• -■' ■,.'-■>...■ • *. - t' /.-. ^:^ /A/"^ ' >'\ '.■••V; I* L.i*^rx:^-"^i,!:. :r ^?^-j:tt; 4: 44'i :i^- . -r ^1L///% . t.'... pir/%.tj widely diverging methods. Of the new generation of poets, Lord Byron rose first, and assumed for a while the dictatorship of poetry and of popular applause. As his rise was sudden, so was his downfall ; and after being alternately flattered by the higliest encomiums^ and condemned by the bitter- est sneers, of his countrymen, he finally was entirely superseded by other schools. Then the " Lake poets," .at first and for many years assailed by the fiercest 144 GLIMPSES OF HISTORY, enmity of an almost unanimous critical opinion, and doomed by the most powerful censors to oblivion and ignominy, slowly approached the public ear, and finally established themselves securely in the popular esteem. Of the Lake school, Coleridge, Southey, and Wordsworth were the shining lights ; and they, uniting on common ground in their political, religious, and literary opinions, first opened a new path into which poetic inspiration should be directed, going back to the Elizabethan era in their disregard of met- rical accuracy. While this coterie was yet strug- ghng for supremacy, there appeared, trumpeted by Leigh Hunt in " The Examiner," what their contem- porary enemies contemptuously called the " Cockney school," of which Keats became the martyr and Shelley the hope. Attracted by the erratic genius of the one, and by the independent mind and warm heart of the other. Hunt proposed to himself the- glory of heralding the approach of a new era, which should eclipse the fairest periods of poetical history. The novel opinions to which the revolutionists of France gave birth, harmonizing with their enthusiastic spirits, became the creed of the Cockneys ; and their issues were heresies, the more dangerous because clothed in the alluring splendor of poetry. The result of so ill- judged an attempt to seduce public sentiment from an appreciation of healthy to a taste for morbid literature, was a just retribution upon its authors ; for Shelley LEIGH HUNT. 145 was not only expelled from the University of Oxford for atheistical opinions, but was shunned alike by literary men and by the public ; and Keats, after in- sanely endeavoring to gain for himself national favor, received, at the hands of the " Quarterly Review," a fatal blow to his current reputation, if not to his enduring fame. Leigh Hunt was endowed with much less genius, less independence, and more fore- sight, than his unfortunate friends. His writings evinced less originality, less brilliancy of imagination, less startling scepticism. He therefore escaped the withering rebukes of those critics who assumed, and soon acquired, the position of oracles. His mind, too, was more healthily organized than those of Shelley and Keats ; and instead of rushing headlong into the wild theories of Voltaire, he rejected the doc- trine of " liberty, equality, fraternity," as interpreted by the Jacobins and RepubKcans, and clung to limited monarchy with all its faults. For several generations the ancestors of Leigh Hunt, on his father's side, were natives of Barbadoes ; and his great-grandfather, grandfather, and father were all clergymen of the established church of England. Isaac Hunt, at an early age, was sent to college in Philadelphia, and afterwards in New York. It was at the latter place, as Leigh tells us, that a romantic incident occurred, which was materially to affect his future. When he was delivering his oration, 7 146 GLIMPSES OF BISTORT. at the close of his collegiate course, two young ladies among his audience, charmed, doubtless, no less by his graceful delivery and flowing style, than by his blue eyes and well-chiselled features, were so indiscreet as to fall in love with him. With one of them he was equally well pleased, and after a courtship which seems to have derived its chief charm from mutual recitations of the poets, they were married. It is an amusing feature of this incident, that the two ladies stood to each other in the relation of aunt and niece, though they were nearly of the same age. The mother of Leigh Hunt was a daughter of Stephen She well, a Philadelphia merchant of wealth, and of Quaker descent. Dr. FrankKn was intimate at his house, and once offered to teach Miss Shewell the guitar ; but she was too shy to accept his tutor- ship. Mr. Isaac Hunt was at first destined for the church ; but showing a disinclination to that profes- sion, he began the study of law in Philadelphia. When the revolution broke out, he warmly espoused the cause of the king ; and so earnest was he in the expression of his opinions, that he was mobbed by the populace. He was obliged to escape by stealth from the city, and succeeded in reaching a ship bound for England. He now entered the church ; and when Mrs. Hunt afterwards joined him, she found him offi- ciating as rector of Bentinck Chapel at Paddington. He afterwards became tutor to Mr. Leigh, nephew of LEIGH HUNT. 147 the Duke of Chandos, the gentleman for whom he named the subject of this sketch. He seems at this time to have had high hopes of a bishopric, through the influence of the diike, his patron ; but he never rose above the rectorship of a popuhir chapel. As Leigh Hunt describes his father, we cannot help assimilating him to Thackeray's character of Charles Honeyman, in " The N^ewcomes," with his smooth, liquid voice, his flowing style, his studied grace, his sleek appearance, and his occasional convivial indiscre- tions. He seems to have loved gayety and fun, and to have cared more for worldly comfort than for spirit- ual food. His indolence soon reduced him to poverty ; and although he had been popular as a preacher, he now found but few friends to relieve him. From a High-Churchman and a Tory, he became a Universalist and a semi-Republican ; and these later views of the father were inculcated in his early lessons to his son, who adhered to them through life. Mrs. Hunt is described by her son as a sensitive woman, keenly alive to the appearance of distress, melancholy, but withal of STcat moral courao:e. Leigh Hunt was born on the 19th of October, 1784, at Southgate, a beautiful village in Middlesex; a spot also known as the resting-place of Coleridge and Lamb, and formerly as the residence of Arbuth- not, xYkenside, Shelley, and Keats. He was a sickly child, and the village physician used to predict that 148 GLIMPSES OF HISTORY. he would die an idiot before he was fifteen. He was early sent to France to improve his health ; and such was the watchful solicitude of his mother, that he finally grew up a healthy, bright-eyed lad, ready at all times for study or frolic. As he became more mature, his character developed partly kfter the dis- position of his father, and partly after that of his mother. At times he would be happy and boisterous, and, donning his childish sword and cap, he would amuse himself with military sports ; at other times he would become grave and solemn, and stealthily ab- stracting his father's surplice and bands from the closet, would proceed to deliver a pompous homily to the astonished and dehghted servant-maid. His early childhood was passed during a period peculiarly eventful in the history of England. The American revolution, in which both his parents had a personal interest, had but a Httle before his. birth resulted in the success of the colonies. The French revolution was approaching, and ere long would burst upon the doomed people, and at one blow shake philosophy, religion, social order, and political sys- tem to their foundations. Burke, Fox, and Pitt were rising to the leadership of the House of Com- moms ; Goldsmith and Johnson had just disappeared forever from the scenes of their enduring triumphs ; Cowper was the presiding genius of poetry; the Empress Catharine was startling Europe by her mas- LEIOH HUNT. 149 culine energy; Great Britain was on the verge of passing from the government of a crazy father to that of a licentious and indolent son ; Voltaire and Paine were attracting to their intellectual dominion the flower of the continental youth ; Gibbon was alluring, by his specious sophistry, the minds of men from the perception of the true influence of Chris- tianity ; Sheridan was the dictator of the drama ; and Mrs. Siddons was just engaging the applause of the British public by her majestic presence and won- derful passion. Hunt's early recollection teemed with such remembrances as these. He had seen Pitt in the House of Commons appealing to his colleagues with a " loud, important, and hollow voice ; " he had looked with wonder upon Home Tooke, whom he had been taught to believe a man of surprising learn- ing and sagacity ; he had met John Wilkes and Charles Townshend, and was thus enabled to con- trast the ugliest and the handsomest man of the time ; he had listened with rapture to the queen of the British stage ; he had been charmed with the matchless beauty of the Duchess of Devonshire. In 1792 he was admitted a student in the school of Christ's Hospital, which was originally intended by Edward the Sixth as a foundation for poor orphan children born in London, but which afterwards ex- tended its benefits to the middle classes as well as the lower. In this school had been educated some of the 150 GLIMPSES OF EISTOET. first writers and scholars of England — Richardson, the genial author of " Pamela " and " Clarissa ; " Bishop Stilling-fleet, whose courtlj eloquence charmed the nobility of Queen Anne's time ; Mitchell, the translator of Aristophanes ; Home, the theologian ; Barnes, for many years editor of "The Times;" Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Charles Lamb. Leigh Hunt was placed in the grammar school, devoted to the instruction of those who intended pur- suing the liberal professions. Many are the amusing incidents of his school days with which he entertains us ; how the quaint dresses of the scholars used to astonish the passers in the street ; how, indignant at the cruelty of one of the larger scholars towards a smaller, he soundly thrashed the bully, and humbled him ; how the master, Boyer, was a tyrant after the fashion of Squeers, and seemed to delight in punish- ing poor Leigh for stammering ; how they were preached to alternately by exceedingly prosy and ex- ceedingly energetic divines ; how all the boys looked up to a Grecian, and how the Grecians used to walk straight forward, overturning wdth exquisite com- posure the smaller urchins who happened to be in their path; how many a cunning trick, sometimes successful, sometimes abortive, was played upon the dreaded master, and how a spirited boy once in a while braved his fury, and by impudence conquered him ; how he once saw Lamb, " with his fine inteUi- LEIGH HUNT. 151 gent face," on a visit to his Alma Mater ; with what enthusiasm . he spent his sixpences at the book-stall round the corner, on a humble edition of the poets ; how he learned to appreciate Homer and Ovid, to love Goldsmith and Pope, to study Atterbury and Wharton ; how he formed friendships lasting and de- lightful, which were always to be kept fresh; and with what tearful regret he finally left that scene of his joys and sorrows and his best friendships, and, assuming a hat and coat, entered once more the bustling world. It is the old story of school life in England, vividly told, and rich in pleasant details, attractive alike by its simplicity and its enthusiasm. While at this school he became intimate with two families, of which he speaks with such affectionate interest that we cannot avoid noticing them. One was that of Benjamin West, F. R. S., the illustrious painter and elegant gentleman. Mr. W^est had mar- ried a relative of Mrs. Hunt, and was an American by birth. In his house Leigh was ever welcome, and many were the delightful hours he spent there. He says of Mr. West, " He was a man with mild, regular features, and, though of Quaker origin, looked what he was, a painter to the court. His ap- pearance was so gentlemanly, that the moment he changed his gown for a coat he seemed to be full dressed." The young scholar was wont to wander with rapture among the productions of the artist's 152 GLIMPSES OF HISTORY. pencil ; rapt in admiration at Sir Philip Sidney giving up the water to the dying soldier ; awe- stricken at the wild brilliancy of Ophelia's counte- nance ; inspired with pious reverence as he gazed upon the calm, perfect face of Christ Healing the Sick. He says, "My mother and I used to go down the gallery as if we were treading on wool." The quiet kindness of the Wests, the pleasant humor of the artist, and the always cheerful welcome, awaken warm remembrances of those delightful visits. Nor does he forget to mention the footman, who figured in his master's pictures as an apostle, and the butler, who wore his own likeness with proud ostentation on his shirt bosom. The other family of which he retains pleasant rem- iniscences was that of Mr. Godfrey Thornton, who lived in Austin Friars. There his recollections teem with lawns and rich gardens, cordial welcomes and music, hospitality and female loveliness, a union of gayety and of intellectual delight. Leigh's first love was Fanny Dayrell, his cousin, a bright West Indian lass, who, as being older than liimself, used to dampen his ardor by contemptuously calling him petit gargon. She soon after married, and they were separated for many years ; but when they again met, after many vicissitudes to both, Leigh confesses to an emotion for which he had to seek his vdfe's forgiveness. LEIGH HUNT. 153 After leavinG: school he turned his attention to the study of the profession which he had determined to follow — the unsubstantial profession of literature. In 1802 his father published a volume of his verses, which, according to himself and every one else, were wretched. Nevertheless, the critics dealt with it with unaccountable gentleness, and for a time he was quite a Hon amono' the literati. He then became much interested in two subjects — the stage- and military life. Bonaparte was threatening to crown his victo- rious course by achieving the conquest of England. Volunteers were forthcoming in multitudes, and com- panies were set to drilling throughout the kingdom. Leigh Hunt enlisted, but was soon discharged, with the rest of the valorous youth, when the imagined occasion disappeared. He attended the opera and theatre sedulously, and gives us charming descrip- tions of the eminent artists of the day. Catalani, with her wonderful vocal volume ; Grassini, with her superb contralto ; Pasta, uniting grace and tender- ness ; Jack Bannister, with his fair, round John Bull face and hearty honesty; Munden, exciting a roar without uttering a sound ; Kemble, with his Roman stateliness and sonorous declamation ; Siddons, with her dreary and terrible majesty ; Mrs. Jordan, with her fine spirits and happy countenance, — all appear to us, through our author's delineation, moving, speak- 7 * 154 GLIMPSES OF HIS TOBY. ing, provoking us to sadness, mirth, and wonder, as they did the generation of fifty years ago. It was at this time that he wrote his first prose, confining himself mainly to theatrical criticism, which he contributed to a paper called "The Traveller." These essays were little better than his verses had been ; they nevertheless gained for him a species of popularity. He devoted himself more earnestly than ever to books, among which the novels of Fielding, Smollett, Radcliffe, and La Fontaine were his es- pecial favorites. This taste for novel-reading contin- ued throuo^h life. Few will a2:ree with his strictures on historians, for whom he entertained but little re- spect ; and his censure of them, as "assuming a dignity for which I saw no particular grounds, as unpliilosophic and ridiculous in their avoidance of personal anecdote, and, above all, as being narrow- minded and time-serving in confining their subjects to wars and party government," is unjust, exaggerated, and, as applied to the majority, totally false. But the writer for whom he evinces the most entire admi^ ration is Voltaire. This enemy of religion and order he erects into a noble reformer ; he contrives to find in him the most exalted virtues, while his vices are either ignored or rapidly passed over. It was un- doubtedly this author who imbued Leigh Hunt with those revolutionary ideas which afterwards brought upon him merited misfortune and obloquy. He be- LEIGH HUNT. 155 came a member of a debating club, among whose members were Thomas Wilde, afterwards Lord Chan- cellor Truro, and Frederick Poilok, now chief baron of the exchequer ; but a habit of stammering, which rendered it exceedingly difficult for him to speak in public, induced him to leave this assembly, and de- termined him against the pursuit of a political career. In the year 1805 his brother, John Hunt, estab- lished a paper called " The News," and Leigh was engaged to contribute to it the department of theatri- cal criticism. He determined to break loose from the custom which uniformly prevailed among critics, of exchanging compliments with the actors, and barter- ing puffs for tickets and suppers. He dashed about indiscriminately on the stage, doomed Betty to obliv- ion, assailed Kemble with a force which he imagined would annihilate the great Shakspearian, and sought, at the age of twenty-one, to obliterate the fame of " The Rivals " and " The School for Scandal." These criticisms were published in a volume in 1807. The project of " The News " having failed of success, the brothers Hunt again essayed as journalists, and in 1808 " The Examiner " appeared as the result of their plans. It was the intention of the proprietors to make this journal the organ of the radical Reform- ists, of the ultra liberal theologians, and of indepen- dent literary criticism. It went beyond Fox in its advocacy of political innovation ; it tended towards, 156 GLIMPSES OF HISTORY. if it did not encourage, an approval of Bonaparte's career ; and it was unscrupulously malignant towards the king and his ministers. For a short time Leigh Hunt was a clerk in the war office, at the head of which Lord Sidmouth presided : but finding him- self placed in the invidious position of attacking the party in power, while he was fed by its generosity, he resigned his position, and devoted himself exclu- sively to literary labor. While editor of " The Ex- aminer," he made the acquaintance of many literary men, whose names have since become household words. At the table of Mr. HUl, proprietor of "The Monthly Mirror," he met the generous and sensitive author of " The Pleasures of Hope." He describes him as a genial companion, overflowing with humor, free and cordial, lively and earnest in conversation, not without a mixture of sarcasm, and, though rarely, of bitterness. His personal appear^ ance — which indeed we might guess from his por- traits — was classically handsome, and his manners elegant and scholastic. " Some gentle Puritan," says Hunt, " seemed to have crossed the breed, and to have left a stamp upon his face ; " but " he appeared not at all grateful for this, and when his critiques and his VirgHianism were over, very unlike a Puritan he talked ! " Under the same hospitable roof he also found Theodore Hook, whose talent for extempore verse astonished and amused the company, while his LEIGH HUNT. 157 imitations of eminent characters were the more ludi- crous for their lifelikeness. The comedian Matthews entertained them with similar exhibitions, remorse- lessly bringing forth Garrick, Siddons, and Sir Wal- ter, for the edification of his friends. James and Horace Smith, the authors of " Rejected Addresses," also contributed to the good cheer of the guests. " The Examiner," meanwhile, became so bitter in its onslaughts upon the government, that two prosecu- tions for libel were brought against the proprietors by Sir Vicary Gibbs, the attorney general, both of which were, however, dropped before they reached the judg- ment of the court. One of these libels was an attack on the Duke of York, then commanding the army in chief, for corruption in the sale of commissions ; the other was a contemptuous article on the king. About this time (1809) Leigh Hunt married Marianne, daughter of Thomas Kent, Esq. In 1810, so suc- cessful had " The Examiner " become, on account of its popularity among the lower classes, that Mr. John Hunt established a quarterly magazine called " The Reflector," and the duty of editing it devolved on Leigh Hunt. To this periodical several of the most prominent writers contributed, among others. Lamb, Barnes, Dyer, and Aikin; but, in spite of every effort, it failed through want of encouragement. The fact was, that the Radicals were not generally from the richer classes, and hence* could not support 158 GLIMPSES OF HISTORY. a quarterly. It lived long enough, however, to give utterance to much partisan venom ; and in its early pages appeared a work by Leigh Hunt, which his own subsequent judgment failed to justify, and in which many noble writers were attacked, namely, " The Feast of the Poets." It presented to the ridi- cule of the public the most eminent poets of the age, and was particularly severe upon Sir Walter Scott ; the principal objection to whom, in the author's mind, seems to have been that he was a Tory. The author himself acknowledges this production to have been " a just ground of offence ; " and certain it is that it brought down upon . him nearly every literary celeb- rity, and caused an enmity to his paper whicli. well nigh destroyed its existence. An excessive act of presumption soon after completed the ruin which he had barely escaped by the denunciation of critics. At an annual dinner of the Irish on St. Patrick's day, 1812, the name of the prince regent was re- ceived with groans and hisses. After some discussion of this indignity by the Whig and Tory organs, "The Examiner," ever ready for a verbal affray, took up the subject, and came out in the severest denunciation of of the heir apparent. Hunt went so far in this arti- cle as to call the prince a liar, a libertine head over ears in disgrace, a despiser of domestic ties, the com- panion of gamblers and demireps, and other epithets equally gross. The government was prompt in LEIOH HUNT. 159 bringing the authors of this libel to the judicial bar. The result was, that, after a careful trial, Leigh Hunt and his brother were sent to prison for two years, and fined one thousand pounds. Such was the state of our author's health, that confinement in the ordinary cells might endanger his life ; he was therefore transferred to the prison infirmary. Here he found a pleasant room, leading into a small but tasteful garden. " I papered the walls with a trellis of roses ; I had the ceiling colored with clouds and sky ; the barred windows I screened with Venetian blinds ; and when my bookcases were set up with their busts, and flowers and a piano-forte made theu' appearance, perhaps there was not a handsomer room that side of the water." Thus with his exquisite taste did he contrive to make his new abode inhabitable ; he had his family about him ; his books were at his elbow ; pen and paper were at hand, ready to fix a passing thought ; and — what was no mean con- sideration — he had a jailer who was anxious to make him comfortable and happy. It was while he was imprisoned that he made the acquaintance of some of the first men pf the time. Thomas Moore and Lord Byron visited him in his seclusion. Hazlitt came to cheer and amuse the martyred Radical. The ven- erable Bentham, now grown old in the service of political science, took pains to make the acquaintance of one about whom so much had been said. The 160 GLIMPSES OF HISTORY. Lambs, too, ever ready to extend their sympathy to those in distress, were constant in their exertions to relieve his discomfort. On the 3d of February, 1815, Hunt again breathed free air. He took board with his family soon after his release on the Edore- ware Road, near his brother's house. It was here that the acquaintance with Lord Byron ripened into friendship. Hunt's recollection of this remarkable person was that of a rather corpulent and strikingly handsome man, whose countenance wore an expres- sion " of spirit and elevation," and who had " a very noble look." Byron seems at this time to have taken a liking to Hunt's society, and frequently urged him to go to the theatre and other amusements with him. His calls were very often repeated ; and, as it was before the current of public opinion hstd turned against him, he was always vivacious and good- humored. Another visitor at his house, soon after his release from prison, was William Wordsworth. Upon Hunt's showing him his own works beside those of Milton in the library, the poet felt much gratified, and from that moment looked upon the author of the flattery with favor. He was a dig- nified man, with a rough but pleasant voice, pre- maturely gray and bald, with a very grand manner of speaking. "I never beheld," says Hunt, "eyes that looked so inspired or supernatural." In the year 1816 Mr. Hunt went to reside in LEIGH HUNT. 161 Hampstead for his health ; and here he finished his " Story of Rimini," which had been commenced before his imprisonment. This poem is pronounced by the English critics the best that ever issued from his pen. It was after the manner of Dryden, and some portions of the poem are not unworthy imita- tions of him. We are now at that period w^hen he formed the remarkable friendship with Percy Bysshe Shelley, which was to remain tender and uninterrupted during the life of the latter. He had seen Shelley early in his own career as a journalist, but it was not until 1816 that they were so thrown together as to become intimate ; and meanwhile those domestic calamities and discords had occurred which nearly made the poet mad. Shelley and Keats met each other for the first time in Hunt's house at Hampstead. Our author had met the latter when he was at w^ork on '' The Ex- aminer," and they had been mutually pleased. The young poets, aristocratic and plebeian, became friends, although Keats was rather shy at first, distrustful of men of gentle birth. In somfe points of character they resembled each other closely ; in others they were utterly opposite. Both were melancholy, look- ing naturally upon the dark side of every question and circumstance. Both tended towards atheism, and both were radical reformists in morals, society, and government. Both rejected the ancient models 162 GLIMPSES OF HISTORY. of poetry. But Keats was sullen, suspicious, and cold ; Shelley was cordial, ingenuous, and simple- hearted. Keats dreaded, and Shelley longed to love, every man. Keats harped upon specific subjects, and thought in a limited sphere; Shelley at one time gloried in the fields, and flowers, and landscapes ; at another, was held in awe by mighty subjects of eternal moment. But it melts our dislike of Keats's irritable- ness into compassion for his misery, when we think of that young life, wasted by malignant disease, dis- appointed in every hope by continued neglect or in- sult, — when we see him departing from his native land, which he was never again to behold, dragging his weary body to Italy, and, to the last despairing, but gentle, lying down to die among the tombs and ruins of the Eternal City. "Keats, when he died," says Leigh Hunt, " had just completed his four-and- twentieth year. He was under the middle height; and his lower limbs were small in comparison with the upper, but neat and well turned. His shoulders were very broad for his size ; he had a face in which energy and sensibiht^ were remarkably mixed up, — an eager power, checked and made patient by ill health. Every feature was at once strongly cut and delicately alive ; the eyes mellow and glowing, large, dark, and sensitive. At the recital of a noble action or a beautiful thought they would suffuse with tears, and his mouth trembled." LEIGH HUNT. 163 Unfortunately for the prosperity of "The Examiner," Tory principles guided a large majority of the Eng- lish people, as well as of the continental communities ; and in the year 1821 it had reached the end of its in- fluence. Leigh Hunt, discouraged by the failure of his exertions in that direction, now determined to accept the invitation of his friend Shelley, who pressed him to go to Italy, where the latter was then residing. Shelley had conceived the project of estab- lishing, conjointly with Byron and Hunt, a periodical of liberal bias, to advocate the ideas which were con- genial to them all, to edit it in Italy, and to circulate it throughout Europe. Hunt embarked with his family in a vessel bound for the Mediterranean in November, 1821 ; but, being disabled by a storm in the Channel, the ship was obliged to put in at Plym- outh. There Hunt remained, takinof lod^inos for the winter, until May, 1822, when he again sailed, and arrived at Genoa in the middle of the foUowino^ o month. His description of the voyage, his impres- sions on seeing for the first time the celebrated spots on the route, and his reflections while on shipboard, are full of interest. He staid in Genoa but a day or two, and set sail on the 28th of June for Leghorn, where he was to meet Byron and Shelley. He found the noble poet cosily domiciled at a delightful villa called Monte Nero, a short drive from the city, — the same house, indeed, which Smollett, the novelist, 164 GLIMPSES OF HISTORY. had occupied in his last days. Thence he went, in company with Byron, to Leghorn, where they met Shelley ; and they all repaired to Pisa, the city resi- dence of Byron. Hunt was provided with apart- ments in Byron's house. The three enthusiasts, wandering about the curious old city, gave themselves up to rapturous dreams of future renown, and eagerly discussed projects which were to confound their ene- mies and astonish their friends. Their delightful companionship was, however, doomed to a most melancholy end by Shelley's death. " Shelley, when he died," writes Hunt, " was in his thirtieth year. His figure was tall and slight, and his constitution consumptive. Though well turned, his shoulders were bent a little, owing to premature thought and trouble. The same cause had touched his hair with gray. Like the Stagirite's, his voice was high and weak. His eyes were large and animated, with a dash of wildness in them ; his face small, but well shaped, particularly the mouth and chin, the turn of which was very sensitive and graceful." Hunt remained three months at Pisa after his friend's decease, and thence went to Genoa with Byron. There they set about the work which had brought them to Italy, the publication of a periodical called " The Liberal." In the first number of this work appeared Shelley's last poem, an elegant trans- LEIGH HUNT. 165 lation from Goethe, called " The May-Day Night." At Genoa, Leigh Hunt occupied the same house with Mrs. Shelley, while Byron took a separate residence, the Casa Pallavicini. Here, owing to a broad differ- ence of character, and dissimilarity of literary taste, the friendship between the editors of " The Liberal " began to cool, and in the end turned to absolute dislike. Hunt attributes this result to his own un- willingness to humor Byron's vanity, and to praise his works in terms sufficiently enthusiastic. Byron's friends, on the contrary, assert that he had, in the first instance, overrated the literary merit of Hunt ; that he discovered him to be entirely incompetent to cooperate with him in his plans ; that Hunt became jealous of the other's superior powers and fame, and that it was only at his earnest solicitation that Byron first entertained the idea of joint editorship. Hunt's description of his intercourse with Byron while in Italy is very entertaining. The noble poet, he tells us, sat up late at night writing "Don Juan," with a bowl of gin and water at his elbow. He did not rise till late, and then only to lounge about the gar- den, whistling or singing, chewing tobacco to prevent corpulency, or indulging in jocular conversation with those he happened to meet. He wore a nankeen jacket, white vest and trousers, and a small velvet cap. Thek difference of opinion did not prevent good-humored banterings and discussions ; and they 166 GLIMPSES OF HISTORY. joked each other on the fact that there was only one book which both greatly admired, and that was Bos- well's Johnson. Byron, in his jocular moods, used, for sport, to imitate Johnson in his manner and con- versation, as well as other men of note. After the vain attempt to make "The Liberal" success- ful, it was abandoned. Lord Byron went to Greece ; Hunt remained at Genoa. Hunt gives us a vivid portrait of that noble city, describing its lovely site, the appearance, peculiarities, and manners of its people, the mode in which it is built, and the splendor of its edifices ; accompanying us through the stately cathedrals, the galleries in which hang Raphaels and Giulios, the opera-houses, and the pal- aces of the illustrious dead. In the summer of 1823 he removed to Florence, so full of attraction to one who cherished historical and aesthetic reminiscences. He took a pleasant villa about two miles from the city, in a small place called Maiano. Here had once lived Boccaccio, who made the vicinity the scene of two of his stories in the " Decameron," and who revelled in its graceful and varied landscape. Near by, too, was the house which was once the property of Machiavelli ; and at a short distance stood the village of Settignano, where Michael An- gelo first learned to animate the marble with his mar- vellous creations. A man could not but be happy among such memorials. He had, too, English LEI as HUNT. 167 neighbors to sympathize in his tastes, and to talk over home news with him ; and in Florence he be- came acquainted with Landor, who was already emi- nent as a poet of nature, and whose interest in the historical attractions of Florence equalled that of Hunt himself. Lord Dillon also contributed, by his cordial temperament and elegant erudition, to make the days pass pleasantly. Our author meanwhile labored as much as his health would permit, translated Redi's "Bacco in Toscana," and wrote various essays which he called " The Wishing-Cap," and which were the foundation of his larger work, "The Town." He attempted to establish a quarterly, which was to contain selections from the best English reviews for the entertainment of English residents ; but the sensitiveness of the Tuscan government as to political articles, and their fear lest something revolutionary might creep into the new periodical, made the endeavor futile. He wrote also parts of another work, which he called " Chris- tianism, or Belief and Unbelief Reconciled." It af- terwards appeared, revised with additions, under the title of "Religion of the Heart." After staying about two years among localities which enchanted him. Hunt started, in the autumn of 1825, on his return journey, going overlantt, travelling slowly in carriages. In this way he had fine opportunities for observing the varieties in Italian 168 GLIMPSES OF HISTORY. scenery, people, and manners, passing through Bo- logna, Modena, Reggio, Parma, Asti, Turin, Susa; thence crossing from the Po over the Alps to Savoy, Chambery (where he visited Rousseau's house), Lyons, and finally to Paris. He remained in the French metropolis two days only, in which time he hastily visited the places where the main incidents of the revolution were enacted, the palaces, and the gal- leries, not forgetting to spend a good share of his time in searchino; amonsf the book-stalls. On the 14th of October he reached England, having been abroad more than three years. It was, indeed, with a feeling of infinite relief that he found himself again in his own country. He had recovered tolerably good health, had seen the glories of Italy, and had become a wiser man by his sojourn abroad ; but meanwhile the want of regular employment had told upon his means of subsistence, and made him uneasy and dissatisfied. To one who had been so long among the rich scenery of Tuscany, the healthy freshness of Enghsh landscape seemed a relief; for, however much he admired the one, his choice was to live and die amid home scenes. "The pleasantest idea," says he, " which I can conceive of this world, as far as one's self and one's enjoyments are con- cerned, is to possess some favorite home in one's native country, and then travel over all the rest of the globe with those whom we love ; always being LEian HUNT. 169 able to return if we please ; and ever meeting with new objects as long as we choose to stay away." Hunt's intimate connection with what was termed the " Cockney school " (to which, by the by, he claims that Chaucer, Milton, and Pope belonged), placed him at some disadvantage, owing to the un- popularity of its leading representatives. The Tories, stringently orthodox alike in politics and religion, opposed vehemently a class of men who aimed their most powerful anathemas against the existing institu- tions of both ; and the Tories, backed by the king and the influence of Wellington, as well as by Sir Walter Scott, Southey, Coleridge, and other equally popular literary celebrities, were the controlling party in all matters of opinion. Hunt had friends, how- ever, who appreciated him, and to the restricted measure of their ability encouraged his efforts to obtain a livelihood by his pen. AJthough he seems to have retained a cheerful disposition, he was ex- hausted by repeated and unsuccessful effort, while his health again became precarious. He took up his residence at Highgate, and there wrote the series of essays now known to the world as " The Companion." He also wrote, about this time, " Sir Ralph Esher," which is a fictitious memoir of a gentleman at the court of Charles II. It is a very entertaining little book, and presents in a free and unconstrained style the manners of those times, and some of the historical 8 170 GLIMPSES OF HISTORY. characters. The vicinity of London was the only- place in which literary labor could be conveniently pursued ; and so Hunt removed to Old Brompton, and took rooms with Mr. Knight, with whom he issued a small daily paper called " The Tatler." This periodical was confined to literary and theatrical subjects, which contracted its circulation so far, that after a doubtful prosperity of three years it ceased. In 1833 his poems were collected, and issued by sub- scription. The liberal reform of 1832, and the l)enignant reign of William the Fourth, had produced a marked change in public sentiment : Tory politics and Hjgh Church prelates no longer assumed a censorship over every emanation from the press ; and conse- quently the new volume was far from unpopular, and met with unexpected success. Meanwhile, the pre- carious state of Hunt's own health, and that of his family, induced him to remove to the quiet town of Chelsea, where they could enjoy pure air, freedom from bustle, and an easy access to the verdure of fields and meadows ; while a proximity to the me- tropolis afforded every opportunity for comfort and convenient labor. Here he continued portions of his work, " The Town," contributed frequently to the Edinburgh and Westminster, and projected a period- ical called ^^ The London Journal ; " besides which he wrote a poem entitled " Captain Sword and Captain Pen." " The London Journal " continued until 1836, LEIGE HUNT. 171 and was, as we might expect, of an entirely literary cbaracter, being made up of essays, criticisms, quota- tions, and, rarely, political articles. Hunt had always had a taste for the drama, and a strong desire to try his hand at dramatic writing ; and at different periods of his life he had attempted, unsuccessfully, to produce a good play. While at Chelsea, he again essayed in this field, and completed a piece called " The Legend of Florence." He greatly enjoyed this occupation ; and the product of his labor, though at first rejected by the managers, was finally brought on the boards of Covent Garden in 1840. It met with decided success ; the actors were delighted with it ; Planch^ and Mrs. Kean, according to the author, were affected to tears by it ; and, what was its chief victory, the queen herself patronized its performance. He also wrote " The Secret Marriage," — a piece founded on a tale of Navarre, which did not please the managers, but dis- plays no small merit, — "Lover's Amazements," " The Double," " Look to your Morals," and " The Palfrey." It was while residing at Chelsea that he formed an acquaintance with one whose later works have elevated him to the first rank of philosophical essayists, and whose productions had then made his name well kno\^Ti as a rising writer. We refer to Thomas Carlyle, " whose eyes," says Leigh Hunt, " are the finest, in every sense of the word (and I 172 GLIMPSES OF HISTORY. have seen many fine ones) , which I have seen in a man's head." Hunt considers him a most eloquent man, with a kind and philanthropic heart, and a brain on fire at the wrongs and sophistries of mankind. His view of Carlyle's manner of attacking worldly evils is, that it is more rough and unforgiving than the author's nature would lead one to suppose ; and he says, " I believe that what Mr. Carlyle loves better than his fault-finding, with all its eloquence, is the face of any human creature that looks suffering, and loving, and sincere." An application was made by the friends of Leigh Hunt to Viscount Melbourne, the premier, for a pen- sion, on the ground that a Liberal ministry could afford to assist one who had so long contended in be- half of the now dominant doctrines. But, although the courtesy of the minister forbade a blunt refusal, nothing further was gained from him than a bland and indefinite promisci Hunt thinks it was because Lord Melbourne considered it unbecoming in a sov- ereign, to grant a pension to a person, who had been imprisoned by his predecessor, for a libel against the crown ; certainly this was a proper ground of refusal. His friends, failing in this project, set about another method for reUeving his poverty. An amateur the- atrical performance was given at Birmingham and Liverpool for his benefit; Ben Jonson's play of " Every Man in his Humor " was enacted ; Charles LEIGH HUNT. 173 Dickens took the part of " Bobadil," and personated it admirably ; Forster and Jerrold helped to fill up the role ; Sergeant Talfourd and Sir Edward Bulwer composed an appropriate address for the occasion ; and the affair terminated with applause to the distin- guished actors, and substantial profit to the recipient of the testimonial. He removed from Chelsea to Kensington, where he wrote " Imagination and Fancy," " Stories from Italian Poets," and " The Jar of Honey," and completed "The Town." He also wrote at this time the main part of the biography which is now before us. In 1849 he revived " The London Journal " for a while, but it failed from the usual cause — want of funds. He was much pleased to find that his works had been republished in Amer- ica, and enjoyed a good degree of popularity here ; and he also had the satisfaction of seeing several of his dramas successfully reproduced in the principal theatres of the metropolis. In the autumn of 1832 he lost a son of great merit, who promised to become eminent as a poet, and whose last words were, as his father says, " poetry itself." " I drink the morning," said he, as he drank some water which refreshed him. The latest literary labors of Leigh Hunt were devoted to the revision and extension of his book entitled "Religion of the Heart," in which are set forth his theological opinions. It is in a genial, 174 G,LIMPSES OF BISTORT. hopeful strain. It was eminently a work of love, not written for gain, but put forth when age had ceased to crave lucre, and with the evident intention to do good. It was his dying legacy to his children and to the world ; and such is the calm and loving tender- ness with which he treats every subject that passes in review before him, that one must be drawn towards him, with all his faults of self-conceit and eccen- tricity. His wife died in 1857 ; and in his closing pages he pays her a pathetic tribute of affection. He describes her as generous, "free from every kind of jealousy, superior to illusions from the ordinary shows of prosperity." She had through life borne with him the vicissitudes of fortune without a mur- mur, and even cheerftdly, and, when thoroughly sick and exhausted, never uttered a complaint. She was quite remarkable for the use of her pencil, received compliments from Mr. West for her proficiency in that respect, and was especially skilftil in the deline- ation of the human profile. Our author himself had but just given the final touch to his autobiography, when he, too, was sum- moned to the other world. He died, at the age of seventy-five, on the 28th of August, 1859, two years after his wife's departure. " So gentle," says his son, " was the final approach, that he scarcely recognized it till the very last, and then it came without terrors." His health had been failing gradually for some years ; LEIQB HUNT, 175 and so his friends were surprised neither by the ap- proach nor by the calmness of his death. He had employed his last hours in assisting in the prepara- tion of the " Shelley Memorials," * designed to vin- dicate and to celebrate the character of his early and best beloved friend. His memory, his clear, quick mind, his kindly temper, his love of humor, his attachment to books, remained to the last day of his life. Sickness, vrhich had enfeebled his body, had fortunately spared to him the use of those facul- ties w^hich to him vrere peculiarly precious. He had lived to see the political reform of which he had been an earnest advocate gradually on the ascendant ; he had survived most of his contemporaries ; he had attained a place among the celebrated writers of his day. These few words of his son show that to the last he retained an interest in the world without, and that his affectionate nature was alive almost in death : " His failing breath was used to express his sense of the inexhaustible kindness he had received from the family who had been so uaexpectedly made his nurses ; to draw from one of his sons, by minute, eager, and searching questions, all that he could learn about the latest vicissitudes and growing hopes of Italy ; to ask the friends and children around him for news of those whom he loved ; and to send love and messages to the absent who loved him." * Edited by Mrs. Shelley 176 GLIMPSES OF HISTOBY, • In personal appearance, Leigh Hunt was tall and straight, while his eyes were black and very brilliant. His hair, early in life, was dark, but as he grew older, changed to pure white. His complexion was dark. His face was intellectual, and withal indicated by its genial expression that he had a great heart. He had to a large degree that power of attracting the affection of others by a winning sympathy and a cor- dial manner, which he so enthusiastically attributes to his friend Charles Lamb. He was ever thinking, talking, and writing of his friends, always anxious to please them, and his chief enjoyment seems to have been in their companionship. The three salient traits that appear in his works and in his record of himself are amiableness, self-esteem, and a- sprightly and al- most romantic imagination. To the first he owed his chief happiness in Hfe ; the second enabled him to keep up a stout heart against disappointment ; the third gave him the power and the will so to write that he has cheered many a weary soul, and filled many a win- ter evening with entertainment and instruction. His philosophy of life was, to look on the best phase of every subject and circumstance, never to despair, to meet rebuffs with a cheerful countenance, and to endure misfortune with fortitude, hoping for and living in a better time to come. In this way he sur- vived political persecution and critical denunciation, bore sickness with patience, was melancholy without LEIOB HUNT. 177 being misanthropic, was cheerful in the midst of pov- erty, made a happy home in a prison, and finally died, at a good old age, contented, calm, and looking back with complacency on a varied, but on the whole successful career. 8* IX. ALEXIS DE TOCaUEVILLE. « ALEXIS DE TOCQUEYILLE was descended from a house which traces its origin Back for many- centuries . The name of the family was Clerel; but, being of gentle blood, they took their present surname of Tocqueville, which is derived from the ancient manor on which they have dwelt for many generations. Up to the middle of the seventeenth century, they Hved at Rampan, a smaU village near St. Lo, whence they were formerly known as the Clerels de Rampan. The ancestry of Alexis, under this name, occupied an honorable, and often an eminent, rank among their contemporaries. They appear to have been actively engaged in political and military events, and to have established a family reputation which has been worthily sustained to the present day. They were a chivalric and spirited race, and were distinguished for that lofty sense of honor which especially marked the higher orders of French society in former times. The courtesy, energy, and independence of the an- cient noblesse are easily discernible in the character of (178) ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE. 179 the scion of the house of Clerel of whose life we write. During the seventeenth century, the Clerels re- moved to a small settlement on the coast of Norman- dy, named Tocqueville, possibly from Toki, an ancient chief in those parts. Here the heirs of the family have resided down to the present time, spending their lives in the dignity and ease of landed gentlemen, indulging in rural sports, and assuming honorable responsibilities, looked up to with respect by their humbler neighbors, and occasionally emerging to take a distinguished part in political and militai-y move- ments. The father of Alexis was heir of the manor, and early came into possession of his patrimony. During the brief and delusive lull, which, in 1793, intervened between the execution of Louis the Six- teenth and the gloomy tyranny of the Jacobins, he married Mademoiselle de Rosambo, a granddaughter of the celebrated Malesherbes. That heroic old loyalist, after defending the king whom he loved, before the insurgent Convention, at the peril of his life, had retired in despair to mourn the death of his sovereign, and to deplore the ruin of his country. It was a sad time in which to celebrate a marriage, and the festivities were brief and unostentatious. The fehcities of the honeymoon were soon dissipated by the horrors which attended the nation without a ruler ; for within a year after the celebration of the nuptials. 180 GLIMPSES OF HISTORY. the violence of the revolutionists, which everywhere sought the destruction of the ancient aristocracy, descended upon their family ; and the venerable states- man, after witnessing the execution of his daughter, granddaughter, and her husband, Chateaubriand, himself paid the penalty of his devotion to royalty upon the scaffold. Even the youthful count and his bride were seized and imprisoned for the pretended crimes of her ancestors, and would have shared a like fate, had not the fall of Robespierre restored them to freedom. They hastened from the Conciergerie to Tocqueville, where they found that their villa had happily escaped anarchical fury ; and here they resided in seclusion for many years. Alexis was born at Paris, on the 29th of July, 1805, and was the third son. Although his father was an aristocrat, and in good circumstances, his early education does not appear to have been well cared for. But a love of books was natural to him; and so assiduously did he devote himself to study, when his mind was sufficiently ripe to appreciate the value of knowledge, that he succeeded in entering the college of Metz about 1820; and in 1822 he was awarded the first prize in rhetorical composition. All his tastes led him to desire active, and at the same time intellectual pursuits ; and he chose the law for his profession. He was soon appointed juge audi- teur of Versailles, where his father was prefect. He ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE. 181 had, in the year before his appointment, made a tour of Italy and Sicily in company with his brother Ed- ward. The great subjects which subsequently en- grossed his thoughts appear to have agitated him thus early in his career. Instead of dwelling upon the stately palaces and the renowned temples, the relics of ancient art and the marvels of modern skill, he in- vestigated the manners of the people, their political, moral, and religious tendencies, their estimation of and capacity for government, and the comparative intelligence and virtue of ancient and modern Italy. He was already gathering that rich fund of experience, and attaining that high capacity for observation, which years afterwards enabled him to step, with one effort, into the first rank of political philosophers. His early impressions, derived from a mother who had witnessed the tragical desolation of her family, and who was in the midst of the terrible scenes enacted by the revolutionists, had made him an earnest and thoughtful student of the causes and in- fluence of those stirring events. He was fired with the contemplation of the wrongs suffered by his kin- dred and his countrymen, which stimulated him to attempt the interpretation of the great enigma of the eighteenth century. He had learned from the lips of surviving witnesses the contempt of order, the dese- cration of religion, the fierce Vandalism, and the prostitution of the name of liberty, which composed 182 GLIMPSES OF BISTORT. the salient features of Jacobin ascendency. He had himself experienced the degradation, of the higher orders, and the subversion of the established status of society ; he saw that the dangers of pure democracy counterbalanced, among a mercurial and restless race like the French, the evils of monarchy ; and yet he vras forced to admit that liberty and progress were incompatible with the bigoted government of Charles the Tenth. Hence we find him, at the early age of nineteen, considering the political condition of the countries through which he travelled, and dedu- cing inferences applicable to France. Having entered upon his magisterial duties in 1827, he brought to their discharge vigilance and acuteness, and soon achieved eminence in his department. But the drudgery of the bench failed to satisfy the craving of his restless mind. As a relief to the tedious routine of his office, he turned aside with De Beaumont, his colleague and friend, to the congenial study of history. The enthusiasm with which he pursued his favorite researches, the sagacity with which he unravelled causes and effects from the dry materials of facts and dates, and the discernment with which he deduced general principles from the habits and opinions of different ages, and by comparing different nations, predicted, when he had scarcely attained his majority, the certainty of future triumphs. Meanwhile, the political events of 1827-8 por- ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE. 183 tended unusual convulsions. The popular party be- gan to manifest symptoms of resistance to the estab- lished order. The Legitimists, encouraged by a monarch who, to a weak and capricious intellect, added a stubborn indifference to the welfare of his people, and who did not hesitate to assert his be- lief in the divine right of the crown, resisted with firmness the appeals for reform which came up to Paris from every part of the nation. Literary con- troversy and theoretical speculation were fomenting discontent throughout the land. Charles, remember- ing that his prototype and namesake of England had fallen by yielding, vainly imagined that he could sustain himself by resisting. De Tocqueville, who had studied history differently, and, as subsequent events proved, far more sagaciously, looked upon the course of the king with misgiving, and predicted his inevitable downfall when Polignac became first minister. • The young philosopher, nevertheless, viewed with dread the approach of another revolution. He saw, on one side, the intelligence, the religion, the moral and intellectual element of France ; on the other, an irresponsible and anarchical power, composed of an ignorant and unreasoning mass. While the mon- archy was sustained by the virtue, the revolution was sustained by the iniquity and vice, of the nation. If the monarchy successfully resisted its antagonists, and 184 GLIMPSES OF HISTORY, built its permanence on tlie oppression of the people, he could see no hope of preserving the cause of con- stitutional liberty. If another revolution should pre- vail over the established order, demolishing with a sudden stroke the status which had scarcely recov- ered from the shock of 1789, foUovred by a usurpa- tion of fanatics and atheists, vrith all the disastrous results of anarchy, there seemed but little better prospect of the restoration of tranquillity. If he had been a selfish man, his interest would have led him to support the crown. His father had been created a peer of France by Louis the Eighteenth. He belonged to the old noblesse, wliich, after the vicissitudes of 1789 and the empire, had been restored with the Bourbon dynasty. Most of the influence he then possessed was owing: to his hioh birth and connections. His family had been prominent among the victims of Robespierre. He was just now entering a career which promised the richest rewards of genius. But with all these influences, he could not support a dy- nasty which prided itself on its opposition to the pop- ular demand, which was gradually undermining the remnants of liberty bequeathed by the first revolu- tion, and which feared innovation as the instrument of its destruction. The revolution came : it was accomplished without blood ; the king was driven from the capital, and the Due d'Orleans, his cousin, was raised to the throne. ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE. 185 De Tocqiieville was neutral in the contest. He now, with great reluctance, took the oath prescribed by the new government, in the faint hope that a change for the better had been made, and that the new king would be forced to govern constitutionally, as a means of safety. He taught himself to bear what could not be remedied, yet did not approve what his conscience condemned. He rather acquiesced in than supported the revolution of 1830 ; and he did so with a hesitation which indicated that, while prin- ciple remained unshaken, necessity compelled a course which his convictions reprobated. In 1831, M. de Beaumont, his colleague in the magistracy, was removed from that position by the government ; and De Tocqueville, deprived of his presence and counsel, immediately resigned his own office, and willingly retired from the annoyances of the bench. He was gratified to obtain a commission from the interior department, jointly with De Beau- mont, to proceed to the United States for the purpose of viewing the penitentiary system. This was only the means, however, to a noble end which he had- pro- posed to himself. He wished to see the only country in the world in which democracy had become recon- ciled to order and stability ; in which popular educa- tion was the regulator of the political system ; in which the highest degree of freedom had been made compatible with an effective police, a prompt admin- 186 GLIMPSES OF ETSTOBY, istration of justice, and a competent form of govern- ment. It was his ambition to view our institutions as a Frenchman, yearning to find the great remedy which should cure what was beoinnino^ to be the chronic distemper of his country. It was necessary, in order to comprehend our national fabric, to come among us, to trace back every effect to its cause, to view, if possible, the operation of the system with American prejudices, and to consider with a philo- sophic eye " the march of ideas and feelings." While he devoted much labor to the official enter- prise which he had undertaken, his main work was the study of American liberty ; and he studied it not more as a philosopher, or as a theorist, than as a patriot. " America," he says, " was only the frame ; my picture was Democracy." He devoted two years, on his return, to the com- position of the work which brought him, by a mar- vellous transition, from obscurity- to renown. He had not reached his thirtieth year when " Democracy in America " appeared. It was at once hailed as the result of a great mind. No European had before comprehended American liberty. No philosopher had before penetrated so far into the problem of democracy. In that work were exhibited, with a strength worthy of Johnson, and an accuracy which Parr might have envied, the virtues and the deficien- cies of popular power. The picture was not more ALEXIS BE TOCQUEVILLE, 187 excellent for the brilliancy of its coloring and the beauty of its arrangement, than for the symmetry of its whole, and the vividness of every part. So pro- found, and yet so graceful, a treatise on government has not been produced in the present century, or per- haps in any century. Frenchmen v^ere proud that their young countryman should distance, in one of the most difficult of sciences, the ancient authorities of other nations. Englishmen were glad to see a work appear which tended to confirm a constitution sustained by an equipoise between crown and people. Americans venerated the man who, alone of all for- eigners that had crossed the Atlantic, fully under- stood a system so much reviled in the old world, and who had accm^ately discerned the merits and faults of a republican government. The book was sold with wonderful rapidity, and was translated into many languages. No library was considered as complete without it. Conservatives found in its pages arguments enforcing the danger of mob gov- ernments. Reformers quoted it in derogation of regal authority, and in favor of extending popular suffrage. His aim was, however, to represent to the advocates of ideal democracy, and the advocates of established precedent, the errors in both views ; to show that democracy without intelligence, morality, and religion, is despotism ; that democracy reconciled to " respect for property, deference for rights, safety 188 GLIMPSES OF HISTORY, to freedom, and reverence to religion," is composed of noble elements ; and that the choice is inevitable between anarchical democracy and intelligent de- mocracy. " Many people," he says to StofFels, "of opposite opinions, are pleased with it, not because they understand it, but because they find in my book, considered on one side only, certain arguments favorable to their own passion of the moment." Tri- umphant as was the early success of " Democracy in America," as years of experience and public disor- der have passed?, it has become more and more au- thoritative ; and the prophetic wisdom, the profound logic, and the strict accuracy which dignify every page, have been tested and confirmed by subsequent events. Similar subjects have been discussed by men of genius on both sides of the Atlantic ; but the greater part are speculatists, deriving their mate- rials from the study of other works and the observa- tions of other persons. They have erected formidable theories, abounding indeed in erudition and acute- ness, yet lacking the test of actual experience. M. de Tocqueville lived in the events, and observed in person the facts, from w^hich he produced the ele- ments of his philosophy. Superadded to an extraor- dinary capacity for speculation, he possessed a prolific experience, with which to exemplify and enforce his doctrines. After enjoying a triumph in his own country, which ALEXIS 1)E TOCQUEVILLE. 189 must not only have gratified his pride, but also stim- ulated his hopes of reform, he visited England in 1835. There he met with a reception, from the first noblemen and writers of the age, of which he was justly proud. The elegant and courteous Lans- downe, the polished Holland, the vivacious Macau- lay, and the learned Grote, welcomed to their country one who combined grace and dignity of manner, no- bility of birth, and brilliant colloquial power with a strength of intellect such as few Frenchmen have ex- hibited in any age. In the same year he married an English lady, Miss Mary Mottley, to whom he had been several years attached, and who, though she brought him no fortune, seems to have appreciated his temperament and sympathized with his tastes. He constantly spoke of her with affection, and never took a step without resorting to her for advice. In 183G the Academy of France, proud to acknowledge the just- ness of his eminence, awarded a prize of eight thou- sand francs to his work on America. The following year found him the possessor, by a family agreement, of the ancient manor of Tocqueville. The revolu- tion of 1830 had substituted a representative govern- ment for a rigid monarchy. This change brought with it a corresponding change in the position of literary men. Little pains had been taken by the Bourbons to encourage this class ; much less were 190 GLIMPSES OF HISTORY. they resorted to as counsellors of the crown. The sagacious Louis Philippe saw the importance with which they were regarded by intelligent men ; and the result was, that poets and historians, editors and astronomers, became ministers of police and minis- ters of foreign affairs. De Tocqueville, who had hitherto been known as a speculative politician, now aspired to be a practical politician. He saw the class in which he had ranked himself accepting seals of office, offering themselves for the Chamber, and rep- resenting France at foreign courts. He was now a feudal proprietor ; and this advantage, combined with his literary eminence, encouraged him to enter the troubled arena. At the election of 1 8 3 7 , therefore , he presented himself to the arrondissement of Yaloques as a candidate for the Chamber. His kinsman, Count Mol^, then at the head of the government, offered to support him with all the influence of the ministry, and without his knowledge took measures to carry the election in his favor. But De Tocque- ville, with a lofty spirit seldom seen in candidates for office, manfully rejected the aid thus offered ; and, the cry of "No nobles ! " having been raised against him, he was defeated. Liberal as were his ideas on gov- ernment, he could not induce the bigoted Norman peasantry to look beyond his birth, to his character and merit. He now devoted himself to cultivating the esteem ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE. 191 of his neighbors, to improving the surroundings of his villa, to the pleasing duties of hospitality, and to the continuation of the great work, the published portions of which had so abundantly rewarded him. In 1838 the Academy of Moral and Political Science did itself honor, and him justice, by enrolling his name as one of its members. The biennial election again ap- proached in 1839, when, so successful had he been in disabusing the district of prejudices against him, and in endearing himself to its people by the simple courtesy of his manners, he was elected by a large majority to the highest legislative position in France. He continued to represent Valoques in the Chamber of Deputies from 1839 to the breaking up of thi'ones and legislatures in 1848. He found, upon taking his seat, that the Chamber was divided into three distinct parties — the minis- terial party, the dynastic opposition, and the repub- lican opposition. At the head of the former were M. Guizot and M. Mole, and they supported the royal family then in power. The dynastic opposition were under the lead of Thiers and Odillon Barrot. They were acquiescent in the present establishment, but opposed to the particular measures of the ministry then in place. The republicans were not only op- posed to the present dynasty, but to all dynasties, and were zealous disciples of the old revolutionists. ^The fieedom of the press had never been greater 192 GLIMPSES OF HISTORY. than it was at this time ; consequently parties of all shades waged incessant warfare, and the fiercest fa- natics did not hesitate to avow their extreme doc- trines in the forum and through the press. De Tocqueville, having before his eyes the example of England, — that example to which he ever tried to induce France to approximate, — and from a fear that either the crown or the republicans might acquire too much power, determined to throw his influence into the balancing party, and enrolled himself under the leadership of Tliiers and Barrot. While, on the whole, he considered it essential to the liberties of France to support the Orleanists at the Tuileries, he thought that a dynastic opposition would operate to restrain while it sustained, and, keeping the repub- licans in a hopeless minority, to force the king to a constitutional reign. While he continued deputy, he was intrusted with various responsible duties, among others with that of reporting, in 1839, on the abolition of colonial slavery ; in 1840, on prison reform; and in 1846, on African colonization. In 1840 he issued the last two volumes of "Democracy in America," which were received with as great appro- bation as had greeted the former issue; and in the following year he had the gratification of being elected a member of the Academy of France. As a relax- ation from the severe duties of the Chamber, he travelled, in 1841, and again in 1845, through Algeria, ALEXIS BE TOCQUEVILLE. 193 His friends had expected, when he was returned to the legislature, that he would rise at once to the front ranks of his party. But those expectations were, in a measure, disappointed. He not only did not become a leader, he did not become even prominent in the debates of the Chamber. The eloquence which had flowed so easily from his pen now failed him, as he stood upon his feet and attempted to harangue the dignified deputies of France. It was not surprising, however, that one who had been a great writer did not succeed as a speaker. He had memorable pre- cedents, to which he might point, to excuse his fail- ure. Such men as Addison, Johnson, Jefferson,, and Scott, all political writers of the first ability, had entirely failed when called upon to speak in public. His temper, which was impetuous to a fault, his care to avoid commonplaces, his deep thought, the deli- cacy of his frame, and the entirely novel position in wliich he found himself, added to a weak voice, were adequate reasons for his deficiency as an orator. Notwithstanding, however, that his labors could not be of service to his cause in forensic discussion, the deliberate cast of his mind produced an influence on his colleagues far from contemptible. In private dis- cussions with his political friends, he pointed out to them, with rare acuteness, the dangers which beset the monarchy and liberty. To him they resorted when an important vote was to be decided, or an 9 194 GLIMPSES OF HISTORY. important measure introduced; and although, un- happily for them and for France, they did not always follow his counsel, they listened to it with attention and respect. The breach between the king's friends, headed by Guizot on the one side, and the dynastic and the rev- olutionary opposition, now apparently united, on the other, was continually widening from 1840 to the time of the king's downfall. Odillon Barrot hoped that, by uniting with the radicals, and thereby out- voting the ministry, he might be able to limit, with- out destroying, the royal prerogative. He vainly thought that, after concessions had been forced by the aid of his allies, he might easily abandon them, and, supported by the nation, accede to power with- out detriment to the monarchy. The issue which he made with the ministry was reform in the court and in elections. The revolutionists, led by Ledru-Rol- lin, Marrast, Arago, and Louis Blanc, now entered upon the rapid execution of the projects which had long busied their fevered brains, and caught at the first opportunity of their fulfilment. Carrying along with them their unwilling allies, they began to incite the nation to a desperate resistance, and to preach the old doctrines of equality and liberty to the ignorant and disaiiected. - The government, looking with nat- ural dread upon the disturbances thus created, forbade the holding of public meetings. Fertile in expedient ALEXIS DE TOGQUEVILLE. 195 and fearless in action, the agitators contrived that banquets should be held throughout France ; and at these assemblages they harangued with redoubled violence and fury. Barrot and Thiers began to tremble at the excesses which their rashness had brought into existence. But it was too late. They could break down the barrier, but they could not again rear it to oppose the impetuous flood. The time had come when the weaker element of conser^ vatism in the coalition was stifled in the desperate measures of the levellers. De Tocqueville saw the approach of the tempest months before it burst upon the country. In January he addressed the Chamber in a prophetic warning, which amazed the deputies. After pointing to the disturbances which agitated the nation, and the causes of those disturbances, he said, " We are slumbering on a volcano : I am certain of it." Events soon occurred which stamped him as a true prophet. A grand national banquet was announced to take place in Paris. The insurrectionists were to erect their standards of rebellion under the very shadow of the Tuileries. Barrot attempted to compromise ; Kollin and Blanc were inexorable. Guizot offered to resign, and Barrot was intrusted with a brief interval of power. But the outbreak was ripe, and revolution again triumphed over monarch, ministers, and legisla- tors. The king, with the royal family, fled through 196 GLIMPSES OF HISTORY. his garden, as the mob were thundering at the portals of the palace. France was once more without a ruler. And now came in all that race of hypocrites who exercised power under the visor of liberty, — exalting the populace of Paris over the citizens of France, — bent on abolishing royalty, debasing the nobility, equalizing all ranks, and levelling property and power to a common grade. Ledru-KoUin, at the head of a band of rioters, overawed and expelled the depu- ties, and read a list of the provisional government, in- cluding with himself the wildest zealots of his fac- tion, from Lamartine to Albert the laborer. This ad- ministration, self-created, and sustained only by the dregs of Paris, repaired to the headquarters of the government, and began to shape their policy by the promulgation of the Utopian systems, the advocacy of which had attached to them the ignorant and deluded laboring classes of the capital. De Tocqueville clearly discerned the dangers of the nation, and instantly declared that its only safety was in the prompt erection of a constitutional repub- lic. He considered the evils of political frenzy less dangerous than the ignorance of the people " as to the real conditions of production and social prosperity." A continuation of the social despotism which now held possession of the sinews of government must, he saw, eventually lead the nation again to imperial rule, as it had done before in 1789. An election for ALEXIS DE TOCQVEVILLE. 197 a constituent Assembly was ordered ; and on tlie 4th of May, De Tocqueville was returned to it by his neighborhood of La Manche. To the surprise and chagrin of the provisional government, this body contained a large majority of conservative and mod- erate men. The revolutionists found themselves in a hopeless minority. De Tocqueville, with other leaders of the advocates of order and system, now earnestly strove to establish a republic. The con- stituent Assembly, completely united, and determined to resist Parisian tyranny, promptly appointed a committee to frame a constitution with a republican form. Upon this committee De Tocqueville was placed, and became a leading member. But the chaotic elements into which society had been broken were not yet reduced to harmony ; and the repubh'C, unsupported by the approval of the nation, only pre- pared the way for a catastrophe which De Tocque- ville had been anxious to avert by its means. The election of president resulted in the choice of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, a man who, as De Tocqueville himself said, " believes in his own hereditary right in the crown as firmly as Charles the Tenth himself." De TocqueviUe had voted for General Cavaignac, the opposing candidate, because he dreaded the accession of a Bonaparte, and looked with especial distrust upon the character of the prince who now solicited popular support. 198 0LIMPSE8 OF EISTOBY, Soon after his instalment into office, Napoleon requested an interview with De Tocqueville, and endeavored, bj treating him with marked civility, to persuade him into the adoption of his own views. But the shrewd statesman penetrated the design of the president, and refused to become a passive tool for the erection of despotism over the heads of the people. The conservatives, although disheartened at the evident tendencies of the new powers, resolved to make one more effort for a constitutional system. They hoped that, by persuading the president to adopt the principle of free parhaments and responsible ministries, he might be induced to forego the effort to obtain absolute power. With this laudable view, Odillon Barrot, in June, 1849, undertook the func- tioiis of prime minister. Eminent conservatives were intrusted with the ministerial seals. De Tocqueville, much to Barrot's honor, received and accepted the portfolio of the foreign oflSce. The people began to see the return of peace and order. The foreign secretary found that he had assumed, with his new office, duties of unusual magnitude. Besides the deliberations which devolved upon him as a member of the cabinet council, which, at this early stage of affairs, were of the utmost importance, he was obliged to turn his attention to the settlement of the Roman question, and also of the controversy reo-ardins: the Huno^arian refugees who were claimed ALEXIS BE TOCQUEVILLE. 199 from Turkey by Russia and Austria. To reconcile other nations to the occupation of the Eternal City by French troops, to disabuse foreign courts of the idea that this occupation was for conquest, and not for pro- tection, and to interfere between three powerful courts in a question of the greatest delicacy and difficulty, required an active mind and a determined purpose. Of these tasks he acquitted himself with high credit. His despatches are perspicuous, energetic, and saga- cious. In the retirement of his study he could easily wield a power which had been denied him in the Chamber. His knowledge of passing events, and the attention with which he had contemplated the history of nations, made him the master of his subject. The candor with which he negotiated with foreign powers commanded their respect and elicited their confidence. The moderation of his views, and the foresight which had marked his career, called forth a reliance on his efficiency in the execution of his trust, both from his colleagues and from the people, ffis experience in office, however, was brief; for it soon became appar- ent that Napoleon was determined to govern without the restraint of a responsible ministry. Finding that every attempt to legitimize his projected measures was vain, the Barrot ministry retired from power in October, 1849 — the technical issue being in regard to the Roman expedition. By their downfall the last hopes of preserving constitutional stability were crushed. 200 GLIMPSES OF HISTORY. De Toequeville, desponding, and shattered in health, now left France for Italy, and spent the winter at Sorrento, where he employed himself in recovering physical' strength, observing from a dis- tance the course of events, and writing the early por- tions of a work which he had long contemplated, on the causes of the first revolution. On his return to France, he found the Assembly and the press agitated by discussions relative to a revision of the constitu- tion of 1848. The period designated for the election of president approached. The incumbent was bent on retaining his power ; and whether it should be retained by a coup-d^etat, or by abolishing the re- striction in the constitution which prohibited his re- election, it was for the Assembly to determine. Re- sistance by that body to the proposed revision would precipitate the nation into certain despotism. Com- pliance made such a result a question of time. De Toequeville saw that the choice was between faint hope and no hope. Without hesitation he, advocated a revision, and he was himself intrusted in committee with framing a report favorable to that measure. Feeble as the chance was of preserving the repubhc, he saw that to make the acts of the president consti- tutional was the only chance. His description of the constitution of 1848, in his report, is drawn with so skilful a hand, that we cannot refrain from presenting it to our readers : — ALEXIS BE TOCQUEVILLE. 201 " A single Chamber exclusively entitled to make laws, a single man exclusively entitled to preside over the application of all laws, and the direction of ail public affairs, each of them elected directly by univer- sal suffrage ; the Assembly omnipotent within the limits of the constitution; the president required, within those limits, to obey the Assembly, but wield- ing, from the nature of his election, a moral force which makes his submission uneasy, and must suggest to him resistance, and possessed of all the prerogatives which belong to an executive in a country in which the central administration, everywhere active and everywhere powerful, has been created by monarchs and for the purposes of monarchy, — these two great powers, equal as to their origin, unequal as to their rights, condemned by law to coerce one another, invit- ed by law to mutual suspicion, mutual jealousy, and mutual contest, yet forced to live in close embrace, in an eternal tete-a-tete, without a third power, or even an umpire to mediate and restrain them, — these are not conditions under which a government can be re ovular or strono^." The efforts of the constitutionalists proved of no avail. The inordinate ambition of Napoleon now only awaited an opportimity to seize the absolute control over the nation. De Tocqueville, who had before predicted both of the revolutions, foresaw the impending blow to the Assembly. He was seated 9* 202 GLIMPSES OF HISTORY, among his colleagues when the coup c^'e^a^ took place. On the morning of the 2d of December, the president took possession, by military force, of all the govern- ment ofGces. An armed troop of soldiery came to the Assembly, and De Tocqueville, in company with two hundred of the elite of France, was marched to the Quai d'Orsay, and thence conveyed to Vincennes. Napoleon now rapidly consolidated the empjre. A constrained ballot afforded a pretence for his meas- ures. The Assembly was abolished, the press fet- tered, Lamartine and Hugo exiled, a standing army established, and every precaution taken to secure a permanent despotism. When the plans of the em- peror had been reduced to system, the imprisoned legislators were released. This tyrannical seizure and confinement was the last scene in the political life of M. de Tocqueville. The result to which he had looked forward with dismay had now followed from the revolution of 1848. The people of France, wearied with the continual turmoil of anarchy, and grown apathetic in the license which had long prevailed, had at last quietly and slavishly submitted their necks to the yoke of the oppressor. The day in which patri- ots could exert themselves was passed. All that remained for him now was to retire to his country- seat, to banish poKtics from his thoughts, to devote his time to the quiet walks of literature and agricul- ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE. 203 ture, and to alleviate the condition and augment the happiness of those humble neighbors who had been so lonGf faithful to him. He continued the execution of his work on the revolution of 1789 as rapidly as his frail health would permit, and published the first part of it in 1856. The rest was never finished. For purposes of study he visited St. Cyr in 1854, and Germany in 1855. He also in 1857 visited England for the last time, where he was received with distin- guished consideration, and whence a government vessel was specially commissioned to reconvey him to Normandy. He devoted himself with zest to agri- culture, for which, in the restlessness of his early days, he had had a dislike. Novv^, after an active and stormy life, his mind had become cahn, and his love of nature contributed to give a relish to rural occupations. Although he had retired from public service, he never ceased to practise the maxim which we find in his letters — " There is only one great object in this world which deserves our efix)rts, and that is the good of mankind." He considered life as of but httle worth, except as it is made valuable by being employed in doing one's duty, and serving men, and in "taking one's fit place among them." His charity was free and liberal, his advice never refused, when solicited ; his kindness and affability were con- stant, his interest in the prosperity of others enthu- siastic. Thus usefully and happily were his last years 204 GLIMPSES OF EISTOBT. passed ; and as he had spent a laborious life in im- proving public sentiment, exalting religious and edu- cational influences, and striving to secure to his coun- trymen an equipoise of liberty and stability, the evening of his sojourn upon earth was devoted to the alleviation of individual distress, and the exercise of an active benevolence. The delicate body, which had sustained so many inroads upon its strength, now began to yield to dis- ease. In June, 1858, he broke a blood-vessel — an event which, although at the time it was not re- garded as fatal, accelerated the final catastrophe. The bleak shores of Normandy were ill suited to an invahd afflicted with pulmonary weakness, and he repaired to Cannes, in the south of France, buoyed up with the hope that the softer air and more equa- ble climate of that region might restore him to vigor. There, although confined most of the time to his villa, he continued those studies which had mainly contributed to his happiness through life, and had delightful communion with the eminent persons who resided near him. Lord Brougham and Chevalier Bunsen contributed to while away many weary hours by their considerate attentions to the dying statesman. After weeks of protracted suffering, aggravated by the illness of his wife, but sustained with patience by a meek and cheerful spirit, he passed away, with tranquillity and in the complete exercise of liis facul- ALEXIS BE TOGQUEVILLE. 205 ties, surrounded by his best beloved friends, on the 16th of April, 1859. Although till within a few- days of his departure he had never ceased to look forward to a resumption of his labors, the humility with which he acquiesced in the solemn disappoint- ment, and the fervent piety with which he confided in his Saviour, made a lasting impression upon those who witnessed that peaceful death scene. At his own request, his mortal remains were laid in the rural churchyard, near the ancient manor on which he had dwelt so long, and among the people he loved so well. The burial service was performed in the humble parish church, and the mourning peasantry attended with one accord the last sad tribute to their illustrious friend. A plain wooden cross marks the place of his interment. He died childless. We have reviewed the life of one whose name, known wherever civilization has given a zest to polit- ical philosophy, is held in peculiar respect on this side of the Atlantic. Before his day, little was known on the continent of the structure of our gov- ernment, and its application of republican principles. To him we owe lasting gratitude for having led his age to an intelligent contemplation of our system, and for setting in a just light before the world the benefits and evils of democratic policy. It is not, however, to be inferred, because he devoted so much time and labor to the study of the principles of democ- 206 GLIMPSES OF HISTORY. racy, that he was an advocate of that form of gov- ernment. He always regarded the constitutional monarchy of England as the polity which combined in the greatest perfection a just freedom for the sub- ject with due power in the executive. He believed the tendencies of the age in which he lived to be toward the unlimited supremacy of the popular ele- ment ; but he was persuaded of what events repeat- edly verified, that the character of the French was not harmonious with the idea of unrestrained popular power. He aptly perceived that the causes which tended to strengthen republicanism in America could never so operate in his own country. For that rea- son he concluded that, while democracy in America was freedom, democracy in France was despotism. He wished to see in France a strong central govern- ment, not distracted by a landed aristocracy, and not interfering beyond its proper sphere ; control over mu- nicipal matters given to municipal authorities ; gen- erous extension of political rights ; broad tolerance of individual action. But such an establishment, he readily perceived, must be the work of time ; revolu- tion could not effect it ; a sudden change of adminis- tration or policy could not produce it ; it must be ingrafted by gradual and cautious innovations, the more potent because the less perceptible. In the revolutions of which he had been a witness, he saw that all the elements of intelligence, morality, re- ALEXIS DE TOGQUEVILLE. 207 ligion, and learning had been conservative ; vrhile the depravity of the nation, the wild, atheistic, visionary fanatics, composed the elements of v^hich the reform- ing spirit v^as made up. He knew that the former class of men were indispensable auxiliaries to the gradual change he was desirous of producing, and hence looked with great sorrow upon the convulsions which shook France from time to time. From these opinions we are enabled to see why he was never a strong party man. Looking beyond the ephemeral principles which controlled the policy of factions, he could not bring himself to sympathize heartily with either extreme. Perceiving the salutary influence of a systematic opposition in England, he ranged him- self with Barrot and Thiers, rather to maintain an equipoise than because his opinions sympathized with those of the statesmen with whom he acted. If we consider his social character, we find that the gravity of the philosopher did not intrude upon his pri\%te relations ; for in the companionship of those he loved, he both conversed freely and listened with respectful attention to others. He was cheerful and unassuming, readily pleased, and always anxious to please. The dignity of his vocations did not pre- clude him from the good will of the humble. His candor rather elicited esteem than provoked irritation, and his piety, always constant and sometimes glowing, was yet not austere, but was indul^nt of those pleas-. 208 GLIMPSES OF HIS TOBY, ures which morality permits. The same vigor and brilliancy which mark his writings shone forth in his conversation, which instructed while it entertained, and engaged both mind and heart by its lofty and yet sympathetic tone. Few men have been so re- markable as he for colloquial power ; and, although he did not exhibit the rich fund of thought and fancy in which his mind abounded except to his friends, the renown of his conversational gifts almost equals that of his published works. His complaisance disarmed the surliest rival, yet his pride scorned a slavish sub- mission to any. Possessing faculties of understand- ing naturally quick, he made them preeminent by study, and still more by observation and reflection. So vigorous was his spirit, that it rose in rebellion against the sedentary labors of his younger days. He continually longed for bodily or mental excite- ment, and on one occasion he wrote to a near friend, " The desire for strong emotions becomes irresistible, and my mind preys upon itself if it is not satisfi'ed." Throughout his early correspondence the same restless disposition is discernible. He was continually com- plaining of want of excitement, and yearning for a life of intense activity. He thought that "life has no period of rest ; man is a traveller towards a colder and colder region, and the higher his latitude, the faster ought to be his walk." Although lapse of years and a large harvest of experience cooled his fervid tem- ALEXIS BE TOCQUEVILLE. 209 per, he continued through life to labor with energy and intensity. Graceful in his manners, firm in opinion, susceptible in feehng, quick and true in judgment, versatile in accomplishments, he was a delightful companion, a wise counsellor, a faithful friend, and an affectionate son, brother, and hus- band. He fulfilled his moral and religious duties with promptness and zeal. Appreciating the inestimable value of order, he preserved complete method in all his transactions. While he has instructed the world by the depth and accuracy of his researches in politi- cal science, he has also left an enviable reputation for many exalted virtues, which appear to have adorned his career from his first entrance upon the duties of fife. His mind was continually directed to a specific object ; he never indulged in that theoretical specu- lation which either rejects facts or is incapable of practical application. He always looked forward to a direct result. Rejecting all assistance from the perusal of other writers, and disdaining to lay the basis of his own productions on materials derived from libraries, he endeavored to strike out on untrod- den paths, which, being discovered by actual obser- vation and experience, might lead directly to the consequences sought. He did not regard with favor the intricate disputes of mental science, in which he 210 GLIMPSES OF EI8T0BY. took no pains to be well versed. His mind being morbidly restless, he was absorbed in harassing thought, mingled with doubt, despondency, and gloom. But in none of his dark moods did a doubt arise as to the truth of religion. His oratory towards the close of his parliamentary career was serious, and often brilliant. He spoke with composure, and yet with feeling, when he ad- dressed the Chamber. Careless about arranging his thoughts, so that they might be comprehended, he used few words, and avoided repetition and expan- sion. He never could have made a popular orator, for he had not the faculty of so combining common- place with thought that his audience could sympathize with what he was saying. At the same time, his weak voice and feeble constitution were perpetual re- straints upon his oratory. He seems to have far transcended the French stan- dard of character in the soberness and depth of his speculations, and in his insight into the mysteries of political science. But his restlessness, his warm temper, his impetuous vehemence, and his affability, mark him as a true Frenchman. When we look upon him as the philosopher, witnessing, not without emo- tion, indeed, but calmly and thoughtfully, the great convulsions through which his age was passing, noticing the operation of every cause and the in- fluence of every result, treasuring up the painful ALEXIS BE TOCQUEVILLE. 211 experience thus acquired for the future service of the nation, and searching, while the facts were new, for some remedy for the disorder, it must be confessed that few Frenchmen have exhibited to the world such rare proofs of judgment, reflection, and sagacity. X. THE CARDINAL-KINGS. SHAKSPE ARE has kept alive the memory of Car- dinal Wolsey by one of his finest delineations. Cardinal Richelieu still commands the admiration of men by reason of Bulwer's masterpiece. It is not surprising that these two should have been selected as heroes of the drama, for no men have filled a larger space in the romance of history. There is much to study and much to amuse in the character of each; much to impress and startle in the story of their careers ; much to surprise in the narrative of the ascent by which both reached the summit of earthly grandeur. They w^ere both a " power behind the throne, greater than the throne itself." They both derived their original advancement from the church. Each accomplished many great benefits for his country. Each fulfilled a lofty destiny. Wolsey and Richelieu, indeed, were representatives of the two sources whence the church of Rome de- rived her intellectual strength, and which gave her a hold upon earthly powers. From the two extremes of (212) TEE CARDINAL-KINGS. 213 society, almost invariably, came the men who propped up the spiritual authority. They either proceeded from the meanest plebeians or from the haughtiest aristocrats. Popes were chosen from the fishermen on the sea shore, or from the Borgias of Venice and the Medicis of Florence. Cardinals might be moulded from bandits or from princes. Wolsey was the son of a butcher ; Richelieu was the heir of one of the noblest families in France. Wolsey rose to be the first subject in England by the sole effort of his will, and by the sole merit of his abilities ; Kichelieu was ushered into public life by a pedigree and a host of rich relations. The church advanced Wolsey only because Wolsey's tal- ents were useful ; she advanced Richelieu, at first, because he brought family influence and a good un- derstanding to her aid. These princes of the church, these priestly statesmen, did wonderful things, each in his own age. England in the sixteenth century was clearly marked by the strong individuality of Wolsey 's genius. France in the seventeenth cen- tury became under Richelieu the model of an abso- lute power. There were but few qualities in common between these remarkable men. They were both virtually sovereigns ; neither was satisfied with political domin- ion, but both aspired to the papal throne. Both pos- sessed great ambition, wills of iron, craft, duplicity. 214 GLIMPSES OF HISTORY, intellectual breadth, corruptness of heart, and cour- age. Both were preeminent as statesmen, both were liberal patrons of literature, both were attentive students of human nature. Here the resemblance ceases ; and, by sketching the career and character of each, it will be seen what opposite motives actu- ated them, and how differently they acquired, held, and used the power to which they attained. Their geniuses were different, their origins were different, and the influences with which their nationalities sur- rounded them were as different as the Celt is from the Saxon. Cardinal Wolsey, as we have said, rose from the lowest grade of the English community. He early displayed abilities inconsistent with his station, and his father, who had become well off in the exercise of his vocation, sent him to the University of Oxford. Here he gained distinction as a scholar ; and after graduation, the Marquess of Dorset made him tutor to his sons, and took him under his patronage. He went into the church, and was made rector of a coun- try parish, which belonged to the marquess. Wol- sey 's ambitious spirit soon after showed itself; for he aspired, with success, to the place of chaplain in the king's household. Once there, he had an ample field wherein to exert his talents of insinuation, and made haste to cultivate it. Henry the Seventh was then reigning, but was soon to die ; the young prince * TEE CARDINAL-KINGS. 215 would ere lono^ ascend the throne. The cunnins: and watchful nature of Wolsey was not long in per- ceiving the opportunity. He began to cultivate the good graces of Prince Henry — to humor his tastes, to mould his mind, to yield to his prejudices. With a keen eye to the future, he so played the game, that Henry the Eighth, when he ascended the throne, loved no man better than his obsequious chaplain. The king was easy tempered, licentious, self-indul- gent, vain, wilful ; Wolsey was cringing, worldly, and crafty. He became Henry's closest confidant and nearest adviser. He relieved Henry of the cares of state, and provided everything to gratify his pas- sions. As may be imagined, his rise was rapid. The king showered upon him his choicest favors. Wolsey became a bishop, an archbishop, a cardi- nal, and lord chancellor. He had prebends, and deaneries, and parishes, whence money poured by thousands into his coffers. His income became larger than that of the crown. He gained such an ascendency over the king, that Henry had no other favorite, and the ministers were but the echoes of the cardinal's will. He received ambassadors, legates, and lord mayors in his own palace, while Henry spent his days in sensual pleasure. All the burden of government fell upon Wolsey, all the sweets of royalty were enjoyed without hinderance by the king. The monarchs of Europe paid the minister 216 GLIMPSES OF HISTORY. * that deference which was due to royalty. Wolsey's whole effort was to retain the affections of Henry ; for Henry had a will, and it must be* kept asleep, or it would rise and destroy. Wolsey's sole dependence was on the king ; for beyond the king there was no friend so powerful as to hold him in his place. Not content with so great an eminence, the cardinal, with a rapacity of ambition never excelled, intrigued for the popedom ; but it was only as a means by wliich to gratify the gross passions of his low-born nature. Wolsey's character was a singular mixture of intellec- tual strength, avarice, vanity, and sensuality. As a statesman he displayed a vigor and activity which seems wonderful, when we reflect how licentious, how gluttonous, how vicious he was. His adminis- tration is marked by the power, the prosperity, and the activity which England, during its term, enjoyed. He was bold in all his public measures ; unscrupu- lous in the imposition of taxes ; tyrannical in the exercise of the judicial office ; insolent towards for- eign nations ; indefatigable in executing Henry's wUl as directed by himself. While he possessed a great desire for riches, he was magnificent in their outlay, and his vanity took the ostentatious turn of erecting palaces, displaying equipages, employing a numerous and splendidly clothed retinue, and in giving tlie most sumptuous banquets and pageants. His predominant passions were avarice and a love of display. He was TEE CABDINAL-KINGB. 217 selfish to the heart's core. There was nothing truth- ful or sincere in his nature. He was a disgrace to the profession of divinity, for he was not pious, nor did he have the impudence to appear so. He was covetous and envious, cruel and implacable in his hatreds. Indeed, a contemplation of this singular man discovers to us but two amiable qualities — cour- age and hospitality. For women he had no rever- ence or respect ; Kcentious himself, he only saw women in a Kght which might well make him despise the sex. Of their virtues he knew nothing; with their vices he was entirely famihar. When the king tired of his wives, they were treated with a brutality by this descendant of butchers, compared with which even Henry's neglect was happiness. He loved the society of vulgar men and dissolute women, and, while by day he governed with consummate ability a great empire, by night the noise of his revels scandal- ized the good citizens of the capital. His manners were of a piece with his nature, for they were coarse, boisterous, and arrogant. Having much pride of station, and being, as" low-born favorites of kings are apt to be, eager to show his importance to those who approached him, he affected a dignity of demeanor which sat awkwardly upon him, and only increased the dislike which his character provoked. There was something attractive to the multitude in the splendor with which this man surrounded himself. His noble 10 218 GLIMPSES OF EISTOBT. palace, his numerous household, his gilded chariots, his brilliant raiment, the magnificent profusion of his feasts, struck the lower classes with wonder, and caused foreign envoys to lift their hands with pro- found astonishment. There were in Wolsej's household no less than eight hundred persons, whose constant duty it was to serve the cardinal, and to ornament his dignity. One of his gentlemen ushers has left to us an ac- count of one of his feasts, which was given in honor of some French ambassador, who had arrived at London to make a treaty with Henry. Cooks were sent for from every part of England. Two hundred and eighty beds of silk were prepared. The chambers were hung with arras and tapestries, and were lighted up by exquisitely chased silver candlesticks and chan- deliers. The dishes, served on gold and silver, were of the rarest devices in the culinary art; and the wines were plentiful and costly. The cardinal's at- tendants who served at the feast were clothed in vel- vet, gold, and jewels. Such was the splendor in which he lived, and in which he loved to live. It seemed to be his ambition to be great that he might be osten- tatious. In these feasts, which frequently took place, this father of the church participated, and was not surpassed by any in the coarseness of his jests, the loudness of his laughter, and the excess of his indul- gence ; and, bethinking himself far above the reach THE CAMDINAL-KINGS. 219 of scandal, he was indiiFerent to the disgust of the community. But Wolsey, though active in pubHc affairs, neg- lected so to fortify himself with a high and virtuous statesmanship, as to render him, in some degree at least, independent of the king's caprice. Upon that slender thread he risked his destiny. He devoted his entire care to retaining the king ; learned the arts of a courtier with such effect, that he was the most accomplished flatterer of his age ; was under such self-government when in Henry's presence, that he could, without a twinge, balk his predominant pas- sions ; and, with a shrewdness which was never caught asleep, managed to keep at a distance the king's other counsellors, and to surround him with his own instruments. But efforts the most untiring, and a craft the most subtle, are insufficient to keep a permanent hold on human caprice. Wolsey 's ambition, so en- tirely insatiable, led him on to destruction. In his anxiety to keep well with the powers at Rome, he paid deference to their opinion regarding the divorce of Catharine. This, with some other acts of his, at last incensed the sluggish temper of Henry ; and from the moment that Wolsey heard of the king's anger, he knew himself to be lost. The blow soon came. In 1529 Henry sent to demand of liim the great seal, confiscated his personal estate, and dismissed him 220 GLIMPSES OF HISTORY, from court. The enemies of the fallen minister in ParHament instantly seized the occasion to attack him. Forty-four articles of impeachment were drawn up, and he was summoned to appear before the House of Lords. That assembly passed the articles ; but the House of Commons, through the efforts of Thomas Cromwell, rejected them. Wolsey retired, bowed with intense affliction, to his see of York, and devoted himself, rather late in life, to works oi charity. But he was not destined to remain undisturbed, even in the seclusion of his priestly office. He was arrested on a charge of high treason, and committed to the custody of the lieutenant of the Tower. On his way to London, he fell sick at Sheffield ; and there, unable any longer to sustain the destruction of his fortunes, he died in the midst of agony and remorse. It has been said that Wolsey put a period to his existence by poison. Such an act, if he did commit it, was not inconsistent with a career in which the salient features were cor- ruption, debauchery, and ungovernable pride. He was not, however, so far depraved as to indulge in crime for the mere pleasure of being wicked. He was not accused of causing the death of any man who stood in his path. He did not use the power he possessed with wanton tyranny, and, excepting when money was to be obtained, or the king's and his own passions were to be pampered, the people were left at TEE CARDINAL-KING8. 221 peace. Under Wolsey's administration England was strong, and was respected and feared by foreign powers. He often directed his liberality to worthy objects, and one monument of his endowment remains in Christ Church, the most considerable college of Oxford University. Wolsey was hated by the court and the nobility, and by a large party among the people. His mean origin, whilst it scandalized the aristocracy and the church, made him popular with certain portions of the lower classes, who were proud of a man who had risen to such a height from their own grade. Wolsey's influence upon the morals of his age was very bad ; his example to the priesthood in England, by inspiring the ' religious community with disgust at the church, doubtless hastened the approach of a reformation which caused its over- throw. His abilities, prompting as they did Henry's obstinate nature, and sustaining the king's determi- nations by vigorous and cunning measures, served to strengthen royal power, and to accelerate the extinc- tion of the lingering vestiges of feudalism. The peo- ple had not then grown to that stage of civilization when they could organize and eiFectually resist the demands of the crown ; and Wolsey's knowledge of men, and especially of Englishmen, taught him how far to venture, and in what manner to proceed. His career is wonderful for the perseverance with which he aspired to and retained the highest authority in the 222 GLIMPSES OF EISTOBY. state ; his virtues were few, his vices many ; his fame is an unenviable one, and yet there is a fascination in his history, and it makes us sad when he falls at last, stripped of every honor and hope, and seeking death as the only sure refuge from his unparalleled misery. Cardinal Richelieu possessed every advantage which wealth and rank could confer. He was descended of the best blood of France. He was heir to a substan- tial fortune. He was born and reared, lived and died, in the metropolis which was the scene of his remark- able career. He was the son of Francois Duplessis, Baron E-ichelieu, and his own family name was Ar- mand Jean Duplessis. His education was of so elab- orate a nature, that while still a youth he was called learned. That military capacity which displayed itself at Rochelle, to the amazement of a court which conceded to him a wonderful variety of powers, was an evidence how warlike a nature was concealed beneath the sacred lace. This warlike nature had been early developed, and Richelieu had at first designed to adopt the army as a profession. It hap- pened, however, that there was a bishopric in the nomination of his family — the diocese of Lucon ; and this, before Armand's choice of a militarv life had become definitely fixed, became vacant by the resig- nation of an older brother. Richelieu, thus early, had conceived a high ambition, and was eager to ap- proach eminence by a short path. Abandoning the TEE CABDINAL-KINQS. 223 thought of following the campaigns, he, with a sur- prising readiness, began to substitute the Latin trea- tises and prosy homilies of the doctors for his text books on tactics and thrilling histories of war. While he, no doubt, adopted theology as a matter of convenience, he yet had a respect for religion, and an ingenuous reverence for the Romish church. He was encouraged by his family, who — as families are apt to do — appreciated his fine talents and ambitious tone, to look forward to the highest distinctions of France. At the age of twenty-two, he was duly con- secrated as bishop, and straightway laid his plans for advancement. He was less assiduous in performing the local duties in his diocese than in attending con- ferences, securing appointments, and in mingling in those political machinations to which the church of Rome has ever been addicted. His active partici- pation in church affairs ; the unusual intelligence which, for one so young, he displayed ; the sleepless activity which marked his actions ; the astonishing acuteness of his mind, — soon drew to him the atten- tion of his colleagues, and attracted the notice of the higher dignitaries of the church. Richelieu was ever watchful of his opportunity. He detected at a glance the effect of acts and events upon his own fortunes. He studied constantly wherein to better himself. He by no means confined himself to re- searches in theology, though upon these he bestowed 224 GLIMPSES OF EISTOBY. great attention ; he also informed himself in prin- ciples of the martial art, of history, of diplomacy, of finance, of law, of public economy, and of every branch of statecraft and political machinery. The church in those days was a wide portal by which to enter the service of the state ; the time had not gone by when priests and bishops were the ablest ministers and most trusted advisers of kings. No man knew this better than Richelieu ; and his ambition promptly directed him in the path towards political power. He assiduously attached himself to those who possessed influence at the Louvre, and ingratiated himself into the favor of men who knew the mode of approaching power. Through Barbin, comptroller of the royal treasury, he became known to the Marshal D'Ancre. Marshal D'Ancre attracted to him the notice of the queen dowager, Marie de Medicis. Thus bright were his prospects at thirty. Marie de Medicis gave the young prelate audience, liked him at first sight, and told him to repeat his visit. He became intimate with the palace, and was taken into the dowager's confidence. There was one circumstance from which he, at first, anticipated great obstacles. The young king, Louis the Thirteenth, a weak and whimsical prince, conceived a dislike for the new favorite of his mother. Louis neither comprehend- ed the tone of Richelieu's mind, nor liked his ener- getic and aspiring manner. But Louis, after all. TEE CAHDINAL-KINGS, 225 possessed no firmness, and bis dislikes were as harm- less as his ideas were absurd. Marie de Medicis was still the virtual sovereign ; she neither asked nor cared to know what Louis thought. So, in spite of the opposition of the king, Bishop Kichelieu was nominated a member of the council of state. Here he found an ample field for the exercise of the subtle arts of which, he was a master. He had not long been a member of the council, before his superiority over the other advisers of the crown began to be apparent. Shrewd, able, and energetic, the meas- ures which he proposed, and the advice which he gave, were adopted as the wisest suggested. But this tide of good fortune was not to flow on without interruption. Marie, his devoted patroness, more than suspected of complicity in the murder of Mar- shal D'Ancre, was compelled to retire with ignominy from the capital. Richelieu saw this with alarm ; the king was still prejudiced against him ; the power which had sustained him was gone. ♦With all the finesse of which his nature was capable, he endeav- ored to reconcile mother and son ; but his efibrts were of no avail. He himself was ordered to depart from Paris, and to reoccupy his restricted sphere as bishop in the diocese of Lu^on. Richelieu took advantage of the abundant leisure which was now at his disposal, in writing some the- oiogical essays, which gave evidence that, had he con- 10* 226 GLIMPSES OF HISTORY. fined his attention to his profession, he would have become eminent. It was found quite impossible to suppress Marie de Medicis, and she after some time returned to her apartments in the Louvre, and re- sumed the control of the state. Richelieu was now not only recalled, but was restored to his seat in the council, married his niece to a duke, became prime minister, and, beyond all, was made a cardinal. This series of distinctions was conferred upon him when he was but thirty-seven. Louis was constant in his dislike of Richelieu ; yet Richelieu seems to have acquired and retained the premiership without the least regard to the king's wishes, and unimpeded by a sinofle remonstrance. The great career of Cardinal Richelieu began from this point, — a career as splendidly successful as any which French history records, — surpassing that of any subject, and equalled only by those of Louis the Eleventh, Henry the Fourth, and Louis the Four- teenth. He had no sooner assumed the highest office, than the whole control of the sovereignty centred in him. His strong mind became visible in every act of public policy, in every treaty, in every regulation of police. Louis was never heard of: all that was known of the king was, that he existed ; that on such a morning he went from Paris to Versailles ; or that on such a night he danced at a ball in Gaston's palace. The broad aims to which Richelieu now devoted him- TEE CAJRDINAL-KINGS. ' 227 self were no less than the consolidation of the French monarchy, the extinction of feudalism, the eradication of Protestantism, and the annihilation of the power of Austria on the continent of Europe. His great mind grasped the situation of Europe in a moment. He saw the necessities and the opportunities of France. He gave himself up to the work of her exaltation with all the glowing energy of his character, inspired alike bj ambition to sway the destinies of the continent, and by the thought that he was serving his beloved France. He aimed successive blows at the Austri- ans and the Protestants — drove the former from the western passes, attacked and conquered in person the stronghold of the latter at Eochelle. Protes- tantism ceased to be a political power in France. Richelieu, with equal success, set about subduing the high spirit of the nobihty, prohibited duelling, and boldly threw the haughtiest nobles into the Bastile. In a few years the aristocratic influence in the state had visibly declined, and the nobility had been brought into complete subordination to the royal authority. Having thus dealt Austria and Protestantism effective blows, and humbled the feudal element, meanwhile retaining the entire power of the crown in his own hands, he met vv^ith a second obstacle to his govern- ment. The Duke of Nevers continued to exercise an independent authority in Mantua. Richelieu attacked him. Nevers was a favorite of Marie de Medicis and 228 GLIMPSES OF EISTOBY. of Anne of Austria, the queen of Louis. For the first time Marie and Richelieu were at variance; and the difference, so suddenly sprung up, soon increased to a mutual hatred. Bichelieu was dis- missed from the court; Marillac was nominated premier. As the great minister retired, he was assailed by insult and ridicule, not only from the populace, but from those very courtiers who had cringed upon him and partaken of his favors. The new premier received the gross flatteries which always welcome a new authority. Richelieu instantly turned towards Versailles : Louis was there, idling away his time in frivolous sports. The cardinal had conceived a strange idea : he would reconcile the king to him, and through him return to power. Few men would have ventured on this expedient, and no other man could have been successful. But Marillac had hardly taken his seat at the council before the news came that Louis and Richelieu were friends, and that they were on their way to Paris. Richelieu, on resuming the seals of state, sternly revenged himself upon his enemies. Marillac was banished ; nay, Marie de Medicis, the mother of the king, the widow of Henri le Grand, convicted of a plot against the minister, was driven from Paris, and went into exile. Richeheu continued in the course which he had formerly begun, and year after year — though assailed by kings and queens, threatened THE CARDINAL-KINOS. 229 constantly with assassination, hated by the nobility, distrusted by the people — augmented his own power, and strengthened the monarchy at home and abroad. When thQ issue presented itself, whether to take sides with Austria or with Protestantism, Eichelieu, whose theology was less positive than his hatred of the Haps- burgs, sided with the Protestants. He was created a duke of France, and was now on the very pinnacle of earthly glory; being in fact a king, with more power and more wealth at his command than any former sovereign of France. It was a checkered and turbulent life ; there were wars, rebellions, insurrec- tions, mobs, conspiracies, executions: at every point Eichelieu emerged successful. At the very acme of his fame and his power this illustrious prince died, his body exhausted by wonderful labors, but his mind active and restless to the last. This event occurred in December, 1642, soon after he had completed his fifty-seventh year. The character and career of Cardinal Eichelieu, as is apparent from the two sketches presented, were quite in contrast with those of Cardinal Wolsev. Wolsey's ambition was an exclusively selfish one ; his entire effort was for self-exaltation. Eichelieu's am- bition was not an exclusively selfish one ; indeed, he had one object, for which, without doubt, he would have sacrificed himself without hesitation. To obtain power and glory for France, to save France from 230 GLIMPSES OF HISTORY. calamity, he would have suffered martyrdom. He sought the head of affairs not more that he might be powerful, than that he might serve France. It is no rhetorical hyperbole when Bulwer makes him say, — " I have re-created France," — for France, under his rule, became the first of conti- nental powers. He had great genius, and he was conscious of it : he knew that under the weak Louis, France would degenerate ; he seized the helm, and France was powerful and prosperous. Richelieu was entirely unscrupulous in the means which he employed to accomplish his ends. He could be cruel, unjust, a tyrant, a dissembler, if by being so he could suc- ceed. Wolsey was made and was destroyed by the nod of a king ; Eichelieu made himself in spite of kings and courtiers, maintained himself against them, and died holding them at bay. Wolsey was avari- cious, and a debauchee ; Richelieu cared neither for money nor society. Wolsey, though far from being a peaceable man, could never have fought a battle ; much of Richelieu's fame rests on his personal siege of Ro- chelle. Wolsey was always in the world, out among men ; Richelieu won his victories in the silence and gloom of his closet. Wolsey was generous ; Riche- lieu had but little magnanimity, and no sympathy. Richelieu had by far the greater genius, and achieved greater things for France than Wolsey did for Eng- land. THE CARDINAL-KINGS. 231 Above all, the point in which the fame of Richelieu is more enduring than that of Wolsey is, that he pro- posed to himself, and successfully achieved, a great political idea : that idea was the annihilation of feu- dalism, the supremacy of the church, and the mon- archy. XL A CENTUM OF ENGLISH HISTOEY. 1760-1860. QIR EDWAKD BULWER LYTTON, who is a ^ statesman as well as a novelist, has wisely said that the rivalries of parties are " the sinews of free- dom." Doubtless the example of liis own country afforded him the ground for the reflection ; for it is in a great measure owing to the activity of parties in Parliament and through the press, that Great Britain has, within the century just passed, made substantial improvements in her constitution. If, indeed, we consider the nations as a whole, we discover that the presence or absence of party zeal is attended by a large margin of liberty, or an undue influence exerted by some single department of government. If we contemplate the arbitrary poHties of France, Austria, and Russia, we find the liberty of press and speech restrained, and only one ostensible party — that which sustains the reigning dynasty. If there be an opposition, — as of course there is, — it is repressed by the dominant authority, and finds vent only in low (232) A CENTUBY OF ENGLISH HISTORY, 233 mutterings and in secluded places. The promptness manifested by despots to quell even verbal opposition to their less important measures, indicates that they recognize in a free press, and in freedom of political action, a great step made towards their overthrow and the establishment of liberal ideas. Partisan rivalry, then, is a means resulting in liberty ; while, on the other hand, its suppression is an indication of despotism. By considering the state of parties in the liberal polities of America, Great Britain, and Italy, we find that a vigorous, and yet constitutional oppo- sition, quick to discern and to expose the errors of the party which is intrusted with the power, always professing to act in the spirit of the laws, and seldom descending to the arts of faction and intrigue, seems to guarantee a just equipoise between the inherently antagonistic elements of the executive and the people. The gradual development of civil liberty from the action of parties, each restraining the other, and each throwing its weight into an opposite scale, is admira- bly exemplified by the history of Great Britain within the past century. It is well worth our while to contemplate the changes which, in that period, have taken place, and which, while they have preserved the genius of the ancient constitution, have yet so modified it that the preponderance of power, which a century ago resided in the crown, has been transferred to the representa- 234 GLIMPSES OF HISTORY, tives of the people ; and while they have not over- thrown the monarchical form, they have certainly drawn nearer and nearer to the spirit of republican doctrines. From the time of the abdication of James the Second to the accession of George the Third, the Whig party held the power almost without interrup- tion. They had been chiefly instrumental in the achievement of the revolution. They had secured the succession of the Brunswick line. They pos- sessed a majority of the old families and of the wealth in the nation. They had suppressed the rebellion which, in 1745, had threatened to de- throne the reigning house, and restore the heir of the exiled dynasty. In the opposition were mainly the nonjuring clergy and prelates, those who had opposed the revolution and the act of settlement, and those who, it was thought, did not look with disfavor upon the northern insurrections. The two first sovereigns of the House of Brunswick gave up to the Whigs the undivided confidence of the court, and left to them the control of the executive, while they themselves turned their attention to the care of their electoral dominions. George the Third found the popular leader, Wil- liam Pitt,* at the head of affairs. This statesman possessed to a remarkable degree the confidence of * Afterwards Earl of Chatham. A CENTURY OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 235 the people. He had conducted with success and splendor a long and tedious war. He had brought to his administration order, promptness, and exact- ness. Never had minister been so successful in every movement, or so idolized by every class. It was hoped that the new king would continue so useful a servant. But George came to the throne under cir- cumstances materially different from those under which his two predecessors had assumed power. He was a native-born Englishman. He had been educated by English tutors, and comprehended Eng- glish manners, opinions, and institutions. His early life had been spent in the court of his father, Fred- erick, Prince of Wales, who, from his enmity to the king, had espoused the cause, and assumed the lead- ership, of the Tory opposition. He was, at the time of his accession, under the influence of the princess dowager, who was a bitter and persistent Tory, as well as a proud and ambitious woman. His own nature was self-willed, and he readily imbibed the precepts carefully impressed upon him in his early years, which persuaded him that he, and not the people, was the true source of law and government. He ascended the throne with a fixed determination, not only to secure the royal prerogative in its present limits, but to elevate it to the paramount authority in the constitution. To recover the power which had been wrested from the Stuarts, to bring the House 236 GLIMPSES OF EIBTORT. of Commons into subordination to the crown, and to acquire for himself an unlimited control over com- merce, the colonies, the army, and the treasury, were the designs which the young monarch proposed to accomplish. Within a year after his assumption, so vigorously had he pursued his policy, the whole aspect of the administration was changed. Pitt and Temple had gone over to the benches of the opposition, followed by the flower of the Whig party. Lord Bute, a shallow and pedantic Scotchman, sat at the head of the treasury. One by one the old min- istry had retired, — some bought off, others disgust- ed, others treated with contempt by the king and his favorite. The new ministers were entirely devoted to the doctrines of the sovereign. Bute, who was to him rather as a father than as a subject, had greatly contributed to crowd his mind with exalted notions of kingly power. The first step of the new adminis- tration was to deprive the Whig leaders of all the influence which could be brought to bear against their designs. All departments of the government swarmed with eager disciples of Toryism. But the premier, who had always been hated, not less because he was a Scotchman than because of his arbitrary opinions, capricious intellect, and unbounded in- fluence over the king, soon fell before the storm which burst upon him from all sides. Grenville succeeded him, and followed in the same rigid prin- A CENTURY OF ENGLISH EISTOBY. 237 ciples wliich had contributed to the downfall of Bute. The king was soon obliged to recall the Whigs to power ; and under the Marquess of Rockingham the nation enjoyed for a brief period a slight degree of security. Then followed the long and arbitrary min- istry of North, and the short ones of Rockingham, Shelburne, and Portland, succeeded by the twenty years' government of the younger Pitt. During all this period there was a continual contest between king and people for the predominance of power ; and in nearly every collision the court gained the suprem- acy. By interfering with the once undisputed privi- leges of Parliament; by exerting every instrument of patronage, from the creation of peers to the em- ployment of secret service funds ; by influencing, through threats, promises, bribes, arbitrary decis- ions, and all manner of corruption, the elections of members of Parliament ; by encouraging, while the Whigs were in power, a factious opposition to the measures of his own ministers ; by attempting to break up distinctions of party, which alone preserved a restraint upon liis measures ; by personal appeals to the loyalty of statesmen ; and by assuming the almost exclusive direction of every branch of the executive, thereby annulling the authority and responsibility of ministers ; by such artifices as these the king suc- ceeded in arrogating to himself an extent of preroga- tive unknown since the revolution. Popular commo- 238 GLIMPSES OF EISTOBY. tions attested the extreme opposition to the measures of the court ; and certainly the detriment which the liberties of the subject suffered warranted the greatest discontent. Such was the power of the crown over the elections, that the House of Commons could never be said to represent the clearly defined will of their constituents. The large towns, where alone inde- pendence of suffrage could at that day be expected, had no representation in Parliament. The boroughs were under the dictation of the nobility, the wealthy land-owners, and in manv instances under the imme- diate control of the government. Where such in- fluences did not operate, the court was enabled by means of lotteries, open sale, pensions, and every means of individual corruption, to carry its measures. If, after all such expedients, a powerful opposition appeared at Westminster, the agents of the ministry disbursed the secret service money, and thereby bought eloquence and votes to support regal power. In Scotland and Ireland these abuses of the electoral privilege were even more flagrant than in England.' In vain did the Whigs introduce resolutions and acts curtailing undue influences, and increasing the num- ber of legal voters. Not only did the ministry de- scend to the practice of bribing, but the king himself was frequently known to supervise this disgraceful transaction. So shameless had this system of reducing the A CENTURY OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 239 House of Commons to submission become, that in 1762 Henry Fox, afterwards rewarded for his valu- able services in this department of intrigue with a peerage,* opened a public shop in his official resi- dence for the purpose of making disbursements to those members who were willing to be paid for their votes. It was by such means — which in his own age were hardly discountenanced, but which at the present day would be looked upon as flagrantly crim- inal — that George the Third obtained the cooperation of the lower House. By his numerous creations of peers, his pensions, his bribes in the form of loans and contracts, and their own natural predilections in favor of the crown, he also engaged the House of Lords to cooperate with him. By this undue influ- ence of the crown, many liberties of the subject, heretofore thought established, were compromised. The king insisted on a rigid enforcement of the test act, and other intolerant measures, and refused to lis- ten to a proposal for the abolition of statutes by which Koman Catholics and dissenters were excluded from office. His course in persistently claiming the right to tax dependent colonies needs no remark from this side of the water. Although the right of petition had been acknowledged under a tyrannical Stuart, this Brunswick monarch reproved those w^ho exercised it, and refused to receive their complaints. While * As Lord Holland. 240 GLIMPSES OF HISTORY. he declined to be considered as himself responsible for the measures of his government, he also denied that his ministers were so ; " thus depriving the Commons of an important remedy — that of impeachment. In like manner the freedom of the press was greatly abridged, and repeated prosecutions for libels discour- aged free discussion. The ministers of the crown looked to the king, and not to the people, for their security in office. Men ambitious for peerages and pensions, peers ambitious of the Garter or lord lieutenancies, statesmen ambi- tious to shape domestic or foreign policy, sought prominence in the anterooms of St. James's, and not on the floor of Westminster. In this turbulent, but on the whole successful reign, the sovereign had the satisfaction of governing in spite of the national will. George the Fourth succeeded to the regency in 1812, and to the throne in 1820. His early procKvities had been favorable to the liberal party, mainly because he hated his father, and his father was a Tory. But indo- lent and pleasure-loving as he was, he had the sagacity to perceive in the policy of Lord Grey the curtailment of royal power, and a consequent struggle between the aristocratic and democratic elements of the con- stitution. He had no sooner entered the regency, therefore, than he deserted the friends of his younger days, and cordially allied himself to such radical Tories as the Earl of Eldon and the Earl of Liver- A CENTURY OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 241 pool. To such a height had the paramount authority of the crown been raised by the brilliant and popular government of the younger Pitt, that the mere pref- erence of George the Fourth for the Tories entailed that party on the country up to his death in 1830. But there was vastly more liberty and popular power in the reign of this king than in that of his pred- ecessor. That patriotic band of statesmen who had continu- ally labored for years to insure to the people a just participation in the control of the government, had gradually gained importance and influence by the pertinacity with which they adhered to their great object, and the increasing intelligence of the people. Lord Chatham had opened the question of parlia- mentary reform in the early part of George the Third's reign. It had been, of course, received with extreme disfavor by the king and lords, and therefore proved abortive. But the example thus set brought each year new and able champions of the cause into the field. Such statesmen as Burke, Fox, Sheridan, and Windham dealt powerful blows at the undue influence of the crown and great landholders in popular elections, the corrupt disposal of public moneys, and the slavish acquiescence of ministers in the policy of an arbitrary monarch. The younger Pitt commenced his political career by advocating the same cause ; but unhappily seduced by the favor 11 242 GLIMPSES OF HISTORT. of his sovereign, having acquired power by sustain- ing the prerogative, and retaining no security for his position except the cooperation of the royal influence, he deserted his early principles, and became the ablest and most ardent antagonist of the reformers. Having resigned the treasury because he could not carry the Catholic bill with the consent of the king, he again returned to office by acquiescing in the abandonment of that measure. The great race which had opened the question of reform had now passed away ; and were succeeded by the upright Grey, the stubborn Grenville, the liberal-minded Romilly, and the bril- liant Brougham. It was the glory of these men, that although excluded from office for a quarter of a cen- tury, they continued steadfast in the pursuit of the object to which they had from youth devoted their whole energies. Probably the individual character of George the Fourth alone prevented the consummation of parlia- mentary reform for eighteen years. Sustained by such intellects as Peel, Wellington, Eldon, Castle- reagh, and Stowell, continuing to exercise the pre- rogatives of honors, pensions, secret service bribes, and himself popular among all classes, he maintained a successful opposition to the proposed innovations upon the old system of suffrage. But the public mind became more and more impatient as years con- firmed regal power. The party, which had been but A CENTURY OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 243 a handful in 1780, became in 1820 a vigorous and dangerous opposition. The press, whose rights had been successfully asserted in the preceding reigu, was now unrestricted, and was enabled to present power- ful arguments in favor of innovation. Universal public opinion had forced the discontinuance of many- species of. bribery. The proceedings of Parliament became as weU known at York and Dublin as within the precincts of Westminster Hall. The rapid prog- ress of liberal ideas is well illustrated by the various divisions of the House of Commons at different times. In 1793 Mr. Grey, afterwards Lord Grey, made a lucid and forcible statement of the abuses of the elec- toral system, and moved the consideration of that question ; which was negatived by a vote of forty- one to two hundred and thirty-two. Lord John RusseU opened the subject again in 1822, and was defeated by a vote of one hundred and sixty-four to two hundred and sixty-nine. A proposition to en- franchise the great commercial towns, in 1830, was rejected by one hundred and forty to one hundred and eighty-eight. The reform bill of 1831 passed the House of Commons by a majority of one hun- dred and nine. We have mentioned one cause of the retardation of reform — the inequality between the first and third estates of the realm — the king and the Commons. To this must be added another — the influence of the 244 GLIMPSES OF HISTORY. Frencli revolution. While, on the one hand, that event frightened many statesmen, who had before embraced liberal doctrines, back into conservatism, and thus deprived the reformists of many illustrious advocates, on the other hand, it brought into exist- ence a spirit of fanaticism, which called loudly, in the language of E-obespierre and Bar^re, for "universal suffrage," and "equality of rights." This class, who insinuated themselves into the confidence of the igno- rant and disaffected, became represented in Parlia- ment and the press. Composing, as they did, a wing of the reform party, though the latter by no means sympathized with their creed, the people inferred that by taking one step towards innovation, the nation might be led on to take further steps, and finally drift into all the consequences of a pure democracy. These fanatics became, therefore, extremely embar- rassing as auxiliaries to the Grey party. If the latter attempted to introduce a moderate system of improve- ment, they received, on the one hand, the unwelcome plaudits of the democrats, on the other hand, the scathing insinuations of the conservatives. The calm and philosophic mind of Burke, shocked at the anarchy and atheism of the Jacobins of Paris, became a sincere convert to high prerogative and restricted suffrage. The Whigs were dispirited at these manifold dispar- agements, and the cause of reform slept for many years after. Excepting occasional wild projects, pro- A CENTUBY OF ENGLISH EIBTOBY. 245 posed, in spite of repeated repulses and disgust, by- such mob leaders as John Wilkes, hardly an attempt was made to remodel in any way the inequitable pre- cedents of the constitution . Finally , in the year 1831, the second of the reign of William the Fourth, a reform bill passed Parliament and received the royal assent. This measure is deservedly regarded by Englishmen as equal in importance to such papers as the Magna Charta, the Petition of Kight, and the Declaration of Rights. It was in substance the same plan which had been persistently adhered to for a quarter of a cen- tury by the opposition, and was conducted through the legislature by such advocates as Brougham, Grey, Russell, Lambton, and Althorp. A king had at last^ mounted the throne who cared more for the welfare of his people than for the extension of his power. An immense majority of the nation was now enlisted on the side of reform. The two estates of king and com- mons cooperated for the first time since the downfall of the elder Pitt. Royalty had left its natural ally, the aristocracy, and had coalesced with its rival, the democracy. The House of Peers, naturally conser- vative, and made doubly so by the exclusive creations of Tories for fifty years, alone opposed itself to the grand result towards which every other element of the constitution was irresistibly tending. But the least powerful estate, with all its wealth and prestige, could not resist the impulse of every other force combined. 246 GLIMPSES OF HISTORY. To prevent a catastrophe equally degrading to their dignity, and destructive of their power, the bill was suffered to pass bj the absence of opposing lords. This measure was remarkably adapted to pre- serve the spirit of the national fabric, while at the same time it renovated and purged it. The crown still possessed an equitable control, and the peers continued to exert a balance power, while the true source of government, the people, were exalted to the preponderance. To prevent the unjust influence of the landed gentry over elections, fifty-six rot- ten boroughs were disenfranchised, and thirty more lost each a representative. To give a voice to the unrepresented multitudes of the manufacturing and commercial towns, forty-two of these obtained elec- toral rights. The inequality with which the right of franchise was distributed, demanded and acquired the remedy of a property qualification. The representa- tion of counties, before controlled by resident nobles and gentlemen, was so extended that the electors became independent. The minor abuse of expensive hustings was corrected by ample regulations for meth- odizing the manner of election. The same defects, which appeared in greater magnitude in Scotland and Ireland, were in these countries remedied by simi- lar provisions. Thus, by a wide and comprehensive reform, were many thousands admitted to a participa- tion in the government. The Houses of Commons A CENTURY OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 247 became not only the reflected will of the people, but also the paramount authority of the state ; and, as the acquisition of power by responsible persons is apt to make them moderate and cautious, the popular estate became less violent for privilege, and more inclined to cooperate with the more stable branches of the legislature. The sovereign, less disposed to en- croach upon antagonistic power, because of the limits which restricted his prerogative, cordially united with the Commons in the construction of laws for the com- mon prosperity. That suspicious jealousy which had formerly made the administration difficult and per- plexing, gave way to a generous and mutual confi- dence. The effect of the reform has been to elevate the patriotism of all classes, to unite QYerj interest, and to harmonize the formerly irregular operation of the constitution. The salutary principle of ministries responsible to the popular representatives, which was unheard of before the restoration, and which was but imperfectly maintained in the reigns preceding that of William the Fourth, now became systematic and irre- sistible. The last lingering trace of that feudal power which had enabled nobles to dictate the choice of legislators, and to derive from the possession of titles and estates an almost predominant influence, was now swept away forever; yet this sudden transition from regal and aristocratic to popular government fortunately involved no radical overturning of sys- 248 GLIMPSES OF HISTORY. terns and customs, no riotous outbursts, no ebullition of frenzy and passion. All ranks acquiesced, most ranks rejoiced in the change. With the preservation of precedent and the monarchical character, an ample margin was secured for the modem developments of civilization. The benefits of ancient institutions were retained, their evils eradicated. The blessings of enhghtenment were effectually secured, while many of its defects were excluded from a dangerous proxim- ity to political power. While the system of bribery (a system too scandalously prominent in all free coun- tries) remained uncorrected by the reformers, and while it seems impracticable to destroy it by the im- perfect efforts of legislation, we may, nevertheless, look forward to its decline and gradual extinction, through the increasing refinement of public opinion. That element, to which all customs and manners are sub- ject, which dictates every form into which civilization moulds itself, and in opposition to which despots and aristocrats are powerless, is undoubtedly destined to brand with a fatal stigma that pernicious system in which principle and honor are sold for the poor recom- pense of silver and gold. Within the past century the privileges and powers of the Commons have become definite. The right to control the financial department of government ; the right of choosing its own speaker ; the right to judge of the conduct of its own members ; the right of immu- A CENTURY OF ENGLISH EISTOBY. 249 nity from arrest and seizure in civil prosecutions ; the right of publishing their papers, without the conse- quences of a libel ; the right to advise the executive in regard to questions of peace and war, and the ability to enforce that right by withholding the supplies ; the right to recommend a dissolution of Parliament ; the right to confirm or resist ministerial measures or per- sons ; the right to impeach members of either House before the high steward for official delinquency and private crime ; the exclusive right to tax the people whom they represent ; all these, before precarious or uncertain, have been established. The members, now dependent upon the favor of their constituents, and zealous to advance the manifold interests which they represent, are yet elected for a long term, and hence are neither the slaves of popular nor of individ- ual caprice. The rapidly accumulating influence of commerce and manufacture, before excluded (partly because of their former comparative unimportance, and partly because of the bigotry of the landed gentry) from the national councils, is now a gigantic power to enforce an equitable system of trade and maritime treaty. The triumph of the late Richard Cobden, in concluding a treaty with France, which insured prosperity and wealth to the great busy marts of England, is an admirable proof of the transition from agricultural to commercial predominance. Having now observed the changes which have 11* 250 GLIMPSES OF HISTORY, transformed the House of Commons from a subordi- nate to a superior estate, let us briefly consider the House of Lords as it has been and as it is. The numerical increase of this body within a cen- tury is more than double the number of peers who welcomed George the Third to the throne. Henry the Seventh summoned but twenty-nine temporal lords in the first year of his reign. In James the First's time there were fifty-nine; while the Stuarts aug- mented the number to one hundred and fifty. The union with Scotland brought into the House sixteen representative peers, in the reign of WilKam the Third. In 1760 there were one hundred and seventy- four, besides minors. Catholics, and bishops. The ministers of George the Third adopted a line of policy which obliged them to derive a distinct and hearty support from the aristocratic body ; their only course, therefore, was to throw into the House a multitude of men devoted to the court. In the twelve years of Lord North's administration, thirty new peerages were created. The younger Pitt raised to this hereditary dignity no less than one hundred and forty persons ; and in 1801, on the union with Ireland, twenty-eight representative peers sat in the United Parliament for life, in addition to four bishops who represented the Irish Episcopal church ; thus making an increase of one hundred and seventy-two votes in seventeen years. George the Fourth, WiUiam the Fourth, and A CENTURY OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 251 Victoria, found less occasion for thus swellino^ the aristocratical element : and in their rei2:ns, extendinof from 1820 to 1860, one hundred and fifty-nine peer- ages have been created. In 1860 there were four hundred and sixty members of the House of Lords — nearly three times as many as there were at the accession of George the Third. Of this number there were twenty-six English and four Irish bishops, six- teen Scotch and twenty-eight Irish temporal lords. The rapid augmentation of the number of this body is not more noticeable than the changes which have transpired in its character. New and hitherto foreign elements have amalgamated with that of aristocratic blood. Other interests besides those of territorial pos- sessions and illustrious descent have been introduced into the hereditary council of the empire. [Merchants, whose vrealth and enterprise have made them expo- nents of the national commerce; generals, who have defended English rights and avenged English wrongs ; admirals, who have successfully maintained British supremacy on the seas ; orators and legislators, whose counsels in the lower House have marked them as proper objects of royal favor, or w^hose ability has made it necessary to transfer them to the leadership of the upper House ; diplomats, by whose art peaceful victories have been won ; lawyers, who have risen to the higher grades of the profession ; all these widely- diversified classes have been admitted to a representa- 252 GLIMPSES OF HISTORY. tion among the proud nobles who trace their lineage from the Howards and De Veres, the Talbots and Beauclerks, the Pelhams and Montagues. The eflPect of these creations has been to infuse a modern and popular spirit where was before an exclusive and an- tiquated devotion to precedent. While the great in- crease of their numbers may be thought to have diminished the dignity of the order, it has also ele- vated their intellectual and political standard. The ablest men of all professions and pursuits have be- come incessant participants in legislative deliberations. The sovereign has a perpetual source whence to derive able ministers. The measures of government and of the opposition bring to their defence the most acute minds and the most profound learning in the country. Commerce and agriculture, science and polite erudi- tion, eloquence and logic, the church and the sister kingdoms, all have a voice among the peers of the realm. The House of Commons, therefore, is not the only body which has become more representative in its character. A progressive and liberal spirit has begun to mark the proceedings in the upper House. That tenacious adherence to ancient forms, which made the lords a perpetual restraint upon the multi- plying calls of advancing civilization, is rapidly be- coming as lifeless as those forms themselves. Even the hereditary nobles, whose titles have come down to them through centuries, begin to catch the modem J A CENTURY OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 253 activity which they find in all the other elements of their polity. The houses of Devonshire, Bedford, Argyle, Sutherland, Lansdowne, and Norfolk, illus- trious not less in their antiquity than for the long succession of eminent scions which they boast, and superior in dignity and hereditary wealth to the greatest Tory noblemen, now stand forth earnest and powerful champions of the doctrines of reform and the just rights of every class. If anything could prepossess one in favor of a dominant aristocracy, it is the spectacle which these peers present, of a disinter- ested and zealous love of their whole country. The small representations accorded to Scotland and Ireland in the upper House at first strike one as greatly disproportionate to the whole number. But the pro- portion becomes less unequal when we consider that many Scotchmen and Irishmen sit as British peers, beside those who are elected from among their own nobles. Of twenty-fives dukes, none of whom are representative peers, five are Scotch by birth and prejudice, and one Irish. Of thirty-two marquesses, seven are Scotch, and nine Irish. Of one hundred and sixty-three earls, twenty are Scotch, and twenty- three Irish. Of thirty-one viscounts, there are six Irish, and one Scotch. There are also seven Scotch and twenty-eight Irish barons. We thus find that, inclusive of representative and spiritual peers, Scot- land is represented by fifty-six, and Ireland by nine- 254 GLIMPSES OF HISTORY. ' tj-nine lords. Even these numbers hardly corre- spond with the relative population of the countries, and the relative antiquity of their respective no- bility. Almost all the peers, however, who, being Scotch or Irish, sit as independent British peers, have been elevated to that rank within the past century ; so that there is evidence of a more liberal spirit in the treatment of her sister kingdoms by the dominant nation. All peerages at present are hereditary, with the exception of the prelates, who hold their seats for Hfe. The question of life peerages has sometimes been mooted, but has ever been resisted by the House itself, as tending to destroy the hereditary, and hence independent, character of the body. It has occasion- ally occurred that women have been created peeresses for life ; but this species of nobility was mainly con- fined to the cunning mistresses of the Stuarts, and the fat and stolid dames who delighted the rude fancy of the two first Georges. The occupation of seats by the prelates of the es- tablished church has given rise to many and earnest discussions. The Presbyterians of Scotland, and the Roman Catholics of Ireland, and dissenters of all sorts in England, have been ill-disposed to become the subjects of Episcopal legislation. But however violent the opposition of these classes, which, though every day growing, are yet far in the minority, the political bond between church and state continues A CENTUBY OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 255 steadfast. The change of character which the epis- copal bench has undergone within a century, partly reconciles the feeling of animosity against them. In the reign of George the Third, the prelates were not cautious to sustain their sacred character, and mixed in the gay world always with alacrity, and sometimes to a scandalous excess. So eminent a functionary as the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Cornwallis, so far forgot himself as to indulge in revelry with a large and boisterous company, within the very precincts of Lambeth ; and so notorious was the fact that the king was forced to expostulate with him by letter. Devo- tion to sacred duties was secondary, at that day, to a morbid ambition for promotion, a bigoted party zeal, and the expensive luxuries of the capital. Public opinion has interposed to introduce into the prelacy an able and conscientious body of men, and the bishops now compose a most respectable branch of the constitution. Although there are doubtless some who are not to be proposed as models for incipient clergymen, the greater part appear conscious of the importance of their example, and if they possess vices inconsistent with their office, are careful to conceal them. For ability, there is not a more eminent class in the nation ; and for activity in promoting the wel- fare of religion, they are far beyond their predecessors of the eighteenth century. Notwithstanding the pres- tige of antiquity, the constitutional authority, and the 256 GLIMPSES OF HISTORY. great wealth which the nobility possess, their influence seems to be steadily diminishing. One of the causes which subverted the French aristocracy in the age be- tween the accession of Louis Fifteenth and the revo- lution, was the coincidence between the interests of the people and those of the crown. That cause is at work in England, but more tardily because of the greater stability of that people, and the more intimate relations borne by the peerage to the constitution. A thriving commerce and manufacturing enterprise are throwing great wealth into the hands of the middle classes ; and these, together with the landed gentry, far outstrip in riches the entire aristocracy. This engine of influence, therefore, will doubtless soon little avail the latter. Their only resort, it appears, to retain their present, and recover their former power, must be in intellectual and moral superiority. With the exception of a small minority, the nobles are slow to admit this as a final recourse ; but it becomes every day more apparent, that imless some effective position is taken, and some other ground sought, than birth and wealth, upon which to trust their security, they must eventually be swallowed up by the combined force of other and stronger elements. So comprehensive have been the improvements which the mother country has undergone since 1760, that this imperfect consideration of the political chan- ges cannot do more than give an idea of their extent. A CENTURY OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 257 We have seen that the royal prerogative has been definitelj confined and recognized ; that the nobihtj have ceased to control the popular estate, and to be the shield of kingly caprice ; and that the commons have been elevated to the paramount influence in the political fabric. Equally beneficial have been the metamorphoses which have exalted the character of society. The moral tone of civilized circles has re- ceived a purer character, inasmuch as that vulgar colloquial taste which corrupted the highest classes a century ago is now only practised in bar-rooms and among the lowest orders. The elegant and polished association which has made Lansdowne House and Stafford House world-renowned, is in striking; con- trast with the boisterous gatherings which once scan- dalized Grosvenor Square and the Carlton House. That high standard of social communion which, under George the Third, was only to be found among the se- lect literary coteries where Burke, and Reynolds, and Gibbon, and Johnson combined intellectual with social luxury, has now diffused itself among the aristocratic circles, and has superseded the coarse revelries of other days. Formerly, abject flattery, low wit, par- tisan rancor, and easy morals were the best creden- tials to an intimacy with nobles and nabobs ; now, erudition and literary taste, courtesy of manner and affability of temper, are the requisites which enable men to mix with the great and wealthy. Literary 258 GLIMPSES OF BISTORT. merit, before unrecognized, or at least not encouraged by the court, now receives homage from every rank of society. From the earliest periods the agricultural interests of Great Britain have been nursed with peculiar ten- derness, and formerly were enabled to subordinate the operations of commerce to the interest of land- owners. Feudal customs had settled and made per- manent the revenues of estates, and landholders had made the commercial interests of the nation subordi- nate to, agricultural prosperity. The century just passed has witnessed the transition from landed to commercial predominance. The great towns of Man- chester, Bristol, York, Birmingham, and Lancaster have entered into and influenced national legislation, and have successfully surmounted the restraints by which the enterprise of trade was confined. The reform was no less a triumph to philosophical liberty than to the interests of international traffic. At the present day there appears to be a salutary reconcilia- tion between the demands of the two opposing forces of human industry. Commerce has not bereft agri- culture of a just and substantial profit ; agriculture no longer dictates the high tariffs which formerly fettered commerce. A remarkable contrast presents itself between the history of England and that of France, during the period we have considered. The latter nation has A CENTURY OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 259 passed from legitimate monarchy to revolution, from revolution to despotism, from despotism back to le- gitimate monarchy , thence through two revolutions ; and is once more reposing in the uncertain quiet of an absolute rule. So capricious and aimless have been the efforts of that people to achieve a free gov- ernment, that, after all the distresses of anarchy, they have failed to attain that vy^hich, without any disastrous events, England has attained. Starting together in 1760, under the government of an arbi- trary king, possessing a proud aristocracy, and a re- stricted suffrage, nothing is more illustrative of the difference of character between the Anglo-Saxon and the Celtic races, than the grace with which the former have acquired what with infinitely more effort the latter have utterly failed to acquire. One hundred years have profited France but little, vv^hile they have regenerated the British people, as well as the British constitution. No period has so exalted English literature as that between 1760 and 1860. Every department of letters has received illumination from the great votaries who have appeared since the accession of George the Third. As historians, Hmne and Gibbon, Robertson and Macaulay, Hallam and Grote, already rank, in the estimation of the learned world, with Tacitus and Herodotus, Livy and Xenophon. The Scotch school of philosophy has superseded that of Germany, by 260 GLIMPSES OF HISTORY. the works of Reid, Stewart, and Hamilton. Fiction has been reformed and made brilliant by Johnson, Groldsmith, Edgeworth, Scott, Thackeray, and Dick- ens. Poetry boasts an innumerable host of disci- ples, and has outstripped all other departments, not only in the amount, but also in the excellence, of its creations. The immortal Bos well and his patron Johnson, Southey, Lord Campbell, and Lord Rus- sell have ably represented biography. Religion has found illustrious champions in Paley, Horsley, Hall, Chalmers, and Isaac Taylor. Criticisni has also re- ceived more dignity from the writings of Carlyle, Brougham, Jeffrey, and Coleridge. The drama has emerged from the coarseness and levity which gave popularity to the " Beggar's Opera ; " and the writings of Goldsmith, Bulwer, and Talfourd approve them- selves alike to the understanding and the moral sense. K now we turn for a moment to the quality of British statesmanship within the past century, we discover, amid much ability, activity, and enterprise, the same selfish fidehty to British aggrandizement of which their history is a consistent record. No period has displayed a more complete devotion to this na- tional passion. On this question Tory and Whig, churchman and dissenter, imite on common ground. Party issues are ignored, and prejudices forgotten, when this magnetic influence acts upon the body politic. The despatches of foreign secretaries are A CENTURY OF ENGLISH HISTORY, 261 notorious for their ambiguity, their subtlety, and the virtue they always possess to bear a double interpre- tation. The maxim of Talleyrand, that language is given us to conceal our thoughts, has become the spirit of the despatches from Downing Street. The welfare of peoples, dynasties, and principles must yield to the ascendency of England. The seeming inconsistencies in her history, when tested by this standard, are reduced to entire harmony. When we see her statesmen at one time excusing despotism, and at another encouraging a people struggling for liberty ; when sometimes she has united with other powers to demolish dynasties, and sometimes to reconstruct dy- nasties, we must look elsewhere than in the principles of philanthropy to explain her rapid transitions. The statesmen of the present day have not degenerated from their predecessors, in a rapt and exclusive love of British predominance ; and Lords Kussell and Palmerston are noted for caution and cunning in the composition of despatches. We cannot place much confidence in the amiable assurances of a secretary who could, in the short space of two months, expli- citly denounce, and then turn round and as expKcitly encourage, the designs of Sardinia on Venetia ; and both in ofl&cial despatches, in the face of all Europe. We have endeavored, in the brief survey just attempted, to convey some idea of the various results .which have come to the British empire from the expe- 262 GLIMPSES OF HISTORY. rierice of a century. That century, so pregnant with great events, not only on the continent of Europe, but also on this side of the Atlantic, has not been unattended with commotion and discord in the three kingdoms. Repeated warfare with their neighbors across the chan- nel, the extension of their empire by conquest over India, vain attempts to retain in submission their subject provinces in America, the riots of Wilkes and Gordon, the long contest, successfully ended, with the first Na- poleon, and numerous discontents of the people, and changes of ministries, have kept bright and active the energies of the British people. And amid the uni- versal activity of that nation, literature and science, the peaceful pursuits of benevolence, of agriculture, and of religious zeal, have flourished, and have ele- vated the tone of every class. fZi^^m^'': ^: n^ifii m kfe^^. >-.ii ■■•/^? 7a t%s.*v;/,t.^. •V^^lj' ^^ ^V-^f •Vv >,■* f •. i ry^>^'-"- '. ■» i :p ■ ■ ** \^':- im^'iU.' ^- --^ .•:i. •.:•., -r:i; r-v-.? ,