The
FAIRIES—elderly, not beautiful, but benevolent unmarried
ladies—kept, while time was, open school in THE GROTTO,
which was their habitation, for the young girls of the vicinity,
whom they taught—SEWING.
3. We go on to exemplifying—ELFIN Frequentation of,
and Settlement with, MAN.
The Fairies are drawn into the houses and to the haunts of men
by manifold occasions and impulses. They halt on a journey. They
celebrate marriages. They use the implements of handicraft. They
purchase at the Tavern—from the Shambles, or in open
Market. They steal from oven and field. They go through a
house, blessing the rooms, the marriage-bed—and stand
beside the unconscious cradle. They give dreams. They take part
in the evening mirth. They pray in the churches. They
seem to work in the mines. Drawn by magical
constraint into the garden, they invite themselves within doors.
They dance in the churchyard.29 They make themselves
the wives and the paramours of men; or the serviceable hobgoblin
fixes himself, like a cat, in the house—once and for
ever.
We present traditions for illustrating some of these points,
as they offer themselves to us.
29:
"Part fenced by man, part by the ragged steep
That curbs a foaming brook, a GRAVE-YARD lies;
The hare's best couching-place for fearless sleep!
Where MOONLIT FAYS, far seen by credulous eyes,
ENTER, IN DANCE!"
WORDSWORTH.—Sonnet upon an ABANDONED
Cemetery.
THEY HALT ON A JOURNEY.
No. XXXV. The Count of Hoia.
"There did appear once to a count of Hoia, a little mauling in
the night, and, as the count was alarmed, said to him he should
have no fear: he had a word to sue unto him, and begged that he
should not be denied. The count answered, if it were a thing
possible to do, and should be never burthensome to him and his,
he will gladly do it. The manling said—'There be some that
desire to come to thee this ensuing night, into thy house, and to
make their stopping. Wouldst thou so long lend them kitchen and
hall, and bid thy domestics that they go to bed, and none look
after their ways and works, neither any know thereof, save only
thou? They will show them, therefore, grateful. Thou and thy line
shall have cause of joy, and in the very least matter shall none
hurt happen unto thee, neither to any that belong to thee.'
Whereunto the count assented. Accordingly, upon the following
night, they came like a cavalcade, marching over the drawbridge
to the house; one and all—tiny folk, such as they use to
describe the hill manlings. They cooked in the kitchen, fell too,
and rested, and nothing seemed otherwise than as if a great
repast were in preparing. Thereafter, nigh unto morn, as they
will again depart, comes the little manling a second time to the
count, and after conning him thanks, handed him a sword, a
salamander cloth, and a golden ring, in which was
RED LION set above—advertising him, withal, that he and his
posterity shall well keep these three pieces, and so long as they
had them all together, should it go with fair accordance and well
in the county; but so soon as they shall be parted from one
another, shall it be a sign that nothing good impendeth for the
county. Accordingly, the red lion ever after, when any of the
stem is near the point of dying, hath been seen to wax wan.
"Howsoever, at the time that Count Job and his brothers were
minors, and Francis of Halle governor in the country, two of the
pieces—viz., the Sword and the Salamander Cloth, were taken
away; but the Ring remained with the lordship unto an end.
Whither it afterwards went is not known."
THEY HOLD A WEDDING.
No.XXXI. The Small People's Wedding Feast.
"The small people of the Eulenberg in Saxony would once hold a
marriage, and for this purpose slipped in, in the night, through
the keyhole and the window-chinks into the Hall, and came leaping
down upon the smooth floor, like peas tumbled out upon the
threshing-floor. The old Count, who slept in the high canopy bed
in the Hall, awoke, and marvelled at the number of tiny
companions; one of whom, in the garb of a herald, now approached
him, and in well-set phrase, courteously prayed him to bear part
in their festivity. 'Yet one thing,' he added, 'we beg of you. Ye
shall alone be present; none of your court shall be bold to gaze
upon our mirth—yea, not so much as with a glance.' The old
Count answered pleasantly—'Since ye have once for all waked
me up, I will e'en make one among you.' Hereupon was a little
wifikin led up to him, little torch-bearers took their station,
and a music of crickets struck up. The Count had much ado to save
losing his little partner in the dance; she capered about so
nimbly, and ended with whirling him round and round, until hardly
might he have his breath again. But, in the midst of the jocund
measure, all stood suddenly still; the music ceased, and the
whole throng hurried to the cracks in the doors, mouse-holes, and
hiding-places of all sorts. The newly-married couple only, the
heralds, and the dancers, looked upward towards an orifice that
was in the hall ceiling, and there descried the visage of the old
Countess, who was curiously prying down upon the mirthful doings.
Herewith they made their obeisance to the Count; and the same
which had bidden him, again stepping forward, thanked him for his
hospitality. 'But,' continued he, 'because our pleasure and our
wedding hath been in such sort interrupted, that yet another eye
of man hath looked thereon, henceforward shall your house number
never more than seven Eulenbergs.' Thereupon, they pressed fast
forth, one upon another. Presently all was quiet, and the old
Count once again alone in the dark Hall. The curse hath come true
to this hour, so as ever one of the six living knights of
Eulenberg hath died ere the seventh was born."
THEY JOIN THE EVENING MIRTH.
No. xxxix. The Hill-Manling at the Dance.
"Old folks veritable declared, that some years ago, at Glass,
in Dorf, an hour from the Wunderberg, and an hour from the town
of Salzburg, a wedding was kept, to which, towards evening, a
Hill-Manling came out of the Wunderberg. He exhorted all the
guests to be in honour, gleesome, and merry, and requested leave
to join the dancers, which was not refused him. He danced
accordingly, with modest maidens, one and another; evermore,
three dances with each, and that with a singular featness;
insomuch that the wedding guests looked on with admiration and
pleasure. The dance over, he made his thanks, and bestowed upon
either of the young married people three pieces of money that
were of an unknown coinage; whereof each was held to be worth
four kreuzers; and therewithal admonished them to dwell in
peace and concord, live Christianly, and piously walking, to
bring up their children in all goodness. These coins they
should put amongst their money, and constantly remember
him—so should they seldom fall into hardship. But they
must not therewithal grow arrogant, but, of their superfluity,
succour their neighbours.
"This Hill-Manling stayed with them into the night, and took
of every one to drink and to eat what they proffered; but from
every one only a little. He then paid his courtesy, and desired
that one of the wedding guests might take him over the river
Salzbach toward the mountain. Now, there was at the marriage a
boatman, by name John Standl, who was presently ready, and they
went down together to the ferry. During the passage, the ferryman
asked his meed. The Hill-Manling tendered him, in all humility,
three pennies. The waterman scorned at such mean hire; but the
Manling gave him for answer—'He must not vex himself, but
safely store up the three pennies; for, so doing, he should never
suffer default of his having—if only he did restrain
presumptousness—at the same time he gave the boatman a
little pebble, saying the words—'If thou shalt hang this
about thy neck, thou shalt not possibly perish in the water.'
Which was proved in that same year. Finally, he persuaded him
to a godly and humble manner of life, and went swiftly away."
ANOTHER OF THE SAME.
No. CCCVI. The Three Maidens from the Mere.
"At Epfenbach, nigh Sinzheim, within men's memory, three
wondrously beautiful damsels, attired in white, visited, with
every evening, the village spinning-room. They brought along with
them ever new songs and tunes, and new pretty tales and games.
Moreover, their distaffs and spindles had something peculiar, and
no spinster might so finely and nimbly spin the thread. But upon
the stroke of eleven, they arose; packed up their spinning gear,
and for no prayers might be moved to delay for an instant more.
None wist whence they came, nor whither they went. Only they
called them, The Maidens from the Mere; or, The Sisters of the
Lake. The lads were glad to see them there, and were taken with
love of them; but most of all, the schoolmaster's son. He might
never have enough of hearkening and talking to them, and nothing
grieved him more than that every night they went so early away.
The thought suddenly crossed him, and he set the village clock an
hour back; and, in the evening, with continual talking and
sporting, not a soul perceived the delay of the hour. When the
clock struck eleven—but it was properly twelve—the
three damsels arose, put up their distaffs and things, and
departed. Upon the following morrow, certain persons went by the
Mere; they heard a wailing, and saw three bloody spots above upon
the surface of the water. Since that season, the sisters came
never again to the room. The schoolmaster's son pined, and died
shortly thereafter."
AN ELFIN IS BOUND, IN UNLAWFUL CHAINS, TO A HUMAN LOVER.
No. LXX. The Bushel, the Ring, and the Goblet.
"In the duchy of Lorraine, when it belonged, as it long did,
to Germany, the last count of Orgewiler ruled betwixt Nanzig and
Luenstadt.30 He had no male heir of his blood, and
upon his deathbed, shared his lands amongst his three daughters
and sons-in-law. Simon of Bestein had married the eldest
daughter, the lord of Crony the second, and a German Rhinegrave
the youngest. Beside the lordships, he also distributed to his
heirs three presents; to the eldest daughter a BUSHEL, to the
middle one a DRINKING-CUP, and to the third a jewel, which was a
RING, with an admonition that they and their descendants should
carefully hoard up these pieces, so should their houses be
constantly fortunate."
30: LUNEVILLE.
The tradition, how the things came into the possession of the
count, the Marshal of Bassenstein,31 great-grandson of
Simon, does himself relate thus:—32
"The count was married: but he had beside a secret amour with
a marvellous beautiful woman, which came weekly to him every
Monday, into a summer-house in the garden. This commerce remained
long concealed from his wife. When he withdrew from her side, he
pretended to her, that he went, by night, into the Forest, to the
Stand.
"But when a few years had thus passed, the countess took a
suspicion, and was minded to learn the right truth. One summer
morning early, she slipped after him, and came to the summer
bower. She there saw her husband, sleeping in the arms of a
wondrous fair female; but because they both slept so sweetly, she
would not awaken them; but she took her veil from her head,
and spread it over the feet of both, where they lay asleep.
"When the beautiful paramour awoke, and perceived the veil,
she gave a loud cry, began pitifully to wail, and
said:—
"'Henceforwards, my beloved, we see one another never more.
Now must I tarry at a hundred leagues' distance away, and severed
from thee.'
"Therewith she did 1eave the count, but presented him first
with those afore-named three gifts for his three daughters, which
they should never let go from them.
"The House of Bassenstein, for long years, had a toll, to draw
in fruit, from the town of Spinal,33 whereto this
Bushel was constantly used."
33: EPINAL.
THE HOUSEHOLD SPIRIT DOES HOUSEHOLD SERVICE IN A MILL.
No. LXXIII. The Kobold in the Mill.
"Two students did once fare afoot from Rintel. They purposed
putting up for the night in a village; but for as much as there
did a violent rain fall, and the darkness grew upon them, so as
they might no further forward, they went up to a near-lying mill,
knocked, and begged a night's quarters. The miller was, at the
first, deaf, but yielded, at the last, to their instant entreaty,
opened the door, and brought them into a room. They were hungry
and thirsty both; and because there stood upon a table a dish
with food, and a mug of beer, they begged the miller for them,
being both ready and willing to pay; but the miller denied
them—would not give them even a morsel of bread, and only
the hard bench for their night's bed.
"'The meat and the drink,' said he, 'belong to the Household
Spirit. If ye love your lives, leave them both untouched. But
else have ye no harm to fear. If there chance a little din in the
night, be ye but still and sleep.'
"The two students laid themselves down to sleep; but after the
space of an hour or the like, hunger did assail the one so
vehemently that he stood up and sought after the dish. The other,
a Master of Arts, warned him to leave to the Devil what was the
Devil's due; but he answered, 'I have a better right than the
Devil to it'—seated himself at the table, and ate to his
heart's content, so that little was left of the cookery. After
that, he laid hold of the can, took a good Pomeranian pull, and
having thus somewhat appeased his desire, he laid himself again
down to his companion; but when, after a time, thirst anew
tormented him, he again rose up, and pulled a second so hearty
draught, that he left the Household Spirit only the bottoms.
After he had thus cheered and comforted himself, he lay down and
fell asleep.
"All remained quiet on to midnight; but hardly was this well
by, when the Kobold came banging in with so loud
coil,34 that both sleepers awoke in great fright. He
bounced a few times to and fro about the room, then seated
himself as if to enjoy his supper at the table, and they could
plainly hear how he pulled the dish to him. Immediately he set
it, as though in ill humour, hard down again, laid hold of the
can, pressed up the lid, but straightway let it clap sharply to
again. He now fell to his work; he wiped the table, next the legs
of the table, carefully down, and then swept, as with a besom,
the door diligently. When this was done, he returned to visit
once more the dish and the beercan, if his luck might be any
better this turn, but once more pushed both angrily away.
Thereupon he proceeded in his labour, came to the benches,
washed, scoured, rubbed them, below and above. When he
came to the place where the two students
lay, he passed them over, and worked on beyond their feet. When
this was done, he began upon the bench a second time above their
heads; and, for the second time likewise, passed over the
visitants. But the third time, when he came to them, he stroked
gently the one which had nothing tasted, over the hair and along
the whole body, without any whit hurting him; but the other he
griped by the feet, dragged him two or three times round the room
upon the floor, till at the last he left him lying, and ran
behind the stove, whence he laughed him loudly to scorn. The
student crawled back to the bench; but in a quarter of an hour
the Kobold began his work anew, sweeping, cleaning, wiping. The
two lay there quaking with fear:—the one he felt quite
softly over, when he came to him; but the other he flung again
upon the ground, and again broke out, at the back of the stove,
into a flouting horse-laugh.
34: Exactly so, the hairy THRESHING Goblin of
Milton—at going out, again:—
"Till, cropful, out o' door HE FLINGS."
He, too, is paid for his work, with
——"his CREAM-BOWL, duly
set."
"The students now no longer chose to lie upon the bench, rose,
and set up, before the closed and locked door, a loud outcry; but
none took any heed to it. They were at length resolved to lay
themselves down close together upon the flat floor; but the
Kobold left them not in peace. He began, for the third time, his
game:—came and lugged the guilty one about, laughed, and
scoffed him. He was now fairly mad with rage, drew his sword,
thrust and cut into the corner whence the laugh rang, and
challenged the Kobold with bravadoes, to come on. He then sat
down, his weapon in his hand, upon the bench, to await what
should further befall; but the noise ceased, and all remained
still.
"The miller upbraided them upon the morrow, for that they had
not conformed themselves to his admonishing, neither had left the
victuals untouched. It was as much as their two lives were
worth."
Three heads only of the ATTRACTION, above imputed to the
Fairies towards our own kind, have been here imperfectly brought
out; and already the narrowness of our limits warns us—with
a sigh given to the traditions crowding upon us from all
countries, and which we perforce leave unused—to bring
these preliminary remarks to a close. Still, something has
been gained for illustrating our Tale. The Hill-Manling at the
dance diligently warns against PRIDE—the rank ROOT evil
which the Fairies will weed out from the bosom of our heroine,
whilst throughout a marked feature of the Fairy ways—"THE
ACTIVE PRESENCE OF THE SPIRITS IN A HUMAN HABITATION" has forced
itself upon us, in diverse, and some, perhaps, unexpected
forms.
And still, our fuller examples, coming to us wholly
from the Collection of the Two Brothers, and expressing the
habitudes of various WIGHTS and ELVES, may furnish, for
comparison with Ernst Willkomm's Upper Lusatian, an EXTRA
Lusatian picture of the TEUTONIC FAIRYHOOD.
THE FAIRY TUTOR.
"In days of yore there lived, alone in her castle, a maiden
named Swanhilda. She was the only child of a proud father, lately
deceased. Her mother she had lost when she was but a child; so
that the education of the daughter had fallen wholly into the
hands of the father.
"During the lifetime even of the old knight, many suitors had
offered themselves for Swanhilda; but she seemed to be insensible
to every tender emotion, and dismissed with disdainful
haughtiness the whole body of wooers. Meanwhile she hunted the
stag and the board, and performed squire's service for her
gradually declining parent. This manner of life was so entirely
to the taste of the maiden, notwithstanding that in delicacy of
frame, and in bewitching gracefulness of figure, she gave place
to none of her sex, that when at length her father died, she took
upon herself the management of the castle, and lived aloof in
pride and independence, in the very fashion of an Amazon. Maugre
the many refusals which Swanhilda had
already distributed on every side, there still flocked to her
loving knights, eager to wed; but, like their predecessors, they
were all sent drooping home again. The young nobility could at
last bear this treatment no longer; and they, one and all,
resolved either to constrain the supercilious damsel to wedlock,
or to make her smart for a refusal. An embassy was dispatched,
charged with notifying this resolution to the mistress of the
castle. Swanhilda heard the speakers quietly to the end; but her
answer was tuned as before, or indeed rang harsher and more
offensive than ever. Turning her back upon the embassy, she left
them to depart, scorned and ashamed.
"In the night following the day upon which this happened,
Swanhilda was disturbed out of her sleep by a noise which seemed
to her to ascend from her chamber floor; but let her strain her
eyes as she might, she could for a long while discern nothing. At
length she observed, in the middle of the room, a straying
sparkle of light, that threw itself over and over like a tumbler,
tittering, at the same time, like a human being. Swanhilda for a
while kept herself quiet; but as the luminous antic ceased not
practising his harlequinade, she peevishly exclaimed—'What
buffoon is carrying on his fooleries here? I desire to be left in
peace.' The light vanished instantly, and Swanhilda already had
congratulated herself upon gaining her point, when suddenly a
loud shrilly sound was heard—the floor of the apartment
gave way, and from the gap there arose a table set out with the
choicest viands. It rested upon a lucid body of air, upon which
the tiny attendants skipped with great agility to and fro,
waiting upon seated guests. At first Swanhilda was so amazed that
her breath forsook her; but becoming by degrees somewhat
collected, she observed, to her extreme astonishment, that an
effigy of herself sat at the strange table, in the midst of the
numerous train of suitors, whom she had so haughtily dismissed.
The attendants presented to the young knights the daintiest
dishes, the savour of which came sweetly-smelling enough to the
nostrils of the proud damsel. As often, however, as the knights
were helped to meat and drink, the figure of Swanhilda at the
board was presented by an ill-favoured Dwarf, who stood as her
servant behind her, with an empty basket, whereat the suitor's
broke out into wild laughter. She also soon became aware, that as
many courses were served up to the guests as she had heretofore
dispensed refusals, and the amount of these was certainly not
small.
"Swanhilda, weary of the absurd phantasmagoria, was going to
speak again; but to her horror she discovered that the power of
speech had left her. She had for some time been struck with a
kind of whispering and tittering about her. In order to make out
whence this proceeded, she leaned out of her bed, and, peering
between the silk curtains, perceived two smart diminutive
cupbearers, in garments of blue, with green aprons, and small
yellow caps. She had scarcely got sight of the little gentlemen
when their whispering took the character of audible words; and
the dumb Swanhilda was enabled to overhear the following
discourse:
"'But, I pri'thee, tell me, Sweetflower, how this show shall
end?' said one of the two cupbearers,—'thou art, we know,
the confidant of our queen, and, certes, canst disclose to me
somewhat of her plans?'
"'That can I, my small-witted Monsieur Silverfine,' answered
Sweetflower. 'Know, therefore, that this sweet and lovely to
behold brute of a girl, is now beginning to suffer the
castigation due to her innumerable offences. Swanhilda has sinned
against all maidenly modesty, has borne herself proud and
overbearing towards honourable gentlemen, and, besides, has most
seriously offended our queen.'
"'How so?' enquired Silverfine.
"'By storming on her Barbary steed, like the devil himself,
through the thick of our States' Assembly, pounding the arms and
legs of I don't know how many of our sapient representatives.
What makes the matter worse is, that this happened at the very
opening of the diet, and whilst the grand prelusive symphony of
the whole hidden people was in full burst. We were sitting by
hundreds of thousands upon blades, stalks, and leaves; some of us
still actively busied arranging comfortable seats for the older
people in the blue harebells. For this we had stripped the skins
of sixty thousand red field spiders, and wrought them into
canopies and hangings. All our talented performers had tuned
their instruments, scraped, fluted, twanged, jingled, and shawmed
to their hearts' content, and had resined their fiddlesticks upon
the freshest of dewdrops. All at once, tearing out of the wood,
with your leave, or without your leave, comes this monster of a
girl, plump upon upper house and lower house together. Ah,
lack-a-daisy! what a massacre it was! The first hoof struck a
thousand of our prime orators dead upon the spot, the other three
hoofs scattered the Imperial diet in all directions, and, what is
worse than all, tore to pieces a multitude of our exquisite caps.
Our queen was almost frantic at the breach of the peace—she
stamped with her foot, and cried out, "LIGHTNING!" and what that
means we all pretty well know. Just at this time, too, she
received information of the maiden's arrogant behaviour towards
her suitors, and on the instant she determined to put the sinner
to her prayers. We began by devouring every thing clean up,
giving her the pleasure of looking on.'
"'Silly, absurd creatures!' thought Swanhilda, as the
little butler advanced to the table to put on some fresh wine.
During his absence she had time to note how perhaps a dozen other
Fairies drew up through the floor whole pailfuls of wine and
smoking meats, which were conveyed immediately to the table, and
there consumed as if by the wind. She was heartily longing for
the day to dawn, that the sun might dissipate her dream, when the
sprightly little speaker came to his place again.
"'Now we can gossip a little longer,' said Sweetflower. 'My
guests are provided for, and between this and
cock-crow—when house and cellar will be
emptied—there's some time yet.'
"Swanhilda uttered (mentally) a prodigious imprecation,
and turned herself so violently in the bed, that the little
gentlemen were absolutely terrified.
"'I verily believe we are going to have an earthquake!' said
Silverfine.
"'No such thing!' answered Sweetflower. 'The amiable young
lady in bed there has seen the sport perhaps, and is very likely
not altogether pleased with it.'
"'Don't you think she would speak, if she saw all this
wastefulness going on?' asked Silverfine.
"'Yes, if she could!' chuckled Sweetflower. 'But our queen has
been cruel enough to strike her dumb, whilst she looks upon this
heartbreaking spectacle. If she once wakes, she won't be troubled
again with sleep before cock-crow.'
"'A pretty business!' thought Swanhilda, once more
tossing herself passionately about in her bed.
"'Quite right!' said Sweetflower triumphantly. 'The imp of a
girl has waked up.'
"'Insolent wretches!' said Swanhilda (internally.) 'Brute and
imp to me! Oh, if I could only speak!'
"'Why, the whole fun of the thing is,' said Sweetflower,
almost bursting with laughter, 'just that that wish won't be
gratified. Does the fool of a woman think that she is to trample
down our orchestra with impunity, to put our States' Assembly to
flight, and to crush our very selves into a jelly!'
"'And the unbidden guests divine my very thoughts!'
thought Swanhilda. 'Upon my life, it looks as if a spice
of omniscience had really crept under their caps!'
"'Why, of course!' answered Sweetflower.
"'Then will I think no more!' resolved Swanhilda.
"'And there, my prudent damsel, you show a good discretion,'
returned Sweetflower, saluting her with an ironical bow.
"'How will it be, then, with our caps?' enquired Silverfine.
'Are they to be repaired?'
"'Oh, certainly,' returned Sweetflower; 'and that will cost
our Amazon here more than all. Indeed, the conditions of her
punishment are, to make good the caps, to pledge her troth to one
of her despised suitors, to compensate the rest with magnificent
gifts, and, for the future, never to mount hunter more, but to
amble upon a gentle palfrey, as a lady should. And, till all
this is done, am I to have the teaching of her.'
"'Pretty conditions truly!' thought Swanhilda. 'I would rather
die than keep them.'
"'Just as you please, most worthy madam,' answered
Sweetflower; 'but you'll think better of it yet, perhaps.'
"'It will fall heavy enough upon her,' said Silverfine,
'seeing that we have it in command to seize upon all the lady's
treasures.'
"'Capital, capital!' shouted Sweetflower. 'That's peppering
the punishment truly! For now must this haughty man-hating
creature go about begging, catching and carrying fish to market,
and so submitting herself to the scorn and laughter of all her
former lovers, till her trade makes her rich again. Nothing but
luck in fishing will our queen vouchsafe the audacious madam.
Three years are allowed her. But, in the interim, she must starve
and famish like a white mouse learning to dance.'
"At this moment a monstrous burst of laughter roared from the
table. The guests sang aloud—
"'The last flagon we end,
Swanhilda shall mend;
Huzza, knights, and drink
To the last dollar's chink!'
"As the song ceased, the table descended, the floor closed up,
and stillness was in the room again, as when the lady had first
retired to her couch. The cock crew, and Swanhilda fell into a
deep sleep.
"When it left her, the sun already shone high and bright, and
played on her silken bed-curtains. She rubbed her eyes, and
seeing every thing about her in its usual state, she concluded
that what had happened was nothing worse than a feverish dream.
She now arose, began dressing herself, and would have allayed her
waking thirst, but she could find neither glass nor
water-pitcher. She called angrily to her waiting-woman.
"'How come you to forget water, blockhead?' she exclaimed;
'get some quickly, and then—Breakfast!'
"The attendant departed, shaking her head; for she knew well
enough that every thing had been put in order as usual on the
evening before. She very quickly returned, frightened out of her
wits, and hardly able to speak.
"'Oh my lady! my lady! my lady!' she stammered out.
"'Well, where is the water?'
"'Gone! all drained and dried up! Tub, brook, well—all
empty and dry!'
"'Is it possible?' said Swanhilda. 'Your eyes have surely
deceived you! But never mind—bring up my breakfast. A ham
and two Pomeranian geese-breasts.'
"'Alack! gracious lady!' answered the girl, sobbing, 'every
thing in the house is gone too! The wine-casks lie in pieces on
the cellar floor; the stalls are empty; your favourite horse is
away—hay and corn rotted through. It is shocking!'
"Swanhilda dismissed her, and broke out at first into words
wild and vehement. She checked them; but tears of disappointment
and bitter rage forced their way in spite of her. A visit to her
cellar, store-rooms, and granaries, convinced her of the horrible
transformation which a night had effected in every thing that
belonged to her. She found nothing every where but mould and
sickly-smelling mildew; and was too soon aware that the hideous
images of the night were nothing less than frightful realities.
Her hardened heart stood proof; and since the whole region for
leagues round was turned into a blighted brown heath, she at one
resolved to die of hunger. Ere noon her few servants had deserted
the castle, and Swanhilda herself hungered till her bowels
growled again.
"This laudable self-castigation she persevered in for three
days long, when her hunger had increased to such a pitch that she
could no longer remain quiet in the castle. In a state of half
consciousness, she staggered down to the lake, known far and wide
by the name of the Castle mere. Here, on the glassy surface,
basked the liveliest fishes. Swanhilda for a while watched in
silence the disport of the happy creatures, then snatched up a
hazel wand lying at her feet, round the end of which a worm had
coiled, and, half maddened by the joyance of the finny tribe,
struck with it into the water. A greedy fish snapped at the
switch. The famishing Swanhilda clutched hungeringly at
it, but found in her hand a piece of offensive carrion, and
nothing more; whilst around, from every side, there rang such a
clatter of commingled mockery and laughter, that Swanhilda vented
a terrible imprecation, and shed once more—a scorching
tear.
"'Oh! we shall soon have you tame enough!' said a voice
straight before her, and she recognized it at once for the
speaker of that miserable night. Looking about her, she perceived
a moss-rose that luxuriated upon the rock. In one of the expanded
buds sat a little kicking fellow, with green apron, sky-blue
vest, and yellow bonnet. He was laughing right into the face of
the angry miss; and, quaffing off one little flower-cup after
another, filled them bravely again, and jingled with his tiny
bunch of keys, as if he had been grand butler to the
universe.
"'A flavour like a nosegay!' said the malicious rogue. 'Wilt
hob-nob with me, maiden? What do you say? Are we adepts at
sacking a house? 'Twill give thee trouble to fill thy cellars
again as we found them. Take heart, girl. If you will come to,
and take kindly to your angling, and do the thing that's handsome
by your wooers, you shall have an eatable dinner yet up at the
castle.'
"'Infamous pigmy!' exclaimed Swanhilda, lashing with her rod,
as she spoke, at the little rose. The small buffeteer meanwhile
had leaped down, and, in the turning of a hand, had perched
himself upon the lady's nose, where he drummed an animating march
with his heels.
"'Thy nose, I do protest, is excellently soft, thou wicked
witch!' said the rascal. 'If thou wilt now try thy hand at
fishing for the town market, thou shalt be entertained the while
with the finest band of music in the world. Be good and pretty,
and take up thy angling-rod. Trumpets and drums, flutes and
clarinets, shall all strike up together.'
"Swanhilda tried hard to shake the jocular tormentor off, but
he kept his place on the bridge as if he had grown to it. She
made a snatch at him, and he bit her finger.
"'Hark'e, my damsel!' quoth Sweetflower; 'if you are so
unmannerly, 'tis time for a lesson. You smarted too little when
you were a young one. We must make all that good now;' and
forthwith he settled himself properly upon her nose, dangling a
leg on either side, like a cavalier in saddle. 'Come, my pretty,
be industrious,' continued he; 'get to work, and follow good
counsel.' And then he whistled a blithe and gamesome tune.
"Swanhilda, not heedlessly to prolong her own vexation, dipped
the rod into the water, and immediately saw another gleaming fish
wriggling at its end. A basket, delicately woven of flowers,
stood beside her, half filled with clear water. The fish dropped
into it of themselves. The wee companion beat meanwhile with his
feet upon the wings of the lady's nose, played ten instruments or
more at once, and extemporized a light rambling rhyme, wherein
arch gibes and playful derision of her present forlorn estate
were not unmingled with auguries of a friendlier future.
"'There, you see! where's the distress?' said the urchin,
laughing. 'The basket is as full as it can hold. Off with you to
the town, and when your fish are once sold, you may make
yourself—some water-gruel.' With these words the elf leaped
into the fish-basket, crept out again on the other side, plucked
a king-cup, took seat in it, and gave the word—'Forwards!'
The flower, on the instant, displayed its petals. There appeared
sail and rudder to the small and delicate ship, which at once
took motion, and sailed gaily through the air.
"'A prosperous market to you, Swanhilda!' cried Sweetflower,
'behave discreetly now, and do your tutor justice!'
"Swanhilda, perforce, resigned herself to her destiny. She
took her basket, and carried it home, intending to disguise
herself as completely as possible before making for the town. But
all her clothes lay crumbling into dust. Needs must she then,
harassed by hunger and thirst, begin her weary walk, equipped, as
she was, in her velvet riding-habit.
"Without fatigue, surprised at her celerity—she was in
the market-place. The eyes of all naturally took the direction of
the well-born fisherwoman. Still pity held the tongue
of
scorn in thrall, and Swanhilda saw her basket speedily emptied.
Once more within her castle walls, she beheld a running spring in
the courtyard, and near it an earthen pitcher. She
filled—drank—and carried the remainder to the hall,
where she found a small fire burning, a pipkin, and a loaf. She
submissively cooked herself a meagre pottage of bread and water,
appeased the cravings of nature, and fell into a sound sleep.
"Morning came, and she awoke with thirst burning afresh. She
hastened to the spring, but fountain and pitcher were no loner
there. In their stead a hoarse laugh greeted her; and in the next
instant she perceived the tiny butler, astride upon a cork,
galloping before her across the courtyard, and addressing his
pupil with another snatch of his derisive song.
"The courage of Swanhilda surmounted her wrath, and she
carried her fish-basket to the lake. It was soon filled, and she
again on her way to market. An amazing multitude of people were
already in motion here, who presently thronged about the
market-woman. The basket was nearly emptied, when two of her old
suitors approached. Swanhilda was confounded, and a blush of deep
shame inflamed her countenance. Curiosity and the pleasure of
malice spurred them to accost her; but the sometime-haughty
damsel cast her eyes upon the ground, and in answer tendered her
fish for sale. The knights bought; mixing, however, ungentle
gibes with their good coin. Swanhilda, at the moment, caught
sight of her tutor peeping from a daisy—saluting her with
his little cap, and nodding approbation.
"'I would you were in the kingdom of pepper!' thought
Swanhilda, and in the next instant the fairy was running upon her
nose and cheeks, most unmercifully stamping, and tickling her
with a little hair till she sneezed again.
"'Stay, stay, I must teach thee courtesy, if I can. What! a
profane swearer too! Wish me in the kingdom of pepper! We'll have
pepper growing on thy soft cheeks here. There, there—is
that pepper? Thou art rouged, my lady, ready for a ball!'
"Swanhilda turned upon her homeward way, the adhesive Elf
still tripping ceaselessly about her face, and bore her
infliction with a virtuous patience. In her court and hall she
found, as before, the spring, the bread, and the fire. As before,
she satisfied hunger and thirst, and slept—the sweeter
already for her punishment and pain.
"And so passed day after day. The tricky Elf became a less
severe, still trusty schoolmaster. The profits of her trading,
under fairy guardianship, were great to marvelling; and it must
be owned that her aversion to angling craft did not increase in
proportion. As time ran on, she had encountered all her discarded
knights, now singly and now in companies. A year and a half
elapsed, and left the relation between suitors and maiden as at
the beginning. At length a chivalric and gentle knight, noble in
person as in birth, ventured to accost her, loving and reverently
as in her brighter days of yore. Abashed, overcome with shame,
the maiden was at the mercy of the light-winged, blithe, and
watchful god, who seized his hour to enthrone himself upon her
heart. She bought the fairy caps and mantles—she made
honourable satisfaction to the knights, and to him whose generous
constancy had won her heart, she gave a willing and a softened
hand.
"Upon her wedding day, the QUIET PEOPLE did not fail to adorn
the festival with their radiant presence; albeit the merry
creatures played a strange cross-game on the occasion. The
blissful day over, and the happy bride and bridegroom withdrawing
from the banquet and the dance, the well-pleased chirping, able
little tutor hopped before them, and led them to the hymeneal
bower with floral flute, and gratulatory song!"
PORTUGAL.35
35: Memoirs of the Marquis of Pombal. By J. SMITH,
Esq., Private Secretary to the Marquis of Saldanha. Two
vols.
The connexion of Portugal with England has been continued for
so long a period, and the fortunes of Portugal have risen and
fallen so constantly in the exact degree of her more intimate or
more relaxed alliance with England that a knowledge of her
interests, her habits, and her history, becomes an especial
accomplishment of the English statesman. The two countries have
an additional tie, in the similitude of their early pursuits,
their original character for enterprise, and their mutual
services. Portugal, like England, with a narrow territory, but
that territory largely open to the sea, was maritime from her
beginning; like England, her early power was derived from the
discovery of remote countries; like England, she threw her force
into colonization, at an era when all other nations of Europe
were wasting their strength in unnecessary wars; like England,
without desiring to enlarge her territory, she has preserved her
independence; and, so sustain the similitude to its full extent,
like England, she founded an immense colony in the western world,
with which, after severing the link of government, she retains
the link of a common language, policy, literature, and
religion.
The growth of the great European powers at length overshadowed
the prosperity of Portugal, and the usurpation of her government
by Spain sank her into a temporary depression. But the native
gallantry of the nation at length shook off the yoke; and a new
effort commenced for her restoration to the place which she was
entitled to maintain in the world. It is remarkable that, at such
periods in the history of nations, some eminent individual comes
forward, as if designated for the especial office of a national
guide. Such an individual was the Marquis of Pombal, the virtual
sovereign of Portugal for twenty-seven years—a man of
talent, intrepidity, and virtue. His services were the crush of
faction and the birth of public spirit, the fall of the Jesuits
and the peace of his country. His inscription should be, "The
Restorer of his Country."
The Marquis of Pombal was born on the 13th of May 1699, at
Soure, a Portuguese village near the town of Pombal. His father,
Manoel Carvalho, was a country gentleman of moderate fortune, of
the rank of fidalgo de provincia—a distinction which
gave him the privileges attached to nobility, though not to the
title of a grandee, that honour not descending below dukes,
marquises, and counts. His mother was Theresa de Mendonca, a
woman of family. He had two brothers, Francis and Paul. His own
names were Sebastian Joseph, to which was added that of Mello,
from his maternal ancestor.
Having, like the sons of Portuguese gentlemen in general,
studied for a period in the university of Coimbra, he entered the
army as a private, according to the custom of the country, and
rose to the rank of corporal, which he held until circumstances,
and an introduction to Cardinal Motta, who was subsequently
prime-minister, induced him to devote himself to the study of
history, politics, and law. The cardinal, struck with his
ability, strongly advised him to persevere in those pursuits,
appointed him, in 1733, member of the Royal Academy of History,
and shortly after, the king proposed that he should write the
history of certain of the Portuguese monarchs; but this design
was laid aside, and Pombal remained unemployed for six years,
until, in 1739, he was sent by the cardinal to London, as
Portuguese minister. He retained his office until 1745; yet it is
remarkable, and an evidence of the difficulty of acquiring a new
language, that Pombal, though thus living six active years in the
country, was never able to acquire the English language. It must,
however, be recollected, that at this period French was the
universal language of diplomacy, the language of the court
circles, and the polished language of all the travelled ranks of
England. The writings, too, of the French historians, wits, and
politicians, were the study of every man who pretended to
good-breeding, and the only study of most; so that, to a
stranger, the acquisition of the vernacular tongue could be
scarcely more than a matter of curiosity. Times, however, are
changed; and the diplomatist who should now come to this country
without a knowledge of the language, would be despised for his
ignorance of an essential knowledge, and had better remain at
home. Soon after his return, he was employed in a negotiation to
reconcile the courts of Rome and Vienna on an ecclesiastical
claim. His reputation had already reached Vienna; and it is
surmised that Maria Theresa, the empress, had desired his
appointment as ambassador. His embassy was successful. At Vienna,
Pombal, who was a widower, married the Countess Ernestein Daun,
by whom he had two sons and three daughters. Pombal was destined
to be a favourite at courts from his handsome exterior. He was
above the middle size, finely formed, and with a remarkably
intellectual countenance; his manners graceful, and his language
animated and elegant. His reputation at Vienna was so high, that
on a vacancy in the Foreign office at Lisbon, Pombal was recalled
to take the portfolio in 1750. Don John, the king, died shortly
after, and Don Joseph, at the age of thirty-five, ascended the
throne, appointing Pombal virtually his prime-minister—a
rank which he held, unshaken and unrivaled, for the extraordinary
period of twenty-seven years.
The six years of unemployed and private life, which the great
minister had spent in the practical study of his country, were of
the most memorable service to his future administration. His six
years' residence in England added practical knowledge to
theoretical; and with the whole machinery of a free, active, and
popular government in constant operation before his eyes, he
returned to take the government of a dilapidated country. The
power of the priesthood, exercised in the most fearful shape of
tyranny; the power of the crown, at once feeble and arbitrary;
the power of opinion, wholly extinguished; and the power of the
people, perverted into the instrument of their own
oppression—were the elements of evil with which the
minister had to deal; and he dealt with them vigorously,
sincerely, and successfully.
The most horrible tribunal of irresponsible power, combined
with the most remorseless priestcraft, was the Inquisition; for
it not merely punished men for obeying their own consciences, but
tried them in defiance of every principle of enquiry. It not only
made a law contradictory of every other law, but it established a
tribunal subversive of every mode by which the innocent could be
defended. It was a murderer on principle. Pombal's first act was
a bold and noble effort to reduce this tribunal within the limits
of national safety. By a decree of 1751, it was ordered that
thenceforth no judicial burnings should take place without the
consent and approval of the government, taking to itself the
right of enquiry and examination, and confirming or reversing the
sentence according to its own judgment. This measure decided at
once the originality and the boldness of the minister: for it was
the first effort of the kind in a Popish kingdom; and it was made
against the whole power of Rome, the restless intrigues of the
Jesuits, and the inveterate superstition of the people.
Having achieved this great work of humanity, the minister's
next attention was directed to the defences of the kingdom. He
found all the fortresses in a state of decay, he appropriated an
annual revenue of L.7000 for their reparation; he established a
national manufactory of gunpowder, it having been previously
supplied by contract, and being of course supplied of the worst
quality at the highest rate. He established regulations for the
fisheries, he broke up iniquitous contracts, he attempted to
establish a sugar refinery, and directed the attention of the
people largely to the cultivation of silk. His next reformation
was that of the police. The disorders of the late reign had
covered the highways with robbers. Pombal instituted a police so
effective, and proceeded with such determined justice against all
disturbers of the peace, that the roads grew suddenly safe, and
the streets of Lisbon became proverbial for security, at a time
when every capital of Europe was infested with robbers and
assassins, and when even the state of London was so hazardous, as
to be mentioned in the king's speech in 1753 as a scandal to the
country. The next reform was in the collection of the revenue. An
immense portion of the taxes had hitherto gone into the pockets
of the collectors. Pombal appointed twenty-eight receivers for
the various provinces, abolished at a stroke a host of inferior
officers, made the promisers responsible for the receivers, and
restored the revenue to a healthy condition. Commerce next
engaged his attention; he established a company to trade to the
East and China, the old sources of Portuguese wealth. In the
western dominions of Portugal, commerce had hitherto languished.
He established a great company for the Brazil trade. But his
still higher praise was his humanity. Though acting in the midst
of a nation overrun with the most violent follies and prejudices
of Popery, he laboured to correct the abuses of the convents;
and, among the rest, their habit of retaining as nuns the
daughters of the Brazilian Portuguese who had been sent over for
their education. By a wise and humane decree, issued in 1765, the
Indians, and a large portion of Brazil, were declared free.
Expedients were adopted to civilize them, and privileges were
granted to the Portuguese who should contract marriage among
them. Of course those great objects were not achieved without
encountering serious difficulties. The pride of the idle
aristocracy, the sleepless intriguing of the Jesuits, the
ignorant enthusiasm of the people, and the sluggish supremacy of
the priests, were all up in arms against him. But his principle
was pure, his knowledge sound, and his resolution decided. Above
all, he had, in the person of the king, a man of strong mind,
convinced of the necessities of change, and determined to sustain
the minister. The reforms soon vindicated themselves by the
public prosperity; and Pombal exercised all the powers of a
despotic sovereign, in the benevolent spirit of a regenerator of
his country.
But a tremendous physical calamity was now about to put to the
test at once the fortitude of this great minister, and the
resources of Portugal.
On the morning of All-Saints' day, the 1st of November 1755,
Lisbon was almost torn up from the foundations by the most
terrible earthquake on European record. As it was a high Romish
festival, the population were crowding to the churches, which
were lighted up in honour of the day. About a quarter before ten
the first shock was felt, which lasted the extraordinary length
of six or seven minutes; then followed an interval of about five
minutes, after which the shock was renewed, lasting about three
minutes. The concussions were so violent in both instances that
nearly all the solid buildings were dashed to the ground, and the
principal part of the city almost wholly ruined. The terror of
the population, rushing through the falling streets, gathered in
the churches, or madly attempting to escape into the fields, may
be imagined; but the whole scene of horror, death, and ruin,
exceeds all description. The ground split into chasms, into which
the people were plunged in their fright. Crowds fled to the
water; but the Tagus, agitated like the land, suddenly rose to an
extraordinary height, burst upon the land, and swept away all
within its reach. It was said to have risen to the height of
five-and-twenty or thirty feet above its usual level, and to have
sunk again as much below it. And this phenomenon occurred four
times.
The despatch from the British consul stated, that the especial
force of the earthquake seemed to be directly under the city; for
while Lisbon was lifted from the ground, as if by the explosion
of a gunpowder mine, the damage either above or below was not so
considerable. One of the principal quays, to which it was said
that many people had crowded for safety, was plunged under the
Tagus, and totally disappeared. Ships were carried down by the
shock on the river, dashes to pieces against each other, or flung
upon the shore. To complete the catastrophe, fires broke out
in the ruins, which spread over the face of the city, burned for
five or six days, and reduced all the goods and property of the
people to ashes. For forty days the shocks continued with more or
less violence, but they had now nothing left to destroy. The
people were thus kept in a constant state of alarm, and forced to
encamp in the open fields, though it was now winter. The royal
family were encamped in the gardens of the palace; and, as in all
the elements of society had been shaken together, Lisbon and its
vicinity became the place of gathering for banditti from all
quarters in the kingdom. A number of Spanish deserters made their
way to the city, and robberies and murders of the most desperate
kind were constantly perpetrated.
During this awful period, the whole weight of government fell
upon the shoulders of the minister; and he bore it well. He
adopted the most active measures for provisioning the city, for
repressing plunder and violence, and for enabling the population
to support themselves during this period of suffering. It was
calculated that seven millions sterling could scarcely repair the
damage of the city; and that not less than eighty thousand lives
had been lost, either crushed by the earth or swallowed up by the
waters. Some conception of the native mortality may be formed
from that of the English: of the comparatively small number of
whom, resident at that time in Lisbon, no less than twenty-eight
men and fifty women were among the sufferers.
The royal family were at the palace of Belem when this
tremendous calamity occurred. Pombal instantly hastened there. He
found every one in consternation. "What is to be done," exclaimed
the king, as he entered "to meet this infliction of divine
justice?" The calm and resolute answer of Pombal was—"Bury
the dead, and feed the living." This sentence is still recorded,
with honour, in the memory of Portugal.
The minister then threw himself into his carriage, and
returned to the ruins. For several days his only habitation was
his carriage; and from it he continued to issue regulations for
the public security. Those regulations amounted to the remarkable
number of two hundred; and embraced all the topics of police,
provisions, and the burial of the sufferers. Among those
regulations was the singular, but sagacious one, of prohibiting
all persons from leaving the city without a passport. By this,
those who had robbed the people, or plundered the church plate,
were prevented from escaping to the country and hiding their
plunder, and consequently were obliged to abandon, or to restore
it. But every shape of public duty was met by this vigorous and
intelligent minister. He provided for the cure of the wounded,
the habitancy of the houseless, the provision of the destitute.
He brought troops from the provinces for the protection of the
capital, he forced the idlers to work, he collected the inmates
of the ruined religious houses, he removed the ruins of the
streets, buried the dead, and restored the services of the
national religion.
Another task subsequently awaited him—the rebuilding of
the city. He began boldly; and all that Lisbon now has of beauty
is due to the taste and energy of Pombal. He built noble squares.
He did more: he built the more important fabric of public sewers
in the new streets, and he laid out a public garden for the
popular recreation. But he found, as Wren found, even in England,
the infinite difficulty of opposing private interest, even in
public objects; and Lisbon lost the opportunity of being the most
picturesque and stately of European cities. One project, which
would have been at once of the highest beauty and of the highest
benefit—a terrace along the shore of the Tagus from Santa
Apollonia to Belem, a distance of nearly six miles, which would
have formed the finest promenade in the world—he was either
forced to give up or to delay, until its execution was hopeless.
It was never even begun.
The vigour of Pombal's administration raised bitter enemies to
him among those who had lived on the abuses of government, or the
plunder of the people. The Jesuits hated alike the king and his
minister. They even declared the earthquake to have been a divine
judgment for the sins of the administration. But they were rash
enough, in the intemperance of their zeal, to threaten a
repetition of the earthquake at the same time next year. When the
destined day came, Pombal planted strong guards at the city
gates, to prevent the panic of the people in rushing into the
country. The earthquake did not fulfil the promise; and the
people first laughed at themselves, and then at the Jesuits. The
laugh had important results in time.
There are few things more remarkable in diplomatic history,
than the long connexion of Portugal with England. It arose
naturally from the commerce of the two nations—Portugal,
already the most adventurous of nations, and England, growing in
commercial enterprise. The advantages were mutual. In the year
1367, we have a Portuguese treaty stipulating for protection to
the Portuguese traders in England. In 1382, a royal order of
Richard II. permits the Portuguese ambassador to bring his
baggage into England free of duty—perhaps one of the
earliest instances of a custom which marked the progress of
civilization, and which has since been generally adopted
throughout all civilized nations. A decree of Henry IV., in 1405,
exonerates the Portuguese resident in England, and their ships,
from being made responsible for the debts contracted by their
ambassadors. In 1656, the important privilege was conceded to the
English in Portugal, of being exempted from the native
jurisdiction, and being tried by a judge appointed by England.
This, in our days, might be an inadmissible privilege; but two
centuries ago, in the disturbed condition of the Portuguese laws
and general society, it might have been necessary for the simple
protection of the strangers.
The theories of domestic manufactures and free trade have
lately occupied so large a portion of public interest, that it is
curious to see in what light they were regarded by a statesman so
far in advance of his age as Pombal. The minister's theory is in
striking contradiction to his practice. He evidently approved of
monopoly and prohibitions, but he exercised neither the one nor
the other—nature and necessity were too strong against him.
We are, however, to recollect, that the language of complaint was
popular in Portugal, as it always will be in a poor country, and
that the minister who would be popular must adopt the language of
complaint. In an eloquent and almost impassioned memoir by
Pombal, he mourns over the poverty of his country, and hastily
imputes it to the predominance of English commerce. He tells us
that, in the middle of the eighteenth century, Portugal scarcely
produced any thing towards her own support. Two thirds of her
physical necessities were supplied from England. He complains
that England had become mistress of the entire commerce of
Portugal, and in fact that the Portuguese trade was only an
English trade; that the English were the furnishers and retailers
of all the necessaries of life throughout the country, and that
the Portuguese had nothing to do but look on; that Cromwell, by
the treaty which allowed the supply of Portugal with English
cloths to the amount of two million sterling, had utterly
impoverished the country; and in short, that the weakness and
incapacity of Portugal, as an European state, were wholly owing,
to her being destitute of trade, and that the destitution was
wholly owing to her being overwhelmed by English commodities.
We are not about to enter into detail upon this subject, but
it is to be remembered, that Portugal obtained the cloth, even if
she paid for it, cheaper from England than she could have done
from any other country in Europe; that she had no means of making
the cloth for herself, and that, after all, man must be clothed.
Portugal, without flocks or fire, without coals or capital, could
never have manufactured cloth enough to cover the tenth part of
her population, at ten times the expense. This has occurred in
later days, and in more opulent countries. We remember, in the
reign of the Emperor Paul, when he was frantic enough to declare
war against England, a pair of broadcloth pantaloons costing
seven guineas in St Peterburg. This would have been severe work
for the purse of a Portuguese peasant a hundred years ago. The
plain fact of domestic manufactures being this, that no folly can
be more foolish than to attempt to form them
where the means and the country do not give them a natural
superiority. For example, coals and iron are essential to the
product of all works in metal. France has neither. How can she,
therefore, contest the superiority of our hardware? She contests
it simply by doing without it, and by putting up with the most
intolerable cutlery that the world has ever seen. If, where
manufactures are already established, however ineffectual, it may
become a question with the government whether some privations
must not be submitted to by the people in general, rather than
precipitate those unlucky manufactures into ruin; there can be no
question whatever on the subject where manufactures have not been
hitherto established. Let the people go to the best market, let
no attempt be made to force nature, and let no money be wasted on
the worst article got by the worst means. One thing, however, is
quite clear with respect to Portugal, that, by the English
alliance, she has gained what is worth all the manufactures of
Europe—independence. When, in 1640, she threw off the
Spanish usurpation, and placed the Braganza family on the
national throne, she threw herself on the protection of England;
and that protection never has failed her to this hour. In the
Spanish invasion of Portugal in 1762, England sent her ten
thousand men, and the first officer of his day, Count La Lippe,
who, notwithstanding his German name, was an Englishman born, and
had commenced his service in the Guards. The Spaniards were
beaten in all directions, and Portugal was included in the treaty
of Fontainbleau in 1763. The deliverance of Portugal in the
Peninsular war is too recent to be forgotten, and too memorable
to be spoken of here as it deserves. And to understand the full
value of this assistance, we are to recollect, that Portugal is
one of the smallest kingdoms of Europe, and at the same time the
most exposed; that its whole land frontier is open to Spain, and
its whole sea frontier is open to France; that its chief produce
is wine and oranges, and that England is incomparably its best
customer for both.
Pombal, in his memoir, imputes a portion of the poverty of
Portugal to her possession of the gold mines of Brazil. This is
one of the paradoxes of the last century; but nations are only
aggregates of men, and what makes an individual rich, cannot make
a nation poor. The true secret is this—that while the
possession of the gold mines induced an indolent government to
rely upon them for the expenses of the state, that reliance led
them to abandon sources of profit in the agriculture and commerce
of the country, which were of ten times the value. This was
equally the case in Spain. The first influx from the mines of
Peru, enabled the government to disregard the revenues arising
from the industry of the people. In consequence of the want of
encouragement from the government, the agriculture and commerce
of Spain sank rapidly into the lowest condition, whilst the
government indolently lived on the produce of the mines. But the
more gold and silver exist in circulation, the less becomes their
value. Within half a century, the imports from the Spanish and
Portuguese mines, had reduced the value of the precious metals by
one half; and those imports thus became inadequate to the
ordinary expenses of government. Greater efforts were then made
to obtain them from the mines. Still, as the more that was
obtained the less was the general value, the operation became
more profitless still; and at length both Spain and Portugal were
reduced to borrow money, which they had no means to pay—in
other words, were bankrupt. And this is the true solution of the
problem—why have the gold and silver mines of the Peninsula
left them the poorest nations of Europe? Yet this was contrary to
the operation of new wealth. The discovery of the mines of the
New World appears to have been a part of that providential plan,
by which a general impulse was communicated to Europe in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Europe was preparing for a new
vigour of religion, politics, commerce, and civilization. Nothing
stimulates national effort of every kind with so much power and
rapidity, as a new general accession of wealth, or, as the
political economist would pronounce it, a rise of wages, whether
industrial or intellectual; and this rise was effected by the new
influx of the mines. If Peru and Mexico had belonged to England,
she would have converted their treasures into new canals and
high-roads, new harbours, new encouragements to agriculture, new
excitements to public education, new enterprises of commerce, or
the colonization of new countries in the productive regions of
the globe; and thus she would at once have increased her natural
opulence, and saved herself from suffering under the depreciation
of the precious metals, or more partially, by her active
employment of them, have almost wholly prevented that
depreciation. But the Peninsula, relying wholly on its imported
wealth, and neglecting its infinitely more important national
riches, was exactly in the condition of an individual, who spends
the principal of his property, which is continually sinking until
it is extinguished altogether.
Another source of Peninsular poverty existed in its religion.
The perpetual holidays of Popery made even the working portion of
the people habitually idle. Where labour is prohibited for nearly
a fourth of the year by the intervention of holidays, and thus
idleness is turned into a sacred merit, the nation must prepare
for beggary. But Popery goes further still. The establishment of
huge communities of sanctified idlers, monks and nuns by the ten
thousand, in every province and almost in every town, gave a
sacred sanction to idleness—gave a means of escaping work
to all who preferred the lounging and useless life of the convent
to regular labour, and even provided the means of living to
multitudes of vagabonds, who were content to eat their bread, and
drink their soup, daily at the convent gates, rather than to make
any honest decent effort to maintain themselves. Every country
must be poor in which a large portion of the public property goes
to the unproductive classes. The soldiery, the monks, the state
annuitants, the crowds of domestics, dependent on the families of
the grandees, all are necessarily unproductive. The money which
they receive is simply consumed. It makes no return. Thus poverty
became universal; and nothing but the singular fertility of the
peopled districts of Spain and Portugal, and the fortune of
having a climate which requires but few of the comforts essential
in a severer temperature, could have saved them both from being
the most pauperized of all nations, or even from perishing
altogether, and leaving the land a desert behind them. It
strangely illustrates these positions, that, in 1754, the
Portuguese treasury was so utterly emptied, that the monarch was
compelled to borrow 400,000 crusadoes (L.40,000) from a private
company, for the common expenses of his court.
Wholly and justly disclaiming the imputation which would
pronounce Portugal a dependent on England, it is impossible to
turn a page of her history without seeing the measureless
importance of her English connexion. Every genuine source of her
power and opulence has either originated with, or been sustained
by, her great ally. Among the first of these has been the wine
trade. In the year 1756—the year following that tremendous
calamity which had sunk Lisbon into ruins—the wine-growers
in the three provinces of Beira, Minho, and Tras-os-Montes,
represented that they were on the verge of ruin. The adulteration
of the Portuguese wines by the low traders had destroyed their
character in Europe, and the object of the representation was to
reinstate that character. Pombal immediately took up their cause;
and, in the course of the same year, was formed the celebrated
Oporto Wine Company, with a capital of £120,000. The declared
principles of the establishment were, to preserve the quality of
the wines, to secure the growers by fixing a regular price, and
to protect them from the combinations of dealers. The company had
the privilege of purchasing all the wines grown within a
particular district at a fixed price, for a certain period after
the vintage. When that period had expired, the growers were at
liberty to sell the wines which remained unpurchased in whatever
market they pleased. Monopolies, in the advanced and prosperous
career of commercial countries, generally sink into abuse; but
they are, in most instances, absolutely necessary to
the infant growth of national traffic. All the commerce of Europe
has commenced by companies. In the early state of European trade,
individuals were too poor for those large enterprises which
require a large outlay, and whose prospects, however promising,
are distant. What one cannot do, must be done by a combination of
many, if it is to be done at all. Though when individual capital,
by the very action of that monopoly, becomes powerful enough for
those enterprises, then the time is at hand when the combination
may be dissolved with impunity. The Oporto Wine Company had no
sooner come into existence, than its benefits were felt in every
branch of Portuguese revenue. It restored and extended the
cultivation of the vine, which is the staple of Portugal. It has
been abolished in the revolutionary changes of late years. But
the question, whether the country is yet fit to bear the
abolition, is settled by the fact, that the wine-growers are
complaining of ruin, and that the necessity of the case is now
urging the formation of the company once more.
The decision of Pombal's character was never more strongly
shown than on this occasion. The traders into whose hands the
Portuguese wines had fallen, and who had enjoyed an illegal
monopoly for so many years, raised tumults, and serious
insurrection was threatened. At Oporto, the mob plundered the
director's house, and seized on the chief magistrate. The
military were attacked, and the government was endangered. The
minister instantly ordered fresh troops to Oporto; arrests took
place; seventeen persons were executed; five-and-twenty sent to
the galleys; eighty-six banished, and others subjected to various
periods of imprisonment. The riots were extinguished. In a
striking memoir, written by Pombal after his retirement from
office, he gives a brief statement of the origin of this
company—a topic at all times interesting to the English
public, and which is about to derive a new interest from its
practical revival in Portugal. We quote a fragment.
"The unceasing and urgent works which the calamitous
earthquake of November 1st, 1755, had rendered indispensable,
were still vigorously pursued, when, in the following year, one
Mestre Frei Joao de Mansilla presented himself at the Giunta at
Belem, on the part of the principal husbandmen of Upper Douro,
and of the respectable inhabitants of Oporto, in a state of utter
consternation.
"In the popular outcry of the time, the English were
represented as making themselves the sole managers of every
thing. The fact being, that, as they were the only men who had
any money, they were almost the sole purchasers in the Portuguese
markets. But the English here complained of were the low
traffickers, who, in conjunction with the Lisbon and Oporto
vintners, bought and managed the wines at their discretion. It
was represented to the king, that, by those means, the price of
wine had been reduced to 7200 rios a pipe, or less, until the
expense of cultivation was more than the value of the produce;
that those purchasers required one or two years' credit; that the
price did not pay for the hoeing of the land, which was
consequently deserted; that all the principal families of one
district had been reduced to poverty, so much so as to be obliged
to sell their knives and forks; that the poor people had not a
drop of oil for their salad, so that they were obliged, even in
Lent, to season their vegetables with the fat of hogs." The
memoir mentions even gross vice as a consequence of their extreme
poverty.
We quote this passage to show to what extremities a people may
be reduced by individual mismanagement, and what important
changes may be produced by the activity of an intelligent
directing power. The king's letters-patent of 1756, establishing
the company, provided at once for the purity of the wine, its
extended sale in England, and the solvency of the wine provinces.
It is only one among a thousand instances of the hazards in which
Popery involves all regular government, to find the Jesuits
inflaming the populace against this most salutary and successful
act of the king. At confession, they prompted the people to
believe "that the wines of the company were not fit for the
celebration of mass." (For the priests
drink wine in the communion, though the people receive only the
bread.) To give practical example to their precept, they
dispersed narratives of a great popular insurrection which had
occurred in 1661; and both incentives resulted in the riots in
Oporto, which it required all the vigour of Pombal to put
down.
But the country and Europe was now to acknowledge the services
of the great minister on a still higher scale. The extinction of
the Jesuits was the work of his bold and sagacious mind. The
history of this event is among the most memorable features of a
century finishing with the fall of the French monarchy.
The passion of Rome for territory has been always conspicuous,
and always unsuccessful. Perpetually disturbing the Italian
princes in the projects of usurpation, it has scarcely ever
advanced beyond the original bounds fixed for it by Charlemagne.
Its spirit of intrigue, transfused into its most powerful order
the Jesuits, was employed for the similar purpose of acquiring
territorial dominion. But Europe was already divided among
powerful nations. Those nations were governed by jealous
authorities, powerful kings for their leaders, and powerful
armies for their defence. All was full; there was no room for the
contention of a tribe of ecclesiastics, although the most daring,
subtle, and unscrupulous of the countless slaves and soldiers of
Rome. The world of America was open. There a mighty power might
grow up unseen by the eye of Europe. A population of unlimited
multitudes might find space in the vast plains; commerce in the
endless rivers; defence in the chains of mountains; and wealth in
the rocks and sands of a region teeming with the precious metals.
The enterprise was commenced under the pretext of converting the
Indians of Paraguay. Within a few years the Jesuits formed an
independent republic, numbering thirty-one towns, with a
population of a hundred thousand souls. To render their power
complete, they prohibited all communication between the natives
and the Spaniards and Portuguese, forbidding them to learn the
language of either country, and implanting in the mind of the
Indians an implacable hatred of both Spain and Portugal. At
length both courts became alarmed, and orders were sent out to
extinguish the usurpation. Negotiations were in the mean time
opened between Spain and Portugal relative to an exchange of
territory, and troops were ordered to effect the exchange.
Measures of this rank were unexpected by the Jesuits. They had
reckoned upon the proverbial tardiness of the Peninsular
councils; but they were determined not to relinquish their prize
without a struggle. They accordingly armed the natives, and
prepared for a civil war.
The Indians, unwarlike as they have always been, now headed by
their Jesuit captains, outmanoeuvred the invaders. The expedition
failed; and the baffled invasion ended in a disgraceful treaty.
The expedition was renewed in the next year, 1755, and again
baffled. The Portuguese government of the Brazils now made
renewed efforts, and in 1756 obtained some advantages; but they
were still as far as ever from final success, and the war,
fruitless as it was, had begun to drain heavily the finances of
the mother country. It had already cost the treasury of Lisbon a
sum equal to three millions sterling. But the minister at the
head of the Portuguese government was of a different character
from the race who had, for the last hundred years, wielded the
ministerial sceptres of Spain and Portugal. His clear and daring
spirit at once saw where the evil lay, and defied the
difficulties that lay between him and its cure. He determined to
extinguish the order of the Jesuits at a blow. The boldness of
this determination can be estimated only by a knowledge of the
time. In the middle of the eighteenth century, the Jesuits were
the ecclesiastical masters of Europe. They were the confessors of
the chief monarchs of the Continent; the heads of the chief
seminaries for national education; the principal professors in
all the universities;—and this influence, vast as it was by
its extent and variety, was rendered more powerful by the strict
discipline, the unhesitating obedience, and the systematic
activity of their order. All the Jesuits
existing acknowledged one head, the general of their order, whose
constant residence was at Rome. But their influence, powerful as
it was by their open operation on society, derived perhaps a
superior power from its secret exertions. Its name was
legion—its numbers amounted to thousands—it took
every shape of society, from the highest to the lowest. It was
the noble and the peasant—the man of learning and the man
of trade—the lawyer and the monk—the soldier and the
sailor—nay, it was said, that such was the extraordinary
pliancy of its principle of disguise, the Jesuit was suffered to
assume the tenets of Protestantism, and even to act as a
Protestant pastor, for the purpose of more complete deception.
The good of the church was the plea which purified all imposture;
the power of Rome was the principle on which this tremendous
system of artifice was constructed; and the reduction of all
modes of human opinion to the one sullen superstition of the
Vatican, was the triumph for which those armies of subtle
enthusiasm and fraudulent sanctity were prepared to live and
die.
The first act of Pombal was to remove the king's confessor,
the Jesuit Moreira. The education of the younger branches of the
royal family was in the hands of Jesuits. Pombal procured a royal
order that no Jesuit should approach the court, without obtaining
the express permission of the king. He lost no time in repeating
the assault. Within a month, on the 8th of October 1767, he sent
instructions to the Portuguese ambassador at Rome, to demand a
private audience, and lay before the pope the misdemeanours of
the order.
Those instructions charged the Jesuits with the most atrocious
personal profligacy, with a design to master all public power, to
gather opulence dangerous to the state, and actually to plot
against the authority of the crowns of Europe. He announced, that
the king of Portugal had commanded all the Jesuit confessors of
the prince and princesses to withdraw to their own convents; and
this important manifesto closed by soliciting the interposition
of the papal see to prevent the ruin, by purifying an order which
had given scandal to Christianity, by offences against the public
and private peace of society, equally unexampled, habitual, and
abominable. In 1758, the representation to the pope was renewed,
with additional proofs that the order had determined to usurp
every function, and thwart every act of the civil government;
that the confessors of the royal family, though dismissed,
continued to conspire; that they resisted the formation of royal
institutions for the renewal of the national commerce; and that
they excited the people to dangerous tumults, in defiance of the
royal authority.
Their intrigues comprehended every object by which influence
was to be obtained, or money was to be made. The "Great Wine
Company," on which the chief commerce of Portugal, and almost the
existence of its northern provinces depended, was a peculiar
object of their hostility, for reasons which we can scarcely
apprehend, except they were general jealousy of all lay power,
and hostility to all the works of Pombal. They assailed it from
their pulpits; and one of their popular preachers made himself
conspicuous by impiously exclaiming, "that whoever joined that
company, would have no part in the company of Jesus Christ."
The intrigues of this dangerous and powerful society had long
before been represented to the popes, and had drawn down upon
them those remonstrances by which the habitual dexterity of Rome
at once saves appearances, and suffers the continuance of the
delinquency. The Jesuits were too useful to be restrained; yet
their crimes were too palpable to be passed over. In consequence,
the complaints of the monarchs of Spain and Portugal were
answered by bulls issued from time to time, equally formal and
ineffective. Yet even from these documents may be ascertained the
singularly gross, worldly, and illegitimate pursuits of an order,
professing itself to be supremely religious, and the prime
sustainer of the "faith of the gospel." The bull of Benedict the
XIV., issued in 1741, prohibited from "trade and commerce, all
worldly dominion, and the purchase and saleof
converted Indians." The bull extended the prohibition generally
to the monkish orders, to avoid branding the Jesuits especially.
But a bull of more direct reprehension was published at the close
of the year, expressly against the Jesuits in their missions in
the east and west. The language of this document amounts to a
catalogue of the most atrocious offences against society,
humanity, and morals. By this bull, "all men, and especially
Jesuits," are prohibited, under penalty of
excommunication, from "making slaves of the Indians; from selling
and bartering them; from separating them from their wives and
children; from robbing them of their property; from transporting
them from their native soil," &c.
Nothing but the strongest necessity, and the most ample
evidence, would ever have drawn this condemnation from Rome,
whether sincere or insincere. But the urgencies of the case
became more evident from day to day. In 1758, the condemnation
was followed by the practical measure of appointing Cardinal
Saldanha visitor and reformer of the Jesuits in Portugal, and the
Portuguese settlements in the east and west.
Within two months of this appointment the following decree was
issued:—"For just reasons known to us, and which concern
especially the service of God and the public welfare, we suspend
from the power of confessing and preaching, in the whole extent
of our patriarchate, the fathers of the Society of Jesus, from
this moment, and until further notice." Saldanha had been just
raised to the patriarchate.
We have given some observations on this subject, from its
peculiar importance to the British empire at this moment. The
order of the Jesuits, extinguished in the middle of the last
century by the unanimous demand of Europe, charged with every
crime which could make a great association obnoxious to mankind,
and exhibiting the most atrocious violations of the common rules
of human morality, has, within this last quarter of a century,
been revived by the papacy, with the express declaration, that
its revival is for the exclusive purpose of giving new effect to
the doctrines, the discipline, and the power of Rome. The law
which forbids the admission of Jesuits into England, has shared
the fate of all laws feebly administered; and Jesuits are active
by hundreds or by thousands in every portion of the empire. They
have restored the whole original system, sustained by all their
habitual passion for power, and urging their way, with all their
ancient subtlety, through all ranks of Protestantism.
The courage and intelligence of Pombal placed him in the
foremost rank of Europe, when the demand was the boldest and most
essential service which a great minister could offer to his
country; he broke the power of Jesuitism. But an order so
numerous—for even within the life of its half-frenzied
founder it amounted to 19,000—so vindictive, and flung from
so lofty a rank of influence, could not perish without some
desperate attempts to revenge its ruin. The life of Pombal was so
constantly in danger, that the king actually assigned him a body
guard. But the king himself was exposed to one of the most
remarkable plots of regicide on record—the memorable Aveiro
and Tavora conspiracy.
On the night of the 3d of September 1758, as the king was
returning to the palace at night in a cabriolet, attended only by
his valet, two men on horseback, and armed with blunderbusses,
rode up to the carriage, and leveled their weapons at the
monarch. One of them missed fire, the other failed of its effect.
The royal postilion, in alarm, rushed forward, when two men,
similarly waiting in the road, galloped after the carriage, and
both fired their blunderbusses into it behind. The cabriolet was
riddled with slugs, and the king was wounded in several places.
By an extraordinary presence of mind, Don Joseph, instead of
ordering the postilion to gallop onward, directed him instantly
to turn back, and, to avoid alarming the palace, carry him direct
to the house of the court surgeon. By this fortunate order, he
escaped the other groups of the conspirators, who were stationed
further on the road, and under whose repeated discharges he would
probably have fallen. The public alarm and indignation on the
knowledge of this desperate atrocity were unbounded. There seemed
to be but one man in the kingdom who preserved his composure, and
that one was Pombal. Exhibiting scarcely even the natural
perturbation at an event which had threatened almost a national
convulsion, he suffered the whole to become a matter of doubt,
and allowed the king's retirement from the public eye to be
considered as merely the effect of accident. The public despatch
of Mr Hay, the British envoy at Lisbon, alludes to it, chiefly as
assigning a reason for the delay of a court mourning—the
order for this etiquette, on the death of the Spanish queen, not
having been put in execution. The envoy mentions that it had been
impeded by the king's illness,—"it being the custom of the
court to put on gala when any of the royal family are
blooded. When I went to court to enquire after his majesty's
health, I was there informed that the king, on Sunday night the
3d instant, passing through a gallery to go to the queen's
apartment, had the misfortune to fall and bruise his right arm;
he had been blooded eight different times; and, as his majesty is
a fat bulky man, to prevent any humours fixing there, his
physicians have advised that he should not use his arm, but
abstain from business for some time. In consequence, the queen
was declared regent during Don Joseph's illness."
This was the public version of the event. But appended to the
despatch was a postscript, in cipher, stating the reality
of the transaction. Pombal's sagacity, and his self control,
perhaps a still rarer quality among the possessors of power, were
exhibited in the strongest light on this occasion. For three
months not a single step appeared to be taken to punish, or even
to detect the assassins. The subject was allowed to die away;
when, on the 9th of December, all Portugal was startled by a
royal decree, declaring the crime, and offering rewards for the
seizure of the assassins. Some days afterwards Lisbon heard, with
astonishment, an order for the arrest of the Duke of Aveira, one
of the first nobles, and master of the royal household; the
arrest of the whole family of the Marquis of Tavora, himself, his
two sons, his four brothers, and his two sons-in-law. Other
nobles were also seized; and the Jesuits were forbidden to be
seen out of their houses.
The three months of Pombal's apparent inaction had been
incessantly employed in researches into the plot. Extreme caution
was evidently necessary, where the criminals were among the
highest officials and nobles, seconded by the restless and
formidable machinations of the Jesuits. When his proofs were
complete, he crushed the conspirators at a single grasp. His
singular inactivity had disarmed them; and nothing but the most
consummate composure could have prevented their flying from
justice. On the 12th of January 1759, they were found guilty; and
on the 13th they were put to death, to the number of nine, with
the Marchioness of Tavora, in the square of Belem. The scaffold
and the bodies were burned, and the ashes thrown into the
sea.
Those were melancholy acts; the works of melancholy times. But
as no human crime can be so fatal to the security of a state as
regicide, no imputation can fall on the memory of a great
minister, compelled to exercise justice in its severity, for the
protection of all orders of the kingdom. In our more enlightened
period, we must rejoice that those dreadful displays of judicial
power have passed away; and that laws are capable of being
administered without the tortures, or the waste of life, which
agonize the feelings of society. Yet, while blood for blood
continued to be the code; while the sole prevention of crime was
sought for in the security of judgment; and while even the zeal
of justice against guilt was measured by the terrible intensity
of the punishment—we must charge the horror of such
sweeping executions to the ignorance of the age, much more than
to the vengeance of power.
This tragedy was long the subject of European memory; and all
the extravagance of popular credulity was let loose ill
discovering the causes of the conspiracy. It was said, in the
despatches of the English minister, that the Marquis of Tavora,
who had been Portuguese minister in the East, was
irritated by the royal attentions to his son's wife. Ambition was
the supposed ground of the Duke of Aveira's perfidy. The old
Marchioness of Tavora, who had been once the handsomest woman at
court, and was singularly vein and haughty, was presumed to have
received some personal offence, by the rejection of the family
claim to a dukedom. All is wrapped in the obscurity natural to
transactions in which individuals of rank are involved in the
highest order of crime. It was the natural policy of the minister
to avoid extending the charges by explaining the origin of the
crime. The connexions of the traitors were still many and
powerful; and further disclosures might have produced only
further attempts at the assassination of the minister or the
king.
It was now determined to act with vigour against the Jesuits,
who were distinctly charged with assisting, if not originating,
the treason. A succession of decrees were issued, depriving them
of their privileges and possessions; and finally, on the 5th of
October 1759, the cardinal patriarch Saldanha issued the famous
mandate, by which the whole society was expelled from the
Portuguese dominions. Those in the country were transported to
Civita Vecchia; those in the colonies were also conveyed to the
Papal territory; and thus, by the intrepidity, wisdom, and civil
courage of one man, the realm was relieved from the presence of
the most powerful and most dangerous body which had ever
disturbed the peace of society.
Portugal having thus the honour of taking the lead, Rome
herself at length followed; and, on the accession of the
celebrated Ganganelli, Clement XIV., a resolution was adopted to
suppress the Jesuits in every part of the world. On the 21st of
July 1773, the memorable bull "Dominus ac Redemptor," was
published, and the order was at an end. The announcement was
received in Lisbon with natural rejoicing. Te Deum was
sung, and the popular triumph was unbounded and universal.
We now hasten to the close of this distinguished minister's
career. His frame, though naturally vigorous, began to feel the
effects of his incessant labour, and an apoplectic tendency
threatened to shorten a life so essential to the progress of
Portugal; for that whole life was one of temperate and
progressive reform. His first application was to the
finances; he found the Portuguese exchequer on the verge of
bankruptcy. A third of the taxes was embezzled in the collection.
In 1761, his new system was adopted, by which the finances were
restored; and every week a balance-sheet of the whole national
expenditure was presented to the king. His next reform was the
royal household, where all unnecessary expenses—and they
were numerous—were abolished. Another curious reform will
be longer remembered in Portugal. The nation had hitherto used
only the knife at dinner! Pombal introduced the
fork. He brought this novel addition to the table with him
from England in 1745!
The nobility were remarkably ignorant. Pombal formed the
"College of Nobles" for their express education. There they were
taught every thing suitable to their rank. The only prohibition
being, "that they should not converse in Latin," the old
pedantic custom of the monks. The nobles were directed to
converse in English, French, Italian, or their native tongue;
Pombal declaring, that the custom of speaking Latin was only "to
teach them to barbarize."
Another custom, though of a more private order, attracted the
notice of this rational and almost universal improver. It had
been adopted as a habit by the widows of the nobility, to spend
the first years of their widowhood in the most miserable
seclusion; they shut up their windows, retired to some gloomy
chamber, slept on the floor, and, suffering all kinds of
voluntary and absurd mortifications, forbade the approach of the
world. As the custom was attended with danger to health, and
often with death, besides its general melancholy influence on
society, the minister publicly "enacted," that every part of it
should be abolished; and, moreover, that the widows should always
remove to another house; or, where this was not practicable, that
they "should not close the shutters, nor 'mourn'
for more than a week, nor remain at home for more than a month,
nor sleep on the ground." Doubtless, tens of
thousands thanked him, and thank him still, for this war against
a popular, but most vexatious, absurdity.
His next reform was the army. After the peace of 1763, he
fixed it at 30,000 men, whom he equipped effectually, and brought
into practical discipline.
A succession of laws, made for the promotion of European and
colonial trade, next opened the resources of Portugal to an
extent unknown before. Pombal next abolished the "Index
Expurgitorius"—an extraordinary achievement, not merely
beyond his age, but against the whole superstitious spirit of his
age. He was not content with abolishing the restraint; he
attempted to restore the PRESS in Portugal. Hitherto
nearly all Portuguese books had been printed in foreign counties.
He established a "Royal Press," and gave its superintendence to
Pagliarini, a Roman printer, who had been expatriated for
printing works against the Jesuits. Such, in value and extent,
were the acts which Portugal owed to this indefatigable and
powerful mind, that when, in 1766, he suffered a paralytic
stroke, the king and the people were alike thrown into
consternation.
At length Don Joseph, the king, and faithful friend of Pombal,
died, after a reign of twenty-seven years of honour and
usefulness. Pombal requested to resign, and the Donna Maria
accepted the resignation, and conferred various marks of honour
upon him. He now retired to his country-seat, where Wraxall saw
him in 1772, and thus describes his appearance. "At this time he
had attained his seventy-third year, but age seemed to have
diminished neither the freshness nor the activity of his
faculties. In his person he was very tall and slender, his face
long, pale, and meagre, but full of intelligence."
But Pombal had been too magnanimous for the court and nobles;
and the loss of his power as minister produced a succession of
intrigues against him, by the relatives of the Tavora family, and
doubtless also by the ecclesiastical influence, which has always
been at once so powerful and so prejudicial in Portugal. He was
insulted by a trial, at which, however, the only sentence
inflicted was an order to retire twenty leagues from the court.
The Queen was, at that time, probably suffering under the first
access of that derangement, which, in a few years after, utterly
incapacitated her, and condemned the remainder of her life to
melancholy and total solitude. But the last praise is not given
to the great minister, while his personal disinterestedness is
forgotten. One of the final acts of his life was to present to
the throne a statement of his public income, when it appeared
that, during the twenty-seven years of his administration, he had
received no public emolument but his salary as secretary of
state, and about L.100 a-year for another office. But he was
rich; for, as his two brothers remained unmarried, their incomes
were joined with his own. He lived, held in high respect and
estimation by the European courts, to the great age of
eighty-three, dying on the 5th of May without pain. A long
inscription, yet in which the panegyric did not exceed the
justice, was placed on his tomb. Yet a single sentence might have
established his claim to the perpetual gratitude of his country
and mankind—
"Here lies the man who banished the
Jesuits from Portugal."
Mr Smith's volume is intelligently written, and does much
credit to his research and skill.
MARSTON; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN.
PART XII.
Have I not in my time heard lions roar?
Have I not heard the sea, puft up with wind,
Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat?
Have I not heard great ordnance in the field,
And Heaven's artillery thunder in the skies?
Have I not in the pitched battle heard
Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets clang?"
SHAKSPEARE.
Elnathan was a man of many cares, and every kind of wisdom,
but one—the wisdom of knowing when he had wealth enough. He
evidently loved accumulation; and the result was, that every hour
of his existence was one of terror. Half the brokers and chief
traders in France were already in prison; and yet he carried on
the perilous game of commerce. He was known to be immensely
opulent; and he must have regarded the day which passed over his
head, without seeing his strong boxes put under the government
seal, and himself thrown into some oubliette, as a sort of
miracle. But he was now assailed by a new alarm. War with England
began to be rumoured among the bearded brethren of the synagogue;
and Elnathan had ships on every sea, from Peru to Japan. Like
Shakspeare's princely merchant—
"His mind was tossing on the ocean,
There where his argosies with portly sail,
Like signiors, and rich burghers of the flood.
Or, as it were, the pageants of the sea,
Did overpower the petty traffickers,
As they flew by them with their woven wings."
The first shot fired would inevitably pour out the whole naval
force of England, and his argosies would put their helms about,
and steer for Portsmouth, Plymouth, and every port but a French
one. If this formidable intelligence had awakened the haughtiness
of the French government to a sense of public peril, what effect
must it not have in the counting-house of a man whose existence
was trade? While I was on my pillow, luxuriating in dreams of
French fêtes, Paul and Virginia carried off to the clouds, and
Parisian belles dancing cotillons in the bowers and
pavilions of a Mahometan paradise, Elnathan spent the night at
his desk, surrounded by his bustling generation of clerks,
writing to correspondents at every point of the compass, and
preparing insurances with the great London establishments; which
I was to carry with me, though unacquainted with the transaction
on which so many millions of francs hung trembling.
His morning face showed me, that whatever had been his
occupation before I met him at the breakfast-table, it had been a
most uneasy one. His powerful and rather handsome physiognomy had
shrunk to half the size; his lips were livid, and his hand shook
to a degree which made me ask, whether the news from Robespierre
was unfavourable. But his assurance that all still went on well
in that delicate quarter, restored my tranquility, which was
beginning to give way; and my only stipulation now was, that I
should have an hour or two to spend at Vincennes before I took my
final departure. The Jew was all astonishment; his long visage
elongated at the very sound; he shook his locks, lifted up his
large hands, and fixed his wide eyes on me with a look of mingled
alarm and wonder, which would have been ludicrous if it had not
been perfectly sincere.
"In the name of common sense, do you remember in what a
country, and in what times, we live? Oh, those Englishmen! always
thinking that they are in England. My young friend, you are
clearly not fit for France, and the sooner you get out of it the
better."
I still remonstrated. "Do you forget yesterday?" he exclaimed.
"Can you forget the man before whom we both stood? A moment's
hesitation on your part to set out, would breed
suspicion in that most suspicious brain of all mankind. Life is
here as uncertain as in a field of battle. Begone the instant
your passports arrive, and never behind you.—For my part, I
constantly feel as if my head were in the lion's jaws. Rejoice in
your escape."
But I was still unconvinced, and explained "that my only
motive was, to relieve my friends in the fortress from the alarm
which they had evidently felt for my fate, and to relieve myself
from the charge of ingratitude, which would inevitably attach to
me if I left Paris without seeing them."
Never was man more perplexed with a stubborn subject. He
represented to me the imminent hazard of straying a
hair's-breadth to the right or left of the orders of Robespierre!
"I was actually under surveillance, and he was responsible for
me. To leave his roof; even for five minutes, until I left it for
my journey, might forfeit the lives of both before evening."
I still remonstrated; and pronounced the opinion, perhaps too
flattering a one, of the dictator, that "he could not condescend
to forbid a mere matter of civility, which still left me entirely
at his service." The Jew at last, in despair, rushed from the
room, leaving me to the unpleasing consciousness that I had
distressed an honest and even a friendly man.
Two hours thus elapsed, when a chaise de poste drew up
at the door, with an officer of the police in front, and from it
came Varnhorst and the doctor, both probably expecting a summons
to the scaffold; but the Prussian bearing his lot with the
composure of a man accustomed to face death, and the doctor
evidently in measureless consternation, colourless and convulsed
with fear. His rapture was equally unbounded when Elnathan,
ushering them both into the apartment where I sat—
Chewing the cud of sweet and bitter
thought"—
explained, that finding me determined on my point, he had
adopted the old proverb—of bringing Mahomet to the
mountain, if he could not bring the mountain to Mahomet; had
procured an order for their attendance in Paris, through his
influence with the chief of the police, and now hoped to have the
honour of their company at dinner. This was, certainly, a
desirable exchange for the Place de Grève; and we sat down to a
sumptuous table, where we enjoyed ourselves with the zest which
danger escaped gives to luxurious security.
All went on well. The doctor was surprised to find in the
frowning banker, who had repulsed him so sternly from his desk,
the hospitable entertainer; and Varhorst's honest and manly
friendship was gratified by the approach of my release from a
scene of perpetual danger.
I had some remembrances to give to my friends in Prussia; and
at length, sending away the doctor to display his connoisseurship
on Elnathan's costly collection of pictures, Varnhorst was left
to my questioning. My first question naturally was, "What had
involved him in the ill-luck of the Austrians."
"The soldier's temptation every where," was the answer;
"having nothing to do at home, and expecting something to do
abroad. When the Prussian army once crossed the Rhine, I should
have had no better employment than to mount guard, escort the
court dowagers to the balls, and finish the year and my life
together, by dying of ennui. In this critical moment, when
I was in doubt whether I should turn Tartar, or monk of La
Trappe, Clairfait sent to offer me the command of a division. I
closed with it at once, went to the king, obtained his leave, put
spurs to my horse, and reached the Austrian camp before the
courier."
I could not help expressing my envy at a profession in which
all the honours of earth lay at the feet of a successful soldier!
He smiled, and pointed to the police-officer, who was then
sulkily pacing in front of the house.
"You see," said he, "the first specimen of my honours. Yet,
from the moment of my arrival within the Austrian lines, I could
have predicted our misfortune. Clairfait was, at least, as
long-sighted as myself; and nothing could exceed his despondency
but his indignation. His noble heart was half
broken by the narrowness of his resources for defending the
country, and the boundless folly by which the war council of
Vienna expected to make up for the weakness of their battalions
by the absurdity of their plans. 'I write for regiments,' the
gallant fellow used to say; 'and they send me regulations! I tell
them that we have not troops enough for an advanced guard; and
they send me the plan of a pitched battle! I tell then that the
French have raised their army in front of me to a hundred
thousand strong; and they promise me reinforcements next year.'
After all, his chief perplexity arose from their
orders—every despatch regularly contradicting the one that
came before.
"Something in the style," said I, "of Voltaire's caricature of
the Austrian courier in the Turkish war, with three packs
strapped on his shoulders, inscribed,
'Orders'—'Counter-orders'—and 'Disorders.'
"Just a case in point. Voltaire would have been exactly the
historian for our campaign. What an incomparable tale he would
have made of it! Every thing that was done was preposterous. We
were actually beaten before we fought; we were ruined at Vienna
before a shot was fired at Jemappes. The Netherlands were lost,
not by powder and ball, but by pen and ink; and the consequence
of our "march to Paris" is, that one half of the army is now
scattered from Holland to the Rhine, and the other half is, like
myself, within French walls."
I enquired how Clairfait bore his change of fortune.
"Like a man superior to fortune. I never saw him exhibit
higher ability than in his dispositions for our last battle. He
has become a magnificent tactician. But Alexander the Great
himself could not fight without troops: and such was our exact
condition.
"Dumourier, at the head of a hundred thousand men, had turned
short from the Prussian retreat, and flung himself upon the
Netherlands. How many troops do you think the wisdom of the Aulic
Council had provided to protect the provinces? Scarcely more than
a third of the number, and those scattered over a frontier of a
hundred miles; in a country, too, where every Man spoke French,
where every man was half Republican already, where the people had
actually begun a revolution, and where we had scarcely a friend,
a fortress in repair, or ammunition enough for feu de
joie. The French, of course, burst in like an inundation,
sweeping every thing before them. I was at dinner with Clairfait
and his staff on the day when the intelligence arrived. The map
was laid upon the table, and we had a kind of debate on the
course which the Frenchman would take. That evening completed my
opinion of him as a general. He took the clearest view among all
our conjectures, as the event proved, so far as the enemy's
movements were concerned; though I still retain my own idea of an
original error in the choice of our field of battle. Before the
twilight fell, we mounted our horses, and rode to the spot where
Clairfait had already made up his mind to meet the French. It was
certainly a capital position for defence—a range of heights
not too high for guns, surmounted by a central plateau; the very
position for a battery and a brigade; but the very worst that
could be taken against the new enemy whom we had to oppose."
"Yet, what could an army of French recruits be expected to do
against a disciplined force so strongly posted?" was my
question.
"My answer to that point," said Varnhorst, "must be a
quotation from my old master of tactics. If the purpose of a
general is simply to defend himself, let him keep his troops on
heights; if his purpose is simply to make an artillery fight, let
him keep behind his guns; but if it is his purpose to beat the
enemy, he must leave himself able to follow them—and this
he can do only on a plain. In the end, after beating the enemy in
a dozen attempts to carry our batteries, but without the power of
striking a blow in retaliation, we saw them carried all at once,
and were totally driven from the field."
"So much for bravery and discipline against bravery and
enthusiasm," said I. "Yet the enemy's loss must have been
tremendous. Every assault must have torn their columns to
pieces." Even this attempt at reconciling him to his ill fortune
failed.
"Yes," was the cool reply; "but they could afford it, which was
more than we could do. Remember the maxim, my young friend, when
you shall come to be a general, that the only security for
gaining battles is, to have good troops, and a good many of
them.—The French recruits fought like recruits, without
knowing whether the enemy were before or behind them; but they
fought, and when they were beaten they fought again. While we
were fixed on our heights, they were formed into column once
more, and marched gallantly up to the mouth of our guns. Then, we
had but 18,000 men to the Frenchman's 60,000. Such odds are too
great. Whether our great king would have fought at all with such
odds against him, may be a question; but there can be none,
whether he would have fixed himself where he could not manoeuvre.
The Frenchman attacked us on flanks and centre, just when and
where he pleased; there stood we, mowing down his masses from our
fourteen redoubts, and waiting to be attacked again. To do him
justice, he fought stoutly; and to do us justice, we fought
sturdily. But still we were losing men; the affair looked
unpromising from the first half hour; and I pronounced that, if
Dumourier had but perseverance enough, he must carry the
field."
I made some passing remark on the singular hazard of bringing
untried troops against the proverbial discipline of a German
army, and the probability that the age of the wild armies of
peasantry in Europe would be renewed, by the evidence of its
success.
"Right," said Varnhorst. "The thing that struck me most was,
the new character of the whole engagement. It was Republicanism
in the field; a bold riot, a mob battle. Nor will it be the last
of its kind. Our whole line was once attacked by the French
demi-brigades, coming to the charge, with a general chorus of the
Marseillaise hymn. The effect was magnificent, as we heard
it pealing over the field through all the roar of cannon and
musketry. The attack was defeated. It was renewed, under a chorus
in honour of their general, and 'Vive Dumourier' was chanted by
50,000 voices, as they advanced against our batteries. This
charge broke in upon our position, and took five of our fourteen
redoubts. Even Clairfait now acknowledged that all was lost;
two-thirds of our men were hors de combat, and orders were
given for a retreat. My turn now came to act, and I moved forward
with my small brigade of cavalry—but I was not more lucky
than the rest."
My time in Paris had now come to a close. All my enquiries for
the fate of Lafontaine had been fruitless; and I dreaded the
still more anxious enquiries to which I should be subjected on
my arrival; but I had at least the intelligence to give, that I
had not left him in the fangs of the jailers of St Lazare. I took
leave of my bold and open-hearted Prussian friend with a regret,
which I had scarcely expected to feel for one with whom I had
been thrown into contact simply by the rough chances of
campaigning; but I had the gratification of procuring for him,
through the mysterious interest of Elnathan, an order for his
transmission to Berlin in the first exchange of prisoners. This
promise seemed to compensate all the services which he had
rendered to me. "I shall see the Rhine again," said he, "which is
much more than I ever expected since the day of our misfortune.
"I shall see the Rhine again!—and thanks to you for it." He
pressed my hand with honest gratitude.
The carriage which was to convey me to Calais was now at the
door. Still, one thought as uppermost in his mind; it was, that I
should give due credit to the bravery of the Austrian general and
his army. "If I have spoken of the engagement at all," said he,
"it was merely to put you in possession of the facts. You return
to England; you will of course hear the battle which lost the
Netherlands discussed in various versions. The opinion of England
decides the opinion of Europe. Tell, then, your countrymen, in
vindication of Clairfait and his troops, that after holding his
ground for nine hours against three times his force, he retreated
with the steadiness of a movement on parade, without leaving
behind him a single gun, colour, or prisoner. Tell them, too,
that he was defeated only through the marvellous negligence of a
government which left him to fight battles without brigades,
defend fortresses without guns, and protect insurgent provinces
with a fugitive army."
My answer was—"You may rely upon my fighting your
battles over the London dinner-tables, as perseveringly, if not
as much against odds, as you fought it in the field. But the
fortune of war is proverbial, and I hope yet to pour out a
libation to you as Generalissimo Varnsdorf, the restorer of the
Austrian laurels."
"War is the original propensity of human nature, and
civilization is the great promoter of war. The more civilized all
nations become, the more they fight. The most civilized continent
of the world has spent the fourth of its modern existence in war.
Every man of common sense, of course, abhors its waste of life,
of treasure, and of time. Still the propensity is so strong, that
it continues the most prodigal sacrifice of them all. I think
that we are entering on a period, when war, more than ever, will
be the business of nations. I should not be surprised if the
mania of turning nations into beggars, and the population into
the dust of the field, should last for half a century; until the
whole existing generation are in their graves, and a new
generation shall take their places, astonished at the fondness of
their fathers for bankruptcy and bloodshed." After some sharp
censures of the unpurposed conduct of the German cabinets, he
finished by saying—"If the French continue to fight as they
have just fought, Jemappes will be the beginning of a new era. In
the history of the world, every great change of human supremacy
has been the result of a change in the principles of war; and the
nation which has been the first to adopt that change, has led the
triumph for its time. France has now found out a new element in
war—the force of multitude, the charge of the masses; and
she will conquer, until the kings of Europe follow her example,
and call their nations to the field. Till then she will be
invincible, but then her conquests will vanish; and the world,
exhausted by carnage, will be quiet for a while. But the wolfish
spirit of human nature will again hunger for prey; some new
system of havoc will be discovered by some great genius,
who ought to be cursed to the lowest depths
of human memory; but who will be exalted to the most rapturous
heights of human praise. Then again, when one half of the earth
is turned into a field of battle, and the other into a cemetery,
mankind will cry out for peace; and again, when refreshed, will
rush into still more ruinous war:—thus all things run in a
circle. But France has found out the secret for this age,
and—vae victis!—the pestilence will be tame to
the triumph of her frenzy, her rapine, and her revenge."
"Exactly what I should have expected from Guiscard," was my
remark; "he is always making bold attempts to tear up the surface
of the time, and look into what is growing below."
"Well, well," replied my honest fellow soldier, "I never
perplex my brain with those things. I dare say your philosophers
may be right; at least once in a hundred years. But take my word
for it, that musket and bayonet will be useful matters still; and
that discipline and my old master Frederick, will be as good as
Dumourier and desperation, when we shall have brigade for
brigade."
The postillions cracked their whips, the little Norman horses
tore their way over the rough pavement; the sovereign people
scattered off on every side, to save their lives and limbs; and
the plan of St Denis, rich with golden corn, and tracked by lines
of stately trees, opened far and wide before me. From the first
ascent I gave a parting glance at Paris—it was
mingled of rejoicing and regret. What hours of interest, of
novelty, and of terror, had I not passed within the circuit of
those walls! Yet, how the eye cheats reality!—that city of
imprisonment and frantic liberty, of royal sorrow and of popular
exultation, now looked a vast circle of calm and stately beauty.
How delusive is distance in every thing! Across that plain,
luxuriant with harvest, surrounded with those soft hills, and
glittering in the purple of this glorious evening, it looked a
paradise. I knew it—a pendemonium!
I drove with the haste of a courier to London; and after
having deposited my despatches with one of the under-secretaries
of the Foreign office, I flew to Mordecai's den in the city.
London appeared to me more crowded than ever; the streets longer,
and buildings dingier; and the whole, seen after the smokeless
and light-coloured towns of the Continent, looked an enormous
manufactory, where men wore themselves out in perpetual blackness
and bustle, to make their bread, and die. But my heart beat
quickly as I reached the door of that dingiest of all its
dwellings, where the lord of hundreds of thousands of pounds
burrowed himself on the eyes of mankind.
I knocked, but was long unanswered; at last a meagre clerk,
evidently of the "fallen people," and who seemed dug up from the
depths of the dungeon, gave me the intelligence that "his master
and family had left England." The answer was like an icebolt
through my frame. This was the moment to which I had looked
forward with, I shall not say what emotions. I could scarcely
define them; but they had a share of every strong, every
faithful, and every touching remembrance of my nature. My
disappointment was a pang. My head grey dizzy, I reeled; and
asked leave to enter the gloomy door, and rest for a moment. But
this the guardian of the den was too cautious to allow, and I
should have probably fainted in the street, but for the
appearance of an ancient Rebecca, the wife of the clerk, who,
feeling the compassion which belongs to the sex in all instances,
and exerting the authority which is so generally claimed by the
better-halves of men, pushed her husband back, and led the way
into the old cobwebbed parlour where I had so often been. A glass
of water, the sole hospitality of the house, revived me; and
after some enquiries alike fruitless with the past, I was about
to take my leave, when the clerk, in his removal of some papers,
not to be trusted within reach of a stranger, dropped a letter
from the bundle, on which was my name. From the variety of
addresses it had evidently travelled far, and had been returned
from half the post-offices of the Continent. It was two months'
old, but its news was to me most interesting. It was from
Mordecai; and after alluding to some pecuniary transactions with
his foreign brethren, always the first topic, he hurried on in
his usual abrupt strain:—"Mariamne has insisted on my
leaving England for a while. This is perplexing; as the war must
produce a new loan, and London is, after all, the only place
where those affairs can be transacted without trouble.—My
child is well, and yet she looks pallid from time to time, and
sheds tears when she thinks herself unobserved. All this may pass
away, but it makes me uneasy; and, as she has evidently made up
her mind to travel, I have only to give way—for, with all
her caprices, she is my child, my only child, and my beloved
child!
"I have heard a good deal of your proceedings from my
correspondent and kinsman in Paris. You have acquitted yourself
well, and it shall not be unknown in the quarter where it may be
of most service to you.—I have been stopped by Mariamne's
singing in the next room, and her voice has almost unmanned me;
she is melancholy of late, and her only music now is taken from
those ancestral hymns which our nation regard as the songs of the
Captivity. Her tones at this moment are singularly touching, and
I have been forced to lay down my pen, for she has melted me to
tears. Yet her colour has not altogether faded lately, and I
think sometimes that her eyes look brighter than ever! Heaven
help me, if I should lose her. I should then be alone in the
world.
"You may rely on my intelligence—a war is
inevitable. You may also rely on my conjecture—that
it will be the most desperate war which Europe has yet seen. One
that will break up foundations, as well as break down
superstructures; not a war of politics but of principles; not a
war for conquest but for ruin. All the treasuries of Europe will
be bankrupt within a twelvemonth of its commencement; unless
England shall become their banker. This will be the harvest of
the men of money.—It is unfortunate that your money is all
lodged for your commission; otherwise, in the course of a few
operations, you might make cent per cent, which I propose to do.
Apropos of commissions. I had nearly omitted, in my own
family anxieties, to mention the object for which I began my
letter. I have failed in arranging the affair of your
commission! This was not for want of zeal. But the prospect of a
war has deranged and inflamed every thing. The young nobility
have actually besieged the Horse-guards. All the weight of the
aristocracy has pressed upon the minister, and minor influence
has been driven from the field. The spirit is too gallant a one
to be blamed;—and yet—are there not a hundred other
pursuits, in which an intelligent and active mind, like your own,
might follow on the way to fortune? You have seen enough of
campaigning to know, that it is not all a flourish of trumpets.
Has the world but one gate, and that the Horse-guards? If my
personal judgment were to be asked, I should feel no regret for a
disappointment which may have come only to turn your knowledge
and ability to purposes not less suitable to an ambitious spirit,
nor less likely to produce a powerful impression on the
world—the only thing, after all, worth living for! You may
laugh at this language from a man of my country and my trade. But
even I have my ambition; and you may yet discover it to be
not less bold than if I carried the lamp of Gideon, or wielded
the sword of the Maccabee.—I must stop again; my poor
restless child is coming into the room at this moment,
complaining of the chill, in one of the finest days of summer.
She says that this villa has grown sunless, airless, and
comfortless. Finding that I am writing to you, she sends her best
wishes; and bids me ask, what is the fashionable colour for
mantles in Paris, and also what is become of that 'wandering
creature,' Lafontaine, if you should happen to recollect such a
personage."
"P.S.—My daughter insists on our setting out from
Brighton to-morrow, and crossing the Channel the day after. She
has a whim for revisiting Switzerland; and in the mean time begs
that if, during our absence, you should have a whim for
sea air and solitude, you may make of the villa any use you
please.—Yours sincerely,
"J.V. MORDECAI."
After reading this strange and broken letter, I was almost
glad that I had not seen Mariamne. Lafontaine was in her heart
still, in spite of absence. At this I did not wonder, for the
heart of woman, when once struck, is almost incapable of change:
but the suspense was killing her; and I had no doubt that her
loss would sink even her strong-headed parent to the grave. Yet,
what tidings had I to give? Whether her young soldier was shot in
the attempt to escape from St Lazare, or thrown into some of
those hideous dungeons, where so many thousands were dying in
misery from day to day, was entirely beyond my power to tell. It
was better that she should be roving over the bright hills, and
breathing the fresh breezes of Switzerland, than listening to my
hopeless conjectures at home; trying to reconcile herself to all
the chances which passion is so painfully ingenious in creating,
and dying, like a flower in all its beauty, on the spot where it
had grown.
But the letter contained nothing of the one name, for
which my first glance had looked over every line with breathless
anxiety. There was not a syllable of Clotilde! The father's cares
had absorbed all other thoughts; and the letter was to me a blank
in that knowledge for which I panted, as the hart pants for the
fountains. Still, I was not dead to the calls of friendship; and
that night's mail carried a long epistle to Mordecai, detailing
my escapes, and the services of his kindred in France; and for
Mariamne's ear, all that I could conceive cheering in my hopes of
that "wandering creature, Lafontaine."
But I was forced to think of sterner subjects. I had arrived
in England at a time of the most extraordinary public excitement.
Every man felt that some great trial of England and of Europe was
at hand; but none could distinctly define either its nature or
its cause. France, which had then begun to pour out her furious
declamations against this country, was, of course, generally
looked to as the quarter from which the storm was to come; but
the higher minds evidently contemplated hazards nearer home.
Affiliated societies, corresponding clubs, and all the
revolutionary apparatus, from whose crush and clamour I had so
lately emerged, met the ear and the eye on all occasions; and the
fiery ferocity of French rebellion was nearly rivalled by the
grave insolence of English "Rights of Man." But I am not about to
write the history of a time of national fever. The republicanism,
which Cicero and Plutarch instil into us all at our schools, had
been extinguished in me by the squalid realities of France. I had
seen the dissecting-room, and was cured of my love for
the science. My spirit, too, required rest. I could have
exclaimed with all the sincerity, and with all the weariness too,
of the poet:—
Oh, for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade,
Where rumour of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,
Might never reach me more!"
But, perhaps fortunately for my understanding, if not for my
life, I was not suffered to take refuge in the wilderness. London
was around me; rich and beggared, splendid and sullen, idle and
busy London. I was floating on those waves of human being, in
which the struggler must make for the shore, or sink. I was in
the centre of that huge whispering gallery, where every sound of
earth was echoed and re-echoed with new power; and where it was
impossible to dream. My days were now spent in communication with
the offices of government, and a large portion of my nights in
carrying on those correspondences, which, though seldom known in
the routine of Downing Street, form the essential part of its
intercourse with the continental cabinets. But a period of
suspense still remained. Parliament had been already summoned for
the 13th of December. Up to nearly the last moment, the cabinet
had been kept in uncertainty as to the actual intents of France.
There had been declamation in abundance in the French legislature
and the journals; but with this unsubstantial evidence the
cabinet could not meet the country. Couriers were sent in all
directions; boats were stationed along the coast to bring the
first intelligence of actual hostilities suddenly; every
conceivable expedient was adopted; but all in vain. The day of
opening the Session was within twenty-four hours. After lingering
hour by hour, in expectancy of the arrival of despatches from our
ambassador at the Hague, I offered to cross the sea in the first
fishing-boat which I could find, and ascertain the facts. My
offer was accepted; and in the twilight of a winter's morning,
and in the midst of a snow-storm, I was making my shivering way
homeward through the wretched lanes which, dark as pitch and
narrow as footpaths, then led to the centre of the diplomatic
world; when, in my haste, I had nearly overset a meagre figure,
which, half-blinded by the storm, was tottering towards the
Foreign office. After a growl, in the most angry jargon, the man
recognized me; he was the clerk whom I had seen at Mordecai's
house. He had, but an hour before, received, by one of the
private couriers of the firm, a letter, with orders to deliver it
with all expedition. He put it into my hand: it was not from
Mordecai, but from Elnathan, and was simply in these
words:—"My kinsman and your friend has desired me to
forward to you the first intelligence of hostilities. I send you
a copy of the bulletin which will be issued at noon this day. It
is yet unknown; but I have it from a source on which you may
perfectly rely. Of this make what use you think advantageous.
Your well-wisher."
With what pangs the great money-trafficker must have consigned
to my use a piece of intelligence which must have been a mine of
wealth to any one who carried it first to the Stock Exchange, I
could easily conjecture. But I saw in it the powerful pressure of
Mordecai, which none of his tribe seemed even to have the means
of resisting. My sensations were singular enough as I traced my
way up the dark and lumbering staircase of the Foreign office;
with the consciousness that, if I had chosen to turn my steps in
another direction, I might before night be master of thousands,
or of hundreds of thousands. But it is only due to the sense of
honour which had been impressed on me, even in the riot and
roughness of my Eton days, to say, that I did not hesitate for a
moment Sending one of the attendants to arouse the chief clerk, I
stood waiting his arrival with the bulletin unopened in my hands.
The official had gone to his house in the country, and might not
return for some hours. My perplexity increased. Every moment
might supersede the value of my priority. At length a twinkling
light through the chinks of one of the dilapidated doors, told me
that there was some one within, from whom I might, at least, ask
when and how ministers were to be approached. The door was opened,
and, to my surprise, I found that the occupant of the chamber was
one of the most influential members of administration. My name
and purpose were easily given; and I was received as I believe
few are in the habit of being received by the disposers of high
things in high places. The fire had sunk to embers, the lamp was
dull, and the hearer was half frozen and half asleep. Yet no
sooner had he cast his eyes upon the mysterious paper which I
gave into his grasp, than all his faculties were in full
activity.
"This," said he, "is the most important paper that has reached
this country since the taking of the Bastile. THE SCHELDT IS
OPENED! This involves an attack on Holland; the defence of our
ally is a matter of treaty, and we must arm without delay. The
war is begun, but where it shall end"—he paused, and fixing
his eyes above, with a solemnity of expression which I had not
expected in the stern and hard-lined countenance, "or who shall
live to see its close—who shall tell?"
"We have been waiting," said he, "for this intelligence from
week to week, with the fullest expectation that it would come;
and yet, when it has come, it strikes like a thunderclap. This is
the third night that I have sat in this hovel, at this table,
unable to go to rest, and looking for the despatch from hour to
hour.—You see, sir, that our life is at least not the bed
of roses for which the world is so apt to give us credit. It is
like the life of my own hills—the higher the sheiling
stands, the more it gets of the blast."
I do not give the name of this remarkable man. He was a Scot,
and possessed of all the best characteristics of his country. I
had heard him in Parliament, where he was the most powerful
second of the most powerful first that England had seen. But if
all men were inferior to the prime minister in majesty and
fulness of conception, the man to whom I now listened had no
superior in readiness of retort, in aptness of
illustration—that mixture of sport and satire, of easy jest
and subtle sarcasm, which forms the happiest talent for the
miscellaneous uses of debate. If Pitt moved forward like the
armed man of chivalry, or rather like the main body of the
battle—for never man was more entitled to the appellation
of a "host in himself"—never were front, flanks, and rear
of the host covered by a more rapid, quick-witted, and
indefatigable auxiliary. He was a man of family, and brought with
him into public life, not the manners of a menial of office, but
the bearing of a gentleman. Birth and blood were in his bold and
manly countenance; and I could have felt no difficulty in
conceiving him, if his course had followed his nature, the
chieftain on his hills, at the head of his gallant retainers,
pursuing the wild sports of his romantic region; or in some
foreign land, gathering the laurels which the Scotch soldier has
so often and so proudly added to the honours of the empire.
He was perfectly familiar with the great question of the time,
and saw the full bearings of my intelligence with admirable
sagacity; pointed out the inevitable results of suffering France
to take upon herself the arbitration of Europe, and gave new and
powerful views of the higher relation in which England was to
stand, as the general protectress of the Continent. "This
bulletin," said he, "announces the fact, that a French squadron
has actually sailed up the Scheldt to attack Antwerp. Yet it was
not ten years since France protested against the same act by
Austria, as a violation of the rights of Holland. The new
aggression is, therefore, not simply a solitary violence, but a
vast fraud; not merely the breach of an individual treaty, but a
declaration that no treaty is henceforth to be held as binding;
it is more than an act of rapine; it is an universal dissolution
of the principles by which society is held together. In what
times are we about to live?"
My reply was—"That it depended on the spirit of England
herself, whether the conflict was to be followed by honour or by
shame; that she had a glorious career before her, if she had
magnanimity sufficient to take the part marked out for her by
circumstances; and that, with the championship of the world in
her hands, even defeat would be a triumph."
He now turned the conversation to myself; spoke
with more than official civility of my services, and peculiarly
of the immediate one; and asked in what branch of diplomacy I
desired advancement?
My answer was prompt. "In none. I desired promotion but in one
way—the army." I then briefly stated the accidental loss of
my original appointment, and received, before I left the chamber,
a note for the secretary at war, recommending me, in the
strongest terms, for a commission in the Guards.—The world
was now before me, and the world in the most vivid, various, and
dazzling shape; in the boldest development of grandeur, terror,
and wild vicissitude, which it exhibited for a thousand
years—ENGLAND WAS AT WAR!
There is no sight on earth more singular, or more awful, than
a great nation going to war. I saw the scene in its highest point
of view, by seeing it in England. Its perfect freedom, its
infinite, and often conflicting, variety of opinion—its
passionate excitement, and its stupendous power, gave the summons
to hostilities a character of interest, of grandeur, and of
indefinite but vast purposes, unexampled in any other time, or in
any other country. When one of the old monarchies commenced war,
the operation, however large and formidable, was simple. A
monarch resolved, a council sat, less to guide than to echo his
resolution; an army marched, invaded the enemy's territory,
fought a battle—perhaps a dubious one—rested on its
arms; and while Te Deum was sung in both capitals alike
for the "victory" of neither, the ministers of both were
constructing an armistice, a negotiation, and a peace—each
and all to be null and void on the first opportunity.
But the war of England was a war of the nation—a war of
wrath and indignation—a war of the dangers of civilized
society entrusted to a single championship—a great effort
of human nature to discharge, in the shape of blood, a disease
which was sapping the vitals of Europe; or in a still higher, and
therefore a more faithful view, the gathering of a tempest,
which, after sweeping France in its fury, was to restore the
exhausted soil and blasted vegetation of monarchy throughout the
Continent; and in whose highest, England, serene and undismayed,
was to
"Ride in the whirlwind, and direct the storm."
I must acknowledge, that I looked upon the coming conflict
with a strange sense of mingled alarm and rejoicing. For the
latter feeling, perhaps I ought to make some apology; but I was
young, ardent, and ambitious. My place in life was unfixed;
standing in that unhappy middle position, in which stands a man
of birth too high to suffer his adoption of the humbler means of
existence, and yet of resources too inadequate to sustain him
without action—nay, bold and indefatigable exertion. I, at
the moment, felt a very inferior degree of compunction at the
crisis which offered to give me at least a chance of being seen,
known, and understood among men. I felt like a man whose ship was
stranded, and who saw the storm lifting the surges that were to
lift him along with them; or like the traveller in an earthquake,
who saw the cleft in the ground swallowing up the river which had
hitherto presented an impassable obstacle—cities and
mountains might sink before the concussion had done its
irresistible will, but, at all events, it had cleared his
way.
In thoughts like these, rash and unconnected as they were, I
spent many a restless day, and still more restless night. I often
sprang from a pillow which, if I had lived in the days of
witchcraft, I should have thought spelled to refuse me sleep; and
walking for hours, endeavoured to reduce into shape the
speculations which filled my mind with splendours and
catastrophes worthy of oriental dreams. Why did I not then pursue
the career in which I had begun the world? Why not devote myself
to diplomacy, in which I had hitherto received honour? Why not
enter into Parliament, which opened all the secrets of power? For
this I had two reasons. The first—and, let me confess, the
most imperious—was, that my pride had been deeply hurt by
the loss of my commission. I felt that I had not only been
deprived of a noble profession, accidental as was the loss; but
that I had subjected myself to the trivial, but stinging remarks,
which never fail to find an obnoxious cause for every
failure. While this cloud hung over me, I was determined never to
return to my father's house. Good-natured as the friends of my
family might be, I was fully aware of the style in which
misfortune is treated in the idleness of country life; and the
Honourable Mr Marston's loss of his rank in his Majesty's guards,
or his preference of a more pacific promotion, was too tempting a
topic to lose any of its stimulants by the popular ignorance of
the true transaction. My next reason was, that my mind was
harassed and wearied by disappointment, until I should not have
regreted to terminate the struggle in the first field of battle.
The only woman whom I loved, and whom, in the strange frenzy of
passion, I solemnly believed to be the only woman on earth
deserving to be so loved, had wholly disappeared, and was, by
this time, probably wedded. The only woman whom I regarded as a
friend, was in another country, probably dying. If I could have
returned to Mortimer Castle—which I had already determined
to be impossible—I should have found only a callous,
perhaps a contemptuous, head of the family, angry at my return to
burden him. Even Vincent—my old and kind-hearted friend
Vincent—had been a soldier; and though I was sure of never
receiving a reproach from his wise and gentle lips, was I equally
sure that I could escape the flash, or the sorrow, of his
eye?
In thoughts like these, and they were dangerous ones, I made
many a solitary rush out into the wild winds and beating snows of
the winter, which had set in early and been remarkably severe;
walking bareheaded in the most lonely places of the suburbs,
stripping my bosom to the blast, and longing for its tenfold
chill to assuage the fever which burned within me. I had also
found the old delay at the Horse-guards. The feelings of this
period make me look with infinite compassion on the unhappy
beings who take their lives into their own hands, and who
extinguish all their earthly anxieties at a plunge. But I had
imbibed principles of a firmer substance, and but upon one
occasion, and one alone, felt tempted to an act of despair.
Taking my lonely dinner in a tavern of the suburbs, the waiter
handed me a newspaper, which he had rescued for my behoof from
the hands of a group, eager, as all the world then was, for
French intelligence. My eye rambled into the fashionable column;
and the first paragraph, headed "Marriage in high life,"
announced that, on the morrow, were to be solemnized the nuptials
of Clotilde, Countess de Tourville, with the Marquis de
Montrecour, colonel of the French Mousquetaires, &c. The
paper dropped from my hands. I rushed out of the house; and,
scarcely knowing where I went, I hurried on, until I found myself
out of the sight or sound of mortal. The night was pitch-dark;
there was no lamp near; the wind roared; and it was only by the
flash of the foam that I discovered the broad sheet of water
before me. I had strayed into Hyde Park, and was on the bank of
the Serpentine. With what ease might I not finish all! It was
another step. Life was a burden—thought was a
torment—the light of day a loathing. But the paroxysm soon
gave way. Impressions of the duty and the trials of human nature,
made in earlier years, revived within me with a singular
freshness and force. Tears gushed from my eyes, fast and flowing;
and, with a long-forgotten prayer for patience and humility, I
turned from the place of temptation. As I reached the streets
once more, I heard the trumpets of the Life Guards, and the band
of a battalion returning to their quarters. The infantry were the
Coldstream. They had been lining the streets for the king's
procession to open the sitting of Parliament. This was the 13th
of December—the memorable day to which every heart in
Europe was more or less vibrating; yet which I had totally
forgotten. What is man but an electrical machine after all? The
sound and sight of soldiership restored me to the full vividness
of my nature. The machine required only to be touched, to shoot
out its latent sparks; and with a new spirit and a new
determination kindling through every fibre, I hastened to be
present at that debate which was to be the judgment of
nations.
My official intercourse with ministers had given me
some privileges, and I obtained a seat under the
gallery—that part of the House of Commons which is
occasionally allotted to strangers of a certain rank. The House
was crowded, and every countenance was pictured with interest and
solemn anxiety. Grey, Sheridan, and other distinguished names of
party, had already taken their seats; but the great heads of
Government and Opposition were still absent. At length a buzz
among the crowd who filled the floor,—and the name of Fox
repeated in every tone of congratulation, announced the
pre-eminent orator of England. I now saw Fox for the first time;
and I was instantly struck with the incomparable similitude of
all that I saw of him to all that I had conceived from his
character and his style. In the broad bold forehead, the strong
sense—in the relaxed mouth, the self-indulgent and reckless
enjoyment—in the quick, small eye under those magnificent
black brows, the man of sagacity, of sarcasm, and of humour; and
in the grand contour of a countenance and head, which might have
been sculptured to take its place among the sages and sovereigns
of antiquity, the living proof of those extraordinary powers,
which could have been checked in their ascent to the highest
elevation of public life, only by prejudices and passions not
less extraordinary. As he advanced up the House, he recognized
every one on both sides, and spoke or smiled to nearly all. He
stopped once or twice in his way, and was surrounded by a circle
with whom, as I could judge from their laughter, he exchanged
some pleasantry of the hour. When at length he arrived at the
seat which had been reserved for him, he threw himself upon it
with the easy look of comfort of a man who had reached
home—gave nod to Windham, held out a finger to Grey, warmly
shook hands with Sheridan; and then, opening his well-known blue
and buff costume, threw himself back into the bench, and
laughingly gasped for air.
But another movement of the crowd at the bar announced another
arrival, and Pitt entered the House. His look and movement were
equally characteristic with those of his great rival. He looked
to neither the right nor the left; replied to the salutations of
his friends by the slightest possible bow; neither spoke nor
smiled; but, slowly advancing, took his seat in total silence.
The Speaker, hitherto occupied with some routine business, now
read the King's speech, and, calling on "Mr Pitt," the minister
rose. I have for that rising but one description—the one
which filled my memory at the moment, from the noblest poet of
the world.
"Deep on his front engraven,
Deliberation sat, and public care.
Sage he stood,
With Atlantean shoulders, fit to bear
The weight of mightiest monarchies. His look
Drew audience and attention, still as night,
Or summer's noontide air."
THE WEEK OF AN EMPEROR.
The week ending the 8th of June, was the most brilliant that
ever occupied and captivated the fashionable world of a
metropolis of two millions of souls, the head of an empire of two
hundred millions. The recollection runs us out of breath. Every
hour was a new summons to a new fête, a new fantasy, or a
new exhibition of the handsomest man of the forty-two millions of
Russia proper. The toilettes of the whole beau monde were
in activity from sunny morn to dewy eve; and from dewy eve to
waxlighted midnight. A parade of the Guards, by which the world
was tempted into rising at ten o'clock; a dejeuner à la
fourchette, by which it was surprised into dining at
three, (more majorum;) an opera, by which those whose hour
for going out is eleven, were forced into their carriages at
nine; a concert at Hanover Square, finished by a ball and supper
at Buckingham palace;—all were among those brilliant
perversions of the habits of high life which make the week one
brilliant tumult; but which never could have been revolutionized
but by an emperor in the flower of his age. Wherever he moved, he
was followed by a host of the fair and fashionable. The showy
equipages of the nobility were in perpetual motion. The parks
were a whirlwind of horsemen and horsewomen. The streets were a
levy en masse of the peerage. The opera-house was a gilded
"black hole of Calcutta." The front of Buckingham palace was a
scene of loyalty, dangerous to life and limb; men, careful of
either, gave their shillings for a glimpse through a telescope;
and shortsighted ladies fainted, that they might be carried into
houses which gave then a full view. Mivart's, the retreat of
princes, had the bustle of a Bond Street hotel. Ashburnham House
was in a state of siege. And Buckingham palace, with its guards,
cavalcades, musterings of the multitude, and thundering of brass
bands, seemed to be the focus of a national revolution. But it
was within the palace that the grand display existed. The gilt
candelabra, the gold plate, the maids of honour, all fresh as
tares in June; and the ladies in waiting, all Junos and Minervas,
all jewelled, and none under forty-five, enraptured the mortal
eye, to a degree unrivalled in the recollections of the oldest
courtier, and unrecorded in the annals of queenly
hospitality.
But we must descend to the world again; we must, as the poet
said,
"Bridle in our struggling muse with pain,
That longs to launch into a nobler strain."
We bid farewell to a description of the indescribable.
During this week, but one question was asked by the universal
world of St James's—"What was the cause of the Czar's
coming?"
Every one answered in his own style. The tourists—a race
who cannot live without rambling through the same continental
roads, which they libel for their roughness every year; the same
hotels, which they libel for their discomforts; and the same
table-d'hotes, which they libel as the perfection of bad
cookery, and barefaced chicane—pronounced that the
love of travel was the imperial impulse. The politicians of the
clubs—who, having nothing to do for themselves, manage the
affairs of all nations, and can discover high treason in the
manipulation of a toothpick, and symptoms of war in a
waltz—were of opinion, that the Czar had come either to
construct an European league against the marriage of little Queen
Isabella, or to beat up for recruits for the "holy" hostilities
of Morocco. With the fashionable world, the decision was, that he
had come to see Ascot races, and the Duke of Devonshire's
gardens, before the sun withered, or St Swithin washed them away.
The John Bull world—as wise at least as any of their
betters, who love a holiday, and think Whitsuntide the happiest
period of the year for that reason, and Greenwich hill the finest
spot in creation—were convinced that his Majesty's visit
was merely that of a good-humoured and active gentleman, glad to
escape from the troubles of royalty and the heaviness
of home, and take a week's ramble among the oddities of England.
"Who shall decide," says Pope, "when doctors disagree?" Perhaps
the nearest way of reaching the truth is, to take all the reasons
together, and try how far they may be made to agree. What can be
more probable than that the fineness of the finest season within
memory, the occurrence of a moment of leisure in the life of a
monarch ruling a fifth of the habitable globe, roused the
curiosity of an intelligent mind, excited, like that of his great
ancestor Peter, by a wish to see the national improvements of the
great country of engineering, shipbuilding, and tunnelling;
perhaps with Ascot races—the most showy exhibition of the
most beautiful horses in the world—to wind up the display,
might tempt a man of vigorous frame and active spirit, to gallop
across Europe, and give seven brief days to England!
An additional conjecture has been proposed by the papers
presumed to be best informed in cabinet secrets; that this rapid
journey has had for its distinct purpose the expression of the
Imperial scorn for the miserable folly and malignant coxcombry of
the pamphlet on the French navy; which has excited so much
contempt in England, and so much boasting in France, and so much
surprise and ridicule every where else in Europe. Nothing could
be more in consonance with a manly character, than to show how
little it shared the conceptions of a coxcomb; and no more direct
mode could be adopted than the visit, to prove his willingness to
be on the best terms with her government and her people. We
readily receive this conjecture, because it impresses a higher
character on the whole transaction; it belongs to an advanced
spirit of royal intercourse, and it constitutes an important
pledge for that European peace, which is the greatest benefaction
capable of being conferred by kings.
The Emperor may be said to have come direct from St
Petersburg, as his stops on the road were only momentary. He
reached Berlin from his capital with courier's speed, in four
days and six hours, on Sunday fortnight last. His arrival was so
unexpected, that the Russian ambassador in Prussia was taken by
surprise. He travelled through Germany incognito, and on Thursday
night, the 30th, arrived at the Hague. Next day, at two o'clock,
he embarked at Rotterdam for England. Here, two steamers had been
prepared for his embarkation. The steamers anchored for the night
at Helvoetsluys. At three in the following morning, they
continued the passage, arriving at Woolwich at ten. The Russian
ambassador and officers of the garrison prepared to receive him;
but on his intimating his particular wish to land in private, the
customary honours were dispensed with. Shortly after ten, the
Emperor landed. He was dressed in the Russian costume, covered
with an ample and richly-furred cloak. After a stay of a few
minutes, he entered Baron Brunow's carriage with Count Orloff,
and drove to the Russian embassy. The remainder of the day was
given to rest after his fatigue.
On the next morning, Sunday, Prince Albert paid a visit to the
Emperor. They met on the grand staircase, and embraced each other
cordially in the foreign style. The Prince proposed that the
Emperor should remove to the apartments which were provided for
him in the palace—an offer which was politely declined. At
eleven, the Emperor attended divine service at the chapel of the
Russian embassy in Welbeck Street. At half-past one, Prince
Albert arrived to conduct him to the palace. He wore a scarlet
uniform, with the riband and badge of the Garter. The Queen
received the Emperor in the grand hall. A dejeuner was
soon afterwards served. The remainder of the day was spent in
visits to the Queen-Dowager and the Royal Family. One visit of
peculiar interest was paid. The Emperor drove to Apsley House, to
visit the Duke of Wellington. The Duke received him in the hall,
and conducted him to the grand saloon on the first floor. The
meeting on both sides was most cordial. The Emperor conversed
much and cheerfully with the illustrious Duke, and complimented
him highly on the beauty of his pictures, and the magnificence of
his mansion. But even emperors are but men, and the Czar,
fatigued with his round of driving, on his return to the embassy
fell asleep, and slumbered till dinner-time, though his Royal
Highness of Cambridge and the Monarch of Saxony called to visit
him. At a quarter to eight o'clock, three of the royal carriages
arrived, for the purpose of conveying the Emperor and his suite
to Buckingham palace.
On Monday, the Emperor rose at seven. After breakfast he drove
to Mortimer's, the celebrated jeweller's, where he remained for
an hour, and is said to have purchased L.5000 worth of
jewellery. He then drove to the Zoological gardens and the
Regent's park. In the course of the drive, he visited Sir Robert
Peel, and the families of some of our ambassadors in Russia. At
three o'clock, he gave a dejeuner to the Duke of
Devonshire, who had also been an ambassador in Russia. Dover
Street was crowded with the carriages of the nobility, who came
to put down their names in the visiting-book.
At five, a guard of honour of the First Life-Guards came to
escort him to the railway, on his visit to Windsor; but on his
observing its arrival, he expressed a wish to decline the honour,
for the purpose of avoiding all parade. The Queen's carriages had
arrived, and the Emperor and his suite drove off through streets
crowded with horsemen. On arriving at the railway station, the
Emperor examined the electrical telegraph, and, entering the
saloon carriage, the train set off, and arrived at Slough, a
distance of nearly twenty miles, in the astonishingly brief time
of twenty-five minutes.
At the station, the Emperor was met by Prince Albert, and
conveyed to the castle.
The banquet took place in the Waterloo chamber, a vast hall
hung with portraits of the principal sovereigns and statesmen of
Europe, to paint which, the late Sir Thomas Laurence had been
sent on a special mission at the close of the war in 1815. Sir
Thomas's conception of form and likeness was admirable, but his
colouring was cold and thin. His "Waterloo Gallery" forms a
melancholy contrast with the depth and richness of the adjoining
"Vandyk Chamber;" but his likenesses are complete. The banquet
was royally splendid. The table was covered with gold plate and
chased ornaments of remarkable beauty—the whole lighted by
rows of gold candelabra. The King of Saxony, the Duke of
Wellington, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Aberdeen, and the chief
noblemen of the household, were present at the entertainment.
TUESDAY.
This was the day of Ascot races. The road from Windsor to the
course passes through a couple of miles of the rich quiet scenery
which peculiarly belongs to England. The course itself is a file
open plain, commanding an extensive view. Some rumours, doubting
the visit of the royal party, excited a double interest in the
first sight of the cavalcade, preceded by the royal yeomen,
galloping up to the stand. They were received with shouts. The
Emperor, the King of Saxony, and Prince Albert, were in the
leading carriage. They were attired simply as private gentlemen,
in blue frock-coats. The Duke of Wellington, Sir Robert Peel, and
the household, followed in the royal carriages. The view of the
Stand at this period was striking, and the royal and noble
personages were repeatedly cheered. An announcement was conveyed
to the people, that the Emperor had determined to give L.500
a-year to the course. The Czarewitch had already given L.200 at
Newmarket. The announcement was received with renewed cheering.
All kings are fond of horses; and the monarch of the most
numerous and active cavalry in the world, may be allowed to be a
connoisseur in their strength, swiftness, and perseverance, by a
superior right. The Emperor can call out 80,000 Cossacks at a
sound of his trumpet. He exhibited an evident interest in the
races. The horses were saddled before the race in front of the
grand stand, and brought up to it after the race, for the purpose
of weighing the jockeys. He had a full opportunity of inspection;
but not content with this, when the winner of the gold vase, the
mare Alice Hawthorn, was brought up to the stand, he descended,
and examined this beautiful animal with the closeness and
critical eye of a judge.
On Wednesday, the pageant in which emperors most delight was
exhibited—a review of the royal guards. There are so few
troops in England, as the Prince de Joinville has "the happiness"
to observe, that a review on the continental scale of tens of
thousands, is out of the question. Yet, to the eye which can
discern the excellence of soldiership, and the completeness of
soldierly equipment, the few in line before the Emperor on this
day, were enough to gratify the intelligent eye which this active
monarch turns upon every thing. The infantry were—the
second battalion of the grenadier guards, the second battalion of
the Coldstream guards, the second battalion of the fusilier
guards, and the forty-seventh regiment. The cavalry
were—two troops of the royal horse guards, (blue,) the
first regiment of the life guards, and the seventeenth lancers.
The artillery were—detachments of the royal horse
artillery, and the field artillery.
A vast multitude from London by the trains, and from the
adjoining country, formed a line parallel to the troops; and
nothing could exceed the universal animation and cheering when
the Emperor, the King of Saxony, and the numerous and glittering
staff, entered the field, and came down the line.
After the usual salutes, and marching past the centre, where
the royal carriages had taken their stand, the evolutions began.
They were few and simple, but of that order which is most
effective in the field. The formation of the line from the
sections; the general advance of the line; the halt, and a
running fire along the whole front; the breaking up of the line
into squares; the squares firing, then deploying into line, and
marching to the rear. The Queen, with the royal children, left
the ground before the firing began, The review was over at
half-past two. The appearance of the troops was admirable; the
manoeuvres were completely successful; and the fineness of the
day gave all the advantages of sun and landscape to this most
brilliant spectacle.
But the most characteristic portion of the display consisted
in the commanding-officers who attended, to give this unusual
mark of respect to the Emperor.
Wellington, the "conqueror of a hundred fights," rode at the
head of the grenadier guards, as their colonel Lord Combermere,
general of the cavalry in the Peninsula, rode at the head of his
regiment, the first life guards. The Marquis of Anglesey, general
of the cavalry at Waterloo, rode at the head of his regiment, the
royal horse guards. Sir George Murray, quartermaster-general in
the Peninsula, rode at the head of the artillery, as
master-general of the ordnance. His royal highness the Duke of
Cambridge rode at the head of his regiment, the Coldstream. His
royal highness Prince Albert rode at the head of his regiment,
the Scotch fusiliers. General Sir William Anson rode at the head
of his regiment, the forty-seventh. Lieutenant-Colonel Quentin
rode at the head of the seventeenth lancers, the colonel of the
regiment, Prince George of Cambridge, being in the Ionian
Islands. Thus, three field-marshals, and four generals, passed in
review before the illustrious guests of her Majesty. The Emperor
expressed himself highly gratified; as every eye accustomed to
troops must have been, by the admirable precision of the
movements, and the fine appearance of the men. A striking
instance of the value of railways for military operations, was
connected with this review. The forty-seventh regiment, quartered
in Gosport, was brought to Windsor in the morning, and sent back
in the evening of the review day; the journey, altogether, was
about 140 miles! Such are the miracles of machinery in our days.
This was certainly an extraordinary performance, when we
recollect that it was the conveyance of about 700 men; and shows
what might be done in case of any demand for the actual services
of the troops. But even this exploit will be eclipsed within a
few days, by the opening of the direct line from London to
Newcastle, which will convey troops, or any thing, 300 miles in
twelve hours. The next step will be to reach Edinburgh in a day!
The Emperor was observed to pay marked attention to the troops of
the line, the forty-seventh and the lancers; observing, as it is
said, "your household troops are noble fellows; but what I wished
particularly to see, were the troops with which you gained your
victories in India and China." A speech of this kind was worthy
of the sagacity of a man who knew where the true strength of a
national army lies, and who probably, besides, has often had his
glance turned to the dashing services of our soldiery in Asia.
The household troops of every nation are select men, and the most
showy which the country can supply. Thus they are nearly of equal
excellence. The infantry of ours, it is true, have been always
"fighting regiments"—the first in every expedition, and
distinguished for the gallantry of their conduct in every field.
The cavalry, though seldomer sent on foreign service, exhibited
pre-eminent bravery in the Peninsula, and their charges at
Waterloo were irresistible. But it is of the marching regiments
that the actual "army" consists, and their character forms the
character of the national arms.
In the evening the Emperor and the King of Saxony dined with
her Majesty at Windsor.
THURSDAY.
The royal party again drove to the Ascot course, and were
received with the usual acclamations. The Emperor and King were
in plain clothes, without decorations of any kind; Prince Albert
wore the Windsor uniform. The cheers were loud for
Wellington.
The gold cup, value three hundred guineas, was the principal
prize. Eight horses ran, and the cup was won by a colt of Lord
Albemarle's. His lordship is lucky, at least on the turf. He won
the cup at Ascot last year.
FRIDAY.
The royal party came to London by the railway. The Emperor
spent the chief part of the day in paying visits, in the Russian
ambassador's private carriage, to his personal
friends—chiefly the families of those noblemen who had been
ambassadors to Russia.
SATURDAY.
The Emperor, the King, and Prince Albert, went to the Duke of
Devonshire's dejeuner at Chiswick. The Duke's mansion and
gardens are proverbial as evidences of his taste, magnificence,
and princely expenditure. All the nobility in London at this
period were present. The royal party were received with
distinguished attention by the noble host, and his hospitality
was exhibited in a style worthy of his guests and himself. While
the suite of salons were thrown open for the general
company, the royal party were received in a salon which
had been decorated as a Turkish tent. Bands of the guards played
in the gardens, a quadille band played in the ball-room, and the
fineness of the weather gave the last charm to a fête
prepared with equal elegance and splendour. We doubt whether
Europe can exhibit any open air festivity that can compete with a
dejeuner at Chiswick. The gardens of some of the
continental palaces are larger, but they want the finish of the
English garden. Their statues and decorations are sometimes fine;
but they want the perfect and exquisite neatness which gives an
especial charm to English horticulture. The verdure of the lawns,
the richness and variety of the flowers, and the general taste
displayed, in even the most minute and least ornamental features,
render the English garden wholly superior, in fitness and in
beauty, to the gardens of the continental sovereigns and
nobility.
In the evening, the Queen and her guests went to the Italian
opera. The house was greatly, and even hazardously crowded. It is
said that, in some instances, forty guineas was paid for a box.
But whether this may be an exaggeration or not, the sum would
have been well worth paying, to escape the tremendous pressure in
the pit. After all, the majority of the spectators were
disappointed in their principal object, the view of the royal
party. They all sat far back in the box, and thus, to
three-fourths of the house, were completely invisible. In this
privacy, for which it is not easy to account, and which it would
have been so much wiser to have avoided, the audience
were long kept in doubt whether the national anthem was to be
sung. At last, a stentorian voice from the gallery called for it.
A general response was made by the multitude; the curtain rose,
and God save the Queen was sung with acclamation. The ice thus
broken, it was followed by the Russian national anthem, a firm,
rich, and bold composition. The Emperor was said to have shed
tears at the unexpected sound of that noble chorus, which brought
back the recollection of his country at so vast a distance from
home. But if these anthems had not been thus accidentally
performed, the royal party would have lost a much finer display
than any thing which they could have seen on the stage—the
rising of the whole audience in the boxes—all the
fashionable world in gala, in its youth, beauty, and
ornament, seen at full sight, while the chorus was on the
stage.
SUNDAY.
On this day at two o'clock, the Emperor, after taking leave of
the Queen and the principal members of the Royal family, embarked
at Woolwich in the government steamer, the Black Eagle, commanded
for the time by the Earl of Hardwicke. The vessel dropped down
the river under the usual salutes from the batteries at Woolwich;
the day was serene, and the Black Eagle cut the water with a keel
as smooth as it was rapid. The Emperor entered into the habits of
the sailor with as much ease as he had done into those of the
soldier. He conversed good-humouredly with the officers and men,
admired the discipline and appearance of the marines, who had
been sent as his escort, was peculiarly obliging to Lord
Hardwicke and Lieutenant Peel, (a son of the premier,) and
ordered his dinner on deck, that he might enjoy the scenery on
the banks of the Thames. The medals of some of the marines who
had served in Syria, attracted his attention, and he enquired
into the nature of their services. He next expressed a wish to
see the manual exercise performed, which of course was done; and
his majesty, taking a musket, went through the Russian manual
exercise. On his arrival on the Dutch coast, the King of Holland
came out to meet him in a steamer; and on his landing, the
British crew parted with him with three cheers. The Imperial
munificence was large to a degree which we regret; for it would
be much more gratifying to the national feelings to receive those
distinguished strangers, without suffering the cravers for
subscriptions to intrude themselves into their presence.
On the Emperor's landing in Holland, he reviewed a large body
of Dutch troops, and had intended to proceed up the Rhine, and
enjoy the landscape of its lovely shores at his leisure. But for
him there is no leisure; and his project was broken up by the
anxious intelligence of the illness of one of his daughters by a
premature confinement. He immediately changed his route, and set
off at full speed for St Petersburg.
