7.:r age, and under hajipier influences, he would have learned that few find such exquisite delight in the service of the muses as those who court them in the scanty seasons snatched from toil. It was thus that one whose bread was earned by commercial drudgery ex- CHATTERTON WRITES TO WALPOLE. 21 changed in leisure hours the ledgers of the India House for the dearer pages of Elia, and conquered the admiration of critics and reviewers for the name and genius of Charles Lamb. Chatterton's disgust with his condition now constrained him CO many efforts to extricate himself. Not content with his correspondence with London booksellers, he ventured an ap- plication to Horace Walpole, the would-be Mecaenas of his day. He wrote to the patronising nobleman that treasures of ancient poetry had been discovered at Bristol, and enclosed several fragments, such as had won his fellow antiquaries. These, however, were at once pronounced forgeries by Mason and Gray, whose acumen was superior to that of Cateott and Barret; but Walpole, while convinced of the imposition, "could not," as he confesses, "but admire the spirit of po- etry which breathed through the rejected waifs." This attempt upon Walpole brings before us more closely that singular feature In Chatterton's character, the practice of literary im- position. It had, from years of cultivation, become a passion, and one not without a plea. Alas! it was the sacrifice which pride demanded even of truth — it was the secret incense which he offered to the divinity that dwelt within, and it was the only tribute which his genius received, till tribute came too late. Imposture is with some a gift. * Such possess, as by in- stinct, the command of human credulity, and weave at will their net-work of deception. Thus was endowed the Child Bard of Bristol. But Chatterton soared far above mere game upon confidence. His grasp was as great upon the intellect as up- on the credulity, and he possessed the arts of compelling history, and heraldry, and romance, and song, to unite in the most sublime deceptions. It was this unheard-of gift, whose 22 THE CniLD BARD. first exercise may have arisen from want or timidity, which now brought forth the boldest of all literary forgeries. Next to the " Fryar's March," we have that curious and perplexing play upon heraldry, the "De Burghum Arms and Pedigree." It appears that a worthy pewterer of Bristol, whose sign had long borne the name of Burgum, was one day visited by the boy antiquary, with the astounding news that he, so far from being a plebeian artisan, was a scion of a most illustrious house — nay, that the very blood of earls flowed through his veins. The pewterer was at first overwhelmed, but at length yielded to the pleasing tale, and his rising ambition is soon greeted by a number of ancient parchments, rich with blazonry and quartered arms, all submitted to him by the curious lad. The parchments pursued the research from the reign of Charles Second to that of William the Conqueror, where, in "De Burghum, Earl of Northampton," the delighted pewterer finds his ancestor. The De Burghum Pedigree is one of the mar- vels of heraldry. It fills forty printed pages, and exhibits such a familiarity with the details of that science as must sur- prise even an expert. Alas ! it was a sheer fiction, coined by the attorney's clerk of sixteen, in whose very existence the gauds and blazonry of the peerage were interwoven. The pew- terer enjoyed the brief glory of noble blood, so exalted in the view of the plebeian English, until on application to the Ollice of Heraldry in London for confirmation, the splendid dream was dissolved. These attempts, however, were but the earnest of a loftier effort, in which the very muses should appear in mask, while the young magician of the eighteenth century should summon past ages to reveal their feats and their heroes before awe-smitten antiquaries. And now in rapid succession appeared the " Rowley Poems," YOUTHFUL GENIUS. 23 those great enigmas, which so intensely vexed the literary world, long after their hapless author was mouldering m a paupers shell. The attorney's clerk had created the august myth of Thomas Rowley, priest and bard of Bristol, in the fifteenth century. His works, embracing poems and dramas of rare power and sublimity, had been hitherto lost to the world. Age after age they had lain in the chambers of old Saint Mary's, their beauties ruthlessly buried in the mysterious cofre amid mould- ering parchments. In presenting this startling discovery, the youth never produced the original manuscripts, except in occasional fragments, whose antique text sustained the interest- ing story. They appeared in the clear copies which he wrought from that mass of parchments, whose damp and blackened pages were only sho^vn to a select few. Among the poems now produced in rapid succession, were the "Parliament of Sprites," and " The Tournament," a series of stately scenes from the days of England's chivalry, with knightly jousts and thrilling deeds of arms. Tlien came " The Death of Sir Charles Bawdin," a ballad of heroic cha- racter, yet breathing the most exquisite tenderness. The next is " Ella, a Tragical Interlude," which indicates a high degree of dramatic genius. Following these^is " Godwin, a Tragedy ;" and after some shorter but not less brilliant productions, we have "The Battle of Hastings." Thirteen hundred lines are filled with vivid combats and episodes illustrating that famous field. Had we space for extracts we might show, as has Avell been remarked, "that that afflatus which is vainly sought for in the multitude of elaborate prize poets was the daily breath of the marvellous boy,"* and though bare sixteen, he is not * Blackwood's Magazine. 24 THE CHILD BARD. far behind the "Wind old man of Chios' rocky isle," in the Homeric poetry of action. Says Gardner, one of his associates, "I heard him once af- firm that it was very easy for a person who had studied an- tiquity, with the aid of a few books, which he could name, tc copy the style of the ancient poets so exactly that the most skillful observer should not be able to detect them; — *no,' said he, 'not even Mr. Walpole himself Once I saw him rub a piece of parchment with ochre, and afterwards rub it on the ground, saying that was the way to antiquate it — afterwards he crumpled it with his hand; he said it would do pretty well, but he could do it better if he were at home." His sister Mary says, "My brother read me the poem on the church; after he read it several times, I insisted on it that he had made it — he begged to know what reason I had to think so; I added, his style was easily discovered in that poem; he replied, 'I confess I made this, but don't you say anything about it.'" On the other hand, Mr. Thistlewaite, his friend, who never doubted the authenticity of Rowley, says, "During the year 1768, at divers visits I made him, I found him employed in copying Rowley, from what I then considered, and do now consider, as authentic and undoubted originals. By the as- sistance he received from the Glossary of Chaucer, he was en- 'abled to read, with great facility, even the most difficult of them. Among others I remember to have read several stan- zas copied from the " Death of Sir Charles Bawdin," the ori- ginal of which then lay before him. The beautiful simplicity, animation and pathos that so abundantly prevail through the course of that poem made a lasting impression on my mem- ory." VAGARIES OF GENIUS. 25 And these flights, which so long commanded the wonder of critic and antiquary, were the office reveries of the attorney's clerk, before his seventeenth year ! In that office he had found an old copy of Camden's Britannia, and from a bookseller he obtained a loan of a black-letter Chaucer ; by means of these and other volumes he clothed the plain English of his muse with the venerable garb and quaintness of the past. Absorbed in his epics, we find all. things made subservient to its progress. His diet was voluntarily straitened, and when his mother would tempt him with a hot meal, his reply was "he had a work on hand, and must not make himself more stupid than God had made him." And his sister reveals the economy of his time: "He sel- dom slept," says she, "and we heard him say that he found he studied best toward the full of the moon, and would often sit up all night and write by moonllglitP In the meantime these peculiarities became the subject of remark. Ilis pride was excessive; for days together he would scarce utter a word — entering and departing his master's house without addressing one of its inmates, and occupyino- his stool in the oflice with no notice of his fellow clerks, save a smile of contempt. His fits of absence and abstraction were so remarkable that it was the general impression that he was going mad, especially as he would often look one in the face without speaking, or seeming even to see him for -a lono- time. Madness, indeed! it was the convulsions of imprisoned genius — its struggles for emancipation and life ! There, in his drawer, lay the mysterious sheets of Rowley, in which he found his true existence — and these, of which he hardly dare speak, and still less claim, were crying for birth. 2 26 ■ THE CHILD BARD, These were the secret of those abstractions -which had made him, M'hile yet a lad, the marvel of Bristol. O, charmed boy ! what dreams are those which pour their magic stream through thy throbbing brain? The moon has east its silver radiance on the dark mantle of nijrht, bathing all nature in witchinij loveliness. Sleep flies the brow crimsoned with Promethean fire; he springs from his lowly pallet, and paces down the silent street until once more he faces old St. Mary Redcliffc. She smiles upon him — a blessed mother, all genial with the moon's SAveet lustre, and shimmering in the solemn noon of night. lie Avalks her aisles — all is peaceful — yet all is life. He gazes on the monuments until the sculptured forms descend and unfold their quaint and thrilling history. The moon hath filled St. JNfary with its radiance, dim, holy and inspiring. All things dance together in his reeling brain. Oh, what dreams are these which now pour their magic stream through the fevered intellect ! He sees the saintly form of Rowley, all venerable with years — with cowled monks and melodious choirs laying St. Mary's corner stone. He sees the stately fane slowly ascend, until crowned by the fulness of its primal beauty it is consecrated amid clouds of incense and bursting chaunts and the hushed breathings of the adoring multitude. He dreams ! behold the stately tournament — gorgeous ban- ners flout the sky, gentle dames of queenly beauty grace the terraced seats, while knights, armed cap-a-pie, prance through the spacious field. It is a vision of old England's chivalry efllorescing in all the splendor of romance; each champion, in burnished steel, announced by herald's blast, casts down his defiant glove, whicli, when caught upon some spear, bids tlu'ir ramping steeds rush to tlie tilt, beneath the glance of lady love. DANGER DEVELOPED. 27 lie dreams! and from, the tomb which six centuries has sealed, a mien of lofty sorrow appears to renew appalling woe — it is Harold, gory with his own blood. Now Hastings' field repeats its fatal defeat; now the dawn beholds the serried squadrons, in all the pomp and circumstance of war — now they press to the charge — the air is rife with shouts and groans and the clang of ringing steel — then the cloth-yard shaft wings in hurtling clouds, till at last night hides the lost battle in agonies of shame and despair. He dreams! the bursting brain cries for relief — and there, beneath the moon's cold beams, he sits upon the chill mai'ble slab ; now the grey eye flashes and the brow expands — the dream shall live, and thus inspired, he fills the enchanted page. Such was the Child Bard of Bristol, and we cannot wonder that in the sublime self-consciousness of genius he should chafe for a wider sphere, or that his deathless ambition burned for the mastery in the great centre of the literary world. Indeed, he who had conquered the style and antiquities of the fifteenth century, and clothed in that undetected garb his splendid dreams, might well aspire to name and rank even in thronged and tumultuous London. But we have viewed Chatterton not so much in respect to intellect as to infidelity; and here for the first time we are compelled to meet this fatal element in his character. When he received the seeds we cannot learn, but they had sprung up to an early maturity.* In 1769, while but in his seventeenth * There is a great deal of infidelitj' in young people, and you have many of them about you. Tell them from me that I have read a great many sceptical books — ancient and modern, of all sorts. It is all very fine, but fallacious ; they are very plausible, but can give no consolation in a dying hour. — Dying Words of Dr. Gordon, of Jlall, to his Pastor, 28 THE CHILD BARD. year, it appears from a poem on " Happiness," addressed to Mr. Catcott, that liis mind Avas thoroughly poisoned; "heaven send you," he writes, "tlie comforts of Christianity — I ask them not, for I am no Christian." At that day, infidelity was deplorably fashionable — to profess even a nominal Christianity was to incur peril of public contempt, and might reasonal)ly have been viewed as a social martyrdom. Indeed, Bishop Butler states, in the preface to "The Analogy," that "religion had at that day ceased to be discussed, and was commonly * viewed as an exploded affair." The gentry and the nobility held serious matters in polite indifference; and if urged upon the subject, pointed significantly to their book shelves, where Bolingbroke and Shaftesbury represented the end of all con- troversy. The world of art and letters breathed the same spirit, and the famous literary club, with its Garriek, Rey- nolds, Langton, Beauclerk, Goldsmith and Johnson, had few, besides the last, to resist the broad current of unbelief. Even the historic pen, in the hands of Hume and Gibbon, subserved error. Poetry too, seemed spell-bound to the same evil ser- vice, and the author of^-the " Essay on Man" was" the acknow- ledged rhymer of Deism. How Johnson was preserved from a similar perversion, while breathing year after year so poisoned an atmosphere, is one of the wonders of Grace. Yet, though it may find occasional apologists in the ranks of science and learning, it is nevertheless true tliat infidelity is generally the disease of the immature mind. It may some- times cling to the cultured and aesthetic, but it will more often take root in the half-formed intellect of youth. It stancfe allied to its^aser passions, and it boasts of the false glory of a specious liberty as it rejects truths which cUain the mind to sobriety and dcconnn. DEGRADATION OP LITERATURE. 29 A little learning is a powerful stimulant to vanity, and vanity is a fitting soil for the foul seed of error. Let but the malignant flippancy of Voltaire, or the sophistry of Hume, or the coarse lampoons of Paine be broadcast there, and the quiet truths of Christianity will be strangled for a time, and perhaps forever. As scepticism and licentiousness are closely allied, it is not surprising that the absence of a pure religious sentiment had degraded English literature to a hideous depth of obscenity. There were but few popular writers whose pages would not at the present time be rejected on this score. Chureliill, the leading wit of the day, was an apostate clergy- man, and penned the filthiest though most pungent of satires; while the " Essay on Woman," by John Wilkes, was burned hy the hangman. Fiction too, as well as satire, derived its interest from licentiousness ; for this was the zest which could redeem dulness, and which found universal market. Thus, the "Town and Country," a popular monthly, owed its success mainly to that episode of adultery, which with portraits of each party, under the title of t9te-a-tete, garnished every number. Such being the public taste, we are not surprised, while we deeply regret, that the splendor of Chat- terton's genius is occasionally marred by this revolting feature. But far more deplorable even than this, is that error which now casts upon us its shadow. One of the first fruits of infidelity is contempt of life, and an unnatural proclivity to self-slaughter. It appears that, even Mhile living with Lam- bert, Chatterton had intimated a design of suicide. Lambert could not bi'lieve his clerk to be in earnest, until he one day found a paper which had been carelessly left upon the desk, entitled "The Last Will and Testament of Thomas Chatterton." 30 THE CHILD BARD. In this the writer expressed his design of committing suicide the following day. For this offence he was dismissed by the attorney, after having been in his service three years. Lam- bert also found on Chatterton's desk a letter addressed to tlio benevolent Mr. Clayfield, containing a touching statement of his distresses, and closing with the assurance that, by the time it should be received, its author would be no more. • This was sent to Mr. Barret, one ot the poor clerk's sinccrest friends, who visited him without delay, and urged upon him the horrible turpitude of suicide. The next day he received the following reply : "Mr. Barret. — Sir: Upon recollection, I dont know how Mr. Clayfield could come by his letter. In regard to my motives for the supposed rashness, I shall observe that I keep no worse company than myself. I never drink to excess * * * and have, without vanity, too much sense to be attached to the mercenary retailers of iniquity. No! it is my pride — my datnned, native, unconquerable Pride — that plunges me into distraction! You must know that 19-20ths of my composition is pride. I must either live a slave — a servant, to have no will of mv own — no sentiments of my own, which I may freely declare as such, or DIE! Perplex- ing alternative! but it distracts me to think of it. I will endeavor to learn humility, but it cannot be here. What it may cost me on the trial. Heaven knows. "I am your much obliged, unhappy, serv't, "T. C." In the dark catalogue of crime there is none which so completely a}>pals us as self-murder. Our social laws liave SOME THOUGHTS ON SUICIDE. a I visited it with deep and lasting stigma, and sorrowing nature revolts at the hideous thought. " For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey, This pleasing, anxious being e'er resigned — Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind ?" And yet suicide has its apologists, and we might almost say its advocates ; but they are only to be found among those who either never knew the power of Christianity, or who, having abandoned it, have plunged into shipwreck. Hence it is a distinctive feature in modern infidelity, as it was in ancient paganism, that it pleads for this unnatural deed. Hume, whose pen was so ready and so gifted in the service of error, here enjoys a miserable distinction, for few have labored with equal zeal to prove that suicide is not inconsistent with our duty and welfare. Like one " who scatters firebrands, arrows, and death, and then says 'am I not in sport,'" his desire seems to have been to speak plausibly of a deed, from which he shrunk, even while exciting others to its performance. We shall not here quote or review his fallacies, as they are made a distinct theme in another part of this volume, but simply refer to that common plea in defence of suicide, that one may do as he will with his own; or in other words, that an existence imposed without consent may be laid down without guilt. In this brief expression there lurks a monstrous fallacy. As to the right of one to do with his own as he will, without respect to tlie common good, or above all to the glory of God, we deny it. No such i-ight inheres in man. Whether the trust be power, or wealth, or intellect, or simply existence, its holder is bound on the one hand to resist its 32 THE CHILD BARD. perversion, and on the other to improve it to highest good. Above all, should life be sacred to its possessor, since it is tlie most exalted of God's gifts, both in character and in purpose. It is true that sin has done so much to blast human existence that sometimes it becomes a drear and protracted experience of privation, disappointment, and pain. How often, indeed, does hope spi'ing up only to be crushed, and joy bloom only to be withered, until at last every step in life's journey has become an agony ! Yet a serious view of this most serious question is sufficient to convince that no suffering, however aj^palling, can justify suicide. Sorrow may wrap its shroud-like embrace about the hap- less soul, and nature may sink in the conflict which convulses it, until at last death shall appear the highest boon — yet even at such an awful crisis Christianity affords a power of endurance, through which the unfortunate, instead of collapsing into suicide, may rise to the loftiest attainments of character. And thus patience, and submission, and the joy of a chastened soul, may find new life, even in the horrible pit and miry clay where others have perished. Yet suicide has been garnished by some with a ineretricious heroism, and even applauded under the title of " a Roman death." Yet will any one who understands true heroism apply the term to such a deed, or even offer a similar violence to the lesser word "courage?" Courage, to flee a world Avhich one should conquer — to desert a post which should be defended to the last ! Shall we call this courage? If so, what is cowardice? Among the diflcront causes of suicide we may yield prom- inence to the shallow and defective education of the day, peculiarly in its moral aspect, through which the showy, the specious, and the fashionable are made paramount to good LYTTLETON AND BYRON. 33 sense and piety. Can it be wondered that those who are hurried into life's battle, destitute of that preparation which arises from moral culture, should often perish, like Saul, amid hopeless defeat? Spiritualism also has wrought des- perate mischief in the history of the unfortunate, as has often been proven at inquests held over the dead. To this we may add the more fearful word. Remorse. A darkened yet de- vouring conscience, unpurged by atoning blood, has driven many, like Judas, to self-destruction. Chief among such terrible examples there stands that of Lord Lyttleton — the gifted, yet abandoned-r-the nobleman by birth, but by habit the scourged and degraded slave of sin. This miserable man, having determined on suicide as a last refuge from the horrors of the accuser within, shrouded the deed (no doubt for his family's sake) in the mystery of that vision, whose details are familiar to most of our readers. Let those who, like him, set laws, both social and divine, at defiance, and rush madly into vice and crime, remember that they are day by day arming an array of furies which, at the voice of conscience, shall in each one renew the dark history of Orestes. Byron, who at times writhed with the memory of crime, contemplates a fate which we wonder that he escaped, in the following terrible picture: " The mind that broods o'er guilty woes Is like to scorpion girt with fire — The circle narrowing as it glows, Till inly searched by thousand throes, And maddening in its ire, One and sole relief it knows — The sting it nurtured for its foes, Whose venom never yet was vain — 34 THE CHILD BARD. Gives but one pang, and cures all pain, He darts into his desperate brain. So do the darlc in soul expire, Or live liiie scorpion, girt b}' fire. So writhes tiie mind remorse has riven — Unfit for earth — undoomed to Heaven, Darkness above — despair beneath — Around it flame — within it death." Socialism, also, has proven a fruitful source of self murder — as stated in the able speech of the Bishop of Exeter, before the House of Lords — in which manj cases were cited as arising from the prevalence of the doctrines of Owen and his associates. One of these was as follows: A certain appren- tice, after frequently attending the socialist meetings, was one day found dead — two bottles of poison and four letters lay by his side; one of the latter was addressed to his father, another to his employer, and another to the jury who might hold inquest. The last contained his creed, in which he affirmed his belief that " the Bible was the most dangerous book ever written, and if such a person as Jesus Christ ever lived. He was the weakest man he ever heard of" He denied all belief of a place of future retribution — considered appren- ticeship slavery, and preferred a brief pain to six years of servitude. The following incident will present these truths in a still stronger liiilit. A zealous infidel circulated several hundred copies of Paine's works among his acquaintance. The *' Age of Reason" was in this way received by a young governess. In a few weeks the members of the family observed in her a marked change of cliaracter and appearance. She expressed great unhappiiiess, but refused to disclose the cause, and at ^ O MISERIES OF GENIUS. 35 last sunk into a state of extreme dejection. Her lifeless body- was afterwards found with marks of suicide, and a paper which had been left in her desk gave reasons for the deed. It stated that from the moment she read the above mentioned volume her mind had become unsettled — her former religious impressions were undermined, and in proportion as the views of Paine had taken possession of her she had become miserable, until, from a belief that death was annihilation, she had rushed into its embrace to escape present distress. We may therefore easily judge of the fearful influence which Infidelity must have exerted on the morbid intellect of the young poet; and it was in a frame to which suicide had become congenial that he prepared to forsake Bristol and cast himself upon the tender mercies of the great metropolis. This, too, was at a time when the best intellects of England could hardly win bread, and the world of literature was but a slough of despond. Goldsmith, the gifted and the popular, was with much ado holding off" the bailiff"; and even Johnson had but lately escaped that extreme destitution which embit- tered his best years.* There was at that time hardly such a * " When first the college rolls receive his name, The young enthusiast quits his ease for fame ; Resistless burns the fever of renown, Caught from the strong contagion of the gown. Yet hope not life from grief or danger free, Nor think the doom of man reversed for thee ; Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes, And pause a while from learning to be wise- There mark what ills the scholar's life assail : 7u/7, envy^ want^ the patron and the jail. " Johnson. 3fi TUE CHILD BARD. thing as popular literature, for the masses, rude and un- lettered, uttered no demand for mental pabulum; even Shakespeare and Milton Avere but little known in the land of their flime, and the limited class of general readers was made up of politicians, students, and a few of the nobility. Indeed, without the patronage of the latter an author could hardly expect publication; and at the levees of the peerage, amid pimps, gamesters, and money-lenders, might often be seen the wan visage of some writer, seeking the privilege of a dedication. This low state of Belles Lettres can only be accounted for by the absence of an active religious sentiment, the consequent decline of education, and the inevitable degradation of the public mind. But be that as it may, it is evident that in the reiffn of George the Third British literature had sunk to its lowest ebb. Disappointment and inevitable penury were the author's portion. The splendid success of modern genius could not have entered the wildest reveries of that hapless class which was supposed to inhabit Grub street. The great world of periodical literature had hardly a beginning. The " Gentleman's Magazine,^' with its archosological scraps, and verses beneath the dignity of a boarding school, was kept afloat by the energy of Cave, and this Avith the "Town and Country," "The Monthly Critic," and one or two others, equally w^ak, held the place now occupied by British and American reviewers. High-minded criticism was as yet unknown, and the loftiest walk of fiction led through spectre-haunted castles, and mysteries such as those of Udol j)lio. And yet, amid this puny generation, an occasional giant towers before us, and we are startled as we meet the author of the unanswerable "Analogy," and the impassioned and CHATTERTON'S ADVENT TO LONDON. 37 melting Whitefield — the one as unapproachable in argument as the other was in eloquence; while another of the same colossal proportions, with his slouched and snuffy raiment — his twitching countenance and huge, ungainly form, was just emerging from the obscurity of Bolt court, to be lionized at Thrale's, and to astonish the diners-out of London by his table talk. And, unseen by the public eye, though it agonised for the sight — hidden by that veil which even a century has been unable to remove — there was still another, who combined the Titan and the Ariel — plucking secrets from the hearts of diplomatists and kings, and then, through Woodfall's columns, thundering at the very doors of Court and Parliament, until royalty itself trembled at the mighty name of Junius. Chatterton's advent to London opened a door of hope. He had previously published a few articles in the "Town and Country Magazine," and in his correspondence with the book- sellers of the metropolis he had received many promises. But beside this, the past held before his eager gaze one tower- ing example, which could not but fire his ambition anew, and cheer him on to the field for which he chafed. Two centuries before, a youth from the banks of his own Avon, had in that same London achieved fame, and why not he, who owned no lower rank in creative power? Two centuries before, famished and forlorn, his feet had trod those very streets, in search of food and shelter. Two centuries before, he had won his bread upon the playhouse boards — yet at last the vagrant youth, and the humble player, had gained the loftiest niche in the temple of fame, and now held court with universal homage. And what were two centuries in the annals of the great? True, the Globe was gone, and so were the Tudors and their- court, who there saw ILimlet's author flit as Hamlet's ghost. 38 THE CHILD BARD. Old London, too, had been purged by conflagration, and the new city had spread to enormous size. But how much greater now the field, and more glorious the victory? And why should there not be another Bard of Avon to win the world's regard, and why should her waters deny to Bristol's son that inspiration they had yielded to the boy of Stratford ? Nor had Shakespeare liimself such earnest of success; in- deed, what could he offer at sixteen to compare with the gorgeous dreams of Rowley — and one who at so early an hour had given birth to these, what might he not dare in riper years'? — for what power has time to stop the flow of Helicon, or hush the midnight wail of the tragic musel In April, 1770, Chatterton took farewell of his native city, from which he had never before wandered, save throufjh her rural precincts, and the lumbering coach sooi^. landed him " In London — tliat great sea, whose ebb and flow At once is deaf and loud, and on the shore Vomits its wrecks, and still howls on for more." * His first letter to his mother is buoyant with hope, and it would seem that joyous day-dreams swept through his soul, as for the first time he -v^alked the streets which once echoed to the tread of Milton, and Pope, and Spenser, and Shakespeare — to him, indeed, as well as to them, should critics and booksellers bow. O heart, so fondly feeding upon self-created homage, these fiiture splendors are but tlie offspring of thy brain — baseless as thine own myth of Rowley, and soon, like the mirage, to fade before the desert's burning waste! Indeed, such an alternative seems at times to have cast its forboding shadow. Like one who had staked high, « Shcllev. LETTERS TO HIS MOTHER 39 he had prepared desperately for the event of failure. Thus he replies to Thistlewaite's inquiry as to his plans: "My first attempt shall be in the literary way— the promises I have received are sufficient to dispel doubt; but should I, contrary to my expectations, find myself deceived, I shall turn methodist preacher. Credulity is as potent as ever, and a new sect may easily be devised; but if that too fail me, my last and final resource is a pistol." The following extracts from his letters present the glowing pictures which in his brighter moments he sketched for his beloved mother. They witness for the tenderness ot one, who, while he soared so far above the tame details of common life, had not forgotten its humblest duties, and who, while drinking deeply of the Pierian spring, still 'thirsted for the sweeter streams which flow from a home and a mother's heart. And while we admire the creations of that genius, now exalted before us. we more devoutly honor the filial affection which enriched it, and which added even a higher nobility than that of intellect. "London, May 6, 1770. " Dear Mother : — 1 am again settled — and such a settle- ment as I could desire. I get four guineas a month by one magazine, and shall engage to write a history of England, and other pieces, which will more* than double that sum. Occasional essays for tlie daily papers would more than sup- port me. What a glorious prospect! Mr. Wilkes knew me by my writings, since I first corresponded with the booksellers here. He affirmed that what Mr. Fell had of me could not be the writings of a youth * * * I am quite familiar at the Chr.ptcr Coffee House, and know all the geniuses there — a character is now unnecessarv — an author carries his character 40 THE CHILD BARD. in his pen. Bristol's mercenary walls were never destined to hold me; there I was out of my element — ^now I am in it. London ! good God ! how superior is London to that despic- able place, Bristol. Here is none of your little meannesses — none of your mercenary securities, which disgrace that miser able hamlet. * * * The poverty of authors is a common ob- servation, but not always a true one. No author can be poor who understands the arts of booksellers; without this neces- sary knowledge the greatest genius may starve — with it the greatest dunce may live in splendor." Again: "London, May 14. "Matters go on swimmingly. Mr. Fell having offended certain persons, they have set his creditors on him, and now he is in the King's Bench. 1 am bettered by this accident. Ilis successors, knowing nothing about the matter, will be glad to engage me on my own terms, * * * Last week, being in the pit of Drury Lane Theatre, I contracted an im- mediate acquaintance (which you know is no hard task for me,) with a young gentleman from Cheapside, partner in a music store — the greatest in the city. Hearing I could write, he desired me to write a few songs for him. * * These he shewed to a doctor in music, and I am invited to treat with this doctor on the footing oi a composer for Ranelagh and the Gardens. Bravo, hey boys! up we go! Beside the advantage of visiting these expensive and polite places gratis, my vanity will be fed by the sight of my name in copper plate, and my sister will receive a bundle of printed songs — the words by her brother." Ae superb, about whose genius mystery has hung her everlasting shroud. lie of the Argus eye — of the Olympian power, and the Apollo's grace, thundered day after day at the rotten Court, until the King and his pampered councillors trembled at his name. Such was the unrest prevailing in London, that France was considered by some as less liable to popular outbreak ; while, to add to the misfortunes of England, her colonial difficulties now threatened civil war. Franklin discerned the power of his plebeian friend, and pointed out the new world as a suitable sphere for his vigorous and inde- pendent mind. almost as universal as the air we breathe. * * * 0, the unspeakal)le patience of God ! The multiplied instances of impiety, blasphemy, cruelty, adultery, villainy, and abominations not to be thought oi without horror, under which this land groans, are only known to Him who knoweth all things. * * * Though some of the Roman poets and historians have given very dark pictures of the times they lived in, their worst descrip- tions of this kind would hardly be found exaggerated if appHed to our own." — From " A Word in Seasoti" by JoJin Newton. 66 TUE REVOLUTIONIST. Paine soon sailed for America. His was the first arrival of an avowed revolutionist to her shores. His vocation, indeed, was not to build, but to destroy. He was one of the first of those colossal radicals, whose cry is "overturn, over- turn, overturn!" unaware of the danger of success — a class whose full career was soon to be fulfilled in the anarchy and bloodshed of France. Yet, though Paine was thoroughly a revolutionist, the mantle of Cromwell had not fallen upon hnn — no conservative element mingled with his hostility to kingcraft, and over him Christianity held no genial sway. America had been famed for piety, and her hopes for success were inspired by the prayers daily ascending from her scat- tered homes ; but her new ally was a scoffer at her piety, and an enemy to her faith. Yet he soon aroused public attention by his boldness and decision. Indeed, in this new arena he stood as a herald of advancing destiny. The energies of the nascent republic were anxiously awaiting the voice of its leaders, while many clung timidly to the past, and the boldest trembled at the future. At such a crisis the stranger strode boldly to the front rank, and there bore his part in the sublime act of defiance to the British empire. Unpracticed with the sword, his skill lay in the use of the pen, which he dipped in gall, and wielded with the hand of a master. Indeed, it was soon confessed that in keen invective — sparing neither crown nor official — he stood without equal. None could argue more plausibly in plain, earnest Saxon, or if sophistry were expe- dient, none could so readily interweave it. None could appeal more powerfully to the patriot, and none could so witheringly adjure the curse upon the coward. Such as have read those masterly pamphlets which, under the titles of "Common Sense," and "The Crisis," once thrilled PAINE 'WRITES COMMON SENSE. 67 the colonies, will confess their depth and power. How vastly frreater then must have been their effect, when those colonies were aghast with the appeal to arms, and these waifs were scattered, like Sybilline leaves, penetrating where the elo- quence of Hamilton and Patrick Henry had never reached. Conscious of the stimulus which he had given to the public mind, their author may be pardoned the self-complacent expression (baseless though its assumption be,) which appears in his letter to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, in 1808. "I do not" says he, "believe independence would have been declared, had it not been fur the effect of that work." It is evident, however, that independence was an assured result, from the very beginning of the conflict; yet Paine's early essays confirmed many a wavering mind, and threw light upon the resources of America. He soon received a mark of appreciation in the appointment to the secretaryship of the Committee of Foreign Affairs, wliich opened to his curi- ous gaze its secret correspondence with European powers ; but his proclivity to attack was soon shown by a series of articles in Dunlop's Journal, charging both Silas Doane and Beaumarcliais with peculation in stores obtained from France. On the appear- ance of the third of this series, John Jay, President of Congress, demanded the author's name; and 4t being avowed, his dis- charjje was moved, but lost. Paine then demanded a hearin":, and on being refused, resigned the next day. Thus early we find a want of confidence expressed toward him by public men. Perhaps this was in some measure owing to his well- known opinions, for which, at that time, even talent could hardly compensate. The people of America were deeply im- bued with the piety which he despised, and his contempt for it thus reacted upon himself. At that day an avowed Deist was 68 THE REYOLUTIOXIST. an object both of fear and surprise, and in a Congress whose sittings were opened by prayer and praise, and which at times even breathed a missionary * as well as a patriotic spirit, the scoffing author could only expect distrust. After the loss of his office, Paine found employment with Owen Biddle, of Philadelphia, and subsequently received the appointment of Clerk from the Legislature of Pennsylvania. In 1781 he accompanied Henry Laurens to France, where a loan was negotiated in behalf of the struggling republic, and at the close of the war Congress honored him with a vote of thanks, and appropriated £3000, as a consideration for his services. To this Pennsylvania added £500, and the State of New York followed these examples by presenting him a valu- able farm near New Rochelle. While 'these honors were tempting him to a life of peace, a new field was being opened to his adventurous spirit, and the world was electrified by the revolution in France, following closely upon that in America. That nation which, thirty years before, was distinguished for stability, and was even considered less liable than England to the perturbations of faction, became suddenly ablaze with re- volt — now was beheld an upheaval of all that was ancient; new opinions and strange schemes of ethics were belched, as from some volcano, while the Gordian knot which for ages had bound the liberties of the nation was suddenly cut by the guillotine. The Court and ministry of England trembled to find their * On the surrender of Cornwallis, Congress observed a day of thanks- giving and prayer — one of whose objects, as set forth in the preamble, was to pray "for God's blessing on all institutions of learning; and that the glorij of God might cover the earth, as the waters cover th^sea."— Con- gresHional Proceedings for 1781. HIS CONTROVERSY WITH BURKE. 09 atmosphere permeated by the same revolutionary spirit. Ed- jiuind Burke, representing that government, of which he- was tlie brightest ornament, published an attack upon the princi- ples avowed by the revolutionists of France. Paine, who was then in England, where he had just printed "The Rubicon," answered the statesman with "The Rights of Man." The writers in this controversy exhibit a striking contrast. The one possessed genius of the highest order, and his gifts had been cultivated by a life of arduous study. Though for years a leader in the opposition, he enjoyed the friendship of the Court, while England gloried in the very name of the great commoner. The other was t]ie rough-hewn plebeian — the quondam guager and stay -maker, without position or patron- age. Yet seldom, if ever, during a long life of severe debate, had Edmund Burke met so powerful an antagonist as the author of the "Rights of Man." The book was read by thousands — and crossing the channel, commanded the admira- tion, even of Paris; and while an indictment was being pre- pared for its author in London, a French deputation announced to him his election by the department of Calais to the National Convention. In the enthusiasm of youth, the Republic had embraced all nations in fraternity, and although he was a stranger both to the language and customs of France, Paine was deemed a fitting legislator. He arrived in Paris in time to behold that earthquake which rocked the nation to its centre. On the tenth of August the king had been dethroned, and was now held in a captivity which was only to end in fearful doom. The revolution had not reached its fiercest paroxysms, but they were rapidly drawing nigh. Order still seemed to prevail, but it was only the lull which precedes the tempest. It was at such a timt 70 THE REVOLUTIONIST. that with nervous step an excited Englishman hies to the 1 all of the Convention, and claims a seat amonjf its crowded and palpitating benches. As one gazes upon that motley gather- ing, it might be asked, was there any lack of madmen, that he should increase the number? or was there such need of recruits to the ranks of the guiUotine, that one shoidd thus be summoned from a forciirn land? Shall he, whose mind has been embittered with harrowing doubts, until it has suilerod wreck, cast them upon the mountain which cruslied the intel- lect and morals of the nation, and add to the load under which it groaned? Was there need of another champion of error, when already in ethics, and in moral science, and in those fields where the soul should feed on truth, there was neither master nor discijile? Yet at such a time, when the solemn postulates of our destiny, the sanctity of marriage, the rights of property, and the very existence of God, were matters of doubt, the misguided Deist saw, as he thought, redemptior. drawing nigh. "We do not consider it a begging of the question, to afTu-m that Infidelity, at least in its grosser aspects, is a phase of insanity. He who denies the existence of a personal God, and the operations of his providence, and who refers all things to chance, can hardly claim integrity of intellect, since by his profession he denies one of the constituents of the normal mind. On truths like these the human intellect finds its enduring foundation, from which it may rise, as in tlie instance of Milton, to the highest flight of poetry; and from wliicli, as in those of Chalmers, andNewton, and Hugh jNIillcr, it will enter into deepest researelirs of science. Witliout the per- vailing influence of this element, knowledge is only dangerous, since it may become as powerful for evil as for good ; and the INFIDELITY AND INSANITY. 71 history of nations repeats its awful lesson, age after age, that wlien thus deprived, the progress of human destiny becomes but a vast wave of sorrow. It is a lesson taught the physician in his walk that lunacy i commonly preceded by conflicting doubts and uncertainty. Indeed, one ot the first symptoms which betray a foundering intellect, is its vagaries into the unknown — its aberrations into the dreary fields of supposition and mystery, whence it returns frantic with uncertainty, and perplexed with subjective questioning. These conflicts often segregate one from society, and make him a recluse, even in the midst of a once-loved circle, until at last reason, both smitten and undermined, totters into the abyss of madness. Would you, O reader, escape a misfortune so frequent, and yet so fearful ] Avoid habits of doubt, and banish all curious anxieties concerning things too great for you; and while they haunt your restless mind, still contend earnestly as in self-defence, and be not satisfied until your intellect and faifh are established on the sacred truths of Christianity.* Without this there is no rest, even for the sole oi the foot ; for the true repose of the spirit is in Ilim who created it. Hence there is a psycological, as W(.4I as a spiritual truth, of vast moment in the intercom- munings of the Psalmist: "Why art thou cast down, O my soul, and why art thou disquieted within me? iTbjje thou in Godr This principle applies to nations as Avell as to individuals. * Dr. Ray, in the report of the Butler Hospital for the Insane in Rhode Island, says : " I believe — and it is in some measure the result of consi- derable observation of various psycological states — that in this age of fast living nothing can be relied upon more surely for preserving the healthy balance of the mental faculties than an earnest, practical conviction of the great truths of Christianity." 72 THE REVOLUTIONIST, For a century previous to the revolution, France breathed an atmosphere utterly exhausted of religious truth. Both Eng- land and America were, during the eighteenth century, re- energized by Christianity, and a second reformation, led by Whitefield, Romaine, Edwards and the Wesleys, had healed old wounds, and renewed national vigor. But a fearful con- trast was visible in France, whose teeming yet degraded masses were not only banished from the fountain of living waters, but were drinking from a Circean cup. Here the Bible was at this time hardly known. * The priest chained to a superstition whose mummery he despised, either groaned in life-long durance, or else plied his craft cunningly before the world, and then in secret hours compensated himself for his privations by the orgies of a Sybarite. The flock suffered equally with its shepherd. The masses might cleave to super- stition, but the intelligent recoiled from its empty forms and impotent dogmas, and yet were debarred b}' persecution from that truth which was needful to development, and even to existence. The nation groaned under increasing despotism, and yet its heavy taxes, the Lettre de Cachet, and even the grim Bastile, and all the appliances of Bourbon tyranny, were less crushing than the incubus which burdened the soul. Wealth and education could only increase an evil of such a character, since learning, atheism, and licentiousness, went hand in hand, and were often identified in the same individual. Such being the condition of the higher classes, that of the masses must have been equally revolting. Thus year after vear the morals and the vital strength of the nation were sapped, until at last it surrendered to the summons of its foe. The subsequent abrogation of the Sabbath, and the worship of Reason were in keeping with the progress of sen- ENIGMAS AND SHADOWS. 73 suality and unbelief. The work, so long in secret progress, was suddenly consummated. It would seem that not only poetry and philosophy, and the drama, but oratory, state- manship, and even the exact sciences, at one fell swoop, were borne into the service of error. It was an age marked by tlie brilliance of decay. France gloried in her savans, but theirs was a science falsely so called. Thus Voltaire, D'Alem- bert, Diderot, and all to whom the anxious eye might have turned for counsel, had long been harrassed by enigmas, and from the Cimmerian shadows of that maze, into which they had been led, their voices were heard, in hopeless confusion, and after many fearful throes the mind of France collapsed into Atheism, and shrieked " ihere is no Godf' Yet even now, had there been some solemn and heaven-insjjired voice, sound- ing like a trumpet through the land, to rebuke this impious Atheism, and to summon it back to the faith of the persecuted Huguenot, France might have been spared its streams of blood — and after the perils of revolution, might have received an established liberty. But alas! no ti'umpet voice broke those atheistic dreams. It was the niidniglit of frantic en- quiry; many an anxious watcher cried, "What of the night?" but none could reply, "The morn cometh!" The crisis had been reached, but its turn was fatal. One of Voltaire's soliloquies exhibits the tone of mind prevailing among the leaders of the day. "The world abomids with wonders, and also with victims. In man is more wretchedness than in all other animals put together. * * * Man loves life, yet knows that he must die, and spends his existence in diffusing the miseries which he has suffered — cutting the throats of his fellow-creatures for pay — cheating, and being cheated. The bulk of mankind is nothing more than a crowd of wretches, > 4 74 THE REVOLUTIONIST. equally criminal, and equally inifortunate." Thus the people asked for bread, but received a stone — they looked for a fish, but their teacher gave them a serpent. This confession of hopeless misery, born of unbelief, and still hardened against all cure, may be contrasted with that calm expression of the Christian's faith, which we find in the words of Howard, as he approached the end of his wonderful career. " My immortal soul I cast on the sovereign mercy of God, through Jesus Christ, who is the Lord, my strength and my song, and who, I trust, has become my salvation. My desire is to be washed, cleansed, and justified in the blood of Christ, and to dedicate myself to that Savior who has bought me with a price." In this simple utterance is contained the principle which conserves and supports, not only the individual, but the body politic, and in which is found that virtuous " Moly" of which Milton spake, and for want of which France so severely suf- fered. Such, then, was the state of the public mind when Paine entered the capital. It was no longer that gay and thoughtless Paris, whose existence had been a life-long holi- day. France had ceased to be la belle, and Paris was no longer light hearted. She had put off her beautiful garments, and sat in dismal shadow. The very houses wore a sadness, and the streets appeared like avenues through which some august and sombre funeral pomp has swept in long array, leaving behind it the hush of unutterable sorrow. Those of the citizens who appeared by day, seemed watehfiil and sus- picious, and strangely taciturn and repellant; while from many a countenance there stole an expression of woe, too deep for tears. In market, and boulevard, and cafe, each eyed the other with distrust, and haimard countenances exchanged recognition in timid and hasty glances. But at night all was H H a t— » 5 o 3 5i CO CO c o s d 5 o W PARISIAN THEATRICALS. 75 changed. Then the restraint of public gaze was removed, and the shadows of the day were suddenly exchanged for the glare and excitement of maddened dissipation. Such is the picture drawn at this time by Madame Roland : " Paris, like another Babylon, sees its brutalised population either running after ridiculous public fHes, or surfeiting itself with the blood of crowds of unhappy creatures, sacrificed to its ferocious jealousy; while selfish idlers still fill all the theatres, and the trembling tradesman shuts himself up, not sure of ever sleep- ing again in his own bed, if it should please any of his neigh- bors to denounce him as having used unpatriotic expressions. * * * O, my country, into what hands art thou fallen !" Thus the excitements of the masses gave birth to the strange contrast of deepest gloom, set off by a degree of midnight levity, which seems almost frantic. Perhaps the public mind, recoiling from daily scenes of horror, demanded and found relief in the most frivolous amusements. We find in the Monitexir, during the Reign of Terror, the following theatres advertised, under the expressive head of " spectacles r These in their performances attempt political lessons, and thus illustrate the public appetite, which now, oblivious of Moliere and Corneille, craved such instruction, even in its amusements. In his wildest dissipation the Sans Culotte must not forget that he governed France. Academic de la Musique — "The Offering to Liberty." Theatre de la Nation — "Recreations of the New Regime." Theatre de I'Opera— "The Siege of Lille;" "The Rigors of the Cloister." Theatre de la Republique — "Clementine and the De- formed;" "The Young Landlady." Theatre de la Rue Feydeau— "The Officials of Fortune." 76 THE REVOLUTIONIST. Theatre de la Montansicr, au Jardin de I'Egalite — "The Disguises of Love." Theatre National — "J. J. Rousseau at the Paraclete;" "The Constitution at Constantinople." Theatre de la Rue Louvois — "The Patriotic Guard;" "A^ Day at the Vatican." Theatre National de Moliere — "The True Friends of the Law, or the Republican put to Proof" Theatre du Vaudeville — "The Chosen Spirit in Apotheo- sis;" "George and Fat John." Theatre du Palais Varieties — "The Friend of the People and the Social Comedian." Theatre du Lycee des Arts — "Tiie Capuchin at the Fron- tiers;" "The Amours of Plailly;" "La Bascule" (The Sweep, a part of the guillotine). Theatre Fran^ais — "Nicodemus in the Moon;" "The Qua- ker in France." In this catalogue scarcely a play of soberness or dignity can be found — frivolity and bloodshed, even in scenes of amusement, were proving that extremes had fully met. In addition to the theatrical shows, Citizen Franconi, of "L' Amphitheatre d'Astley," announces that "avec ses elcves, el ses enfans, il continue ses exercises cf equitation, et (T emula- tion, tour de manege, danse sur des chevaux, avec plusieurs scenes et entr' actes atntfsans.^^ As the fever wrought more fiercely upon the public mind the Drama became still more patriotic, and lessons in ethics were travestied on the stage. Thus we find in Ihe Monitenr, a few weeks later, that the "Theatre du Citie" invites the public to witness "Tiie Follies of George, or the Opening of the British Parliament." The Theatre Louvois chances its FREXZT AND AMUSEMENT. 77 name to "Amis de la Patrie;" and the Theatre of Moliere assumes the more popular style of "Theatre du Sans-culottes," in which is enacted "The Inauguration of the French Repub- lic"_a performance in which the whole nation had been for three years engaged, at the cost of rivers of blood. In addi- tion to these, the Theatre du Vaudeville offers "The Hhppy Decade;" the Theatre du Lycee des Arts "The History of Mankind;" and the Theatre du Pantheon "The Shipwreck of Kings on the Island of Reason." In dread Thermidor, the same page which announces the fall of Robespierre, and reports at length the terrific debate which preceded it, at the same time giving the long register of the victims of the guillotine during the previous day, with all the detail of name, age, and profession— is garnished with the attractions of eleven theatres, among which are to be performed, "The Hearts of Marathon," "The Conspirator for Liberty," and "The Approved Republican." As if this con- trast were not enough, we are startled by the advertisement of Citizen Franooni, who has all along been continuing his feats, and even giving lessons in "balaiiciie'' and "volage,'' every morning, to either sex — distancing his past efforts, he now announces "wne fete civique,^^ which "he will celebrate with all the pomp of which it is susceptible, and will close with the entrance of a car of the shape of a national pavilion, illuminated, and drawn by four horses, richly harnessed; all of which is to be preceded by exercises of balancing, horse- back dances, and inter-acts of the most amusing character." These facts will show that reveries of political and social per- fection were absorbing the metropolis — indeed^ the past three years had been given to dreams. The starving masses, which so often thronged the avenues to the States General and the 78 THE EEVOLUTIOKIST. Assembly, were dreaming of some future day of abundant bread. The mechanic at his bench, or as he paced homeward, in nervous discontent, dreamed of what men called Liberty, lie knew not wholly what it was, but he well knew what it was not — it was no taxes, no priest, no Bastile, no king; or if the idea assumed a positive shape, it was plenty of food fur the wife and children, now famishing in the faubourg — it was diminished labor — it was music, fetes, and joys of sense, to compensate for past oppression. And the motto of the dreamer was, " Eeason is supreme — death is an eternal sleep — there is no God!" The man of books dreamed, as well as the artisan; and the grisette, as well as the savant, yielded to the charmed visions of beatitude. That word, about which clustered every other bliss, was liberty. But it was not the liberty of Truth, for of this they had no concep- tion. On the other hand, it was that wild exemption from restraint, which constitutes the elysium of the ignorant and the depraved. Of such Milton spoke, at an earlier day : " They bawl for freedom, in their senseless mood, And then revolt when Truth would make them free ; License they mean, when they cry ' Liberty,' For who loves that must first be wise and good." For models, some retreated into ancient myths : with them each man was to be a Brutus, each woman a Lucretia — Avhile others were carried away with exemplary fables from the recent heroism of America.* There was to be no more pollti- * "When Dr. Warren fell on the American shores beneath the fire of the Enj^lish, his shirt, stained with blood, was borne to a temple. The orator expatiated upon the country's loss, and exclaimed to his auditors: 'Whenever liberty shall be in danger, call your children — exhibit to tliem even a shred of Warren's ensanguined shirt, and then give them their DOUBTS IN THE CONVENTION. 79 cal fraud ; honesty and love were to inspire each department, and all were to be happy. And the motto which floated over this approaching paradise, was "reason is supreme— death is an eternal sleep — there is no God." Hardly had Paine taken his scat in the Convention, when it became wrought up to frenzy— like the madman, when from quiet moods he leaps up, frantic. The capital defect in its operations now revealed itself, in appalling magnitude— it was the want of common faith. The factions of a Convention which never had exhibited mutual confidence, now met, day after day, beneath the withering shadow of distrust. Each member was the object of diverse suspicion, and the throb of doubt increased, until it shook the nation, from Paris to the frontier. " There is unsoundness in the state — tomorrow Shall see it cleansed by wholesome massacre." Such, indeed, soon became the motto of each leader. Fac- tion could alone be healed by purity of principle, and purga- tion must be complete, even if it drain the best blood in the land. This process had been applied to the priesthood— to the noblesse, and even to the Royal line — now it was brought home to the Convention itself. "There be traitors among us !" is the cry of citizen Robespierce. The eyes of some of those madmen fire at that word, with a lurid gleam of joy. arms.' The assembly swore to conquer, or to be buried beneath the smouldering ruins of their country ; and even the children repeated with enthusiasm the language of their fathers."— >S/)eec/t o/ Gregoire, Chairman of the Commitlee of Public Listrudion. — Proceedings of Convention, Moni- teur, Sept. 29, 1793. 80 THE REVOLUTIONIST. w hile others shrink and shiver in their seats, spell-bound to the fate which awaits them.* As one enters upon this tumultuous scene, every member is gasping with excitement, until some one has gained the tribune, and will be heard. Then flows the stream of elo- quence, kindling with passion and sentiment, and thrilling the soul, as it touches its secret springs, yet after all scathing as a river of lava. Here are Brissot, Roland, Danton and Verg- niaud, whose very voices have the flash and gleam of drawn swords, and then is heard, in strange contrast, the tones of citizen Robespierre — soft as the summer wind breathing on the harp. The debate waxes hot, and the changing features tell of dire internal conflicts, whose convulsions are writ on every face, until the haggard lineaments flash in frenzy, and at last the storm fells upon some of that wretched number, whose next scene will be the tribunal and the scaffold. One may follow them, if he will, to that dark and crowded apartment — rank with fetid breath, and aghast with the last hopeless struggle, where Fouquier and his fell jury are dispatch- ing their infernal task. Ai-e there any forms of justice left? One need hardly ask this, since the thronging prisoners have abandoned the expectation. Each reads his doom in the despair of his fellow victim, or in the demon eye of his judge, * Illustrations of Revolutionary debate are given in the extracts from the Moniteur, in the latter part of this volume. From these it is evident that ordinary parliamentary decorum was forgotten — no restric- tion was imposed on personality, and the frequent tumults which drown all semblance of order are only appeased (when appeased at all) by the last appeal of the ciiair. This was the resuming of the chapeau. Thus we often read in the Moniteur : " Une grand tumulte remplit la salle. " Le President se couvre. " Le calme renait." SCENES AT THE GUILLOTINE. 81 and each, in turn, passes to that doom — while from the lofty- seat is heard one, soliloquizing in the interval, "Perish, ye traitors! Shall we spare you, for beauty, youth or sex? Heaven forbid!" Louder tones beside these chide each moment of delay — " clear the place for the next fournee — the time is precious. Collot D'Herbois, read the list, that the jury may attend. Citizens, to your duty !" Passing into the street, one's steps are strangely drawn, as by a magnet ; and following the jostling crowd, square after square is passed, until a thousand eyes catch the first glimpse of one object of unutterable interest, and each vein thrills with increased excitement — it is the cart, laden and crowded with the doomed. The rapture of that blood-thirsty mob is rising to a higher ecstacy. Surely this must equal old Rome, on gladiatorial days. A solemn hush entrances all, broken by no sound but the grating wheels, or the tread of thousands. Now the guil- lotine heaves in sight — its black and weather-beaten frame extended, as welcoming fresh food to the insatiable steel. As they pass up to the scaffold, each of the unfortunates receives the scrutiny of many an eager eye. One may be a grey- headed peer, a remnant of the old noblesse, thus atoning for the crime of rank ; the next is some poor artisan, who suffers for an unguarded word; another is a maiden, condemned, she knows not for Avhat; while others may have been thrown in at random, to fill up the " batch." Thus day after day, " Through the streaming streets Of Paris red-eyed Massacre, o'er-wearied, Reeled heavily, intoxicate with blood." At the close of the Reign of Terror, when thousands had thus perished on the scaffold, we may well inquire whether, after so great a sacrifice, and such dire experience, health and 82 THE REVOLUTIONIST. purity have been restored to the common weal 1 The murky- shadows of the revolution are now lifted up, and as they pass away, we are startled by that governmental abortion, Avhich holds a brief and tottering existence upon the ruins of the old regime. It claims the name of a republic, and we proceed to contrast its petty doubts — its atmosphere of suspicion — and its shifting measures, with the simple dignity and truth of the American republic of '76. " Look upon this picture, and upon this : The counterfeit presentment of two brothers. See what a grace was seated on this brow : An eye hke Mars, to threaten and command — A station hke the herald Mercury, New hghted on some Heaven-kissing hill. With fair Hyperion's curls — the front of Jove himself." The whole difference lies in the distorted ethics of the one, by which religion is made a jest, and suicide an honor, while reason is defied — and the simple piety which was cherished by the other. It is the antithesis between Atheism and Christ- ianity in the science of government. The rock on which the old Directory split was want of confidence; it was crippled by mutual doubts and suspicions. In an hour of sudden danger it hires a Corsican soldier to defend it from the National Guard, and that soldier, on the moment of success, becomes an object of more feai-ful distrust. It sends him on a distant campaign, hoping that he may perish in its perils, and trembles anew to hear of his return. Its fears are more than fulfilled, for the Corsican scourges its members from their offices like dogs, and stands defiant — the Consul, and at last the Emperor. The atheistic republic is crushed at his touch, and in its place appears an empire, extemporised at the point of the bayonet. THE RESULTS OF SUSPICION. 83 But confidence is as impossible now as under the former reyhne. A net-work of spies envelopes each town and hamlet, and even eacli family, wliile squadrons of artillery protect the throne. Napoleon trembles as he reigns — his ascending progress is haunted by fear, until fear ends in despair on the night of Waterloo. But O, degraded and atheist France! has this experience, bloody even as it has been, restored confidence to thy borders? The answer is heard from the great upheaval of 1848 — her last spasm for freedom. And should one ask what ship- wrecked the Republic, born amid that upheaval, once more is heard the inevitable reply, want of common faith. The bar- ricade has been well defended — the Tuilleries have been stormed — the Bourbon has fled in obedience to the instincts of his race. The provisional government is formed, but doubt shrouds its councils — not one of its members has con- fidence in his associates. Marrast doubts Ledru Rollin — Louis Blanc doubts Cavaignac. The anxious populace, throb- bing with alternate hope and fear, doubt them all — it has no confidence in a single leader, for in each it beholds only a new tyrant. The masses once more throng the public halls, till they are surrounded by an ocean of human life — all ranks, sexes and ages, surging together, like billows— yet each repelling his fellow in distrust. The mob becomes restive — or, rather, maddened by the fear of treason. Who sliall appease its fury? Send down, ye care-worn rulers, your prince of elo- quence to plead your cause, lest your day of doom be come ! He goes — the honey-tongued Lamartine. His accents fall on tlie multitude like a charmed melody — the tempest subsides — he appeals to the national banner — he apostrophises the 84 THE REVOLUTIONIST. Jleur de lis — he sweetens their cup with the blandishments of hope. The reeling government is saved, for the time, and obtains a respite of a few weeks. But the diseased com- munity is past restoration. The insurrection of Miiy proves that the foundations of society have been sapped, and at last, in despair, the nation submits to the Napoleonic yoke. ***** ** *** The source of Infidelity is hatred to God: hence it is said by Paul, "they did not like to retain God in their know- ledge"* Nothing, indeed, can stimulate unbelief so power- fully as instinctive hate; and as doubt is born of fear and dislike, so Infidelity springs from man's natural hatred to the ineffiible purity of God. Human depravity burrows in dark- ness, to escape the awful holiness which beams from the sapjDhire throne; it hates the light, because its deeds are evil. Hence it is always identified with persecution, and they are companions, savage and inseparable. For this reason, in order to exhibit the most fearful results of unbelief, it has been necessary to cite the history of that land which was most richly watered with the tears of the saints, and most deeply dyed with martyrs' blood ; nor can one wonder to behold the thunderbolts of retribution falling upon it, in awful and relentless succession. They were the avengers of the faggot and of the stake, and of the sacred streams poured out in the cruel dragonades ; they were invoked by the edicts, solemnly ratified, and then annulled, at the nod of th6 priest- hood, and by the groans ascending from murdered thousands, on the accursed day of St. Bartholomew, f These it was that * Romans, 1-28. •)• In order to show how this retribution was meted out to the priest- hood of that false rehgion, which was to so large a degree the aijthor of THE FRUIT OF PERSECUTION. 85 brought at last the great day of wrath. The Protestant armies gave the throne to the house of Bourbon, and confirmed it in peaceful possession. The house of Bourbon turned against the miseries of France, we translate the following from the '^Liste du Con- damnes," under the head of "Affaire des Religieuses Carmelite:" " The tribunal held in the Hall of Liberty condemned to death the fol- lowing: " F. Croissy, aged 49, born at Paris, Ex Religieux Carmelite. "M. L. Tresille, aged 51, born at Compiegnc, " " " " M. C. Lidoine, aged 42, bom at Paris, " " " "A. RousscI, aged 52, born at Fresne " " " "E. J. Verzolat, aged 30, born at Leigne " " " " R. Chretien, aged 57, born at Loreux, " " " "M. C. C. Brard, aged 58, born at Bourt, " " " "L. Souron, aged 55, born at Compiegne, " " " "A. Pelleret, aged 64, born at Cozars, " " " "M. A. Piedcourt, acfed 78, born at Paris, " " " " M. Thoursett, affed 1Q, hovn at Meux, " " " " M. J. Meunier, aged 29, born at Franciade, Novice Carmelite. " Convicted of having declared themselves the enemies of the people, and of having conspired against their sovereignty ; of giving intelligence to the enemies of the Republic ; of conspiring with the enemies of France, and imprisoning patriots ; of becoming the partisans of Lafayette and Du- mourier; of proclaiming that tlie Prussians were Jine Jdlows ; of preserv- ing the writings of liberticides ; of opposing the recruiting service, and seeking to stir up the people to counter-revolution ; — and were executed the same dav." This ^^fournie" of unfortunate ecclesiastics, who suffered under such absurd charges, was guillothied, not far from the church of Saint Etienne, whose bell tolled the signal for the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day. Their case is but a sample of the wholesale butchery with which priest- craft was visited, and even the hoary hairs of four score could not com- mand sympathy from the bloodthirsty tribunal. But was it not in those very streets that Admiral Coligny was massacred — a reverend old man, whose only crime was Protestantism — and who shared the general slaugh- ter of that fearful day ? 8G THE REVOLUTIOXIST. its fiiithful allies, and re\^arcling them with treachery, sold itself to work out the abominations of Rome. If ever there was a house that wore out the patience of the Most High, it was that of Bourbon. If ever there was a nation drunk with the blood of the saints, it was France. She destroyed the religious faith of her people, to please the harlot of the Seven Hills, and with the fall of the Protestant church France also fell, self stabbed. O, no sword of man ever dealt a wound so deadly as that received from the vij^er coiled in her own breast. No retreat from Moscow, nor Waterloo, nor even a continent in arms, were half the foe that God raised up in the work of her own hands. Infidelity effloresced in national insanity, and the madman, when unre- strained, is his own destroyer. We turn gladly from this sad lesson, to the nobler illustration afforded in the history of America. The great moral preparation for tlie Revolution was the religious awakening, which from 1730 to 1750 spread througliout the colonies.* It was an era which, instead of a Hume, a Voltaire, or a Shelley, developed the majestic Edwards, and the fervent Brainerd, and supplied the nation with a generation imbued with j)iety and pa- triotism. * Even at so early a day as 1735 the great revival then pcrvadhig the land was considered by a few leading minds as the herald of some grand feature in the world's progress ; and Jonathan Edwards, in a sermon of that date, uses the following remarkable language : " God seems, by the things which he is doing among us, to be coming forth for some great thing. The work whicli hath lately been wrought among us is no ordi- nary thing. He doth not work in His usual way, but in a way very ex- traordihary ; and it is probable that it is a forerunner of some great revolu- tion. We must not pretend to say what is in tlie womb of Providence, or what is in the book* of God's secret decrees — yet we may, and owjht to, discern the sir/nn of tJwsc times." RELIGION AND LIBERTY. 87 " Men who their duties know, But know their rights, and knowing, dat> maintain; Prevent the long-aimed blow, And crush the tyrant, while they rend the chain." Beside this, Harvard, and Yale, and Nassau Hall afforded education of an evangelical tone. Learning dwelt beneath the guardianship of piety, and supplied not only pastors for the flocks, but also furnished statesmen of the highest charac- ter. Thus from the least to the greatest of her citizens, America could glory in that which were truly worthy of Burke's magnificent expression, "the unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations— the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise." It was a necessary result that good faith should afford strength to the nascent republic, and hence, in all the debates which preceded the final appeal to arms, the leading feature was mutual confidence. It was this also which nerved the Father of his Country to new efforts during the protracted struggle. A firm believer in Christianity and its doctrine of a particular Providence, confidence in his associates was a necessary result, for most of them professed a similar foith. Hence we seldom find him doubting the fidelity of his men, and however deficient they may have proved in strategy, he reposed in their truth. While Put- nam, Greene, Nash, Mercer, Wayne,' and others served under his command, his confidence was never forfeited. Had he been devoured by suspicions, it is evident that national success would have been long delayed, and it is possible that the colonies might have still remained under British dominion. It is a circumstance hardly paralleled in tlic history of nations, that while there was an envious Lee, an intriguing Conway, and a vain-glorious Gates, this sublime confidence was, during 88 THE REVOLUTIONIST. a seven years' war, never betrayed, save in one wretched exception, and that the annals of the revolution record but one traitor. During his attendance on the Convention, Paine composed that volume which has so justly rendered him infamous. Ilis mind had for years rankled with anti-Christian prejudices, but so long as he dwelt in America the power of public senti- ment checked its utterance. But the time had arrived when no popular voice could rebuke his pen, while the atmosphere of Paris, redolent of doubt, yielded new inspiration. In addition to these facilities, there was a need of recreation from the duties of the Convention, whose sittings could net but be wearisome to one destitute of national sympathy, and utterly ignorant of the French tongue. It was there- fore an opportunity of relieving himself of a long-accumu- lated mass of sophistry and conceit, and the stately title of "Age of Reason" garnished a volume in which reason is unknown. If any apology be necessary fur the obtrusion of such a book upon the reader, let it be found in its representa- tive character. It is an apt illustration of both the honesty and method of that controversy in which it bears a part. It assumes to be an examination of the Scriptures, with respect to their authenticity, the character of their teachings, and their influence upon mankind. It also embraces a disserta- tion upon the miracles of Christ, and the facts of his life and death, and resurrection, as they are accepted by evangelical Christianity. It may be well to note the circumstances under which this examination was made. Considering the momen- tous nature of the subject, one might reasonably suppose that such a task would require an acquaintance with both ancient and modern authorities, and that when complete, it would THE AGE OF REASON— WHERE WRITTEN. 89 exhibit a careful collation of manuscripts, a research of antiquities, and a calm balance of the evidence afforded by history and experience. So fur however from realizing this idea, the "Age of Reason" sprang from the brain of a poli- tical agitator, amid the social ferment v^'hich preceded the Reisn of Terror. Its author admits that he had seldom if ever either attended evangelical worship, or listened to the instruction of the pulpit — or mingled with Christian society. But to say nothing of this deficiency of experience, he was utterly ignorant of the original languages of the Scriptures. As to the explication of such obscure passages as are found in the English version, as to the views of commentators, or even as to Biblical criticism, in any shape, he confessed, or rather proclaimed his ignorance; while, to complete an act of con- summate blasphemy, it was only necessary for liim to boast that he was destitute of a copy of the Scriptures, even while penning his attack upon them. We cannot Init mark the cool assurance with which he states a circumstance which, for audacity, has hardly a paral- lel in all literature: " Under these disadvantages I began the former 'part of the Age of Reason; I had besides neither Bible nor Testament to refer to, though I was tvriting against both . — (he does not appear to understand, that the one included the other) — nor could I procure any ; notwithstanding ^vhich I have prod}(ced a work that no Bible believer, though writing at his ease, and ivith a librarg of church books about him can refute.'''' The author dedicated his book to the people of America, and then entrusted it to the care of an American ambassador, who was returning to his native land. This ambassador was Joel Barlow, whose principles appear to have been even worse tlian his poetry, and had he not been a 90 THE REVOLUTIOKIST. follower of Paine, we should have been surprised at his thus bearing honae a volume charged with poison. It is a niatlcr of more serious surprise that the volume thus introduced was printed by a house which, in after years, became noted for the publication of Bibles, prayer books, and general religious literature — a distinction enjoyed by its successors to the present day. These circumstances prove that Infidelity was then far more prevalent than it is now. The influence of the French army and the associations arising from the recent alliance of the two nations had largely undermined public sentiment. At the present day no ambassador would dare offer a similar volume to his country, and no respecta\(le printing house would incur the infamy of its publication. The character of the "The Age of Reason" fully justifies all that might be predicated of a book produced under similar circumstances. A copy of the first edition is now before us, with the pungent autograph annotations of the late John B. Romeyn. It is inspired by hate to Christianity, without any disguise; and its attempts at reasoning are quickly lost in the bitter current of its enmity. To reply to such a book were like arguing with a madman; and yet, although its vituperations are beneath the reach of calm discussion. Bishop Watson would not let it stalk the land unscathed. A con- tinued though secret circulation still perpetuates its errors, and indicates an enemy whose character is not too degraded to effect extensive mischief, and whose attack it were not wise to overlook. / " I hate when Vice can bolt her arguments, And Virtue has no tongue to check her pride." * The spirit of the author is shown by the statement " that * Comus. EXTRACTS FROM THE AGE OF REASON. 91 having, since the completion of the first part, furnished him- self with a Bible and Testament, he has found them to be much worse books than he had conceived." In his view " the Bible is full of murder ;" — " the book of Isaiah is one continued, incoherent, bombastical rant, full of extravagant metaphor, without application, and destitute of meaning;" — "prophesy- ing is professional lying;" and his self-complacency, in view of this style of reasoning, is thus modestly expressed: "I have gone through the Bible as a man would go through a wood and fell trees." The author of Matthew's Gospel is stated "to have been an exceeding weak and foolish man." The seclusion of Christ after his resurrection is "a skulking privacy;" Mark's account of his reappearance to the disciples is "like a schoolboy's dull story;" and Christ's Sermon on the Mount " contains some good things, and a great deal of this feigned morality." Paul's sublime discourse on the resurrection (1st Corinthians, 15) "is a doleful jargon, as destitute of meaning as the tolling of the bell at the fu- neral;" and the argument, as it proceeds, "shows Paul to have been, what he says of others — a fool." The authenti- city of the Epistles "is a matter of indifference" — "they are either argumentative or dogmatical ; and as the argument is defective, and the dogmatical part is merely presumptive, it signifies not who wrote them." In an'other place he exclaims : "What is it that we have learned from this pretended thing, called revealed religion ? — nothing that is useful to man, and everything that is dishonorable to his maker!" These extracts sufficiently prove the character of the "Age of Reason." Other passages occur, from whose levity and obscenity one cannot but revolt. We can scarcely credit the fact that they were written by the author of " Common Sense" 92 THE REVOLUTIONIST. and "The Crisis," and here we have a proof of the natural blindness of the understanding, and the corresponding per- version of the heart. There is no darkness like that of the impure and God-hating intellect of man. We add, in conclusion, the author's opinion of the four Gospels: "It is, I believe, impossible to find in any story upon record so many and such glaring absurdities, contra- dictions and falsehoods as are in those books; they are more numerous and striking than I had any expectation of finding ■when I began this examination, and far more so than I had any idea of when I wrote the former part of the Age of Reason; 1 had then neither Bible nor Testament to refer to, nor could I procure any. My own situation, even as to existence, was becoming every day more precarious, and as I was willing to leave something behind me upon the subject, I was obliged to be quick and precise. Tlie quotations* I then made were from memory only, but they are correct; and the opinions I have advanced in that work are the effect of the most clear and long-established conviction that the Bible and the Testament are impositions on the world — that the fall of man — the account of Jesus Christ being the son of God, and of his dying to appease the wrath of God, and of salvation by that strange means — are all fabulous inventions, dishonorable to the power and wisdom of the Almighty ; that the only true religion is Deism, by which I then meant, and now mean, the belief of one God, and an imitation of his * The following are all the quotations in the part referred to: "The Lord spake unto Moses, saying:" "Thou shalt surely die;" "An evil spirit from the Lord ;" "Canst thou, by searching, find out God — canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection ? " " All the kingdoms of the world ;" " Lo here ! lo there ! " " Behold the lilies of the field— they toil not, neither do they spin." PAINE'S YIBW OF THE BIBLE. 93 moral character, or the practice of what are called the moral virtues; and that it was upon this only (so far as religion is concerned) that I rested all my happiness hereafter. So say I now, and so help me God." We thus give the wretched man's profession, in order that he may enjoy the position which he seems to have envied, as tlie model Deist of his day; and we add the following as his conclusion of the whole matter: "Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is none more deroga- tory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man, more repug- nant to reason, and more contradictory in itself, than this thing called Christianity." We have spoken of the "Age of Reason" as a representa- tive book. Its impudent ignorance sets forth the chief charac- teristic of Deistical literature. We may not expect our adversaries to be conversant with nice points of doctrine, but one cannot but be surprised to see matters not merely of opinion, but of criticism and history misrepresented, until Christianity is thrust before the world, in all the de- formity of prejudice and hate.* If the "Age of Reason" exhibits a misapprehension of scriptural piety, and a perver- sion of scriptural facts, does it not find a parallel in Hume, Shelley, Volney, and we may add, the Westminster review- ers, none of whom have the excuse which might shield * " No man ever candidly and perseveringly studied the system of truth presented in the Old and New Testaments, without finding his belief follow. Where there is belief — real, firm belief, that belief will result in corre- sponding aifections ; these affections necessarily lead to a holy life. ********* " The grand error of free-thinkers, and that which should be pressed home on them, is their obstinate persistency in going blindfold, when a Ught from Heaven is offered them." — J. W. Alexander'' s Letters to Dr. Hall. 94 THE REVOLUTIONIST. the rude stay-maker of Thctford? The reputation of such men gives vast importance to their dicta, and their ignorant, yet boasting disciples, rest in the wisdom of their teachers. And yet, despite this vaunted wisdom, there was one question on which they were not wise. However deep may have been their investigations elsewhere, here they Avere superficial; and however enlightened they otherwise were, they were here as ignorant as the unlettered mass of their followers. An examination of the Deistical controversy convinces us that the only exception to the statement is in the case of those whose love of sin has confirmed them in opposition to Christianity, even while convinced of its truth. To such, the Earl of Rochester referred, when in his last moments, laying his hand on the Bible, he exclaimed: " Thei-e is true 2Jhiloso- phy. This is the loisdom that speaks to the heart; a bad life is the onhj grand objection to this book."* * "And now that a professed communication is before me, and that it has all the soHdity of the experimental evidence on its side, and nothing but the reveries of a daring speculation to oppose it, what is the consist- ent — what is the rational — and what is the philosophical use that should he made of tiiis document, but to set me down, like a schoolboy, to the work of turning its pages, and conning its lessons, and submitting the every exercise of my judgment to its information and its testimon}'. "We know that there is a superficial philosophy which casts the glare of a most seducing brilliancy around it, and spurns the Bible, with all the doctrine and all the piety of the Bible away from it. * * * But it is not the solid, the profound, the cautious spirit of that philosophy (that of Newton) which has done so much to ennoble the modern period of our world; for the more that this spirit is cultivated and understood, tlie more will it be found in alliance with that spirit in virtue of which all that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God is humbled, and all lofty imaginations are cast down, and every thought of the heart is brought into the captivity of the obedience of Christ." — Chulincrs' Astronomical Discourses. PAINE ARRESTED. 95 The first part of the "Age of Reason" had hdrely been finished, when its author was arrested, by order of the Com- mittee of Public Safety. As a foreigner, and especially as sn Englishman, he had long been the object of its suspicion, a d his opposition to the death of the King sealed him to the guillotine. He had no doubt often contrasted the fren- zied Atheism of his associates with the serene dignity of the American Congress, whose piety was confessed by the prayers which opened its daily sessions; but that contrast became the more striking as he felt his peril increasing, from day to day. At last the motion was carried to exclude foreigners from the Convention, and Bourdon de L'Oise, while speaking on this question, denounced the individual who above all others was obnoxious. At three in the morning Paine was seized and thrown into the prison of the Luxembourg. Tlie American residents in Paris besought his release, but tiie Convention refused, on the score of his English birth and nationality, and he suffered a long and au almost hopeless imprisonment. The Reign of Terror was at its height; more than eight thousand wretched citizens were under arrest, on political charges, and as day by day the tri- bunal sent its throng to the block, sleepless suspicion supplied new inmates to the crowded jails. Paine's imprisonment seems only a natural turn in a destiny so strange as his. It was but a 3'^ear since the death of the king, yet within that year what scenes liad met his gaze ! He had witnessed the execution of the Girondins, and had shuddered at the daily /oumees which rumbled on to the scaffold. He had also marked the clos- ing of the churches, the abrogation of the Sabbath, and the adoration of a new deity under the name of Reason. 93 TEE REVOLUTIONIST. Thus he had seen the march of Atheism leading suspicion and slaughter at either hand, and yet these spectacles had failed to convey their lesson. Still darkened by unbelief he discerned not the true cause of the horrors which sur- rounded him. At the end of this year a new experience awaited him, and he who had mingled with the groups of the forecastle and the excise office, with the polidcal ckibs of London, the patriots of America, and the legislators of France, now learned the woes of a prisoner of state. The Luxembourg had been an old and famous palace, but in the exigency of the times it had been transformed into a prison. Toward daylight of a chill wintry morning, its gates opened to receive two members of the Convention, who had nothing in common but infidelity and misfortune. They were the only foreigners in the Convention, but they were as diverse in their manners and opinions as they were in their nationality. The one was an Englishman, unlearned in aught but his mother tongue ; by birth a plebeian ; in age appi'oaching his sixtieth year, and moder- ated as respects opinion from his early radicalism by scenes now enacted in his presence. Besides this he had voted against the death of Louis. Such was Thomas Paine when he entered the Luxembourg to spend a year in the midst of gloom, and fear, and alarm, and despair. The other was a Prussian, in age but little past thirty, by birth a gentleman, to which had been added the title of baion ; a man of education and travel ; a member of the Moimtain ; a leader in the famed club of Jacobins, an enthusiast impelled by the most extravant notions, and one who had voted for the death of the king, 2your genre hximain. ARREST OF PAINE AND CLOOTZ. 97 Sach was Jean Baptiste Clootz, who at the same hour, became a prisoner within the same walls. Of this strange character few vestiges remain, and yet from what may be gathered from contemporary allusions, his history, had it ever been written, would have ranked high in the annal? of the gifted and eccentric, Walter Scott indeed speak? of him as " the most inimitable character of the Revolu tion." The leading characteristic of this man waB a dream of human brotherhood, and the motto which inspired his ac- tions was pour genre humain. To accomiDlish his wild theory he had travelled so extensively as to receive the soubriquet of Anacharsis, seeking some goal of human im- provement. For this he had renounced his position and become a Sans Culotte, thus exchanging ease and wealth for the society of Hebert, Marat, and other of the scum of Paris. Amid all the fears and threateninsrs of La Terreur (as it was termed), he considered his safety insured by his position as a leader, while in fact he was but a tool of Robespierre, and as such perished in due time at the Place de la Revolution^ under the usual false and unvaried charge. Such a fate as this, for many a long month, Paine ex- pected to share. He had at an early day appeared at the Tribunal as a witness in the mock trial of Marat, and he well knew the character of an institution which gave life and death at the nod of its master. By that master he was long designated for the guillotine, yet a strange Prov- idence reserved him for another end, and hence he was never reached by the accuser. In after years he loved to dwell on his wonderful escape, 98 . THE REVOLUTIONIST. and in his garrulity he ascribed it to two different caiises. In the Age of Reason it is a severe illness which saves him, Avhile in his letter to the people of America — written six years afterward — it is the blunder of the jailor in chalk- ing the inside instead of the outside of the door of his cell. These variations do no credit to his veracity, and we are inclined to believe that the latter statement is unreliable, though it is possible that both may have been true at differ- ent periods of his prison life. But as to his danger there can be no doubt, since among Robespierre's posthumous papers there was found an order to demand the accusation of Thomas Payne (he is always called Payne in the Monl- tew') for the interests of America and France.* The Luxembourg, since the days of the Revolution, has been restored to its original splendor, and its picture gal- lery is a leading attraction to the tourist. IIow difficult must it be for such an one to imagine those pictures, unre- corded on canvas, Avhich once unfolded their shadowed forms to the dwellers there. Here have been witnessed bewildering family scenes — haggard parents hovering over children soon to become orphans — soft-faced girls whose gentle eyes were just kindling with the glare of desjjair — grim-visaged forms of lonely suspects torn from distant homes — soldiers in the Carmagnole uniform just snatched * The reason why Robespierre accused him for the interests of America as well as France, was probably owing to his fear of exciting the displeasure of the Uuited States if he destroyed him without suffi- cient cause. This fear we think was the reason of the strange delay in bringing forward tlie accusation, and if Robespierre could now show that it was for the interests of America to send him to the axe, a great end would be attained. We are left entirely in the dark as to the way in which American interests were to bo assisted by Paine's death. PICTUEES FROM THE LUXEMBOURG. 99 from the camp — wrinkled politicians vainly revolving plans of escape. Ah, what pictures of farewells, agliast with despair — of stout men sinking to weakness as their names echoed throngh the halls, called off for the founiee — of shriekina: women writhing in the hands of fiendish officials who <2:loat over their fears and feed high on their horrors. Such were daily exhibitions in the gallery of the Luxem- bourg seventy years ago. These scenes have been often attempted by artists both of the pen and pencil ; but little can be known of their true character or of their true colors. How shall we por- tray the stai'tling contrasts of young and old, of gentry and artisans, of plebeians and aristocrats, all huddled together in sndden companionship of misery ? The vast edifice, like the other prisons, Avas crowded by a motley host which embraced all ages and varieties of social rank. Every night new arrests were made, and the inquiry was uttered every morning concerning those newly come to that place of woe — beside this, each day Fouquier Tinville summonses his quota to the Tribunal, and the fearful ques- tion ceases not to agonize the captive throng, " who goes into the next fournee f' Paine kept no record of the dreary hours of his imprison- ment ; but to his active mind a state of durance must have been doubly severe. A few books and manuscripts served to employ the heavy hours ; but what a contrast is this to the prison life of Bunyan, Avhen, instead of a Pilgrim's Progress, he is giving the world the finishing pages of the Age of Reason. The Luxembourg was a little world, full of secret intelli- gence, little buzzing expectations, and pale, dying hopes ; 100 THE REVOLUTIONIST. but from all participation with these Paine was excluded by his ignorance of French. Yet insulated as he was, he must sometimes have shuddered when fresh groups of the great and the unfortunate were marched along those echoing corridors. What venerable noblesse that dread abode held during the last hours of life's fitful fever ! Here might have been seen the Senecterres, the Grand Maisons, the Malherbes, the Tonnerres — fathers and sons closing up old ancestries by extermination — high-born ladies and aged matrons soon to totter to the guillotine. But a thrill far more intense must have been awakened by the appearance of political magnates, who were so sud- denly translated fiom the Convention to the cell. The Lux- embourg was a place of strange re-union, and Paine could greet anew his old associates in council, and behold not only the common herd of Jacobins, but the flower of the Mountain itself. Here might have been seen Mormoro who married the Goddess of Reason ; Herault Sechelles, who Avas Paine's alternate in office : Chabut, the chief witness airainst the Girondins, who vainly attempts suicide by poison ; and Chauiriotte, who gloated over the early victims of the axe. Here is Fabre D'Eglantine once so prominent in the Con- vention ; and here is Hebert, who offered such infamous testimony against the Queen that its utterance would offend even the least delicate mind of our day, and hence it never has been republished — now going, thank God, to taste death on the same spot where that noble lady suffered. Above all, here is the brilliant, the beautiful, and the accomplished Camille Desmoulina, the Apollo of the JIoioi- D ANTON IN THE LUXEMBOURG. 101 tain^ whose tragic fate is intei'woven with all the intensity of domestic love — all, — all bound for the Place de la Revo- lution^ M^hither their votes have sent the unfortunate Louis.* Here, too, in a few days, may be seen the pale nun who had become Robert's bride, and who is to share his fate, and with her is the faltei'ing form of the once gay and happy Lucille Desmoulins. Poor Lucille, aged only twenty-three, now leaving little Horace an orphan with his grandmother It seems but a day since that lovely Lucille gave her hand to young Desmoulins in the presence of a grand assemblage of his political friends, all of whom have either fled or jjer- ished on the scaffold — except Danton and Robespierre, who will come in due time. A few days ago Camille followed some of that wedding group to slaughter, and perhaps his ghost awaits his wife at the place of death. What a his- tory of a bridal pair, and their suite of friends ! Such was the concourse of misery which entered and de- parted the Luxembourg daily during Paine's detention there ; but at last appears one whose name might have caused the very walls to shudder. What a sensation was that which convulsed the Luxembourg when the whisper ran from cell to cell that DANTON was there. Danton, late Minister of Justice, late oracle of the Jacobins, late * Most of these men were editors, and the vigor of political satire sel- dom run to such boldness as in those feuilletons whose authors wrote with the guillotine in view. Brissot edited Le Courier Franr^ais. Hebert edited Ptre Duchesne. Marat's journal was VAmi du Peuple. Camille Desmoulins published Le Vieux Cordelier, a fiery sheet, of which vast quantities were sold, and which is the only one of the Revolutionary journals which has been reprinted. Vide Paris edition 1825. Camille Desmoulins and Robespierre were early friends, and even fellow-colle- gians, but the jealousy of the latter could tolerate no rival. 102 TUE REVOLUTIONIST. pride and pillai* of the Mountain^ now a prisoner, and in three days to go to the Tribunal and the axe. The cap- tives of the Luxembourg were startled as by an earth- quake. What, Danton liere ? Yes ! HE is here ! Ah, Danton, giant of the Revolution, " hell from beneath is moved at thy coming ! — art thou also become weak as Ave — art thou become like one of us ?" Danton and Paine met and embraced ; misery and misfortune had buried differences of opinions, and a sense of fallen greatness overcame them both. In Danton there was an air of stern loftiness, which, on such an occa- sion, became grandeur. He was the Titan of the Revolu- tion, and Paine could not have witnessed his departure for the Place de la Revolution^ whither he expected so soon to follow, without confessing an emotion. Thus, amid daily tragedy, the months passed drearily on — Nivousse^ Plumose^ Germinal, Prarial, Floreal, until at length came Thermidor, sultry Avith the summer sun, but hotter still with fear, and dread, and the fiery war in the Convention. All this while the axe has no rest — La Terreur slumbers not — and the daily fournee holds its course onward through Rue St. Honore to the scaffold. On the 20th Prarial Robespierre has inaugurated the Etre Supreme, but the slaughter ceases not even under the rule of that very PJtre Supreme which he has set up as the deity after his own heart. The maddening excitement waxes still higher in its pitch, and thrilling rumors begin to pene- trate the Luxembourg. There are plots and complots even against Robespierre himself Plope, still hope, ye pale dwellers of the palace prison — the hour draweth near — he cannot be immortal — his day too must come ! But, alas 1 DANTOX: XO WEAKXLgS. THE GRAND FOURNEE. 103 group after group departs, bidding farewell even to hope. Still the hour hastens on. It is the ninth Thermidor. The i-umors grow still more rife. He is accused, so they say, in the very Convention— nay, his arrest is decreed. Prisoners fronting the street see friendly signals playing from distant house-tops. Let hope grow stronger during that last night of horrors, for the morn of deliverance is at hand. The sun shines once more — it is a sweet summer morn — the tenth Thermidor — Decadi — day consecrated to mirth — day for music and theatricals, fraternal kisses, happy idleness, and worship of Eire Supreme. It is just five JDecadis since that Eire Supreme was set up by Robespierre — an in- fernal pentecost, and a fitting close to such a career. The signals redouble. The gloomy Luxembourg is full of hope — so is the Abbaye, La Force, and other Parisian jails. Word comes that he has been shot in the Hotel de Ville. Yes, his Avounded body hes in agony in a committee-room of the Tuileries, awaiting the last hour — there is no need of trial, he has been mis hors du loi, OUTLAWED. The cool of the day draws neav ; it is six o'clock when the grand fournee is rumbling toward the Place de la Revo- lution. Let us watch the carts as they unload. The vic- tims await their turn, gazing listlessly upon the scaffold, at whose base they stand, with cropped heads, coats loosely slung about their necks, and hands bound behind. There is deformed Couthon, tottering on his limp legs, contrasted with St. Just, who stands erect in the beauty of early manhood. There is Henriot, whose drunkenness lost the struggle yesterday, but who will never be drunk again. There is Lebas, and Payan, and Vjvier, and all that ill- famed crew, each to feel the edge of ia Salute Guillotine, as 104 THE REVOLUTIONIST. once they fancifully named the instrument of death. What a fournee for a Paris mob to gaze upon ? Was there ever seen sucli a crowd since the king suifered ? No ! not even when the Girondins etemuent,* or the T>m\ion fournee entranced the city. All eyes are eager for the brothers. At last they appear — the famed brothers of the 3fotmtain — many brothers they have sent here to suffer together, and the same fate shall be theirs. This is HE of the bandaged jaw. " How art thou fallen, O, Lucifer, son of the morning !" Thus the pistol spares Robesj^ierre for his best weapon, Le rasoir National. A haggard form appears on the scaffold — countenance smirched with blood, and the chin supported 'by a clotted band. In a moment his coat is off (that sky-blue coat of better days), and regardless of the cry of agony the bandage is torn away, for nothing must deaden the axe's edge. The form is strapped to the bascule^ and a dull, heavy sound is heard. The work is done ; La Terreur is destroyed, and Paris breathes free. Thomas Paine shall not die on the scaffold, and in a few weeks he will walk the streets of Paris, a wonder to himself and to all. Eleven months had been passed in the Luxembourg, sur- * The heartless character of a people stripped of all religious sentiment, is shown by the frivolous epithets applied to the most revolting features in that day of horror. Tims, by way of sport, the contortions of counte- nance which followed the stroke of the axe were termed eternuer, " to sneeze." The cross bar of the guillotine which fixed the position of the victim was called '• the little window." Fournee was a term from tlie bakers, and meant "an oveufuU," while "La Sainte Guillotine" and " Le rasior National," were among other pet terms of the A^y. " Looking through the little window," and "sneezing in the smk" were common ex- pressions for the fate of the doomed. Ht-bert is preceded to tlie PUice de la Revolution by men and even boys, who mock him with cries like those of the news-mongers, when hawking his own journal Fere Duchesne. RETURN TO AMERICA. 105 rounded by misery, and with the axe gleaming in the future, but now the opened gate otFers Uberty, and by one of those startling changes which follow the wheel of revolution, w^e find him once more in the Convention, a legis- lator of France instead of a victim of the guillotine. During all these vicissitudes he was befriended by Mr. Monroe, the American Minister, and subsequent President, who did not forget the claims of former service. In 1802, after an absence of fifteen years, Mr. Jeiferson invited him to return to the United States, and in a few months he once more appeared on our shores. It was eight and twenty years since those shores had welcomed the radi- cal and plebeian democrat, and during this interval he had achieved distinction. The once obscure adventurer had writ- ten his name in the annals of two continents. He had essayed controversy with the chief of British statesmen, and the force of his pen had been felt in the high places of government. He had sat in judgment on the pale form of the Bourbon, and the King had sought and received mercy from the low- born mechanic. He had participated in two vast revolutions, concerning one of which in his complacency he might have said, " Quaeque ipsi misserima vidi Et quorum pars magna fui." This eventful career had been prolonged through sixty-five years, and now, broken and destitute, he sought a home in the bosom of that nation whose liberties first inspired his pen. He returned to find the Eepublic, under the genial influence of Christianity, exhibiting a marked contrast to the vascilla- tions of French polity; for though the presidential chair was filled by an avowed Infidel, yet religion held its power over 106 THE KEVOLUTIONIST. the masses. He returned to experience an overwhelming disappointment and to drink deeply of that cup of misery wliich he had filled for the world. A professed revolutionist, he had fondly contemplated an abrogation of that religion which so long had been the object of his hate. He had hoped, like all apostates, for the destruction of the faith which he had abjured. "Soon after," says he, " I had published the pamphlet Common Sense I saw the exceeding probability that a revolution in the system of governments would be followed by a revolution in the system of religion."* Tiie desire cherished for twenty years, as he confesses, was now to be utterly disappointed. It is indeed one of the delusions of Infidelity to expect from one age to another the fall of that sublime system against which it haS directed its puny yet malignant attack. The imperial persecutor Diocletian was so confident of success, that he plamied the jubilee Avhich should celebrate the extinction of Christianity. Hume, whose hatred was equally implacable, at one time mourns over the ill success of his attacks, but at another seems hope- ful tliat, could his life be prolonged, it would witness the downfall of superstition; and Paine, upon whom the mantle of error so directly fell, expresses his assurance " that a revo- lution in the system of government would be followed by a revolution in the system of religion." But the volume which these misguided men hate, establishes the future safety of the chui'ch, equally with that of the past. "No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper, and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn." f The assault upon truth admits of no comparison with other conflicts. When battling with European tyranny the author * Age of Reason. -j- Isaiah, 54-17. AN INFIDEL'S OLD AGE. l07 of the Rights of Man may hope for success; but when, in the impious pages of the Age of Reason, he strikes at Christ- ianity, he invokes an inevitable doom. "Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall it will grind him to powder."* The Age of Reason had created an almost national disgust for its author, and he returned in time to receive its full flood — breaking upon his declining years. It is true that Infidel clubs existed in many of the larger towns, among which the volume became autho- rity; it is also true that for a time it circulated v/ith a power of evil, hardly to be estimated; yet, blasting as the upas tree, its very name soon re-echoed the anathema which the nation breathed upon it — and he who aspired to be the associate of Franklin and Washington in the war of independence, returns to the land of Franklin and Washington to be a hissing and a reproach. It were but little satisfaction to have received the courtesies of the President and the transitory attention of politicians, since the force of public sentiment soon drove them from association with the author of the Age of Reason. None cared to share the irretrievable verdict uttered against him, except a few free-thinking friends, M'ho had little to risk. New York became his residence, and the city^ with its excite- ment, was preferable to the solitude of the New Rochelle farm. His old age was one of bitter miserv; and the seven years between his return to America and his return to the dust exhibits a descending scale of deep degradation. "In the city," says one who wrote of him, "he moved his quarters from one low boarding-house to another, and o-enc- rally managed to quarrel with the blacksmiths, bakers, and butchers, his landlords." His chief employment, at this time, * Matthew, 21-44. 108 THE REVOLUTIONIST. was in writing for the public journals, and in personal attack his pen had lost none of its early gall. Thus, even before death closed his wretched career, it might have been cited, above all others of his day, as one " * * * Who grovels, self-debarred From all that lies within the scope Of holy faith and Christian hope ; Yea, strives for others to bedim That glorious hght, too pure for him." * Paine's last hours have been a matter of controversy. It has been asserted by some that he expired amid agonies of remorse, but it is possible that, as in the case of Hume, a frame of mind, hardened by a life of sin, remained im- blenched until the last. The latter days of the author of the Age of Reason were an impressive commentary on his doctrines. Contemning Christianity, he had vaunted "an imitation of God's moral character, or the practice of what are called the moral virtues," and on this, to still quote his own words, he " rested his hopes for happiness hereafter." How striking the contrast between this shameless boast and that career in which these virtues were so persistently ignored. Thomas Paine was the founder of the American school of Infidelity, and to the American people he formally presented his Age of Reason. It was upon American soil, no doubt, that he hoped to initiate that revolution which should leave the world without a Bible or a Saviour. The school thus es- tablished differed from all others — like its founder, it was coarse, blatant, and vituperative. Hume's vicious teachings smell of the lamp, and have an air of logic; Gibbon, D'Hol- * "^Vordsworth. PAINE'S FOLLOWERS. 109 bach, and the Encyclopfedists concealed their hatred of Christianity in the guise of elevated thought; malignant as were their attacks upon our faith, it does not impair our appreciation of their genius. But the American school exhi- bited its theories stripped of all adventitious garb. The seductive air of philosophy vanished under its forming hand, until the hideous phantom stood revealed in its true colors. It disdained alliance with learning, with manners, and even with the decencies of life. It sought not its proselytes in the alcove, in the study, or in the walks of science. It spewed itself in kennels and gutters — it was ventilated in the teem- ino- abodes of vice— it recruited in pot-houses and club-rooms, whose reeking walls reechoed obscene blasphemy, while priestcraft and scripture were cursed, amid the clink of cans, and the fumes of pipe and gin-bottle. This wretched class, diminished though it be, is far from being extinct; and in some of our larger cities each sabbath witnesses its cheerless gatherings and discussions — while the birthday of its apostle, "like Thammuz, yearly wounded," repeats its stereotyped tirades, and his memory is thrust upon the world, like some cursed thing, which writhes but cannot die. These gatherings exhale the foul effluvia of dis- content, debauchery, and ferocious radicalism which marked their master spirit, and society may expect from them its deepest stab. The infamous doctrines of Thomas Paine are so clearly illustrated by his latter years, tliat we cannot doubt he was spared the tribunal and the axe for this very end. At the distance of more than half a century, the finger of retrospect- ive scorn is fixed on one form of cumulative horror, and we seem to hear the cry, " Behold ! behold !" We turn and gaze, 1[0 THE REVOLUTIONIST. and shudder as we gaze, for the would-be destroyer of Christ- ianity is before us. Ilis head is grey, but those are grey hairs of shame; his form is bent, but it is not with the dig nity of age — the lips, in their last utterances, still scatter blasphemy; and as the wretch totters to his hopeless grave the Faith which he labored to destroy pervades the land with renewed power.* Thus dying, like the apostate Julian, in irretrievable defeat, he might, like him, have exclaimed/' Thou hast conquered, Galilean!" We turn away from this revolting spectacle, but again we seem to hear the cry, "Behold! behold!" We cannot but obey, and gazing once more, recognize the lesson, and wonder at the justice of his doom. Plenceforth let the chief reviler of the Gospel stand thus in perpetual pillory, an example of un-gospelized humanity, or, rather, like the glare of some midnight beacon, let him throw a ghastly warning upon the future of his race. Upon a calm review, we are convinced that America owes nothing to Thomas Paine. The claims once urged by the author of "Common Sense" are cancelled by the poisoned pages which flowed from the same pen. As one shrinks from the friendship which only conceals the dagger, so America recoils from alliance with the insidious pamphleteer of her revolutionary days. Far better had it been for her to have remained a colony, in possession of the holy faith of her founders, than to receive an independence thus marred and despoiled. Indeed, so far from expressing gratitude, our * Paine died in 1809; in 1810 the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions was formed; in 1816 the American Bible Society ; in 1817 tlie Colonization Society: and since the year of his death Christ- ianity has exhibited an annual and stately increase. THE LESSON OF HIS LIFE. Ill country now only beholds in Paine the Cataline, whose secret assaults her religion has escaped; and she may measure her once-threatened danger by an estimate of that religion, as the source and security of liberty. Having thus marked the contrast between the theories of Infidel revolutionists and the conserving power of national piety, we turn from the atheistical abstraction of the former to read, with renewed profit, the lesson of the Christian phi- losopher:* "Human happiness has no security but free- dom FREEDOM NONE BUT VIRTUE VIRTUE NONE BUT KNOW- LEDGE ; AND NEITHER FREEDOM, NOR VIRTUE, NOR KNOWLEDGE, HAVE ANT VIGOR EXCEPT IN THE PRINCIPLES OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH AND THE SANCTIONS OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION." • President Dwight. BOOK THIED. THE POLITICIAN. " 'J'llK I'L'llLlC rATII OF I.II'K Is KOlll,, IHIT YKT ALLOW Ir maki:m tiik noiii,1'; mtnd mouk noiilk still. 'I'lIK WOULD's no NKl'TKIl. 1t WILL WOUND Oil SAVK, Ollll VlllTUK (JIIKNCMI, Oil INDKiN ATION FIUE. You HAY TIIK WOULD WKLL KNOWN WILL MAKK A MAN. TlIK WOULD Wr.LL KNOWN WILL (ilVlO OUU HEARTS TO IIkAVKN, Oil MAKK US DKMONS LONG Ilia'OUK WK DIK." Young's Niout Thoikihts. THE POLITICIAN. " ^1 EE how the green-girt cottages shimnirr in the sotting *^ sun! Tie bends and sinks! Yonder he hurries off, to nourish new life. O that I had wings to follow on — to see in everlasting evening beams the stilly world at my feet — every hill on fire — every vale in repose — the rugged moun- tains, with their rude defiles — the heavens above me, and beneath me the waves ! " And surely this were sufficient, Iiad he written nothing more, to have proven its author a poet; and over and over again we repeated the thought, unconsciously yielding our- selves to the full power of that sublime conception — the eternal sunset — which Goe'the gave to the world. The summit of the mountain had at last been gained, and we were gazing upon a scene of overcoming grandeur. On the north-west lay Amherst, with its college halls looking out from great masses of cloud and folinge; nearer by old ITad- ley stretched its broad and quiet streets, lined by antique elms, whose arching greenery drooped in patient watchfulness over the venerable town. At another point of the compass 11 G THE POLITICIAN. we discerned South Iladley, with its far-famed Seminary — a monument to Mary Lyon, its founder, and a chief feature in New England's glory. At our feet the Connecticut, like a thread of silver, was weaving its way through grove and meadow — while Round 11*111 sits as a queen, with the sinuous stream at her feet. Beauties like these, mellowed by the hues of sunset, shall not soon meet our eye — they fill the soul like some magnifi- cent dream; and yet, turning from all else, we soon find our attention riveted on quiet Northampton, whose spires and mansions peep out from a world of foliage. It is the storied abode of holy memories, and they now overcome the heart; it is redolent of ancient puritanism; it is the town of fervent preachers and Pentecostal effusions. It is the spot where Dwight was born ; where Edwards lived, and where Brainerd died. How then can we avoid gazing on old Northampton, ob- livious even of the other lovely features in the vast panorama, until the mind, yielding to the inspiration of the hour, becomes lost in reverie. We forget the deepening twilight, and ut last, as we are buried in the solemn shadows, the wheels of time seem to have reversed their course. Indeed, the past has now began to renew its quaint existence: the trim cottage gives way to the rude, weather-beaten home of the pioneer, and the stalwart yeoman of a by-gone generation, homespun and uncoutli in apparel, but with earnest and commanding mien, passes before us. A whole century is at last restored. These humble dwellings invite our approach. It is evening; and as we quietly enter, we find the household gathered about the spacious hearth, by Mhose flickering blaze some one is reading the family Bible. A few volumes are seen on the A HUNDRED YEARS SINCE. 1-1-7 shelf, or table, but they are mainly of a religious character, and give proof of incessant perusal. Religion indeed is the common theme, for the sermon having been carefully heard is the subject of discussion during the week, and its doctrines, warnings, and reproofs are the pabulum of each household;/ indeed, as there are no journals, editors, or reformers to do the public thinking, the pulpit holds undisputed sway. The people travel but little — a journey to Boston is the event of a lifetime — even the intercourse with neighboring towns is limited, while Albany and New York are little known, ex- cept by report. •Tar from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, Their sober wishes never learned to stray ; Along the cool sequestered vale of life They kept the even tenor of their way." Such were the fathers of the American Republic, who laid its foundation in patriotism, born of piety. Earnest, patient, stout-hearted men they were, who put on the whole armor of God, not for occasional tilts, but for daily conflicts. Like the granite which underlies New England, these men, hewn out of rock, still buttress the common weal by example, memory and prayer. Among the rude dwellings which meet our eye while thus gazing in reverie on old Northampton, there is none so inter- esting as the parsonage; for here, sitting by his table, piled and strewn with books and manuscripts, one may behold the chief-student and philosopher of his age. He is pale and worn with thought, and as he rises to pace the floor his tall form seems still more attenuated by the intensity of the inner life. One need not fear to disturb him, for it is evident just now that he is absorbed by some mighty theme and is unco»- 118 THE POLITICIAN. scious of all but its solemn questions; and thougli for a time overawed by his presence, we may still look with calm interest upon the reverend form of Jonathan Edwards. In the lower apartment, for we will descend from the study, we shall meet Sarah, the faithful and accomplished helpmeet, and the ardent and devoted saint, whom her husband has cited as the holiest and most exalted of believers. Surrounding this illus- trious woman, and aiding her in her domestic duties, is her lovely group of daughters — Esther, Mary, Jerusha, Sarah, in whom are perpetuated the mother's gifts and graces, and who follow her arduous path in that daily walk which leads to the better land. Ah, who shall dare to even think that from one of this pure and primitive circle will spring the chief sinner of his day? Ah, who shall forecast such a destiny for bloom- ing, dark-eyed Esther — to bear and nurture one who shall be heir of misery and crime? Of these cherished daughters Jerusha shall be first to go hence, and her grave shall for many a year be redolent of the sweet memory of the early dead. Mary shall give the world one who will be worthy of her sire — and in the name and character of a Dwight he shall renew his piety and power. But thou, Esther — eldest and most gifted of all — to thee it is reserved to be the mother of him from whose bad fame all thy house might recoil ! While such thoughts are as yet unborn, we gaze with silent reverence upon this blessed household, for here intellect is hallowed by piety, and childhood mingles its merry inno- cence with the exhalements of prayer. But now a new name is to be entwined in its history, and Aaron Burr, Presbyterian pastor of far distant Newark, has been proven worthy of Esther's love. Their union, however, will be delayed until Jonathan Edwards, the expelled of Noi^liampton, shall have THE YEAR OF MORTALITY. 119 found a new home at Stockbridge, when mother and daughter, waiving all form, shall journey to New York and meet the bridegroom in the long expected ceremony. In 1752 the happy couple establish a new fireside, and h 're Esther revives the scenes of her early days. Like the good old home in Northampton, it is the abode of peace — where faith daily overcomes the world. And soon two sweet children fill Esther's heart with happiness, and little Sarah has just learned to prattle a few broken words to her mamma as she rocks the cradle in which the tiny Aaron sleeps. Yes, he is awake now, and papa must come in from the study to hear the mother's flood of baby talk — to gaze in those lus- trous eyes, and to feed upon the hopes which that beauteous babe has inspired. ****** * * * But alas! all these things are but as a dream. Baby and his sister are orphans now. Father was exhausted and over- done by his sermon at Governor Belcher's funeral, and the fever soon proves fatal. He is only forty-two, and the infant college pleads in vain as it beholds one who is not only its president but its founder and nursing father, smitten in his prime. In vain, too, Esther watches and ministers beside his Avasting form — the last conflict is rapidly but serenely finished, and a? chief mourner she follows her beloved one to his place of rest. Six months are passed; another fills the presidential 'seat, and Esther's fiither, the good and the great, accepts the work which once her husband honored. But, alas! he has onlv come to die! In six months the chair is acrain vacant, and all that is mortal of Jonathan Edwards rests by the side of Esther's husband. Can we avoid a shudder as we behold the shadows still 120 THE POLITICIAN. deepening in gloom? But sixteen days are passed since the death of the last president, when another funereal procession sweeps in sombre array to the same place of burial. And now Esther herself finds rest by the side of a father and a husband — leaving her little orphans to the care of God. After a lapse of six months a fresh mound appears in the same plat, to mark the grave of Sarah, the widow and smitten mother. She has come from Stockbridge to weep over the turf beneath which a son, a daughter, and a husband are sleeping; but the bitter tears of bereavement and desola- tion are thus wiped away by the hand of death. O, precious plat in Princeton burial-ground — rich with the dust of saints, who from these crumbled monuments shall rise in glory ! Yet one moulders there of whom we dare not breathe such hope. It is thee — poor orphan! left behind in that busy time of death — left behind, to fill up a harrow- ing destiny, and only to return when the cherub face of infimcy shall put on the sere lineaments of four score — left behind, to follow the bent of youthful passions — to wrestle with temptation in its most feai'ful shapes — left in the battle, not to conquer, but to perish! Ah, poor babe! may we not exclaim — would God thou hadst early closed those lustrous eyes, and shared thy mother's sleep, still resting on her breast! But a higher wisdom decrees that this must not be. Therefore we gaze with deep- ening sympathy on one who is developing into restless and disobedient boyhood, and proving as wayward as he is beau- tiful. A lithe and active form — a passing grace of mannci-s, and a mind rapid almost to precocity, may offer promise; but that restive and indomitable will bodes no good. At ton he is a recaptured runaway; at thirteen he is a college junior; CONVICTION OF SIN. 121 and at sixteen he bids the farewell of a graduate to his Alma Mater. About these days there is a strange thing to be seen by that circle of friends and relatives who are anxiously watch- ing his opening career. Young Aaron Burr has taken a jour- ney into Connecticut, to visit one widely known as " Father Bellamy." He is not seventeen, and the wonder is what can lead so wild a youth to the dull scenes of Bellamy's parson- age. The reply must come fi-om that bosom now heaving with solemn thought and emotion. Incredible as it may appear, that bosom is no longer the abode of levity. A new sense has possessed it. Aaron Burr has suddenly been awak- ened to the value of the soul — to a view of its guilt, and its need of atonement. He feels the claims of his higher nature, which will not feed on the pleasures of sin. In other words, the Holy Spirit, which convinces of sin, is striving with the youth, and not only has forced him to abandon his evil ways, but has led him to the counsels of Bellamy, the early friend of his father. The parson welcomes the enquirer, who abides in his family full eight months, in order to satisfy himself concerning the momentous question of personal religion. During this time a mighty conflict agitates the soul of the youth; angels might look on and weep, for at last the battle is lost. It is said in Holy Writ that "when the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he saith, ' I will return unto mine house, from whence I came out;' and when he is come he findeth it empty, swept and garnished. Then goeth he and taketh with himself seven other spirits, more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there; and the hist state 122 THE POLITICIAN. of that man is worse than the first."* Such, we have reason to believe, was the case of the once anxious enquirer, whcu he left Father Bellamy's. The expectations of his friends that he would adopt the sacred profession of his ancestors were disappointed; and, what was still worse, their hopes of his personal piety were blasted when they beheld him turn his back upon the pastor and his teachings. We believe it to have been a farewell to Christianity; and if it ever after in- fluenced him it must have only been in that indirect way in which it acts upon the minds of the depraved without their consciousness. The attack of Infidelity upon the youthful mind is of the most insidious nature. It finds seci'et allies in the corrup- tions of the heart — it fraternises with the baser passions, offering promise of abundant gratification. Entrenched in all that is unholy in man, it first exhibits the nascent doubt. The soul is startled — is it possible, then, that that which has so often frowned upon its pleasures may be a delusion? Once more is heard the voice of the tempter, whispering, '■^thou shall not die!" And can it be possible that this hate- ful sclieme may be a mere figment? Ah, if tliis were but the case, how liappy were our state! If one could but pro\e that these stern dogmas were indeed but a remnant of anti- quated superstition, which science and reason annihilate, how would the soul expand in joyful emancipation! Then with emboldened tone the misled one exclaims, "Prove this to me, ye men of argument, and I will be your disciple!" Here is Hume — full of miohtv reasoning — indeed, in liis hands Christianity not only becomes a bubble, but even sui- * Matllu'w, 12-13. CONFIRMED IN UNBELIEF. 123 cifle tal:es the aspect of a virtue; and when the round of pleasure shall be faiished it offers a friendly escape from the bitterness which follows. Or here is Goethe, radiant with the scintillations of far more splendid genius, and offering a dazzling contrast to the blank and dreary theories of the Deist. The bewildered soul bows before the colossal Pan- theist, for "WTiat if pride had duped him into guilt, Yet still he stalked, a self-created God." And the error whic\i underlies the foul idolatry of the Hin- doo is sublimated until it permeates the highest fields of thought. "Henceforth," exclaims the lost one, "I only bow to Nature deified — Deity, of which I too am a prj't."'" How tluit thought pampers the vanity of man! Wliy should such an one be ruled by apothegms from ancient scripture? "NYeak- liii'js may thus cringe, but 'tis his to soar, upborne by Na- ture's lofty instinct, to himself indeed a God. Thus he is entangled in his own conceit, and calls it philosophy. Unbe- lief too enchants the eye with an aImo3t boundless vista of . pleasures — barriers, once impregnable, now fall as by a spell, and the field of sensual delight expands before unfettered * Pantheism, or the belief that God is everything, is d;cply rooted in the minds of the masses. The soul, they believe, is but a portion of the Divine Spirit, united to a portion of matter. " Crahm," says one of the Purannas, " is the potter by whom the vase is formed ; he is the clay of which it is made. Everything proceeds from him, without waste or I'.imi- nution — everything merges in him again, as rivers mingle with the ocean." "I am God," is the constant assertion of those with whom the missionary in India has to deal." — (Life in India.) Goithe ivould hare been asliaincd to acknowledge ihe deynnhd Hindoo arnoitg his discijjlcs. Yd what is (he ilijj'crcncc between his Funthcvsm and tlulmf 124- THE rOLITICIAN. appetite. With no law but the love of pleasure the career is begun. " Oh, foolishness of men, that lend their ears To those budge doctors of the Stoic fur, And fetch their precepts from the Cynic tub, Praising the lean and sallow abstinence. Wherefore did Nature pour her bounties forth. With such a full and unwithdrawing hand, Covering the world with odorous fruits and floclcs, Thronging the seas with spawn innumerable, But all to please and sate the curious taste ? * * * If all the world ' Should in a pet of temperance feed on pulse." * We shall not attempt a picture of the conflict between the soul and its tempter. INIilton has pourtrayed thrilling resist- ance and escape in his Comus, but Retzsch's noble outline of the Game of Human Life presents a saddening contrast. The triumphs of virtue are seldom found except on the page of iietion, while the sketch of the artist illustrates the history of many a wretched generation. And to this very hour we may behold the Circoan cup enchanting its youthful victims, till all the lessons of early childhood shall be lost in the delirium of pleasure, only to return and reproach the last hours of a wasted life. We believe that it was thus with the once anxious enquirer after truth. He left Father Bellamy's with a careless heart, whose only subsequent pursuit was pleasure; while unbelief renewed itself in tenfold power, and the passions, no longer bridled, henceforth held an unbroken sway. At llie age of nineteen he has enlisted in the army of the Revolution, and * MilKm. ]TZSCH f HUMAN L. Vide ApT"n"i-n STORMING OF QUEBEC. 125 we follow the rising volunteer as he marches with a gallant but unfortunate band. Led by ]\Iontgomery, and stimulated by the desperado Arnold, it exhibits prodigies of valor and endurance — it forces a way through the morasses and over the mountains of an unbroken wilderness, until Montreal yields to its artillery, and Quebec trembles at its approach. But here defeat and disaster are to be encountered, and Montso- mory is to die in vain before that fortress, whose capture had immortalized the expiring Wolfe. The morning of the 31st December is fixed upon for the storm. The forlorn hope advances, under the command of Aaron Burr, whose cool and intrepid valor is set off by the freshness of youth. But the attack utterly fails — and the discharge of a single cannon prostrates Montgomery with mortal wound, while the entire front is slain, save two. One of these is young Burr, who retreats bearing the body of the unfortunate general upon his shoulders. We next behold him in New York, on his return from the unfortunate campaign. The young and elegant officer now enjoys the fresh laurels of arms. He is the hero of the northern campaign, courted, caressed and admired — all won- der at his brilliance — the form is graceful as an Apollo — the voice awakens emotions in the listening groups of the saloon, and the martial fire of the black and piercing eye melts into a subdued lustre before the beauties of the metropolis. Rare gifts centre upon one who will ply them for the worst.* The * " I mention but one other ease — that of the seducer. Playing upon the most sacred affections, he betrays innocence. How? By its noblest faculties; by its trust; by its unsuspecting faith; by its tender love; by its honor. The victim, often and often, is not the accomplice so much as the sufferer, betrayed by an exorcism which bewitched her noblest affec- tions to become the suicides of her virtue ! The betrayer, for the most 126 THE POLITICIAN. ambition of intriijuc is paramount even to the ambition of arms, and tliere is no name so honored, and no friendship so intense selfishness, without one noble motive, without one pretense of honor — bj' Ues ; by a devilisli jugglery of fraud ; by blinding the eye, con- fusing the conscience, misleading the judgment, and instilling the dew of sorcery upon every flower of sweet aftection — deliberately, heartlessly damns the confiding victim ! Is there one shade of good intention, one glimmering trace of light ? Not one. There was not the most shadowy, tremulous intention of honor. It was a sheer, premeditated, wholesale ruin, from beginning to end. The accursed sorcerer opens the door of the world, to push her forth. She looks out all shuddering; for there is shame, and sharp-tootlicd hatred, and chattering slander, and malignant envy, and triumphing jealousy, and old revenge — these are seen rising before her, clouds full of fire that burns, but will not kill. And there is for her, want and poverty, and gaunt famine. There is the world spread out ; she sees father and mother heartlessly abandoning her, a brother's shame, a sister's anguish. It is a vision of desolation ; a plundered home, an altar where honor, and purity, and peace have been insidiously sacri- ficed to the foul Moloch. All is cheerless to the eye, and her ear catches the sounds of sighing and mourning, wails and laments ; and far down, at the horizon of the vision, the murky cloud for a moment lifts, and slie sees the very bottom of infamy, the ghastliness of death, the last spasm of horrible departure — the awful thunder of final doom. All this the trembling, betrayed creature sees through the open door of the future; and with a voice that might move the dead, she turns and clasps his knees, in awful agony: 'Leave me not! Oh! sjiare me — save me — cast me not away ! ' Poor thing, she is dealing with a demon ! Spare her? — Save her? The polished scoundrel betrayed her to abandon her, and walks the street to boast his hellish deed ! It becomes him as a reputa- tion ! Surely society will crush him — they will smite the wolf and seek out the bleeding lamb. Oh, my soul, believe it not! What sight is that? The drooping victim is worse used than the infernal destroyer! lie is fondled, courted, passed from honor to honor I — and she is crushed and mangled under the infuriate tramp of public indignation ! On her man- gled corpse they stand to put the laurels on her murderer's brow! When I see such things as these, I thank God that there is a judgment, and that there is a hell ! — //. W. Betcher. NEW YORK A HALF CEXTURY AGO. 127 tender as to redeem the sacrifice demanded by the sensualist. It will be sufficient infamy to add that this was his boast through life. But at last the war terminates — seven years of conflict have won an honorable peace, and the citizen soldiery have dis- banded. Aaron Burr, now at the age of twenty-five, is an established attorney in New York, and an aspirant for public honors. New York, as a commercial city, was then in its infancy. But little business was done above Wall street, and after a long and quiet jaunt up Broadway, then an almost rural avenue, one would arrive at the miry purlieus of Canal street. Here the eye might rove over open commons, while little homesteads alternate with spacious country seats and well-ordered farms. Looking from this point to the north- west, there might have been descried a tasteful mansion half hidden in extensive shrubbery. This was Richmond Hill — a villa which preserved to a later generation the name of its accomplished possessor. Here he dwelt for ten years, and here could have been seen many a circle of wit and beauty, fascinated by his courtly elegance,. while its hushed apart- ments often listened to anxious conclaves, whose schemes cen- tered on the astute attorney. ********* The dawn of the nineteenth century opened upon one of the most thrilling episodes in our country's political annals. The Federal party had suffered a recent and irreparable loss in the death of Washington. It was still, however, earnestly sustained by President Adams and a powerful organization. But the day of its overthrow was at hand. There are still living many political veterans who in octo- genarian retrospect may recall their entrance of the field, and 128 THE POLITICIAN. the extreme tlifFieulty which embarrassed its manceuvres. A journey either to Boston or Philadelphia required three tedi- ous days, while a voyage to Albany equalled in length a modern trip across the Atlantic. No telegraph flashed from the seaport to the Missouri — no railcar sped across the continent, affording means of rapid communication, and abating the fierceness of political excitement. This may be a reason for the extreme bitterness with which the publicists and partizans of that day assailed their opponents. The press teemed with squibs, lampoons and diatribes of the lowest character, and as personal hate was a ready path to the duel, to be a good shot was one of the necessities of public life. Among the distinguished men who at that epoch honored New York city, and whose names have been conserved in grateful remembrance, may be mentioned George Clinton; John Jay, Daniel D. Tompkins, Governor Yates, Marinus Willett and De Witt Clinton. Among the journalists, Thomp- son, Cheetham, and Peter Irving stood prominent; while Paine, fresh from the hot scenes of the French revolution, relieved the tedium of a miserable old age by penning invective. At this time a youth of some twenty years might have been daily seen in Wall street, in whose countenance min- gled the pensive, the ardent, and the generous in felicitous union. Just attempting the study of the law, he was enlivening its dry details with the zest of politics. American literature may rejoice that his genius was reclaimed from either of these pursuits, and that instead of a plodding attorney or a weary politician, he has developed in the fullness of national author- ship. No success in any other field could have compensated for the loss of the great historian of the liberator of America. Mr. Irving's predilections, at tills early hour, were opposed THE FAMOUS TIE. 129 to those of his brother Peter, the brilliant editor, on whose journal Burr's expectations largely rested. The attack upon the Federalists was led by Burr and Jef- ferson. They triumphed — and that noble party which once could boast of Washington as its head, lay for ever prostrate. But a fiercer struggle yet awaited the victorious leaders. This was for the presidency, toward which each had for years turned a hopeful eye, and which, like the fruit of Tantalus, was now within apparent grasp. Now cominenced those memorable ballotings in Congress which so persistently ex- hibited the unchanging "tie." From day to day was heard the wearying repetition, until exhausted patience and frantic excitement maddened the national councils, and threatened even the safety of the young republic. At last, after a strug- gle of eleven days' duration, and after thirty-six ballotings, a change of two votes decided the tremendous question. Thomas Jefferson was chosen President. Burr received the next distinguished position, and for the first and only time in our history, these exalted offices were filled by men of bitter and relentless hatred, and only harmoknious in their rejection of Christianity. ********* Our next scene is one of bloodshed and death. Infidelity, uncontrolled in its infiuences, has at last matured in the full- blown man of the world. And if we Avere asked the meaning of that term, we would define it as the reverse of the Christ- ian, wlio is ruled not by the spirit of this world, but of that which is to come. A man of the world glories in contempt for those things which a Christian venerates; with him pity receives a sneer, and sympathy, and forgiveness, and virtue are 130 THE POLITICIAN. but empty words. But what has been erected upon the ruins of true character? A throne, whereon sits Selfishness, hold- ing its accursed court, and ministered to by Hate, Lust, Jealousy and Revenge. "If thy enemy be hungry," exclaims Paul, "give him meat." "If thy friend offend thee," ex- claims the man of the world, "call him out, with sword or pistol." Measured by such a rule, Christianity becomes mockery, and even the words of Jesus are unmeaning. Yet there have been, and there are still, those who accord to such an one the rank of "a man of honor." Let us examine his claims to that lofty title. To-day he meets you in the em- brace of friendship, and warms your breast with smile and greeting — tomorrow, for a word misspoken, he may pierce that breast with a bullet. To-day he visits your dwelling and partakes of its hospitality, while your children gambol at liis side — tomorrow, unless some apology wipe out the offence of what may be a conventional blunder, he visits you through "a friend," who bears the courtly but murderous message. As a man of corresponding honor, you cannot decline it — nay, such an act were doubly damning among the honorable; and ere a few suns have set those children shall be orphans — tliat house shall be for ever desolate, and your untimely corpse shall be festering in the grave. Such are the demands of that accursed code which even now, in some portions of our land, hokls baleful sway. Yet one word with thee, thou "]\Ian of honor!" Dost think that that swelling word will wipe out the taint of a brotlu'i-'s blood, or mingle some " Nepenthe" for remorseful conscience, or plead for thee at that bar wlu re the slayer shall yet meet the slain? Wilt thou \arnish that stern word, muudek? Will CONSCIENCE. 131 thy code of honor enchant the Furies of an avenging con- science, till they forget to rend thee? " The usher took six hasty strides, As smit with sudden pain; He told how murderers walk the earth Beneath the curse of Cain, With crimson clouds before their eyes, And flames about their brain — For blood has left upon their souls Its everlasting stain. * And well,' quoth he, ' I know of truth Their pangs must be extreme — Woe! woe! — unutterable woe!^ Who shed life's sacred stream ! For why ? Methought, last night, I wrought A murder in a dream. " ' All night I lay in agony-^ In anguish dark and deep ; My fevered eyes I dared not close, But stared aghast at sleep. And peace went with thenj, one and all, And each calm pillow spread, But Guilt was my grim chamberlain, _ That lighted me to bed, And drew my midnight curtains round. With fingers bloody red. ' ' Oh, God ! that horrid, horrid dream Besets me, now awake — Again ! again ! with a dizzy brain,- The human life I take ! And still no peace for the restless clay Will wave or mould allow — The horrid thing pursues my soul — It stands liofore me now ! ' " 132 THE POLITICIAN. This is a most fearful picture — but so far from being over- wrought, it fails before the unutterable reality. Who has ever yet found words for the deep and undying agonies (;f a murderer's conscience? As we write, instances of remorse crowd upon us, and overcome the mind by their awful sha- dows. Let the record of one suffice our present purpose. Dr. Benjamin Rush states that among the incurables in a madhouse he found one who had been a successful duellist, and whose ghastly countenance at once told its tale. He was the victim of remorse, which devoured him like troops of Furies — night and day alike they had poured their vengeance upon his miserable soul, until the mind collapsed in its throes and sank into a delirium of despair.* Among all the passions which consume the heart there is none like $he indignation arising from a sense of injury, and which, when aggravated, becomes revenge. "When paramount, the mind loses sight of other pursuits, and becomes engrossed in one grand object. Other passions sink in abeyance, for one thought now rules the soul, and pervades not only its waking hours, but haunts those of sleep. The eye is filled by that form, above all others most hateful, about which cen- tres only evil ; no beauty is left its name or character, for revenge has stripped its victim of all that can mitigate its demand. And now it pursues the unforgiving one, like his evil genius. It flits across the page he reads; it steals in among hours once given to peace; it seems even to cloud the sun at noonday — while its name grates upon the ear, and ex- cites deeper wrath. Thus do feuds and hatred, the longer they are cherished, increase in bitterness, until passing endu- rance they provoke to vengeance, which, like the tiger's thirst, * Rusli, on Tlie Jlind. THE FALLEN ASPIRANT. 133 can only be quenched by blood. In nothing, therefore, is the power of Christianity better shown than in its conflicts with a passion which subsides only at the words of Jesus : " Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; do good to them that hate you; and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you." The steps which led to that famous duel, of which we are now to speak, may be traced through several years of politi- cal strife; but it became inevitable from the hour of Burr's defeat. Had he been elected to the Presidency he would never have fought Hamilton; but from the moment the final ballot was announced, his name lost prestige. Jefferson exhi- bited his jealousy of a once powerful rival by opening upon him the batteries of the Administration; while the Federalists, maddened by their recent defeat, poured their execrations upon their chief destroyer. Burr's once enviable position became suddenly eclipsed — the leader of a triumphant party awoke from ambitious dreams to find himself buffeted by govern- ment hirelings — avoided by all who sought official patronage, and only prominent as a target for subsidized journalists. For this the Vice Presidency was no compensation; while, to make matters worse, his finances were in hopeless confusion, and the death of his accomplished wife had made his home desolate. Galled by reverses — the past a history of disap- pointment — the future robbed of its hope, he seems to have turned away, in despair, from the Presidency — that goal of many an arduous year. Among the passions of one thus soured by the corrupt atmosphere of politics, and consumed by disappointed ambition, Revenge must have claimed mas- tery, and it could not but have demanded sore retaliation ujjon all who bore a part in his fall. Jefferson was of all enemies 131 THE POLITICIAN. the most hated ; but, elevated above the reach of an antagon- ist, he could meet all hostile approaches with contempt. But there was another who, while highly obnoxious, was defended by no official barrier — it was one who had met him in relent- less opposition for twenty years — sparing neither voice nor pen in exposure of intrigue, and who now, exalted in legal and military fame, and respected even by his opponents, was en- joying the graces of a lovely family, while the fullness of promise hovered over his future . This man was Alexander Hamilton. A native of St. Kitts, Hamilton was an Amei'ican by emigration — a republican by choice. Early poverty, while it denied him a liberal educa- tion, could not repress the ardor of high-toned ambition, which burst the narrow limits of the counting-house in whicli lie served, and was satisfied with nothing less than the law.* Commencing this study at the age of seventeen, he was soon distinguislied for bold opinion, for courage, and for eloquence. While yet a youth, his impassioned oratory gave him rank with Otis and Henry, and he became an acknowledged leader of the patriotic element of New York. It is not our purpose to discuss his character at length — it had its blemishes, and yet, while admitting them, we still are rapt in tlie co- lossal splendor of its redeeming features. Indeed, its rare combination of courtesy, intellect and bravery, might have recalled to the romantic the memories of ancient chivalry, * " To confess my weakness, Ned, my ambition is prevalent ; so that I contemn the grovelling condition of a clerk, or the like, to whicli my for- tune condemns me, and would willingly risk my life, though not my character, to exalt my station. * * * I mean to prepare the way for futurity. * * * I conclude by saying that I wish for war." — Extnut from a letter from Hamillon to Edward Stevens, 1*709 — cetai 15. HIS SCATHING LETTERS. 135 while it could not fail to ensure the paternal affection of Washin2;ton. Hamilton had always viewed Burr with suspicion, and fearlessly indifferent to consequences, he hesitated not in denouncing him as dangerous to the young republic. A few extracts from his correspondence will illustrate the position of the parties, and place us nearer the scenes of a half cen- tury past. Let them be received, however, with the abate- ment due to the intensity of political authorship. [Hamilton to Sedgwick, Dec. 22, 1800.] "The appoint- ment of Burr as President would disgrace our country abroad — no agreement with him could be relied on. * * His ambition aims at nothing short of permanent power." [To Gov. Morris, Dec. 24, 1800.] "He is sanguine enough to hope everything — daring enough to attempt anything — wicked enough to scruple at nothing. From the elevation of such a man, may Heaven save our country !" [To Bayard, Jan. 16, 1800.] "As to Burr, these things are admitted, and indeed it cannot be denied that he is a man of extreme and irregular ambition; that he is selfish to a degree, which excludes all social affections, and that he is de- cidedly 'profligate. . Beside this, the force of Mr. Burr's understanding is much overrated: he is far more cunning than wise — for more dexterous than able." [To the same, Aug. 1, 1800.] "There seems to be too mucli probability tliat Jefferson or Burr will be President. The latter is intriguing, with all his might, in New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Vermont, and there is a possibility of some success in his intrigues. * * * Admitting the first point, the conclusion may be realized; and if it is so. Burr will certainly attempt to reform the government, a la Bonaparte. He is 136 THE POLITICIAN. as unprincipled and dangerous a man as any counti-y can boast — as true a Cataline as ever met in midnight conclave." [To Wolcott, Dec. 16, 1800.] * * * "As to Burr, there is nothing in his favor. * * * He is bankrupt* beyond re- demption, except by the plunder of his country. His public principles have no other aim than his own aggrandizement, fer fas et nefas. If he can, he certainly will disturb our in- stitutions to secure to himself permanent power, and with it wealth. He is truly the Cataline of America." Hostile as was the position of these distinguished men, their characters exhibited some points of close parallel. They were equal in the beauty of high-bred manhood ; tluy were both distinguished in eloquence and in arms; both were veteran politicians; they were almost identical in stature, and differed but a year in age. But with these features tlie parallel ceases, and as respects genius the difference was vast. The one possessed ripe judgment, broad political vision, and tried patriotism, and hence was preeminently the statesman. In oratory his was the voice to arouse, to control, and to pa- cify the masses. Opulent in style, even to redundancy, he seemed master of the heart — the very passions awaited liis command; the sigh, the tear, or the indignant thrill sped as he might list, and the lofty thought, or the biting sarcasm, or the calm argument flowed at will from his lips, with that ar- dency of manner which characterised the rhetoric of the Revolution. But fixr above all gifts was that national confi- dence which he enjoyed, and which rendered his name a tower of strength. The influence of Burr, on the other hand, was limited to his immediate circle of friends — of no small extent, indeed, and closely knit to him by the fliscination of his person and THE FAMOUS DUEL. 13 T the peculiar history attaching his character. To the noble name of Statesman he never could lay chiim. As an orator lie had many admirers; indeed, as a concise, pungent, per- spicuous speaker, he has seldom been equalled; for this reason his speeches could not well be reported, and of the best we have little more than an outline. , Upon the whole it is evident that he was deficient in tliat lofty tone which ennobled his opponent, whose penetrating remark time has confirmed, and thus proven that he was "far more cunning than wise — more dexterous than able." ********* Linked as has been the previous history of these men, it now becomes cemented by blood; and that unhappy tenth of July, 1804, summons us to renew its scenes of woe. Oh, sad tenth of July, awaking so serenely upon the horrors of fratri- cide! And thou, Weehawken, prepare to behold thy dew brushed away by the nervous step of these miserable and misguided men! The seconds have carefally measured the ground, and as carefully loaded the pistols. What? next? Two men are to shoot at each other, in order to prove their honor, while two others watch narrowly that the shooting be honorably done, according to the code. And these civil-looking gentle- men in black, who seem as though they would not harm an insect, stand face to face, at ten paces, each with pointed wea- pon, awaiting the fatal word. How impressive the contrast between Nature's innocence — the summer's loveliness — the sweet matins of the woodlark and robin — and the part which man is to play in this bewildering scene! 138 THE POLITICIAN. "With other ministrations thou, Nature! Ilealest thy wandering and distempered child; Thou pourest upon him thy soft influences, Thy sunny hues, fair forms, and breathing sweets ; Thy melodies of words, and winds, and waters, Till he relent, and can no more endure To be a jarring and a dissonant thing, Amid this general dance and minstrelsy; But bursting into tears, wins back his way, His angry spirit healed and harmonized." * Would that these lines were as true as thcv are beautiful. But the human heart is as little moved from evil purposes by the voice of Nature as is the ravening beast. To either the poet might sing, with equal disappointment, for it is in the midst of such a scene that we witness a damning deed. Yes ! the seconds utter the signal, and the affair of honor is done — for in that instant one falls, writhing in blood, and the other hies away, covered with everlasting guilt. It is evident that Hamilton had long regarded the duel as a remnant of barbarism, but he could not break the bondage of a false code of honor. Twenty years before, he had served as a second; and now, in the ripe judgment of manhood, ho violates his conscience by appearing as a principal — or, rather, as a victim to that code which he abhorred. Dr. Ilosack states that he found Hamilton sitting on the ground, upheld by the arms of his second: "His countenance I never shall forget; he had at that instant just strength enough to say, 'This is a mortal wound,' when he sunk away, and became to all appearance lifeless." The dying man was conveyed to the house of a friend, in the suburbs of New York. As the skiff shot across the river, the sea-breeze re- * Coleridge. THE BEREAVED FAMILY. 139 vived liim — he opened his eyes, and turning to the surgeon, uttered a few faltering words. The memory of his wife and children had aroused him to consciousness — " Let her be sent for, but break the news gently, and give her hopes." The meeting of the Hamiltons about the bed of the mis-Mj guided father was one ol those scenes in which history exceeds the ' deepest hues of romance. The very pen shrinks from an attempt at description. But yesterday that father was buoyant with life — to-day he is writhing in the agony of dis- solution! But yesterday the merry laugh and the kiss of affection cheered that home, and hushed the voice of boding care — to-day, in their place, are heard the widow's groan and the wail of orphanage! And this is an affair of honor! What deeds, then, shall we desiirnate bv Shame? A posthumous paper calmly sets forth Hamilton's reasons, or rather his excuses for accepting the challenge, while it avows his determination to throw away his fire. Alas for the weakness of so great a mind J After following to the grave, but a few years previously, his own son — a similar victim to duelling — had he not sufficient firmness to abide by the convictions of conscience? No! — here even the courage of Hamilton failed. He could storm the batteries of York- town, but he could not face the current of a public sentiment which he knew to be false. The dying man exhibited his wonted serenity, even under what he knew to be mortal agony — yet a mountain of woe lay upon his soul and compelled the frequent and bitter utter- ance, "My beloved wife and children!" Once tliey were gathered about his couch, in order that he might Ijid them farewell — but the scene exceeded his endurance, arid he closed his eyes until they were removed. Yet, notwithstanding this, 140 THE POLITICIAN. so great was his composure, that as his wife sat by his side, ill the calmness of stifled agony, he strove to console her with the soothing and oft-repeated voice of affection, faltering with these words: "Remember, Eliza, you are a Christian!" Hamilton's obsequies have not yet been forgotten in the city where they were celebrated. All classes and all parties, however divided by opinion, united in a solemn expression of honor and grief for departed greatness. The vast procession seemed overcome with woe — it exhibited the sublimity of numbers and the unutterable pathos of public misfortune. The bereaved populace followed the remains of the unfortu- nate statesman to its place of rest in Trinity burial-ground, and then listened to an impressive eulogy which was delivered by Governeur ^Morris from a stage in front of the churcli. Four surviving children, from six to sixteen years of age, sat by the speaker's side, and their mute eloquence completed the mournful grandeur of the scene. As the Broadway pedestrian passes Trinity Church, he may seldom think of him whose remains repose so near the crowded avenue; but he will note, iij one of the cloisters of that grace- ful minster, the tablet erected to his memory by the affec- tionate brotherhood of the Cincinnati,* Upon the death of Hamilton public opinion rolled its ver- dict upon his slayer. It was a verdict of such indignation that * "This tablet docs not propose to perpetuate the memory of a man to whom the age has produced no superior, nor to emblazon worth eminently conspicuous in every feature of his country's greatness, nor to anticipate posterity in their judgment of the loss which she has sustained by his premature death ; but to attest, in the simplicity of giicf, the veneration and anguish which fills the hearts of the members of the Society of the Ciucinnati, on every recollection of their illustrious brother, Major General Alexander Hamilton." THE DUELIST'S FLIGHT. 141 its force seemed like that of an avalanche. "Words fail to express the anathema — not of a party, but of the nation. All political differences were absorbed in the current of popular wrath which burst upon the successful duellist, and which, however subsided, followed him to the grave. And who, after that fatal tenth of July, was the more to be pitied^ — the living or the dead? The former had been laid in an untimely grave, but the latter was under indictment for murder, both in New York and in New Jersey. Having fled beyond the bounds of either state, he escaped immediate trial, and even- tually no action was had upon the bills thus found. Under the load of infamy thus newly fallen on him, Burr at first seems to have reeled, and to have almost sunk; but the recuperative powers of a strong mind and an iron will restored his wonted impassibility. His position and feelings at this time are illustrated by his letters to Mr. Alston, the husband of Theodosia. "General Hamilton died yesterday ; all unite in exciting sympathy in his favor, and indignation against his antagonist. I purpose leaving town, but know not whither." Having fled to Philadelphia, he writes, a week subsequently. "The duel has driven me into exile from New York, and it may be perpetual. A coroner's jury is now sitting, for the fourth time. They are determined to have a verdict of mui-- der; and if a warrant be issued on the inquest, and I be taken, no bail will be allowed." Two weeks afterward he writes from the same place: "The jury continued to sit and adjourn for fifteen days; my second has secreted hlnaself, and two of my friends are in jail for refusing to testify against me. How long this persecution may Jast I cannot toll.'" 142 THE POLITICIAN, In a few days he again writes to his anxious son-in-law : "The jury has brought in a verdict of wilful murder, and I am informed that the Governor will be required to make re- quisition on this state for me — I shall, notwithstanding, remain a few days." The road from New York to Philadelphia had been flimiliar to his pious ancestors, in their journey ings as messengers of the Gospel of Peace; but the descendant of those honored pastors now fled along that great highway — a blood-stained fugitive from justice. ********* The next scene in this career of moral shipwreck is the . Court House in Richmond. The boy Infidel who nearly forty years before foi sook Father Bellamy's parsonage, imbued with contempt for his teachings, is now developing an advanced stage in his downward course. A cunning, yet unsuccessful partizan — a noted duellist — an adulterer, stained by countless intrigues — he now appears before us, a prisoner of the United States, charged with treason. It is 1808, just fifty- two years since Esther first dandled her babe in the rude parsonage at Newark. His locks are now quite silvered, but his form is erect and graceful, and his military air is un- changed, while his eye flashes with undimmed radiance. AVc pass over the years intervening since the duel, as they embrace matters not relevant to our subject. Among their events, however, may be recorded his long sojourn at the south, and his return to Washington, where he fidfillcd the duties of the Vice Presidency, and where, at its close, he delivered that brief but touching valedictory which moved his andii'iicc, in somi' instances, to tciirs. After years of investigation liavc- thrown ail possible light BURR'S AMBITIOUS SCHEMES. 143 upon the question, it is still impossible to specify the precise character of those plottings for which Burr was arrested. The two years of his life preceding that arrest had been en- grossed by schemes so mysterious that at last they justified the darkest suspicions. It was well known that he had tra- versed the vast extent of the western frontier, holding conferences with prominent citizens, and even with officers of the government; and as these facts took root in the public mind it became rife with the excitement of impending danger. But the great end of this dark enterprise was still secret, and was never frankly divulged, even to his most intimate friends. Like many other of his secrets, it died with him. We may state, as the popular opinion, that it was the invasion of Mex- ico, and the establishment of the Burr dynasty upon the usurped throne; while the dismembering of the Union was an adjunct of the scheme. This may be accepted as close ap- proximation to a point never clearly settled; and, acting on a similar view, the government charged him with a conspi- racy for its dissolution. That charge was never proven. There can be little doubt, however, that Burr was daz- zled by the splendid career of Napoleon, and had determined, like him, to establish a new polity, which should restore his flillen fortunes and renew the lustre of his tarnished name. This would require the secession of several of the southern states, or rather territories, and the colonizing of vast tracts of wild land. Louisiana had recently been purchased from France, and was far from being in sympathy with its new owners. This foct added much to the chance of success, and adventurers from New York made their way to New Orleans, where they expected to meet recruits from Ohio. But ilotwithstanding his military genius the great secession- 144 THE POLITICIAN. ist of his (lay failed. Like those who, following his example at a later day, have plunged America in civil war, he had undertaken a work vastly beyond his powers. The adventu- rers disbanded on their arrival at New Orleans — the feeble organization along the Ohio and Mississippi collapsed, and the progress of their leader was brought to a sudden close as he was traveKing on the Tombigbee. It was his second arrest, and he was conveyed to Richmond for trial, while the bursting of a bubble so splendid and so threatening threw the nation into increased excitement, and afforded an inexhaust- i])le theme for public discussion. The Sheriff exhibited no little awe, as for a few days he was required to hold in durance so distinguished a criminal, and readily furnished him with the best accommodations of the jail. " I hope. Colonel Burr," exclaimed the polite turnkey, " that it will not be disagreeable to you if I lock the door?" "By no means," was the reply, "it will keep out intruders." The trial of Aaron Burr is one of the most remarkable in our country's history. A little more than fifty years have passed away since the American bar was engrossed with its details. Nor was the bar of that day soon to be excelled. In Kentucky Henry Clay was just opening his long and bril- liant career. In Massachusetts the brothers Ezekiel and Daniel Webster were bending their mighty energies to their profession. In New York city De Witt Clinton was exchang- ing the duties of the court room for those of the senate chamber; but Brockholdst Livingston, Cadwallader D. Cul- den, and Chancellor Kent were maintaining the reputation of that bar which once had been graced by the unapproacliable Hamilton. In Albany Ambrose Spencer had won distinc- tion, which he only sliarcd with tlie IIl;nrys and the ^^ ood- SCENES IN RICHMOND COURT HOUSE. 145 worths, while iu Johnstown Daniel Cady was laying the foundation of his greatness. Such were the men who from a distance, day by day, awaited the reports of that famous assize. Those who were present could have seen Eichmond Court House thronged with the magnates of the land — there sat the wealthy tobacco-planters of the James River, contrasted with groups of ladies, eager to behold the far-famed culprit; there stood the United States Marshal, with his aids, in uniform, and in all the dignity of high office — there sat the pale and nervous form of John Randolph of Roanoke, the foreman of the grand jury, tremulous with excitement; while near by might have been seen "Washington Irving, the Apollo of early American literature, in all the freshness and beauty of open- ing manhood, but with moistened eye and cheek flushed with indignation and sympathy for the prisoner. The bar was crowded by careworn attorneys, half buried in huge piles of testimony; while upon the bench, presiding at this august tribunal, aj)peared the majestic form of John Marshall, Chief Justice of the United States. Judge Marshall was inter- mingling the duties of the jurist with those of the historian, and had already published the Life of Washington; but little could he have dreamed that in that court-room there stood one who should bear from him the palm as the biogra- pher of the great liberator, and stand as exalted in literature as he himself was upon the bench. But how different the feelinjrs of these two illustrious Americans! The one sat in judgment — the other, though a political opponent, gazed witli all the emotion of a generous heart on one thus flillen on evil days, and who, instead of being the leader of New Y#rk, now stood arraigned for treason. 7 146 THE POLITICIAN. In the midst of this array there sat one in whom all its mighty interest centred; but instead of the whiskered Draw- eansir which some looked for, they saw a small man, of calm and elegant deportment, yet one sternly resolute, and un- moved by the tremendous charge which overhung him. The trial was marked by a surprising degree of bitterness and asperity, and the counsel seemed but seconds to a duel between the President and the prisoner, to be fought there, in Richmond Court House, with heated words and vitupera- tion as well as with legal argument. "We do not," exclaimed Wirt, " stand here to pronounce a panegyric on the prisoner, but to urge upon him the crime of treason. When we speak of treason, we must call it treason; when we speak of a trai- tor, we must call him a traitor." In the defence five distin- guished lawyers were associated Avith the prisoner himself. It was an affair of tedious length — fifty witnesses were sworn, and their cross examination revealed hideous depths of per- jury. The government put forth every attempt to obtain a conviction, but foiled. But Burr here received a lasting stigma — a man of plots and conspiracies, he left Richmond acquitted but ruined. Wirt's philippic on this occasion is the best known of all his efforts. He was at that time in the full glory of manhood ; his countenance still indicating his German origin, his sihi-r voice occasionally charged with Teutonic thunder, his blue eye, his crisp locks — every feature and every member instinct with the grace of eloquence. There, in the midst of that {•(invulsed auditory he stood, leading it at his will — at one time through the depths of constitutional law; at another by the banks of the sinuous Ohio, where he recalls that Eden wliicli once bloomed within its bosom, and in which tlic exile BURR CROSSES THE ATLANTIC. 147 Blcnnerhasset finds solace for his misfortunes. Then he pre- sents that Eden desolated by the successful intrigues of the prisoner, on whom he pours the torrent of invective, such as those walls have never heard before. Thus hour after hour he urges the dark catalogue of crime, until the audience shrunk aghast — the jury trembled in its seat — the bar was in an ecstacy of admiration — while, fixed on that fell accuser, was the prisoner's gaze — his countenance unblenched — his form motionless — while his stern black eye flashes back its defiant lightnings. And hour after hour the flood of aecusa- tiun leaps forth, sweeping away with it all sympathy, until that spell-bound auditory has lost sight of all but two objects on earth — the one a mighty crime — the other a mighty cri- minal, on whom it is called to pronounce judgment. ***** * * * * * The next scene bears us across the Atlantic. We are in Paris, under the stern rule of Napoleon. As we walk the street we mark the same martial form — the same fascinating smile, and the same piercing gaze which years ago commanded the admiration of the gay circles of Richmond Hill. Then he was in the midst of a host of friends and admirers — now he is alone. Alone he paces the thronged boulevard — alone he eats his scanty meal in the cafe — alone he walks his silent lodcfins;. How much there is written in that word, alone. " In ' nevermore ' there is despair ; In ' fare-thee-well ' a dirge-like tone; But agony, too hard to bear, Breathes in that mournful word, alone. It tells of broken hearts and ties — -, Long silent lips and curtained eyes ; Of vanished birds — abandoned nests, And white hands clasped on silent breasts. 148 THE ruLlTK'IAN. "Alone! alone! what echoes wake In memory's cavcm at the sonnd ? While phantoms their appearance make, As if the lost again were found. But oh, how desolate that thought! Such figures are of moonlight wrou_i;lit. Alone ! alone ! no sadder word By mortal ear la ever heard."* That lonely sojourn in Paris which is now before us had succeeded a brief residence in England. A new project had engaged his restless and adventurous mind, and he had soli- cited the aid of the British government to redeem Mexico from Spanish misrule, A few weeks residence, however, in England convinced him of the futility of his hopes. So far from being received by the government, he found himself an object of its suspicion. His steps were dogged by spies, not less than when he wandered along the banks of the Ohio and Tombigbee. While travelling through the kingdom the po- lice wariied him to return to London; here he was arrested, searched, held in durance several days, and only released with an injunction to depart the country. Cast out of England, he embarked for Germany; from Germany he travelled to Sweden, and from Sweden to France, where he now appears before us. Here, to his surprise, he found that his reputation had preceded him; and no sooner had Napoleon learned of his arrival than he was surrounded with a net-work of espionage. A few weeks were passed in Paris, under the sleepless eye of 111" i)olice, during which he was denied all access to that great loader in whom he had hoped for a patron; and as the disappointed wanderer attempts to depart, he i'mds, t(» his * llc-^iiior. IS REDUCED TO WANT. 1-^^ .istonishment, that permission is denied him. Bm-r "svas thus numbered among those detenus, to whom Napoleon cruelly refused passports, thus holding a large class of foreign citizens in exile, many of whom never returned to their kin- dred, but wore out their weary lives in a strange land. Durino- this time his remittances from America were cut off, and the luxury of his better years was exchanged for bitter poverty. It was with difficulty, indeed, that he obtained the necessaries of life, and the privations recorded in his diary command our sympathies. "Nothing from America, and I am on the point of starving; borrowed three francs today ; two or three little debts threaten me with a jail." Again : " Paid my last sous today ; started to take a walk to St. Pehune, when I recollected that I should pass the stand of a woman whom I owed two sous for a sogar, so I changed my course for the bridge Des Arts, but suddenly I remember- ed that I had not a sous to pay toll, and therefore went back." Such are some of the vicissitudes of an eventful life. Tea years ago he dwelt in lordly elegance, surrounded by friends and clients-— now he stands before us, a solitary and famished exile. But at last a passport was obtained, and he embarked in a French ship bound for America. Strangely, however, the providence of God again crosses his path — alas ! must he fulfil the wanderings of a second Cain? The vessel was captured by a British cruiser, and he was turned adrift in an English seaport, with hardly a penny in his pocket. Having no means of obtaining passage across the Atlantic, he was saved from utter destitution by the hospitality of Jeremy Bentham. In a few months he embarked again, with better success, and arrived in New York in 1812, just before the declaration of war. 150 THE POLITICIAN. On his return, Col. Burr reestablished himself in New York in the practice of the law. He was little more than the wreck of that genius which once contested with Hamilton fur preeminence at the bar, and which could boast of the supre- macy of the northern democracy. The thirst of ambition and the hope of military fame had alike passed away, and for the first time in many years he appeared in court an unassum- ing attorney. Sixty years had silvered his brow, and dimmed the fire of his eye; but old friends rallied about him — new clients sought his aid, and the cloud which had shrouded his name seemed breaking away. This prospect, however, was soon to be blighted. He was only ripening for another blow — one whose overwhelming desolation should cause all previous misfortunes to be forgotten — one which should finish the work of retribution, and sweep out of existence what- ever might have redeemed the wretchedness of age. There was, indeed, one spot which remained green and fragrant in his soul — there was one heartstring wliicli had not been broken — there was one treasure which compensated for his poverty. All these were summed up in the name of Theodosia. Among those who grace the highest rank of female por- traiture, whose genius may command admiration, or wliose misfortunes may awaken our sympathy, we recognise that gifted but unfortunate one, of whom American womanhood is so justly proud, while it bewails her sad and mysterious fate. She inherited much of her father's talent, and having been educated by him with sedulous care, was early intro- duced into the gay and brilliant circles of the day. Beautiful, high toned and accomplished, Theodosia Burr, at the age of eighteen, was the cynosure of the social and esthetic, and, we THEODOSIA BURR. 151 had almost added, the intellectual circles of New York, She was the only one whom her father ever deeply loved, and whatever capacity he possessed for refined attachment was exhausted by his paternal affection. The bond of their union was of no ordinary strength ; and she, who only knew Aaron Burr in genial, fireside hours, when cunning and intrigue were for the time banished, and his splendid mind, whose fascination all confessed, poured forth its brilliant conversa- tion, must have been rapt in admiration, even if a daughter's love had not thrilled her heart. There are ladies still to be met, though Time has laid his blanched honors upon their brows, and bowed their graceful forms — ladies, whose sons have even passed the meridian, and whose children's children are just entering life's active sphere — ladies who love to recall bygone scenes, and to dwell amid the fragrant memories of the past — who can describe that serene and dignified, though petite form, that Grecian outline, and that sparkling repartee, which marked the com- panion of their early days. They can, through the vista of a half century, call up the social hours, the Kuirees and re unions of Riclimond Hill, where the Crugers, the Livingstons, the Clintons and the Hoffhians were received with less sjilendor, but with far more of the graces of the intellect than is now to be found in the palaces of the Fifth Avenue. Nay, there are courtly old men with us yet, who, notwithstanding thr.t Time has conquered romance, will confess the adoration oflcTcd in the days of their youth upon Theodosia's shrine — and who will not deny the pang which followed her union with a southern lover. This took place in the year 1800, when she married Joseph Alston, of South Carolina — a gentleman of distinguished family, slightly her senior — who combined the 152 THE POLITICIAN". attractions of wealth and education Avitli those of political influence. It was " A love that took an early root, And had an early doom ; Like trees that never come to fruit, But early shed their bloom. " With vanished hopes and happy smiles, All lost for evermore ; Like ships that sailed for sunny isles, But never came to shore." The alliance gave to the father of the bride the vote of the state during his unsuccessful canvass for the Presidency, and Alston was subsequently chosen its governor. He was an ardent admirer of Col. Burr, whose name was given to their only child. During each deeper descent into misfortune this noble pair clung to their father, drawing the nearer as public opinion heaped ignominy upon his name. And now, severed from the world, and forsaken by fortune, all that earth held dear to him was bounded by that faithful household. Alas ! could it not be spared? Does retribution demand the sole remaining bliss of a lonely old man? Must he witness the gradual extinction of his race? Such, indeed, seems the re- lentless decree. The blight which had withered him now extends to his kin, and thus all who were identified with his name shared the anathema which pursued it. Soon after his return from Europe he received a letter from his son-in-law, from which we make the following ex- tracts: "A/cw weeks ago, sir, in spite of your misfortunes, I should have congratulated you upon your return ; now one dreadful blow has destroyed us and our hopes. That son on A HEART BROKEN HUSBAND. 153 > M'hom we rested — our companion, our friend — he whom we hoped to have redeemed your reverses, and shed new lustre on our name — tliat son is dead. "We saw him die — my own hand surrendered him to the grave. But it is past! I will not conceal that life is now a burden, which, heavy as it is, we shall both support with decency and firmness. Theodosia lias endured all that a human being is capable of, and has proved herself worthy of being your daughter. Our plans of life are now broken up, and she will join you, as soon as possible, to mingle her tears with yours." Ah! weep not, thou gentle yet heart-broken Theodosia! Those tears, which now bedew thy lost one's grave, will soon cease, and a more pungent woe will bewail thy more fearful doom. Haste thee to the old man's arms — those crimes which have steeled humanity against him cannot weaken a daughter's love ! Yet, alas ! that father's embrace thou ne'er shalt know again. Even now there awaits thee a grave be- neath the green billow — even now tho storm wind is sighing thy requiem ! In a few weeks Theodosia sailed from Charles- ton for New York, and her husband thus writes her : " Another mail, and still no letter ! I hear rumors of a dreadful gale since you left — the state of my mind is agony. Let no man, wretched as he may be, think himself beyond the reach of another blow. I shall count the hours until the next mail." In four days he writes again: "Wretched and heart-rending forebodings distract me. I may no longer possess a wife, yet my impatient restlessness addresses her a letter! Tomorro^v is three weeks since we parted. Gracious God! for what fate am I reserved?" Unfortunate man ! thy forebodings are but too true — those 154 THE POLITICIAN. trembling lines shall never meet thy Theodosia's eye.^»' Upon amber bed, in some coral cave, thy loved one has found a place of rest, and thou mayest dream of her as df one of whom "Nothing that doth fade But doth suffer a sea change Into something rich and strange." In a short time Alston again addresses the father: "You ask me to relieve your suspense. Alas ! it is to you that I have looked for similar relief. Tomorrow will be four weeks since I parted with Theodosia, since which not one line has been received. My mind is in torture! Not one word of vessel or wife! Sir, when I turned from the grave of my son, I thought that misfortune could have no severer blow for me. I was mistaken. Theodosia is either captured or lost!" After six months of correspondence with neighboring ports, and every possible search, ke again writes : " No hope is left us! Without this victim our desolation would have been incomplete. You may well observe, sir, that you feel severed from all mankind. She was the last tie that bound us to our race. What more have we left] I have been to the apart- ment where her clothing, her books, and the playthings of my boy renewed the ohock. I walked to his grave — the little plans which we had formed rushed into my mind. Where was that bright-eyed boy? — where that mother, whom I had cherished with such pride? Grief, sii-, made me stupid, or I could not have borne it." We forbear further extracts from this sad correspondence; it seems like some bewildering di'cam of woe, or some epi- sode of heart-rending romance. Yet it is all in keeping with ^c^':?^^ t A DOUBLE CATASTROPHE. 155 the life of one who united romance and crime, but found that the first only sharpened the sting of the second. One of the most painful features in the history of the Alstons is the entire absence of religious hope, and the consolations of the gospel. The only support was neglected in the hour of trial, and the soul's anchor was abandoned in this overwhelmin"- storm. Mr. Alston sank under the double catastrophe, and, after a few years of decline, died of a broken heart. Th.e destruction of this family was the finishing stroke of external retribution. Against all previous adversities Burr had fortified himself with a stoical apathy; but now the sword pierced to the very soul. Schiller finely alludes to the power of time to soothe the agony of bereavement, as he portrays the conflicts of the great but unfortunate Wallen- stein : " This anguish will be wearied down, I know ; What pang is permanent with man? From the highest, As from the vilest thing of every day, He learns to wean himself; for the strong hours Conquer him." But beautiful as this sentiment may be. Nature denies its absolute truth; there are griefs which visit us in age, when time is shorn of its healing power, and the hours have lost their strength. "Even from the tomb the voice of Nature cries Even in our ashes Hve their wonted fires." ********* The last scene now opens before us. It is the shattered and diminutive old man, as he was seen occasionally in the streets, nearly a (Quarter of a century ago. It is eighty years 156 THE POLITICIAN. since Esther imprinted her first kiss on her new-Lorn Labe. It is more than sixty since he bade farewell to Father Bellamy, and exchanged the purity of a New England home for a career of selfishness and lust. It is thirty -four years since he canvassed for the Presidency ; it is twenty-six years since he starved in Paris and lost Theodosia. All is changed ! Youth, vigor, and reputation have forsaken the unfortunate man. The wreck is complete, for how can one fall lower than to point the moral of public reproof? He is old — and " the evil days have come when no man can say, ' I have pleasure in them.' " Oh ! if there be a time when piety can be doubly precious, it is during old age. Thus spake the wise man, in the eloquence and pathos of the closing chap- ter of Ecclesiastes. Youth enjoys natural buoyancy and the flow of s|)irits arising from warm blood and strong hope; but what does age know of these? Nothing, but a pining me- mory! With the relentless march of Time the faculties forsake Hhe di^^ing form. We behold these companions of youth now abom to take their departure as it enters the chill regions of senility. "I am Strength!, I girded thee many a year — I bade thee climb the mountain and hew the forest, but now we part, sad though it be! Look to thy God! for even to old age he is thine, and to hoar hairs will he carry thee — and when thy 'flesh and thy heart failcth, He will be the strength of thy heart and thy portion forever.' " " I am Joy ! I gave thy veins the ecstatic thrill, and filled thy heart with the delights of innocence — but now, farewell ! Look to thy God — the fountain of joys that cannot perish ! " ' ' And I am Memory ! I have made thee rich with the past — I have garnered precious names in thy heart — filled it OLD AGE. 157 with the rich scenery of bygone hours — but I too must leave thee ! Look to thy God ! who hath sworn to forget thee — to leave thee never r'' "Without these holy exercises, which are far from being imaginary, advancing years bring nothing but sorrow. " Ere I was old ! Ah, woeful ere, Which tells me youth's no longer here ! youth ! for years so many and sweet — 'Tis known that thou and I were one ; I'll think it but a fond conceit — It cannot be that thou art gone. Thy vesper bell hath not yet toll'd. And thou wert aye a masker bold ; What new disguise hast now put on, To make believe that thou hast gone ? " * But the old age of the Christian has not only its uses but its blessings. It proves God's unchanging faithfulness — when all but His promises are exhausted; it provjjttie efficacy of grace in the time of utter feebleness; it de^^ij^es the vigor of faith and hope, which only rise higher amid the general shipwreck. " In age and feebleness extreme, Who shaU a helpless worm redeem ? Jesus, my only hope thou art ! Strength of my failing flesh and heart. Oh, could I catch a smile from thee. And drop into Eternity ! " But the last days of Aaron Burr exhibited a sad reverse of this; they were only marked by the sere and yellow leaf, shorn of all hope, and blasted by Infidelity. He dwelt iu * Coleriiljre. 158 THE POLITICIAN. the vicinity of New York, and his support was chiefly derived from his pension as Colonel in the Continental Army. He had lost caste, and age and evil report had separated him from the sympathies of the world. His blood ran in the veins of no one, if we except a few who bore his name as a reproach, and only the kindness of a few faithful kinsmen redeemed him from utter desolation. Such was the old age of one who so early and so resolutely forsook the way of life, and ever afterward chose evil. It revealed neither the cheerfulness which may light up the closing hours of the peasant, nor the honor which should have crowned the hoary head of one, distinguished in his country's battles. He had sown to the flesh, and of the flesh he had reaped corruption. During youth and manhood he had sacrificed friendship, honor, and confidence to lust; and age never yet purged away the rottenness of early licentiousness. A small chest, ^ filled with f atjfid billets doux, the memorials of the almost countless adulteries and intrigues of his whole life, was care- fully preserved by him, and the contents were often gloated over, and occasionally exhibited to others. " So he lies, Circled with evil, till his very soul Unmoulds its essence, hopelessly deformed By sights of ever more deformity." Such an existence could have but few charms, even for one the most tenacious of life, and he confessed its weariness. Indeed, the grave, though dark and hopeless, offered a seem- ing escape from that death in life with which he was bur- dened. In due time the hour came, and on the 14tli of September, 1836, he expired, in the eighty-first year of his age. BURIAL OP AN OLD MAN. 1^9 The suitable military honors accompanied his interment, and his grave is next to those in which his parents were laid, nearly four score years before. In that rustic burial-ground in Princeton the little Aaron had rambled during his boyish days; perhaps, also, in after years he might have sometimes turned from the turbid currents of life to visit those honored tombs, and there have partially realized the contrast between tlie career of the fathers and that of the son. Perhaps, too, when galled by the reproaches of awakening conscience, he may have envied their pure and happy lives, and their still happier rest.* " ! were my Leapt as free and still From pangs that burn and blasts that chill, And shafts that pay joy's spendthrift thrill With bitter usury," Our task is done. The character of Burr has been a favo- rite theme with reviewers and paragraphisfe| but we have considered it simply as illustrative of Infidelfy in public and political life. Contempt for Christianity was so boldly stamped upon his long career, that while the political history of America records the names of others noted for scepticism, his will always claim an unenviable prominence. As such an illustration his example is too important to be * Tlie following terrible sketch which Byron drew— no doubt from his own experience— is a fitting illustration of Burr's latter days: " He was past all mirth or woe ; Nothing more remained below, But sleepless nights and heavy days — A mind all dead to scorn or praise — A heart which shunned itself, and yet, That v)Ould not yield, nor could forgeC 100 THE POLITICIAN. overlooked by the teacher of morals, and in this aspect it is now presented to the reader. It offers an instructive contrast to those of the pious and high-minded Jay, his cotemporary, and Quincy Adams, the colossus of a later day — both of whom, liad he possessed their tone and purity, Burr might have ap- proached — we had almost said, equalled. But the character which he has bequeathed to America compares with theirs only as the reptile-haunted ruin compares with some resplen- dent temple. And turning from him to that Holy Book which he contemned, we read the lesson which he so terribly illustrated, " HE THAT PURSUETH EVIL, PURSU- ETII IT TO HIS OWN DEATH." Ushered into existence amid the prayers of saints, and surrounded by the halo of ancestral piety, he proves the power of an evil life, not only to neutralize such influences, but to drive at last the bark, whose early voyage was radiant with promise, into forlorn and hopeless shipwreck. ^^ " There is Guilt too enormous to be duly punished, Save by increase of guilt : the powers of evil Are jealous claimants. Guilt, too, hath its ordeal, And Hell its own probation." * Proverbs, 11-19. BOOK FOURTH. THE EEFORMER. I One came forth of gentle worth, Smiling on the sanguine earth ; His words outlived him, like swift poison, "Withering up truth, peace and piety. ^ * tf ^ )lt ^ ¥t Mark that outcry of despair— ' Tis his mild and gentle ghost, Wailing for the faith he kindled," Shelley. — " Prometheus Unbound." "I AM prepared to EXPECT THAT ON THE EFFORTS WHICH ARE NOW making in the world to regenerate our species without religion, god will affix the stamp of a solemn and impressive mockery." Chalmers, THE REFORMER. THAT was a weird scene in necrology which, on the sixteenth day of August, 1822, concluded the brief career of erring and unfortunate genius. It would have been a weird scene anywhere, and under any circumstances; how much more when enacted on the lonely and desolate beach — where, hour after hour, the funeral pile shot up its lliekering blaze, while masses of smoke, laden with perfume and frankincense, cast their broad shadow on the sand and on the wave? It was the funeral pile of a worshipper of Nature, and she, as though to sympathise, had surrounded it with features of exquisite beauty, as well as with the sublimity of desolation, " Earth, ocean, air — beloved brotherhood," which he had so often apostrophised, when communing with the elements — all united in loveliness, as this last rite was performed in behalf of their bard. In front the Mediterra- nean spread its calm and resplendent bosom, dotted with 164 THE REFORMER. sunny islands. Its waves, so lately lashed by the fatal tem- pest, now " Satiated with destroyed destruction, lay Sleeping in beauty on their mangled prey, As panthers sleep." * On the right extended the magnificent Bay of Spezzia while far to the left the towers and spires of Leghorn glistened in the sun. The sombre majesty of the Appenines, frown- ing in the rear, hushed the wild joy of nature's beauty, and with the clumps of gnarled and twisted trees that writhed on the monotonous beach, added a dreary but congenial tone. A band of Italian officials surrounded the blazing pile, alike ignorant and careless as to the mortality which fed its flame, and only intent upon the duties of the Quarantine; but a fvw earnest ones, from a far-distant land, communed in pensive silence on the untimely fate of their countryman — so young, so gifted, and so unfortunate. One of this number was Trelawny, who has furnished the best description of tlie solemn rite. Another was Captain Shenly. Leigh Hunt viewed the scene from a carriage — but nearer by stood Byron, in thoughtful silence, as though rapt by the strange and bewildering spectacle. Such an one, indeed, it must liave held by a strong fascination. It was a revival of the classic and of the antique. The rainbow-colored blaze " Gracefully curled up, i- ' As if from offered flowers, that to the flame Gave all their beauty." And thus, amid the perfume of frankincense, and spicory, and scented fire, was momently consuming one whom lie * Shelley. Epistle to Mrs. Gisborne. PHILOSOPHY AND REASON. 165 loved — if love could dwell in a soul so cold and so selfish as his. It was also that of one who with him had clomb the Alps, and skimmed the surface of Leman and Constance, and who had breathed the same spirit of Poetry and Atheism. We therefore cannot wonder that the scene ahsorbed him with an overcoming interest, and perhaps with prophetic doom, since the untimely death of his friend may have cast upon him its boding shadow. Within two years, indeed, there was borne over those same Mediterranean waters a coffined corpse, seelcing rest in its ancestral tomb at New- stead Abbey; and these two, linked in life by the graces and miseries of genius, met once more in reunion far different from those erst of Pisa, or the Alps, or even here, on the desolate beach at Lerici. But from that group of careless officials and pensive exiles now surrounding the funeral pile, we turn to scenes which marked the earlier hours of him who thus returns — ashes to ashes — dust to dust. In that bloody spasm of social forces — the French Revolu- tion — the energies of a nation burst forth under the patronage of Infidelity. Philosophy and Reason were the watchwords of the founders of the new republic. Religion having been, as it was supposed, utterly exploded, the new princiijle, so loudly vaunted, could suffer from no rival. If ever an Athe- istic philosophy could have aided in the reconstruction of society, or have availed for government, this must have been the time — It was peculiarly her hour of test and demonstra- tion. Paris was full of philosophers, from Paine and Robes- pierre, down to the vilest Sans-culotte, and their schemes and opinions were paraded with all the assumed dignity of a , celestial mission. Nor was their progress confined to France. A channel of but twenty miles in breadth could ofier but a IGo THE REFORMER. slenrler barrier to influences which seemed to fly as upon the wings of the wind. Hence England, amid all her loyalty and staid conservatism, soon reechoed the popular cry whicli exalted a vain philosophy above that piety to which she owed her greatness, and she soon beheld a generation of beardless propagandists, as defiant in their Atheism as the ribald blasphemers of Paris. The reconstruction of society and of government was discussed as well in pot-houses as in universities, and the removal of social evils, so long a hope- less problem, seemed approaching its solution. Pantisocra- cies and similar schemes became popular, and, as it was supposed, practicable, for Christianity was no longer to enchain the mind, nor the Bible to oppose human progress. The world was soon to be restored to peace and happiness, and rapt with this grand idea the student philosophised in the alcove — the poet philosophised in his attic — while in the tap- room were heard the discussions of "Smith, cobbler, joiner — he that plies the shears, And he that kneads the dough — all loud alike, All learned, and all drunk." Yet, after all, this happy consummation was only to be nttained through conflict, and hence mankind was summoned to that struggle which should end in the destruction of kings, courts, priests and demagogues, as well as in the removal of poverty and sorrow. Such were the schemes which agitated England at the commencement of the present century; yet, futile as they proved at last, who shall say that their object was not worthy (jf the most earnest eflbrt, since for ages man had felt the heel of oppression, and the masses had groaned in ignorance BATTLE WITH SIN. 107 and in serfdom. And yet we sigh to tliink that the niiylity question fell into the hands of those whose strongest argu- ments only exhibit invincible ignorance. Alas, Avhat could be .expected of the blind? They had turned the back on that true light which shone from the Scriptures, and now, in doubt and confusion, they ground in the prison-house, like chained and darkened Samson. But this capital mistake was not owing to the want of ex- ample and illustration. England had already enjoyed the labors of some of the most gifted and successful of uninspired reformers. Whitefield — the Wesleys, and their fellow-laboT rers, had evangelized the masses. Howard, the calm, the devoted, and the sublime, whose hoary hairs had not abated the ardor of his sympathies, had remodelled her prison sys- tem — had brought comfort to the debtor and to the felon, and at last, while in pursuit of a remedy for the plague, had fallen a victim to its ravages, and filled an humble grave in the distant Crimea. These men had been arrayed against the worst forms of tyranny. They had grappled with SIN even in its most hideous shapes, and they had demonstrated that theirs was the only specific for that dread malady. Indeed, in their hands it had wrought wonders. It had elevated a stolid and brutish peasantry to the rank of Christ- ianity; it had renewed the brotherhood of the race, and inspired it with benevolence; and it was quietly accomplish- ing its benignant mission when, with many a flourish of trumpets, the reign of an untried and boastful philosophy was suddenly inaugurated. Modern Reform is the offspring of that philosophy — born amid the convulsions of the French revo- lution, and fed upon the wild theories of rhapsodists. While the long-continued paroxysm was being wrought up 168 THE REFORMER. to a fearful pitch, and while storm clouds were gathering over ill-fated Paris, the first wail of the infant Shelley was heard in the family seat in Sussex. It would seem that the dreamy and delusive ethics of the day breathed upon the uew-box'n babe of Field Place a bewildering inspiration. Its ancestry was noble, and it could boast even the name of Sir Philip Sidney; but the loftier stamp of the youthful mind gradually developed in greatness transcending that of blood. Indeed, the daily life of the young aristocrat seemed to be permeated by a tender sympathy with the distressed. As though indifferent to the accidents of high birth and the blandishments of pride, he appears willing to share the bur- den of the heavy-laden, and asks only the privilege of redressing wrongs. Such was the promise, soon to be blasted by ruthless unbelief; but now it buds before us, unconscious of coming ruin, and we, who see no danger nigh, hail that life of worthy deeds which opens before the noble boy. The exercises of his soul, at once high toned and chivalrous, are finely expressed in a few stanzas from the Revolt of Islam : "Thoughts of great deeds were mine, dear friend, when first The clouds which wrap tliis world from youth did pass. I do remember well the hour which burst My spirit's sleep. A fresh May dawn it was, When I walked forth upon the ghttering grass, And wept, I knew not why ; until there rose From the near school room voices that, alas! Were but one echo from the world of woes — The harsh and grating strife of tyrants and of foes. "And then 1 ci:isi)cd my hands and looked around — But none was near to mock my streaming eyes, Wliiili iKMiiiil I heir warm drops on the siinny ground — So without shame I spoke — ' I w ill be wise, GLEAM OF TRUE NOBILITY. 169 And just, and free, and mild, if in me lies Such power; for I grow weary to behold The selfish and the strong still tyrannise, Without reproach or check.' I then controlled My tears — my heart grew calm, and I was meek and bold. " And from that hour did I, with earnest thought, Heap knowledge from forbidden mines of lore, Yet nothing that my tyrants knew or taught I cared to learn, but from that secret store Wrought linked armor for my soul, before It might walk forth to war among mankind. Thus hope and power were strengthened more and more Within me, till there came upon my mind A sense of loneliness — a thirst with which I pined." These lines command our admiration, for where shall we find true greatness if it be not in the sacrifice of self upon the altar of sympathy, and in strong will to vindicate the oppressed? Such traits indeed marl^ed Shelley, not only in boyhood, but in some degree through life, and therefore one cannot but the more deeply mourn to see him early blighted by the chill conventionalities of a heartless society. Under the genial influence of piety his character might have deve- loped in a philanthropy hardly less than that which has consecrated the name of Howard. Indeed the great gulf which separates two men, who each sought the welfare of their race, but whose influences diflfer, as balm from poison, is only to be accounted for by the fact that the one was a; earnest Christian — the other was as zealous in his Infidelity. With striking truthfulness is the character of the latter set ofl^ in his own lines:* " ' Is it not strange, Isabel,' said the youth, 'I never saw the sun?'" * Sunset. o 170 TEE REFORMER. In his tenth year, after suitable preparation, Shelley en- tered a school, whose leading features have made Sion House synonymous with tyranny. It was a place to better learn lessons of sympathy and indignation than those of the classic page, as day after day he witnessed the outrages of "fagging" and other abuses which happily have never cursed American schools. And his contempt for the institution which thus held him in durance is thus expressed in the verses already quoted: "Nothing that my tyrants knew or taught Cared I to learn." His leisure was mainly devoted to the perusal of the Ead- cliffe school of romance — and his youthful mind became subject to a habit of waking dreams, which held him with such power that often it was with difficulty that the spell was broken. When brought back from such vagaries his eyes ^\■ould flash — his lips would quiver — his voice would be tre- mulous with emotion, and a species of ecstacy would so overcome him, that his speech would be more like that of a spirit, or an angel, than of a human being. This remarkable idiosyncrasy followed him through life. The hated school was in due time exchaniied for the halls and groves of Eton, where two years were given to study. But romance gradually wove its fliscinations about the young enthusiast, until at the age of seventeen his reveries have found life upon the printed page. The pair of novels which now sprung from his heated brain, like Byfon's maiden volume, little indicate their author's genius, and the occa- sional poems by which they are graced may only be noticed as displaying the versification of the subsequent Queen Mub, COMMENCES AT OXFORD. 171 In 1810 the self-conscious Etonian entered University Col- lege, Oxford. He was but eighteen, which was much below the average age of beginners, while in addition to his youth his figure was so slender and delicate that he might have been taken merely for a precocious boy. But that slim and youth- ful stranger, in whom the indolent Oxonian sees but a fresh butt for his vulgar wit, is destined to a career which shall soon change contempt to surprise; and brief as that career may be, it shall ere it close, shake Oxford to its centre. One of his more intimate associates, Mr. Hogg, has furnished some interesting sketches, which we now quote, in illustration of this eventful period. "He was the sum of many contradictions. His figure was slight and fragile, yet his bones and joints were large and strong. He was tall, but he stooped so much as to appear low of stature. His clothes were expensive, but they were tumbled, rumpled and unbrushed. His complexion was delicate — almost feminine, and of the purest red and white. His face and whole features, and particularly his head, were unusually small; yet the last appeared of remarkable bulk, for his hair was long and bushy. In the agony of declamation he often rubbed it fiercely with his hands, so that it was singularly wild and rough. His features breathed enthusiasm and intelligence, that I never met in any other countenance. Nor was the moral expression less beautiful than the intel- lectual — for there was a softness, a delicacy, a gentleness, and especially (though this will surprise some) that air of pro- f )uiid religious veneration which characterizes the best works of the great masters. 'This is a fine fellow,' said I to myself, ' but I shall never be able to endure his voice — it would kill me; what a pity it is!' The voice, indeed, was excruciating. 172 THE REFORMER. It was intolerably shrill, harsh, and discordant, and of the most cruel intension — it even excoriated the ears." The reveries of his earlier days invaded the student life of Oxford; but they had abandoned romance for the loftier pursuit of Philosophy. His early inkling for Eeform now developed rapidly, and began to assume the character of a passion, but alas ! he commenced his pursuit of truth with an extinguished torch. A solution of life's great problem was now to be attempted, with Hume's Essays as his text, and with Atheism as his word of hope. Thus has error mastered the most earnest and true hearted of Oxonians, and terribly will error finish its work. His early speculations are of an amusing as well as of an earnest character, and one cannot but smile at the account which Hogg furnishes of the reforms which are to be wrought by chemistry. He even anticipated from the triumphs of science the release of the laboring classes from their unceasing toil. "By a chemical agency man may effect vast changes, and even transmute a barren waste into a region of plenty. Thus, as water is made of combined gases, why might it not be manufactured by a scientific process, and thus transform the deserts of Africa into verdant fields'? So too, heat might be generated, and cold climates rendered genial and productive. What a mighty instrument might electricity become — and the bal- loon! could not aeronauts be despatched on a voyage of exploration to Africa, whose entire continent might be ex- amined in a few weeks? The shadow of the first balloon would virtually emancipate every slave in that unhappy country." Hogg visited Shelley's rooms and found them as oddly furnished as was the mind of their occupant. "Every thing MISHAPS OF A CHEMIST. 1T3 new and costly, but lying in inextricable confusion: books, boots, philosophical instruments, money, clothes, all scattered on the floor* The carpet well stained by acids bore witness to the pursuit of chemistry, and a tongs still supported a retort over an Argand lamp." While welcoming his friend the liquor boiled over and filled the room with a " fiendish smell." Hogg was constrained to ply the galvanic battery till Shelley was charged with the fluid, and his long wild locks bristled fiercely. Hogg proceeds with the pleasant sketch of his classmate, and developes his plans of reforming man- kind. One of their principal features was abstinence from animal food. The restoration of peace, order and unity * " Whoever should behold me now, I wist, Would think I were a miglity mechanist. ****** Upon the table , More knacks and quips there be than I am able To catalogize in this verse of mine. ****** Next Lie bills and calculations, much perplext With steamboats, frigates, and macliinery quaint. Traced over them in blue and yellow paint ; Then comes a range of mathematical Instruments, for plans nautical and statical ; A heap of rosin, a green broken glass, With ink in it ; a China cup that was. ****** Near that a dusty paint-box, some old hooks, A half-burnt match, an ivory block, three books. Where conic sections, spherics, logarithms. To great Laplace, from Saunderson and Sims — Lie heaped in their harmonious disarray." Shelley — (Epistle to Mrs. Gisborne.) 174 TUE REFORMER. would l»e hastened by a general adoption of vegetable diet. On this point the young Oxonian has been closely followed by other reformers. In the notes to Queen Mab the subj«^ct is discussed at much length in language, a part of which we quote: "I hold that the depravity of the physical and moral nature of man originated in his unnatural habits of life. * * * The allegory of Adam and Eve eating of the tree of evil, and entailing on their posterity the wrath of God, admits of no other explanation than the disease and crime that have flowed from unnatural diet. * * * Prometheus, who represents the human race, effected some great change in the condition of liis nature, and applied fire to culinary purposes, thus inventing an expedient for screening from his disgust the horrors of the shambles; from this moment his vitals were devoured by the vulture of disease. * * * It is only by softening and dis- guising dead flesh by culinary preparation that it is rendered susceptible of mastication or digestion, so that the sight of its bloody juices and raw horror does not excite intolerable horror and disgust. Let the advocate for animal food force himself to a decisive experiment of its fitness, and as Plutarch recommends, tear a living lamb with his teeth, and plunging his head into its vitals, slake his thirst with the streaming blood. * * * Who will assert that had the populace of Paris sfitisfied their hunger at the ever furnished table of vegetable nature, it would have lent its brutal suffrage to the pro- scription list of Robespierre?" It is a redeeming feature in this absurd scheme, that spirituous liquors were equally for- bidden; but the main strength of the argument lay against the use of meats. We close our extracts with the following picture of a happy abstinent: "Above all he will acquire an easiness of breathing, VEGETABLE DIET. 175 by which such exertion is performed with a remarkable exemption frcn that painful and difficult panting, now felt by almost every one after hastily climbing an ordinary mountain. He will be equally capable of bodily exertion, or mental application, after, as before his simple meal. He will feel none of the narcotic effect of ordinary diet. Irritability, the direct consequence of exhausting stimuli, would yield to the power of natural and tranquil impulses. He will no longer pine under the lethargy of ennui, that unconquerable weariness of life, more to be dreaded than death itself. He will escape the epidemic madness which broods over its own injurious notions of the Deity and realizes the hell that priests and beldames feign." With such ardent views it is not surprising to read Hogg's statement that "bread was his chief food, to which he some- times added raisins- —exhibiting a schoolboy's taste for fruit, gingerbread, sugar and honey." And one is not surprised to learn that whatever were its moral effects, this low diet did not fail to impair the enthusiast's health. But while he is thus musing in the groves, or by the streams of quiet Oxford, dreaming of pre-existence, Pythagoreanism, abstinence and reform, the University is suddenly electrified by his expulsion, and the young philosopher becomes an object of public sympathy or dread. The antecedents of this aflair arc matters of controversy, and the two statements mtide by men of character are directly in conflict. Hogg, who must be considered reliable, relates that Shelley, who had become a disciple of Hume, drew up a brief statement or syllabus of his doctrines, adding his own inferences, and affixing to the whole the nmthematical Q. E. D. This he had printed and circulated in every direction — " it was," says Hogg, " a small 176 THE REFORMER. pill, but worked powerfully." He would enclose a copy in a letter to some individual, observing that he had met this little tract accidentally, and that unhappily it seemed to him quite unanswerable. If an answer were returned to any of these mischievous messages, it was sure to receive a reply of fierce argument — and thus the boy Infidel was discharging his shafts under the guise of an enquirer after truth. * The tract was entitled "The Necessity of Atheism." The notice it attracted and the important results which followed, are chronicled by Hogg, who states that he went to Shelley's rooms one fine spring morning in 1811. Shelley was absent, but soon rushed into the room, greatly agitated. "I am expelled," he exclaimed, and added, "I was sent for, a few moments ago, to the common room and there found our master and two or three of the fellows. The master pro- duced a copy of the syllabus and asked me if I were the author." Shelley refused to answer — the question was re- peated and Shelley again refused, insisting on the unfairness of the interrogation, and demanding witnesses to sustain the charge urged against him. The master then said, "you are expelled, and I desire that you quit the college early to- morrow morning, at latest." On this, one of the fellows handed Shelley a paper, which he discovered to be a regular sentence of expulsion. One of his friends the next day addressed the master and the fellows, soliciting a reconsider- ation — but this note only subjected its author to a similar fate, for being viewed as an accomplice rather than an advo- cate, he was most unjustly expelled also. On the other hand, De Quincy gives a very different account, and states that Shelley "put his name .and that of his college on the offending publication (which we heartily TURNS ATHEIST AND IS EXPELLED. 1T7 disbelieve). The heads of colleges felt a disagreable neces- sity for an extra meeting. There are in Oxford five-and- twenty colleges, to say nothing of halls. They met — th^^ greater part were for mercy. The pamphlet was not ad- dressed to them. They were not officially bound to have any knowledge of it, and they determined not to proceed in the matter. Shelley, on hearing this, determined to force it upon them, and sent his pamphlet with five-and-twenty sepa- rate letters to the five-and-twenty heads of the Oxford hydra. The many-headed monster waxed wroth, and the philosopher was expelled." It is possible that this contradiction may be explained by referring the one statement to the action of one college — the other to that of the University. But whichever of these statements may be correct, it is evident that Oxford could have done no less than expel one who not only contemned the national faith, but stood defiant in Atheism, even in her consecrated halls, and made them an arsenal for his poisoned arrows. Common sense would have forecast a result so inevitable, and admitted the indignant University to some degree of justification; but Shelley seems to have vie.M'ed himself as a martyr to the truth, and he retired from Oxford with lofty indignation. Expelled the University — alienated from his home — and subjected to the displeasure of a disappointed father, the uniortunate youth took lodgings in London. His sisters, who were then attending school near the metropolis, ministered affectionately to his wants, and divided with him their little allowance of pocket money. This was often sent by the hands of a fellow scholar, whose parents lived in the city, and whose occasional errands to tlie poor and lonely student, were like angels' visits. Shelley in Iris solitude longed for sympathy, and the fair almoner 178 THE REFORMER. opened her heart to his hopes and to his schemes. Their fondness ripened, as he subsequently visited her at her father's, and before the ardent eye of hope all obstacles to their union vanished as quickly as had the evidence of Christianity befoi-e the sophistry of Hume. But though thus united by affection, the social distinctions of England opened a vast gulf between them. The lover of nineteen was a scion of haughty aristoc- racy, wholly dependent upon a father, who had warned him against the unpardonable offence of a mesalliance, while on the other hand, Harriet Westbrooke was but a girl of sixteen, whose plebeian birth could not escape the scorn of the high- born house of Shelley. These difticulties were avoided or delayed by an elopement, and at Gretna Green their plighted vows were consummated, with burning words and still more burning thoughts. "We'll live together, like two neighboring vines, Circling our souls and loves in one another ; We'll spring together, and we'll bear one fruit — One joy shall make us smile, and one grief mourn ; One age go with us, and one hour of death Shall close our eyes, and one grave make us happy." Such were the golden hopes that seemed to hover above the cottage which amid the sweet scenery of Keswick, wel- comed the successful lovers. The ill-starred union certainly began in peace, and under proper influences might have been exempt from all but the ordinary woes of life. The relenting father supplied their needs, while De Quincy and South<'y gave an intellectual tone to the little circle of society. But they were unhappy — one cannot wonder at this, considering their mutual inexperience; but might we not add the ques- tion — w'hen was Atheism ever congenial to domestic peace? The young philosopher, in his search for reforms, had not ATTEMPTS TO REFORM IRELAND. 179 found one for the heart. In addition to this, their life \\ as embittered by jealousies which sprang up concerning their literary neighbors, and in a short time the restless pair for- sook Keswick for an abode in Ireland. Shelley had yearned over that imfortunate island, and in the ardor of his sympathy had supposed himself called to her aid. Hence, previous to his arrival, he had prej)ared a pamphlet, in which her diffi- culties were discussed, and which was subsequently distributed, in order to arouse her citizens. Burning with a noble desire to reform mankind, he had, to quote his own language, "chosen Ireland as a theatre — the widest and fairest for the operations ot the determined friends of religious and political freedom." The addresses which the youthful reformer de- livered in Dublin were chiefly notable for the discordant scream of their utterance. His schemes were crude and im- practicable — but his confidence in their success was inversely proportioned to their wisdom, and a brief stay in Dublin enabled him, as he supposed, to fully learn the state of the public mind. The fruit of his mission was a recommendation of "an association for the purpose of restoring Ireland to the prosperity she enjoyed before the union." One cannot but smile at the conceit which marks this mis- sion, but we do not wonder that he Avho had accepted Hume's sophistry as superior to an ancient and genial piety, should leap Avith equal rapidity to conclusions nearly as erroneous. Having, after this brief sojourn in tlie capital, mastered the woes and cure of Ireland, he was no doubt surprised that the nation yielded no response; baflled thus in his great scheme, the enthusiast speedily embarked for the Isle of Man, and shortly afterwards we trace him to a residence in Wales. It was a period of intense mental excitement, and schemes of reform, intermixed with poetic ecstacy, fused all the 180 THE EEFOEMER. energies of his mind, until the calm scenery of his sequestered abode was in strange contrast with his conflicts. Without any farther subjective probing, a sufficient reason for tliis miserable unrest might be found in that warfare which he had commenced on Christianity. He could not boast that cold apathy which sheltered Hume, and hence his nervous system seems at times worn by deep tossings of excitement. A single incident will illustrate this. He was assaulted one night in his study, and only escaped the assassin by a long and desperate struggle. To this he deposed in detail before a magistrate; yet it is now believed that the horrible afrair was but the work of imagination — a renewal of boyish wak- ing dreams, wrought to this extreme by agony of soul. Two years of married life witnessed the wreck of domestic peace. Christianity is the true basis of the home, but within the family circle of the Shelley's its genial influence Avas never known. Its place had been usurped by wild theories, which seem to have frightened away those afltctions which should have surrounded the fireside. " Tell me on what hallowed ground May domestic peace be found ? Halcyon daughter of the skies, Far on fearful wings she flies, From the pomp of sceptred state, From the rebel's noisy hate; In some cottaged vale she dwells — Listening to the Sabbath bells."* * The above is sung by Adelaide, in Coleridge's tragedy of "The Fiill of Robespierre." There was at that time no Sabbath in France. The enquiry here suggests itsolf — did the poet forget this, or was it an allusion to the time when theSubljath bell had not been forbidden, and an exjires- Bion of hi:? conviction tliat Cliiistianity was essential to domestic peace? SUICIDE OF A DESERTED WIFE. 181 The youth of twenty, while ambitious to reform the world, had coped in vain with his own passions; and we may suspect that the wife of eighteen, after feeding for two years upon the poisonous teachings of her husband, may have been some- what disabled from effecting her own, or the happiness of others. At the end of this brief period, Shelley deserted her, justifying his conduct by the worn-out plea of uncongeniality. One of the most striking beauties of Christianity is the grace which it throws about the family circle ; and in its tem- poral blessings there can be none greater than that union, enjoined by its precepts and endeared by its influences. Had these controlled that little househould, we should not here be forced to record a deed so base as to silence the voices of liis apologists. And now that fatal error, whose inception hud blasted the prospects of the Oxonian, hopelessly wrecks the household, of which he should have been the example and protector, and renders the father an exile — the mother a suicide — and the children orphans. After two years of deser- tion, the miserable Harriet drowned herself at Bath. Though still young, grief like that of ages had devoured her — and turning from desolation to the chill utterances of despair, she threw away a life which under other influences might ha\'e been both useful and happy. Within six years, the fate of the drowning wife overtook her perjured and adulterous hus- band, in the avenging billows of the Mediterranean. However uncongenial may have been this unfortunate union, it is evident that the deserted wife was a person of respectable gifts and accomplishments. Indeed, in a letter to Fanny Godwin, Shelley himself thus speaks of her: "The ease and simplicity of her habits, the unassuming plainness of her dress, and the uncalculated connection of her thought and 182 THE REFORMER. speech, have ever formed in my eyes the greatest charms." Whatever may have been his antipathy to poor Harriet, it was brought to its climax by an intimacy with the family of William Godwin, where he found relief from the bitterness of matrimonial disappointment. His genius and his misfor- tunes awoke the girlish sympathy of Mary, the daughter of his host, and he found in her that ideal which Harriet failed to realize. Here, then, we have the whole excuse for a crime so atrocious that the school of Godwin, in its boldest sophis- try, has failed to varnish its guilt, or remove one jot of its stigma. And from her unblessed grave poor Harriet brings her accusation against those false teachers, who wrought mu- tual ruin to the wedded pair. Mary Godwin was but sixteen, but even at that early age she had learned from her parents that marriage was an insti- tution of doubtful importance, and one often found adverse to human weal. As the views of Mary Wolstonecraft had thus possessed the heart of her daughter, we do not wonder at her elopement with the poet. The suicide of poor Harriet re- lieved the adulterous pair of restraint from a step required by custom, and led perhaps by a regard for their infant, or impelled by social laws, they improved the liberty thus affor ded by marriage. If their subsequent union was of apparent harmony, still accusing conscience pursued the guilty hus- band during his few remaining years, and threw a sombi-e cloud over their mutual career. Shelley's efforts seem hence- forth to have been largely given to apologizing for his crime, and in these he seems to anticipate the vicious spiritualism ot our own day, in its favorite doctrine of "Affinity." Here we are compelled to witness genius degraded by these foul and pernicious sentiments, addressed to a woman, LORD ELDON'S DECISION. 183 who had basely robbed a wife of her husband, and a mother of the protector of her children. We quote the lines thus imbued with falsehood, and which show the degradation to which Infidelity has sunk its victim. " Alas ! that love should be a blight and snare To those who seek all sympathies in one. Such once I sought in vain. Then black despair — The shadow of a starless night — was thrown Over the world, in which I moved alone. Yet never found I one not false to me — Hard hearts and cold, Uke weights of icy stone, Which crushed and withered mine, that could not be Aught but a lifeless clog, imtil revived by thee. " Thou friend, whose presence on my wintry heart Fell Uke bright Spring upon some herbless plain, How beautiful, and calm, and free thou wert. In thy young wisdom, when the mortal chain Of custom thou didst burst and rend in twain, And walked as free as light the clouds among, Which many an envious slave then breathed in vain From his dim dungeon, and my spirit sprung To meet thee from the woes which had begirt it long." * o- The misguided poet appealed to the law, in pursuit of the children of the first marriage; but Lord Eldon, with admira- ble rectitude, denied the claim, on the ground of Atheism, and the nation honored the decision; indeed, how could an avowed Atheist be a safe guardian of youth 1 Shelley's attack upon marriage, as we have observed, ex- hibits the same vicious and degrading notions which of late years have been rife, and whose vocabulary includes the cant * Dedication to Revolt of Islam — addressed to his second wife. 184: THE REFORMER. terms of "Freelove" and "Personal Sovereignty," as well as "Affinity." Thus he eulogises the woman who lived adultcz-- ously with him, as having " burst the mortal chain of custom, and walked as free as lights These errors he no doubt im- bibed from the teachings of Wolstonecraft and Godwin, but they had earlier apologists in the mad legislators of France. One of the first objects of Satanic attack, next to Christianity itself, is the sacred institution of the family. Hence the Infidelity of the National Convention is indirectly revealed by its debates upon this question. Cambaceres, Chairman of the Committee of Legislation, reports as follows — "The matrimonial compact owes its origin to natural laws. It is perfected and strengthened by the institutions of society. The will of the united couple makes the substance of the contract; the chansje of that will works its dissolution. Divorce is a wholesome institution, for a long time repressed from our customs by a religious influence; it will become the more useful, owing to our attention to simplify the required pro- cedure, and to shorten the prescribed delay,"* This report was inspired by the poisonous sentimentalism of Rousseau, whose philosophy had corrupted and bewildered all Europe, and now permeated the sickening theories of chaotic France. Rousseau was to this wretched nation what Hume had been to England — the leading assailant of Christi- anity; and though differing essentially in genius, they prove the identity of error by the fact that the doctrines of each were absorbed with equal avidity by the young Reformer. And this identity has been brought before us recently, by a mis-called Woman's Rights Convention, where the corrupt principles of Rousseau, of Cambaceres, of Hume, and of * Discussions upon the Civil Code. (Moniteur, 23d August, 1793.) ASSAULT ON MARRIAGE. 185 Shelley, were embodied in resolutions so revolting and shame- less that they would have startled the boldest of those errorists. Following his masters, therefore, Shelley with his habitual intensity initiated his schemes of reform by an assault upon marriage. Springing as it does from the religion which he hated, it could not escape his blind and implacable zeal. "How long," he enquires, "ought the sexual relation to last, and what law ought to specify the extent of the grievances which should limit its duration? A husband and wife ought to continue so long united as they love each other; any law which should bind them to cohabitation for one moment after the decay of their affection would be a most intolerable tyranny, and the most unworthy of toleration. * * * Love is free; to promise for ever to love the same woman is not less absurd than to promise to believe the same creed* * * * j conceive that from the abolition of marriage the fit and natu- ral arrangement of sexual connexion would result. * * * ^ system could not well have been devised more studiously hos- tile to human happiness than marriage^"* These pernicious views flow from the rejection of Christi- anity. The grave and logical Hume, while boasting of his utilitarianism, would perhaps hardly have uttered or en- dorsed them — yet Shelley was a true disciple of David Hume, and differed only in experimenting where the master theo- rized; he had learned that "happiness was the sole end of the science of ethics," and this he sought, though it led him into adultery and exile. Soon after the second marriage, he published "The Revolt of Islam;" it had been preceded by "Alastor," and as that * These italics are ours. All others in quotations from authors (except in our notes) are copied. 186 THE REFORMER. brief but exquisite production was free from social attack, he now returns to the charge. The Revolt of Islam is a metrical essay on reform — an idea which seems ever to haunt his mind — and in this poem he weaves scenes involving the fate of nations — either sunk in slavery or battling for freedom — with glorious trains of thoughts, clothed with the magic of lofty rhyme. It presents the grand drama of some mighty revolution. Tyrants were to be dethroned — ^religious frauds were to be exposed — the banded despots and their hireling armies were to be annihilated. Yet all these attempts foil before allied kingcraft. The patriots fall, by murder or treason, and while the poem closes in defeat, the reader is reassured of some coming day of bliss, when liberty and vir- tue shall hold earth in their genial sway. This great end is to be accomplished without the hand of God, or even a single recognition of his power; without the removal of sin, or any reference to it as the source of human misery. Thus the splendid intellect labored blindly in the service of error, building airy castles when it should have been achiev- ing great results, and spinning theories when it should have gi-appled with man's gigantic foe. That foe is Sin, and of sin, alas ! Shelley seemed to be unconscious. ********* In the spring of 1819 the little circle of English residents at Rome welcomed a returning group, consisting of parents and child, whose strange and peculiar history had long prece- ded them. Curiosity and general interest would have led many to their door, were it not soon evident that their sphere was far above that of the tourist idler. The appearance of this well observed pair indicated genius as well as rank, but both were shadowed by misfortune, for which they miglit find solace in the society of a chosen few, or in antiquarian re- WANDERINGS AND SORROW. 187 search. The year which had just closed had led them through incessant change. Last March they had forsaken England, in pursuit of a more congenial abode. A month had been passed at Milan, and a longer time at the Baths of Lucca. August found them at Byron's villa near Este, whence the illness of their babe drove them to Venice, and as they crossed the lagune, it exj^ired. The sorrow of these homeless ones permeates the lines now written among the Euganean hills, in which it is said : " Many a sacred poet's grave Mourns its latest nursling fled." Abandoning this scene of bereavement, they had sojourned at Ferrara and Bologna, and after a brief stop at Rome, they had wintered at Naples. Here one exhausted by ill health and the distresses of a life of wandering, might fitly exclaim, "I could lie down, like a tired child, And weep away this life of care Which I have borne, and yet naust bear, Till death, like sleep, might steal on me, And I might feel, in the warm air, My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony." New recreation, however, was found in researches in Paes- tum, Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Baise, and now the returning March beholds them again at Rome. Here they were to learn that the past, bitter "as it had been, was only the begin- ning of sorrows ; for hither had they come, while old wounds ran fresh, to m.eet that direst stroke which can fall on parental love. Death snatched away their Willie — their first born, and their only one. The exiles laid him in the English 188 THE REFORMER. cemetery, and then sat down, desolate, amid ruins. Some of the poet's fragments of this date are utterances of a soul pierced with anguish as with a sword. "Oh, world I Oh, life! Oh, Time I On whose last steps I olimb, Trembling at that where I had stood before, When will return the glory of your prime ': Never more — never more ! Out of the day and night, A joy has taken flight — Fresh spring, and summer, and winter hoar Move my faint heart with grief, but with deUght, No more — never morel" And again: " They die ! The dead return not. Misery Sits near an open grave and calls them over — A youth with hoary hair and haggard eye." ' Death is here, and Death is there ; Death is busy everywhere — All around, within, beneath — Above is Death, and we are death. ****** First our pleasures die, and then Our hopes, and then our fears; and wln'n These are dead, the debt is due — Dust claims dust, and we die too." "Far, far away, ye Halcyons of memory, Seek some far calmer nest, Than this abandoned breast; THE SMITTEN PAMILT. 189 No news of your false spring To my heart's winter bring — Once having gone, in vain Ye come again. Vultures, who build your bowers High in the Future's towers, Withered hopes on hopes are spread — Dying joys choked by the dead Will serve your beaks for prey, Many a day," And he breathes a sweet tribute to the little one just torn from his arms: " My lost William — thou in whom Some bright spirit lived, and did That decaying robe consume. Which its lustre faintly hid, Here its ashes find a tomb. But beneath this pyramid Thou art not. If a thing divine. Like thee, can die, thy funeral shrine Is thy mother's grief, and mine." *********** During the serene hours of an Italian spring, a lonely one might have been seen pursuing his pensive way amid the ruins of ancient art. Though not more than twenty-seven, his brow was flecked with gray, and his tall form was bowed by sorrow and care, and dark hours of conflict.* Nature was * " 'Twas said that he had refuge sought In love from his unquiet thought, In distant lands, and been deceived By some strange show ; for there were found, Blotted with tears, as those relieved By their own words are wont to do. 100 THE REFORMER. putting forth her vernal beauty, and the wild vines were renewing their foliage, and hiding prostrate colunins and graceful arches in greenery and flowers; but to him, there was no more spring. The present and the future were alilcc overcast, and the past held up its withering record. His first Avife filled a suicide's grave, and her children were for away from him, whom once they knew as father, but whose name must now be banished from their memories. His second union had been invaded by death — one babe lay at Venice, and here he might watch the tomb of his Willie, and say, "I envy death the body far less than the oppressors the minds of those whom they have torn from me. The one can only kill the body — the other crushes the affections." Alas! how changed is he of the drooping brow and the saddened countenance from the bouyant youth of Field Place, or the jubilant enthusiast of Oxford? But still more pitiable is the change in character; there was a time when his boyish lips would have quivered at the thought of present disiionor; there was a time when his high-toned soul would have shrunk from the prophecy of so dark a career. Yet even of such an one has this been accomplished, and he now stands before us the violator of plighted troth, the apologist These moumfiil verses on the ground, By all who read them blotted too: ' How am I changed ! My hopes were once like fire — I loved, and I believed that life was love. How am I lost * * * * * * * * * I wake to weep, And sit through the long day gnawing the core 01' uiy bitter heart." Shelley. — Rosalind and Helen. LIFE IN THE ETERNAL CITY. 191 of adultery, and the assailant of that holy faith, which is the hope of the world. O what a fall is here! How does it prove the power of error — so rapid, and so damning? Thus does it master even genius, and transform it, as by some horrid sorcery, until the once noble boy has become an enemy of his race. And the sad spectacle, as w^e gaze upon it, recalls those fearful lines, whose truth and power familiar- ity cannot impair, and which are even now as fresh as when uttered by the thoughtful Mantuan. " facilis descensus Averni m ***** » Sed revocare gradum superasque evadere ad auras Hoc opus, hie labor est." ********* It is midnight. All Rome is bathed in moonlight, so soft and dreamy, that the beauties of even an Italian day yield to its enchantment. The bell has just uttered its plaintive record of the fleeting hours, when that same bowed form is seen forsaking the stranger's quarter, and wending his way toward the suburbs. As he passes with listless step down the Corso, the stately palace of the Barberini reminds him that tliere the lorn Beatrice, year after year, keeps her vigil of sorrow, and he breathes a tribute to the memory which his pen shall consecrate with better art than even the pencil of Guido. In a few moments the city of the living is passed, and he stands in the region of the dead. The wilderness of ruin now opening before him seems vocal with the glories of the ancient Forum. In silver radiance, but relieved by deep- toned shadow, there stand the exquisite columns of Jupiter Stator, while the ai-ch of Severus indicates the via sacra of imperial days. A little further on he is greeted by the 192 TOE REFORMER. graceful Foca, and then the beetling walls of the Coliseum l>ury hina in shadow. Soon he is tracing his way through the open and ivied chambers of Caracalla's baths, and at length his restless feet bear him to his Willie's grave. And this, after all, is the sweetest place, even in storied Rome; for here is laid his chief treasure. The moonbeams kiss the turfy mound, beside M^hich his own ashes shall soon rest; near by is the grave of poor Keats, while the tall pyramid of Cestius, glistening in the magic light, seems to guard the sacred spot. We have followed the perturbed wanderer to the place where " the holy calm that breathes around, Bids every fierce, tumultuous passion cease ; In still small accents whispering from the ground, A grateful earnest of eternal peace." But the throbbing heart is still in conflict — and no voice of resignation, and no utterances of foith soothe the soul's unrest. As he gazes around, the past and the present weave their his- tory into one. The bards of olden time, who have embraced his own Adonais, approach to welcome their smitten compeer, and the mourners of by-gone ages seem to march by in solemn pomp of woe, extending sympathy to one wbo inherits their tears, and who distils them on the little grave at his feet. At last, as the spell becomes stronger, reverie changes into life, and old Rome opens before him, in the glory of her prime. The vast area is teeming with the throng of her palmy days, whose splendors change only to increase in varying majesty. He sees, or seems to see, all that Time has buried in silence and in dust, and his heart beats with new life at the imposing scene. He hails the Gracchi — he MEDITATIONS OF AN EXILE. 193 hids Brutus strike — he bums beneath Tully's words of fire — and the cry at which the nations trembled thrills his soul, "Senatus Populusque Romanus," New life has for a moment come to his weary heart — ^but ah! tis gone, for the dream is broken. Where is he now? And the solitary buries his face in his bosom, while desolation wraps him in its icy shroud, and hope even flies from the future. O, among all that marked the fall of the imperial city, what was there so moving in pathos, or so mournful in its history, as that living ruin which Rome now contained? This thought so powerfully inspires some of his lines as to prove its secret power over his soul, and while he refers to "the vigorously awakening spring, and the new life with which it drenches the spirit, even to intoxication," as the inspiration of his newly-attempted drama, yet it is evident from its character that that inspiration was drawn from his own dark and fearful experiences. These, indeed, were a fitting preparation for sympathy with the sublime sorrow of ancient tragedy, and its crushed yet defiant heroism. The "Prometheus Unbound," the fruit of these shadowed hours, was the author's favorite, as well as his greatest poem. In it he rises to the grandeur of the bard, and takes rank with the masters of the drama. It was written amid the ruins of Caracalla's baths, "a maze of gigantic chambers, opened to the sky, and carpeted with verdure — of shattered towers, wreathed in a drapery of glorious weeds and trailing ivy, with which the stone-work had been almost incorporated — of heaped masses of masonry, out of which sprung groves of flowering shrubs — of broken arches, winding stair-cases, and hidden nooks for quiet thought."* It was a fitting scene for * Slielley Memorials. 9 191 THE REFORMER. the working up of high tragedy, and he wrought out of his own agonized soul the anguish of the unconquerable Titan, while amid sunshine and beauty the vulture fed upon his hea]^. But the sacred communion of sorrow embraced others besides the fabled groups of the ancient drama, and the sad inspiration which now mastered the poet's soul yearned over all the heavy-hearted. If excluded from sympathy with the living, he was not from the dead. While wandering through the galleries of the Barberini Palace, a lorn and lovely, but heart-broken maiden whispered to him her dark and harrow- ing tale. It was a sweet, girlish countenance — all woe-begone, and pale as the drapery that hid her golden tresses; but Guido's pencil had wrought the features into life, and inno- cence survived despair.* A voice, weak from torture, * " The portrait of Beatrice at the Colonna (Barberini) Palace is most admirable, as a work of art. It was taken by Guido, during her confine- ment in prison. But it is most interesting as ajust representation of one of the loveliest specimens of the workmanship of Nature. There is a fixed and pale composure on the features : she seems sad, and stricken down in spirit, yet the despair thus expressed is lightened by the patience of gentleness. Her head is bound by folds of white drapery, from which the yellow strings of her golden hair escape and fall about her neck. The moulding of her face is extiuisitoly delicate; the eye-brows are dis- tinct and arched ; the lips have that permanent meaning, of imagination and sensibility, which suffering has not repressed, and which it seems as if death scarcely could extinguish. Her forehead is large and clear. Her eyes, which we were told were remarkable for their vivacity, are swollen with weeping, and lustreless, but beautifully tender and serene. In the whole mien there is a simplicity and dignity which, united with her exciui- site loveliness, are inexpressibly pathetic. Beatrice Cenci appears to have been one of those rare persons in whom energy and gentleness dwell to- gether, without destroying one another. Her nature was simple and profound." — Preface to " Tli£ Cenci." '^JStt',y,.rho..lu-- "D CENCI AND THE TROMETIIEUS. 195 ascending from the dark and slimy cell, appealed to the poet's heart from that fell tribunal which adjudged her to the scaffold, and besought vindication from calumny and shame. From day to day he held converse with that maiden of awful doom, until the groans of the deep-souled Prome- theus found a response in her wailing whispers, and one act of sympathy enshrined them in his chambers of imagery. The tragedy of "The Cenci" was composed before even the "Prometheus" was finished; and in its stately acts Beatrice summons her judges to the tribunal of the world. It is impossible to view without emotion that countenance, in which youth, prematurely broken, yields to a bitter destiny; but not until she is pourtrayed by the tragic muse can we truly sympathise with the victim of a demon father, or enter the world of woe wherein she dwelt. But it is not of the Poet that we so much write as of the Reformer. While as the first he takes rank amid the bards of all ages, as the latter his doctrines poison many an unwary reader, and give assurance to those who care nothing for his alflatus, and view him only as an assailant of Christianity. By a peculiar misapprehension, he always conceived his mis- sion to be Reform, rather than Poetry, and even three years before his death he writes his publisher, from Florence, "I am preparing an octavo, on Reform. * * * I intend it to be an instructive, readable book, appealing from the passions to tlie reason of men." * Yet, notwithstanding his conceit, his philosophy only deforms the splendor of his genius, by its harsh and bewildering Atheism. As Shelley will always be * " Let this opportunity be conceded to me of acknowledging that I have, what a Scotch philosopher characteristically terms, ' a passion lor reforming the world.' " — Preface to " Promeihem." 196 THE REFORMER. read, we are glad to know that a Boston house has issued an expurgated edition, and thus, while enjoying the author's beauties, one may escape the serpent which they otherwise conceal. It is stated, by way of extenuation, that Queen Mab was "published surreptitiously, and that the copies printed by its youthful author were intended merely for private circulation. But lame as such an apology must be, it is utterly vitiated by the fact that in his later days he abated not one jot of its Atheism, or tempered its virulent tone. It is true that a year before his death, when the surreptitious edition appeared, he wrote to the Examiner that "it was written at the age ot eighteen — I dare say, in a sufficiently intemperate spirit. I have not seen this production in several years. I doubt not but that it is perfectly worthless, in point of literary compo- sition, and that in all that concerns moral and political speculation, as well as in the subtler discriminations of meta- physical and religious doctrine, it is still more crude and immature." But while thus admitting it to be "crude and im- mature," he never disclaimed its purpose to attack Christian- ity, and it still lives to breathe its malignant enmity, and to strengthen the crude unbelief of thousands. Shelley thus became prominent as the exponent of the Infi- del Reform of his age, and the Socialism which lurked in his teachings was in due time developed by another. The bi-oad radicalism of his schemes may be expressed in a few words. There was no reality in the word "Sin," and there was no necessity for sorrow. The misfortunes of mankind arose from the tyranny of kings and priests. Hence the cry Mas "overturn, overturn!" and in this fell swoop were included religion, marriage, and other such social institutions as were CHALMERS AND ROUSSEAU. 197 supposed to be of an antagonistic nature. This having been done, society was to be reorganized upon a new basis. The mind was to be expanded in genial and aesthetic culture, while the body was to be emancipated from all things inconsistent with health and pleasure. Disease having been banished Ijy temperance, and poverty by industry, a universal brother- hood was to fill the earth, and Reason and Nature were to be the only objects of worship. In 1819, while Shelley was racked with these futile schemes, the mighty mind of Chalmers was achieving true reform among the degraded masses of Glasgow. In a lecture deliv- ered at this time, he presents a scathing analysis of the false philosophy of Rousseau, which Shelley unconsciously repro- duced. The Swiss of the eighteenth and the Englishman of the nineteenth century, exhibit one feature of striking identity, for while both were guilty of high crimes against God and society, neither of them seemed conscious of sin. In this they differ from the dissolute Byron, who, while sharing their impiety, continually admits the great fact of human depravity — a confession no doubt wrung from him by the bitter experiences of his wretched career. The antithesis between them is thus drawn by Chalmers, who remarks of the latter: "He never aimed to better a world, of which he seldom spoke but in the deep and bitter derision of a heart that utterly despised it — not because of its ungodliness, tur It is not this which calls forth the vindictiveness of his most appalling abjurations. But it is obviously his feeling of humanity that its whole heart is sick, and its whole head is sore — that some virus of deep and deadly infusion pervades the whole extent of it; and never is he more in his own fiivorite element than when giving back to the world, from 198 THE REFORMER. his own pages, the reflected image of that guilt which troubles and deforms it. One should have liked to see a mind so powerful as his, led to that secret of this world's depravity, which is only revealed unto babes, while hid in a veil of apparent mysticism from the wise and the prudent. And yet, even as it is, does he in the wild and frenzied career of his own imagination catch a passing glimpse of the truth that he had not yet apprehended." " Our life is a false nature — ^"tis not in The harmony of things — this hard decree — This uneradicable taint of sin — This boundless Upas — this all-blasting tree, Whose root is earth ; whose leaves and branches be The skies, which rain their plagues on man, like dew : Disease, death, bondage — all the woes we see. And even the woes we see not, which throb through The immedicable soul, with heart-aches ever new." These lines exhibit Byron's nearest approach to truth, and are in contrast with the striking picture of life's conflict, drawn by Wordsworth. The one pauses from the pursuit of pleasure, to gaze upon the stupendous woes of mankind, and is then hurried away by his vicious career; the other saw not only the wound, but the balm which alone can heal it. " life ! without thy checkered scene, Of right and wrong — of weal and woe, Success and failure — could a ground For magnanimity be found. Or Faith, midst broken hopes, serene — Or whence could virtue flow ? " Pain entered through a ghastly breach ; Nor while life lasts must effort cease. REFORM WITHOUT RELIGION. 199 Heaven upon earth's an empty boast — But for those bowers of Eden lost, Mercy has placed within our reach A portion of God's peace." Eeform, without religion, has been the standing boast of the Infidel — yet were the highest success attained that ever an Owen or a Fourier dreamed of, it is very easy to prove tliat it would not ensure man's chief good. That good must be RECEIVED through THE MORAL NATURE. We may imagine the fairest of domains, with its associated groups — its divisions of labor — its highest felicity of attraction and {esthetic culture, which, despite all these, might be the scene of heart-misery such as physical suffering never approached. "Is not the body more than meat, and the soul more than raiment?" Can these glittering advantages, in all their fulness, adminis- ter to the wants of the moral nature, or prescribe for what Byron so despairing calls "the immedicable soul," or answer that appeal which the sin-sick, and the sorrow-laden, so vainly utter? " Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased — Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow — Raze out the written troubles of the brain, And with some sweet, oblivious antidote, Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff That weighs upon the heart ? " Were it not for man's natural blindness, we might here confess our astonishment that the Infidel school of reform persists, age after age, in overlooking the great question of sin — its nature, and its remedy. The problem is not merely the escape from poverty, for mankind may be as happy and as 200 THE REFORMER. useful in poverty as in wealth ; hut to obtain deliverance from sin, the source of all evil. This question meets us at every turn, and is only answered by that gospel, so maligned and despised. It is this alone which can give peace to the dying — •can sustain the soul when sinking under misfortune — can cheer the bereaved — can revive hope even in the despairing ; and it is this which must work that restoration " not dreamed of in your philosophy." Thus we are brought to the conclusion that Christianity alone affords a remedy for the otherwise "immedicable soul." Yet, while accomplishing her holy jiurpose, she still receives the vilest execrations from Infidel reformers, who adjure her to cease her stately march, and give place to their crude inventions. The crazy attempts at Socialism which were agitated a few years since illustrate this truth, and teach an enduring lesson. Among others, New Jersey Phalanx, Sylvania and Skenea- teles leaped into sudden existence, and were hailed as marking a new and happy era in social life. They were to demonstrate the ability of man to attain the highest good without the aid of Christianity. They were to fulfill the hopes of the Positive philosophy, and to exhibit a world abundant in physical and moral, as well as sesthetic delights, independent of that element which IS the only foundation of happiness. Its motto was, "a boastful Deism." But socialism is of too rank a growth fur America; the moral tone of our country must sink still lower before it can flourish within her borders, and the Atheist fraternities, one after another, disbanded. Their day is past — and while we shrink from the foul blasphemy which breathed from their nostrils, and the malignant slanders which they poured on the gospel and its ministry, we can not but refer k to one of those chief demonstrations which so truly reveal •' REFORM SPEECHES. • 201 their character. We quote from the proceedings of the New England Social Reform Convention, held in Boston, June, 1844. * Mr. Collins (one of the speakers,) after briefly enumerating the vices that grew out of all religions having their foundations in mystery, said that "The actions, views, and policy of society were graduated by a false philosophy. * * * Mystery is essential to the clergy; Reason is their deadliest foe. If mind could account for the good and bad, and all the varied actions of men, upon natural and philosophical princi- ples—if he saw that love, virtue, and purity were native elements of the human mind — that vice, crime, and misery were the results of a false society, which had its toundation in ignorance of man's nature and capacity, and not in his own will and choice — that abundance of love, peace and purity would necessarily spring from true social relations — then the hocus-pocus of the clergy would be seen and appi'eciated accordingly." * * * "We have had religion, some say 6,000, but I say 60,000 years, and what better are we for it? Re- lio-ion is essential to darkness. She cheats man into his i want without hope. He must have some hope on which to ^ fix his mind, when ground to dMt beneath the wheels of the Juo-o-ernaut of a church ! Religion gratifies his hope. She tells him that Heaven is beyond the grave— that to merit it he must show becoming fortitude under his affliction here — that just in proportion as he suffers the keenest sorrow, will he be entitled to the highest joys hereafter. She thus cheats him of the present by a lie, and of the future by an unsub- stantial dream." * From "The Social Pioneer and Herald of Progress."— Boston : J. P. Mcmiura. present suffering, and cheats him out of present enjoyments. It is absurd to think that men can exist under vice and 202 . THE REFORMER. * * * "The chui'ch did not meet any of the essential wants of man's nature; its teachings were dark; its dogmas con- fused and intangible; its views of man's nature and capacity low, debasing and demoralizing; its character of the Deity contradictory, absurd, and even blasphemous, inasmuch as a God of benevolence, knowledge, and power could not permit so much disease, sorrow and suffering as now and ever has existed. * * * Did not every man know that slavery, intem- perance, and swindling were positive evils, which should be destroyed instead of sustained? Were not three-fourths of all the established clergy actually compelled by the public opinion of the churches to sustain one or more of these evils'?" Mr. Taylor "compared the priests with the partridge and her brood of young. They wished to lure social reformers away from their nests in their pulpits, where they have broods and broods of young curses for the race. They raise false issues, and by a thousand tricks endeavor to divert the public enquiry as to the influence of the clergy against reform." »■ Mr, Swasey " denounced'a hireling priesthood as a trammel and a shackle upon the mind and body of the race; fettering its freedom, depriving it of its noblest energies, or prosti- tuting those energies to it^l^wn degradation. It was a fact that entered like iron into the soul of every man who desired to be free, that the clergy were the body-guards of despotism. * * * And he would say in the face of every priest, that while they preached doctrines he delighted to honor, tliey practiced docti'ines most damning to humanity. * * * 'J'lie vice and consequent misery so prevalent, in connection with the denominated marriage relation of the day, is so univer- sal — he could say so absolute, tliat he looked upon it as the imperative duty of ever} Reformer to reflect upon its crimi- CHRISTIANITY S¥ILL SURVIVES. 203 " nality, and having made up his mind, to exert himself for a reform so much demanded. * * * He knew nothing which so much needs reform as this * * * and he called on all, married or unmarried, young or old, in Humanity's name to lift up their voice and arms for the overthrow of this great and universal source of crime and misery." After much discussion, in which some deprecated the extremity of these views, thirty resolutions were passed, denouncing religion and existing governments of every form, and affirming the right of married parties to separate "when- ever they have outlived the affections, and can no longer contribute to the happiness of each other." Had Shelley ^yitnessed this convention, he might have been gratified by its faithful adherence to his precepts; but his hate to Christianity would have been still embittered by disappointment, for she survives each attack, and stands at this moment far stronger, even in Boston, than when thus assailed ; and unchanging as her divine founder, she still leads in benignant progress, while alJj^he Atheist schemes which have striven to subvert her, me after the other, have collapsed. The extracts which we have thus given will show how blind Infidelity is to the highest goo^wWe gaze upon its followers with sorrow — for they are casting away the only hope of our race. We fain would exclaim, " O, misguided brothers ! ere you have finally contemned the Bible, have you ever proved its power to reform and elevate mankind? Is there no balm in Gilead, that you are fetching us "accursed juice of He- benon?" Ministers and churches, and the forces of Christi- anity may not, as yet, be accomplishing their full purpose in the removal of evil; yet, grievous as is our present con- 204 THE REFORMER. dition, would it not be vastly worse without them? Let this question be answered by a view of the Heathen world. Indeed, false and heartless as society may often be found, beneath the very shadow of the church, it is only because her precepts and doctrines have been disregarded. Wherever they are fully operative, society will abolish wrongs and suppress vice, and reap a reward in temporal prosperity, as well as in moral amelioration. "Go preach my gospel," was the command of Him, whose especial mission it was to "bind up the broken- hearted, to heal them that are bruised," and in truth to re- move all misery from the earth. And in his Gospel we FIND THE only MEANS ADEQUATE TO THAT MIGHTY END.* That Gospel's power and efficacy are well illustrated by the labors of the missionary, Brainerd, among the Indians of New Jersey. Their degradation was unutterable — they were ignorant, destitute, indolent, filthy, cruel and intemperate. Yet these savages became, when brought under the influence of Christianity, industrious, kind-hearted, humane, and even heavenly minded; so much so that their tender-hearted pastor expressed his delight in their society. To quote from his journal: "Afterwards I baptised fourteen persons; two of * The necessity of a scheme wj^h, like the Gospel, shall strike at the root of sin, and have for its obje^^ikc regeneration of the race, is thus hit off by Carlyle: "Reform is not joyous, but grievous; no single- handed man can reform himself without stern suffering and stern working. The serpent sheds not his old skin without rusty disconsolatencss — he is not happy, but miserable. Thus Medea, when she made men young again, was wont ( 0, Heaven I) to hew them in pieces unOi nieatrozcs, cast them into caldrons, and boil'them for a lene/ih of time.'''' This rude idea is fulfilled, with glorious power, in the new life which Christianity gives its followers : the language of the Gospel is, " beliold, I make all things new ! " Did Carlyle never hear of tliis, that he had to go back to Medea for an illus- tration ? EXAMPLE OF BRAINEED. 205 them were men of fifty years, who had been singular and re- markable among the Indians for their wickedness. One of them had been a murderer, and both notorious drunkards, as well as excessively quarrelsome; but now I cannot but hope that both of them have become objects of God's especial ijrace." * * * Again, in speaking of the amelioration wrought in the mass, he states: "They seem generally divorced from drunkenness — their darling vice — the sin that easily besets them, so that I do not know more than two or three who have been my steady hearers that have drunk to excess since I first visited them, although before that, it was common for some or other of them to be drunk almost every day. * * * A principle of honesty and justice appears in many of them, and they seem concerned to discharge their old debts, which they have neglected, and perhaps scarcely thought of for years past. Their manner of living is much more decent and comfortable than formerly, having the benefit of that money which they used to consume on strong drink. Love seems to reign among them, especially those who have given evidence of having passed a saving change." Again: "When these truths were felt at heart, there was no vice unre- formed. Drunkenness, the darling sin, was broken off, and scarce an instance of it known among my hearers for months together. The abusive practice of husbands and wives putting away each other, and taking others in their stead, was quickly reformed; the same might have been said of all other vicious practices." "The reformation was general, and all springing from the internal influence of divine truths upon their hearts, and not from any external restraints, or because they had heard these vices particularly exposed and spoken against." 20(5 THE KEFORMER. In this simple and artless recital we behold the secret of genuine reform. It must spring from piety. * The work to which we have made reference was accomplished through the instrumentality of a devoted New England youth, whose feeble frame sank to the grave in his thirtieth year. But he had solved the problem which for ages had defied a conceited and vain-glorious philosophy. Few men of thirty years, have done so much for the welfare of mankind as Brainerd — few men of thirty years * " I rejoice much to find that this shows a very considerable decrease, as compared with previous years. I do believe that we are improving ; that free libraries, and cheap concerts and lectures for the people, and working-men's associations, headed by so many Christian ministers, are beginning to tell. Their influence is already felt — 1400 apprehensions fewer^this year than last, and the decrease nearly, if not entirely, in 'the drunk and disorderly cases.' " — Lectures by Rev. Hugh Stowell Brown, Li- verpool. Moral Influence of the Irish Revival. — At the opening of the Quarter Sessions in Coleraine, on January *?, the Assistant Barrister said: "When I look into the calendar for the last three months, and in memory look back on calendars that came before me, I am greatly struck with its appearance on this occasion. During the entire three months which have passed since I was here before, I find that but one new case has to come before you, and one which is in some respects very unimportant. As I said before, I am gi-eatly struck at the appear- ance of this calendar, so small is the number of cases, when I formerly had calendars filled with charges for different nefarious practices, pocket- picking and larcenies of different sorts. Now I have none of these, I am happy to say. How is such a gratifying state of things to be accounted for ? It must be from the improved state of the morality of the people. I believe I am fully warranted now to say that to nothing else than the moral and religious movement which commenced early last summer can the change be attributed. I can trace the state of your calendar to no- thing else. It is a matter of great gratification when wc see the people of this country improving, and I trust that no temptations of any sort will arise by which they can be induced to forsake the paths of rectitude." THE TWO REFORMERS IN CONTRAST. 207 have done so much for its injury as Shelley; yet both were professed Reformers, and as they are now brought within the limits of a parallel, we cannot avoid reviewing its striking antithesis. A fervent New England youth, sad-hearted because of the misery of his race, consecrates himself to the work of its reformation. He possesses a small patrimony, and his feeble health pleads for a life of ease; but in stern self-denial he renounces all — devoting even his estate to philanthropy. There is something sublime in this purpose, but he appears devoid of all consciousness of it; he is consumed by the flame of sacrifice, and has lost himself in the great end before him. It is only in mediaeval myths that we find this devotion sym- bolized, and while reading the heroic tradition which Schiller has immortalized, we seem to see the missionary in conflict with Sin, instead of the knight grappling with the beast- fiend — and in either case the palm is awarded, not to prowess, but humility. Armed by this purpose the youth commences a mission among the savages. He is alone — with no friend to cheer— no physician to prescribe, and no home to ofier imrture and welcome. His habitation is a squalid wigwam his bed a heap of straw — and his food such as must hasten the disease whose fatal grasp is upon his frame. Now commences the marvellous career, in four years to terminate in the grave — in which alternates incessant preaching, itineracy, and exposure. Beyond all previous examples, it is a life of prayer. The rude settler of the frontier is occasionally startled to see the wan and emaciated youth emerging from the forest — his countenance overcast with a tender melancholy, and his form staggering from weakness — yet his determina- tion unwavering. If the barbarian of the Delaware heed not 208 THE KEFORMER. his voice, there are others by the margin of the Susquehanna who may incline the ear, and the steep and pathless moun- tains are thrice traversed, in what appears to have been fruitless labor. But if the savage of the Susquehanna turn away, his red brethren in the Jerseys may prove more willing, and thus, through three years of buffeting and disappoint- ments, he plies each field with the only remedy for sin. The tender passion, too, adds interest to the tale. In one of his visits to New England, the missionary had seen and loved a Puritan maiden, whose vernal loveliness sets off rare maturity of mind, and whose person is only equalled by her deep-toned piety. Indeed, her exquisite character has only freshened with the lapse of a century, and the traditions of old Northampton unite in her the serene beauty and grace of Sarah Pierrepont and the intellect of Jonathan Edwards. Of such parentage snrang Jerusha, the betrothed of David Brainerd, whose entwining memories hallow the valley of the Connecticut. Yet such an one could he sacrifice, and in this spirit he thus writes in his journal: "I was constrained, and yet chose to say, 'farewell, friends and earthly comforts — the dearest of them all — the very dearest, if the Lord calls for it — adieu ! adieu! I will spend my life, to my latest moments, in caves and dens of the earth, if the Kingdom of Christ may thereby be advanced.' " But at last, all New England is astounded by tidings of his success, and that too, to a degree beyond all hope and expectation; the savages have been Christianized; a town, school and church have been established — the work of reform has been complete. And now, worn out and prostrate, the dying philanthropist is brought by slow stages to Northampton, and Jerusha THE GRAVES OF THE REFORMERS. 209 ministers to her beloved during the last and most precious hours. ^ For five months he seems to anticipate the new song, and then the Euthanasia ceased. The faded leaf of autumn strewed his new-made grave, and amid the winter's snow, Jerusha was laid by his side. Had the benighted poet met the example of the mission- ary, it would have no doubt constrained his admiration, and perhaps his homage. Here, indeed, he would have seen the success of that mission which he vainly sought to accomplish through error, and the noble stanza which closes the Prome- theus so illustrates this, that with the omission of one line and the substitution of a single name, we may read it thus : "To suffer woes which Hope thinks' infinite ; To forgive wrongs darker than death or night ; jld ^ »^ *tt .^ jLfi .alt ^ft To love and bear ; to hope till Hope creates, From its own wreck, the thing it contemplates^ Neither to change, nor flatter, nor repent; This, like thy glory, Brainerd! is to be Good, great, joyous, beautiful, and free — This is alone Life, Joy, Empire and Victory." Such, then, is the contrast between the Reformers — the one representing Truth, the other Error. The one crowned by success — the other perishing amid the wreck of his schemes. But not ceasing here, it extends even to the grave. The missionary and his betrothed were laid side by side among generations of departed saints; here he is enshrined amid memories which time only strengthens, and here, in the pure atmosphere of New England, he receives the tribute of the Christian world. The poet, on the other hand, was smitten as bv the hand of that God whom he had disowned. 210 THE REFORMER. and hurled into eternity aniid the tempest's howl. Then the sea gives up its dead to a resurrection of fire, and at last a little group bear the ashes to Rome. There, in the strong- hold of Papal, as it once was of Pagan, superstition — there, where error has for ages spread its shadow — where persecu- tion has poured its fury upon the saints, and where all is stagnant, and the very air is redolent of age and decay — the Atheist exile finds a place in " the congregation of the dead." * After such irrefragable proofs of the power of Christianity to cure social evil, let Infidelity no longer utter opposition or contumely; still less let it thrust upon us its schemes as a substitute for God's remedy for human misery. With all proper sympathy for its misguided apologists, we cannot repress the voice of indignation, nor withhold the stern rebuke of Holy Writ, "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness." f ********* In the spring of 1822 we find the family of the poet refor- mer sharing with the Williams' the lonely Villa. Magni. It was situated on the Gulf of Spezzia — a place of solitude, whose desolate landscape is set off by the grandeur of the changing sea, which opens upon the west in almost boundless expanse. " Had we been wrecked on the South Sea," writes Mrs. Shelley, "we could scarcely have felt ourselves farther from civilization and comfort." Reviewing the maze of their wanderings, we find them driven from Rome by the death of Willie, and sojourning at Leghorn during the follow- * Proverbs, 21-16. "The man that wandereth out of the way of un- derstanding shall remain in the congregation of the dead." f Isaiah, 5-20. -:•' .'■ih,>"f^=^^i~. ~^==^ ^, Shelley's grave at rome. LIFE AT YILLA MAGNI. 211 inw summer, while autumn beheld them at Florence. Pisa attracted them next, and though they removed thence to Leghorn, it was only to quickly return. Indeed, Pisa became the place of their longest residence, since the whole of the next year was passed either in the city or in its vicinity. Thus the poet writes his wife: "Our roots never struck so deep as at Pisa, and the transplanted tree flourishes not. People who lead the lives which we led until last winter are like a family of Wahabee Arabs, pitching their tent in London;" and then he adds, in reference to the need of a home, "We must do one thiiiir or the other — for ourselves — for our child — fur existence." As we view him at the Villa Magni,* in his thirtieth year, we little dream that the last days of life's fitful fever are drawing nigh. Though so young, he had achieved a place in the highest rank of bards, and notwithstanding his vicissitudes, the past six years had yielded a rich effusion of beautiful though mystic verse, besides the longer poems on which his flime chiefly rests. Upon a retrospect of his whole life, the only hours of comparative quiet which cheer its troublous history, are found at Pisa, and the Ode to the Skylark shows the flight of a mind for a little time unfettered. He had formed a limited range of friendship, and the tragedy which * " He dwelt beside me near the sea, And oft in evening did we meet, When the waves, beneatli the starlight, flee O'er the yellow sands, with silver feet, And talked — our talk was sad and sweet, Till slowly fi-om his mien there passed The desolation which it spoke, And smiles — as when the lightning's blast Has parched some Heaven-delighting oak." Shelley. — Rosalind and Helen. 212 THE REFORMER. clouded the past was losing its dark hues through sympathy for liis misfortunes and admiration of his genius. His hist marriage proved more congenial than the first, and in point of intellect the second wife was vastly superior to her whcjux she had supplanted; yet, accepting their own views, even this union could have been dissolved at any time, when superior attractions should interfere. Without detracting from that affection which seems to have graced it, it may be suggested that one feature in its strength was their loneliness ; and thus sojourning in strange and repelling communities, they were held in mutual and kindly dependance. His character, naturally so kind, still bore a philanthropic tone, and his apologists often refer to this as an amply redeeming feature. We would not disturb the mantle which Charity thus throws over the erring, were it possible for one virtue to expunge his early stains, or to atone for a defence of adultery, or a war on Christianity. In such a coimexion the term philanthropist becomes a solecism. " But one sad losel stains a name for aye, However mighty in the olden time ; Nor all that heralds rake from cottined clay, Nor florid prose, nor honied words of rhyme, Can blazon evil deeds, or consecrate a crime." It is one of the most frequent apologies for Infidelity, that moral worth is found in its ranks, or in other words, that tliey are not all equally monstrous with the Paines and Voltaires, who lead her van. But it is not denied that some of the virtues may sustain life, even in the chill atmosphere of unbelief, like the flower, dwarfed yet persistent, at the base of the glacier. The surrounding influence of the Gospel often restrains the havoc commenced on the moral nature, and COMPLAINTS OF A GRIEVED SPIRIT. 2J3 exercises an unporceived protection. This will both explain and answer the claims of this pseudo morality — and yet we willingly admit their full weight, for highwaymen have some- times been generous to the poor, and even assassins have boasted of honesty. The poet's abode at Pisa afforded frequent reunions with Byron, whose sensual temperament was in marked con- trast with the abstinent frame and the sublimated intellect o. the Reformer. But if we seek the secret of their friendship, it might be found, indeed, in that very contrast, and in the mutual excitement of extremes brought into occasional colli- sion. To this may be added, as a clearer explanation of so strange a harmony between conflicting habits of life and thought, that both were exiles, on whom public opinion had laid its withering ban — both, too, were shrouded in unbelief; and where shall we find a magnetism like that of misfor- tune'? The pleasuz'cs of Italian life, to which years ago, while in England, they had so hopefully looked forward, had now been exhausted by the Shelleys, yet they had failed to fill that aching void which piety alone can remove. Sorrow and disappointment still follow*ed sin, and even Italy could afford no balm. Does not this explain this record of continuous change? Yet these vicissitudes did not afford escape fi-om the pursuit of calumny, and, wounded by its relentless shafts, the poet thus pours out his misery to his wife : " When I hear of such things, my patience and my philosophy are put to a severe proof, while I refrain from seeking some obscure place, where the countenance of man may never meet me anymore. * * * Imagine my despair of good; imagine how it is impossible that one of so weak and sensitive a nature as 214 THE REFoiniEn. mine, can run further the gauntlet through this hellish society of man." Again : " Aly greatest comfort would be utterly to desert all human society ; I would retire with you and our children to a solitary island in the sea; would build a boat, and shut upon my retreat the floodgates of the world. I would read no reviews — 1 would talk with no authors. If I dared trust my imagination, it would tell me that there are one or two chosen companions besides yourself, whom I should desire. But to this I would not listen. Where two or thi'ce are gathered together, the devil is among them." Such expressions do not surprise us. Christianity is the only condition which admits of pure and peaceful society, and the wanderers from her genial influence will find no rest, even for the sole of the foot. Shelley, while denying the great facts of sin and depravity, found himself pierced by the evil tongues and the bitter passions which they engender. And yet every move seems one farther from the truth, and Athe- ism holds its victim in still stronger embrace, for in a letter to his publisher (dated 1820) he says: "I was immeasurably amused by the quotation from Schlegi'l, about the way the popular faith is destroyed: first the Devil; then the Holy Ghost ; then God the Father. I had written a Lucianic essay to prove the same thing." While thus sneering at that religion whicli is tlie only source of peace, the poet felt the dreary desolation of a heart unsatisfied, and yearning for rest, and ever crying out, "who will show us any good?" Alluding to fame and wealth, in (tiic of his letters, he exclaims, "I once sought something better and nobler than either; but I might as well have reached at the moon." While his wife writes in her journal: THE PHANTOM'S REPROOF. 215 " What a mart this world is! Feelings, sentiments, more in- valuable than gold or precious stones, are the coin; and what is bought? Contempt, discontent, and disappointment, if ^indeed the mind be not loaded with drearier memories." The unrest of an active mind, wandering from the truth, and vainly seeking satisfaction and repose, seems illustrated by one of those impressive dreams to which he was subject. A figure appeared at his bed-side, and beckoned him. He followed the phantom into the saloon, when it lifted the hood of its mantle, and exclaimed, as it vanished, ^'siete sodis fatloV' ("are you satisfied?") Admitting this to have been merely an illusion, arising from the exquisite sensitiveness of his nervous system, there was still a significance in that utterance, which might have startled him from his abstrac- tions. Was he satisfied? Was there not in his bosom a ceaseless panting, which rebuked his Atheist words, and sobbed in secret for God? Was there not a hunger devour- ing him, which he vainly strove to appease with the meat that perisheth ! O, from those hidden chambers of anguish — from that heart so long a stranger to peace, there must have rolled up "de profundis" — the awful confession. How could ho be satisfied, while spurning the bread of life and battening a lofty soul on the husks of an empty philosophy? Here one may see by contrast the power of Augustine's touching ejaculation, " Lord, thou hast formed us for thyself, and we are disquieted till we come to thee!" Disquieted, indeed! The poet was but proving the words of Holy Writ: "the wicked are like the troubled sea;" he was only showing that vast unrest which renders even the unhappiness of our race sublime. It was no doubt this very desolation, caused by that yearning for himself, as the chief good which God has implanted in the 21G THE REFORMER. soul, which prompted an impressive assent to a remark uttered by Leigh Hunt. During their reunion at Pisa, a few days before the poet's death, they were standing together in the Cathedral, listening to the exquisite melody of the organ, when the former, rapt by its pathos, exclaimed that " a divine religion might be found out, if Charity were really made the principle of it, instead of Faith." Strangely indeed does such a remark appear in the communings of two Englishmen of the nineteenth century, when charity and faith were so united in the religion of their fatherland, that if the latter be its foundation, the former is its moving principle. ********* The closing scenes of Villa Magni now crowd upon us, and with unpitying haste precipitate the fatal hour; yet how many blandishments herald its approach, and deck it with treacherous promise ! The villa received the united fiimilies of the Shelleys and Williams' about the first of May, and in a fortnight arrived the shallop, whose voyages were to be their summer's delight. The exhilaration of the sea gave the poet new inspiration, and by a strange contrast "The Triumph of Life" was indited during romantic excursions upon the mirrored waters which were so impatient for his death. Eight weeks had fled, like a dream, when the arrival of Leigh Hunt at Leghorn summoned the lonely mariners of Villa Magni to the happiest of voyages. On the first of July, their shallop, the "Don Juan," spread its sails, and bidding their families a farewell, which none dreamed to be the last, the two husbands essayed a mission of welcome to their countryman. The poet passed a few happy days with the friend of his early years, and in the joys of restored friendship they journeyed together to Pisa, where EEUNION WITH BYRON. 217 they partook of the hospitality of Byron. In seven days the Don Juan commenced its hist voyage— the brief remiion was over — and leaving Leigh Hunt and Byron, to meet only about their funeral pile, the two friends sought their home. — That home they were never to behold again. The hour of doom was at hand. At three in the afternoon they com- menced a voyage, which ended in shipwreck before seven. It is supposed that in the fury of the gale the shallop was run down by a felucca. It is quite remarkable that many of those who have described the perils of the ocean with the highest power have subsequently perished in them, and realized the fulness of those horrors which their imagination had attempted. Fal- coner, who painted the prolonged terrors of the shipwreck, in such graphic numbers, was at last a cast-away, and the poet's bones now rest in some calm recess, far below the heaving billow. Elliot Warburton described in terrific vividness the burning of a ship at sea, and then perished, amid similar horrors, in that ill-fated steamer, Amazon, which, with nearly all its passengers, was lost by fire, on the passage from England to tlie West Indies. Shelley delighted in describing the conflicts of the elements, and in one of his fragments, "A Vision of the Sea," portrays the awful scenes of a ship- wreck with an inspiration which seemed to forecast his aj)proaching fate. " Dim mirrors of ruin hang gleaming about, While the surf, like a chaos of stars — hke a rout Of death flames — like whirlpools of fire-flowing iron — While splendor and terror the black ship environ — Or like sulphur-flakes hurled from a mine of pale fire, Its fountains spout o'er it In many a spire 10 2-18 THE REFORMER. Tlie pyramid billows, with white points of biine, In the cope of the lightning inconstantly shine, As piercing the sky from the floor of the sea, The great ship seems sphtting. » * » A long, loud, hoarse cry Bursts at once from their vitals tremendously ; And 'tis borne down the mountainous vale of the wave, Rebounding like thunder from crag to cave." And these awful phenomena, which dwelt thus vividly in his day-dreams, awaited the hour of doom; and on that fatal voyage all the limuings of the pen, and all the weird flights of the imagination, were transcended by the wild conflicts of wind and wave, until his weltering corpse was rocked amid the maddened surges. Was that storm inspired by the pale wraith of the forsaken Harriet? Alas! poor Shelley! BOOK FIFTH. THE TRIBUNAL. "But of this cursed crew The punishment to other hands belongs — A^'engeance is IIis, or whose He sole appoints. Stand only and behold God's indignation on the godless poured." Paradise Lost. THE TRIBUNAL. THE love of justice is a part of our consciousness. No instance of its entire privation is on record. It is as strong in the child as it is in the man of years. This fact is one of the most satisfactory proofs of the Justice of God. The Creator has stamped his image upon man, his highest work, and sin has not effected its entire obliteration. The abuse of power, the bribery of the judiciary, and the injustice which the strong inflict upon the weak, are among the chief abominations of the earth, endured by the Almighty for a time with much long suffering, only to meet the greater condemnation. Hence the Scriptures brand injustice with deepest infamy. In the palmy days of ancient Israel, its king, the wisest of his line, as well as the most equitable, thus denounced it: "Moreover, I saw under the sun the place of judgment, that wickedness was there;"* and in a later day the unjust judge escaped not the eye of our Saviour, who marked him as one " who feared not God, neither regarded man."f The impartial administration of justice stands j^re- * Ecclesiastes, 3-16. f Luke, 18-2. 222 THE TRIBUNAL. eminent among the fruits of Christianity, and while the Bible utters its scathing rebuke of the oppressor, true piety not only promotes equitable legislation, but demands from the judiciary strict impartiality in its award. It is true that Hume sneers at the Pentateuch, because its moral precepts occupied proportionately so small a space in its pages; but while yielding full play to the sneer, which may be expected whenever argument is impossible, it may be asked, are not these precepts capable of infinite applica- tion? Do they not establish the administration of Justice free from any influence save Mercy? It will be found on examination, that by this ancient code punishments were limited so as to prevent revenge or excessive cruelty. * The bribe, the bane of modern legislation, and even the gift was forbidden, lest it should indirectly touch the poised scales, "for a gift doth blind the eye." •(• So cai'efully was equity secured to the humblest of the commonwealth, that it was illegal to withhold the wages of the laborer even beyond the setting san; J M'hile hospitality to the stranger — kindness to the gleaner — and above all, protection to the widow and orphan, were enforced by especial enactments. It is not uncommon to hear the ignorant and conceited rail at the Mosaic code, yet where, in the above particulars, has that code been equalled? And whatever be its apparent defects or peculiarities, it exhibits an appreciation of justice, not only wanting to those of Solon and Lycurgus, but also to those of some modern nations. In her attacks upon the Christian religion, Infidelity has continually urged its higher rectitude, and its deeper sympathy. It is wont to falsely charge upon Christianity * Exodus, 22 & 23 chap, f Dcutcrouomy, 16-19. X Leviticus, 19-13. PRETENCES OF INFIDELITY. 223 those social wrongs with which the Latter has so long grappled, and which she will yet abolish; and during this protracted conflict is heard the frequent challenge, " Give place to us and our schemes, and you shall behold a golden reign of the virtues, in which Justice shall lead Peace and Happiness in either hand." We seem once more to hear the voice of Absalom, who said, moreover, " Oh that I were made Judge in the land, that every man which hath any suit or cause might come unto me, and I would do him justice." It may therefore not be improper to here exhibit the character of these vauntings by a brief review of a Tribunal which was estab- lished in the palmiest day of Atheism, and which represented the Themis of unbelief, at a time when the Decade* was sub- stituted in place of the abrogated Sabbath, and the Goddess of Reason was receiving Divine honors. The French Revolution is the most obscure episode of modern history. It is a great deep, where, though many have made soundings, but few have accomplished satis- factory explorations. Rarely did its master spirits survive to narrate the scenes through which they had passed, and even then it was with a brain confused by the memory of their horrors. Those scenes, too, followed each other in rapid and startling succession — each one of such surpassing shock as to deaden the impression of the past. Yet history, though appalled at the task, has attempted their recital ; brief records have been discovered — the extemporaneous data of these eventful years — strangely preserved, now unfold their testimony, and notwithstanding the conflict of statement and * The Assembly decreed that instead of the Christian Sabbath, one day in ten should be set apart for amusement; and this decree remained in force until repealed by Napoleon, 224 THE TRIBUNAL. opinion, the results of patient investigation command our confidence. The files of the Moniteur preserve the daily record of debate and events, and present a complete view of affairs in the details of journalism. These, while too voluminous for any but the student, afford a field of interesting research, and the columns which once were perused amid the palpitation and horror of the Reign of Terror, have unfolded to us their dread recital in the calm alcoves of the library. Supposing our readers to be acquainted with the general history of the scenes into which we are entering, we will simply remind them of the various relations subsisting be- tween those powers which ruled Paris and the nation. Tlio machinery of the Revolution appears to have been of a four- fold character. Thus we have: First. — The Jacobin Club, whose ferocity intimidated and controlled the Convention. Second. — The National Convention, consisting of two con- flicting factions — the Girondins and the Mountain — the latter of which derived most of its strength from its identity with the Jacobin Club. Third. — The Tribunal, of which we purpose to treat in these pages. Fourth.— The Guillotine. The question of capital punishment had, during the early days of the Revolution, been debated at length; its abolition had been moved by the committee charged with the subject, but the report was lost. It is worthy of note that the voice heard most earnestly in opposition to the shedding of blood, under any pretext whatever, was that of Maximilian Robes- pierre. Capital punishment having been retained, its method DR. GUILLOTIN AND HIS PLANS. 225 brcaiuc an importiiiit ip,cstion. Dciith by the c\»nl Irfl a lasting stigma, and the great iiurubers who had suffered a la lanlerne, made it expedient to abandon any memorial of those miserable victims. Decapitation had long been the common method in Europe, and the Convention, when passing tlic ponal code, adopted it iu 1701, at the same time prohibiting torture of any kind in eoiHieetiou with it. We need hardly add that this is still Ihc law in France. The method having thus been decided, the next desideratum was a suitable instrument. The sword was for many reasons ol)ji'('lionable, and no fitting substitute had been found, while in the mean time the case of a highway- man, already sentenced, demanded a settlement of the question. In 1781) an obscure physician had been elected member of th(! National Assembly from Paris, J lis character exhibited a composition of vanity and assurance, and his election Avaa du(>, not so much to merit or talent, as to a few j)oj)ular jianiphlcts. And yet, obscure and oven eontcnipliltle as was his position and cliaracter, his name has won an unenviable Ijiiiie, Tliis man was Dr. (luillotiu. lie made some attempts iit notoriety by introducing such schemes as might grow out of his [Jiofcssion, for the benefit of t lie common Weal. Among other cpiestions he agitated that of capital punislnnent — pro- posing, as a s>d)stitute for the gallows, decapitation by a machine, while all i-eproach which might i\\\\ on the relali\cs of tin- cul|)i-it was to be forbidden by law. Ills projjosition, however, receive(l but little attention from the; Assi-mbl^-, and though dcbntcil to a small extent, was not printed. However, tJie doctoi' afforded the Convention no small ainuse- ment by a dest'rij)tion of the instrunuMit lie had in vievr'. 226 THE TRIBUNAL. exclaiming: "Now, with my machine I strike off your head, in the twinkling of an eye, and you never feel it" — a fate which some of his smiling hearers subsequently met. On this occasion, the Abbe' Maury made objection against the mode of punishment {decapitation), "because it might tend to deprave the people, by familiarizing them with the sight of blood ; " but as no one could foresee the ruddy streams of the Place de la Revolution, the objection made no impression. Yet, although Dr. Guillotin was thus sanguine as to the success of the machine which he proposed, it does not appear that he had ever constructed a model ; his ideas had no doubt been suggested by the use of the axe in other countries. The Scottish Maiden was probably the original which lent its image to his mind, for the guillotine differs but little from that primitive punishment, while machines of a similar description had been in use throughout portions of Europe for several centuries. But such an instrument had never been seen in Paris, and the doctor must have derived his plan from some prints in which the above mentioned instru- ments appear. The unfortunate identity of his name arose from a few satirical verses which appeared in one of the Parisian journals. Thus a machine to facilitate the slaughter of the best citizens of France was proposed, and even desig- nated by name, three years before its terrible service Avas required; and the title thus bestowed in derision adhered, notwithstanding a subsequent attempt to change it to the Louison. Monsieur Louis was the Secretary of the College of Surgeons, and had presided over the construction of the first guillotine ever constructed in Paris, but the pungent lampoon had done its work, and he was saved the infamy of its name. It is commonly reported that amid the vicissitudes THE FIRST GUILLOTINE. 227 of the Revolution, Guillotin pei'ished beneath the steel he had invented ; but this is incorrect. He sunk into his original ob- scurity, and though imprisoned during the Reign of Terror, he survived its perils and died in Paris in 1814, at an advanced age. Three years had elapsed since Guillotin's first proposition, and now the abrogation of the gallows and the sentence of the highwayman brought the Minister of Justice to the doors of the Assembly. The Committee charged with the question consulted Monsieur Louis, and received from him an elabo- rate report. In this no reference is made to the name of Guillotin, but the plan of a machine similar to his is given at full length, and to this he adds : " It is easy to construct such an instrument, of which the effect would be certain, and the decapitation will be performed in an instant, according to the letter and spirit of the new law." The report was adopted, and after much delay and some change of workmen, an instru- ment was made by an artisan named Schmidt. This man, as he wrought by no model, may be considered the true inventor of this terrible machine ; and his thrifty forethought contem- plated a patent, in order to secure to himself the demand from the different departments of the nation. In April, 1792, the new machine was put to trial in the hospital of Blcetre, on several dead bodies, with such success, that in less than a week the unfortunate highwayman, the most anxious party to these proceedings, met his fate. A few unimportant executions revealed the capacities of the new apparatus, and we find it mentioned in the public prints as the "Guillotine," but its appearance and service seem to have excited but little thought. So for, indeed, from being a fixture in the street, as it subsequently became, it was only brought out for the occasion, and quietly and speedily re 228 THE TRIBUNAL. moved. None could imagine the use which would be made of its rapid stroke in the coming mania of blood — none could imagine the pale crowds which, day by day, were to pass under its reeking steel. Yet there it stands, patient, yet relentless — biding its time. That time came full soon. The guillotine had hardly been improved to its full capacity^ when the Tribunal which was to afford it employment was called into existence. The tenth of August brought the crisis between contending powers, and the tolling of the bells announced the upheaval of successful revolt. Before that tolling had ceased. Royalty lay at the feet of the once despised democracy, and the two great parties of the Assembly suspended their conflicts, and united in bringing the royalists to the block. The restive populace now thirsted for vengeance. Robespierre, no longer averse to bloodshed, demanded it, in the name of the people, under penalty of their wrath. " He caught The listening crowd by his wild eloquence — His cool ferocity — that persuaded murder, Even whilst it spoke of mercy ! " His demand specified a Tribunal with adequate powers, and the Assembly created it. The Girondins, cowed by their opponents, united with them in establishing a power which, with singular indifference sent not only royalists, but also both Girondins and Jacobins to the scaffold. Thus Vergniaud and Brissot rapidly marched in the footsteps of the doomed and degraded Bourbon, to be fdtllowed in turn by Danton and Robespierre, and the same axe was plied upon each. The Revolutionary Tribunal was established by the Legis- lative Assembly on the ITlh of August, 1792 — its express ITS EARLY VICTIMS. 229 object being to arraign and punish the royalists. Its work began immediately, yet its victims were at first few and unimportant. There was, beside this, some show of justice and mercy. Two or three were really acquitted, but D'Angrement suffered on the 26th August, for enlisting, and La Porte, convicted of counter-revolutionary conspiracies, shared the same fate, two days afterward, while Durasoi, editor of the Gazette, was executed on the 29th. The approaching election soon demanded the service of the axe — it was a wholesome instrument of terror, and might awe unruly citizens and crush a threatened opposition— but the massacres of the prisons fully served that end, consuming the very pabulum of the Tribunal. Yet still it was not entirely idle, for on the very day of the massacre, it con- demned two men. One of these was a waggoner, whose offence was the exclamation, while in the pillory, " Vive le Ho i !— Vive La Fayette !—a fig for the nation ! " The other was Cazotte, an aged poet. He had been cast in prison- had only escaped the massacre through the heroism of his daughter, who had thrown herself between the assassins' pikes and his defenceless breast— but having been again arrested, the new Tribunal proved more inexorable than the mob, and the noble daughter might have found her fiither's headless corpse among the victims of the axe. But the Tribunal did not confine itself, to the punishment of political offences. The massacres in the prison having for a time left it quite unemployed, it accepted the ordinary criminal business of the city, and continued thus engaged with political or civil misdemeanors, until the first of December, when it was suppressed, after an existence of four months. The reason of tliis suppression has never been discovered. 230 THE TRIBUNAL. The decree was passed at a time of stormy debate, prelimi- nary to the trial of the king, and it may be suggested that fear lest either party should obtain the control of so terrible an engine induced both to unite in its suppression. The whole advantage, however, fell on the side of the Jacobins. On the tenth of March they extorted a decree from the trem- bling Convention, reviving the Tribunal, with unlimited power. The Revolutionary Tribunal proper was, therefore, the second of those extraordinary institutions which bore this name.* The Girondins might have read their approach- ing doom in its very enactment, for the storm of fiction had continued with increased intensity; indeed, although suspen- ded for a time by the trial of the king, it had revived after his death, and now raged with all the fearful energy of despair. It was a struggle, not so much for power as for life, since defeat and the scaffold were now inseparable. The Girondins, notwithstanding their majority, failed to cope with the Jacobins, who swayed the masses, and held at their command that fiendish mob which so often had carried terror to the benches. In a few weeks, Danton furiously urged a motion for their arrest and condemnation, and the struggles of the unfortunate partisans availed nothing when in the grasp of their enemy. * The Tribunal was not complete at first, and we find its full powers thus expressed, some months afterward : " La Convention Nationalc sur la presentation que lui a 6t6 faite par ses Commits de salut public et de suretd generale de la liste des citoyen, purposes pour completer la forma- tion des quarto section du Tribunal Criminal Extraordinaire scant a Paris, adopte la liste ainsi qu'il fut." (Here follows the list of officers.) — Monitcur, Sept. 30, 1793. The author would state that a portion of this ground has been gone over by a modern reviewer — vide London Quarferli/y vol. 73. THE TRIBUNAL IN ITS DETAILS. 231 It was in the midst of one the most fearful conflicts in the Convention^-(we cannot call it debate) — that Danton moved the reconstruction of the old Tribunal, with increased powers, such as might enable it to try and condemn all traitors, con- spirators, and counter-revolutionists, without appeal. The Tribunal thus established consisted of two Courts, which were provided with double sets of judges and juries, to sit in turn, in order that no time might be lost. To form a Court one president, two assistant judges, and twelve jurymen were necessary. The former were appointed by the Committee on Government, the latter were drafted by lot from a general list, furnished in proportion by each Department of the Republic. Judge and jurymen received, equal pay, which was the same as that enjoyed by the members of the Assem- bly — eighteen francs per day — while the president and accu- sateur received double. This establishment, at first view, bears a semblance of equity, which soon disappears on exami- nation. It could be turned with great facility into a partisan machine, and this is proven by the fact that the clause concerning the selection of the jury was disregarded from the beginning. The excuse urged for this was the want of time to make selections from the Departments, and the jury was supplied the appointment of a list of Parisian Jacobins, con- cerning whom it has been stated that many could neither read nor write, and that some were habitually intoxicated during the discharge of their duties. As this list could not afford a full supply of jurors, a decree was subsequently passed, legalizing juries of seven, and at last, disdaining even the appearance of impartiality, these were appointed by the Committee, or selected by the prosecutor. The highest qualification demanded in important cases was that ferocious zeal by which some were distinguished. 232 THE TRIBUNAL Both Courts of tliis fearful Tribunal sat in the Palais de Justice. Prisoners at first were tried singly, but as their numbers increased, the single seat was changed for rows of benches, in graduated ascent; and which were extended from time to time until twenty, fifty and even sixty were tried at once; and at last a huge scaffold was erected, on which two hundred prisoners might be arraigned at the same time. On such collective trials the public accuser might designate any one whom he chose among the prisoners, as the leader in the alleged and imaginary conspiracy. The person thus distin- guished was seated in advance of the rest, and in this manner, on different occasions, Brissot, Hebert, as well as others bore a marked preeminence among the doomed. The Court com- municated with the dungeons of the Conciergerie, and the accused were brought to this prison the day previously, and then, on summons, were led up the winding stair-case to receive the bitter mockery of a trial. As has been stated, there was at first an attempted show of justice; thus there was a resemblance to our Grand Jury in the "Jure d^ Accusation.'" The prisoners were also examined, and notified of the charges held against them; they enjoyed, besides this, a brief interval of preparation for trial, and the privilege of counsel. But in the haste and confusion which soon prevailed, and which were inevitable in a Court held night and day, and crowded with work, these forms were soon neglected, and at last were wholly suppressed. The Convention had decided that all conspiracies tending to disturb the state, or lead to civil war, were capital offences, and hence it was soon made evident that the Tribunal sat in judgment, not only on deeds, but motives. No greater power could have been conferred upon it, for the term "conspiracy" included opinions as well as overt acts, and unuttered thoughts THE DESPOTISM EXERCISED. 233 as well as deeds. The course pursued was to submit to the jury two questions, which soon became of stereotype cha- racter. The first was the existence of a counter-revolutionary conspiracy, and in the atmosphere of suspicion which over- hung Paris, who dared deny it? The supposed aim of this imaginary conspiracy was to vilify the Convention, or to excite civil war, or to reestablish royalty, and to this ques- tion the jury had but one reply to offer: "// est constant'''' — (it is undeniable). The next enquiry was, "Is the prisoner to be included in this treasonable number'?" And now, insulated facts, or imaginary charges, were raked together, and counter-revolutionary expressions were repeated, until fi'om whispers they assumed tone and force. These, indeed, were sufficient, before such a court, without any direct proof of one's connection with, or even knowledge of the supposed plot. The common reply to this question was given by the jury in the stereotype expression, "i7 est constant'''' — that the prisoner was the author of, or accomplice in, the said con- spiracy, and this unchanging verdict sent thousands to the scaffold. The Tribunal and the guillotine became thus the two arms of a despotism such as the world had seldom before known. The one ceased not its work of horror, night or day; but the other, compelled to inactivity by the shadows of twilight, renewed with the reappearing day the work of death, thus to compensate for the lost hours of night. And, as though to exhibit to all Paris the appalling delirium of the nation, and the bloody mischief of unrestrained madness, the guillotine was shifted from one part of the city to another; and, fol- lowing it to each station, came the cart with its pallid crowd, and with it the mob, eager for the bloody finale, pressing on in 23i THE TRIBUNAL. hot pui'suit. It was first erected in the Carrousel — thence it was removed to the Place de Greve — and thence, after blood had there been sufficiently shed, it was borne to the Place de la Revolution. Among the early victims who suffered here was seen the royal form of Louis Sixteenth, expiating by his own death, and in his own capital, the tyranny and perfidy of his ancestors. The race had long been distinguished for its treachery to the nation, as well as for its hatred to Protest- antism. It had for centuries sold itself to the service of Rome; it had poured out the blood of martyred thousands, until not only the gory streets of Paris, but the empurpled Seine bore witness against it before God, and now, in the person of the unfortunate Louis, it was reaping an inevitable retribution. As he stood on the scafiold, surrounded by a sea of malignant countenances, he could behold the pavilion of his once sumptuous palace, while nearer by his eye might have for a moment rested on the ruins of his grandfather's statue, whose stately pedestal had escaped the power of the mob. He turned to address the multitude, but was suddenly seized and bound, and in a few moments his head (still turned toward the Tuileries,) fell into the basket. Some individuals steeped their handkerchiefs in his blood. The armed volunteers dipped their weapons in it. The officers of the Marseillaise Battalion bore on high the ruddy stain, and exclaimed, as they waved their swords, "This is the blood of a tyrant!" One individual mounted the scaftuld, and plung- ing his arm into the gore, sprinkled it on the crowd, each of whom seemed anxious to receive a drop — " Friends," he ex- claimed, " we were threatened that the blood of Louis should be on our heads — and so you see it is ! " After the execution of the King there was a pause in the CHARLOTTE CORKAT AND THE QUEEN. 235 work of death. But little is to be recorded concerning the guillotine, until under the control of the new and terrible Tribunal, it is established in the Place de Carrousel. Some twelve victims suffered there, when, in consequence of the proximity of the Hall of the Convention to the scene of execution, the machine was removed once more to the Place de la Bevolution, and erected hard by the spot where the Kino- suffered. Here its wanderings terminated for a season, and here, for thirteen months, it wrought its work of death, fulfilling that series of murders, unsurpassed in the annals of mankind. During these thirteen months, 1235 victims passed beneath the steel, among whom were the Girondins. Numbered with these Aifas the heroic and lovely Charlotte Corday, who, fiiiling to escape after the assassination of the monster Marat, suffered the penalty of heroism on the 17th July, 1793. It is said that the executioner held up the head by the hair, to the view of the mob, and then rudely slapped one side of the face — and a strange and baseless tradition adds that the pallid countenance blushed with indignation. Here, too, on the 16th of October following, the illustrious Queen met her long-expected fate — met it meekly, yet undis- mayed; thus terminating a flood of earthly sorrow, such as few of her sex have known — tasting, now, the last dregs in that bitter cup she was to drain. Rudely jolted in ar com- mon cart to the scaffold, she mounted it amid fiendish execrations, and like her husband, terminated her life in view of the scenes of former happiness. Another of the royal family, the Princess Elizabeth, suf- fered on the 10th May, 1794. Some four-and-twenty others perished at the same time, under charges of complicity with her in conspiracy ; but it is not psobable that she had ever before met them, or had even heard their names. 236 THE TRIBUNAL. Between these two illustrious victims there came another, whose name and character possess the fascination of ro- mance. As JNIadame Roland approached the scaffold, her eye fell on the ungainly statue of Liberty, which had recently been placed on the pedestal of the overthrown Louis XV., and apostrophizing it, she uttered that memorable exclama- tion, " O, Liberty ! — what crimes are committed in thy name !" Soon the appetite for such scenes became craving and in- satiable, and the populace found an excitement equal to that which once filled the Coliseum. Seats were arranged around the scaffold, and these were hired by women of no humble position in life, who were found sitting and chatting at their work, while waiting for the cortege and the cart. Citizen Chaumette, Solicitor of the Commune of Paris, complained to the Procureur that after an execution dogs came to lap the blood of the victims, and that crowds of men fed their eyes upon the revolting spectacle. It is a matter of some doubt whether Chaumette's complaint arose from humanity so much as from the fact that beasts of draft and burden refused to approach the spot, and that one of the fan- tastic processions of the Convention was thrown into confusion by the smell of that blood which for a year had saturated the ground. Chaumette is remembered as one of the most san- guinary of his party — and especially as the one who presented a prostitute to the Convention as the Goddess of Reason. lie finished his career on the scaffold, under the orders of Robespierre, just eleven months after the date of the above- mentioned complaint. Having remained thirteen months in the Place de la Re- volution, the shopkeepers of Rue St. Hoiioru became weary of the daily line of tumbrels which frightened away trade, and hence the guillotine was removed to the Place de St. WANDERINGS OF THE GUILLOTINE. 237 Antoine, in front of the ruins of the Bastile. To save time, this removal took place upon the Decadi. In five days it had executed ninety-six victims, when, on popular complaint — for the putrefaction of blood became a nuisance — its location was again changed, and it was set up in the Barriere du Trone, where it stood forty-nine days. Such was its fell activity, and so fully did it accomplish the predictions of Guillotin to the Assembly, that during these forty-nine days twelve hundred and seventy passed beneath the axe. The sufferers included all ages and ranks, and so great was the stream of blood, that a conduit was found necessary for its discharge from the scaffold. From the Barriere du Trone it was borne once more to the Place de la Revolution, and having thus almost made the tour of Paris, it reappeared in the square where it had received its most illustrious victims. The last day of its abode at the Barriere du Trone was the famed 9th Thermidor — the day of Robespierre's fall. Hardly had the guillotine been reerected in the Place de la Revolution, when he, the prostrate miscreant, pallid with loss of blood from attempted suicide, appears upon the scaffold with twenty-one of his adherents. The tyrant lies, helpless in the presence of the instrument of his vengeance. How many hundreds has he sent to look it in the face? How many hundreds have at his word been bound to the bascule, and trundled beneath the fatal axe? Upon this very spot, too — for here the blood of ' Bourbon and Girondin flowed together, in view of the Tuileries, and under the shadow of that same statue, apostrophized by the unfortunate Roland. The savage officials gloat over their victim — they have him at last — the Grand Master of these bloody scenes, as helpless 238 THE TRIBUNAL. in their grasp as one of liis own victims! They wrench the bandage from his shattered jaw; they bind him to the bascule, and trundle him forward, as at his beck they have done with thousands — and the descending axe avenges Paris and man- kind. * We have thus far narrated the movements of the guillotine because it seems to have afforded an abandoned, nation the instrument best adapted to its own destruction. We now return to the Tribunal. Its history leads us to reaffirm our position with increased earnestness. The equitable execution of laws, and the impartial administration of justice, are only found under the benign influence of Christianity. It is said that Franklin once exclaimed to Paine, "If the world be so bad with religion, what would it be without it ? " The question was one of moment, and we believe the present sketch will aid in affording a suitable reply; for if we find that mankind, after . having cast off God and his word, and abrogated the Sabbath, becomes cruel, implacable, and unjust to a remarable de- gree — and if, as a consequence, society be broken and the * The circumstances attending the arrest of Robespierre are much in dispute, and the question whether the pistol whose bullet shattered his fuce was lired by himself or by another, has never been settled. Leonard Bourdon presented to the Convention tho gen d'arme Moda (afterward Baron Meda), as the individual who shot the great outlaw. To this Lamartine adds, as a coincident fact, that Robespierre's pistols were found still loaded after his death. This, if true, removes the charge of suicide. Carlyle, however, asserts that he shot himself, while Coleridge iu his drama of the fall of Robespierre is wild enough to make the wound that of a knife. If the deed were not suicidal it was not for want of example in his own associates. Valaze stabbed himself in the thronged Tribunal when sentence was pronounced against the Girondms. Condorcet took poison in prison, and Paris, who slew Le Pelletier San Fargcau, escaped the guillotine by a similar deed. Other instances could be cited. INFIDELITY AND BLOODSHED. 239 race be found relapsing into barbarism, then we may honestly charge these results to Infidelity. It has been urged, on the other hand, that the excesses of which we speak arose from pojDular reaction — that they were the result of ancient abuses — of ages of oppression, which had unfitted the masses for self government, and held it in ignorance of liberty, until at last it burst into license. This statement is highly plausible. Yet even were it true, could it account for the prolonged blood- shed, and the horrors which for so long a time made Paris a vast charnel house? That there was a popular reaction, is very evident; but like all reactions, it was sudden, impe- tuous, and equally brief. It had abated even before the Reign of Terror commenced. The pages of history are not stained by the outbursts of an indignant populace, but by the insane violence of a nation of Atheists, which having renounced its Creator, and reviled his mercy, had been abandoned by Him to the full current of its own hideous depravity. Whatever may be the benefits which grew out of the Revolution as respects political reform — ^we contemplate as far more important the lesson it has taught us as to the danger of National Atheism. The chronological order of the List of Condamnds, and other authorities, which we are now quoting, give among the first the case of a servant woman, nearly sixty, charged with shouting in the streets, " Vive le HoiP^ and talking of her two sons in the royalist army. She denied remembering the shouting in the street — and as to speaking of her sons in the army, it was quite impossible, as she had never been a mother. Other evidence from her master and acquaintance went to show that she had never been even suspected of counter-revolutionary views. Nevertheless, this model jury 240 THE TRIBUNAL. brought in as their verdict, "77 est constant — that language tending to provoke the massacre of the National Convention, the dissolution of the Republic, and the reestablishment of royalty in France, has been held at different times in certain coffee-houses, and particularly on the 7th March, in the guard- house of St. Firmin. 2dly, That the pi'isoner is convicted of having used this language." Here the reader will note that an obscure domestic is made responsible for language said to have been used in "certain coffee-houses^^ where it is not proven that she had ever been, simply because, when in a state of intoxication, she had been locked up for a night in a guard-house, and there vittered the ordinary drivelling of drunkenness — yet for this offence she was the next morning guillotined, and her scanty effects confiscated. Shortly after, we have the case of a hackney coachman, charged with resistance to the city watch, and fur using, when under his arrest, indecent and seditious laniiua