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THOMAS CARLYLE'S
COLLECTED WORKS,
LONDON :
ROBSON AND SONS, PRINTERS, PANORAS ROAD, N.W.
CRITICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS
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COLLECTIET) AND REPUBLISHED
(FIRST TIME, I839; FINAL, 1869).
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THOMAS CARLY LE.
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IN STX VOLUMIES.
VOL. VI.
I, ON DO N :
CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY.
NEW YORK : SCRIBNER, WELFORD & CO,
1869.
Y 2 &
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CONTENTS OF WOLUME WI.
i;
THE SINKING OF THE WENGEUR
BAILLIE THE CowLNANTER
DR. FRANCIA .
AN ELECTION TO THE LONG PARLIAMENT .
THE NIGGER QUESTION
Two HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS AGO
THE OPERA . º ſº * º tº
NATIONAL ExEIIBITION OF SCOTTISH PoRTRAITs.
THE PRINZENRAUB .
INAUGURAL ADDRESS AT EDINBURGH, 2% APRIL 1866.
Shoot.ING NIAGARA : AND AFTER!
SUMMARY
INDEX To MISCELLANIES .
139
171
213
231
24l
255
297
339
395
409
CRITICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS
E S S AYS :
COLLECTED AND REPUBLISHED
(FIRST TIME, 1839; FINAL, 1869).
IN SLX. WOLUMES.
WOL, WI.
ON THE SINKING OF THE WENGEUR.
VOL. XI. (Misc. vol. 6.) B
& 2
THE SINKING OF THE WENGEUR.1
[1839.]
TO OLIVER YORKE, ESQ.
DEAR YORKE,-Shall we now overhaul that story of the
Sinking of the Vengeur a little; and let a discerning public
judge of the same? I will endeavour to begin at the be-
ginning, and not to end till I have got to some conclusion.
As many readers are probably in the dark, and young per-
sons may not have so much as heard of the Vengeur, we
had perhaps better take-up the matter ab ovo, and study to
carry uninstructed mankind comfortably along with us ad
mala.
I find, therefore, worthy Yorke, in searching through
old files of newspapers, and other musty articles, as I have
been obliged to do, that on the evening of the 10th of June
1794, a brilliant audience was, as often happens, assembled
at the Opera House here in London. Radiance of various
kinds, and melody of fiddlestrings and windpipes, cartila-
ginous or metallic, was filling all the place,—when an un-
known individual entered with a wet Newspaper in his
pocket, and tidings that Lord Howe and the English fleet
had come-up with Villaret-Joyeuse and the French, off the
coast of Brest, and gained a signal victory over him.” The
agitation spread from bench to bench, from box to box;
1 FRASER's MAGAZINE, No. 115. * Morning Chronicle, June 1794.
4 MISCELLANIES.
so that the wet Newspaper had finally to be read from the
stage, and all the musical instruments, human and other,
had to strike-up Rule Britannia, the brilliant audience all
standing, and such of them as had talent joining in chorus,
—before the usual squallacci melody, natural to the place,
could be allowed to proceed again. This was the first
intimation men had of Howe's victory of the 1st of June;
On the following evening London was illuminated: the
Gazette had been published,—some six ships taken, and a
seventh, named Vengeur, which had been sumk: a very
glorious victory: and the joy of people's minds was con-
siderable.
For the remainder of that month of June 1794, and over
into July, the Newspapers enliven themselves with the
usual succession of despatches, private narratives, anec-
dotes, commentaries and rectifications; unfolding gradually,
as their way is, how the matter has actually passed; till
each reader may form some tolerably complete image of it,
till each at least has had enough of it; and the glorious
victory submerges in the general flood, giving place to
other glories. Of the Wengeur that sank, there want not
anecdotes, though they are not of a very prominent kind.
The Vengeur, it seems, was engaged with the Brunswick;
the Brunswick had stuck close to her, and the fight was
very hot; indeed, the two ships were hooked together by
the Brunswick’s anchors, and stuck so till the Wengeur had
got enough; but the anchors at last gave way, and the
Brunswick, herself much disabled, drifted to leeward of the
enemy's flying ships, and had to run before the wind, and
so escape them. The Wengeur, entirely powerless, was
taken possession of by the Alfred, by the Culloden, or by
both of them together; and sank after not many minutes.
All this is in the English Newspapers; this, so far as we
SINKING OF THE WENGEUR. 5
are concerned, is the English version of Howe's victory,
in which the sinking Wengeur is noticeable, but plays no
prečminently distinguished part.
The same English Newspapers publish, as they receive
them, generally without any commentary whatever, the
successive French versions of the matter; the same that
can now be read more conveniently, in their original lan-
guage, in the Choia, des Rapports, vol. xiv., and elsewhere.
The French Convention was now sitting, in its Reign of
Terror, fighting for life and death, with all weapons, against
all men. The French Convention had of course to give its
own version of this matter, the best it could. Barrère was
the man to do that. On the 15th of June, accordingly,
Barrère reports that it is a glorious victory for France; that
the fight, indeed, was sharp, and not unattended with loss,
the emnemis du genre humain being acharnés against us; but
that, nevertheless, these gallant French war-ships did so
shatter and astonish the enemy on this 1st of June and
the preceding days, that the enemy shore-off; and, on the
morrow, our invaluable American cargo of naval stores,
safely stowed in the fleet of transport-ships, got safe
through ;—which latter statement is a fact, the transport-
ships having actually escaped unmolested; they sailed over
the very place of battle, saw the wreck of burnt and shat-
tered things, still tumbling on the waters, and knew that
a battle had been.
By degrees, however, it becomes impossible to conceal
that the glorious victory for France has yielded six cap-
tured ships of war to the English, and one to the briny
maw of Ocean; that, in short, the glorious victory has
been what in unofficial language is called a sheer defeat.
Whereupon, after some recriminating and flourishing from
Jean-Bon Saint-André and others, how the captain of
6 MISCELLANIES.
the Jacobin behaved ill, and various men and things be-
haved ill, conspiring to tarnish the laurels of the Repub-
lic, -Barrère adroitly takes a new tack; will show that
if we French did not beat, we did better, and are a spectacle
for the very gods. Fixing on the sunk Wengeur, Barrère
publishes his famed Rapport du 21 Messidor (9th July 1794),
setting forth how Republican valour, conquered by unjust
fortune, did nevertheless in dying earn a glory that will
never die, but flame there forever, as a symbol and prophecy
of victories without end: how the Vengeur, in short, being
entirely disabled, and incapable of commonplace flight, flew
desperate, and refused to strike, though sinking; how the
enemies fired on her, but she returned their fire, shot aloft
all her tricolor streamers, shouted Vive la République; nay,
fired the guns of her upper deck, when the lower decks
were already sunk; and so, in this mad whirlwind of fire
and shouting, and invincible despair, went down into the
ocean-depths; Vive la République and a universal volley from
the upper deck being the last sounds she made.
This Report too is translated accurately, in the Morning
Chronicle for July 26, 1794; and published without the small-
est commentary there. The Wengeur with all her crew being
down in the depths of Ocean, it is not of course they that can
vouch for this heroic feat; neither is it the other French,
who had all fled by that time : no, the testimony is still more
indubitable, that of our enemies themselves; it is ‘from
the English Newspapers' that Barrère professes to have
gathered these heart-inspiring details, the candour even of
these ennemis acharnés could not conceal them,--which, there-
fore, let all Frenchmen believe as a degree truer than truth
itself, and rejoice in accordingly. To all this, as was said,
the English Newspapers seem to have made no reply what-
€VGr.
SINKING OF THE WENGEUR. 7
The French, justly proud of so heroic a feat, a degree
truer than truth itself, did make, and have ever since con-
tinued to make, what demonstration was fit. Convention
decree, Convention decrees were solemnly passed about
this suicidal Wengeur ; the deathless suicidal Wengeur is
written deep in innumerable French songs and psalmody-
ings; a wooden Model of the Vengeur, solemnly consecrated
in the Pantheon of Great Men, beckoned figuratively from
its peg, ‘Aua grands hommes la patrie reconnaissante l’—and
hangs there, or in the Musée Naval, beckoning, I believe,
at this hour. In an age of miracles, such as the Reign of
Terror, one knows not at first view what is incredible : such
loud universal proclamation, and the silence of the English
(little interested, indeed, to deny), seem to have produced
an almost universal belief both in France and here. Doubts,
I now find, were more than once started by sceptics even
among the French,-in a suitable low tone; but the “so-
lemn Convention decrees, the wooden ‘Modèle du Vengeur'
hanging visible there, the “glory of France'? Such doubts
were instantly blown away again; and the heroic feat, like
a mirror-shadow wiped, not wiped out, remained only the
clearer for them.
Very many years ago, in some worthless English His-
tory of the French Revolution, the first that had come in
my way, I read this incident ; coldly recorded, without con-
troversy, without favour or feud; and, naturally enough,
it burnt itself indelibly into the boyish imagination; and
indeed is, with the murder of the Princess de Lamballe,
all that I now remember of that same worthless English
History. Coming afterwards to write of the French Revo-
lution myself; finding this story so solemnly authenticated,
and not knowing that, in its intrinsic character, it had ever
been so much as questioned, I wrote it down nothing doubt-
8 MISCELLANTES.
ing; as other English writers had done; the fruit of which,
happily now got to maturity so far as I am concerned, you
are here to see ripen itself, by the following stages. Take
first the corpus delicti:
1. Extract from Carlyle’s ‘French Revolution.”
‘Dut how is it, then, with that Vengeur Ship, she neither strikes
nor makes-off? She is lamed, she cannot make-off; strike she will
not. Fire rakes her fore and aft from victorious enemies; the Ven-
geur is sinking. Strong are ye, Tyrants of the sea; yet we also, are
we weak || Lo / all flags, streamers, jacks, every rag of tricolor that
will yet run on rope, fly rustling aloft : the whole crew crowds to the
upper deck; and with universal soul-maddening yell, shouts Vive la
République, sinking, sinking. She staggers, she lurches, her last
drunk whirl; Ocean yawns abysmal: down rushes the Wengeur, car-
rying Vive la République along with her, unconquerable, into Eter-
mity.’
2. Letter from Rear-Admiral Griffiths, in the ‘Sun' Newspaper
of − Nov. 1838.
‘Mr. Editor, Since the period of Lord Howe's victory, on 1st
June 1794, the story of the Vengeur French 74-gun ship going down
with colours flying, and her crew crying Vive la République, Vive la
Liberté, &c., and the farther absurdity that they continued firing the
maindeck guns after her lower deck was immersed, has been de-
clared, and has recently been reasserted by a French author. It ori-
ginated, no doubt, on the part of the French, in political and exciting
motives, precisely as Bonaparte caused his victory at Trafalgar to
be promulgated through France. While these reports and confident
assertions were confined to our neighbours, it seemed little worth the
while to contradict it. But now, when two English authors of cele-
brity, Mr. Alison, in his History of Europe during the French Revo-
lution, and Mr. Carlyle, in his similar work, give it the confirmation
of English authority, I consider it right thus to declare that the whole
story is a ridiculous piece of nonsense.
3 Vol. iii. 298, Library Edition.
SINECING OF THE WENGEUR. 9
“At the time the Vengeur sunk, the action had ceased some time.
The French fleet were making-off before the wind; and Captain
Renaudin and his son had been nearly half-an-hour prisoners on
board H.M.S. Culloden, of which ship I was the fourth lieutenant ;
and about 127 of the crew were also prisoners, either on board the
Culloden or in her boats, besides I believe 100 in the Alfred's, and
some 40 in the hired cutter commanded by Lieutenant (the late Rear-
Admiral) Winne. The Wengeur was taken possession of by the boats
of the Culloden, Lieutenant Rotheram, and the Alfred, Lieutenant
Deschamps; and Captain Renaudin and myself, who were by Cap-
tain Schomberg's desire at lunch in his cabin, hearing the cries of
distress, ran to the starboard quarter-gallery, and thence witnessed the
melancholy scene. Never were men in distress more ready to save
-themselves. A. J. GRIFFITHS.”
This Letter, which appeared in the Sun Newspaper early
in November last, was copied into most of the other News-
papers in the following days; I take it from the Ea'aminer
of next Sunday (18th Nov. 1838). The result seemed to be
general uncertainty. On me, who had not the honour at
that time to know Admiral Griffiths even by name, still less
by character, the main impression his letter left was that
this affair was singular, doubtful; that it would require to
be farther examined by the earliest opportunity. Not long
after, a friend of his, who took an interest in it, and was
known. to friends of mine, transmitted me through them
the following new Document, which it appeared had been
written earlier, though without a view to publication:
3. Letter from Rear-Admiral Griffiths to a private Friend (penes
me).
‘Since you request it, I send you the state of the actual fact as
respects the sinking of the Vengeur after the action of the 1st June
1794.
“I was fourth lieutenant in the Culloden in that action. Mr.
Carlyle, in his History of the French Revolution, vol. iii. p. 298, gives,
10 MISCELLANTES.
in his own peculiar style, the same account of it that was published
to the world under the influence of the French Government, for poli-
tical and exciting purposes; and which has recently been reiterated
by a French author. Mr. Carlyle, in adopting these authorities, has
given English testimony to the farce; farce I call it, for, with the
exception of the Vengeur “sinking,” there is not one word of fact in
the narration. I will first review it in detail:
* “The Vengeur neither strikes nor makes-off.” She did both.
She made-off as well as her disabled state admitted, and was actually
taken in tow by a French eighteen-gun brig ; which cast her off, on
the Culloden, Alfred and two or three others, approaching to take
possession of her. “Fire rakes her fore and aft from victorious ene-
mies.” Wicked indeed would it have been to have fired into her,
a sinking ship with colours down; and I can positively assert not a
gun was fired at her for an hour before she was taken possession of.
“The Vengeur is sinking.” True. “Lo all flags, streamers, jacks,
every rag of tricolor that will yet run on rope fly rustling aloft.”
Not one mast standing, not ONE rope on which to hoist or display
a bit of tricolor, not one flag, or streamer, or ensign displayed; her
colours down ; and, for more than half an hour before she sunk, Cap-
tain Renaudin, and his son, &c. prisoners on board the Cullodem,-on
which I will by and by more especially particularise. “The whole
crew crowds to the upper deck; and with universal soul-maddening
yell shouts Vive la République !” Beyond the fact of the crew (ex-
cept the wounded) being on the upper deck, not even the slightest,
the most trivial semblance of truth. Not one shout beyond that of
horror and despair. At the moment of her sinking, we had on board
the Culloden, and in our boats then at the wreck, 127 of her crew,
including the captain. The Alfred had many; I believe about 100 :
Lieutenant Winne, in command of a hired cutter, a number; I think,
49. “Down rushes the Vengeur, carrying Vive la République along
with her, unconquerable, into Eternity.” Bah! answered above.
‘I have thus reviewed Mr. Carlyle's statement ; I now add the
particulars of the fact. The Vengeur totally dismasted, going off be-
fore the wind, under her sprit-sail, &c.; five sail of the line come up
with her, the Culloden and Alfred two of these. Her colours down,
Lieutenant Richard Deschamps, first of the Alfred, I believe, took
possession of her. The next boat on board was the Culloden’s, Lieut.
SINKING OF THE WENGEUR. 11
Rotheram, who died one of the Captains of Greenwich Hospital.
Deschamps went up the side. Rotheram got-in at the lower-deck
port, saw that the ship was sinking, and went thence to the quarter-
deck. I am not positive which boat got first on board. Rotheram
returned with Captain Renaudin, his son, and one man; and reported
her state, whereupon other boats were sent. The Vengeur's main-
yard was lying across her decks; Rotheram, &c. descended from its
larboard yard-arm by the yard-tackle pendant; and I personally heard
him report to Captain Schomberg the Vengeur's state, “That he
could not place a two-feet rule in any direction, he thought, that
would not touch two shot-holes.” Except the Purser, Mr. Oliver,
who was engaged in arranging the prisoners in classes &c. as they
came on board, I was the only officer who knew any French, and
mine very so-so. Captain Schomberg said: “You understand French;
take Renaudin and his son into the cabin, and divert his mind from
attention to his ship while sinking.” Having been in presence of the
French fleet for three days prior to the action, the accustomed cook-
ing had not gone on ; the galley-fire was little lighted. But the Cap-
tain, foreseeing, had a cold mutton-pie standing by ; this, with wine,
was ordered for us; and I was actually eating it with Renaudin, a
prisoner in Captain Schomberg's cabin, when a bustle on deck made
us start up; we ran to the starboard quarter-gallery, and saw the Wen-
geur, then say a stone’s-throw from us, sink. These are the facts.
‘Sept. 17, 1838. A. J. GRIFFITIIs.
‘I have said, I am not certain which boat took possession ; and I
gave it to the Alfred, because there arises so much silly squabbling
on these trifles. But from Rotheram taking the Captain, it seems
probable the Culloden’s boat was first. A matter, however, of no
moment.’
Such a Document as this was not of a sort to be left
dormant: doubt could not sleep on it; doubt, unless effec-
tually contradicted, had no refuge but to hasten to de-
nial. I immediately did two things: I applied to Admiral
Griffiths for leave to publish this new letter, or such por-
tions of it as might seem needful; and at the same time
12 MISCELLANIES.
I addressed myself to a distinguished French friend, well
acquainted with these matters, more zealously concerned
in them than almost any other living man, and hitherto
an undoubting believer in the history of the Wengeur. This
was my Letter to him ; marked here as Document No. 4:
4. Letter of T. Carlyle to Monsieur e
‘My dear ,-Enclosed herewith are copies of Admiral
Griffiths's two Letters concerning the Vengeur, on which we communi-
cated lately. You undertook the French side of the business; you
are become, so to speak, advocate of France in this matter; as I for
my share am put into the post of advocate for England. In the in-
terest of all men, so far as that can be concerned here, the truth Ought
to be known, and recognised by all.
“Having read the story in some English book in boyhood, natu-
Yally with indelible impression of it; reading the same afterwards
with all detail in the Choiac des Rapports, and elsewhere ; and find-
ing it everywhere acted upon as authentic, and nowhere called in
question, I wrote it down in my Book with due energy and sympathy,
as a fact forever memorable. But now, I am bound to say, the Rear-
Admiral has altogether altered the footing it stands on ; and except
other evidence than I yet have, or know where to procure, be ad-
duced, I must give-up the business as a cunningly-devised fable, and
in my next edition contradict it with as much energy as I asserted it.
You know with how much reluctance that will be ; for what man,
indeed, would not wish to believe it?
“But what can I do? Barrère's Rapport does not even profess to
be grounded on any evidence except what “the English Newspapers”
afforded him. I have looked into various “English Newspapers;”
the Morming Chronicle, the Opposition or “Jacobin” journal of that
period, I have examined minutely, from the beginning of June to the
end of July 1794, through all the stages of the business; and found
there no trace or hint of what Barrère asserts : I do not think there
is any hint of it discoverable in any English Newspaper of those
weeks. What Barrère's own authority was worth in such cases, we
all know. On the other hand, here is an eye-witness, a man of grave
SINKING OF THE WENGEUR. 13
years, of dignified rank, a man of perfect respectability, who in the
very style of these Letters of his has an air of artlessness, of blunt
sincerity and veracity, the characteristic of a sailor. There is no
motive that could induce him to deny such a fact ; on the contrary,
the more heroic one's enemy, the greater one's own heroism. Indeed,
I may say generally of England, at this day, that there could not be
anywhere a wish to disbelieve such a thing of an enemy recognised as
brave among the bravest, but rather a wish, for manhood's sake, to
believe it, if possible.
‘What I should like therefore is, that these circumstances were,
with the widest publicity of Journals or otherwise, to be set openly
before the French Nation, and the question thereupon put : Have
you any counter-evidence If you have any, produce it ; let us
weigh it. If you have none, then let us cease to believe this too-
widely credited narration ; let us consider it henceforth as a clever
fable got-up for a great occasion; and that the real Vengeur simply
fought well, and sank precisely as another ship would have done.
The French, I should hope, have accomplished too many true mar-
vels in the way of war, to have need of false marvels. At any rate,
error, untruth, as to what matter soever, never profited any nation,
man, or thing. .
“If any of your reputable Journalists, if any honest man, will
publish, in your Newspapers or otherwise, an Article on these data,
and get us either evidence or no evidence, it will throw light on the
matter. I have not yet Admiral Griffiths's permission to print this
second Letter (though I have little doubt to get it very soon); but
the first is already published, and contains all the main facts. My
commentary on them, and position towards them, is substantially
given above.
“Do what is fit ; and let the truth be known.
‘Yours always,
‘T. CARLYLE.’
From Admiral Griffiths I received, without delay, the
requisite permission; and this under terms and restrictions
which only did him farther honour, and confirmed, if there
had been need of that, one's conviction of his perfect can-
14 MISCELLANIES.
dour as a witness on the matter. His Letter to me is too
remarkable not to be inserted here; as illustrative of this
controversy ; nay, especially if we consider the curious
appendix he has added, as conclusive of it. I have not
his express permission to print this; but will venture to
believe that I have a certain implied discretionary permis-
sion, which, without my troubling him with farther appli-
cations, may suffice:
5. Letter of Rear-Admiral Griffiths to T. Carlyle.
; of which follows
‘Sir, I have received a Letter from —
an extract :
* $3. % º: % :}; %
“In reply to the above, I have to say that you are at full liberty
to use the account I sent you, or that published in the Sun Paper,
and copied thence into the Globe, Morning Post, John Bull, &c.;
and to quote me as your authority. But as I have no desire for con-
troversy, or to be made unnecessarily conspicuous, I do not assent to
its being published in any other language or Papers, as so put forth
by me.
‘I never deemed it worth one thought to awaken the French from
their dream of glory in this case; and should have still preserved
silence, had not Mr. Alison and yourself given it the weight of Eng-
lish Authority. What I abstained from doing for forty-four years, I
feel no disposition to engage in now. So far as I am an active party,
I confine my interference to our side of the water; leaving you to do
as you see fit on the other.
‘The statement I have already made in the case is abundant.
Put I will put you in possession of other facts. The action over ;
the British fleet brought-to ; the French making all sail, and running
before the wind; their dismasted hulks having also got before the
wind, and following them ;-the Wengeur being the sternmost, having
a French jack flying on the stump of the foremast, Captain Duck-
worth of H.M.S. Orion, ordered the first lieutenant, Mr. Meares, him-
self to fire a shot over her. This Lieutenant Meares did, and the
Wenguer hauled down the flag /
SINKING OF THE WENGEUR. 15
‘For his gallant conduct in that action, on his return to France,
Captain Renaudin, who commanded the Wengeur, was promoted to be
Rear-Admiral, and his flag was flying at Toulon on board the Tonnant,
when I was first lieutenant of the Culloden blockading that port. I
wrote to remind him of the treatment he had met with when prisoner
On board the Culloden ; and soliciting his kindness towards Lieutenant
Hills, who had been taken in H.M.S. Berwick, and being recognised
as having, in command of a battery at Toulon, at the period of its
evacuation, wounded a Frenchman,—was very ill-used. Renaudin's
letter now lies before me ; and does him much honour, as, during the
fervour of that period, it was a dangerous sin to hold intercourse with
us. I send you a copy; it is in English.
‘I am, Sir, very faithfully yours,
‘A. J. GRIFFITHS.”
Here next is the ‘curious appendix' we spoke of; which
might itself be conclusive of this controversy:
Copy of Rear-Admiral Renaudin's Letter.
‘‘‘ On board of the ship Tommant, Bay of Toulon,
the seventeenth Vendémiaire, fourth year of
the French Republic.
* “I have, Sir, received the favour of your letter. I am extremely
obliged to you for the interest you have taken to my promotion. I'll
never forget the attention you have paid me, as well on board the Cul-
loden as when going to prison. I wish you should be well persuaded
that your generosity and sensibility will be forever present to my
mind, and that I can’t be satisfied before it will be in my power to
prove you my gratitude. If your friend, Lieutenant Hills, had not
already gone back home, I should have returned to him all the atten-
tion you have been so good to paie me. I’ll be always sincerely satis-
fied when it will be in my power to be of some use to any of the
officers of the English navy that the circumstances of war will carry in
my country, and particularly to them that you will denote me as your
friends.
“Be so good as take notice of our French officers that you have
prisoners, and particularly to Captain Condé that has been taken on
16 MISCELLANIES.
the ship ga-ira. Please to remember me to Captain Schomberg, to
Mr. Oliver, and to all the rest of the Officers that I have known on
board of the Culloden. May the peace between our nations give
leave to your grateful Renaudin to entertain along with you a longer
and easier correspondence ſ”
“Addressed, “To Lieutenant Griffiths, on board of the Culloden,
Florenzo Bay, Corse Island.””
My French friend did not find it expedient to publish,
in the Journals or elsewhere, any ‘article, or general chal-
lenge to his countrymen for counter-evidence, as I had sug-
gested; indeed one easily conceives that no French Journal
would have wished to be the foremost with an article of
that kind. However, he did what a man of intelligence,
friendliness and love of truth, could do: addressed himself to
various official persons connected with the Naval Archives
of France; to men of note, who had written French Naval
Histories, &c.;-from one of whom came a response in writ-
ing, now to be subjoined as my last Document. I ought
to say that this latter gentleman had not seen Admiral
Griffiths's written Letters; and knew them only by descrip-
tion. The others responded verbally; that much was to
be said, that they would prepare Mémoires, that they would
do this and that. I subjoin the response of the one who
did respond: it amounts, as will be seen, not to a recanta-
tion of an impudent amazing falsehood, but to some vague
faint murmur or whimper of admission that it is probably
false.
6. Lettre de Monsieur & Monsieur
(24 Dec. 1838).
“Mon cher Monsieur, Je regrette de ne pouvoir vous donner des
renseignemens bien précis sur la glorieuse affaire du Vengeur. Mais
si l'opinion que je me suis formée sur cet événement peut vous étre
de quelque utilité, je me féliciterai de vous l’avoir donnée, quelque
SINIKING OF TÉIE VENGEUR. 17
peu d'influence qu'elle doive avoir sur le jugement que votre ami se
propose de porter sur le combat du 13 Prairial.
* Je suis de Brest ; et c'est dans cette ville qu'arriva l'escadre de
Villaret-Joyeuse, après le combat meurtrière qu'il avait livrée à l'Ami-
ral Howe. Plusieurs des marins qui avaient assisté à l'affaire du 13
Prairial m'ont assuré que le Vengeur avait coulé après avoir amené
Son pavillon. Quelques hommes de l'équipage de cet héroïque vaisseau
furent même, dit-on, recueillis sur des débris par des embarcations
anglaises. Mais il n'en est pas moins vrai, que le Vengeur ne coula
qu'après s'être sacrifié pour empêcher l'escadre anglaise de couper la
ligne française.
* Les rapports du tems, et les beaux vers de Chénier et de Le
IBrun sur le naufrage du Vengeur, n'ont pas manqué de poétiser la
noble fin de ce vaisseau. C'est aux cris de Vive la République, disent-
ils, que le vaisseau s'est englouti, avec le pavillon tricolore au plus
haut de tous ses mâts. Mais, je le répète, il est très probable que si
une partie de l'équipage a disparu dessous les flots aux cris de Vive
la République, tout l'équipage n'a pas refusé d'un commun accord le
secours que les vaisseaux ennemis pouvaient offrir aux naufragés.
Au surplus, quand bien même le Vengeur ait amené son pavillon
avant de couler, l'action de ce vaisseau se fesant cannoner pendant
plusieurs heures pour disputer à toute une escadre le passage le plus
faible de la ligne française, n'en était pas moins un des plus beaux
faits d'armes de notre histoire navale. Dans les bureaux de la marine,
au reste, il n'existe aucun rapport de Villaret-Joyeuse ou de Jean-Bon
Saint-André que puisse faire supposer que le Vengeur ait coulé sans
avoir amené son pavillon. On dit seulement dans ces relations du
combat du 13, que le Vengeur a disparu après avoir résisté au feu de
toute l'escadre anglaise qui voulait rompre la ligne pour tomber sur
les derrières de l'armée, et porter le désordre dans tout le reste de
notre escadre.
* Voilà, mon cher Monsieur, tout ce que je sais sur l'affaire qui vous
occupe. C'est peu de chose comme vous le voyez, car ce n'est presque
que mon opinion que je vous exprime sur les petits renseignemens
que j'ai pu recueillir de la bouche des marins qui se trouvaient sur le
vaisseau la Montagne ou d'autres navires de l'escadre Villaret.
Recevez l'assurance,' &c. &c,
VOL. XI. (Misc. vol. 6.) C
18 MISCELLANIES.
The other French gentlemen that “would prepare Mé-
moires, have now in the sixth month prepared none; the
“much' that “was to be said' remains every syllable of it
unsaid. My friend urged his official persons; to no pur-
pose. Finally he wrote to Barrère himself, who is still
alive and in possession of his faculties. From Barrère no
response. Indeed, one would have liked to see the ancient
adroit countenance of Barrère perusing, through its spec-
tacles, a request to that effect! For verily, as the French
say, tout est dit. What can be added on such a matter?
I conclude therefore, dear Yorke, with an expression
of amazement over this same “glorieuse affaire du Vengeur ;’
in which truly much courage was manifested; but no un-
paralleled courage except that of Barrère in his Report of
the 21st Messidor, Yoar 2. That a son of Adam should
venture on constructing so majestic a piece of blague, and
hang it out dextrously, like the Earth itself, on Nothing, to
be believed and venerated by twenty-five million sons of
Adam for such a length of time, the basis of it all the while
being simply Zero and Nonentity: there is in this a great-
ness, nay a kind of sublimity that strikes us silent, as if
‘the Infinite disclosed itself,’ and we had a glimpse of the
ancient Reign of Chaos and Nox! Miraculous Mahomet,
Apollonius with the Golden Thigh, Mendez Pinto, Mün-
chausen, Cagliostro, Psalmanazar seem but botchers in com-
parison.
It was a successful lie too ! It made the French fight
better in that struggle of theirs? Yes, Mr. Yorke;—and
yet withal there is no lie, in the long-run, successful. The
hour of all windbags docs arrive; every windbag is at
length ripped, and collapses; likewise the larger and older
any ripped windbag is, the more fetid and extensive is
the gas emitted therefrom. The French people had better
SINKING OF THE WENGEUR. 19
have been content with their real fighting. Next time the
French Government publishes miraculous bulletins, the very
badauds will be slower to believe them ; one sees not what
sanction, by solemn legislative decree, by songs, ceremonials,
wooden emblems, will suffice to produce belief. Of Nothing
you can, in the long-run, and with much lost labour, make
only—Nothing.
But ought not the French Nation to hook-down that
wooden ‘ Modèle du Vengeur, now at this late date; and,
in a quiet way, split it into brimstone lucifers? The French
Nation will take its own method in regard to that.
As for Rear-Admiral Griffiths, we will say that he has,
in his veteran years, done one other manful service: extin-
guished a Falsehood, sent a Falsehood to the Father of it,
made the world free of it henceforth. For which let him
accept our respectful thanks. I, having once been led to
assert the fable, hold myself bound, on all fit occasions,
to unassert it with equal emphasis. Till it please to dis-
appear altogether from the world, as it ought to do, let it
lie, as a copper shilling, nailed to the counter, and seen by
all customers to be copper.
10th Jume 1839. T. CARLYLE.
P.S.—Curiously enough, while this is passing through
the press, there appears in some French Newspaper called
Chronique Universelle, and is copied conspicuously into the
Paris National (du 10 Juin 1839), an article headed ‘Siw
Matelots du Vengeur. Six old sailors of the Vengeur, it ap-
pears, still survive, seemingly in the Bourdeaux region, in
straitened circumstances; whom the editor, with sure hope,
here points out to the notice of the charitable;—on which
occasion, as is natural, Barrère's blague Once more comes
20 MISCELLANIES.
into play, not a whit worse for the wear, nay if anything,
rather fresher than ever. Shall we send these brave old
weather-beaten men a trifle of money, and request the
Mayor of Mornac to take their affidavit ?
* Nothing in them but doth suffer a sea-change
Into something new and strange l'
Surely the blague, if natural, is not essential in their case.
Old men that have fought for France ought to be assisted
by France, even though they did not drown themselves after
battle. Here is the extract from the National :
* Six Matelots du Vengeur.
* Tandis que la France faisait triompher son indépendance à toutes
ses frontières, le sol, inépuisable en défenseurs, suffisait à peine à la
nourrir, et c'était de l'Amérique, à travers les flots de l'Océan, que la
France était réduite à recevoir son pain. L'Europe en armes ne pou-
vait dompter la révolution, l'Angleterre essaya de la prendre par fa-
mine. Grâce à la croisière de l'Amiral Howe sur les côtes de Bretagne
et de Normandie, elle espérait intercepter un convoi de deux cents
voiles, chargé d'une quantité considérable de grains, précieux ravi-
taillement impatiemment attendu dans nos ports ; mais pour sauver ce
convoi une escadre française était déjà sortie de Brest sous le com-
mandement de Villaret-Joyeuse et la direction du représentant du
peuple Jean-Bon Saint-André.
* Le 9 Prairial de l'an II (28 Mai 1794), les deux armées navales
se sont aperçues, et le cri unanime de nos équipages demande le com-
bat avec un enthousiasme irrésistible. Cependant aux trente-trois
vaisseaux de ligne et aux douze frégates de l'ennemi, nous n'avions à
opposer que trente bâtimens, que des matelots enlevés de la veille à
la charrue, que des officiers et un amiral encore novices dans leurs
grades, et c'était contre les marins expérimentés de la vieille Angleterre
qu'il nous fallait soutenir l'honneur du pavillon tricolore, arboré pour
la première fois dans un combat sur mer.
* On sait que le combat s'engagea dès le jour même, continua dès
le lendemain, fut deux jours interrompu par une brume épaisse, et
SINIKING OF THE VENGEUR. 21
recommença le 13 (1" Juin) à la lumière d'un soleil éclatant, avec une
opiniâtreté inouïe. Notre escadre racheta l'inhabileté de ses manœu-
vres par un déploiement extraordinaire de courage, la vivacité terrible
de ses feux et l'audace de ses abordages. De quel côté resta la vic-
toire ? Les deux flottes, cruellement endommagées, se séparèrent avec
une égale lassitude, et désespérèrent d'arracher un succès décisif à la
supériorité du nombre ou à l'énergie de la résistance. Mais cette
journée fut un baptême de gloire pour notre jeune marine, et la France
recueillit le prix du sang versé. Durant cette même journée, notre
convoi de deux cents voiles traversait paisiblement le champ de ba-
taille du 10, encore semé de débris, et abordait nos côtes.
* Ce fut au milieu de cette action si mémorable qu'il fut donné à
un vaisseau français de se faire une gloire particulière et d'immortaliser
son nom. Cerné par les bâtimens ennemis, couvert des lambeaux de
ses voiles et de sa mâture, criblé de boulets et déjà faisant eau de
toutes parts, le Vengeur refuse d'amener son pavillon. L'équipage ne
peut plus combattre, il peut encore mourir. Au tumulte de la résist-
ance, aux clameurs du courage désespéré succède un profond silence ;
tous montent ou sont portés sur le pont. Ce ne sont plus des com-
battans, ce sont des martyrs de la religion et de la patrie. Là, tran-
quillement exposés au feu des Anglais, sentant de moment en moment
le vaisseau s'enfoncer dans les flots, l'équipage salue d'un dernier re-
gard les couleurs nationales flottant en pièces au-dessus de sa tête, il
pousse un dernier cri de Vive la République / Vive la Liberté / Vive
la France ! et le Vengeur a disparu dans l'abîme. Au récit de ce
fait, dont l'Angleterre elle-même rendit témoignage avec admiration,
la France entière fut émue et applaudit, dans ce dévouement sublime,
son esprit nouveau flottant sur les eaux comme il marchait sur la
terre, indomptable et résolu à vaincre ou mourir. D'après un décret
de la Convention, le Vengeur légua son nom à un vaisseau en con-
struction dans les bassins de Brest, son image à la voûte du Panthéon,
le rôle de l'équipage à la colonne de ce temple, et tous les arts furent
appelés à concourir à la célébration de tant d'héroïsme, tandis que la
reconnaissance publique s'empressait de secourir les veuves et les or-
phelins des héros.
* Voilà ce que fit alors la France ; mais ce qu'elle ignore peut-être,
c'est que du Vengeur les flots n'ont pas tout englouti, et que six
marins, recueillis par l'ennemi et long-temps retenus dans les prisons
22 MISCELLANIES.
de l'Angleterre, ont survécu jusqu'à cette heure même, réduits à une
condition misérable sur le sol de la patrie qui les honora morts et les
oublie vivans ! Six, avons-nous dit, et voici leurs noms, leur âge, leur
position, leur résidence :
* Prévaudeau (Jacques), âgé de 60 ans, demeurant à Mornac ;
vivant, bien que vieux, du peu de travail qu'il peut faire.
* Cerclé (Jean-Pierre), âgé de 69 ans, demeurant à La Tremblade ;
vivant médiocrement de son travail.
* David (Jacques), invalide, âgé de 56 ans, demeurant à La Trem-
blade ; misérable.
* Favier (Jacques), âgé de 64 ans, demeurant à La Tremblade ;
n'ayant pour vivre que le travail de ses bras.
* Torchut (André-Pierre), âgé de 70 ans, demeurant à l'Aiguille ;
comme ses compagnons, il n'a d'autre ressource que son travail.
* Manequin (François), âgé de 70 ans, demeurant au Gua ; men-
diant son pain et presque aveugle.
* Certes, il nous conviendrait peu d'implorer la reconnaissance
publique pour ces six marins ; nous croyons suffisant de les nommer.
Qu'on nous permette seulement un mot : Sous la restauration, un
navire fut expédié jusque dans l'Océan-Pacifique pour découvrir sur
les lointains récifs les traces du naufrage de la Peyrouse, et ce fut à
grands frais que l'on en réunit quelques débris en bois, en fer, en
cuivre et en plomb, religieusement conservés dans nos musées. Au-
jourd'hui, c'est sur notre plage même que gisent, ensevelis dans la
misère et dans l'obscurité, des débris vivans du naufrage héroïque du
Vengeur ; la France et le gouvernement de Juillet pourraient-ils n'être
point jaloux d'acquitter la dette nationale envers ces dernières reliques
du patriotisme inspiré par notre grande révolution?-Chronique Uni-
verselle.'
*,* The publication of this Paper in Fraser's Magazine
gave rise to a certain effervescence of prose and verse,
patriotic-objurgatory, in several of the French Journals,
Revue Britannique, National, Journal du Peuple, &c.; the re-
sult of which, threatening to prove mere zero otherwise,
was that * M. A. Jal, Historiographer of the French Navy,'
SINRING OF THE WENGEUR. 23
did candidly, in the Number of the Revue Britannique for
October 1839, print, from the Naval Archives of France,
the original Despatch of Captain Renaudin to his own Govern-
ment ; the full official Narrative of that battle and cata-
strophe, as drawn up by Renaudin himself and the surviving
officers of the Wengeur; dated Tavistock, 1 Messidor, An II,4
and bearing his and eight other signatures;–whereby the
statement of Admiral Griffiths, if it needed confirmation,
is curiously and even minutely confirmed in every essential
particular, and the story of the Vengeur is at length put
to rest forever.
In that objurgatory effervescence,—which was bound by
the nature of it either to cease effervescing and hold its
peace, or else to produce some articulate testimony of a
living man who saw, or of a dead man who had said he
saw, the Wengeur sink otherwise than this living Admiral
Griffiths saw it, or than a brave ship usually sinks after
brave battle, the one noticeable vestige of new or old evi-
dence was some dubious traditionary reference to the Morn-
ing Chronicle of the 16th June; or, as the French traditionary
referee turned out to have named it, “le Journal LE MORNING
du 16 Juin. Following this faint vestige, additional micro-
scopic researches in the Morning Chronicle of the 16th June
and elsewhere did, at last, disclose to me what seemed the
probable genesis and origin of Barrère's Fable; how it first
suggested itself to his mind, and gathered shape there, and
courage to publish itself: the discovery, unimportant to all
other things and men, is not of much importance oven to
our criticism of Barrère; altering somewhat one's cstimate
of the ratio his poetic faculty may have borne to his men-
dacity in this business, but leaving the joint product of the
* Twenty days before that final sublime Report of Barrère's.
24 MISCELLANIES.
two very much what it was in spiritual value;—a discovery
not worth communicating. The thing a Lie wants, and
solicits from all men, is not a correct natural-history of it,
but the swiftest possible extinction of it, followed by entire
silence concerning it. .
BAILLIE THE COVENANTER.
BAILIIIE THE COVENANTER.1
[1841.]
EARLY in the seventeenth century of our era, a certain
Mr. Robert Baillie, a man of solid wholesome character,
lived in moderate comfort as Parish Minister of Kilwinning,
in the west of Scotland. He had comfortably wedded, pro-
duced children, gathered Dutch and other fit divinity-books;
saw his duties lying tolerably manageable, his possessions,
prospects not to be despised; in short, seemed planted as
for life, with fair hopes of a prosperous composed existence,
in that remote corner of the British dominions. A peace-
able, “solid-thinking, solid-feeding.” yet withal clear-sighted,
diligent and conscientious man,—alas, his lot turned out to
have fallen in times such as he himself, had he been con-
sulted on it, would by no means have selected. Times of
controversy; of oppression, which became explosion and dis-
traction: instead of peaceable preaching, mere raging, bat-
tling, soldiering; universal shedding of gall, of ink and
blood: very troublous times | Composed existence at Kil-
winning, with rural duties, domestic pledges, Dutch bodies
of divinity, was no longer possible for a man.
Till the advent of Laud's Service-book into the High
1 LoNDON AND WESTMINSTER REVIEW, No. 72.-The Letters and Jowrmals of
Robert Baillic, A.M., Principal of the University of Glasgow, 1637-1662. Edited
from the Author's Manuscripts, by David Laing, Esq. 3 vols. (Wols. i. and ii.)
Robert Ogle, Edinburgh, 1841.
28 MISCELLANTES.
Church of Edinburgh (Sunday the 23d of July 1637), and
that ever-memorable flight of Jenny Geddes's stool at the
head of the Dean officiating there, with “Out, thou foul
thief! wilt thou say mass at my lug?”—till that unexpected
cardinal-movement, we say, and the universal, unappeasable
riot, which ensued thereupon over all these Kingdoms,
Baillie, intent on a quiet life at Kilwinning, was always
clear for some mild middle course, which might lead to
this and other blessings. He even looked with suspicion
On the Covenant when it was started; and was not at all
one of the first to sign it. Sign it, however, he did, by and
by, the heat of others heating him ever higher to the due
welding pitch; he signed it, and became a vehement, noto-
worthy champion of it, in such fashion as he could. Baillie,
especially if heated to the welding pitch, was by no means
without faculty.
There lay motion in him ; nay, curiously, with all his
broad-based heaviness, a kind of alacrity, of internal swift-
ness and flustering impetuosity, - a natural vehemence,
assiduous swift eagerness, both of heart and intellect :
very considerable motion; all embedded, too, in that most
wholesome, broad-based love of rest The eupeptic, right-
thinking nature of the man; his sanguineous temper, with
its vivacity and sociality; an ever-busy ingenuity, rather
small perhaps, but prompt, hopeful, useful; always with
a good dash, too, of Scotch shrewdness, Scotch canniness;
and then a loquacity, free, fervid, yet judicious, canny, L
in a word, natural vehemence, wholesomely covered over
and tempered (as Sancho has it) in ‘three inches of old
Christian fat,'—all these fitted Baillie to be a leader in Gene-
ral Assemblies and conclaves, a man deputable to the Lon-
don Parliament and elsewhither. He became a prominent,
and so far as the Scotch Kirk went, prečminent man; pre-
BAILLIE THIE COVENANTER. 29
sent in the thick of all negotiations, Westminster Assemblies,
Scotch Commissions, during the whole Civil War.
It can be said too, that his natural faculty never, in any
pitch of heat or confusion, proved false to him; that here,
amid revolt and its dismal fluctuations, the worthy man lived
agitated indeed, but not unprosperous. Clearly enough, in
that terrible jostle, where so many stumbling fell, and
straightway had their lives and fortunes trodden out, Baillie
did, according to the Scotch proverb, contrive to ‘carry his
dish level’ in a wonderful manner, spilling no drop; and in-
deed was found at last, even after Cromwell and all Sectaries
had been there, seated with prosperous composure, not in the
Kirk of Kilwinning, but in the Principalship of Glasgow
University; which latter he had maintained successfully
through all changes of weather, and only needed to re-
nounce at the coming-in of Charles II., when, at any rate,
he was too old for holding it much longer. So invincible,
in all elements of fortune, is a good natural endowment;
so serviceable to a man is that same quality of motion, if
embedded in wholesome love of rest, — hasty vehemence
dissolved in a bland menstruum of oil |
Baillie, however we may smile at him from this distance,
was not entirely a common character: yet it must be owned
that, for anything he of himself did or spoke or suffered,
the worthy man must have been forgotten many a year
ago; the name of him dead, non-extant; or turning up (as
the doom of such is) like the melancholy mummy of a name,
under the eye of here and there an excavator in those
dreary mines, -bewildered, interminable rubbish-heaps of
the Cromwellian Histories; the dreariest perhaps that any-
where exist, still visited by human curiosity, in this world.
But his copious loquacity, by good luck for him and for
us, prompted Baillie to use the pen as well as tongue. A
30 MISCELLANTES.
certain invaluable “Reverend Mr. Spang, a cousin of his,
was Scotch minister at Campvere, in Holland, with a bound-
less appetite to hear what was stirring in those days; to
whom Baillie, with boundless liberality, gives satisfaction.
He writes to Spang, on all great occasions, sheet upon
sheet; he writes to his Wife, to the Moderater of his Pres-
bytery, to earls and commoners, to this man and to that:
nothing loath to write when there is matter. Many public
Papers (since printed in Rushworth's and other Collections)
he has been at the pains to transcribe for his esteemed cor-
respondents; but what to us is infinitely more interesting,
he had taken the farther trouble to make copies of his own
Letters. By some lucky impulse, one hardly guesses how,
—for as to composition, nothing can be worse written than
these Letters are, mere hasty babblements, like what the
extempore speech of the man would be, he took this trou-
ble; and ungrateful posterity reaps the fruit.
These Letters, bound together as a manuscript book, in
the hands of Baillie's heirs, grew ever more notable as they
grew older; copies, at various times, were made of parts of
them; some three copies of the whole, or almost the whole,
whereof one, tolerably complete, now lies in the British
Museum.” Another usefuler copy came into the hands of
Woodrow, the zealous, diligent Historian of the Scotch
Church, whose numerous Manuscripts, purchased partly by the
* As in this Museum transcript, otherwise of good authority, the name of the
principal correspondent is not ‘Spang' but ‘Strang,’ and we learn elsewhere that
Baillie wrote the miserablest hand, a question arises, Whether Strang be not, once
for all, the real name, and Spang, from the first, a mere false reading, which has
now become inveterate? Strang, equivalent to Strong, is still a common name in
those parts of Scotland. Spang (which is a Scottish verb, signifying leap violently,
leap distractedly,–as an imprisoned, terrified kangaroo might leap) we never heard
of as a Christian person’s surname before “The Reverend Mr. Leap-distractedly’
labouring in that dense element of Campvere, in Holland? We will hope not, if
there be a ray of hope 1 The Bannatyne Club, now in a manner responsible, is ade-
quate to decide.——Spang is the name, persist they (A.D. 1846).
BAILLIE THE COVENANTER. 31
General Assembly, partly by the Advocates' Library, have
now been accessible to all inquirers, for a century or more.
Baillie, in this new position, grew ever notabler; was to
be seen quoted in all books on the history of that period;
had to be read and searched through, as a chief authority,
by all original students of the same. Half a century of this
growing notability issued at last in a printed edition of
Baillie; two moderate octavo volumes, published, appa-
rently by subscription, at Edinburgh, in 1775. Thus, at
length, had the copious outpourings, first emitted into the
ear of Spang and others, become free to the curiosity of all;
purchasable by every one that had a few shillings, legible
by every one that had a little patience. As the interest in
those great transactions never died out in Scotland, Baillie's
Letters and Journals, one of the best remaining illustrations
of them, became common in Scottish libraries.
Unfortunately, this same printed edition was one of the
worst. A tradition, we are told, was once current among
Edinburgh booksellers that it had been undertaken on the
counsel of Robertson and Hume ; but, as Mr. Laing now re-
marks, it is not a credible tradition. Robertson and Hume
would, there is little doubt, feel the desirableness of hav-
ing Baillie edited, and may, on occasion, have been heard
saying so; but such an edition as this of 1775 is not one
they could have had any hand in. In fact, Baillie may be
said to have been printed on that occasion, but not in any
true sense edited at all. The quasi-editor, who keeps him-
self entirely hidden in the background, is guessed to have
been one ‘Mr. Robert Aiken, Schoolmaster of Anderton,”
—honour to his poor shadow of a name ! He went over
Baillie's manuscripts in such fashion as he could ; “ omitted
many Letters on private affairs; copied those on public
matters, better or worse; and prefixing some brief, vague
32 MISCELLANTES.
Memoir of Baillie, gathered out of the general wind, sent his
work through the press, very much as it liked to go.
Thanks to him, poor man, for doing so much ; not blame
that, in his meagre garret, he did not do more I
But it is to be admitted, few books were ever sent forth in
a more helpless condition. The very printer's errors are
numerous. Note or comment there is none whatever, and here
and there some such was palpably indispensable; for Baillie,
in the hurry of his written babblement, is wont to designate
persons and things, often enough, in ways which Spang and
the world would indeed understand at the time, but which
now only critics and close investigators can make out. The
narrative, watery, indistinct, flowing out in vague diffusion,
at the first and best, fades now too frequently into the enig-
matic, and stagnates in total obscuration, if some little note
be not added. Whom does the Letter-writer, in his free and
easy speed, intend to designate by such phrases as ‘ his
Lordship,’ ‘the Lord Marquis, his Grace, precious Mr.
David, the Reverend Mr. H. of N.” An editor ought to tell;
and has not tried there to do it. Far from doing it, he has
even mistaken some of the initials themselves, and so left
the natural dimness changed into Egyptian dark. Read in
this poor Anderton edition, Baillie, in many passages, pro-
duces the effect, not of a painting, even of the hugest sign-
post painting, but of a monstrous, foamy smear, resemblance
of no created thing whatever. Additional outlays of pati-
ence become requisite, and will not always suffice. It is an
enigma you might long guess over, did not perhaps indol-
ence and healthy instincts premonish you that, when you
had it, the secret would be worth little.
To all which unhappy qualities we are to add, that this
same edition of 1775 had, in late times, become in the
highest degree difficult to get hold of] In English libraries
BAILLIE TEEE COVENANTER. 33
it never much abounded, nor in the English book-markets;
its chief seat was always its native one. But of late, as
would seem, what copies there were, the growing interest
of whatsoever related to the heroes of the Civil War had
altogether absorbed. Most interesting to hear what an eye-
witness, even a stupid eye-witness, if honest, will say of such
matters The reader that could procure himself a Baillie to
pore over was lucky. The price in old-book shops here in
London had risen, if by rare chance any copy turned up, to
the exorbitancy of two guineas |
And now, under these circumstances, the Bannatyne
Club, a private reunion of men who devote themselves ex-
pressly to the rescue and reprinting of scarce books and
manuscripts, with or without much value, very wisely de-
termined to reëdit Baillie; first, for their own private be-
hoof; and secondly, as is their wise wont in some cases,
and as in every case is easy for them (the types being
already all set, and the printer’s ‘composition accomplished,
as it were, gratis), for the behoof of the public that will
buy. Very wisely too, they appointed for this task their
Honorary Secretary, the Keeper of the Edinburgh Signet
Library, Mr. David Laing, a gentleman well known for his
skill in that province of things. Two massive Octavos, in
round legible type, are accordingly here; a Third and last
is to follow in a few months; and so Baillie's Letters and
Journals, finally in right reading condition, becomes open,
On easy terms, to whoever has concern in it. In right read-
ing condition; for notes and all due marginal guidances,
such as we desiderated above, are furnished; the text is
rectified by collation of three several Manuscripts, among
others, Baillie's own of the “evil handwriting of which an
appalling facsimile gives evidence; the various Letters re-
lating to private affairs are not excluded in this edition,
VOL. XI. (Misc. vol. 6.) D
34 MISCELLANTES.
but wisely introduced and given in full, as deserving their
paper and ink perhaps better than the average. On the
other hand, public Papers, if easily accessible elsewhere, are
withheld, and a reference given to the Rushworth, Hardwicke,
Thurloe, or other such Collection, where they already stand;
if not easily accessible, they are printed here in appendixes;
and indeed not they only, but many more not copied by
Baillie, some of them curious enough, which the editor's
resources and long acquaintance with the literature of
Scotch History have enabled him to offer. This is the his-
torical description, origin and genesis of these two massive
Octavos named Baillie's Letters and Journals, published by the
Bannatyne Club, which now lie before us; thus are they, and
thence did they come into the world.
It remains now only to be added, critically as well as
historically, that Mr. Laing, according to all appearance,
has exhibited his usual industry, sagacity, correctness, in
this case; and done his work well. The notes are brief,
illuminative, ever in the right place; and, what we will
praise withal, not over-plenteous, not more of them than
needed. Nothing is easier than for an antiquarian editor
to seize too eagerly any chance or pretext for pouring-out
his long-bottled antiquarian lore, and drowning his text,
instead of refreshing and illustrating it; a really criminal
proceeding ! This, we say, the present editor has virtuously
forborne. A good index, a tolerable biography, are to be
looked for, according to promise, in the Third Volume.
Baillie will then stand on his shelves, accessible, in good
reading condition: a fact which, since it is actually a fact,
may with propriety enough be published in this journal, and
in any and all other journals or methods, as widely as the
world and its wants and ways will allow.
We have no thought here of going much into criticism
IBAILLIE THE COVENANTER. 35
of Baillie or his Book; still less of entering at all on that
enormous Business he and it derive their interest from,
that enormous whirlpool on which, the fountains of the
great deep suddenly breaking up, the pacific, broad-based
Minister sees himself launched forth from Kilwinning Kirk,
and set sailing, and epistolising ! The Book has become
Curious to us, and the Man curious; much more so on a
riper acquaintance than they were at first. Nevertheless
our praise of him, hearty enough in its kind, must on all
sides be limited. To the general, especially to the unin-
formed or careless reader, it will not be safe to promise
much ready entertainment from this Book. Entertainment
does lie in it, both amusement and instruction do; but ra–
ther for the student than the careless reader. Poor Baillie
is no epic singer or speaker, the more is the pity! His
Book is like the hasty, breathless, confused talk of a man,
looking face to face on that great whirl of things. A wiser
man—would have talked more wisely But, on the whole,
this man too has a living heart, a seeing pair of eyes; above
all, he is clearly a veracious man; tells Spang and you the
truest he has got to tell, in such a bustling hurry as his.
Veracious in word; and we might say, what is a much rarer
case, Veracious in thought too; for he harbours no malig-
nity, perverse hatred, purposes no wrong against any man
or thing; and indeed, at worst, is of so transparent a nature,
all readers can discern at all times where his bias lies, and
make due allowance for that.
Truly, it is pity the good man had not been a little
wiser, had not shown a little more of the epic gift in writ-
ing: we might then have had, as in some clear mirror, or
Swift contemporaneous Daguerreotype delineator, a legible
living picture of that great Time, as it looked and was
But, alas, no soul of a man is altogether such a ‘mirror;”
36 MISCELLANTES.
the highest soul is only approximately, and still at a great
distance, such. Besides, we are always to remember, poor
Baillie wrote not for us at all; but for Spang and the Pres-
bytery of Irvine, with no eye to us! What of picture there
is, amid such vaporous mazy indistinctness, or indeed quite
turbulent weltering dislocation and confusion, must be taken
as a godsend. The man gazes as he can, reports as he can.
His words flowing-out bubble-bubble, full of zealous broad-
based vehemence, can rarely be said to make a picture;
though on rare occasions he does pause, and with distinct-
ness, nay with a singular felicity, give some stroke of one.
But rarely, in his loquacious haste, has he taken time to
detect the real articulation and structure of the matter he
is talking of-where it begins, ends, what the real character
and purport, the real aspect of it is: how shall he in that
case, by any possibility, make a portrait of it? He talks
with breathless loquacity, with adipose vehemence, about it
and about it. Nay, such lineaments of it as he has dis-
covered and mastered, or begun to discover (for the man is
by no means without an eye, could he have taken time to
look), he, scrawling without limit to Spang, uses not the
smallest diligence to bring-out on the surface, or to separate
from the as yet chaotic, undiscovered; he leaves them wel-
tering at such depth as they happen to lie at. A picture
does struggle in him; but in what state of development
the reader can guess. As the image of a real object may
do, shadowed in some huge frothy ever-agitated vortex or
deluge, -ever-agitated caldron, boiling, bubbling, with fat
vehemence!
Yet this too was a thing worth having: what talk, what
babblement, the Minister of rural Kilwinning, brought Sud-
denly in sight of that great World-transaction, will audibly
emit from him. Here it is, fresh and fresh,_after two cen-
BAILLIE THE COVENANTER. 37
turies of preservation: how that same enormous whirlpool,
of a British Nation all torn from its moorings, and set in
conflict and self-conflict, represents itself, from moment to
moment, in the eyes of this shrewd-simple, zealous, yet
broad-bottomed, rest-loving man. On the whole, is there
not, to the eager student of History, something at Once
most attractive and yet most provoking in all Memoirs by
a Contemporary? Contemporaneous words by an eye-wit-
ness are like no other. For every man who sees with eyes
is, approximately or else afar off—either approximately and
in some faint degree decipherable, or too far off, altogether
wndecipherable, and as if vacant and blank,+the miraculous
‘Daguerreotype-mirror, above mentioned, of whatever thing
transacts itself before him. No shadow of it but left some
trace in him, decipherable or undecipherable. The poor soul
had, lying in it, a far stranger alchemy than that of the
electric-plates: a living Memory, namely, an Intelligence,
better or worse. Words by an eye-witness! You have
there the words which a son of Adam, looking on the pheno-
menon itself, saw fittest for depicturing it. Strange to con-
sider: it, the very phenomenon itself, does stand depictured
there, though under such inextricable obscurations, short-
comings, perversions,—fatally eclipsed from us forever.
For we cannot read it; the traces are so faint, confused,
as good as non-extant to our organs: the light was so unfa-
vourable,_the ‘electric-plate’ was so extremely bad. Alas,
you read a hundred autograph holograph letters, signed
‘Charles Rex, with the intensest desire to understand Charles
Rex, to know what Charles Rex was, what he had in his
eye at that moment; and to no purpose. The summary of
the whole hundred autographs is vacuity, inanity; like the
moaning of winds through desert places, through damp
empty churches: what the writer did actually mean, the
38 MISCELLANTES.
thing he then thought of, the thing he then was, remain
forever hid from you. No answer; only the ever-moaning,
gaunt, unsyllabled woo-woo of wind in empty churches |
Most provoking; a provocation as of Tantalus;–for there
is not a word written there but stands like a kind of win-
dow through which a man might see, or feels as if he might
see, a glimpse of the whole matter. Not a jolt in those
Crabbed angular sentences, nay not a twirl in that Cramp
penmanship, but is significant of all you seek. Had a man
but intellect enough, which, alas, no man ever had, and no
angel ever had, how would the blank become a picture all
legible ! The doleful, unsyllabled woo-woo of church-winds
had become intelligible, cheering articulation; that tragic,
fatal-looking, peak-bearded individual, ‘your constant as-
sured friend, Charles Rex, were no longer an enigma and
chimera to you! With intellect enough, alas, yes it were
all easy then; the very signing of his name were then phy-
siognomical enough of him
Or, descending from such extreme heights and rarefac-
tions, where, in truth, human nature cannot long breathe
with satisfaction,-may we not here deduce Once more the
humble practical inference, How extremely incumbent it is
on every reader to read faithfully with whatever of intellect
he has; on every writer, in like manner, to exert himself,
and write his wisest ? Truly the man who says, still more
who writes, a wise word on any object he has seen with
his eyes, or otherwise come to know and be master of the
same is a benefactor to all men. He that writes unwise
words, again,_especially if on any great, ever-memorable
object, which in this manner catches him up, so to speak,
and keeps him memorable along with it, is he not the in-
disputablest malefactor? Yes; though unfortunately there
is no bailiff to collar him for it, and give him forty stripes
BAILLIE THE COVENANTER. 39
save one ; yet, if he could do better, and has not done it,
yes | Shall stealing the money of a man be a crime; and
stealing the time and brains of innumerable men, generation
after generation of men, be none 3 For your tenebrific cri-
minal has fixed himself on some great object, and cannot
perhaps be forgotten for centuries; one knows not when
he will be entirely forgotten l He, for his share, has not
brought light into the world according to his opportunity,
but darkness; he is a son of Nox, has treacherously de-
serted to the side of Chaos, Nox and Erebus; strengthen-
ing, perpetuating, so far as lay in him, the reign of prolixity,
vacuity, vague confusion, or in one word, of stupidity and
misknowledge on this earth ! A judicious Reviewer, in a
time when the ‘abolition of capital punishments’ makes such
progress in both Hemispheres,--would not willingly propose
a new penalty of death; but in any reasonable practical
suggestion, as of a bailiff and forty stripes save One, to be
doubled in case of relapse, and to go on doubling in rigid
geometric progression till amendment ensued, he will cheer-
fully concur.
But to return. The above considerations do not, it is
clear, apply with any stringency to poor Baillie; whose in-
tellect, at best, was never an epic one; whose opportunities,
good as they look, were much marred by circumstances;
above all, whose epistolary performance was moderately
satisfactory to Spang! We are to repeat that he has an
intellect, and a most lively, busy one of its kind; that he
is veracious, what so few are. If the cursory reader do
not completely profit by him, the student of History will
prosper better. But in this, as in all cases, the student of
History must have patience. Everywhere the student of
History has to pass his probation, his apprenticeship; must
first, with painful perseverance, read himself into the cen-
40 MISCELLANTES.
tury he studies, which naturally differs much from our cen-
tury; wherein, at first entrance, he will find all manner of
things, the ideas, the personages, and their interests and
aims, foreign and unintelligible to him. He as yet knows
nobody, can yet care for nobody, completely understand
nobody. He must read himself into it, we say; make him-
self at home, and acquainted, in that repulsive foreign
century. Acquaintance once made, all goes smoother and
Smoother; even the hollow-sounding ‘constant assured
friend Charles Rex' improves somewhat; how much more
this headlong, warm-hearted, blundering, babbling, ‘Saga-
cious jolterhead of a Baillie For there is a real worth in
him, spite of its strange guise;—something of the Boswell;
rays of clear genial insight, sunny illumination, which alter-
nate curiously with such babblement, oily vehemence, con-
fused hallucination and sheer floundering platitude An
incongruous, heterogeneous man; so many inconsistencies,
all united in a certain prime-element of most turbid, but
genuine and fertile radical warmth.
Poor Baillie The daily tattle of men, as the air car-
ried it two hundred years ago, becomes audible again in
those pages: an old dead Time, seen alive again, as through
a glass darkly. Those hasty chaotic records of his, written
down offhand from day to day, are worth reading. They
produce on us something like the effect of a contempor-
aneous daily newspaper; more so than any other record
of that time; much more than any of the Mercuries, ‘Bri-
tannic,” “Aulic,” “Rustic, which then passed as newspapers,
but which were in fact little other than dull-hot objurgatory
pamphlets, grown cold enough now. Baillie is the true
newspaper; he is to be used and studied like One. Taken
up in this way, his steamy indistinctness abates, as our eye
gets used to the steamy scene he lives in ; many a little
BAILLIE THE COVENANTER. 41
trait discloses itself, where at first mere vacant confusion
was discernible. Once familiar to the time, we find the
old contemporaneous newspaper, which seemed mere waste
paper, a rather interesting document. Nay, as we said, the
Kilwinning Minister himself by degrees gets interesting;
for there is a strange homely worth in him, lowable and ludi-
crous; a strange mass of shrewd simplicities, naiveties,
blundering ingenuities, and of right wholesome vitalities
withal. Many-tinted traceries of Scotch humours, such as
a Galt, a Scott, or a Smollett might have rejoiced over, lie
in this man, unobliterated by the Covenant and all distance
of time. How interesting to descry, faintly developed, yet
there and recognisable through the depths of two dead cen-
turies, and such dense garnitures and dialects all grown
obsolete, the indubitablest traits of Scotch human-nature,
redolent of the ‘West-country, of the kindly ‘Salt-market,”
even as this Day still sees it and lovingly laughs over it !
Rubicund broad lineaments of a Nicol Jarvie, sly touches
too of an Andrew Fairservice ; may sputterings, on occasion,
of the tindery tragic fire of an adust Lieutenant Leshma-
hago, -fat as this man is, and of a pacific profession 1
We could laugh much over him, and love him much, this
good Baillie; but have not time at present. We will point
out his existence; advise all persons who have a call that
way to read that same ‘contemporaneous newspaper' of his
with attention and thanks. We give it small praise when
we say, there is perhaps no book of that period which will,
in the end, better reward the trouble of reading. Alas, to
those unfortunate persons who have sat, for long months
and years, obstimately incurring the danger of locked-jaw,
or suspension at least of all the thinking faculties, in stub-
born perusal of Whitlocke, Heylin, Prynne, Burton, Lilburn,
Laud and Company, Lall flat, boundless, dead and dismal
42 MISCELLANIES.
as an Irish bog-such praise will not seem too promis-
sory !
But it is time to let Baillie speak a little for himself;
readers, both cursory and studious, will then judge a little
for themselves. We have fished-up, from much circumam-
bient indistinctness and embroiled babblement, a lucid pass-
age or two. Take first that clear vision, made clear to
our eyes also, of the Scotch encamped in warlike array
under Field-Marshal Alexander Lesley, that “old little
Crooked soldier, on the slopes of Dunse Law, in the sunny
days of 1639. Readers are to fancy that the flight of Jenny
Geddes's stool, which we named a cardinal movement (as
wrongs long compressed do but require some slight fugling-
signal), has set all Scotland into uproar and violent gesti-
culation: the first slight stroke of a universal battle and
wrestle, with all weapons, on the part of all persons, for
the space of twenty years or so, One of the later strokes
of which severed a king's head off! That there were flock-
ings of men to Edinburgh, and four ‘Tables' (not for dining
at) set up. That there have been National Covenants,
General Assemblies, royal commissioners; royal proclama-
tions not a few, with protests of equal number; much inef-
fectual proclaiming, and protesting, and vociferating; then,
gradually, private ‘drillings in Fife’ and other shires; then
public calling-forth of the “twelfth penny, of the ‘fourth
fencible man; Dutch arms from Holland, Scotch officers
from Germany, not to speak of commissariat-stores, thrifty
‘webs of harding’ (canvas) drawn “from the good wives of
Edinburgh’ by eloquent pulpit-appeals ‘of Mr. Harry Rol-
lock:'-and so, finally, this is what we discern on the plea-
sant comical Hill of Dunse, in the summer weather of 1639.
For, as Baillie says, “They might see now that before we
BAILLIE THE COVENANTER. 43
“would be roasted with a slow fire, by the hands of Church-
“men who keeped themselves far aback from the same, we
“were resolved to make a bolt through the reek, and try
‘to get a grip of some of those who had first kindled the
‘ fire, and still laid fuel to it, and try if we could cast them
“in the midst of it, to taste if that heat was pleasant when
‘it came near their own skins ! Proper enough; and lo, ac-
cordingly:
‘This our march did much affray the English camp : Dunse Law
was in sight, within six or seven miles; for they lay in pavilions
some two miles above Berwick, on the other side of Tweed, in a fair
plain along the river. The king himself, beholding us through a pro-
spect (spy-glass), did conjecture us to be sixteen or eighteen thousand
men; but at one time we were above twenty thousand.’
‘It would have done you good to have casten your eyes athort
our brave and rich Hill, as oft I did, with great contentment and joy.
Tor I (quoth the wren) was there among the rest; being chosen
preacher by the Gentlemen of our Shire, who came late with my
Lord of Eglinton. I furnished to half a dozen of good fellows mus-
kets and pikes, and to my boy a broadsword. I carried, myself, as
the fashion was, a sword and a couple of Dutch pistols at my saddle ;
but, I promise, for the Offence of no man except a robber in the way;
for it was our part to pray and preach for the encouragement of our
countrymen, which I did, to my power, most cheerfully. Our Hill
was garnished on the top, towards the south and east, with our
mounted cannon; well near to the number of forty, great and small.
Our regiments lay on the sides of the Hill, almost round about : the
place was not a mile in circle; a pretty round, rising in a declivity,
without steepness, to the height of a bow-shot; on the top, somewhat
plain; about a quarter of a mile in length, and as much in breadth;
as I remember, capable of tents for forty thousand men. The crowners?
lay in kenmous (canvas) lodges, high and wide; their captains about
* Crowner, coroner, and (to distinguish this officer from him who holds the in-
quests), coronel, which last is still intrinsically our pronunciation of the word now
spelt colonel. -
44 MISCELLANTES.
them in lesser ones; the sojours about, all in huts of timber covered
with divot (turf) or straw. Our crowners, for the most part, were
noblemen: Rothes, Lindsay, Sinclair had among them two full regi-
ments at least, from Fife ; Balcarras a horse-troop ; Loudon’ &c. &c.
° Our captains were mostly barons, or gentlemen of good note ; our
lieutenants, almost all, sojours who had served over sea in good
charges. Every company had flying, at the captain's tent-door, a
brave new Colour, with the Scottish Arms, and this ditton, For
Christ's Crown and Covenant, in golden letters,'—a notable emblazon-
ment indeed
‘The councils of war were keeped daily in the Castle of Dunse;
the ecclesiastic meetings in Rothes's large tent. Lesley the General,
and Baillie his Lieutenant, came nightly on their horses for the setting
of the watch. Our sojours were all lusty and full of courage; the
most of them stout young ploughmen; great cheerfulness in the face
of all. The only difficulty was to get them dollars or two the man,
for their voyage from home and the time they entered on pay : for
among our yeomen money at any time, not to say then, used to be
very scarce.’ ‘We were much obliged to the town of Edinburgh for
moneys: Harry Rollock, by his sermons, moved them to shake-out
their purses; the garners of Non-covenanters, especially of James
Maxwell and my Lord Winton, gave us plenty of wheat. One of
our Ordinances was To seize on the rents of Non-covenanters,'—ane
helpful Ordinance, so far as it went.
‘Our sojours grew in experience of arms, in courage, in favour,
daily : every one encouraged the other ; the sight of the nobles and
their beloved pastors daily raised their hearts. The good sermons
and prayers, morning and even, under the roof of Heaven, to which
their drums did call them for bells; the remonstrances, very frequent,
of the goodness of their Cause, of their conduct (guidance) hitherto
by a Hand clearly Divine; also Lesley his skill and fortune,—made
them all so resolute for battle as could be wished. We were feared
(afraid) that emulation among our nobles might have done harm
when they should be met in the fields; but such was the wisdom
and authority of that old little crooked souldier, that all, with ame
incredible submission, from the beginning to the end, gave over
themselves to be guided by him, as if he had been Great Solyman.
He keeped daily, in the Castle of Dunse, ane honourable table : for
BAILLIE THE COVENANTER. , 45
the nobles and strangers, with himself: for the gentlemen waiters,
thereafter at a long side-table. I had the honour, by accident, one
day to be his chaplain at table, on his left hand. The fare was as
became a general in time of war: not so curious by far as Arundel's,
in the English Camp, to our nobles; but ye know that the English
Sumptuosity, both in war and peace, is despised by all their neigh-
bours,'—bursten poke-puddings of Englishers, whose daily care is to
dine, not wisely but too well !
“But had ye lent your ear in the morning, or especially at even,
and heard in the tents the sound of some singing psalms, some pray-
ing, and some reading Scripture, ye would have been refreshed. True,
there was swearing, and cursing, and brawling, in some quarters: but
we hoped, if our camp had been a little settled, to have gotten some
way for these misorders; for all, of any fashion, did regret, and all
did promise to contribute their best endeavours for helping all abuses.
IFor myself, I never found my mind in better temper than it was all
the time frae I came from home, till my head was again homeward;
for I was as a man who had taken my leave from the world, and was
resolved to die in that service without return. I found the favour of
God shining upon me; and a Sweet, meek, yet strong and vehement
spirit leading me, all along. But, alas, I was no sooner on my way
westward, after the conclusion of peace, than my old security re-
turned.”
This is the Scotch Encampment on the Hill of Dunse;
King Charles looking at it through a spy-glass, not without
interest, from the plain above Berwick on the other side of
the river. Could he have discovered the Reverend Robert
Baillie riding thither from Kilwinning, girt with sword and
Dutch pistols, followed by the five or six rough characters
whom he had laid out hard cash to furnish with muskets
and pikes, and to what a dreadful pitch the mind of the
4 We have used the freedom to modernise Baillie's spelling a little; about which,
‘as he could never fix,’ says Mr. Laing, “on any constant way of spelling his own
“name,” there need not be much delicacy: we also endeavour to improve his punc-
tuation, &c. here and there; but will nowhere in the least alter his sense.
46 MISCELLANIES.
pacific broad-based man had now got itself screwed, resolute
‘to die on that service without return,'—truly, this also
might have been illuminative for his Majesty! Heavy Bail-
lie was an emblem of heavy Scotland, in the rear of which
lay heavy England. But “our sweet Prince' discerned only
the surfaces of things. The mean peddling details hid
from him, as they still do from so many, the essential great
meaning of the matter; and he thought, and still again
thought, that the rising-up of a million men, to assert that
they were verily men with souls, and not automatons with
wires, was some loud-sounding pettiness, some intrigue,
to be dealt with by intriguing. Herein he fundamentally
mistook; mis-saw ;—and so mis-went, poor Prince, in all
manner of ways: to the front of Whitehall ultimately
But let us now, also through a kind of dim spy-glass,
cast a far-off look into the domesticities of Baillie; let us
glance, namely, through certain of these paper-missives, into
that ancient Manse of Kilwinning; all vanished now, to the
last stone of it, long since; swallowed in the depths of
edacious Time. The reader shall also see a journey to Town
done on ponies, along the coast of what is now the Great
North-eastern Railway, working with so much more velocity
by steam -
The ‘Treaty of Berwick, fruit of that Dunse-Law ex-
pedition of the Scotch People, has soon issued again in
proclamations, in ‘papers burnt by the hangman;' and then
in a new Scotch Armament, lodged, this time, not on Dunse
Hill, with uncertain moneys from Mr. Harry Rollock, but,
by a bold movement through the Tyne at Newburn, safely
in the town of Newcastle, with eight hundred pounds a-
day from the northern counties: whereupon follows a new
‘Treaty of Rippon,'—fit also to be burnt by the hangman
by and by. Baillie rejoices somewhat in the milk and
BAILLIE THE COVENANTER. 47
honey of these northern counties, comparatively a fat, pro-
ductive land. The heroic man, girt again with Dutch
pistols, innocuous except to thieves, had made his Will be-
fore departing on these formidable expeditions: ‘It will be
‘my earnest desire, thus wills he, ‘that my wife be content
‘with the annual-rent of seven thousand merk (Scots) from
‘what is first and readiest, and that she quit judicially
‘what further she could crave by her very subdolous con-
‘tract'—subdolous contract, I say, though not of her mak-
ing; which she should quit. “What then remains, let it be
‘ employed for her children's education and profit. I would
‘give to Robert five thousand merk, if he quit his heirship;
‘the rest to be equally divided betwixt Harrie and Lillie.
‘Three hundred merk to be distribute presently among the
“Poor of the Parish of Kilwinning, at sight of the Session.’
All this we omit, and leave behind us in a state of comfort-
able fixity;-being bound now on a new mission: to the
new Parliament (which will one day become a Long Parlia-
ment) just sitting down at present. Read these select frac-
tions of Letters ‘to Mrs. Baillie at Kilwinning, dated No-
vember 1640, on the road to London:
‘My Heart, I wrote to thee from Edinburgh; also, from Kelso,
to Mr. Claud, suspecting thy absence from home. I wrote to thee
likewise here, in Newcastle, on Saturday last. Since, I thank God, I
have been very weel, as thy heart could wish, and all my company.
‘Yesternight the Committee sent for me, and told me of their de-
sire I should go to London with the Commissioners. I made sundry
difficulties; which partly they answered, and partly took to their
consideration till this day. But now, at our presbytery after sermon,
both our noblemen and ministers in one voice thought meet that
not only Mr. Alexander Henderson, but also Mr. Robert Blair, Mr.
George Gillespie, and I, should all three, for divers ends, go to Lon-
don; Mr. Robert Blair to satisfy the minds of many in England who
love the way of New England (Independency) better than that of
48 MISCELLANIES.
Dresbyteries in our Church; I for the convincing of that prevalent
faction (Arminian Episcopals) against which I have written; Mr.
Gillespie for the crying-down of the English ceremonies, on which he
has written ; and all four of us to preach, by turns, to our Commis-
sioners in their house; which is the custom of divers noblemen at
court, and was our practice all the time of the Conference at Rippon.
We mind to Durham, God willing, tomorrow; and other twelve miles
on Saturday, to Darntoun (Darlington), there to stay all Sunday,
where we hope to hear, before we cross the Tees on Monday, how
things are like to frame in the English Parliament. Loudon is fashed
with a defluxion; he will stay here till Monday, and come on as
health serves, journey or post.
“They speak here of the prentices pulling down the High-Com-
mission house at London; of General King's landing, with six or
seven thousand Danes, in the mouth of the Thames, near London.
We wish it were so; but we take it, and many things more you will
hear, for clatters.
‘My Heart, draw near to God; neglect not thy prayers morning
and evening with thy servants, as God will help thee; read and
pray, beside that, in private. Put Rob to the school; teach him and
Harrie both some little beginnings of God’s fear; have a care of my
little Lillie. I pray thee write to me how thou and they are.
‘Thy awne,
‘Newcastle, 5 November 1640. R. BAILLIE.
‘My Heart, Thou sees Islip no occasion. I wrote to thee yes-
ternight from Newcastle; this night I am in Durham, very weel,
rejoicing in God’s good providence.
“After I closed my letters, my boy Jamie was earnest to go with
me; so, notwithstanding of my former resolution to send him home,
I was content to take him. I spake to the General, and put-in his
name, as my man, in the Safe-conduct. But, when I was to loup (to
mount horse), he failed me, and would go no farther 1 I could not
strive then ; I gave him his leave, and a dollar to carry him home.
His folly did me great wrong; for if I should have gone back to be-
speak ane other, I would have lossed my company: So without trou-
bling myself, I went forward with my company, manless. But, behold
the gracious providence of my God: as I enter in Durham, one of my
BAILLIE THE COVENANTER. 49
old Scholars, a preacher in Colonel Ramsay's regiment of horse, meets
with me before I light; will have me to his chamber; gives me his
chamber, stable, servant, a cup of sack, and all courtesy; gets me a
religious youth, a trooper, ready with a good horse, to go with me to
London. Major-General Baillie makes me, and all the Commissioners
that were there, sup with him, and gives the youth his leave to go
with me. Mr. Archibald Johnston assures me for his charges, as well
as my own. So my man James's foolish unthankfulness is turned
about for my ten-times better provision : I take this for a presage and
ane erles (earnest) of God's goodness towards me all this voyage.
‘We hope that Loudon's defluxion shall not hinder him to take
journey on Tuesday. The morrow we intend but one other post to
Darlington, and there stay till the Great Seal (our Safe-conduct) come
to us. The Lord be with thee and my babies, and all my flock and
friends.
‘Thy awne,
“Durham, 6 November, Friday. R. BAILLIE.’
‘My Heart, I know thou does now long to hear from me. I
wrote to thee on Saturday was eight days [dated Friday], from Dur-
ham. That day we went to Darlington, where Mr. Alexander Hen-
derson and Mr. Robert Blair did preach to us on Sunday. At supper
on Sunday, the post, with the Great Seal of England for our safe-con-
duct, came to us; with the Earl of Bristol's letter to Loudon, entreat-
ing us to make haste.
‘On Monday we came, before we lighted, to Boroughbridge,
twenty-five miles. On Tuesday we rode three short posts, by Ferry-
bridge, to Doncaster." There I was content to buy a bobbin waist-
coat. On Wednesday we came another good journey to Newark-on-
Trent, where we caused Dr. Moyslie sup with us. On Thursday we
came to Stamford; on Friday to Huntingdon; on Saturday to Ware;
here we rested the Sabbath and heard the minister, after we were
Warned of the end of the service, preach two good sermons,'—the Ser-
vice once well over, one gets notice, finds the sermons very fair
* “Ferribrig, Toxford and Duncaster,” Baillie writes here; confusing the matter
in his memory; putting Tuxford north of Doncaster, instead of south and subse-
Quent.
VOL. XI. (Misc. vol. 6.) IE
50 MISCELLANTES.
‘On Monday morning we came that twenty miles to London be-
fore sunrising;" all well, horse and man, as we could wish; divers
merchants and their servants with us on little naigs; the way ex-
tremely foul and deep. Our journeys being so long and continued,
and Sundry of us unaccustomed with travel, we took it for God's sin-
gular goodness that all of us were so preserved: none in the company
held better out than I and my man, and our little noble naigs. From
Kilwinning to London I did not so much as stumble: this is the
fruit of your prayers. I was also all the way full of courage, and
comforted with the sense of God’s presence with my spirit. We were
at great expenses on the road. Their inns are all like palaces; no
wonder they extorse their guests: for three meals, coarse enough, we
would pay, together with our horses, sixteen or seventeen pound ster-
ling. Some three dish of creewishes (écrivisses), like little partans
(miniature lobsters), two-and-forty shillings sterling.”—Save us —
‘We lodge here in the Common Garden (Covent Garden); our house-
mails (rent) every week above eleven pound sterling. The City is
desirous we should lodge with them ; so tomorrow I think we must
flit.
“All things here go as our heart could wish. The Lieutenant of
Ireland (Strafford) came but on Monday to town, late ; on Tuesday,
rested; on Wednesday, came to Parliament; but, ere might, he was
caged. Intolerable pride and oppression cry to Heaven for venge-
a.I].C0.
‘Tuesday here was a fast ; Mr. Blair and I preached to our Com-
missioners at home, for we had no clothes for Outgoing. Many minis-
ters used greater freedom than ever here was heard of. Episcopacy
itself beginning to be cried-down, and a Covenant cried-up, and the
Liturgy to be scorned. The town of London and a world of men
mind to present a Petition, which I have seen, for the abolition of
bishops, deans and all their appurtenances. It is thought good to
delay till the Parliament have pulled-down Canterbury (Laud) and
some prime bishops, which they mind to do so soon as the King has
a little digested the bitterness of his Lieutenant's censure. Huge
things are here in working; the mighty Hand of God be about this
great work . We hope this shall be the joyful harvest of the tears
6 Sunrise on the 16th of November 1640.
BAILLIE THE COVENANTER. 51
that, these many years, have been sown in these Kingdoms. All
here are weary of bishops.
* London, 18 November 1640. R. BAILLIE.’
Weary of bishops, indeed; and ‘creewishes' at such a
price; and the Lord Lieutenant Strafford caged, and Can-
terbury to be pulled down, and everywhere a mighty drama
going on ; and thou meanwhile, my Heart, put Rob to the
school, give Harry and him some beginnings of wisdom,
mind thy prayers, quit subdolous contracts, ‘have a care
of my little Lillie P Poor little Lilias Baillie ; tottering
about there, with her foolish glad tattlement, with her laugh-
ing eyes, in drugget or other homespun frock, and anti-
quarian bib and tucker, far off in that old Manse of Kil-
winning ! But she grew to be tall enough, this little Lillie,
and a mother, and a grandmother; and one of her grand-
sons was Henry Home Lord Kaimes;" whose memorial, and
Lillie's, is still in this earth!
Greatly the most impressive of all the scenes Baillie
witnessed in that mighty drama going on everywhere, was
the Trial of Strafford. A truly impressive, momentous scene;
on which Rushworth has gathered a huge volume, and then
and since many men have written much; wherein, never-
theless, several features would have been lost, had not the
Minister of Kilwinning, with his rustic open heart and see-
ing eyes, been there. It is the best scene of all he has
painted, or hastily sign-painted, plastered and daubed. With
careful industry, fishing as before from wide wastes of dim
embroilment, let us Snatch here and there a luminous frag-
ment, and adjust them as is best possible; and therewith
close our contemporaneous newspaper. Baillie's report, of
7 Woodhouselee's Life of Kaimes.
52 MISCELLANDES.
immense length and haste, is to the Presbytery of Irvine,
and dated May 1641. We give two earlier fractions first,
from Letters to Mrs. Baillie. Strafford, on that fasting Tues-
day, when the pulpits were so loud against bishops, was
reposing from fatigues of travel. On the morrow he re-
paired to his place in Parliament, nothing doubting; “but
ere night he was caged:
Wednesday, 17 November 1640. “The Lower House closed their
doors; the Speaker keeped the keys till his accusation was concluded.
Thereafter Mr. Pym went up, with a number at his back, to the
Higher House; and in a short pretty speech, did, in name of the
Lower House, and in name of the Commons of all England, accuse
Thomas Earl of Strafford, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, of High Trea-
Son ; and required his person to be arrested till probation might be
heard. And so Pym and his train withdrew ; and thereupon the
Lords began to consult on that strange and unexpected motion.
‘The word goes in haste to the Lord Lieutenant where he was
with the King. With speed he comes to the House; he calls loudly
at the door; James Maxwell, Keeper of the Black-rod, opens. His
Lordship, with a proud glooming countenance, makes towards his place
at the board-head; but at once many bid him void the House. So
he is forced, in confusion, to go to the door till called again.”—Called
again, ‘he stands, but is commanded to kneel on his knees; after
hearing their resolution, he offers to speak, but is commanded to be
gone without a word.
“In the outer room, James Maxwell required him, as prisoner, to
deliver his sword; when he had gotten it, he cries with a loud voice
for his man “to carry my Lord Lieutenant's sword.” This done, he
makes through a number of people towards his coach; all gazing, no
man capping to him, before whom, that morning, the greatest of Eng-
land would have stood uncovered; all crying, “What is the matter 7”
He said, “A small matter, I warrant you !” They replied, “Yes in-
deed, High Treason is a small matter P’’
Saturday, January 30, 1641. ‘The Lieutenant this day was
sent for. He came from the Tower by water, with a guard of mus-
BAILLIE THE COVENANTER. 53
keteers; the world wondering, and at his going out and coming in,
shouting and cursing him to his face.
‘Coming into the Higher House, his long Charge, in many sheets
of paper, was read to him. For a while he sat on his knees before
the bar; then after they caused him sit down at the bar, for it was
eight o'clock before all was read. He craved a month to answer.’
May 4, 1641. “Reverend and dear Brethren,’ ” * “The world
now Seeth that the delay is alone upon their side. Their constant
attendance on Strafford is pretended to be the cause ; and truly it is
a great part of the reason why our business and all else has been so
long suspended. Among many more, I have been ane assiduous as-
sistant ; and therefore I will give you some account of what I have
heard and seen in that most notable Process.
‘Westminster Hall is a room as long, as broad, if not more, than
the outer house of the High Church of Glasgow, supposing the pillars
were all removed. In the midst of it was erected a stage, like to that
prepared for our Assembly at Glasgow, but much larger; taking up
the breadth of the whole house from wall to wall, and of the length
more than a third part.
“At the north end was set a throne for the King, a chair for the
Prince ; before it lay a large woolsack, covered with green, for my
Lord Steward, the Earl of Arundel;8 and then lower, two other wool-
sacks for my Lord Keeper and the Judges, with the rest of the Chan-
cery, all in their red robes. Beneath this, a little table for four or
five clerks of the Parliament in their black gowns. Round about
these, Some forms covered with green frieze, whereon the Earls and
Lords did sit in their red robes, of that same fashion, lined with the
same White ermine-skins, as you see the robes of our Lords when they
ride in Parliament at Edinburgh. The Lords on their right sleeves
have two bars of white skins; the Viscounts two and ane half; the
Earls three ; the Marquess of Winchester three and ane half. Eng-
land hath no more Marquesses; and he but ane late upstart creature
of Queen Elizabeth's,
“In fromt of these forms where the Lords sit, is a bar covered
with green. At the one end of it standeth the Committee of eight or
8 This is he of the Aºundel Marbles: he went abroad next year.
54 MISCELLANIES.
ten gentlemen appointed by the House of Commons to pursue (prose-
cute); at the midst there is a little desk, where the prisoner Strafford
sits or stands as he pleaseth, together with his keeper, Sir William
Balfour, the Lieutenant of the Tower. At the back of this is another
desk for Strafford's four secretaries, who carry his papers, and assist
him in writing and reading. At their side is a void for witnesses to
stand. Behind them is a long desk, close to the wall of the room,”
for Strafford's counsel-at-law, some five or six able Lawyers, who were
not permitted to dispute in matter of fact, but questions of right, if
any should be incident. This is the order of the House below on the
floor; the same that is used daily in the House of Lords.
“Upon the two sides of the House, east and west, there arose a
stage of eleven ranks of forms, the highest touching almost to the
roof. Every one of these forms went from the one end of the room
to the other, and contained about forty men. The two highest were
divided from the rest by a rail; and a rail cutted-off from the rest,
at every end, some seats. The gentlemen of the Lower House did
sit within the rail ; other persons without. All the doors were keeped
very straitly with guards: we always behoved to be there a little after
five in the morning. My Lord Willoughby Earl of Lindsey, Lord
Chamberlain of England, ordered the House with great difficulty.
James Maxwell, Black-rod, was great usher; a number of other Ser-
vant gentlemen and knights attended. We, by favour, got place
within the rail, among the Commons. The House was full daily
before seven. Against eight the Earl of Strafford came in his barge
from the Tower, accompanied by the Lieutenant and a guard of mus-
keteers and halberdiers. The Lords in their robes were set about
eight; the King was usually there half an hour before them.
‘The King came not into his throne, for that would have marred
the action ; for it is the order of England, that when the King appears,
he speaks what he will, and no other speaks in his presence. But at
the back of the throne there were two rooms on the two sides ; in
the one did Duke de Vanden, Duke de Vallet,” and other French
9 Temporary wooden wall; from east to west, as Baillie counts the azimuths.
10 * Duke de Vanden,’ we presume, is Duc de Vendôme, left-hand Brother of
Charles's Queen; “Vallet’ is La Valette, who in 1642 became Duc d’Espernon, suc-
ceeding his celebrated Father of that title. Two visitors of her Majesty. Notices
of them, of their departure from the country by and by, are in Commons Journals,
ii. 670, 576 (13 July, 17 May, 1642), &c.
BAILLIE THE COVENANTER. 55
nobles sit ; in the other the King, the Queen, Princess Mary, the
Prince Elector, and some court ladies. The tirlies (lattices), that
made them to be secret, the King brake down with his own hands;
So they sat in the eye of all; but little more regarded than if they
had been absent : for the Lords sat all covered ; those of the Lower
House, and all others except the French noblemen, sat uncovered
When the Lords came, and not else. A number of ladies were in
boxes above the rails, for which they paid much money. It was daily
the most glorious assembly the Isle could afford, yet the gravity not
Such as I expected. Oft great clamour without about the doors : in
the intervals while Strafford was making ready for answers, the Lords
got always to their feet, walked and clattered (chatted); the Lower-
House men, too, loud clattering. In such sessions, ten hours long,
there was much public eating, not only of confections, but of flesh
and bread; bottles of beer and wine going thick from mouth to
mouth, without cups; and all this in the King's eye : yea, many
but turned their back, and’—(Gracious Heavens !)—‘through the
forms they sat on. There was no outgoing to return ; and oft the
sitting was till two, three, or four o'clock.’
Strangely in this manner, no ‘dignity of history’ in the
Smallest obstructing us, do we look, through these rough-
and-ready Scotch words, through these fresh Kilwinning
eyes, upon the very body of the old Time, its form and
pressure, its beer and wine bottles, its loud clattering and
crowding. There it is, visually present: one feels as if, by
an effort, one could hear it, handle it, speak with it. How
different from the dreary vacuity of most ‘philosophies
teaching by experience’ is the living picture of the fact ;
such as even a Boswell or a Baillie can give, if they will
but honestly look In spite of haste, we must continue a
little farther; catch a few more visualities:
‘The first session was on Monday, March 22 (1641). All being
set, as I have said, the Prince on a little chair at the side of the
throne, the Chamberlain and Black-rod went and fetched-in my Lord
56 MISCELLANIES.
Strafford. He was always in the same suit of black, as if in dool.
At the entry he gave a low courtesy; proceeding a little, he gave
a second ; when he came to his desk, a third ; then at the bar, the
fore-face of his desk, he kneeled; rising quickly, he saluted both
sides of the House, and sat down. Some few of the Lords lifted their
hats to him. This was his daily carriage. -
‘My Lord Steward, in a sentence or two, showed that the House
of Commons had accused the Earl of Strafford of high treason ; that
he was there to answer; that they might manage their evidence as
they thought meet. They thereupon desired one of their clerks to
read their impeachment. I sent you the printed copy long ago. The
first nine articles, being but generalities, were passed; the twenty-
eight of the farther impeachment were all read. The clerk's voice
was small ; and after the midst, being broken, was not heard by
Imany.
‘My Lord of Strafford was, in his answer, very large, accurate and
eloquent. A preamble, wherein,’ &c.; this he spoke ; and then a
long paper, of particular answers to the twenty-eight charges, was
read. ‘The reading of it took-up large three hours. His friends were
so wary that they made three clerks read by turns, that every one
might hear. . . . . After all, Strafford craved leave to speak; but
the day being so far spent, to two or three o'clock, he was refused;
and the Lord Steward adjourned the House till the morrow at eight.
“The second session, on Tuesday 23d. The King and Queen and
all being set as the day before, Mr. Pym had a long and eloquent
oration, only against the preamble of Strafford's answer, wherein he
laboured to—’ &c. &c. “The first witness, Sir Pierce Crosby, who—’
* * * “When Pym had ended, the Earl required time, if it were
|but to the morrow, to answer so heavy charges, many whereof were
new. After debate pro and contra, one of the Lords spake of ad-
journing their House; and pressed their privilege, that at the motion
of any one Lord the House behoved to be adjourned. So the Lords
did all retire to their own House above, and debated among them-
selves the question for a large half-hour. During their absence,
though in the eye of the King, all fell to clattering, walking, eat-
ing, toying; but Strafford, in the midst of all the noise, was serious
with his secretaries, conferring their notes, and writing. The Lords
returned ; the Steward pronounced their decision : that the matters
BAILLIE TEIE COVENANTER. 57
spoken being all of fact, and this only in answer to his own pre-
amble, he should make an answer without any delay. So, without
sign of repining, the Earl answered something to all had been said;
instanced—' . . . .
‘Wednesday 24th. Mr. Maynard handled the first of the twenty-
eight articles,’ with witnesses, &c. In his reply, the Earl first re-
Quired permission to withdraw and collect himself: this was refused.
“He made ane excellent answer.”—“It were tedious to repeat all their
quick passages.’ ‘The third article, “that he would make the King's
little finger heavier than the loins of the law,” this was proven by
Sundry. Among others, Sir David Foulis, whom he had crushed,
came to depose. He excepted against this witness, as one who had
a quarrel with him. Maynard produced against him his own decree,
subscribed by his own hand, that whereas Sir David had brought
before him the same exception against a witness, he had decreed that
a witness for the King and Commonwealth must be received, not-
Withstanding any private quarrels. When he saw his own hand, he
Said no more, but in a jesting way, “You are wiser, my Lord Steward,
than to be ruled by any of my actions as patterns !”.'
Or, quitting all order of ‘sessions,’ let us mark here and
there, in ‘this notable Process,’ a characteristic feature, as
we can gather it. Mark, in general, the noble lone lion at
bay; mark the fierce, winged and taloned, toothed and ram-
pant enemies, that in flocks, from above and from beneath,
are dashing at him
‘My Lord of Strafford required, farther, to answer to things ob-
jected the former day ; but was refused. He required permission to
retire, and advise about the present objections; but all that he ob-
tained was a little time's advisement in the place he was in. So
hereafter, it was Strafford's constant custom, after the end of his
adversary's speech, to petition for time of recollection; and obtaining
it, to sit down with his back to the Lords, and most diligently read
his notes, and write answers, he and his secretaries, for ane half-hour,
58 MISCELLANIES.
in the midst of a great noise and confusion, which continued ever till
he rose again to speak.’—
‘For this he produced Sir William Pennyman as witness; a
member of the Lower House, who, both here and many times else,
deposed point-blank all he required. Mr. Maynard desired him to
be posed (for no man there did speak to any other, but all speech
was directed to my Lord Steward), “When, and at what time, he
was brought to the remembrance of those words of my Lord Straf-
ford's?” All of us thought it a very needless motion. Sir William
answered, “Ever since the first speaking of them, they were in his
memory ; but he called them most to remembrance since my Lord
Strafford was charged with them.” Maynard presently catched him,
“That he behoved, then, to be answerable to the House for neglect
of duty; not being only silent, but voting with the rest to this article,
wherein Strafford was charged with words whereof he knew he was
free P’ There arose, with the word, so great an hissing in the House,
that the gentleman was confounded, and fell a-weeping.
‘Strafford protested, He would rather commit himself to the
mercy of God alone, giving over to use any witness in his defence
at all, than that men, for witnessing the truth, should incur danger
and disgrace on his account.”—
“So long as Maynard was principal speaker, Mr. Glyn lay at the
wait, and usually observed some one thing or other; and uttered it
so pertimently that, six or seven times in the end, he got great ap-
plause by the whole House.’—
‘I did marvel much, at first, of their memories, that could answer
and reply to so many large allegeances, without the missing of any
one point ; but I marked that both the Lieutenant when they spake,
and the Lawyers when he spake, did write their notes; and in their
speeches did look on those papers. Yea, the most of the Lords and
Lower House did write much daily, and none more than the
Ring.’—
‘My Lord Montmorris was called to depose, in spite of Strafford's
exception.’ º: % Sk “In his answers Strafford alleged,
concerning Lord Montmorris, the confession of his fault under his
own hand;’ ‘that no evil was done to him, and nothing intended but
BAILLIE THE COVENANTER. 59
the amendment of his very loose tongue:—if the gentlemen of the
Commons House intended no more but the correction of his foolish
tongue, he would heartily give them thanks P-
* * * Concerning the Lord Deputy's scutching of a gentle-
man with a rod.' * *
‘The other part of the article was his executing one Thomas
Dennitt, who after a long want of pay, craving it from his captain,
was bidden be gone to the gallows. He went his way, but was
brought back, and said to have stolen ane quarter of beef; for this
he is sentenced to die, and albeit some noblemen had moved the
Deputy's lady to be earnest for his life, yet without mercy he was
execute."—
‘Glyn showed That daily there came to their hands so much new
matter of Strafford's injustice, that if they had their articles to frame
again, they would give-in as many new as old. Strafford stormed at
that, and proclaimed them ane open defiance. Glyn took him at his
word; and offered instantly to name three-and-twenty cases of injus-
tice, wherein his own gain was clear. He began quickly his cata-
logue with Parker's paper petition. Strafford, finding himself in ane
ill taking, did soon repent of his passionate defiance, and required he
might answer to mo more than he was charged with in his paper.'
(Seventh session, 29th March.)
‘Strafford said, “That though his bodily infirmity was great, and
the charge of treason lay heavy on his mind; yet that his accusation
came from the honourable House of Commons, this did most of all
pierce through his soul.” Maynard alleged “That he (Strafford), by
the flow of his eloquence, spent time to gain affection;”—as, indeed,
with the more simple sort, especially the ladies, he daily gained much.
He replied quickly, “That rhetoric was proper to these gentlemen,
and learning also ; that betwixt the two he was like to have a hard
bargain.” Bristol was busy in the mean time, going up and down,
and whispering in my Lord Steward's ear; whereupon others not
content cried, “To your places, to your places, my Lords !”—’
‘Maynard applied it vehemently, that he had subverted law, and
brought-in ane arbitrary power on the subjects' goods for his own
gain.”
6() MISCELLANIES.
‘Mr. Glyn showed, “The Earl of Strafford was now better than
his word : he had not only made Acts of State equal to Acts of Par-
liament, but also his own acts above both.””
“He (Strafford) answered, “That his intention in this matter was
certainly good;” “that when he found the people's untowardness, he
gave over the design.” Maynard answered, “That intentions cleared
not illegal actions; that his giving-over before tens of thousands were
starved, maketh him not innocent of the killing of thousands,”’—
Sarcastic Learned-sergeant
“The Earl of Clare and others debated with Vane (the elder Vane)
sharply, What “this kingdom” did mean ; England, or only perhaps
Scotland? Maynard quickly silenced him : “Do you ask, my Lord,
if this kingdom be this kingdom or not "'
My learned friends ! most swift, sharp are you; of tem-
per most accipitral,—hawkish, aquiline, not to say vulturish;
and will have this noble lamed lion made a dead one, and
carrion useful for you!—Hear also Mr. Stroud, the honour-
able Member, standing “at the end of the bar covered with
green cloth, one of the “eight or ten gentlemen appointed
to prosecute, how shrill he is:
‘The Deputy said, “If this was a treason, being informed as he
was, it behoved him to be a traitor over again, if he had the like occa-
sion.” “ ” * Mr. Stroud took notice of Strafford's profession to
do this over again. He said, “He well believed him; but they
knew what the kingdom suffered when Gaveston came to react him-
Self l’’’
This honourable Member is one of the Five whom Charles
himself, some months afterwards, with a most irregular non-
constabulary force in his train, sallied down to the House
to seek and seize,_remembering this, perhaps, and other
services of his But to proceed :
‘My Lord Strafford regretted to the Lords the great straits of his
IBAILLIE THE COVENANTER. 61
estate. He said “he had nothing there but as he borrowed.” Yet
daily he gave to the guard that conveyed him ten pound, by which
he conciliated much favour ; for these fellows were daily changed,
and wherever they lived, they talked of his liberality. He said “his
family were, in Ireland, two-hundred-and-sixty persons, and the House
of Commons there had seized all his goods. Would not their Lord-
ships take course to loose that arrest from so much of his goods as
might sustain his wife and children in some tolerable way?”’ (Thir-
teenth session, 3d April.)
‘Garraway, Mayor the last year, deposed, “That to the best of
his remembrance, he (Strafford) said, no good would be gotten till
some of the Aldermen were hanged.” While Strafford took vantage
at the words, to the best of my remembrance, Garraway turned shortly
to him, and told out punctually, “My Lord, you did say it !” Straf-
ford thereupon, “He should answer with as great truth, albeit not
with so great confidence, as that gentleman, to the best of his remem-
brance, he did not speak so. But if he did, he trusted their good-
ness would easily pardon such a rash and foolish word.”
‘Thursday, 8th April ; session fourteenth. The twenty-eighth
article they passed. All being set, and the Deputy brought to the
bar on his knees, he was desired to say for himself what he would,
that so the House of Commons may sum-up all before the sentence.’
He craved time till tomorrow. The Commons objected. ‘Yet the
Lords, after some debate, did grant it.”—
‘The matter was' (sixteenth session), “Young Sir Harry Vane
had fallen by accident among his father's papers'—Ah yes, a well-
known accident And now the question is, Will the Lords allow
us to produce it? “The Lords adjourn one hour large : at their return
their decree was against the expectation of all;'— an ambiguous de-
cree, tending obliquely towards refusal, or else new unknown periods
of delay !
“At once the Commons began to grumble. Glyn posed him, On
what articles he would examine witnesses, then | They did not be-
lieve that he wanted to examine witnesses, but put him to name the
articles. He named one,—another, a third, a fourth ; and not
being like to make ane end, the Commons on both sides of the House
62 MISCELLANTES.
rose in a fury, with a shout of “Withdraw . Withdraw . Withdraw "
—got all to their feet, on with their hats, cocked their beavers in
the King's face. We all did fear it would grow to a present tumult.
They went all away in confusion. Strafford slipped-off to his barge
and to the Tower, glad to be gone lest he should be torn in pieces;
the King went home in silence; the Lords to their house.’
Session sixteenth vanishes thus, in a flash of fire I Yes;
and the ‘sharp untunable voice of Mr. O. Cromwell, member
for Cambridge, was in that shout of “Withdraw ſ” and Mr.
Cromwell dashed-on his rusty beaver withal, and strode out
so, in those wide nostrils of his a kind of snort. And one
Mr. Milton sat in his house, by St. Bride's Church, teaching
grammar, writing Areopagitics; and had dined that day,
not perhaps without criticism of the cookery. And it was
all a living coloured Time, not a gray vacant one ; and had
length, breadth and thickness, even as our own has l—But
now, also, is not that a miraculous spyglass, that Perceptive-
Faculty, Soul, Intelligence, or whatsoever we call it, of the
Reverend Mr. Robert Baillie of Kilwinning? We still see
by it, things stranger than most preternaturalisms, and
mere commonplace ‘apparitions,’ could be. “Our Fathers,
where are they 3" Why, there; there are our far-off Fathers,
face to face; alive, and yet not alive; ah no, they are
visible but unattainable, sunk in the never-returning Past !
Thrice endeavouring, we cannot embrace them; ter manus
effugit imago. The Centuries are transparent, then;–yes,
more or less; but they are impermeable, impenetrable, no
adamant so hard. It is strange. To be, To have been : of
all verbs the wonderfulest is that same. The ‘Time-ele-
ment, the “crystal prison’ſ Of a truth, to us Sons of Time,
it is the miracle of miracles.—These thoughts are thrown-
out for the benefit of the curious.
One thing meanwhile is growing plain enough to every-
BAILLIE THE COWENANTER. 63
body: those fiery Commons, with their “Withdraw With-
draw "will have the life of that poor prisoner. If not by
free verdict of their Lordships, then by bill of attainder of
their own; by fair means, or by less fair, Strafford has to
die. “Intolerable pride and oppression cry to Heaven for
vengeance.’ Yes, and Heaven has heard; and the Earth
now repeats it, in Westminster Hall here, nay, worse still,
out in Palaceyard, with ‘horrible cries and imprecations'!
This noble baited lion shall not escape, but perish,_be food
for learned sergeants and the region kites | We will give
but one other glimpse of him : his last appearance in West-
minster Hall, that final Speech of his there; ‘which,’ says
Baillie, ‘you have in print.” We have indeed: printed in
Whitlocke, and very copiously elsewhere and since;—pro-
bably the best of all Speeches, everything considered, that
has yet been printed in the English tongue. All readers
remember that passage, – that pause, with tears in the
“proud glooming countenance, at thought of “those pledges
a saint in Heaven left me.” But what a glare of new fatal
meaning does the last circumstance, or shadow of a circum-
stance, which Baillie mentions, throw over it :
“He made a Speech large two hours and ane half. * * * To
all he repeated nought new, but the best of his former answers. And
in the end, after some lashness and fagging, he made such ane pa-
thetic oration, for ame half-hour, as ever comedian did upon a stage.
The matter and expression were exceeding brave : doubtless, if he
had grace or civil goodness, he is a most eloquent man. One passage
made it most spoken of: his breaking-off in weeping and silence when
he spoke of his first Wife. Some took it for a true defect of his me-
mory; others, and the most part, for a notable part of his rhetoric ;
some that true grief and remorse at that remembrance had stopped his
mouth. For they say that his first Lady, the Earl of Clare's sister,
being with child, and finding one of his whore's letters, brought it to
64 MISOELLANTES.
him, and chiding him therefor, he strook her on the breast, whereof
shortly she died.’
Such is the drama of Life, seen in Baillie of Kilwinning;
a thing of multifarious tragic and epic meanings, then as
now. A many-voiced tragedy and epos, yet with broad-
based comic and grotesque accompaniment; done by actors
not in buskins;–ever replete with elements of guilt and
remorse, of pity, instruction and fear ! It is now two-
hundred years and odd months since these Commons Mem-
bers, shouting, “Withdraw Withdraw ſ” took away the
life of Thomas Wentworth Earl of Strafford; and intro-
duced, driven by necessity they knew little whither, horrid
rebellions, as the phrase went, and suicidal wars into the
bowels of this country. On our horizon too, there loom
now inevitabilities no less stern; one knows not sometimes
whether not very near at hand! They had the Divine
Right of Kings to settle, those unfortunate ancestors of
ours: Shall Charles Stuart and William Laud alone have
a soul and conscience in this Nation, under extant circum-
stances; or shall others too have it? That had come now
to require settlement, that same ‘divine right; and they,
our brave ancestors, like true stalwart hearts, did on hest
of necessity manage to settle it, by cutting-off its head, if
no otherwise.
Alas, we, their children, have got perhaps a still harder
thing to settle: the Divine Right of Squires. Did a God
make this land of Britain, and give it to us all, that we
might live there by honest labour; or did the Squires make
it, and, -shut to the voice of any God, open only to a
Devil's voice in this matter, decide on giving it to them-
selves alone? This is now the sad question and ‘divine
right we, in this unfortunate century, have got to settle !
BAILLIE THE COVENANTER. 65
For there is no end of settlements; there will never be an
end; the best settlement is but a temporary, partial one.
Truly, all manner of rights, and adjustments of work and
wages, here below, do verge gradually into error, into
unbearable error, as the Time-flood bears us onward; and
many a right, which used to be a duty done, and divine
enough, turns out, in a new latitude of the Time-voyage, to
have grown now altogether undivine ! Turns out, when
the fatal hour and necessity for overhauling it arrives,
to have been, for some considerable while past, an imanity,
a conventionality, a hollow simulacrum of use-and-wont;
which, if it will still assert itself as a “ divine right, having
now no divine duty to do, becomes a diabolic wrong; and,
by soft means or by sharp, has to be sent travelling out of
this world ! Alas, ‘intolerabilities’ do now again in this
new century ‘cry to Heaven; –or worse, do not cry, but
in low wide-spread moan, lie as perishing, as if ‘in Heaven
there was no ear for them, and on Earth no ear.’ ‘Eleven-
pence halfpenny a-week' in this world; and in the next
world zero ! And ‘Sliding-Scales, and endless wrigglings
and wrestlings over mere “Corn-Laws: a Governing Class,
hired (it appears) at the rate of some fifty or seventy mil-
lions a-year, which not only makes no attempt at governing,
but will not, by any consideration, passionate entreaty, or
even menace as yet, be persuaded to eat its victuals, shoot
its partridges, and not strangle-out the general life by mis-
governing ! It cannot and it will not come to good.
We here quit Baillie; we let his drop-scene fall; and
finish, though not yet in mid-course of his Great-Rebellion
Drama. To prevent disappointment, we ought to say, that
this of Strafford is considerably the best passage of his
Book;-and indeed, generally, once more, that the careless
VOL. XI. (Misc, vol. 6.) R
66 MISOELLANTES.
reader will not find much profit in him; that except by
reading with unusual intensity, even the historical student
may find less than he expects. As a true, rather opulent,
but very confused quarry, out of which some edifice might
in part be built, we leave him to those who have interest in
such matters.
DR. FRANCIA.
DR. FRANCIA.1
[1843.]
THE confused South-American Revolution, and set of
revolutions, like the South-American Continent itself, is
doubtless a great confused phenomenon; worthy of better
knowledge than men yet have of it. Several books, of
which we here name a few known to us, have been written
on the subject: but bad books mostly, and productive of
almost no effect. The heroes of South America have not
yet succeeded in picturing any image of themselves, much
less any true image of themselves, in the Cis-Atlantic mind
or memory.
Iturbide, ‘the Napoleon of Mexico, a great man in that
1 For EIGN QUARTERLY REVIEW, No. 62.—1. Funeral Discow'se delivered on oc-
casion of celebrating the Obsequies of his late Ea:cellency the Perpetual Dictator of the
Republic of Paraguay, the Citizen Dr. José Gaspar Francia : by Citizen the Rev.
Manvel Antonio Perez, of the Church of the Incarnation, on the 20th of October 1840.
(In the British Packet and Argentime News, No. 813. Buenos-Ayres, March 19,
1842.)
2. Essai. Historique sur la Révolution de Paraguay, et le Gouvermement Dicta-
torial du Doctew," Francia. Par MMI. Rengger et Longchamp. Seconde édition.
Paris, 1827.
3. Letters on Paraguay. By J. P. and W. P. Robertson. 2 vols. Second edi-
tion. London, 1839.
4. Francia’s Reign of Terror. By the same. London, 1839.
5. Letters on South America. Dy the same. 3 vols. London, 1843.
6. Travels in Chile and La Plata. By John Miers. 2 vols. London, 1826.
7. Memoirs of General Miller, in the Service of the Republic of Peru, 2 vols.
Second edition. London, 1829.
70 MISCELLANIES.
narrow country, who was he? He made the thrice-cele-
brated ‘Plan of Iguala; a constitution of no continuance.
He became Emperor of Mexico, most serene ‘Augustin I. ;’
was deposed, banished to Leghorn, to London; decided on
returning;-landed on the shore of Tampico, and was there
met, and shot: this, in a vague sort, is what the world
knows of the Napoleon of Mexico, most serene Augustin the
First, most unfortunate Augustin the Last. He did himself
publish memoirs or memorials,” but few can read them.
Oblivion, and the deserts of Panama, have swallowed this
brave Don Augustin : vate caruit sacro.
And Bolivar, ‘the Washington of Columbia, Liberator
Bolivar, he too is gone without his fame. Melancholy litho-
graphs represent to us a long-faced, square-browed man;
of stern, considerate, consciously considerate aspect, mildly
aquiline form of nose; with terrible angularity of jaw; and
dark deep eyes, somewhat too close together (for which
latter circumstance we earnestly hope the lithograph alone
is to blame): this is Liberator Bolivar –a man of much
hard fighting, hard riding, of manifold achievements, dis-
tresses, heroisms and histrionisms in this world; a many-
counselled, much-enduring man; now dead and gone;—of
whom, except that melancholy lithograph, the cultivated
European public knows as good as nothing. Yet did he
not fly hither and thither, often in the most desperate
manner, with wild cavalry clad in blankets, with War of
Liberation ‘to the death'? Clad in blankets, ponchos the
South Americans call them : it is a square blanket, with a
short slit in the centre, which you draw over your head, and
so leave hanging; many a liberative cavalier has ridden, in
those hot climates, without farther dress at all; and fought
2 A Statement of some of the principal Events in the Public Life of Augustin de
Iturbide ; written by Himself. London, 1843.
DR. FRANCLA. 71
handsomely too, wrapping the blanket round his arm, when
it came to the charge.
With such cavalry, and artillery and infantry to match,
Bolivar has ridden, fighting all the way, through torrid
deserts, hot mud-swamps, through ice-chasms beyond the
curve of perpetual frost, — more miles than Ulysses ever
sailed: let the coming Homers take note of it. He has
marched over the Andes, more than once; a feat analog-
ous to Hannibal’s ; and seemed to think little of it. Often
beaten, banished from the firm land, he always returned
again, truculently fought again. He gained, in the Cumana
regions, the “immortal victory' of Carababo and several
others; under him was gained the finishing “immortal
victory’ of Ayacucho in Peru, where Old Spain, for the last
time, burnt powder in those latitudes, and then fled without
return. He was Dictator, Liberator, almost Emperor, if he
had lived. Some three times over did he, in solemn Colum-
bian parliament, lay down his Dictatorship with Washington
eloquence; and as often, on pressing request, take it up
again, being a man indispensable. Thrice, or at least twice,
did he, in different places, painfully construct a Free Con-
stitution ; consisting of ‘two chambers, and a Supreme
governor for life with liberty to name his successor, the
reasonablest democratic constitution you could well con-
struct; and twice, or at least once, did the people, on trial,
declare it disagreeable. He was, of old, well known in
Paris; in the dissolute, the philosophico-political and other
circles there. He has shone in many a gay Parisian soirée,
this Simon Bolivar; and in his later years, in autumn 1825,
he rode triumphant into Potosi and the fabulous Inca Cities,
with clouds of feathered Indians somersaulting and war-
whooping round him,”—and “as the famed Cerro, metalli-
8 Memoirs of General Miller,
72 MISCELLANTES.
“ferous Mountain, came in sight, the bells all pealed out,
‘ and there was a thunder of artillery,’ says General Miller.
If this is not a Ulysses, Polytlas and Polymetis, a much-
enduring and many-counselled man, where was there one?
Truly a Ulysses whose history were worth its ink, had
the Homer that could do it made his appearancel
Of General San Martin, too, there will be something
to be said. General San Martin, when we last saw him,
twenty years ago or more, through the organs of the
authentic steadfast Mr. Miers, had a handsome house in
Mendoza, and ‘ his own portrait, as I remarked, hung up
between those of Napoleon and the Duke of Wellington.’
In Mendoza, cheerful, mudbuilt, whitewashed Town, seated
at the eastern base of the Andes, “with its shady public-
walk well paved and swept ; looking out pleasantly, on
this hand, over wide horizons of Pampa Wilderness; plea-
santly, on that, to the Rock-chain, Cordillera they call it, of
the sky-piercing Mountains, capt in Snow, or with volcanic
fumes issuing from them : there dwelt General Ea:-General-
issimo San Martin, ruminating past adventures over half the
world; and had his portrait hung up between Napoleon's
and the Duke of Wellington's.
Did the reader ever hear of San Martin’s march over the
Andes into Chile? It is a feat worth looking at ; compar-
able, most likely, to Hannibal's march over the Alps, while
there was yet no Simplon or Mont-Cénis highway; and it
transacted itself in the year 1817. South-American armies
think little of picking their way through the gullies of the
Andes: so the Buenos-Ayres people, having driven- Out
their own Spaniards, and established the reign of freedom
though in a precarious manner, thought it were now good
to drive the Spaniards out of Chile, and establish the reign
of freedom there also instead: whereupon San Martin, com-
DR. FRANCIA. 73
mander at Mendoza, was appointed to do it. By way of
preparation, for he began from afar, San Martin, while an
army is getting ready at Mendoza, assembles “at the Fort
of San Carlos by the Aguanda river, some days’ journey
to the south, all attainable tribes of the Pehuenche Indians,
to a solemn Palaver, so they name it, and civic entertain-
ment, on the esplanade there. The ceremonies and deliber-
ations, as described by General Miller, are somewhat sur-
prising: still more the concluding civic-feast; which lasts
for three days; which consists of horses' flesh for the solid
part, and horses' blood with ardent spirits ad libitum for the
liquid, consumed with such alacrity, with such results, as one
may fancy. However, the women had prudently removed
all the arms beforehand; nay, ‘five or six of these poor
“women, taking it by turns, were always found in a sober
‘state, watching over the rest; so that comparatively little
mischief was done, and only ‘one or two deaths by quarrel
took place.
The Pehuenches having drunk their ardent-water and
horses' blood in this manner, and sworn eternal friendship to
San Martin, went home, and—communicated to his enemies,
across the Andes, the road he meant to take. This was
what San Martin had foreseen and meant, the knowing man!
He hastened his preparations, got his artillery slung on
poles, his men equipt with knapsacks and haversacks, his
mules in readiness; and, in all stillness, set forth from Men-
doza by another road. Few things in late war, according to
General Miller, have been more noteworthy than this march.
The long straggling line of soldiers, six thousand and odd,
with their quadrupeds and baggage, winding through the
heart of the Andes, breaking for a brief moment the old
abysmal solitudes —For you fare along, on some narrow
roadway, through stony labyrinths; huge rock-mountains
74 MISCELLANTES.
hanging over your head, on this hand; and under your feet,
On that, the roar of mountain-cataracts, horror of bottom-
less chasms;–the very winds and echoes howling on you
in an almost preternatural manner. Towering rock-barriers
rise sky-high before you, and behind you, and around you;
intricate the outgate | The roadway is narrow ; footing
none of the best. Sharp turns there are, where it will be-
hove you to mind your paces; one false step, and you will
need no second; in the gloomyjaws of the abyss you vanish,
and the spectral winds howl requiem. Somewhat better are
the suspension-bridges, made of bamboo and leather, though
they swing like see-saws: men are stationed with lassos, to
gin you dextrously, and fish you up from the torrent, if you
trip there.
Through this kind of country did San Martin march;
straight towards San Iago, to fight the Spaniards and de-
liver Chile. For ammunition-wagons he had sorras, sledges,
canoe-shaped boxes, made of dried bull's-hide. His cannons
were carried on the back of mules, each cannon on two
mules judiciously harnessed: on the packsaddle of your fore-
most mule there rested with firm girths a long strong pole;
the other end of which (forked end, we suppose) rested, with
like girths, on the packsaddle of the hindmost mule; your
cannon was slung with leathern straps on this pole, and so
travelled, swaying and dangling, yet moderately secure.
In the knapsack of each soldier was eight days’ provender,
dried beef ground into snuff-powder, with a modicum of pep-
per, and some slight seasoning of biscuit or maize-meal;
‘store of onions, of garlic,’ was not wanting: Paraguay tea
could be boiled at eventide, by fire of scrub-bushes, or al-
most of rock-lichens or dried mule-dung. No farther bag-
gage was permitted: each soldier lay at night wrapt in his
poncho, with his knapsack for pillow, under the canopy of
DR. FRANCIA. 75
heaven; lullabied by hard travail; and sank soon enough
into steady nose-melody, into the foolishest rough colt-dance
of unimaginable Dreams. Had he not left much behind him
in the Pampas, mother, mistress, what not; and was like
to find somewhat, if he ever got across to Chile living 2
What an entity, one of those night-leaguers of San Martin;
all steadily snoring there, in the heart of the Andes, under
the eternal stars l Wayworn sentries with difficulty keep
themselves awake; tired mules chew barley rations, or doze
on three legs; the feeble watch-fire will hardly kindle a
cigar; Canopus and the Southern Cross glitter down; and
all snores steadily, begirt by granite deserts, looked-on by
the Constellations in that manner! San Martin's improvi-
dent soldiers ate-out their week's rations almost in half the
time; and for the last three days had to rush on, spurred by
hunger: this also the knowing San Martin had foreseen ;
and knew that they could bear it, these rugged Gauchos of
his; nay, that they would march all the faster for it. On
the eighth day, hungry as wolves, swift and sudden as a
torrent from the mountains, they disembogued; straight to-
wards San Iago, to the astonishment of men;–struck the
doubly-astonished Spaniards into dire misgivings; and then,
in pitched fight, after due manoeuvres, into total defeat on
the ‘plaims of Maypo, and again, positively for the last
time, on the plains or heights of ‘Chacabuco ; and com-
pleted the ‘deliverance of Chile, as was thought, forever
and a day.
Alas, the ‘deliverance' of Chile was but commenced;
very far from completed. Chile, after many more deliver-
ances, up to this hour, is always but ‘delivered’ from one
set of evil-doers to another set !—San Martin's manoeuvres
to liberate Peru, to unite Peru and Chile, and become some
Washington-Napoleon of the same, did not prosper so well.
76 MISCELLANTES.
The suspicion of mankind had to rouse itself; Liberator
Bolivar had to be called in ; and some revolution or two
to take place in the interim. San Martin sees himself
peremptorily, though with courtesy, complimented over the
Andes again; and in due leisure, at Mendoza, hangs his
portrait between Napoleon's and Wellington's. Mr. Miers
considered him a fairspoken, obliging, if somewhat artful
man. Might not the Chilenos as well have taken him for
their Napoleon? They have gone farther, and, as yet, fared
little better |
The world-famous General O'Higgins, for example, he,
after some revolution or two, became Director of Chile ; but
so terribly hampered by ‘class-legislation’ and the like,
what could he make of it? Almost nothing ! O'Higgins
is clearly of Irish breed; and, though a Chileno born, and
“natural son of Don Ambrosio O'Higgins, formerly the Span-
ish Viceroy of Chile, carries his Hibernianism in his very
face. A most cheery, jovial, buxom countenance, radiant
with sº good humour and manifold effectuality in
peace and war ! Of his battles and adventures let some
luckier epic-writer sing or speak. One thing we Foreign
Reviewers will always remember : his father's immense
merits towards Chile in the matter of Highways. Till Don
Ambrosio arrived to govern Chile, some half-century ago,
there probably was not a made road of ten miles long from
Panama to Cape Horn. Indeed, except his roads, we fear
there is hardly any yet. One omits the old Inca causeways,
as too narrow (being only three feet broad), and altoge-
ther unfrequented in the actual ages. Don Ambrosio made,
with incredible industry and perseverance and skill, in
every direction, roads, roads. From San Iago to Valpa-
raiso, where only sure-footed mules with their packsaddles
carried goods, there can now wooden-axled cars loud-sound-
DR. FRANCIA. 77
ing, or any kind of vehicle, commodiously roll. It was he
that shaped these passes through the Andes, for most part ;
hewed them out from mule-tracks into roads, certain of
them. And think of his casuchas. Always on the higher
inhospitable solitudes, at every few miles' distance, stands
a trim brick cottage, or casucha, into which the forlorn
traveller introducing himself, finds covert and grateful
safety; may food and refection,-for there are “iron boxes'
of pounded beef or other provender, iron boxes of charcoal;
to all which the traveller, having bargained with the Post-
office authorities, carries a key.” Steel and tinder are not
wanting to him, nor due iron skillet, with water from the
stream : there he, striking a light, cooks hoarded victual
at eventide, amid the lonely pinnacles of the world, and
blesses Governor O'Higgins. With ‘both hands, it may
be hoped,—if there is vivacity of mind in him :
Iſad you seen this road before it was made,
You would lift both your hands and bless General Wade
It affects one with real pain to hear from Mr. Miers, that
the War of Liberty has half ruined these O'Higgins casuchas.
Patriot soldiers, in want of more warmth than the charcoal-
box could yield, have not scrupled to tear-down the door,
door-case, or whatever wooden thing could be come at,
and burn it, on the spur of the moment. The storm-stayed
traveller, who sometimes, in threatening weather, has to
linger here for days, “for fifteen days together, does not
lift both his hands and bless the Patriot soldier!
Nay, it appears, the O'Higgins roads, even in the plain
country, have not, of late years, been repaired, or in the
least attended to, so distressed was the finance department;
and are now fast verging towards impassability and the con-
4 Miers.
78 MISCELLANIES.
dition of mule-tracks again. What a set of animals are men
and Chilenos | If an O'Higgins did not now and then ap-
pear among them, what would become of the unfortunates ?
Can you wonder that an O'Higgins sometimes loses temper
with them ; shuts the persuasive outspread hand, clutching
Some sharpest hide-whip, some terrible sword of justice or
gallows-lasso there with, instead, and becomes a Dr. Fran-
cia now and then I Both the O'Higgins and the Francia, it
seems probable, are phases of the same character; both, one
begins to fear, are indispensable from time to time, in a
world inhabited by men and Chilenos |
As to O'Higgins the Second, Patriot, Natural-son O'Hig-
gins, he, as we said, had almost no success whatever as a
governor ; being hampered by class-legislation. Alas, a
governor in Chile cannot succeed. A governor there has to
resign himself to the want of success; and should say, in
cheerful interrogative tone, like that Pope elect, who show-
ing himself on the balcony, was greeted with mere howls,
“Non piacemmo al popolo?”—and thereupon proceed cheer-
fully to the meat fact. Governing is a rude business every-
where; but in South America it is of quite primitive rudeness:
they have no parliamentary way of changing ministries as
yet ; nothing but the rude primitive way of hanging the old
ministry on gibbets, that the new may be installed ! Their
government has altered its name, says the sturdy Mr. Miers,
rendered sulky by what he saw there: altered its name, but
its nature continues as before. Shameless peculation, mal-
versation, that is their government: oppression formerly by
Spanish officials, now by native haciendados, land-proprie-
tors, the thing called justice still at a great distance from
them, says the sulky Mr. Miers —Yes, but coming always,
answer we ; every new gibbeting of an old ineffectual min-
istry bringing justice somewhat nearer Nay, as Miers
DR. FRANCIA., 79
himself has to admit, certain improvements are already
indisputable. Trade everywhere, in spite of multiplex con-
fusions, has increased, is increasing: the days of somnolent
monopoly and the old Acapulco Ship are gone, quite over
the horizon. Two good, or partially good measures, the
very necessity of things has everywhere brought about in
those poor countries: clipping of the enormous bat-wings of
the Clergy, and emancipating of the Slaves. Bat-wings, we
say; for truly the South-American clergy had grown to be as
a kind of bat-vampires:—readers have heard of that huge
South-American bloodsucker, which fixes its bill in your cir-
culating vital-fluid as you lie asleep, and there sucks; waving
you with the motion of its detestable leather wings into ever
deeper sleep; and so drinking, till it is satisfied, and you—do
not awaken any more | The South-American governments,
all in natural feud with the old church-dignitaries, and like-
wise all in great straits for cash, have everywhere confis-
cated the monasteries, cashiered the disobedient dignitaries,
melted the superfluous church-plate into piastres; and, on
the whole, shorn the wings of their vampire; so that if it still
suck, you will at least have a chance of awakening before
death!—Then again, the very want of soldiers of liberty led
to the emancipating of blacks, yellows and other coloured
persons: your mulatto, may your negro, if well drilled, will
stand fire as well as another.
Poor South-American emancipators; they began with
Wolney, Raynal and Company, at that gospel of Social Con-
tract and the Rights of Man; under the most unpropitious
circumstances; and have hitherto got only to the length
we see Nay now, it seems, they do possess “universities,'
which are at least schools with other than monk teachers;
they have got libraries, though as yet almost nobody reads
them,-and our friend Miers, repeatedly knocking at all
80 MISCELLANIES.
doors of the Grand Chile National Library, could never to
this hour discover where the key lay, and had to content
himself with looking-in through the windows.” Miers, as
already hinted, desiderates unspeakable improvements in
Chile ;-desiderates, indeed, as the basis of all, an immense
increase of soap-and-water. Yes, thou sturdy Miers, dirt is
decidedly to be removed, whatever improvements, temporal
or spiritual, may be intended next | According to Miers, the
open, still more the secret personal mastiness of those remote
populations rises almost towards the sublime. "Finest silks,
gold brocades, pearl necklaces and diamond ear-drops, are
no security against it: alas, all is not gold that glitters;
somewhat that glitters is mere putrid fish-skin | Decided,
enormously increased appliance of soap-and-water, in all its
branches, with all its adjuncts; this, according to Miers,
would be an improvement. He says also (‘in his haste,’
as is probable, like the Hebrew Psalmist), that all Chileno
men are liars; all, or to appearance, all! A people that uses
almost no soap, and speaks almost no truth, but goes about
in that fashion, in a state of personal mastiness, and also of
spiritual mastiness, approaching the sublime; such people is
not easy to govern well !—
But undoubtedly by far the notablest of all these South-
American phenomena is Dr. Francia and his Dictatorship
in Paraguay; concerning whom, and which, we have now
more particularly to speak. Francia and his ‘reign of terror'
have excited some interest, much vague wonder in this coun-
try; and especially given a great shock to constitutional
feeling. One would rather wish to know Dr. Francia;-but
unhappily one cannot Out of such a murk of distracted
shadows and rumours, in the other hemisphere of the world,
5 Travels ºn Chile.
DR. FRANCIA. 81
who would pretend at present to decipher the real por-
traiture of Dr. Francia, and his Life 3 None of us can.
A few credible features, wonderful enough, original enough
in our constitutional time, will perhaps to the impartial
eye disclose themselves; these, with some endeavour to
interpret these, may lead certain readers into various re-
flections, constitutional and other, not entirely without
benefit.
Certainly, as we say, nothing could well shock the con-
stitutional feeling of mankind, as Dr. Francia has done.
Dionysius the tyrant of Syracuse, and indeed the whole
breed of tyrants, one hoped, had gone many hundred years
ago, with their reward; and here, under our own nose, rises
a new ‘tyrant, claiming also his reward from us! Precisely
when constitutional liberty was beginning to be understood
a little, and we flattered ourselves that by due ballot-boxes,
by due registration - courts, and bursts of parliamentary
eloquence, something like a real National Palaver would
be got-up in those countries, arises this tawny-visaged,
lean, inexorable Dr. Francia; claps you an embargo on all
that ; says to constitutional liberty, in the most tyrannous
manner, Hitherto, and no farther It is an undeniable,
though an almost incredible fact, that Francia, a lean
private individual, Practitioner of Law, and Doctor of Di-
vinity, did, for twenty or near thirty years, stretch out his
rod Over the foreign commerce of Paraguay, saying to it,
Cease ! The ships lay high and dry, their pitchless seams
all yawning on the clay-banks of the Parana; and no man
could trade but by Francia's license. If any person en-
tered Paraguay, and the Doctor did not like his papers, his
talk, conduct, or even the cut of his face,—it might be the
worse for such person l Nobody could leave Paraguay on
any pretext whatever. It mattered not that you were man
VOL, XI. (Misc, vol. 6.) G
82 MISCELLANTES.
of science, astronomer, geologer, astrologer, wizard of the
north ; Francia heeded none of these things. The whole
world knows of M. Aimé Bonpland; how Francia seized
him, descending on his tea-establishment in Entre Rios, like
an obscene Vulture, and carried him into the interior, con-
trary even to the law of nations; how the great Humboldt
and other high persons expressly applied to Dr. Francia,
calling on him, in the name of human science, and as it
were under penalty of reprobation, to liberate M. Bonpland;
and how Dr. Francia made no answer, and M. Bonpland
did not return to Europe, and indeed has never yet returned.
It is also admitted that Dr. Francia had a gallows, had
jailors, law-fiscals, officials; and executed, in his time, ‘up-
wards of forty persons,’ some of them in a very summary
manner. Liberty of private judgment, unless it kept its
mouth shut, was at an end in Paraguay. Paraguay lay
under interdict, cut-off for above twenty years from the
rest of the world, by a new Dionysius of Paraguay. All
foreign commerce had ceased; how much more all domestic
constitution-building! These are strange facts. Dr. Francia,
we may conclude at least, was not a common man but an
tl]].COOOIOOlOI).
How unfortunate that there is almost no knowledge of
him procurable at present Next to none. The Para-
guenos can in many cases spell and read, but they are not
a literary people; and, indeed, this Doctor was, perhaps,
too awful a practical phenomenon to be calmly treated of
in the literary way. Your Breughel paints his sea-storm,
not while the ship is labouring and cracking, but after he
has got to shore, and is safe under cover ! Our Buenos-
Ayres friends, again, who are not without habits of printing,
lay at a great distance from Francia, under great obscura-
tions of quarrel and controversy with him; their constitu-
DR. FRANCIA. 83
tional feeling shocked to an extreme degree by the things
he did. To them, there could little intelligence float down,
on those long muddy waters, through those vast distracted
countries, that was not more or less of a distracted nature;
and then from Buenos - Ayres over into Europe, there is
another long tract of distance, liable to new distractions.
Francia, Dictator of Paraguay, is, at present, to the Euro-
pean mind, little other than a chimera; at best, the state-
ment of a puzzle, to which the solution is still to seek. As
the Paraguenos, though not a literary people, can many of
them spell and write, and are not without a discriminating
sense of true and untrue, why should not some real Life
of Francia, from those parts, be still possible ! If a writer
of genius arise there, he is hereby invited to the enterprise.
Surely in all places your writing genius ought to rejoice
over an acting genius, when he falls-in with such ; and
say to himself: “Here or nowhere is the thing for me to
write of ! Why do I keep pen-and-ink at all, if not to
apprise men of this singular acting genius, and the like of
him 2 My fine-arts and aesthetics, my epics, literatures,
poetics, if I will think of it, do all at bottom mean either
that or else nothing whatever !”
Hitherto our chief source of information as to Francia
is a little Book, the Second on our List, set forth in French
some sixteen years ago, by the Messrs. Rengger and Long-
champ. Translations into various languages were executed:
—of that into English, it is our painful duty to say that no
man, except in case of extreme necessity, shall use it as
reading. The translator, having little fear of human de-
tection, and seemingly none at all of divine or diabolic,
has done his work even unusually ill; with ignorance, with
carelessness, with dishonesty prepense; coolly omitting what-
soever he saw that he did not understand:—poor man, if he
84 MISCELLANIES.
yet survive, let him reform in time ! He has made a French
book, which was itself but lean and dry, into the most
wooden of English false books; doing evil as he could in
that matter;-and claimed wages for it, as if the feat de-
served wages first of all ! Reformation, even on the small
Scale, is highly necessary.
The Messrs. Rengger and Longchamp were, and we hope
still are, two Swiss Surgeons; who in the year 1819 re-
solved on carrying their talents into South America, into
Paraguay, with views towards “natural history, among
other things. After long towing and struggling in those
Parana floods, and distracted provinces, after much deten-
tion by stress of weather and of war, they arrived accord-
ingly in Francia's country; but found that, without Francia's
leave, they could not quit it again. Francia was now a
Dionysius of Paraguay. Paraguay had grown to be, like
some mousetraps and other contrivances of art and nature,
easy to enter, impossible to get out of Our brave Sur-
geons, our brave Rengger (for it is he alone of the two
that speaks and writes) reconciled themselves; were set to
doctoring of Francia's soldiery, of Francia's self; collected
plants and beetles; and, for six years, endured their lot
rather handsomely: at length, in 1825, the embargo was for
a time lifted, and they got home. This Book was the con-
sequence. It is not a good book, but at that date there
was, on the subject, no other book at all; nor is there yet
any other better, or as good. We consider it to be all-
thentic, veracious, moderately accurate; though lean and
dry, it is intelligible, rational; in the French original, not
unreadable. We may say it embraces, up to the present
date, all of importance that is yet known in Europe about
the Doctor Despot; add to this its indisputable brevity; the
fact that it can be read sooner by several hours than any
DR. FRANCIA. 85
other Dr. Francia: these are its excellences, considerable,
though wholly of a comparative sort.
After all, brevity is the soul of wit! There is an end-
less merit in a man's knowing when to have done. The
stupidest man, if he will be brief in proportion, may fairly
claim some hearing from us: he too, the stupidest man, has
seen something, heard something, which is his own, dis-
tinctly peculiar, never seen or heard by any man in this
world before ; let him tell us that, and if it were possible,
nothing more than that, — he, brief in proportion, shall be
welcome ! -
The Messrs. Robertson, with their Francia's Reign of Ter-
ror, and other Books on South America, have been much
before the world of late; and failed not of a perusal from
this Reviewer; whose next sad duty it now is to say a word
about them. The Messrs. Robertson, some thirty or five-
and-thirty years ago, were two young Scotchmen, from the
neighbourhood of Edinburgh, as would seem ; who, under
fair auspices, set out for Buenos-Ayres, and thence for Para-
guay, and other quarters of that remote continent, in the
way of commercial adventure. Being young men of viva-
city and open eyesight, they surveyed with attentive view
those convulsed regions of the world; wherein it was evi-
dent that revolution raged not a little; but also that pre-
cious metals, cow-hides, Jesuits’ bark, and multiplex com-
modities, were nevertheless extant ; and iron or brazen
implements, ornaments, cotton and woollen clothing, and
British manufactures not a few, were objects of desire to
mankind. The Brothers Robertson, acting on these facts,
appear to have prospered, to have extensively flourished in
their commerce; which they gradually extended up the
River Plate, to the city of the Seven Streams or Currents
(Corvientes so-called), and higher even to Assumpcion, me-
86 MISCELLANIES.
tropolis of Paraguay; in which latter place, so extensive
did the commercial interests grow, it seemed at last ex-
pedient that one or both of the prosperous Brothers should
take up his personal residence. Personal residence accord-
ingly they did take up, one or both of them, and maintain,
in a fluctuating way, now in this city, now in that, of the
De la Plata, Parama or Paraguay country, for a considerable
space of years. How many years, in precise arithmetic, it
is impossible, from these inextricably complicated documents
now before us, to ascertain. In Paraguay itself, in Assump-
cion city itself, it is very clear, the Brothers Robertson did,
successively or simultaneously, in a fluctuating inextricable
manner, live for certain years; and occasionally saw Dr.
Francia with their own eyes, though, to them or others,
he had not yet become notable.
Mountains of cow and other hides, it would appear,
quitted those countries by movement of the Brothers Ro-
bertson, to be worn-out in Europe as tanned boots and
horse-harness, with more or less satisfaction,-not without
due profit to the merchants, we shall hope. About the time
of Dr. Francia’s beginning his ‘reign of terror,” or earlier it
may be (for there are no dates in these inextricable docu-
ments), the Messrs. Robertson were lucky enough to take
final farewell of Paraguay, and carry their commercial enter-
prises into other quarters of that vast continent, where the
reign was not of terror. Their voyagings, counter-voyag-
ings, comings and goings, seem to have been extensive,
frequent, inextricably complex; to Europe, to Tucuman, to
Glasgow, to Chile, to Laswade and elsewhither; too com-
plex for a succinct intelligence, as that of our readers has
to be at present. Sufficient for us to know that the Messrs.
Robertson did bodily, and for good, return to their own
country some few years since; with what net result of cash
DR. FRANCIA. 87
is but dimly adumbrated in these documents; certainly with
some increase of knowledge,_ had the unfolding of it but
been brief in proportion l Indisputably the Messrs. Robert-
son had somewhat to tell: their eyes had seen some new
things, of which their hearts and understandings had taken
hold more or less. In which circumstances the Messrs.
Robertson decided on publishing a Book. Arrangements
being made, Two Volumes of Letters on Paraguay came out,
with due welcome from the world, in 1839.
We have read these Letters for the first time lately: a
Book of somewhat aqueous structure: immeasurably thinner
than one could have wished; otherwise not without merit.
It is written in an off-hand, free-flowing, very artless, very
incorrect style of language, of thought, and of conception;
breathes a cheerful, eupeptic, social spirit, as of adventur-
ous South-American Britons, worthy to succeed in business;
gives one, here and there, some visible concrete feature, some
lively glimpse of those remote sunburnt countries; and has
throughout a kind of bantering humour or quasi-humour, a
joviality and healthiness of heart, which is comfortable to
the reader, in some measure. A Book not to be despised
in these dull times: one of that extensive class of books
which a reader can peruse, so to speak, “with one eye shut
and the other not open; a considerable luxury for some
readers. These Letters on Paraguay meeting, as would seem,
a unanimous approval, it was now determined by the Messrs.
Robertson that they would add a Third Volume, and entitle
it Dr. Francia's Reign of Terror. They did so, and this like-
wise the present Reviewer has read. Unluckily the Authors
had, as it were, nothing more whatever to say about Dr.
Francia, or next to nothing; and under this condition, it
must be owned they have done their Book with what success
was well possible. Given a cubic inch of respectable Castile
88 MISCELLANTES.
soap, To lather it up in water so as to fill one puncheon
wine-measure: this is the problem; let a man have credit,
of its kind, for doing his problem The Messrs. Robertson
have picked almost every fact of significance from Rengger
and Longchamp, adding some not very significant reminis-
cences of their own; this is the square inch of soap : you
lather it up in Robertsonian loquacity, joviality, Commercial-
Inn banter, Leading-Article philosophy, or other aqueous
vehicles, till it fills the puncheon, the Volume of four-hun-
dred pages, and say “There !” The public, it would seem,
did not fling even this in the face of the venders, but bought
it as a puncheon filled; and the consequences are already
here: Three Volumes more on South America, from the same
assiduous Messrs. Robertson | These also, in his eagerness,
this present Reviewer has read; and has, alas, to say that
they are simply the old volumes in new vocables, under a
new figure. Intrimsically all that we did not already know
of these Three Volumes, there are craftsmen of no great
eminence who will undertake to write it in one sheet ! Yet
there they stand, Three solid-looking Volumes, a thousand
printed pages and upwards; three puncheons more lathered
out of the old square inch of Castile soap ! It is too bad.
A necessitous ready-witted Irishman sells you an indifferent
gray-horse; steals it overnight, paints it black, and sells it
you again on the morrow; he is haled before judges, sharply
cross-questioned, tried and almost executed, for such adroit-
ness in horse-flesh: but there is no law yet as to books'
M. de la Condamine, about a century ago, was one of
a world-famous company that went into those equinoctial
countries, and for the space of nine or ten years did exploits
there. From Quito to Cuença, he measured you degrees
of the meridian, climbed mountains, took observations, had
adventures; wild Creoles opposing Spanish nescience to hu-
DR. FRANCIA. 89
man science; wild Indians throwing down your whole cargo
of instruments occasionally in the heart of remote deserts,
and striking work there." M. de la Condamine saw bull-
fights at Cuença, five days running; and on the fifth day,
saw his unfortunate too audacious surgeon massacred by
popular tumult there. He sailed the entire length of the
Amazons River, in Indian canoes; over narrow Pongo rapids,
over infinite mud-waters, the infinite tangled wilderness
with its reeking desolation on the right hand of him and
on the left; — and had mischances, adventures, and took
celestial observations all the way, and made remarks | Apart
altogether from his meridian degrees, which belong in a
very strict sense to World-history and the advancement of
all Adam's sinful posterity, this man and his party saw and
suffered many hundred times as much of mere romance
adventure as the Messrs. Robertson did:—Madame Godin's
passage down the Amazons, and frightful life-in-death amid
the howling forest-labyrinths, and wrecks of her dead friends,
amounts to more adventure of itself than was ever dreamt
of in the Robertsonian world. And of all this M. de la Con-
damine gives pertinent, lucid and conclusively intelligible
and credible account in One very small octavo volume; not
quite the eighth part of what the Messrs. Robertson have
already written, in a not pertinent, not lucid or conclusively
intelligible and credible manner. And the Messrs. Robert-
son talk repeatedly, in their last Volumes, of writing still
other Volumes on Chile, “if the public will encourage.’ The
Public will be a monstrous fool if it do. The Public ought
to stipulate first, that the real new knowledge forthcoming
there about Chile be separated from the knowledge or ig-
norance already known; that the preliminary question be
6 Condamine: Relation d'un Voyage dans l'Intérieur de l'Amérique méridionale.
90 - MISCELLANIES.
rigorously put, Are several volumes the space to hold it, or
a small fraction of one volume? -
On the whole, it is a sin, good reader, though there is
no Act of Parliament against it; an indubitable malefaction
or crime. No mortal has a right to wag his tongue, much
less to wag his pen, without saying something: he knows
not what mischief he does, past computation; scattering
words without meaning, to afflict the whole world yet,
before they cease ! For thistle-down flies abroad on all
winds and airs of wind: idle thistles, idle dandelions, and
other idle products of Nature or the human mind, propagate
themselves in that way; like to cover the face of the earth,
—did not man's indignant providence, with reap-hook, with
rake, with autumnal steel-and-tinder, intervene. It is fright-
ful to think how every idle volume flies abroad like an idle
globular downbeard, embryo of new millions; every word
of it a potential seed of infinite new downbeards and vo-
lumes: for the mind of man is voracious, is feracious; ger-
minative, above all things, of the downbeard species! Why,
the Author-corps in Great Britain, every soul of them in-
clined to grow mere dandelions if permitted, is now supposed
to be about ten thousand strong; and the reading-corps,
who read merely to escape from themselves, with one eye
shut and the other not open, and will put-up with almost
any dandelion, or thing which they can read without opening
both their eyes, amounts to twenty-seven millions all but a
few I O could the Messrs. Robertson, spirited, articulate-
speaking men, Once know well in what a comparatively
blessed mood you close your brief, intelligent, conclusive
M. de la Condamine, and feel that you have passed your
evening well and nobly, as in a temple of wisdom, not ill
and disgracefully, as in brawling tavern supper-rooms, with
fools and noisy persons,—ah, in that case, perhaps the
DR. FRANCIA. 91
Messrs. Robertson would write their new Work on Chile
in part of a volume !
But enough of this Robertsonian department; which we
must leave to the Fates and Supreme Providences. These
spirited, articulate-speaking Robertsons are far from the
worst of their kind; nay, among the best, if you will;-
only unlucky in this case, in coming across the autumnal
steel and tinder Let it cease to rain angry sparks on
them : enough now, and more than enough. To cure that
unfortunate department by philosophical criticism—the at-
tempt is most vain. Who will dismount, on a hasty journey,
with the day declining, to attack mosquito-swarms with the
horsewhip? Spur swiftly through them ; breathing perhaps
some pious prayer to Heaven. By the horse whip they can-
not be killed. Drain-out the swamps where they are bred,—
Ah, couldst thou do something towards that! And in the
mean while : How to get on with this of Dr. Francia Ž
The materials, as our reader sees, are of the miserablest :
mere intricate inanity (if we except poor wooden Rengger),
and little more; not facts, but broken shadows of facts;
clouds of confused bluster and jargon;–the whole still
more bewildered in the Robertsons, by what we may call a
running shriek of constitutional denunciation, ‘Sanguinary
tyrant, and so forth. How is any picture of Francia to be
fabricated out of that ? Certainly, first of all, by omission
of the running shriek This latter we shall totally omit.
Francia, the sanguinary tyrant, was not bound to look at
the world through Rengger's eyes, through Parish Robert-
son's eyes, but faithfully through his own eyes. We are to
consider that, in all human likelihood, this Dionysius of
Paraguay did mean something; and then to ask in quiet-
mess, What? The running shriek once hushed, perhaps
many things will compose themselves, and straggling frac-
92 MISCELLANTES.
tions of information, almost infinitesimally small, may be-
come unexpectedly luminous !
An unscientific Cattle-breeder and tiller of the earth, in
some nameless chacra not far from the City of Assumpcion,
was the Father of this remarkable human individual; and
seems to have evoked him into being some time in the year
1757. The man's name is not known to us; his very nation
is a point of controversy: Francia himself gave him out for
an immigrant of French extraction; the popular belief was,
that he had wandered over from Brazil. Portuguese or
French, or both in one, he produced this human individual,
and had him christened by the name of José Gaspar Rodri-
guez Francia, in the year above mentioned. Rodriguez, no
doubt, had a Mother too; but her name also, nowhere found
mentioned, must be omitted in this delineation. Her name,
and all her fond maternities, and workings and sufferings,
good brown lady, are sunk in dumb forgetfulness; and
buried there along with her, under the twenty-fifth parallel
of Southern Latitude; and no British reader is required to
interfere with them 1 José Rodriguez must have been a
loose-made tawny creature, much given to taciturn reflec-
tion; probably to crying humours, with fits of vehement
ill-nature; such a subject, it seemed to the parent Francia
cautiously reflecting on it, would, of all attainable trades,
be suitablest for preaching the Gospel, and doing the Divine
Offices, in a country like Paraguay. There were other young
Francias; at least one sister and one brother in addition;
of whom the latter by and by went mad. The Francias,
with their adust character, and vehement French-Portuguese
blood, had perhaps all a kind of aptitude for madness. The
Dictator himself was subject to the terriblest fits of hypo-
chondria, as your adust “men of genius' too frequently are
DR. FRANCIA. 93
The lean Rodriguez, we fancy, may have been of a devo-
tional turn withal; born half a century earlier, he had in-
fallibly been so. Devotional or not, he shall be a Priest,
and do the Divine Offices in Paraguay, perhaps in a very
unexpected way.
Rodriguez having learned his hornbooks and elemen-
tary branches at Assumpcion, was accordingly despatched
to the University of Cordova in Tucuman, to pursue his
curriculum in that seminary. So far we know, but almost
no farther. What kind of curriculum it was, what lessons,
spiritual spoonmeat, the poor lank sallow boy was crammed
with, in Cordova. High Seminary; and how he took to it,
and pined or throve on it, is entirely uncertain. Lank sal-
low boys in the Tucuman and other high seminaries are
often dreadfully ill-dealt with, in respect of their spiritual
spoonmeat, as times go! Spoonpoison you might often call
it rather: as if the object were to make them Mithrida-
teses, able to live on poison 2 Which may be a useful art
too, in its kind? Nay, in fact, if we consider it, these high
seminaries and establishments exist there, in Tucuman and
elsewhere, not for that lank sallow boy's special purposes,
but for their own wise purposes; they were made and put
together, a long while since, without taking the smallest
counsel of the sallow boy | Frequently they seem to say
to him, all along : “This precious thing that lies in thee,
O sallow boy, of ‘genius' so-called, it may to thee and
to eternal Nature be precious; but to us and to temporary
Tucuman it is not precious, but pernicious, deadly : we re-
quire thee to quit this, or expect penalties ſ” And yet the
poor boy, how can he quit it; eternal Nature herself, from
the depths of the Universe, ordering him to go on with it?
From the depths of the Universe, and of his own Soul, latest
revelation of the Universe, he is, in a silent, imperceptible,
94. MISCELLANIES.
but irrefragable manner, directed to go on with it, and
has to go, though under penalties. Penalties of very death,
or worse! Alas, the poor boy, so willing to obey tempo-
rary Tucumans, and yet unable to disobey eternal Nature,
is truly to be pitied. Thou shalt be Rodriguez Francial
cries Nature, and the poor boy to himself. Thou shalt be
Ignatius Loyola, Friar Ponderoso, Don Fatpauncho Usand-
wonto cries Tucuman. The poor creature's whole boyhood
is one long lawsuit : Rodriguez Francia against All Persons
in general. It is so in Tucuman, so in most places. You
cannot advise effectually into what high seminary he had
best be sent; the only safe way is to bargain beforehand,
that he have force born with him sufficient to make itself
good against all persons in generall
Be this as it may, the lean Francia prosecutes his stu-
dies at Cordova, waxes gradually taller towards new des—
tinies. Rodriguez Francia, in some kind of Jesuit skullcap
and black college serge gown, a lank rawboned creature,
stalking with a downlook through the irregular public
streets of Cordova in those years, with an infinitude of
painful unspeakabilities in the interior of him, is an inter-
esting object to the historical mind. So much is unspeak-
able, O Rodriguez; and it is a most strange Universe this
thou hast been born into ; and the theorem of Ignatius
Loyola and Don Fatpauncho Usandwonto seems to me to
hobble somewhat Much is unspeakable; lying within one,
like a dark lake of doubt, of Acherontic dread, leading down
to Chaos itself. Much is unspeakable, answers Francia;
but somewhat also is speakable, this for example: That I
will not be a Priest in Tucuman in these circumstances;
that I should like decidedly to be a secular person rather,
were it even a Lawyer rather Francia, arrived at man's
years, changes from Divinity to Law. Some say it was
DR. FRANCIA. 95
in Divinity that he graduated, and got his Doctor's hat;
Rengger says, Divinity; the Robertsons, likelier to be in-
correct, call him Doctor of Laws. To our present readers
it is all one, or nearly so. Rodriguez quitted the Tucuman
Alma Mater, with some beard on his chin, and reappeared in
Assumpcion to look-out for practice at the bar.
What Rodriguez had contrived to learn, or grow to,
under this his Alma Mater in Cordova, when he quitted her?
The answer is a mere guess; his curriculum, we again say,
is not yet known. Some faint smattering of Arithmetic, or
the everlasting laws of Numbers; faint smattering of Geo-
metry, everlasting laws of Shapes; these things, we guess,
not altogether in the dark, Rodriguez did learn, and found
extremely remarkable. Curious enough: That round Globe
put into that round Drum, to touch it at the ends and all
round, it is precisely as if you clapt 2 into the inside of 3,
not a jot more, not a jot less: wonder at it, O Francia; for
in fact it is a thing to make one pause ! Old Greek Archi-
medeses, Pythagorases, dusky Indians, old nearly as the
hills, detected such things; and they have got across into
Paraguay, into this brain of thine, thou happy Francia.
How is it too, that the Almighty Maker's Planets run, in
those heavenly spaces, in paths which are conceivable in
thy poor human head as Sections of a Cone? The thing
thou conceivest as an Ellipsis, the Almighty Maker has set
his Planets to roll in that. Clear proof, which neither
Loyola nor Usandwonto can contravene, that Thou too art
denizen of this Universe; that Thou too, in some inconceiv-
able manner, wert present at the Council of the Gods !—
Faint smatterings of such things Francia did learn in Tucu-
man. Endless heavy fodderings of Jesuit theology, poured
on him and round him by the wagonload, incessantly, and
year after year, he did not learn; but left flying there as
96 MISCELLANIES.
shot-rubbish. On the other hand, some slight inkling of
human grammatical vocables, especially of French vocables,
seems probable. French vocables; bodily garment of the
JEncyclopédie and Gospel according to Volney, Jean-Jacques
and Company; of infinite import to Francial
Nay is it not, in some sort, beautiful to see the sacred
flame of ingenuous human curiosity, love of knowledge, awak-
ened, amid the damp somnolent vapours, real and metapho-
rical, the damp tropical poison-jungles, and fat Lethean
stupefactions and entanglements, even in the heart of a
poor Paraguay Creole? Sacred flame, no bigger yet than
that of a farthing rushlight, and with nothing but second-
hand French class-books in Science, and in Politics and
Morals nothing but the Raynals and Rousseaus, to feed it:-
an ill-fed, lank-quavering, most blue-coloured, almost ghastly-
looking flame; but a needful one, a kind of sacred one even
that! Thou shalt love knowledge, search what is the truth
of this God’s Universe; thou art privileged and bound to
love it, to search for it, in Jesuit Tucuman, in all places
that the sky covers; and shalt try even Wolneys for help,
if there be no other help ! This poor blue-coloured inex-
tinguishable flame in the soul of Rodriguez Francia, there
as it burns better or worse, in many figures, through the
whole life of him, is very notable to me. Blue flame though
it be, it has to burn-up considerable quantities of poisonous
lumber from the general face of Paraguay; and singe the
profound impenetrable forest-jungle, spite of all its brambles
and lianas, into a very black condition,-intimating that
there shall be decease and removal on the part of said
forest-jungle; peremptory removal; that the blessed Sun-
light shall again look-in upon his cousin Earth, tyrannously
hidden from him for so many centuries now ! Courage,
Rodriguez
I)R. FRANCIA. - 97
Rodriguez, indifferent to such remote considerations, suc-
cessfully addicts himself to law-pleadings, and general pri-
vate studies, in the City of Assumpcion. We have always
understood he was one of the best Advocates, perhaps the
very best, and what is still more, the justest that ever took
briefs in that country. This the Robertsonian Reign of Ter-
ror itself is willing to admit, may repeatedly asserts, and
impresses on us. He was so just and true, while a young
man; gave such divine prognostics of a life of nobleness;
and then, in his riper years, so belied all that Shameful
to think of: he bade fair, at one time, to be a friend-of-
humanity of the first water; and then gradually, hardened
by political success and love of power, he became a mere
ravenous ghoul, or solitary thief in the night; stealing the
constitutional palladiums from their parliament-houses, and
executed upwards of forty persons ! Sad to consider what
men and friends-of-humanity will turn to !
For the rest, it is not given to this or as yet to any
editor, till a Biography arrive from Paraguay, to shape-out
with the smallest clearness, a representation of Francia's
existence as an Assumpcion Advocate; the scene is so
distant, the conditions of it so unknown. Assumpcion City,
near three-hundred years old now, lies in free-and-easy
fashion on the left bank of the Parana River; embosomed
among fruit-forests, rich tropical umbrage; thick wood round
it everywhere, which serves for defence too against the
Indians. Approach by which of the various roads you will,
it is through miles of solitary shady avenue, shutting-out
the sun's glare; over-canopying, as with grateful green awn-
ing, the loose sand-highway,+where, in the early part of this
Century (date undiscoverable in those intricate Volumes),
Mr. Parish Robertson, advancing on horseback, met one cart
driven by a smart brown girl in red bodice, with long black
WOL. XI. (Misc. vol. 6.) H
98 MíSCELLANIES.
hair, not unattractive to look upon; and for a space of
twelve miles, no other articulate-speaking thing whatever."
The people of that profuse climate live in a careless
abundance, troubling themselves about few things; build
what wooden carts, hide-beds, mud-brick houses are indis-
pensable; import what of ornamental lies handiest abroad;
exchanging for it Paraguay tea in sewed goatskins. Riding
through the town of Santa Fé, with Parish Robertson, at
three in the afternoon, you will find the entire population
just risen from its siesta; slipshod, half-buttoned; sitting
in its front verandas open to the street, eating pumpkins
with voracity, sunk to the ears in pumpkins; imbibing the
grateful saccharine juices, in a free-and-easy way. They
look up at the sound of your hoofs, not without good
humour. Frondent trees parasol the streets, -thanks to
Nature and the Virgin. You will be welcome at their tertw-
lias, -a kind of “swarrie, as the Flunky says, “consisting
‘ of flirtation and the usual trimmings: Swarrie on the table
‘ about seven o’clock. Before this, the whole population, it
is like, has gone to bathe promiscuously, and cool and purify
itself in the Parana : promiscuously; but you have all got
linen bathing-garments, and can swash about with some
decency; a great relief to the human tabernacle in those
climates. At your tertulia, it is said, the Andalusian eyes,
still bright to this tenth or twelfth generation, are destruc-
tive, seductive enough, and argue a soul that would repay
cultivating. The beautiful half-savages; full of wild sheet-
lightning, which might be made continuously luminous !
Tertulia well over, you sleep on hide-stretchers, perhaps
here and there on a civilised mattress, within doors or on
the housetops.
In the damp flat country parts, where the mosquitoes
7 Letters on Paraguay.
DR. FRANCIA. 99
abound, you sleep on high stages, mounted on four poles,
forty feet above the ground, attained by ladders; so high,
blessed be the Virgin, no mosquito can follow to sting,
it is a blessing of the Virgin or some other. You sleep
there, in an indiscriminate arrangement, each in his several
poncho or blanket-cloak; with some saddle, deal-box, wooden
log, or the like, under your head. For bed-tester is the
canopy of everlasting blue; for night-lamp burns Canopus
in his infinite spaces; mosquitoes cannot reach you, if it
please the Powers. And rosy-fingered Morn, suffusing the
east with sudden red and gold, and other flame-heraldry of
swift-advancing Day, attenuates all dreams; and the Sun's
first level light-volley shears away sleep from living creatures
everywhere; and living men do then awaken on their four-
post stage there, in the Pampas, -and might begin with
prayer if they liked, one fancies There is an altar decked
on the horizon's edge yonder, is there not ; and a cathedral
wide enough 2–How, over-night, you have defended your-
self against vampires, is unknown to this Editor.
The Gaucho population, it must be owned, is not yet
fit for constitutional liberty. They are a rude people; lead
a drowsy life, of ease and sluttish abundance,—one shade,
and but one, above a dog's life, which is defined as “ease
and scarcity.’ The arts are in their infancy; and not less
the virtues. For equipment, clothing, bedding, household
furniture and general outfit of every kind, those simple
populations depend much on the skin of the cow; making
of it most things wanted, lasso, bolas, ship-cordage, rim-
mings of cart-wheels, spatterdashes, beds and house-doors.
In country places they sit on the skull of the cow : General
Artigas was seen, and spoken with, by one of the Robert-
sons, sitting among field-officers, all on cow-skulls, toast-
ing stripes of beef, and ‘dictating to three secretaries at
º
;
:
100 MISCELLANIES.
once.” They sit on the skull of the cow in country places;
may they heat themselves, and even burn lime, by igniting
the carcass of the cow.
One art they seem to have perfected, and one only,–
that of riding. Astley's and Ducrow's must hide their head,
and all glorics of Newmarket and Epsom dwindle to ex-
tinction, in comparison of Gaucho horsemanship. Certainly
if ever Centaurs lived upon the earth, these are of them.
They stick on their horses as if both were one flesh; gallop-
ing where there seems hardly path for an ibex ; leaping
like kangaroos, and flourishing their nooses and bolases the
while. They can whirl themselves round under the belly
of the horse, in cases of war-stratagem, and stick fast, hang-
ing-on by the mere great toe and heel. You think it is
a drove of wild horses galloping up : on a sudden, with
wild scream, it becomes a troup of Centaurs with pikes in
their hands. Nay, they have the skill, which most of all
transcends Newmarket, of riding on horses that are not
fed; and can bring fresh speed and alacrity out of a horse,
which, with you, was on the point of lying down. To ride
on three horses with Ducrow they would esteem a small
feat : to ride on the broken-winded fractional part of one
horse, that is the feat ' Their huts abound in beef, in reek
also, and rubbish; excelling in dirt most places that human
nature has anywhere inhabited. Poor Gauchos! They
drink Paraguay tea, sucking it up in succession, through
the same tin pipe, from One common skillet. They are
hospitable, sooty, leathery, lying, laughing fellows; of ex-
cellent talent in their sphere. They have stoicism, though
ignorant of Zeno; nay stoicism coupled with real gaiety
of heart. Amidst their reek and wreck, they laugh loud,
in rough jolly banter; they twang, in a plaintive manner,
8 Letters on Paraguay.
DR. FRANCIA. 101
rough love-melodies on a kind of guitar; Smoke infinite
tobacco; and delight in gambling and ardent-spirits, ordin-
ary refuge of voracious empty souls. For the same reason,
and a better, they delight also in Corpus-Christi ceremonies,
mass-chantings, and devotional performances. These men
are fit to be drilled into something ! Their lives stand
there like empty capacious bottles, calling to the heavens
and the earth, and all Dr. Francias who may pass that way:
“Is there nothing to put into us, then 3 Nothing but
nomadic idleness, Jesuit superstition, rubbish, reek, and dry
stripes of tough beef?” Ye unhappy Gauchos, yes, there
is something other, there are several things other, to put
into you! But withal, you will observe, the seven devils
have first to be put out of you: Idleness, lawless Brutalness,
Darkness, Falseness—seven devils or more. And the way
to put something into you is, alas, not so plain at present
Is it, alas, on the whole, is it not perhaps to lay good
horsewhips lustily upon you, and cast out these seven devils
as a preliminary 3
How Francia passed his days in such a region, where
philosophy, as is too clear, was at the lowest ebb 2 Francia,
like Quintus Fixlein, had “perennial fire-proof joys, namely
employments.’ He had much Law-business, a great and
ever-increasing reputation as a man at once skilful and
faithful in the management of causes for men. Then, in
his leisure hours, he had his Wolneys, Raynals; he had
secondhand scientific treatises in French ; he loved to ‘in-
terrogate Nature, as they say; to possess theodolites, tele-
scopes, star-glasses, any kind of glass or book, or gazing
implement whatever, through which he might try to catch
a glimpse of Fact in this strange Universe : poor Francial
Nay, it is said, his hard heart was not without inflamma-
bility; was sensible to those Andalusian eyes still bright in
102 MISCELLANIES.
the tenth or twelfth generation. In such case too, it may
have burnt, one would think, like anthracite, in a some-
what ardent manner. Rumours to this effect are afloat;
not at once incredible. Pity there had not been some
Andalusian pair of eyes, with speculation, depth and soul
enough in the rear of them to fetter Dr. Francia perma-
nently, and make a house—father of him. It had been better;
but it befell not. As for that light-headed, smart brown
girl whom, twenty years afterwards, you saw selling flowers
On the streets of Assumpcion, and leading a light life, is
there any certainty that she was Dr. Francia's daughter?
Any certainty that, even if so, he could and should have
done something considerable for her ?” Poor Francia; poor
light-headed, Smart brown girl, -this present Reviewer can-
not say !
Francia is a somewhat lonesome, downlooking man, apt
to be solitary even in the press of men; wears a face not
unvisited by laughter, yet tending habitually towards the
sorrowful, the stern. He passes everywhere for a man of
veracity, punctuality, of iron methodic rigour; of iron recti-
tude, above all. “The skilful lawyer,’ ‘the learned lawyer,’
these are reputations; but the ‘honest lawyer'ſ This Law-
case was reported by the Robertsons before they thought of
writing a Francia's Reign of Terror, with that running shriek,
which so confuses us. We love to believe the anecdote,
even in its present loose state, as significant of many things
in Francia : -
‘It has been already observed that Francia's reputation, as a
lawyer, was not only unsullied by venality, but conspicuous for rec-
titude.
“He had a friend in Assumpcion of the name of Domingo Rodri-
guez. This man had cast a covetous eye upon a Naboth's vineyard,
9 Robertson.
DR. FRANCIA. 103
and this Naboth, of whom Francia was the open enemy, was called
Estanislao Machain. Never doubting that the young Doctor, like
other lawyers, would undertake his unrighteous cause, Rodriguez
opened to him his case, and requested, with a handsome retainer, his
advocacy of it. Francia saw at once that his friend's pretensions
were founded in fraud and injustice; and he not only refused to act
as his counsel, but plainly told him that much as he hated his an-
tagonist Machain, yet if he (Rodriguez) persisted in his iniquitous
suit, that antagonist should have his (Francia's) most zealous support.
But covetousness, as Ahab's story shows us, is not so easily driven
from its pretensions; and in spite of Francia's warning, Rodriguez
persisted. As he was a potent man in point of fortune, all was going
against Machain and his devoted vineyard.
“At this stage of the question, Francia wrapped himself one night
in his cloak, and walked to the house of his inveterate enemy, Ma-
chain. The slave who opened the door, knowing that his master and
the Doctor, like the houses of Montagu and Capulet, were smoke in
each other's eyes, refused the lawyer admittance, and ran to inform
his master of the strange and unexpected visit. Machain, no less
struck by the circumstance than his slave, for some time hesitated ;
but at length determined to admit Francia. In walked the silent
Doctor to Machain's chamber. All the papers connected with the
law-plea—voluminous enough I have been assured—were outspread
upon the defendant's escritoire.
‘“Machain,” said the Lawyer, addressing him, “you know I am
your enemy. But I know that my friend Rodriguez meditates, and
will certainly, unless I interfere, carry against you an act of gross and
lawless aggression ; I have come to offer my services in your defence.”
‘The astonished Machain could scarcely credit his senses; but
poured forth the ebullition of his gratitude in terms of thankful ac-
Quiescence.
‘The first “escrito,” or writing, sent-in by Francia to the Juez
de Alzada, or Judge of the Court of Appeal, confounded the adverse
advocates, and staggered the judge, who was in their interest. “My
friend,” said the judge to the leading counsel, “I cannot go forward
in this matter, unless you bribe Dr. Francia to be silent.” “I will
try,” replied the advocate; and he went to Naboth's counsel with a
hundred doubloons (about three-hundred-and-fifty guineas), which he
104. MISCELLANIES.
offered him as a bribe to let the cause take its iniquitous course.
Considering too, that his best introduction would be a hint that this
douceur was offered with the judge's concurrence, the knavish lawyer
hinted to the upright one that such was the fact.
“Salga Usted,” said Francia, “con Sus viles pensamientos y vill-
simo oro de m? casa / Out, with your vile insinuations, and dross of
gold, from my house !”
“Off marched the venal drudge of the unjust judge ; and in a
moment putting on his capote, the offended Advocate went to the
residence of the Juez de Alzada. Shortly relating what had passed
between himself and the myrmidon, “Sir,” continued Francia, “you
are a disgrace to law, and a blot upon justice. You are, moreover,
completely in my power; and unless to-morrow I have a decision in
favour of my client, I will make your seat upon the bench too hot
for you, and the insignia of your judicial office shall become the em-
lblems of your shame.”
‘The morrow did bring a decision in favour of Francia's client.
Naboth retained his vineyard ; the judge lost his reputation ; and the
young Doctor's fame extended far and wide.’
On the other hand, it is admitted that he quarrelled with
his Father, in those days; and, as is reported, never spoke
to him more. The subject of the quarrel is vaguely sup-
posed to have been ‘money matters.’ Francia is not ac-
cused of avarice; may is expressly acquitted of loving
money, even by Rengger. But he did hate injustice;—and
probably was not indisposed to allow himself, among others,
‘the height of fair play’ſ A rigorous, correct man, that will
have a spade be a spade; a man of much learning in Creole
Law, and occult French Sciences, of great talent, energy,
fidelity:--a man of some temper withal; unhappily subject
to private ‘hypochondria; black private thunder-clouds,
whence probably the origin of these lightnings, when you
poke into him He leads a lonesome self-secluded life;
‘interrogating Nature’ through mere star-glasses, and Abbé-
DR. FRANCIA. 105
Raynal philosophies, who in that way will yield no very
exuberant response. Mere law-papers, advocate-fees, civic
officialities, renowns, and the wonder of Assumpcion Gau-
chos;–not so much as a pair of Andalusian eyes that can
lasso him, except in a temporary way: this man seems to
have got but a lean lease of Nature, and may end in a
rather shrunk condition | A century ago, with this atrabi-
liar earnestness of his, and such a reverberatory furnace of
passions, inquiries, unspeakabilities burning in him, deep
under cover, he might have made an excellent Monk of St.
Dominic, fit almost for canonisation; nay, an excellent Su-
perior of the Jesuits, Grand Inquisitor, or the like, had you
developed him in that way. But, for all this, he is now a
day too late. Monks of St. Dominic that might have been,
do now, instead of devotional raptures and miraculous sus-
pensions in prayer, produce—brown accidental female in-
fants, to sell flowers, in an indigent state, on the streets of
Assumpcion I It is grown really a most barren time; and
this Francia with his grim unspeakabilities, with his fiery
splenetic humours, kept close under lock-and-key, what has
he to look for in it? A post on the Bench, in the municipal
Cabildo, nay he has already a post in the Cabildo; he has
already been Alcalde, Lord-Mayor of Assumpcion, and
ridden in such gilt-coach as they had. He can look for
little, one would say, but barren moneys, barren Gaucho
world-celebrities; Abbé-Raynal philosophisms also very bar-
ren; wholly a barren life-voyage of it, ending—in 2ero,
thinks the Abbé Raynal?
But no; the world wags not that way in those days.
Far over the waters there have been Federations of the
Champ-de-Mars: guillotines, portable-guillotines, and a
French People risen against Tyrants; there has been a
Sansculottism, speaking at last in cannon-volleys and the
106 MISCELLANTES.
crash of towns and nations over half the world. Sleek Fat-
pauncho Usandwonto, sleek aristocratic Donothingism, sunk
as in death-sleep in its well-stuffed easy-chair, or staggering
in Somnambulism on the housetops, seemed to itself to hear
a voice say, Sleep no more, Donothingism; Donothingism
doth murder sleep! It was indeed a terrible explosion, that
of Sansculottism; commingling very Tartarus with the old-
established stars;–fit, such a tumult was it, to awaken all
but the dead. And out of it there had come Napoleonisms,
Tamerlanisms; and then as a branch of these, ‘Conventions
of Aranjuez, soon followed by ‘Spanish Juntas,’ ‘Spanish
Cortes; and, on the whole, a Smiting broad awake of poor
old Spain itself, much to its amazement. And naturally of
New Spain next, to its double amazement, seeing itself
awake And so, in the new Hemisphere too, arise wild
projects, angry arguings; arise armed gatherings in Santa
Marguerita Island, with Bolivars and invasions of Cumana;
revolts of La Plata, revolts of this and then of that ; the
subterranean electric element, shock on shock, shaking and
exploding, in the new Hemisphere too, from sea to sea.
Very astonishing to witness, from the year 1810 and on-
wards. Had Rodriguez Francia three ears, he would hear;
as many eyes as Argus, he would gazel He is all eye, he
is all ear. A new, entirely different figure of existence is
cut-out for Doctor Rodriguez. •º
The Paraguay People as a body, lying far inland, with
little speculation in their heads, were in no haste to adopt
the new republican gospel; but looked first how it would
succeed in shaping itself into facts. Buenos-Ayres, Tucu-
man, most of the La Plata Provinces had made their revo-
lutions, brought in the reign of liberty, and unluckily driven
out the reign of law and regularity; before the Paraguenos
DR. FRANCIA. 107
rºy
could resolve on such an enterprise. Perhaps they are
afraid? General Belgrano, with a force of a thousand men,
missioned by Buenos-Ayres, came up the river to counten-
ance them, in the end of 1810; but was met on their fron-
tier in array of war; was attacked, or at least was terrified,
in the night-watches, so that his men all fled;—and on the
morrow, poor General Belgrano found himself not a coun-
tenancer, but one needing countenance; and was in a polite
way sent down the river again ſ” Not till a year after did
the Paraguenos, by spontaneous movement, resolve on a
career of freedom;-resolve on getting some kind of Con-
gress assembled, and the old Government sent its ways.
Francia, it is presumable, was active at once in exciting and
restraining them : the fruit was now drop-ripe, we may say,
and fell by a shake. Our old royal Governor went aside,
worthy man, with some slight grimace, when ordered to do
so ; National Congress introduced itself; secretaries read
papers, “ compiled chiefly out of Rollin's Ancient History;’
and we became a Republic: with Don Fulgencio Yegros,
one of the richest Gauchos and best horseman of the pro-
vince, for President, and two Assessors with him, called also
Vocales, or Vowels, whose names escape us; Francia, as
Secretary, being maturally the Consonant, or motive soul of
the combination. This, as we grope out the date, was in
(1811, The Paraguay Congress, having completed this con-
stitution, went home again to its field-labours, hoping a
good issue.
Feebler light hardly ever dawned for the historical mind,
than this which is shed for us by Rengger, Robertsons and
Company, on the birth, the cradling, baptismal processes
and early fortunes of the new Paraguay Republic. Through
long vague, and indeed intrinsically vacant pages of their
* Rengger.
108 MISCELLANTES.
Books, it lies gray, undecipherable, without form and void.
Francia was Secretary, and a Republic did take place: this,
as one small clear-burning fact, shedding far a comfortable
visibility, conceivability, over the universal darkness, and
making it into conceivable dusk with one rushlight fact in
the centre of it, this we do know; and, cheerfully yielding
to necessity, decide that this shall suffice us to know. What
more is there? Absurd somnolent persons, struck broad
awake by the subterranean concussion of Civil and Reli-
gious Liberty all over the World, meeting together to es-
tablish a republican career of freedom, and compile official
papers out of Rollin,_are not a subject on which the his—
torical mind can be enlightened. The historical mind, thank
Heaven, forgets such persons and their papers, as fast as
you repeat them.
Besides, these Gaucho populations are greedy, supersti-
tious, vain; and, as Miers said in his haste, mendacious
every soul of them l Within the confines of Paraguay, we
know for certain but of one man who would do himself
an injury to do a just or true thing under the sun : one
man who understands in his heart that this Universe is
an eternal Fact, and not some huge temporary Pumpkin,
Saccharine, absinthian; the rest of its significance chimeri-
cal merely 1 Such men cannot have a history, though a Thu-
cydides came to write it.—Enough for us to understand
that Don This was a vapouring blockhead, who followed
his pleasures, his peculations, and Don That another of
the same; that there occurred fatuities, mismanagements
innumerable; then discontents, open grumblings, and, as
a running accompaniment, intriguings, caballings, outings,
innings: till the Government House, fouler than when the
Jesuits had it, became a bottomless pestilent inanity, in-
supportable to any articulate-speaking soul; till Secretary
DR. FRANCIA, 109
Francia should feel that he, for one, could not be Consonant
to such a set of Vowels; till Secretary Francia, one day,
flinging down his papers, rising to his feet, should jerk-out
with oratorical vivacity his lean right-hand, and say, with
knit brows, in a low swift tone: “Adieu, Senhores; God
preserve you many years!”— -
Francia withdrew to his chaora, a pleasant country-house
in the woods of Ytapúa, not far off; there to interrogate
Nature, and live in a private manner. Parish Robertson,
much about this date, which we grope and guess to have
been perhaps in 1812, was boarded with a certain ancient
Donna Juana, in that same region; had tertulias of unima-
ginable brilliancy; and often went shooting of an evening.
On one of those—But he shall himself report:
“On one of those lovely evenings in Paraguay, after the south-
west wind has both cleared and cooled the air, I was drawn, in my
pursuit of game, into a peaceful valley, not far from Donna Juana's,
and remarkable for its combination of all the striking features of the
scenery of the country. Suddenly I came upon a neat and unpre-
tending cottage. Up rose a partridge; I fired, and the bird came to
the ground. A voice from behind called out “Buen tiro”—“a good
shot.” I turned round, and beheld a gentleman of about fifty years
of age, dressed in a suit of black, with a large scarlet capote, or cloak,
thrown over his shoulders. He had a maté-cup in one hand, a cigar
in the other ; and a little urchin of a negro, with his arms crossed, was
in attendance by the gentleman's side. The stranger's countenance
was dark, and his black eyes were very penetrating, while his jet hair,
combed back from a bold forehead, and hanging in natural ringlets
over his shoulders, gave him a dignified and striking air. He wore
on his shoes large golden buckles, and at the knees of his breeches
the same.
“In exercise of the primitive and simple hospitality common in the
country, I was invited to sit down under the corridor, and to take a
cigar and maté (cup of Paraguay tea). A celestial globe, a large tele-
scope and a theodolite were under the little portico; and I imme-
110 MISCELLANIES.
diately inferred that the personage before me was no other than Dr.
Trancia.”
Yes, here for the first time in authentic history, a re-
markable hearsay becomes a remarkable visuality: through
a pair of clear human eyes, you look face to face on the
very figure of the man. Is not this verily the exact record
of those clear Robertsonian eyes and seven senses; entered
accurately, then and not afterwards, on the ledger of the
memory? We will hope so; who can but hope so ! The
figure of the man will, at all events, be exact. Here too is
the figure of his library;-the conversation, if any, was of
the last degree of insignificance, and may be left out, or
supplied ad libitum :
‘He introduced me to his library, in a confined room, with a very
small window, and that so shaded by the roof of the corridor, as to
admit the least portion of light necessary for study. The library was
arranged on three rows of shelves, extending across the room, and
might have consisted of three-hundred volumes. There were many
ponderous books on law; a few on the inductive sciences; some in
Trench and some in Latin upon subjects of general literature, with
Euclid's Elements, and some schoolboy treatises on algebra. On a
large table were heaps of law-papers and processes. Several folios
bound in vellum were outspread upon it ; a lighted candle (though
placed there solely with a view to light cigars) lent its feeble aid to
illumine the room; while a maté-cup and inkstand, both of silver,
stood on another part of the table. There was neither carpet normat
on the brick floor; and the chairs were of such ancient fashion, size
and weight, that it required a considerable effort to move them from
one spot to another.’ -
Peculation, malversation, the various forms of imbecil-
ity and voracious dishonesty went their due course in the
Government-offices of Assumpcion, unrestrained by Francia,
and unrestrainable : — till, as we may say, it reached a
height; and, like other suppurations and diseased concre-
T)R. FRANCIA. 111
tions in the living system, had to burst, and take itself
away. To the eyes of Paraguay in general it had become
clear that such a reign of liberty was unendurable; that
some new revolution, or change of ministry, was indispens-
able.
Rengger says that Francia withdrew “more than once’
to his chaora, disgusted with his Colleagues; who always,
by unlimited promises and protestations, had to flatter him
back again; and then anew disgusted him. Francia is the
Consonant of these absurd ‘Vowels; no business can go
on without Francial And the finances are deranged, in-
solvent; and the military, unpaid, ineffective, cannot so
much as keep out the Indians; and there comes trouble,
and rumour of new war, from Buenos-Ayres;–alas, from
what corner of the great Continent come there other than
troubles and rumours of war 3 Patriot generals become
traitor generals; get themselves ‘shot in market-places; re-
volution follows revolution. Artigas, close on Our borders,
has begun harrying the Banda Oriental with fire and sword;
‘dictating despatches from cow-skulls. Like clouds of
wolves, – only feller, being mounted on horseback, with
pikes, – the Indians dart-in on us; carrying conflagration
and dismay. Paraguay must get itself governed, or it will
be worse for Paraguay ! The eyes of all Paraguay, we can
well fancy, turn to the one man of talent they have, the one
man of veracity they have.
In 1813 a second Congress is got together: we fancy
it was Francia's last advice to the Government suppuration,
when it flattered him back, for the last time, to ask his
advice, That such suppuration do now dissolve itself, and
a new Congress be summoned In the new Congress the
Vocales are voted out; Francia and Fulgencio are named
joint Consuls: with Francia for Consul, and Don Fulgencio
112 MISCELLANIES.
Yegros for Consul’s cloak, it may be better. Don Fulgencio
rides about in gorgeous sash and epaulettes, a rich man and
horse-subduer; good as Consul’s cloak;-but why should
the real Consul have a cloak 2 Next year in the third Con-
gress, Francia, by “insidious manoeuvering,” by “favour of
the military, and, indeed, also in some sort, we may say,
by law of Nature, — gets himself declared Dictator : ‘for
three years, or for life, may in these circumstances mean
much the same. This was in 1814. Francia, never as-
sembled any Congress more; having stolen the constitu-
tional palladiums, and insidiously got his wicked will ! Of
a Congress that compiled constitutions out of Rollin, who
would not lament such destiny ? This Congress should
have met again It was indeed, say Rengger and the Ro-
bertsons themselves, such a Congress as never met before
in the world; a Congress which knew not its right hand
from its left ; which drank infinite rum in the taverns;
and had one wish, that of getting on horseback again, home
to its field-husbandry and partridge-shooting again. The
military mostly favoured Francia; being gained-over by
him, the thief of constitutional palladiums. -
With Francia's entrance on the Government as Consul,
still more as Dictator, a great improvement, it is granted
even by Rengger, did in all quarters forthwith show itself.
The finances were husbanded, were accurately gathered;
every official person in Paraguay had to bethink him, and
begin doing his work, instead of merely seeming to do it.
The soldiers Francia took care to see paid and drilled;
to see march, with real death-shot and service, when the
Indians or other enemies showed themselves. Guardias,
Guardhouses, at short distances were established along the
River's bank and all round the dangerous Frontiers: wher-
*.
DR. FRANCIA. 113
ever the Indian centaur-troop showed face, an alarm-cannon
went off, and soldiers, quickly assembling, with actual death-
shot and service, were upon them. These wolf-hordes had
to vanish into the heart of their deserts again. The land
had peace. Neither Artigas, nor any of the firebrands and
war-plagues which were distracting South America from
side to side, could get across the border. All negotiation
or intercommuning with Buenos-Ayres, or with any of these
war-distracted countries, was peremptorily waived. To no
‘Congress of Lima,’ ‘General Congress of Panama,’ or other
general or particular Congress, would Francia, by deputy
or message, offer the smallest recognition. All South
America raging and ravening like One huge dog.- kennel
gone rabid, we here in Paraguay have peace, and cultivate
our tea-trees: why should not we let well alone 3 By de-
grees, one thing acting on another, and this ring of Fron-
tier ‘Guardhouses' being already erected there, a rigorous
sanitary line, impregnable as brass, was drawn round all
Paraguay; no communication, import or export trade al-
lowed, except by the Dictator's license,_given on payment
of the due moneys, when the political horizon seemed in-
nocuous; refused when otherwise. The Dictator's trade-
licenses were a considerable branch of his revenues; his
entrance-dues, somewhat onerous to the foreign merchant
(think the Messrs. Robertson), were another. Paraguay stood
isolated; the rabid dog-kennel raging round it, wide as South
America, but kept out as by lock-and-key.
These were vigorous measures, gradually coming on the
somnolent Gaucho population It seems, meanwhile, that,
even after the Perpetual Dictatorship, and onwards to the
fifth or the sixth year of Francia's government, there was,
though the constitutional palladiums were stolen, nothing
very special to complain of Paraguay had peace; sat
WOL. XI. (Misc, vol. 6.) I
114 MISCELLANTES.
under its tea-tree; the rabid dog-kennel, Indians, Artigue-
nos and other war firebrands, all shut-out from it. But
in that year 1819, the second year of the Perpetual Dicta-
torship, there arose, not for the first time, dim indications
of ‘Plots, even dangerous Plots | In that year the fire-
brand Artigas was finally quenched; obliged to beg a
lodging even of Francia, his enemy;-and got it, hospit-
ably, though contemptuously. And now straightway there
advanced, from Artigas's lost wasted country, a certain
General Ramirez, his rival and conqueror, and fellow-bandit
and firebrand. This General Ramirez advanced up to our
very frontier; first with offers of alliance; failing that, with
offers of war; on which latter offer he was closed with,
was cut to pieces; and—a Letter was found about him,
addressed to Don Fulgencio Yegros, the rich Gaucho horse-
man and Ex-Consul; which arrested all the faculties of Dr.
Francia's most intense intelligence there and then l A Con-
spiracy, with Don Fulgencio at the head of it; Conspiracy
which seems the wider spread the farther one investigates
it; which has been brewing itself these “two years, and
now on Good-Friday next is to burst out ; starting with
the massacre of Dr. Francia and others, whatever it may
close with !" Francia was not a man to be trifled with in
plots | He looked, watched, investigated, till he got the
exact extent, position, nature and structure of this Plot
fully in his eye; and then—why, then he pounced on it like
a glede-falcon, like a fierce condor, suddenly from the in-
visible blue; struck beak and claws into the very heart of
it, tore it into small fragments, and consumed it on the
spot. It is Francia's way! This was the last plot, though
not the first plot, Francia ever heard of during his Perpe-
tual Dictatorship.
* Rengger.
DR. FRANCIA. 115
It is, as we find, over these three or these two years,
while the Fulgencio Plot is getting itself pounced upon and
torn in pieces, that the ‘reign of terror, properly so called,
extends. Over these three or these two years only,–though
the ‘running shriek' of it confuses all things to the end of
the chapter. It was in this stern period that Francia exe-
cuted above forty persons. Not entirely inexplicable ! “Par
Dios, ye shall not conspire against me; I will not allow
it ! The Career of Freedom, be it known to all men and
Gauchos, is not yet begun in this country; I am still only
casting out the Seven Devils. My lease of Paraguay, a
harder one than your stupidities suppose, is for life: the
contract is, Thou must die if thy lease be taken from thee.
Aim not at my life, ye constitutional Gauchos, or let it be
a diviner man than Don Fulgencio the Horse-subduer that
does it. By Heaven, if you aim at my life, I will bid you
have a care of your own ſ” He executed upwards of forty
persons. How many he arrested, flogged, cross-questioned
—for he is an inexorable man | If you are guilty, or sus-
pected of guilt, it will go ill with you here. Francia's arrest,
carried by a grenadier, arrives; you are in strait prison;
you are in Francia's bodily presence; those sharp St.-Do-
minic eyes, that diabolic intellect, prying into you, probing,
cross-questioning you, till the secret cannot be hid: till the
‘three ball-cartridges' are handed to a sentry;-and your
doom is Rhadamanthine !
But the Plots, as we say, having ceased by this rough
surgery, it would appear that there was, for the next twenty
years, little or no more of it, little or no use for more. The
reign of terror, one begins to find, was properly a reign of
rigour; which would become “terrible enough if you in-
fringed the rules of it, but which was peaceable otherwise,
regular otherwise. Let this, amid the ‘running shriek,
116 MISCELLANTES.
which will and should run its full length in such circum
stances, be well kept in mind.
It happened too, as Rengger tells us, in the same year
(1820, as we grope and gather), that a visitation of locusts,
as sometimes occurs, destroyed all the crops of Paraguay;
and there was no prospect but of universal dearth or famine.
The crops are done; eaten by locusts; the summer at an
end We have no foreign trade, or next to none, and never
had almost any; what will become of Paraguay and its
Gauchos? In Gauchos is no hope, no help : but in a
Dionysius of the Gauchos? Dictator Francia, led by occult
French Sciences and natural sagacity, may driven by ne-
cessity itself, peremptorily commands the farmers, through-
out all Paraguay, To sow a certain portion of their lands
anew ; with or without hope, under penalties l The re-
sult was a moderately good harvest still: the result was
a discovery that Two harvests were, every year, possible
in Paraguay; that Agriculture, a rigorous Dictator presid-
ing over it, could be infinitely improved there.” As Pa-
raguay has about 100,000 square miles of territory mostly
fertile, and only some two souls planted on each square
mile thereof, it seemed to the Dictator that this, and not
Foreign Trade, might be a good course for his Paraguenos.
This accordingly, and not foreign trade, in the present
state of the political horizon, was the course resolved
on ; the course persisted in, “with evident advantages,
says Rengger. Thus, one thing acting on another, –
domestic Plot, hanging on Artigas's country from without ;
and Locust-swarms with Improvement of Husbandry in the
interior; and those Guardhouses all already there, along
the frontier, Paraguay came more and more to be herme-
tically closed; and Francia reigned over it, for the rest of
* Rengger, pp. 67 &c.
DR. FRANCIA. 117
his life, as a rigorous Dionysius of Paraguay, without foreign
intercourse, or with such only as seemed good to Francia.
How the Dictator, now secure in possession, did manage
this huge Paraguay, which, by strange ‘insidious’ and other
means, had fallen in life-lease to him, and was his to do the
best he could with, it were interesting to know. What the
meaning of him, the result of him, actually was 2 One de-
siderates some Biography of Francia by a native —Mean-
while, in the Æsthetische Briefwechsel of Herr Professor Sauer-
teig, a Work not yet known in England, nor treating
specially of this subject, we find, scattered at distant in-
tervals, a remark or two which may be worth translating.
Professor Sauerteig, an open soul, looking with clear eye and
large recognising heart over all accessible quarters of the
world, has cast a sharp sunglance here and there into Dr.
Francia too. These few philosophical Remarks of his, and
then a few Anecdotes gleaned elsewhere, such as the barren
ground yields, must comprise what more we have to say of
Francia.
‘Pity, exclaims Sauerteig once, ‘that a nation cannot reform it—
self, as the English are now trying to do, by what their newspapers
call “tremendous cheers” . Alas, it cannot be done. Reform is not
joyous but grievous ; no single man can reform himself without stern
suffering and stern working ; how much less can a nation of men
The serpent sheds not his old skin without rusty disconsolateness ;
he is not happy but miserable ! In the Water-cure itself, do you not
sit steeped for months ; washed to the heart in elemental drench-
ings; and, like Job, are made to curse your day ! Reforming of
a nation is a terrible business | Thus too, Medea, when she made
men young again, was wont (du Himmel /) to hew them in pieces
with meat-axes; cast them into caldrons, and boil them for a length.
of time. How much handier could they but have done it by “tre-
mendous cheers” alone !’— —
118 MISCELLANTES.
“Like a drop of surgical antiseptic liquid, poured (by the benign
Powers, as I fancy () into boundless brutal corruptions; very sharp,
very caustic, corrosive enough, this tawny tyrannous Dr. Francia, in
the interior of the South-American continent,--he too is one of the
elements of the grand Phenomenon there. A monstrous moulting-
process taking place;—monstrous gluttonous boa-constrictor (he is of
length from Panama to Patagonia) shedding his old skin ; whole con-
tinent getting itself chopped to pieces, and boiled in the Medea cal-
dron, to become young again,_unable to manage it by “tremendous
cheers” alone !’——
‘What they say about “love of power” amounts to little. Power?
Love of “power” merely to make flunkies come and go for you is a
“love,” I should think, which enters only into the minds of persons
in a very infantine state | A grown man, like this Dr. Francia, who
wants nothing, as I am assured, but three cigars daily, a cup of maté,
and four ounces of butchers' meat with brown bread : the whole world
and its united flunkies, taking constant thought of the matter, can do
nothing for him but that only. That he already has, and has had
always; why should he, not being a minor, love flunky “power”?
He loves to see you about him, with your flunky promptitudes, with
your grimaces, adulations and sham-loyalty You are so beautiful, a
daily and hourly feast to the eye and soul? Ye unfortunates, from
his heart rises one prayer, That the last created flunky had vanished
from this universe, never to appear more
‘And yet truly a man does tend, and must under frightful penal-
ties perpetually tend, to be king of his world; to stand in his world
as what he is, a centre of light and order, not of darkness and con-
fusion. A man loves power : yes, if he see disorder his eternal enemy
rampant about him, he does love to see said enemy in the way of
being conquered; he can have no rest till that come to pass 1 Your
Mahomet cannot bear a rent cloak, but clouts it with his own hands;
how much more a rent country, a rent world? He has to imprint the
image of his own veracity upon the world, and shall, and must, and
will do it, more or less: it is at his peril if he neglect any great or
any small possibility he may have of this. Francia's inner flame is
but a meagre, blue-burning one : let him irradiate midnight Paraguay
with it, such as it is.’——
DR. FRANCIA. 119
‘Nay, on the whole, how cunning is Nature in getting her farms
leased Is it not a blessing this Paraguay can get the one veracious
man it has, to take lease of it, in these sad circumstances ! His farm-
profits, and whole wages, it would seem, amount only to what is called
“Nothing, and find yourself” Spartan food and lodging, solitude,
three cigars, and a cup of maté daily, he already had.'
Truly, it would seem, as Sauerteig remarks, Dictator
Francia had not a very joyous existence of it, in this his
life-lease of Paraguay ! Casting-out of the Seven Devils
from a Gaucho population is not joyous at all; both ex-
orcist and exorcised find it sorrowful! Meanwhile, it does
appear, there was some improvement made : no veritable
labour, not even a Dr. Francia's, is in vain.
Of Francia's improvements there might as much be said
as of his cruelties or rigours; for indeed, at bottom, the one
was in proportion to the other. He improved agriculture:
—not two ears of corn where one only grew, but two
harvests of corn, as we have seen He introduced schools,
“boarding-schools,’ ‘elementary schools, and others, on
which Rengger has a chapter; everywhere he promoted
education as he could; repressed superstition as he could.
Strict justice between man and man was enforced in his
Law-courts: he himself would accept no gift, not even a
trifle, in any case whatever. Rengger, on packing-up for
departure, had left in his hands, not from forgetfulness, a
Print of Napoleon; worth some shillings in Europe, but
invaluable in Paraguay, where Francia, who admired this
Hero much, had hitherto seen no likeness of him but a Nürn-
berg caricature. Francia sent an express after Rengger, to
ask what the value of the Print was. No value; M. Reng-
ger could not sell Prints; it was much at his Excellency's
service. His Excellency straightway returned it. An ex-
act, decisive man! Peculation, idleness, ineffectuality, had to
120 MISCELLANTES.
cease in all the Public Offices of Paraguay. So far as lay
in Francia, no public and no private man in Paraguay was
allowed to slur his work; all public and all private men,
so far as lay in Francia, were forced to do their work or
die We might define him as the born enemy of quacks;
one who has from Nature a heart-hatred of unveracity in man
or in thing, wheresoever he sees it. Of persons who do not
speak the truth, and do not act the truth, he has a kind of
diabolic-divine impatience; they had better disappear out of
his neighbourhood. Poor Francia: his light was but a very
sulphurous, meagre, blue-burning one; but he irradiated
Paraguay with it (as our Professor says) the best he could.
That he had to maintain himself alive all the while, and
would suffer no man to glance contradiction at him, but in-
stantaneously repressed all such : this too we need no ghost
to tell us; this lay in the very nature of the case. His lease
of Paraguay was a life-lease. He had his “three ball-car-
tridges' ready for whatever man he found aiming at his life.
He had frightful prisons. He had Tevego far up among the
wastes, a kind of Paraguay Siberia, to which unruly persons,
not yet got the length of shooting, were relegated. The
main exiles, Rengger says, were drunken mulattoes and
the class called unfortunate-females. They lived miserably
there; became a sadder, and perhaps a wiser, body of mu-
lattoes and unfortunate-females.
But let us listen for a moment to the Reverend Manuel
Perez as he preaches, ‘in the Church of the Incarnation at
Assumpcion, on the 20th of October 1840, in a tone some-
what nasal, yet trustworthy withal. His ‘Funeral Dis-
course, translated into a kind of English, presents itself still
audible in the Argentine News of Buenos-Ayres, No. 813. We
select some passages; studying to abate the nasal tone a
little; to reduce, if possible, the Argentine English under
DR. FRANCIA. 121
the law of grammar. It is the worst translation in the world,
and does poor Manuel Perez one knows not what injustice.
This Funeral Discourse has “much surprised the Able Edi-
tor, it seems;–has led him perhaps to ask, or be readier
for asking, Whether all that confused loud litanying about
‘reign of terror,” and so forth, was not possibly of a rather
long-eared nature?
* Amid the convulsions of revolution,’ says the Reverend Manuel,
‘the Lord, looking down with pity on Paraguay, raised up 1)on José
Gaspar Francia for its deliverance. And when, in the words of my
Text, the children of Israel cried unto the Lord, the Lord raised up a
deliverer to the children of Israel, who delivered them.’
‘What measures did not his Excellency devise, what labours un-
dergo, to preserve peace in the Republic at home, and place it in an
attitude to command respect flom abroad His first care was di-
rected to obtain supplies of Arms, and to discipline Soldiers. To all
that would import arms he held out the inducement of exemption
from duty, and the permission to export in return whatever produce
they preferred. An abundant supply of excellent arms was, by these
means, obtained. I am lost in wonder to think how this great man
could attend to such a multiplicity of things | He applied himself
to the study of the military art ; and, in a short time, taught the
exercise, and directed military evolutions like the skilfulest veteran.
Often have I seen his Excellency"go up to a recruit, and show him by
example how to take aim at the target. Could any Paragueno think
it other than honourable to carry a musket, when his Dictator taught
him how to manage it ! The cavalry-exercise too, though it seems to
require a man at once robust and experienced in horsemanship, his
Excellency, as you know, did himself superintend; at the head of his
squadrons he charged and manoeuvered, as if bred to it; and directed
them with an energy and vigour which infused his own martial spirit
into these troops.’
‘What evils do not the people suffer from Highwaymen P exclaims
his Reverence, a little farther on ; ‘violence, plunder, murder, are
crimes familiar to these malefactors. The inaccessible mountains and
wide deserts in this Republic seemed to offer impunity to such men.
122 MISCELLANTES.
Our Dictator succeeded in striking such a terror into them that they
entirely disappeared, seeking safety in a change of life. His Excel-
lency saw that the manner of inflicting the punishment was more
efficacious than even the punishment itself; and on this principle he
acted. Whenever a robber could be seized, he was led to the nearest
Guardhouse (Guardia); a summary trial took place ; and straightway,
so soon as he had made confession, he was shot. These means proved
effectual. Ere long the Republic was in such security, that, we may
say, a child might have travelled from the Uruguay to the Parana
without other protection than the dread which the Supreme Dictator
had inspired.’—This is saying something, your Reverence
‘But what is all this compared to the demon of Anarchy'ſ Oh,’
exclaims his simple Reverence, ‘Oh, my friends, would I had the
talent to paint to you the miseries of a people that fall into anarchy
And was not our Republic on the very eve of this? Yes, brethren.’
—‘It behoved his Excellency to be prompt ; to Smother the enemy in
his cradle ! He did so. He seized the leaders; brought to Summary
trial, they were convicted of high treason against the country. What
a struggle now, for his Excellency, between the law of duty, and the
voice of feeling'—if feeling to any extent there were ! ‘I,’ exclaims
his Reverence, ‘am confident that had the doom of imprisonment. On
those persons seemed sufficient for the State's peace, his Excellency
never would have ordered their execution.” It was unavoidable ; nor
was it avoided ; it was done ! ‘Prethren, should not I hesitate, lest
it be a profanation of the sacred place I now occupy, if I seem to
approve sanguinary measures in opposition to the mildness of the
Gospel? Brethren, no. God himself approved the conduct of Solo-
mon in putting Joab and Adonijah to death.' Life is sacred, thinks
his Reverence ; but there is something more Sacred still: woe to him
who does not know that withal |
Alas, your Reverence, Paraguay has not yet succeeded
in abolishing capital punishment, then 3 But indeed neither
has Nature, anywhere that I hear of yet succeeded in abol-
ishing it. Act with the due degree of perversity, you are
sure enough of being violently put to death, in hospital or
highway, by dyspepsia, delirium tremens, or stuck through
DR. FRANCIA. 123
by the kindled rage of your fellow-men I What can the
friend of humanity do?—Twaddle in Exeter-hall or else-
where, “till he become a bore to us,’ and perhaps worse !
An Advocate in Arras once gave-up a good judicial appoint-
ment, and retired into frugality and privacy, rather than
doom one culprit to die by law. The name of this Ad-
vocate, let us mark it well, was Maximilien Robespierre.
There are sweet kinds of twaddle that have a deadly viru-
lence of poison concealed in them; like the sweetness of
sugar-of-lead. Were it not better to make just laws, think
you, and then execute them strictly,–as the gods still
do?
“His Excellency next directed his attention to purging the State
from another class of enemies,’ says Perez in the Incarnation Church ;
‘the peculating Tax-gatherers, namely. Vigilantly detecting their
frauds, he made them refund for what was past, and took precautions
against the like in future; all their accounts were to be handed-in, for
his examination, Once every year.’
‘The habit of his Excellency when he delivered-out articles for
the supply of the public ; that prolix and minute counting of things
apparently unworthy of his attention, — had its origin in the same
motive. I believe that he did so less from a want of confidence in the
individuals lately appointed for this purpose, than from a desire to
show them with what delicacy they should proceed. Hence likewise
his ways, in scrupulously examining every piece of artisans' workman-
ship.’
‘Republic of Paraguay, how art thou indebted to the toils, the
vigils and cares of our Perpetual Dictator It seemed as if this
extraordinary man were endowed with ubiquity, to attend to all thy
wants and exigences. Whilst in his closet, he was traversing thy
frontiers to place thee in an attitude of security. What devastation
did not those inroads of Indians from the Chaco occasion to the in-
habitants of Rio-Abajo Ever and anon there reached Assumpcion
tidings of the terror and affliction caused by their incursions. Which
of us hoped that evils so wide-spread, ravages so appalling, could be
124 MISCELLANTES.
counteracted? Our Dictator, nevertheless, did devise effectual ways
of Securing that part of the Republic.
‘Four respectable Fortresses with competent garrisons have been
the impregnable barrier which has restrained the irruptions of those
ferocious Savages. Inhabitants of Rio-Abajo rest tranquil in your
homes; you are a portion of the People whom the Lord confided to
the care of our Dictator; you are safe.’
‘The precautions and wise measures he adopted to repel force, and
drive-back the Savages to the north of the Republic ; the Fortresses
of Climpo, of San Carlos de Apa, placed on the best footing for de-
fence; the orders and instructions furnished to the Villa de la Con-
cepcion,-secured that quarter of the Republic against attack from
any. -
‘The great Wall, ditch and fortress, on the opposite bank of the
Tiver Parana ; the force and judicious arrangement of the troops dis-
tributed over the interior in the south of our Republic, have com-
manded the respect of its enemies in that quarter.’
‘The beauty, the symmetry and good taste displayed in the build-
ing of cities convey an advantageous idea of their inhabitants,’ con-
tinues Perez : ‘Thus thought Caractacus, King of the Angles,'—thus
think most persons ! “His Excellency, glancing at the condition of
the Capital of the Republic, saw a city in disorder and without police;
streets without regularity, houses built according to the caprice of
their owners.”
But enough, O Perez; for it becomes too nasall Perez,
with a confident face, asks in fine, Whether all these things
do not clearly prove to men and Gauchos of sense, that
Dictator Francia was ‘the deliverer whom the Lord raised
up to deliver Paraguay from its enemies'?—Truly, O Perez,
the benefits of him seem to have been considerable. Un-
doubtedly a man ‘sent by Heaven,'—as all of us are l Nay,
it may be, the benefit of him is not even yet exhausted,
even yet entirely become visible. Who knows but, in un-
born centuries, Paragueno men will look back to their lean
iron Francia, as men do in such cases to the One veracious
DR. FRANCIA. 125
person, and institute considerations! Oliver Cromwell, dead
two-hundred years, does yet speak; nay, perhaps now first
begins to speak. The meaning and meanings of the one
true man, never so lean and limited, starting-up direct from
Nature's heart, in this bewildered Gaucho world, gone far
away from Nature, are endless!
The Messrs. Robertson are very merry on this attempt
of Francia's to rebuild on a better plan the City of Assump-
cion. The City of Assumpcion, full of tropical vegetation
and ‘permanent hedges, the deposits of nuisance and ver-
min,” has no pavement, no straightness of streets; the
sandy thoroughfare in some quarters is torn by the rain into
gullies, impassable with convenience to any animal but a
kangaroo. Francia, after meditation, decides on having it
remodelled, paved, straightened,—irradiated with the image
of the one regular man. Robertson laughs to see a Dic-
tator, sovereign ruler, straddling about, “taking observa-
tions with his theodolite,’ and so forth : O Robertson, if
there was no other man that could observe with a theodo-
lite? Nay, it seems farther, the improvement of Assump-
cion was attended, once more, with the dreadfulest ty–
rannies: peaceable citizens dreaming no harm, no active
harm to any soul, but mere peaceable passive dirt and irre-
gularity to all souls, were ordered to pull-down their houses
which happened to stand in the middle of streets; forced
(under rustle of the gallows) to draw their purses, and
rebuild them elsewhere ! It is horrible. Nay, they said,
Francia's true aim in these improvements, in this cutting-
down of the luxuriant ‘cross hedges' and architectural mon-
strosities, was merely to save himself from being shot, from
under cover, as he rode through the place. It may be
so: but Assumpcion is now an improved paved City, much
18 Perez,
126 MISCELLANTES.
squarer in the corners (and with the planned capacity, it
seems, of growing ever squarer"); passable with conve-
nience not to kangaroos only, but to wooden bullock-carts
and all vehicles and animals.
Indeed our Messrs. Robertson find something comic as
well as tragic in Dictator Francia ; and enliven their run-
ning shriek, all through this Reign of Terror, with a plea-
Sant vein of conventional satire. One evening, for example,
a Robertson being about to leave Paraguay for England,
and having waited upon Francia to make the parting com-
pliments, Francia, to the Robertson's extreme astonishment,
orders-in a large bale of goods, orders them to be opened
on the table there: Tobacco, poncho-cloth, and other pro-
duce of the country, all of first-rate quality, and with the
prices ticketed. These goods this astonished Robertson is
to carry to the ‘Bar of the House of Commons,’ and there
to say, in such fashion and phraseology as a native may
know to be suitable : “Mr. Speaker, Dr. Francia is Dic-
tator of Paraguay, a country of tropical fertility and 100,000
square miles in extent, producing these commodities, at these
prices. With nearly all foreign nations he declines alto-
gether to trade; but with the English, such is his notion
of them, he is willing and desirous to trade. These are
his commodities, in endless quantity; of this quality, at
these prices. He wants arms, for his part. What say you,
Mr. Speaker?”—Sure enough, our Robertson, arriving at the
‘Bar of the House of Commons' with such a message, would
have cut an original figure | Not to the ‘House of Com-
mons' was this message properly addressed; but to the
English Nation; which Francia, idiot-like, supposed to be
somehow represented, and made accessible and addressable
in the House of Commons. It was a strange imbecility in
14 Perez.
DR. FRANCIA. 127
any Dictator!—The Robertson, we find accordingly, did not
take this bale of goods to the Bar of the House of Com-
mons; nay, what was far worse, he did not, owing to ac-
cidents, go to England at all, or bring any arms back to
Francia at all: hence, indeed, Francia's unreasonable detes-
tation of him, hardly to be restrained within the bounds of
common politeness | A man who said he would do, and then
did not do, was at no time a kind of man admirable to
Francia. Large sections of this Reign of Terror are a sort of
unmusical sonata, or free duet with variations, to this text:
“How unadmirable a hide-merchant that does not keep his
word!”—“How censurable, not to say ridiculous and imbe-
cile, the want of common politeness in a Dictator "
Francia was a man that liked performance: and sham-
performance, in Paraguay as elsewhere, was a thing too
universal. What a time of it had this strict man with un-
real performers, imaginary workmen, public and private,
cleric and laic l Ye Gauchos, it is no child’s-play, casting-
out those Seven Devils from you!
Monastic or other entirely slumberous church-establish-
ments could expect no great favour from Francia. Such
of them as seemed incurable, entirely slumberous, he some-
what roughly shook awake, somewhat sternly ordered to
begone. Debout, canaille fainéante, as his prophet Raynal
says; Debout ; auw champs, aua ateliers 1 Can I have you sit
here, droning old metre through your nose; your heart
asleep in mere gluttony, the while ; and all Paraguay a
wilderness or nearly so, -–the Heaven's blessed sunshine
growing mere tangles, lianas, yellow-fevers, rattlesnakes,
and jaguars on it? Up, swift, to work;-or mark this go-
vernmental horsewhip, what the crack of it is, what the cut
of it is like to be l—Incurable, for one class, seemed arch-
bishops, bishops, and suchlike; given merely to a sham-
128 MISCELLANTES.
warfare against extinct devils. At the crack of Francia's
terrible whip they went, dreading what the cut of it might
be. A cheap worship in Paraguay, according to the hum-
our of the people, Francia left; on condition that it did
no mischief. Wooden saints and the like ware he also left
sitting in their niches: no new ones, even on solicitation,
would he give a doit to buy. Being petitioned to provide a
new patron-saint for one of his new Fortifications once, he
made this answer: “O People of Paraguay, how long will
you continue idiots? While I was a Catholic, I thought
as you do : but I now see there are no saints but good can-
nons that will guard our frontiers!” This also is note-
worthy. He inquired of the two Swiss Surgeons, what their
religion was; and then added, “Be of what religion you
like, here: Christians, Jews, Mussulmans,—but don’t be
Atheists.” e
Equal trouble had Francia with his laic workers, and
indeed with all manner of workers; for it is in Paraguay as
elsewhere, like priests like people. Francia had extensive
barrack-buildings, nay city-buildings (as we have seen), arm-
furnishings; immensities of work going on ; and his work-
men had in general a tendency to be imaginary. He could
get no work out of them ; only a more or less deceptive
similitude of work | Masons so-called, builders of houses,
did not build, but merely seem to build; their walls would
not bear weather, stand on their bases in high winds.
Hodge-razors, in all conceivable kinds, were openly mar-
keted, ‘which were never meant to shave, but only to be
sold’ſ For a length of time Francia's righteous soul strug-
gled sore, yet unexplosively, with the propensities of these
unfortunate men. By rebuke, by remonstrance, encourage-
ment, offers of reward, and every vigilance and effort, he
* Rengger.
DR. FRANCIA. 129
strove to convince them that it was unfortunate for a Son
of Adam to be an imaginary workman; that every Son of
Adam had better make razors which were meant to shave.
In vain, all in vain At length Francia lost patience with
them. “Thou wretched Fraction, wilt thou be the ninth
part even of a tailor 2 Does it beseem thee to weave cloth
of devil’s-dust instead of true wool; and cut and sew it as
if thou wert not a tailor, but the fraction of a very tailor
I cannot endure every thing!” Francia, in despair, erected
his ‘Workman's Gallows.’ Yes, that institution of the
country did actually exist in Paraguay; men and workmen
saw it with eyes. A most remarkable, and, on the whole,
not unbeneficial institution of society there. Robertson
gives us the following scene with the Belt-maker of As-
sumpcion; which, be it literal, or in part poetic, does, no
doubt of it, hold the mirror up to Nature in an altogether
true, and Surely in a very surprising manner:
“In came, one afternoon, a poor Shoemaker, with a couple of
grenadiers' belts, neither according to the fancy of the Dictator.
* Sentinel,'—said he, and in came the sentinel; when the following
conversation ensued :
‘Dictator. “Take this bribonazo” (a very favourite word of the
Dictator's, and which, being interpreted, means “most impertiment
scoundrel")—“take this bribonazo to the gibbet over the way; walk him
under it half-a-dozen times :—and now,” said he, turning to the trem-
bling shoemaker, “bring me such another pair of belts, and instead of
walking under the gallows, we shall try how you can swing upon it.”
‘Shoemaker. “Please your Excellency, I have done my best.”
“Dictator. “Well, bribon, if this be your best, I shall do my
best to see that you never again mar a bit of the State's leather. The
belts are of no use to me; but they will do very well to hang you
upon the little framework which the grenadier will show you.”
‘Shoemaker. “God bless your Excellency, the Lord forbid I
am your vassal, your slave : day and might have I served, and will
serve my lord; only give me two days more to prepare the belts; y
VOL. XI. (Misc. vol. 6.) EC
130 MISCELLANTES.
por el alma de un triste zapatéro (by the soul of a poor shoemaker),
I will make them to your Excellency’s liking.”
* Dictator. “Off with him, sentinel !”
‘Sentinel. “ Venga, bribon, Come along, you rascal.”
‘Shoemaker. “Señor Excelentisimo, this very night I will make
the belts according to your Excellency's pattern.”
“Dictator. “Well, you shall have till the morning; but still you
must pass under the gibbet : it is a salutary process, and may at once
quicken the work and improve the workmanship.”
‘Sentinel. “Vamonos, bribon ; the Supreme commands it.”
‘ Off was the Shoemaker marched; he was, according to orders,
passed and repassed under the gibbet ; and then allowed to retire to
his stall.’
He worked there with such an alacrity and sibylline
enthusiasm, all night, that his belts on the morrow were
without parallel in South America;-and he is now, if still
in this life, Beltmaker-general to Paraguay, a prosperous man;
grateful to Francia and the gallows, we may hope, for cast-
ing certain of the Seven Devils out of him
Such an institution of society would evidently not be
introducible, under that simple form, in our old-constituted
European countries. Yet it may be asked of constitutional
persons in these times, By what succedaneum they mean to
supply the want of it, then 3 In a community of imaginary
workmen, how can you pretend to have any government, or
social thing whatever, that were real? Certain Tempound
Franchisers, with their ‘tremendous cheers,’ are invited to
reflect on this. With a community of quack workmen, it
is by the law of Nature impossible that other than a quack
government can be got to exist. Constitutional or other,
with ballot-boxes or with none, your society in all its phases,
administration, legislation, teaching, preaching, praying, and
writing periodicals per sheet, will be a quack society; ter-
rible to live in, disastrous to look upon. Such an institution
DR. FRANCIA. 131
of Society, adapted to our European ways, seems pressingly
desirable. O Gauchos, South-American and European, what
a business is it, casting out your Seven Devils —
But perhaps the reader would like to take a view of Dr.
Francia in the concrete, there as he looks and lives; man-
aging that thousand-sided business for his Paraguenos, in
the time of Surgeon Rengger? It is our last extract, or last
view of the Dictator, who must hang no longer on our
horizon here:
‘I have already said, that Doctor Francia, so soon as he found
himself at the head of affairs, took-up his residence in the habitation
of the former Governors of Paraguay. This Edifice, which is one of
the largest in Assumpcion, was erected by the Jesuits, a short time
before their expulsion, as a house of retreat for laymen, who devoted
themselves to certain spiritual exercises instituted by Saint Ignatius.
This Structure the Dictator repaired and embellished; he has detached
it from the other houses in the City, by interposing wide streets.
Here he lives, with four slaves, a little negro, one male and two female
mulattoes, whom he treats with great mildness. The two males per-
form the functions of valet-de-chambre and groom. One of the two
mulatto women is his cook, and the other takes care of his wardrobe.
‘He leads a very regular life. The first rays of the sun very
rarely find him in bed. So soon as he rises, the negro brings a chaf-
ing-dish, a kettle and a pitcher of water; the water is made to boil
there. The Dictator then prepares, with the greatest possible care,
his maté, or Paraguay tea. Having taken this, he walks under the
Interior Colonnade that looks upon the court; and smokes a cigar,
which he first takes care to unroll, in order to ascertain that there is
nothing dangerous in it, though it is his own sister who makes-up his
cigars for him. At six o'clock comes the barber, an ill-washed, ill-
clad mulattó, given to drink too; but the only member of the faculty
whom he trusts in. If the Dictator is in good humour, he chats with
the barber; and often in this manner makes use of him to prepare
the public for his projects: this barber may be said to be his official
gazette. He then steps out, in his dressing-gown of printed calico, to
the Outer Colonnade, an open space with pillars, which ranges all
132 MISCELLANTES.
round the building: here he walks about, receiving at the same time
such persons as are admitted to an audience. Towards seven, he
withdraws to his room, where he remains till nine ; the officers and
other functionaries then come to make their reports, and receive his
orders. At eleven o'clock, the fiel de fecho (principal secretary) brings
the papers which are to be inspected by him, and writes from his dic-
tation till noon. At noon all the officers retire, and Doctor Francia
sits down to table. His dinner, which is extremely frugal, he always
himself orders. When the cook returns from market, she deposits
her provisions at the door of her master's room; the Doctor then
comes out, and selects what he wishes for himself.
“After dinner he takes his siesta. On awakening, he drinks his
maté, and smokes a cigar, with the same precautions as in the morn-
ing. From this, till four or five, he occupies himself with busi-
ness, when the escort to attend him on his promenade arrives. The
barber then enters and dresses his hair, while his horse is getting
ready. During his ride, the Doctor inspects the public works, and
the barracks, particularly those of the cavalry, where he has had a set
of apartments prepared for his own use. While riding, though sur-
rounded by his escort, he is armed with a sabre and a pair of double-
barrelled pocket-pistols. He returns home about nightfall, and sits
down to study till nine ; then he goes to supper, which consists of a
roast pigeon and a glass of wine. If the weather be fine, he again
walks in the Outer Colonnade, where he often remains till a very late
hour. At ten o'clock he gives the watchword. On returning into
the house, he fastens all the doors himself.'
Francia’s brother was already mad. Francia banished
this sister by and by, because she had employed one of his
grenadiers, one of the public government's soldiers, on some
errand of her own." Thou lonely Francial
Francia's escort of cavalry used to ‘strike men with the
flat of their swords, much more assault them with angry
epithets, if they neglected to salute the Dictator as he rode
out. Both he and they, moreover, kept a sharp eye for
* Rengger.
DR. FRANCIA. 133
assassins; but never found any, thanks perhaps to their
watchfulness. Had Francia been in Paris —At one time
also, there arose annoyance in the Dictatorial mind from
idle crowds gazing about his Government House, and his
proceedings there. Orders were given that all people were
to move on, about their affairs, straight across this govern-
ment esplanade; instructions to the sentry, that if any per-
son paused to gaze, he was to be peremptorily bidden, Move
on 1—and if he still did not move, to be shot with ball-car-
tridge. All Paraguay men moved on, looking to the ground,
Swift as possible, straight as possible, through those pre-
carious spaces; and the affluence of crowds thinned itself
almost to the verge of solitude. One day, after many weeks
or months, a human figure did loiter, did gaze in the for-
bidden ground: “Move on " cried the sentry sharply;-no
effect: “Move on " and again none. “Move on " for the
third time: — alas, the unfortunate human figure was an
Indian, did not understand human speech, stood merely
gaping interrogatively : — whereupon a shot belches-forth
at him, the whewing of winged lead; which luckily only
whewed, and did not hit ! The astonishment of the Indian
must have been considerable, his retreat-pace one of the
rapidest. As for Francia, he summoned the sentry with
hardly suppressed rage, “What news, Amigo?” The sentry
quoted “Your Excellency's order;” Francia cannot recollect
such an Order; commands now, that, at all events, such
order cease.
It remains still that we say a word, not in excuse, which
might be difficult, but in explanation, which is possible
enough, of Francia's unforgivable insult to human Science
in the person of M. Aimé Bonpland. M. Aimé Bonpland
friend of Humboldt, after much botanical wandering, did, as
all men know, settle himself in Entre Rios, an Indian or
134 MISCELLANIES.
Jesuit country close on Francia, now burnt to ashes by
Artigas; and there set-up a considerable establishment for
the improved culture of Paraguay tea. With an eye to
botany? Botany ? Why, yes, and perhaps to commerce
still more. “Botany!” exclaims Francia: “It is shopkeep-
ing agriculture, and tends to prove fatal to my shop ! Who
is this extraneous French individual? Artigas could not
give him right to Entre Rios; Entre Rios is at least as
much mine as Artigas's Bring him to me !” Next night,
or next, Paraguay soldiers surround M. Bonpland's tea-esta-
blishment; gallop M. Bonpland over the frontiers, to his
appointed village in the interior; root-out his tea-plants;
scatter his four-hundred Indians, and—we know the rest
Hard-hearted Monopoly refusing to listen to the charmings
of Public Opinion or Royal-Society presidents, charm they
never so wisely M. Bonpland, at full liberty some time
since, resides still in South America;-and is expected by
the Robertsons, not altogether by this Editor, to publish his
Narrative, with a due running shriek.
Francia's treatment of Artigas, his old enemy, the bandit
and firebrand, reduced now to beg shelter of him, was good;
humane, even dignified. Francia refused to see or treat
with such a person, as he had ever done; but readily
granted him a place of residence in the interior, and ‘thirty
piasters a month till he died. The bandit cultivated fields,
did charitable deeds, and passed a life of penitence, for his
few remaining years. His bandit followers, such of them as
took to plundering again, says M. Rengger, “were instantly
seized and shot.’
On the other hand, that anecdote of Francia's dying
Father—requires to be confirmed ! It seems, the old man,
who, as we saw, had long since quarrelled with his son, was
dying, and wished to be reconciled. Francia “was busy; —
DR. FRANCIA. 135
what use was it?—could not come.” A second still more
pressing message arrives: “The old father dare not die
unless he see his son; fears he shall never enter Heaven,
if they be not reconciled.”—“Then let him enter !” said
Francia; “I will not come !” If this anecdote be true, it is
certainly of all that are in circulation about Dr. Francia by
far the worst. If Francia, in that death-hour, could not for-
give his poor old Father, whatsoever he had, or could in the
murkiest sultriest imagination be conceived to have, done
against him, then let no man forgive Dr. Francia But the
accuracy of public rumour, in regard to a Dictator who has
executed forty persons, is also a thing that can be guessed
at. To whom was it, by name and surname, that Francia
delivered this extraordinary response ? Did the man make,
or can he now be got to make, affidavit of it, to credible
articulate-speaking persons resident on this earth? if so, let
him do it, for the sake of the Psychological Sciences.
One last fact more. Our lonesome Dictator, living
among Gauchos, had the greatest pleasure, it would seem,
in rational conversation,--with Robertson, with Rengger,
with any kind of intelligent human creature, when such
could be fallen-in with, which was rarely. He would ques-
tion you with eagerness about the ways of men in foreign
places, the properties of things unknown to him; all human
interest and insight was interesting to him. Only persons
of no understanding being near him for most part, he had
to content himself with silence, a meditative cigar and cup
of maté. O Francia, though thou hadst to execute forty per-
sons, I am not without some pity for thee!
In this manner, all being yet dark and void for European
5 p
eyes, have we to imagine that the man Rodriguez Francia.
17 Robertson.
136 MISCELLANIES.
passed, in a remote, but highly remarkable, not unquestion-
able or unquestioned manner, across the confused theatre of
this world. For some thirty years he was all the govern-
ment his native Paraguay could be said to have. For some
six-and-twenty years he was express Sovereign of it; for
some three, or some two years, a Sovereign with bared
sword, stern as Rhadamanthus: through all his years and
through all his days, since the beginning of him, a Man or
Sovereign of iron energy and industry, of great and severe
labour. So lived Dictator Francia, and had no rest; and
only in Eternity any prospect of rest. A Life of terrible
labour;-but for the last twenty years, the Fulgencio Plot
being Once torn in pieces, and all now quiet under him,
it was a more equable labour: severe but equable, as that
of a hardy draught-steed fitted in his harness; no longer
plunging and champing; but pulling steadily,–till he do
all his rough miles, and get to his still home. •
So dark were the Messrs. Robertson concerning Francia,
they had not been able to learn in the least whether, when
their Book came out, he was living or dead. He was living
then, he is dead now. He is dead, this remarkable Francia;
there is no doubt about it: have not we and our readers
heard pieces of his Funeral Sermon He died on the 20th
of September 1840, as the Rev. Perez informs us; the people
crowding round his Government House with much emotion,
may “with tears, as Perez will have it. Three Excellencies
succeeded him ; as some ‘Directorate,’ ‘Junta Gubernativa,’
or whatever the name of it is, before whom this reverend
Perez preaches. God preserve them many years 1
AN ELECTION TO THE LONG PARLIAMENT.
AN ELECTION TO THE LONG PARLIAMENT.1
[1844.]
ANTHONY WOOD, a man to be depended on for accuracy,
states as a fact that John Pym, Clerk of the Exchequer, and
others, did, during the autumn of 1640, ride to and fro over
England, inciting the people to choose members of their
faction. Pym and others. Pym ‘rode about the country
“to promote elections of the Puritanical brethren to serve
‘in Parliament; wasted his body much in carrying-on the
‘ cause, and was himself,’ as we well know, ‘elected a Bur-
‘gess. As for Hampden, he had long been accustomed to
ride: ‘being a person of antimonarchical principles,’ says
Anthony, “he did not only ride, for several years before the
‘ Grand Rebellion broke out, into Scotland, to keep consults
‘with the Covenanting brethren there; but kept his cir-
‘cuits to several Puritanical houses in England; particu-
“larly to that of Knightley in Northamptonshire,’ to Fawsley
Park, then and now the house of the Knightleys, “and also
‘to that of William Lord Say at Broughton near Banbury in
‘Oxfordshire:”—Mr. Hampden might well be on horseback
in election-time. These Pyms, these Hampdens, Knightleys
were busy riding over England in those months: it is a
1 FRASER's MAGAZINE, No. 178.
* Wood's Athenſe (Bliss's edition), iii. 73, 59; Nugent's Hampden, i. 327.
140 MISCELLANTES.
little fact which Anthony Wood has seen fit to preserve
for us.
A little fact, which, if we meditate it, and picture in any
measure the general humour and condition of the England
that then was, will spread itself into great expanse in our
imagination | What did they say, do, think, these patriotic
missionaries, “as they rode about the country’? What did
they propose, advise, in the successive Townhalls, Country-
houses, and ‘Places of Consult 2 John Pym, Clerk of the
Exchequer, Mr. Hampden of Great Hampden, riding to and
fro, lodging with the Puritan Squires of this English Nation,
must have had notable colloquies! What did the Towns–
people say in reply to them 3 We have a great curiosity to
know about it: how this momentous General Election, of
autumn 1640, went on ; what the physiognomy or figure of
it was ; how ‘the remarkablest Parliament that ever sat,
‘the father of all Free British Parliaments, American Con-
‘gresses and French Conventions, that have sat since in
‘ this world,” was got together
To all which curiosities and inquiries, meanwhile, there
is as good as no answer whatever, Wood's fact, such as it
is, has to twinkle for us like one star in a heaven otherwise
all dark, and shed what light it can. There is nothing
known of this great business, what it was, what it seemed
to be, how in the least it transacted itself, in any town, or
county, or locality. James Heath, ‘Carrion Heath’ as Smel-
fungus calls him, does, in his Flagellum (or Flagitium” as it
properly is), write some stuff about Oliver Cromwell and
Cambridge Election; concerning which latter and Cleave-
land the Poet there is also another blockheadism on record:
—but these, and the like, mere blockheadisms, pitch-dark
* Or, Life of Oliver Cromwell (London, 1663): probably, all things considered,
the brutalest Platitude this English Nation has to show for itself in writing.
AN ELECTION TO THE LONG PARLIAMENT. 141
what can we do with
these? Forget them, as soon as possible, to all eternity;
—that is the evident rule : Admit that we do honestly
lºnow nothing, instead of misknowing several things, and in
stupidities and palpable falsities,
some sense all things, which is a great misfortune in com-
parison |
Contemporary men had no notion, as indeed they sel-
dom have in such cases, what an enormous work they were
going-on with ; and nobody took note of this election more
than of any former one. Besides, if they had known, they
had other business than to write accounts of it for us. But
how could anybody know that this was to be the Long Par-
liament, and to cut his Majesty's head off, among other
feats? A very ‘spirited election,' I dare believe:–but there
had been another election that same year, equally spirited,
which had issued in a Short Parliament, and mere ‘second
Episcopal War.’ There had been three prior elections,
sufficiently spirited; and had issued, each of them, in what
we may call a futile shriek; their Parliaments swiftly van-
ishing again.
Sure enough, from whatever cause it be, the world, as
we said, knows not anywhere of the smallest authentic
motice concerning this matter, which is now so curious to
us, and is partly becoming ever more curious. In the old
Memoirs, not entirely so dull when once we understand
them; in the multitudinous rubbish-mountains of old Civil-
War Pamphlets (some thirty or fifty thousand of them in
the British Museum alone, unread, unsorted, unappointed,
unannealed !), which will continue dull till, by real labour
and insight, of which there is at present little hope, the ten-
thousandth part of them be extracted; and the nine-thou-
sand nine-hundred and ninety-nine parts of them be eaten
by moths, or employed in domestic cookery when fuel grows
142 MISCELLANTES.
scarce;—in these chaotic masses of old dull printing there
is not to be met with, in long years of manipulation,
One solitary trait of any election, in any point of Eng-
lish land, to this same Long Parliament, the remarkablest
that ever sat in the world. England was clearly all alive
then,_with a moderate crop of corn just reaped from it;
and other things not just ready for reaping yet. In New-
castle, in ‘the Bishoprick’ and that region, a Scotch Army,
bristling with pike and musket, sonorous with drum and
psalm-book, all snugly garrisoned and billeted “with 850l.
a-day; over in Yorkshire an English Army, not quite so
snugly ; and a “Treaty of Ripon' going on ; and immense
things in the wind, and Pym and Hampden riding to and
fro to hold ‘consults: it must have been an election worth
looking at l But none of us will see it; the Opacities have
been pleased to suppress this election, considering it of no
interest. It is erased from English and from human Me-
mory, or was never recorded there, (owing to the stupor
and dark nature of that faculty, we may well say). It is
a lost election; swallowed in the dark deeps: premit atra
Now. Black Night; and this one fact of Anthony Wood's
more or less faintly twinkling there !
In such entire darkness, it was a welcome discovery
which the present Editor made, of certain official or semi-
official Documents, legal testimonies and signed affidavits,
relative to the Election for Suffolk, such as it actually
showed itself to men's observation in the Town of Ipswich
on that occasion : Documents drawn-up under the exact
eye of Sir Simonds D'Ewes, High-Sheriff of Suffolk; all
carefully preserved these two centuries, and still lying safe
for the inspection of the curious among the Harley Manu-
scripts in the British Museum. Sir Simonds, as will be gra-
AN ELECTION TO THE LONG PARLIAMENT. 143
dually seen, had his reasons for getting these Documents
drawn-up; and luckily, when the main use of them was
over, his thrifty historical turn of mind induced him to
preserve them for us. A man of sublime Antiquarian re-
searches,"Law-learning, human and divine accomplishments,
and generally somewhat Grandisonian in his ways; a man
of scrupulous Puritan integrity, of highflown conscientious-
ness, exactitude and distinguished perfection; ambitious to
be the pink of Christian country-gentlemen and magistrates
of counties; really a most spotless man and High-Sheriff:
how shall he suffer, in Parliament or out of it, to the latest
posterity, any shadow from election-brabbles or the like in-
decorous confusion to rest on his clear-polished character ?
Hence these Documents;–for there had an unseemly brab-
ble, and altercation from unreasonable persons, fallen-out at
this Election, which “might have ended in blood, from the
nose or much deeper, had Sir Simonds been a less perfect
High-Sheriffſ Hence these Documents, we say; and they
are preserved to us.
The Documents, it must be at once owned, are some-
what of the wateriest : but the reader may assure himself
they are of a condensed, emphatic, and very potent nature,
in comparison with the generality of Civil-War documents
and records ! Of which latter indeed, and what quality
they are of, the human mind, till once it has earnestly tried
them, can form no manner of idea. We had long heard of
Dulness, and thought we knew it a little; but here first is
the right dead Dulness, Dulness its very self! Ditch-water,
fetid bilge-water, ponds of it and oceans of it; wide-spread
genuine Dulness, without parallel in this world: such is the
element in which that history of our Heroic Seventeenth
Century as yet rots and swims | The hapless inquirer
Swashes to and fro, in the sorrow of his heart: if in an acre
144 t MISCELLANTES.
of stagnant water he can pick-up half a peascod, let him
thank his stars
This Editor, in such circumstances, read the D’Ewes
Documents, and re-read them, not without some feeling of
satisfaction. Such as they are, they bring one face to face
with an actual election, at Ipswich, “in Mr. Hambies' field,
‘ on Monday the 19th of October 1640, an extreme windy
‘ day. There is the concrete figure of that extreme windy
Monday, Monday gone Two-hundred and odd years: the
express image of Old Ipswich, and Old England, and that
Day; exact to Nature herself –though in a most dark
glass, the more is the pity! But it is a glass; it is the
authentic mind, namely, or seeing-faculty, of Sir Simonds
D'Ewes and his Affidavit-makers, who did look on the
thing with eyes and minds, and got a real picture of it for
themselves. Alas, we too could see it, the very thing as it
then and there was, through these men's poor limited au-
thentic picture of it here preserved for us, had we eyesight
enough;-a consideration almost of a desperate naturel Eye-
sight enough, O reader: a man in that case were a god, and
could do various things —
We will not overload these poor Documents with com-
mentary. Let the public, as we have done, look with its
own eyes. To the commonest eyesight a markworthy old
fact or two may visibly disclose itself; and in shadowy
outline and sequence, to the interior regions of the seeing-
faculty, if the eyesight be beyond common, a whole world
of old facts, an old contemporary England at large, as it
stood and lived, on that ‘ extreme windy day,'—may more
or less dimly suggest themselves. The reader is to trans-
port himself to Ipswich; and, remembering always that it is
two centuries and four years ago, look about him there as
he can. Some opportunity for getting these poor old Docu-
AN ELECTION TO THE LONG PARLIAMENT. 145
ments copied into modern hand has chanced to arise; and
here, with an entire welcome to all faithful persons who are
sufficiently patient of dulness for the sake of direct historical
knowledge, they are given forth in print.
It is to be premised that the Candidates in this Elec-
tion are Three: Sir Nathaniel Barnardiston and Sir Philip
Parker on the Puritan side; and Mr. Henry North, son of
Sir Roger North, on the Court or Royalist side. Sir Roger
is himself already elected, or about to be elected, for the
borough of Eye;—and now Mr. Henry, heir-apparent, is
ambitious to be Knight of the Shire. He, if he can, will
oust one of the two Puritans, he cares little which, and it
shall be tried on Monday.
To most readers these Candidates are dark and inane,
mere Outlines of Candidates: but Suffolk readers, in a cer–
tain dim way, recognise something of them. ‘The Parkers
‘still continue in due brilliancy, in that shire: a fine old
‘place, at Long Melford, near Bury –but this Parker,’ says
our Suffolk monitor,” “is of another family, the family of
‘Lord Morley-and-Monteagle, otherwise not unknown in Eng-
‘lish History.” The Barnardistons too, it would appear,
‘ had a noble mansion in the east side of the county, though
‘ it has quite vanished now, and corn is growing on the site
‘ of it, and the family is somewhat eclipsed. The Norths
are from Mildenhall, from Finborough, Laxfield; the whole
world knows the North kindred, Lord Keeper Norths, Lord
Guildford Norths, of which these Norths of ours are a
* D. E. Davy, Esq., of Ufford, in that County, whose learning in Suffolk His-
tory is understood to be supreme, and whose obliging disposition we have ourselves
experienced.
5 “It was to William Parker, Lord Monteagle, ancestor of this Sir Philip, that
* the Letter was addressed which saved the King and Parliament from the Gun-
‘powder Plot. Sir Philip had been High-Sheriff in 1637; he died in 1675.”—Dry-
asdust Mss.
VOL. XI. (Misc, vol. 6.) L
146 - MISCELLANIES.
junior twig. Six lines are devoted by Collins Dryasdust"
to our Candidate Mr. Henry, of Mildenhall, and to our Can-
didate's Father and Uncle; testifying indisputably that they
lived, and that they died.
Let the reader look in the dim faces, Royalist and Puritan,
of these respectable Vanished Gentlemen; let him fancy their
old Great Houses, in this side of the county or that other,
standing all young, firm, fresh-pargeted, and warm with
breakfast-fire, on that “extreme windy morning,’ which
have fallen into such a state of dimness now ! Let the
reader, we say, look about him in that old Ipswich ; in that
old vanished population: perhaps he may recognise a thing
or two. There is the old ‘Market Cross,’ for one thing;
‘ an old Grecian circular building, of considerable diameter;
‘ a dome raised on distinct pillars, so that you could go
“freely in and out between them; a figure of Justice on
‘the top ; which the elderly men in Ipswich can still recol-
lect, for it did not vanish till some thirty years ago. The
“Corn Hill’ again, being better rooted, has not vanished
hitherto, but is still extant as a Street and Hill; and the
Townhall stands on one side of it.
Samuel Duncon, the Town-constable, shall speak first.
“The Duncons were a leading family in the Corporation of
‘Ipswich; Robert Duncon was patron of the &c. &c.; so it
would appear; but this Samuel, Town-constable, must have
been of the more decayed branches, poor fellow ! What
most concerns us is, that he seems to do his constabling in
a really judicious manner, with unspeakable reverence to
the High-Sheriff; that he expresses himself like a veracious
person, and writes a remarkably distinct hand. We have
sometimes, for light's sake, slightly modified Mr. Duncon's
punctuation; but have respected his and the High-Sheriff's
9 Peerage, iv. 62, 63 (London, 1741).
AN ELECTION TO THE LONG PARLIAMENT. 147
spelling, though it deserves little respect, and have in no
case, never so slightly, meddled with his sense. The ques-
tionable italic letters in brackets are evident interpolations;–
Omissible, if need be.
SUFFOLKE ELECTION.7
NO. I.
[Samuel Duncon testifieth.]
* Memorandum, That upon Monday the 19th day of October this
present year 1640, the election of two Knights for the Shire was at
Ipswich in Suffolke; the Writt being read about eight of the clocke
in the morning: and in the Markett Crosse where the County Court
is generally kept, Mr. Henry North sonne of Sir Roger North was
there at the reading of the said Writt. All this time the other two,
namely, Sir Nathaniel Barnardiston and Sir Philip Parker, were at
the King's Head; and Mr. North was carried about neare halfe an
houre before the other two came [Carried about in his chair by the
jubilant people : Let all men see, and come and vote for him. The
chairing was then the first step, it would seem]; and after the other
two were taken there, Mr. North was carried into the field neare the
said towne, called Mr. Hambie's feild:8 and the said High-Sherriffe
was there polling, about halfe an houre before the other two Knights
knewe either of his being polling, or of the High-Sherriff's intention
to take the Poll in that place. But at length the two Knights were
carried into the said feild; and before they came there, the tables
which were sett for them, the said Sir Nathaniel and Sir Philip, were
thrust downe, and troaden under foot [Such a pressure and crowding
was there ſ]; and they both caused but one table to bee sett there,
till about three of the clocke of the afternoone, the said day, about
which time Sir Nathaniel had another table sett there, a little remote
7 From Harleian Mss., British Museum (Parliamentary Affairs collected by Sir
S. D'Ewes), No. 165, fol. 5-8.
* Or ‘Hanbie's field,” as the Duncon Ms. has it : he probably means Hamby.
.* A family of the latter name had property at Ipswich and about it, in those times.”
— Dryasdust Mss.
148 MISCELLANIES.
from the other. And when they went about to poll, they wanted a
clarke. I, Samuell Duncon, standing by, some requested mee; and
upon the Under-Sherriff's allowance, I did take names, and one Mr.
Fishar with mee, he for Sir Nathaniel, and myselfe for Sir Philip ;
although many that came for the one, came for the other ; and if any
came for Mr. North (as there did some), wee tooke them likewise for
him. And Mr. John Clinch of Creting,” Sir Roger North's brother-
in-law, or some other of Mr. North his [“North his” means North's]
friends, stoode by all the time. And after the space of one quarter
of an houre, came Sir Robert Crane,” and did oppose against Mr.
Tishar; and then came the said High-Sherriffe himselfe to the table,
wheere wee weere writing, and discharged Mr. Fishar, and tooke his
papers of him ; and at the request of Sir Roger North did appoint
one Mr. John Sheppard to write in his place, who then tooke names
for Sir Nathaniel, and myselfe for Sir Philip. About one houre after,
Sir Robert Crane and the rest of Mr. North his friends moved Sir
Nathaniel that wee might leave off polling for him and Sir Philip,
and take the Poll only for Mr. North ; for, they said, Mr. North's
table was much pestred, and many of his men would be gone out of
towne, being neare night, and the like reasons. Which reasons
might as well have been alledged in the behalfe of Sir Nathaniel and
Sir Philip : but without reasoning, Sir Nathaniel did grant them
their desire; and presently Sir Robert Crane went and called all that
were for Mr. North to come to that table; and soe Mr. Sheppard and
myselfe tooke for Mr. North as long as wee could well see; which I
think was about one houre. Having done, wee gave upp our Bookes,
and did goe to Mrs. Penming's house in Ipswich, where Sir Roger
North was them with the said High-Sherriffe : and I heard no opposi-
tions at that time taken against any thing that had passed that
Monday at the taking of the said Poll; but Sir Roger North and the
9 ‘The family of Clinch, or Clench as it should be spelt, were of note in Suf-
• folk. They descended from John Clench of &c. &c., “buried in 1607, with a
‘handsome monument to his memory. He was one of the Justices of the King's
“Bench. His Grandson, John Clench, Esq., was High-Sheriff of the County in
• 1639.”—Dryasdust Mss. This, I think, is our and Samuel Duncon's Clench.
10 * Sir Robert Crane was descended from a Norfolk family, which migrated,’ &c.
* He was created a Baronet in May 1627. He was of Chilton Hall, near Sudbury;
* he died in 1642.”—Ibid.
AN ELECTION TO THE LONG PARLIAMENT. 149
said High-Sherriffe did part very courteously and friendly, each from
the other.
‘But by the next morning it was generally thought, that Sir
Nathaniel and Sir Philip had outstripped Mr. North, about 500 voices
apiece, at the Poll taken on the Monday foregoing; Soe as the said
Sir Roger being, it seemes, much vexed thereat, came to the said
High-Sherriffe's lodging about eight of the clocke, the same Teuesday
morning, and begann to make cavills against what had passed at the
taking of the Poll the day past. And then they went to the Poll
againe; and two tables were sett in the Markett Crosse,” whereat the
Boll was taken for Mr. North by four clarkes on oath, two writing
the same names. About 12 of the clocke, the same forenoone, the
Court was adjourned to two of the clocke in the afternoone. About
which time the said High-Sherriffe repairing thither againe, did with
much patience attend the same Mr. North's Poll, sitting sometimes
about a quarter of an houre before any came in to give their voice, for
the said Mr. North. And as the said High-Sherriffe was soe attending
his [Sir Roger North's] said sonne's Poll, about three of the clocke
the same afternoone, came Sir Roger North, accompanied with divers
gentlemen, most of them armed with swords or rapiers [Lo, there ſ],
into the said Mearkett Crosse ; and the said High-Sherriffe very re-
spectfully attending with silence to what the said Sir Roger North
had to say, he fell into most outrageous, unjust and Scandalous
criminations against the said High-Sherriffe ; charging him to have
dealt partiallie and unjustlie, and to have wronged his said sonne.
To all which violent accusations, the said High-Sherriffe, having desired
silence, did answeare soe fully and readily, as it gave all unpartiall
and honest men full satisfaction. A while after the said High-Sher-
riffe's speech was ended, the said Sir Roger North with divers others
went upp and downe in such a manner on the said Corne Hill, as I,
the said Samuell Duncon, fearing that much danger and bloudshedd
might ensue, and being one of the constables of Ipswich, did in the
King's Majestie's name charge some of the said company to desist
[Highly proper, in such a place as the Corne Hill ſ].
‘SAMUEL DUNCON.’
il ‘A spacious place; there was room enough in it : see the old copperplate of
* 1780.”—Dryasdust Mss.
150 MISCELLANTES.
NO. II.
[Samuel Duncon testifieth for the second time.]
* Monday, the 19th of October 1640.
“When I came into the field where the Polling was for the
Iºnights of the Shire, the first place I settled at was an Elm [Nota
bone] in the middle of the feild, where there were polling for Sir
Nathaniel Barnardiston and Sir Philip Parker: and there was a long
table, at one end whereof was Mr. Robert Dowe, clerke; and he did
write for both the foresaid knights; and Mr. Farran, Under-Sherriffe, 12
did sweare the people; and at the other end of the same table did
Mr. Robert Clarke write for Sir Philip, and Mr. Peter Fisher wrot for
Sir Nathaniel; and sometimes Mr. Chopping” did sweare the people
at that end, and sometimes Mr. Robert Clerke did sweare them.
“After I had stood there one houre or thereabout, Mr. Robert
Clerke his nose did bleede [Ominous 2), so as he coulde not write, and
then he called mee to write in his stead, and the Under-Sherriffe re-
quired me so to doe; which I did till his nose left bleeding, and then
he tooke the Booke again and wrot himselfe. Then I stood by againe
about another houre, and then with the violent presse of the people,
the tressolls brake, and the table fell downe to the ground [Aha /.
There was a cessation of writing until the table was set up againe.
In that interim, Peter Fisher and Samuel Duncon went to the Con-
duit-head [Mark ſ]; and having a table sett up there, they did write
there for the two foresaid Knights: and then, at the former place
[Beside the big Elm, namely, under its creaking boughs, and brown
leaves dropping], when the table was up againe, Mr. Dowe wrot still
for the two Knights, and then [“Then” signifies “meanwhile”] at the
other end of the table was Mr. Robert Clarke writing for Sir Philip.
And then there was no man at that end writing for Sir Nathaniel;
which presently bred this confusion inevitable, viz. when men had
1° “Under-Sheriff,” so Duncon calls him; but the real Under-Sheriff was Mr.
Choppine, to whom this Mr. Farran must have been assistant or temporary substi-
tute.
* “A.D. 1640. John Choppine, Gent., Under-Sheriff; Tallemach Choppine of
* Coddenham's brother.”—Harleian Mss. No. 99, fol. 7. &
AN ELECTION TO THE LONG PARLIAMENT. 151
with much trouble pressed to the end of the table (where Mr. Clarke
did only take for Sir Philip), and desired to be sworne and entered
for both, Mr. Clerke would sweare and take them onely for Sir Philip;
and would send them to the place where Mr. Fisher was writing for
Sir Nathaniel [And I for Sir Philip still 2 No, I had ceased; the
official nose having done bleeding: see presently], at the foresaid Con-
duit-head : whereupon men, being unwilling to endure so much trou-
ble as to presse twice into such great crowdes, began to murmure and
complaine [Very naturally ſ], saying they would not endure this, but
desired they might be discharged at one place ; also Mr. Fisher came
to Mr. Clerke, and demanded the reason Why there was no one to
take for Sir Nathaniel at that end of the table, where the said Clerke
did take names for Sir Philip' and Mr. Fisher said that men com-
plained because they were not despatched for both at once; and said
also they would goe away, and not endure this crowding twice.
When I [Having now quitted the Conduit-head, and come to the Elm
again] saw no clerke to write for Sir Nathaniel, I desired this incon-
venience aforesaid might be prevented; and seeing a Paper Booke
in Mr. Farran his hands, I sayd to him, “Mr. Farran, you see there
wants a clerke at the other end of the table to write for Sir Natha-
niel;" and then Mr. Farran gave me the Paper Booke in his hands,
and Sayd to mee, “Write you, for Sir Nathaniel at that end of the
table,” where Mr. Clerke did write for Sir Philip. And then I, hav-
ing the Booke, did write for Sir Nathaniel till the evening. And at
that end of the table where [“table where,” not “end where"] Mr.
Robert Dowe did write at one end, and Mr. Clerke and myselfe at
the other end, there were present two or three knightes or gentlemen,
all the whole time, of Mr. North's partie: sometimes Sir Robert Crane,
and Mr. — Waldegrave, and Mr. John Smith, 14 and Mr. Henry
North Sen. [This is the Candidate's Uncle, come over from Laafield, I
think, to see fair play.] No man, all that time, made any observation
against mee; and yet they stoode, some of these and sometimes some
14 Smith is undecipherable; being ‘very frequent’ in Suffolk, as elsewhere. Of
Waldegrave, the Monitor says, “There being no Christian name mentioned, it is
“hard to say what individual is meant. Doubtless he was one of the Waldegraves
‘of Smallbridge. Wm. Waldegrave, Esq., son of Sir Wm. Waldegrave, Knight, of
‘Smallbridge in Bures, Suffolk, would be about forty years of age about this time :’
—let us fancy it was he.
152 MISCELLANIES.
others of that side, all the afternoone, and did supravise all the
clerkes. Also, at night, when wee were breaking up, Mr. Clerke
demanded of Mr. Clinch [Clinch of Creting, whom we saw above] if
he could find any fault with us in doing any wrong? To which he
answered, “He could not as yet, if there were no other carriage than
there had yet beene,” or to that effect. Neither was there any, that
day, who did find fault with the clerkes, in my hearing ; but some-
times some muttering and complaining about some particular ques-
tions in the oaths, which (as soon as they came to the High-Sherriffe
his intelligence) were rectified and settled.
‘And at night, when wee broke up, I gave my Booke that I wrott
in, unto the Under-Sheriſſe, Mr. Farran, before I stirred from the
table where I wrott; and then wee came home with the High-Sheriffe
to Mrs. Penning's howse [Did she keep the King's Head #1; and there
did the High-Sheriffe call for all the Bookes from the Under-Sheriffe,
and in the presence of Sir Roger North, and Mr. North his brother,
and more other gentlemen, locke up all the Bookes in a little truncke;
and sett that truncke in his owne lodging-chamber; and gave the key
thereof to his Under-Sheriſfe, who lodged not in that howse where the
Dookes were.
‘Tuesday, the 20th of October 1640.
“In the morning Mr. High-Sheriffe came into the Corne Hill at
Ipswich and the Knights, to make an end of polling. Whereupon
the clerkes who wrot the day before appeared, and wrot againe as
before. But Mr. High-Sheriffe commanded that wee should all of us
make new Dookes to write in ; for he would not stirr those that were
wrot-in the day before : and so wee did, and wrot in now Bookes.
‘And all that day also while wee wrot, there were divers supra-
visors; but they found no fault with the clerkes in my hearing : and
at noone, when wee brake upp, I gave my Booke againe into Mr.
Farran, before I stirred from the table where I wrot. And in the
afternoone, wee came together againe, and made an end of polling ;
and towards the end of polling, before wee had done polling at the
table where I sat to write, Sir Roger with the rest of the knights and
gentlemen went about the Corne Hill, swinging their caps and hats
crying, “A North ! A North " [Questionable]; which caused me to
AN ELECTION TO THE LONG PARLIAMENT. 153
admire; because I knew the Bookes were not cast up [And nobody
could yet tell who was to win].
“Then after that, Mr. High-Sheriffe went to Mrs. Penning's, and
the Knights followed him, and the clerkes to summe up the Bookes.
But the night grew on so fast, that they could not be ended that
night: then Mr. High-Sheriffe did againe locke up the Bookes in the
same truncke they were in before, and gave the key to Mr. — North,
and sett the truncke into his chamber, and appointed to meete the
next day upon [Means, in it, not on the roof of it; the figure of
Justice stands on the roof] the Townhall.’
[Samuel Duncon still testifieth.]
“Memorandum, That on Tuesday October 20, in the afternoone,
this present year 1640, the High-Sherriffe of the county of Suffolk,
sitting in the Markett Crosse [Note him ſ, in Ipswich, where hee
kept his County Court, and had that afternoone taken the poll of
divers that came to give their voices for Mr. Henry North, sonne of
Sir Roger North [Grammar fails a little]. And when it appeared,
after some stay, that moe more weere likely to come, and Mr. Gardener
Webb" speaking concerning the said election averred That the said
High-Sherriffe had been damnably base in all his carriage. Whereupon
I, Samuel Duncon, hearing the same, did [As an enemy of blasphemy,
and Constable of this Borough] enforme the said High-Sheriffe of that
outrageous and scandalous speeche; who thereupon asking the said
Webb, Whether hee had spoken the said wordes or not he answered,
with much impudence and earnestness, That he had said soe, and
would maintain it. And did thereupon in the presence of the said
High-Sherriffe call mee, the said Samuel Duncon, base rascall and
rogue [He shall answer it ſ] because I had acquainted the said High-
Sherriffe with his said injurious speeches.
‘SAMUEL DUNCON."
* “Gardiner Webb was the son of William Webb of Ixworth in Suffolk, attor-
‘ney-at-law. He became heir, in right of his mother (who was one of the Gardiners
‘ of Elmswell), to considerable landed property' (Dryasdust MSS.); and seems to
have been a hot-tempered loose-spoken individual.
154 MISCELLANTES.
NO. III.
[Samuel Duncon still testifieth, though without signature.]
‘Wednesday the 21st October 1640.
“The truncke was brought up into the Townhall, and the High-
Sherriffe and the rest of the knights and gentlemen came up together
to make end of their Bookes: and they passed quietly untill my
Booke was produced; and then Mr. North protested against my
I300ke, and Sir Roger came up and exclaimed at mee, and said I was
no fitt clerke, neyther authorised to write. Then was Mr. Farran
called, and asked How I came to write'ſ Which he answered, “He
never saw mee before Monday in all his life, but wanting one to write,
and I standing by, he requested mee to write.” The High-Sherriffe
told Sir Roger, “He could not but accept of my Booke, and would
doe So if I had wrot for his own sonne;” and for myselfe, as I then
testified, so am I ready to make oath, being lawfully called, That my
Dooke was just and right, and that I did not write one name that was
not sworne for Sir Nathaniel; and notwithstanding Sir Roger and
other knights did speake their large pleasures of Imee and charged
me with direct and manifest outrage [Maltreating the homest Town-
constable: Shameful /].
“In conclusion, the High-Sherriffe finished the Bookes, and soe we
|brake up that night, and the next day we proclaymed Sir Nathaniel
Barnardiston and Sir Philip Parker Knights of the Shire for the
ensuing Parliament.’
[SAMUEL DUNCON: signature not given.]
“To all these Three Pages I am ready to give testimony; and to
the whole substance thereof. *
“IEDW. BESTWALL.”
NO. IV.
[Samuel Duncon still testifieth.]
“Memorandum, Upon Tuesday morning some women [Puritan
women ; zealous beyond discretion /] came to be sworne for the two
18 Bestwall is not known to Dryasdust. An impartial onlooker, and presumably
nothing more. The ‘Three Pages’ he vouches for are all these testimonies of Dun-
con's from beginning to end,-nearly eight pages as printed here.
AN ELECTION TO THE LONG PARLIAMENT. 155
foresaid Knights; and Mr. Robert Clerke did suddenly take some of
them ; but as soone as Mr. High-Sherriffe had intelligence of it, wee
had worde brought to the table where Mr. Clerke and myselfe wrot,
that Mr. Sheriffe would have us take no women’s oaths; and both the
Rnights desired that those that were taken might be put out, and that
we should take no more : and so we refused the rest of the women
after that notice from Mr. High-Sherriffe; and when Mr. High-Sher-
riffe cast up the Bookes, he cast out the women out of the generall
Summe.’
[SAMUEL DUNCON: signature not given.]
These transactions are of ‘so high a nature, it is pro-
bable a Parliamentary Committee will have to sit upon
them : justice between the vociferous irrational Sir Roger
and the discreet unspotted Sir Simonds will then be done.
Duncon backed by Bestwall, in writing, and by the Under-
Sheriffs Farran and Choppin vivá voce if needful, and indeed
by the whole town of Ipswich if needful,-may sufficiently
evince that Mr. High-Sheriff's carriage in the business was
perfection or nearly so. The accurate Magistrate mean-
while thinks good to subjoin a succinct Narrative of his
own, which he is ready to sign when required; every word
of which can be proved by the oath of witnesses. No. V. is
clearly by D'Ewes himself; there are even some directions
to his clerk about writing it fair.
NO. V.
A short and true relation of the carriage of the Election of the Knights
for the Countle of Suffolke at Ipswich, which beganme there upon
Monday morning, October 19, this present Year 1640, and ended
wpon the Thursday morning then next ensuing."
“The Under-Sherriffe having had order from the High-Sheriffe Of
the same Countie to provide honest and able men to take the Poll,
17 From Harleian Mss. British Museum, collected by Sir S. D'Ewes, No. 158,
page 275.
156 MISCELLANIES.
and to looke to gett ready materialls for the Election, went to Ipswich
on Friday night: and the said High-Sherriffe was purposed to have
gone thither the next day, but that hee understood the small-pox
[Nota bene] was exceeding spread in the said towne. Sir Nathaniel
Barnardiston and Sir Philip Parker joined together, and Henry North
stood singlie, for the place of Knights of the Shire.
‘The said High-Sherriffe came to Ipswich about eight of the clocke
of the said Monday morning,” To whom Sir Roger North, father of
the said Mr. Henry North, and divers other gentlemen repairing, hee
yeilded to them to have the Poll taken in a feild neare the towne ;
and Soe, after a little discourse without further stay, went to the Mar-
kett Crosse, and caused the King's Majestie's Writt to bee published;
by which meanes the said Mr. North was carried about a good while
before the other Knights [Yes ſ] had notice that the said Writt was
published. And this the said High-Sherriffe did about an houre and
halfe sooner than he was by law compelled to ; that there might be
noe just ground of cavill, as if he had delaied the business [Sir Si-
7monds is himself known to be a Puritan ; already elected, or about to
be elected, for the town of Sudbury. So high stood Sudbury then,
sunk now so low ſ].
“After the publication of which, the said High-Sherriffe withdrew
himselfe to make haste into the said feild [Mr. Hambie's field; with
the Conduit-head and big Elms in it] to take the Poll. But before
hee got thither, or any place was made readie for the clerkes to write,
the said Mr. North was brought into the feild [Triumphantly in his
chair]; and many of the gentrie as well as others that were of his
partie pressed soe upon the place where the planks and boards were
setting upp, as they could not be fastened or finished. All this time
the other two Knights knew yett nothing that the said Poll was
begunn in the said feild; soe as [So that] the said High-Sherriffe
begann Mr. North's poll alone, and admitted a clerke. The said Sir
Roger North proffered to write the names, with the clerke his [The
High-Sheriff's] Under-Sherriffe had before appointed, which hee [The
High-Sheriff] conceived hee was not in law bound unto.
“Having then taken the Poll a while, in the said Sir Roger
18 He lived at Stow Hall (Autobiography of D'Ewes); he must have started
early.
AN ELECTION TO THE LONG PARLIAMENT. 157
North's presence and his said sonne's, the companie did tread upon
the said planks with such extreme violence, as having divers times
borne them downe upon the said High-Sherriffe ; and hee having used
all meanes of entreatie and perswasion to desire them to beare off, as
did the said Sir Roger North also, the said High-Sherriffe was at the
last forced to give over ; and soe gave speedie order, by the advice of
the said Sir Roger North and others, To have three severall tables
[“Three:” Duncon notices only two of them, one under the Elm,
one at the Conduit-head, where the Puritan Knights were polling ;
Sir Simonds himself superintends the Worths’ table :- “three several
tables"] sett upp against trees or other places wheere they might not
bee borne downe by violence. Which being verie speedilie performed,
the said High-Sherriffe went in person and assisted at the said table
wheere Mr. North's poll was taking, leaving his Under-Sherriffe and
sworne deputies to attend the other tables, and to administer the oath,
where the said Sir Roger and his sonne did appoint their kindred and
friends to overview all that was done.
‘The said High-Sherriffe did there, without eating or drinking,
assist the said Mr. North, from about nine of the clocke in the morn-
ing till it grew just upon night, notwithstanding it was in the open
feild, and a verie cold and windie day: and did in his owne person
take much paines to dispatch the said Poll; which had been much
better advanced, if such as came to the same had not treaded with such
extreme violence one upon another. And whereas the said Sir Natha-
niel Barnardiston came, about twelve of the clocke that forenoone, to
the said High-Sherriffe, desiring him that all the companie might
dissolve to goe to dinner, and that in respect of the great winde, the
Poll in the afternoone might be taken in the said towne of Ipswich [A
very reasonable motion]: The said High-Sherriffe, upon the said Mr.
North's request to the contrarie, staide in the said feild till the shut-
ting upp of the said day, as is aforesaid.
‘What was done at the other tables the said High-Sherriffe knew
Inot ; but twice, upon complaint to him made, repaired thither, and
certified and reconciled all matters. And during the same day alsoe
the said High-Sherriffe did desire the said Sir Roger North to sende
for another table to the place wheere he sate, being willing by all
meanes to expedite the said Poll. And though there were not one
man sworne for the other two Knights at the Said Mr. North's table,
158 MISOELLANIES.
—yet were there divers sworne at one of the other two tables for the
said Mr. North ; soe as, by this and the early beginning of the said
Mr. North's poll, he had neare upon Two-hundred voices advantage
of the other two Knights, had they come single; but they having
manie hundreds that gave voices for them jointly, did before night
outstrippe his votes by about Fowre-hundred apiece.
“At the said High-Sherriffe's rising from the said Poll on the said
Monday night, hee tooke the Bookes from the said clerkes; and
though by lawe he was tied to call noe partie to assist him in the
laying them upp, yet to take away all possible cause of cavill, and to
showe his integritie in the whole proceedings, hee called the said Sir
Roger North to him, and desired him to accompanie him not only to
the places wheere he received all the other Bookes or Papers from his
said Under-Sherriffe, or the other clarkes that wrote them, but to his
lodging also [Mrs. Penning's]; wheere hee bound and sealed upp the
said Bookes and Papers, in the presence of the said Sir Roger North
and the said Under-Sherriffe ; then locking them upp, gave the key
to his said Under-Sherriffe to keepe; having first asked the said Sir
Roger, If hee were not a person fitte to be trusted with it? And soe
the said Sir Roger North departed, in a verie friendly and amicable
manner, from the said High-Sherriffe, without so much as moving
the least complaint against any of the said proceedings of that day.
‘I3ut it seemes, after his departure, having that night learned that
the other Knights' polls outstripped his said sonne's by divers hun-
dreds,-he came the next morning to the said High-Sherriffe's lodg-
ing; and beganne, in violent and passionate termes, to charge him
That hee had dealt unjustlie and partiallie in taking the Poll the day
past [Behold ſ]: which at the present caused the said High-Sherriffe
to wonder at that sudden and unexpected change; in respect the same
Sir Roger parted in Soe friendlie a manner from him the night fore-
going, and that his indefatigable paines the day past deserved rather
just acknowledgment than such unjust expostulation [Certainly ſ].
‘The said High-Sherriffe therefore, having received the said key
from his said Under-Sherriffe, in the presence of the said Sir Roger
North, departed to the finishing of the said Poll. And whereas the
other two Knights had but each of them one table allowed at which
two clerkes only wrote ; the said High-Sherriffe allowed the said Mr.
North two tables and four clerkes: and at moone when the Said Court
AN ELECTION TO THE LONG PARLIAMENT. 159
was adjourned to two of the clocke of the same afternoone, the said
High-Sherriffe having taken all the I3ookes and Papers touching the
same Poll from his Under-Sherriffe, or the clerkes which wrot them,
desired the said Mr. North himselfe to accompanie him to his said
lodging; which he did, and sawe them sealed and locked upp, and
then had himselfe the key along with him.
‘Dut all these testimonies of the said High-Sherriffe's imparti-
alitie, and integritie in his proceedings, did in noe way mitigate the
passion and indignation of the said Sir Roger North and some others,
who now beganne to give the cause upp as conclamated” and lost;
and therefore, though the said High-Sherriffe afterwardes in his num-
'bering the votes of the said Poll did proceed with it in publike view,
which hee might have done privately with his own clerkes, yet all the
time after hee was often interrupted by most unjust and outrageous
accusations and criminations; and by that meanes was almost as long,
within an houre or two, in numbering the names of the said Poll, as
hee was in taking the Poll itselfe. And in all differences that emer-
gently fell out in numbering the said names, wheere there was but any
equalitie of doubt, the said High-Sherriffe prevailed with the other
two Knights to let the advantage rest on the said Mr. North's side.
‘And though the said Sir Roger North came, on the said Tuesday
in the afternoone, October 20th, into the Countie Court whilst the
said High-Sherriff sate taking the Poll for his said sonne, and there
used most outrageous and violent speeches against the said High-Sher-
riffe [Hear Duncon tool, and told him “Hee would make it good with
his bloud;” yet the said High-Sherriffe, seeing him accompanied with
many young gentlemen and others, all or most of them armed with
their swords and their rapiers [Questionableſ, and fearing if he had
made use of his just power to punish such an affront, much bloudshedd
would have ensued, hee rather passed it over with an invincible pa-
tience; and only stoode upp, and desired silence to cleare himselfe
from these unjust assertions and criminations which had been laid
upon him; and resolved to expect redresse of his enemies from the
High Court of Parliament [Far the better plan, Mr. High-Sheriff'ſ
—which, among other good effects, has yielded us these present Docu-
ments withal].
19 Conclamatum, est ;-summoned nine times, and making no answer, is now to
be held for dead.
160 MISCELLANIES.
‘Yet the said Sir Roger, not satisfied herewith, did, a little after,
with the said companie of young gentlemen, and others that followed
him, armed as aforesaid, or the greater part of them, go about the
Corne Hill in Ipswich, where the Crosse stands, and cried, “A North
a North !” calling the Saylers Water-dogges [Puritan sailors;–mark
it, had voted for the Gospel Candidates: “Water-dogs”], and other-
wise provoking them : one also of the companie drewe out his sword
[Lo, there ſ], and brandished it about, nor did they give over till one
of the Constables of Ipswich [Sam Duncon, we saw him doing it],
loeing a sworne officer, charged them. In the King's name to desist.
The other two IKnights, then sitting at the Poll, were fain at the
instant to withdraw themselves in at the next windowe of the house
wheere they stoode; having first besought the people and Saylers to
bee quiet, and not to answer violence with violence. For it is too
apparent what was sought for in that dangerous action; and that if
the said High-Sherriffe had, at that present, made use of his power to
vindicate his owne affronts and sufferings, much bloudshedde might
have ensued. Nor did the said High-Sherriffe suffer only from the
violent language of the Said Sir Roger North and some others of
qualitie, but from two of the Webbes alsoe, whose Christian names
were Roger and Gardiner [The intemperate Webbes of Ixworth], and
suchlike persons of inferiour rank. The said High-Sherriffe having
sate out all Wednesday October 21, from morning till night, in the
West Hall or Court House in Ipswich aforesaid, without dining, did
at last, notwithstanding the violent interruptions of the said Sir
Roger North and others, finish the numbring of the said votes that
day; and found that the said Sir Nathaniel Barnardiston had 2140
voices, and Sir Philip Parker 2240 at the least,-besides the voices of
all such persons as had been admitted without the said High-Sher-
riffe's knowledge, and were by him, upon numbring the same, disal-
lowed and cast out. And the said Mr. Henry North had 1422.
‘The next morning, October 22, the said High-Sherriffe made
open publication of the said votes; and pronounced the said Sir Na-
thaniel Barnardiston and Sir Philip Parker the due elected Knights
for the said Countie of Suffolke. And then caused the indentures
witnessing the same election to be there ensealed and loyallie [Law-
fully] executed. -
‘'Tis true that, by the ignorance of some of the clerkes at the
AN ELECTION TO THE LONG PARLIAMENT. 161
other tables, the oaths of some single women [We saw it with Duncom]
that were freeholders were taken, without the knowledge of the said
High-Sherriffe ; who, as soon as he had notice thereof, instantlie sent
to forbidd the same, conceiving it a matter verie unworthy of anie
gentleman, and most dishonourable in such an election, to make use
of their voices, although they might in law have been allowed; nor
did the said High-Sherriffe allow of the said votes upon his numbring
the said Poll, but with the allowance and consent of the said two
Knights themselves discount them and cast them out.
‘Now, though all the frivolous cavills, exceptions and protesta-
tions which were made against the foresaid Election by the said Sir
Roger North or others did only concerne the Poll which was taken
on the said Monday October 19; and are sufficiently answered with
the verie preceding bare Narration of the true carriage thereof; and
the rather, because himselfe accompanying the said High-Sherriffe the
same evening when he received all the said Bookes and Papers from
his said Under-Sherriffe, or such persons who had written them, did
except against noe person, nor noe booke or paper, but consented to
the sealing and locking them upp as Acts by which the matter in
question was to be decided: Yet to satisfy all the world, such excep-
tions shall be heare set down, and clearly elevated or wiped away,
which on the Tuesday and Wednesday following were pressed at
Ipswich upon the said High-Sherriffe, with soe much outrageous
passion as he could be scarce permitted to make answer to the
same, by reason of the vociferation and clamours of the other
partie.
“It was objected, That the said High-Sherriffe made delaies on
purpose to hinder the said Mr. North. This is so frivolous as 'tis
not worth the answering; for the hindrance must have been equallie
prejudiciale to the other two Knights as well as to him. Nay, on the
contrarie, if any had wrong, they had ; for the said High-Sherriffe soe
hastened both the reading of the Writt, and goeing to the Poll as hee
could not in time give the other two Knights notice of it. Soe as if
the said Mr. North's companie had not by their overpressing violence
throwne dowme the boards and planks, wheere the said High-Sherriffe
begann his the said Mr. North's poll alone, hee had gained neare upon
an houre's advantage of the other two.
WOL. XI. (Misc. vol. 6.) M
162 MISCELLANTES.
‘Another objection, That the said High-Sherriffe refused such
clerkes as the said Sir Roger North offered him; telling him hee was
provided. This is a shamefull objection: as if the adverse partie
were to provide men to take the poll. In this matter the said High-
Sherriffe committed all to the trust and care of his Under-Sherriffe,
who assured him hee had provided able and sufficient writers; yet
did the said High-Sherriffe admitt a clarke, at the said Mr. North's
poll, to write with the clerke his said Under-Sherriffe had provided,
upon the motion of the said Sir Roger North.
‘A third objection, That the said Mr. North lost many voices that
were forced to goe out of towne the same Monday, because they could
Inot be sworne. And soe doubtless did the othér two likewise. And
this was an invincible or remediless mischief on all sides. And ’tis
evident the extreame pressing of the said Mr. North's votes hindred
some hundreds from being dispatched. Besides, the said High-Sher-
riffe, at his entreatie, forbore his dinner [The high-spirited immaculate
aman], to sitt it out with him in the winde and cold till night; which
deserved acknowledgement, and not rage and furie. Besides, he made
the said Sir Roger North once or twice to send for another table to
the same place; which courtesie the said High-Sherriffe afforded the
said Mr. North the next morning, more than was allowed the other
two Knights. And had the said Mr. North lost the place by one or
two hundred voices, there might indeed be some colour that hee had
miscarried because the Poll could not be finished on the said Monday
night; which notwithstanding that it had been Soe, yet the said High-
Sherriffe was noe ways the cause thereof. But it is noe ways probable
that the said Mr. North should be so ill-beloved or lightlie esteemed
by such as appeared for him, that Seven-hundred persons would all
depart and desert his cause, rather than abide and stay one night in
Ipswich to assist him with their votes. For by so many at the least
did either of the other two Knights carrie it from him.
“Lastly, for conclusion of the whole. There is not a word or
sillible sett down here, which is not notoriously known to manie, or
which the said High-Sherriffe himself will not make good by his
corporall oath, being loyallie thereunto called, as also by the Bookes
and Papers taken at the said Poll. Soe as never was innocency
oppressed more by violence and fury; nor did his royall Majestie's
Authoritie ever suffer more in the person of his Minister, than by the
AN ELECTION TO THE LONG PARLIAMENT. 163
outrageous affronts offered unto, and unjust criminations heaped upon,
the said High-Sherriffe at the said Election.’
Such is the account High-Sheriff D'Ewes has to give of
himself, concerning his carriage in the Election of Knights
of the Shire for Suffolk on this memorable occasion. He
has written it down in an exact manner, to be ready for
the Parliament, or for any and all persons interested; his
clerks can now make copies of it as many as wanted. In
the same Volume, No. 158 of the Harley Collection, there is
another copy of this ‘short and true relation,’ with slight
changes, principally in the punctuation; doubtless the im-
maculate Magistrate saw good to revise his Narrative
more than once, and bring it still nearer perfection: he
adds always this direction for the amanuenses: “They are
desired who take a coppie of this to compare it with the
originall after they have transcribed it,”—to be sure that
they are exact. The original, which, at any rate, in
D'Ewes's hand, few persons could have read, is happily
lost.
No notice in the Commons Journals, or elsewhere, indi-
cates at all whether this case ever came before the Election
Committee of the Long Parliament. But if it did, as is
probable enough, we put it to the commonest sense of man-
kind, whether on Sir Roger North's side it could have a leg
to stand on l No Election Committee can have difficulty
here. Accordingly our Puritan Knights Sir Philip Parker
and Sir Nathaniel Barnardiston sat indisputable as County
Members for Suffolk, Mr. Henry North consoling himself as
he could. Sir Simonds the High-Sheriff had another case
before the Parliament; this namely, that he being High-
Sheriff had returned himself for Sudbury as duly elected
there, which was thought informal by some : but in this too
he prospered, and sat for that Borough. The intemperate
164 MISCELLANTES.
Sir Roger, as we said, was admitted Member for Eye: but
in the second year, mingling with ‘Commission of Array'
and other Royalist concerns, to small purpose as is likely,
he, like many others, was ‘disabled,’—cast forth, to Oxford,
to “malignancy, disaster, and a fate that has not been in-
quired into.
Sir Simonds sat spotless for Sudbury; made occasional
fantastic Speeches; and what is far more important for us,
took exact Notes. Several of his Speeches he has pre-
served in writing; one, probably the most fantastic and pe-
dantic of all, he sent forth in print: it relates to a dispute
for seniority that had arisen between Oxford University and
Cambridge; proves by unheard-of arguments and erudition,
obsolete now to all mortals, that Cambridge, which was his
own University, is by far the older, older than Alfred him-
self, old as the very hills in a manner. Sir Simonds had
the happiness to “shake hands with Mr. Prynne,” when he
came to the Parliament Committee on his deliverance from
prison, and to congratulate Mr. Prynne on the changed as-
pects that then were. He wrote frequent letters to ‘Abra-
ham Wheloc’ and many others. Far better, he almost daily
dictated to his secretary, or jotted-down for him on scraps
of paper, Notes of the Proceedings of the Long Parliament;
which Notes still exist, safe in the British Museum; un-
known seemingly to all the learned. He was a thin high-
flown character, of eminent perfection and exactitude, little
fit for any solid business in this world, yet by no means
without his uses there.
This one use, had there been no other, That he took
Notes of the Long Parliament Probably there is much light
waiting us in these Notes of his, were they once disimpri-
soned into general legibility. They extend, in various forms,
in various degrees of completeness, to the year 1645; but
AN ELECTION TO THE LONG PARLIAMENT. 165
in that year, after the victory of Naseby, the questionable
course things were taking gave offence to Our Presbyterian
Grandison; he sat mostly silent, with many thoughts, and
forbore jotting any farther. Two of his written Speeches
relate to the confused negotiations with King Charles in the
Isle of Wight; and are strong in the Royalist-Presbyterian
direction. Colonel Pride, in the end, purged him out altoge-
ther, on the memorable 6th December 1648; sent him, with
four or five score others, “over to the Tavern called Hell,
kept by Mr. Duke, near Palaceyard,'—in the most unheard-
of manner | For, on questioning Mr. Hugh Peters, who had
come across to them, By what law 2 By what shadow or
vestige of any law, common or statutory, human or divine,
is this unheard-of thing done?—the candid Mr. Peters, a
man of good insight and considerable humour of character,
answered these much-injured honourable gentlemen, “By
the law of Necessity; truly by the power of the sword!”
And they remained in a nearly rabid state; evidently
purged out, without reason and without remedy; and had
to retire to their respective countries, and there rhyme the
matter for themselves as they could.
Our poor Knight, Sir Simonds, soon after died; leaving
an unspotted pedant character, and innumerable Manuscripts
behind him. Besides his History of the Parliaments of Queen
Elizabeth, a laborious compilation, which has since been
printed, long ago, and still enjoys a good reputation of its
sort, there are, as we count, some Ninety and odd Volumes
of his Papers still extant in the British Museum: very worth-
less some of them, very curious others;–among which lat-
ter, certain portions of his Autobiography, already known in
print,” are well worth reading; and these his Notes of the
Long Parliament are perhaps, to us English, the most inter-
29 Bibliotheca Topographica, No. 6.
166 MISCELLANTES.
esting of all the Manuscripts that exist there. Pury's Notes
of the Long Parliament” appear to be irretrievably lost; War-
ney's, which also have never yet been made accessible,” ex-
tend over only a short early period of the business: it is on
these Notes of D'Ewes's, principally, that some chance of un-
derstanding the procedure and real character of the Long
Parliament appears still to depend for us. At present, after
shiploads of historical printing, it is and remains mere dark-
ness visible; if in these Notes by an accurate eye-witness
there be no chance of light, them is light anywhere hope-
less, and this remarkablest Parliament that ever sat will
continue an enigma forever. In such circumstances, we call
these Notes the most interesting of all Manuscripts. To an
English soul who would understand what was really memor-
able and godlike in the History of his Country, distinguish-
ing the same from what was at bottom unmemorable and
devil-like ; who would bear in everlasting remembrance the
doings of our noble heroic men, and sink into everlasting
oblivion the doings of our loud ignoble quacks and sham-
heroes, what other record can be so precious? If English
History have nothing to afford us concerning the Puritan
*1 ‘Mr. Robinson asked me this morning,” Monday, 12 Jan. 1656-7, ‘before the
* Speaker came, If I took Notes at Scot's Committee ? I said, Yea. He told me
“He had much ado to forbear moving against my taking Notes, for it was expressly
* against the Orders of the House. I told him. How Mr. Davy took Notes all the
* Long Parliament, and that Sir Symons D'Ewes wrote great volumes’ of the like.
Burton’s Diary (London, 1828), i. 341.
Of Sir Simonds's ‘great volumes’ we are here speaking : but who the ‘Mr. Davy'
is ? No person of the name of Davy sat in the Long Parliament at all; or could by
possibility have taken Notes . After multifarious examination, and bootless trial
of various names more or less resembling Davy, a sight of the original MS. of the
thing called Burton’s Diary was procured; and the name “Davy’ then straightway
turned out to be Pury. Pury, or Purry, perhaps now written Perry, Alderman of
Gloucester, and once well known as Member for that City. But of him or of his
Motes, on repeated application there, no trace could now be found. If, as is pos-
sible, they still exist, in the buried state, in those regions, -to resuscitate and
print them were very meritorious.
* Edited now (London, 1845) by Mr. Bruce.
AN ELECTION TO THE LONG PARLIAMENT. 167
Parliament but vague incoherencies, inconceivabilities and
darkness visible,_English History, in this Editor's opinion,
must be in a poor way !
It has often been a question, Why none of the Dryasdust
Publishing Societies, the Camden or some other, has gone
into these D'Ewes's Mss. in an efficient spirit, and fished-up
somewhat of them? Surely it is the office of such Publish-
ing Societies. Now when Booksellers are falling irrecover-
ably into the hand-to-mouth system, unable to publish amy-
thing that will not repay them on the morrow morning;
and in Printed Literature, as elsewhere, matters seem has-
tening pretty fast towards strange consummations: who
else but the Printing Societies is to do it? They should
lay aside vain Twaddle and Dilettantism, and address them-
selves to their function by real Labour and Insight, as above
hinted,—of which, alas, there is at present little hopel
Unhappily the Publishing Societies, generally speaking,
are hitherto “Dryasdust” ones; almost a fresh nuisance
rather than otherwise. They rarely spend labour on a
business, rarely insight; they consider that sham-labour,
and a twilight of ignorance and buzzard stupidity, backed
by prurient desire for distinction, with the subscription of a
guinea, a year, will do the turn. It is a fatal mistake Ac-
cordingly the Books they print, intending them apparently
to be read by some class of human creatures, are wonder-
ful. Alas, they have not the slightest talent for knowing,
first of all, what not to print; what, as a thing dead, and
incapable of ever interesting or profiting a human creature
more, Ought not to be printed again, to steal away the
valuable cash, and the invaluable time and patience of any
man again! It is too bad. How sorrowful to see a mass
of printed Publishings and Republishings, all in clear white
168 MISCELLANTES.
paper, bound in cloth and gold lettered; concerning which
you have to acknowledge that there should another artist be
appointed to go in the rear of them, to fork them swiftly
into the oven, and save all men's resources from one kind
of waste at least. Mr. Chadwick proposes that sweepers
shall go in the rear of all horses in London, and instantly
sweep-up their offal, before it be trampled abroad over the
pavement to general offence. Yes; but what sweeper shall
follow the Dryasdust Printing Societies, the Authors, Pub-
lishers, and other Prurient-Stupids of this intellectual Me-
tropolis, who are rising to a great height at present Horse-
offal, say Chadwick and the Philanthropists very justly, if not
at Once swept-up, is trampled abroad over the pavements,
into the sewers, into the atmosphere, into the very lungs
and hearts of the citizens : Good Heavens, and to think
of Author-offal, and how it is trampled into the very souls
of men; and how the rains and the trunkmakers do not get
it abolished for years on years, in some instances !
THE NIGGER QUESTION.
(Precursor to Latter-day Pamphlets.)
[1849.]
OCCASIONAL DISCOURSE ON THE NIGGER
QUESTION.1
THE following Occasional Discourse, delivered by we know not whom,
and of date seemingly above a year back, may perhaps be welcome to
here and there a speculative reader. It comes to us, no speaker
named, no time or place assigned, no commentary of any sort given,
—in the handwriting of the so-called “Doctor,” properly “Absconded
Reporter,” Dr. Phelim M'Quirk, whose singular powers of reporting,
and also whose debts, extravagancies and sorrowful insidious finance-
operations, now winded-up by a sudden disappearance, to the grief of
many poor tradespeople, are making too much noise in the police-
offices at present Of M'Quirk’s composition we by no means sup-
pose it to be; but from M*Quirk, as the last traceable source, it comes
to us; — offered, in fact, by his respectable unfortunate landlady,
desirous to make-up part of her losses in this way.
To absconded reporters who bilk their lodgings, we have of course
no account to give : but if the Speaker be of any eminence or sub-
stantiality, and feel himself aggrieved by the transaction, let him un-
derstand that such, and such only, is our connection with him or his
affairs. As the Colonial and Negro Question is still alive, and likely
to grow livelier for some time, we have accepted the Article, at a
cheap market-rate; and give it publicity, without in the least commit-
ting ourselves to the strange doctrines and notions shadowed-forth in
it. Doctrines and notions which, we rather suspect, are pretty much
in a “minority of one,” in the present era of the world ! Here, sure
enough, are peculiar views of the Rights of Negroes; involving, it is
1 First printed in Fraser's Magazine, December 1849; reprinted in the form of a
separate Pamphlet, London, 1853.
172 MISCELLANTES.
probable, peculiar ditto of innumerable other rights, duties, expecta
tions, wrongs and disappointments, much argued of, by logic and by
grape-shot, in these emancipated epochs of the human mind —Silence
now, however; and let the Speaker himself enter.
My Philanthropic Friends,--It is my painful duty to ad-
dress some words to you, this evening, on the Rights of
Negroes. Taking, as we hope we do, an extensive survey
of social affairs, which we find all in a state of the frightful-
est embroilment, and as it were of inextricable final bank-
ruptcy, just at present; and being desirous to adjust our-
selves in that huge upbreak, and unutterable welter of
tumbling ruins, and to see well that our grand proposed
Association of Associations, the UNIVERSAL ABOLITION-OF-
PAIN ASSOCIATION, which is meant to be the consummate
golden flower and summary of modern Philanthropisms all
in one, do not issue as a universal “Sluggard-and-Scoundrel
Protection Society,”—we have judged that, before consti-
tuting ourselves, it would be very proper to commune ear-
mestly with one another, and discourse together on the
leading elements of our great Problem, which surely is one
of the greatest. With this view the Council has decided,
both that the Negro Question, as lying at the bottom, was
to be the first handled, and if possible the first settled; and
then also, what was of much more questionable wisdom,
that—that, in short, I was to be Speaker on the occasion.
An honourable duty; yet, as I said, a painful one l—Well,
you shall hear what I have to say on the matter; and pro-
bably you will not in the least like it.
West-Indian affairs, as we all know, and as some of us
know to our cost, are in a rather troublous condition this
good while. In regard to West-Indian affairs, however,
Lord John Russell is able to comfort us with one fact, in-
THE NIGGER QUESTION. 173
disputable where so many are dubious, That the Negroes
are all very happy and doing well. A fact very comfort-
able indeed. West-Indian Whites, it is admitted, are far
enough from happy; West-Indian Colonies not unlike sink-
ing wholly into ruin: at home too, the British Whites are
rather badly off; several millions of them hanging on the
verge of continual famine; and in single towns, many thou-
sands of them very sore put to it, at this time, not to live
“well” or as a man should, in any sense temporal or spiri-
tual, but to live at all:—these, again, are uncomfortable
facts; and they are extremely extensive and important
ones. But, thank Heaven, our interesting Black population,
—equalling almost in number of heads one of the Ridings
of Yorkshire, and in worth (in quantity of intellect, faculty,
docility, energy, and available human valour and value)
perhaps one of the streets of Seven Dials, are all doing
remarkably well. “Sweet blighted lilies,”—as the American
epitaph on the Nigger child has it, sweet blighted lilies,
they are holding-up their heads again! How pleasant, in
the universal bankruptcy abroad, and dim dreary stagnancy
at home, as if for England too there remained nothing but
to suppress Chartist riots, banish united Irishmen, vote the
supplies, and wait with arms crossed till black Anarchy and
Social Death devoured us also, as it has done the others;
how pleasant to have always this fact to fall-back upon :
Our beautiful Black darlings are at last happy; with little
labour except to the teeth, which surely, in those excellent
horse-jaws of theirs, will not fail!
Exeter Hall, my philanthropic friends, has had its way
in this matter. The Twenty Millions, a mere trifle de-
spatched with a single dash of the pen, are paid; and far
over the sea, we have a few black persons rendered ex-
tremely “free” indeed. Sitting yonder with their beautiful
174 MISCELLANTES.
muzzles up to the ears in pumpkins, imbibing sweet pulps
and juices; the grinder and incisor teeth ready for ever
new work, and the pumpkins cheap as grass in those rich
climates: while the Sugar-crops rot round them uncut, be-
cause labour cannot be hired, so cheap are the pumpkins;–
and at home we are but required to rasp from the break-
fast-loaves of our own English labourers some slight “ dif-
ferential sugar-duties,” and lend a poor half-million or a few
poor millions now and then, to keep that beautiful state of
matters going on. A state of matters lovely to contem-
plate, in these emancipated epochs of the human mind;
which has earned us not only the praises of Exeter Hall,
and loud long-eared hallelujahs of laudatory psalmody from
the Friends of Freedom everywhere, but lasting favour (it
is hoped) from the Heavenly Powers themselves; — and
which may, at least, justly appeal to the Heavenly Powers,
and ask them, If ever in terrestrial procedure they saw the
match of it? Certainly in the past history of the human
species it has no parallel: nor, one hopes, will it have in
the future. [Some emotion in the audience; which the Chairman
suppressed.]
Sunk in deep froth-oceans of “Benevolence,” “Frater-
nity,” “Emancipation-principle,” “Christian Philanthropy,”
and other most amiable-looking, but most baseless, and in
the end baleful and all-bewildering jargon, sad product of
a sceptical Eighteenth Century, and of poor human hearts
left destitute of any earnest guidance, and disbelieving that
there ever was any, Christian or Heathen, and reduced to
believe in rosepink Sentimentalism alone, and to cultivate
the same under its Christian, Antichristian, Broad-brimmed,
Brutus-headed, and other forms, has not the human spe-
cies gone strange roads, during that period? And poor
Exeter Hall, cultivating the Broad-brimmed form of Chris-
THE NIGGER QUESTION. 175
tian Sentimentalism, and long talking and bleating and
braying in that strain, has it not worked-out results? Our
West-Indian Legislatings, with their spoutings, anti-spout-
ings, and interminable jangle and babble; our Twenty mil-
lions down on the nail for Blacks of our own; Thirty gra-
dual millions more, and many brave British lives to boot,
in watching Blacks of other people's; and now at last our
ruined sugar-estates, differential Sugar-duties, “immigration
loan,” and beautiful Blacks sitting there up to the ears in
pumpkins, and doleful Whites sitting here without potatoes
to eat: never till now, I think, did the sun look-down on
such a jumble of human nonsenses;–of which, with the two
hot mights of the Missing-Despatch Debate,” God grant that
the measure might now at last be full ! But no, it is not
yet full; we have a long way to travel back, and terrible
flounderings to make, and in fact an immense load of non-
sense to dislodge from our poor heads, and manifold cob-
webs to rend from our poor eyes, before we get into the
road again, and can begin to act as serious men that have
work to do in this Universe, and no longer as windy senti-
mentalists that merely have speeches to deliver and de-
spatches to write. O Heaven, in West-Indian matters, and
in all manner of matters, it is so with us: the more is the
sorrow !—
The West Indies, it appears, are short of labour; as in-
deed is very conceivable in those circumstances. Where a
Black man, by working about half-an-hour a-day (such is
the calculation), can supply himself, by aid of sun and soil,
* Does any reader now remember it? A cloudy reminiscence of some such thing,
and of noise in the Newspapers upon it, remains with us, fast hastening to aboli-
tion for everybody. (Note of 1849.)—This Missing-Despatch Debate, what on earth
was it? (Wote of 1853.)
176 MISCELLANIES.
with as much pumpkin as will suffice, he is likely to be a
little stiff to raise into hard work | Supply and demand,
which, science says, should be brought to bear on him, have
an uphill, task of it with such a man. Strong sun supplies
itself gratis, rich soil in those unpeopled or half-peopled re-
gions almost gratis; these are his “supply;” and half-an-
hour a-day, directed upon these, will produce pumpkin,
which is his “demand.” The fortunate Black man, very
swiftly does he settle his account with supply and demand:
—not so swiftly the less fortunate White man of those tro-
pical localities. A bad case, his, just now. He himself can-
not work; and his black neighbour, rich in pumpkin, is in
no haste to help him. Sunk to the ears in pumpkin, im-
bibing saccharine juices, and much at his ease in the Crea-
tion, he can listen to the less fortunate white man’s “de-
mand,” and take his own time in supplying it. Higher
wages, massa; higher, for your cane-crop cannot wait ; still
higher, till no conceivable opulence of cane-crop will cover
such wages. In Demerara, as I read in the Blue-book of
last year, the cane-crop, far and wide, stands rotting; the
fortunate black gentlemen, strong in their pumpkins, having
all struck till the “demand” rise a little. Sweet blighted
lilies, now getting-up their heads again º
Science, however, has a remedy still. Since the demand
is so pressing, and the supply so inadequate (equal in fact
to nothing in some places, as appears), increase the supply;
bring more Blacks into the labour-market, then will the rate
fall, says science. Not the least surprising part of our
West-Indian policy is this recipe of “immigration;” of
keeping-down the labour-market in those islands by import-
ing new Africans to labour and live there. If the Africans
that are already there could be made to lay-down their
pumpkins, and labour for their living, there are already
THE NIGGER QUESTION. 177
Africans enough. If the new Africans, after labouring a
little, take to pumpkins like the others, what remedy is
there ? To bring-in new and ever new Africans, say you,
till pumpkins themselves grow dear; till the country is
crowded with Africans; and black men there, like white
men here, are forced by hunger to labour for their living 2
That will be a consummation. To have “emancipated” the
West Indies into a Black Ireland; “free” indeed, but an Ire-
land, and Black The world may yet see prodigies; and
reality be stranger than a nightmare dream.
Our own white or sallow Ireland, sluttishly starving
from age to age on its act-of-parliament “freedom,” was
hitherto the flower of mismanagement among the nations:
but what will this be to a Negro Ireland, with pumpkins
themselves fallen scarce like potatoes | Imagination cannot
fathom such an object; the belly of Chaos never held the
like. The human mind, in its wide wanderings, has not
dreamt yet of such a “freedom” as that will be. Towards
that, if Exeter Hall and science of supply-and-demand are
to continue our guides in the matter, we are daily travel-
ling, and even struggling, with loans of half-a-million and
suchlike, to accelerate ourselves.
Truly, my philanthropic friends, Exeter-Hall Philan-
thropy is wonderful. And the Social Science,—not a “gay
science,” but a rueful,-which finds the secret of this Uni-
verse in “supply and demand,” and reduces the duty of
human governors to that of letting men alone, is also won-
derful. Not a “gay science,” I should say, like some we
have heard of; no, a dreary, desolate, and indeed quite
abject and distressing one; what we might call, by way of
eminence, the dismal science. These two, Exeter-Hall Phil-
anthropy and the Dismal Science, led by any sacred cause
of Black Emancipation, or the like, to fall in love and make
WOL. XI. (Misc. vol. 6.) N
178 MISCELLANTES.
a wedding of it, will give birth to progenies and pro-
digies; dark extensive moon-calves, unnamable abortions,
wide-coiled monstrosities, such as the world has not seen
hitherto [Increased emotion, again suppressed by the Chair-
man.]
In fact, it will behove us of this English nation to over-
haul Our West-Indian procedure from top to bottom, and
ascertain a little better what it is that Fact and Nature
demand of us, and what only Exeter Hall wedded to the
Dismal Science demands. To the former set of demands
we will endeavour, at our peril,-and worse peril than our
purse's, at our soul's peril,-to give all obedience. To the
latter we will very frequently demur, and try if we cannot
stop short where they contradict the former, and especially
before arriving at the black throat of ruin, whither they
appear to be leading us. Alas, in many other provinces
besides the West Indian, that unhappy wedlock of Philan-
thropic Liberalism and the Dismal Science has engendered
such all-enveloping delusions, of the moon-calf sort, and
wrought huge woe for us, and for the poor civilised world, in
these days And sore will be the battle with said moon-
calves; and terrible the struggle to return out of our delu-
sions, floating rapidly on which, not the West Indies alone,
but Europe generally, is nearing the Niagara Falls. [Here
various persons, in an agitated manner, with an air of indignation,
left the room; especially one very tall gentleman in white trousers,
whose boots creaked much. The President, in a resolved voice,
with a look of official rigour, whatever his own private feelings
might be, enjoined “Silence, Silence 1” The meeting again sat
motionless.]
My philanthropic friends, can you discern no fixed head-
lands in this wide-weltering deluge, of benevolent twaddle
and revolutionary grape-shot, that has burst-forth on us;
THE NIGGER QUESTION. 179
no sure bearings at all? Fact and Nature, it seems to me,
say a few words to us, if happily we have still an ear for
Fact and Nature. Let us listen a little and try.
And first, with regard to the West Indies, it may be
laid-down as a principle, which no eloquence in Exeter Hall,
or Westminster Hall, or elsewhere, can invalidate or hide,
except for a short time only, That no Black man who will
not work according to what ability the gods have given him
for working, has the smallest right to eat pumpkin, or to
any fraction of land that will grow pumpkin, however plen-
tiful such land may be ; but has an indisputable and per-
petual right to be compelled, by the real proprietors of said
land, to do competent work for his living. This is the
everlasting duty of all men, black or white, who are born
into this world. To do competent work, to labour honestly
according to the ability given them; for that and for no
other purpose was each one of us sent into this world; and
woe is to every man who, by friend or by foe, is prevented
from fulfilling this the end of his being. That is the “un-
happy” lot: lot equally unhappy cannot otherwise be pro-
vided for man. Whatsoever prohibits or prevents a man
from this his sacred appointment to labour while he lives on
earth, –that, I say, is the man's deadliest enemy; and all
men are called upon to do what is in their power or oppor-
tunity towards delivering him from that. If it be his own
indolence that prevents and prohibits him, then his own
indolence is the enemy he must be delivered from ; and
the first “right” he has, poor indolent blockhead, black
or white,_is, That every unprohibited man, whatsoever
wiser, more industrious person may be passing that way,
shall endeavour to “emancipate” him from his indolence,
and by some wise means, as I said, compel him, since in-
ducing will not serve, to do the work he is fit for. Induce
180 MISCELLANTES.
him, if you can : yes, sure enough, by all means try what
inducement will do ; and indeed every coachman and car-
man knows that secret, without our preaching, and applies
it to his very horses as the true method:—but if your Nig-
ger will not be induced? In that case, it is full certain, he
must be compelled; should and must; and the tacit prayer
he makes (unconsciously he, poor blockhead,) to you, and
to me, and to all the world who are wiser than himself, is,
“Compel me !” For indeed he must, or else do and suffer
worse, he as well as we. It were better the work did
come out of him It was the meaning of the gods with
him and with us, that his gift should turn to use in this
Creation, and not lie poisoning the thoroughfares, as a
rotten mass of idleness, agreeable to neither heaven nor
earth. For idleness does, in all cases, inevitably rot, and
become putrescent;-and I say deliberately, the very Devil
is in it.
None of you, my friends, have been in Demerara lately,
I apprehend? May none of you go till matters mend there
a littlel Under the sky there are uglier sights than perhaps
were seen hitherto Dead corpses, the rotting body of a
brother man, whom fate or unjust men have killed, this is
not a pleasant spectacle; but what say you to the dead soul
of a man,—in a body which still pretends to be vigorously
alive, and can drink rum? An idle White gentleman is not
pleasant to me; though I confess the real work for him is
not easy to find, in these our epochs; and perhaps he is
seeking, poor soul, and may find at last. But what say you
to an idle Black gentleman, with his rum-bottle in his hand
(for a little additional pumpkin you can have red herrings
and rum, in Demerara),—rum-bottle in his hand, no breeches
on his body, pumpkin at discretion, and the fruitfulest region
of the earth going back to jungle round him? Such things
THE NIGGER QUESTION. 181
the sun looks-down upon in our fine times; and I, for one,
would rather have no hand in them.
Yes, this is the eternal law of Nature for a man, my bene-
ficent Exeter-Hall friends; this, that he shall be permitted,
encouraged, and if need be, compelled to do what work the
Maker of him has intended by the making of him for this
world! Not that he should eat pumpkin with never such
felicity in the West-India Islands is, or can be, the blessed-
ness of our Black friend; but that he should do useful work
there, according as the gifts have been bestowed on him for
that. And his own happiness, and that of others round him,
will alone be possible by his and their getting into such a
relation that this can be permitted him, and in case of need,
that this can be compelled him. I beg you to understand
this; for you seem to have a little forgotten it, and there lie
a thousand inferences in it, not quite useless for Exeter Hall,
at present. The idle Black man in the West Indies had, not
long since, the right, and will again under better form, if it
please Heaven, have the right (actually the first “right of
man” for an indolent person) to be compelled to work as he
was fit, and to do the Maker's will who had constructed him
with such and such capabilities, and prefigurements of capa-
bility. And I incessantly pray Heaven, all men, the whitest
alike and the blackest, the richest and the poorest, in other
regions of the world, had attained precisely the same right,
the divine right of being compelled (if “permitted” will not
answer) to do what work they are appointed for, and not to
go idle another minute, in a life which is so short, and where
idleness so soon runs to putrescence 1 Alas, we had then a
perfect world; and the Millennium, and true “Organisation
of Labour,” and reign of complete blessedness, for all workers
and men, had then arrived,—which in these our own poor
districts of the Planet, as we all lament to know, it is very
182 - MISOELLANTES,
far from having yet done. [More withdrawals; but the rest
sitting with increased attention.]
Do I, then, hate the Negro? No; except when the soul
Is killed out of him, I decidedly like poor Quashee; and find
him a pretty kind of man. With a pennyworth of oil, you
can make a handsome glossy thing of Quashee, when the
soul is not killed in him A swift, supple fellow; a merry-
hearted, grinning, dancing, singing, affectionate kind of crea-
ture, with a great deal of melody and amenability in his
composition. This certainly is a notable fact: The black
African, alone of wild-men, can live among men civilised.
While all manner of Caribs and others pine into annihilation
in presence of the pale faces, he contrives to continue; does
not die of sullen irreconcilable rage, of rum, of brutish lazi-
ness and darkness, and fated incompatibility with his new
place; but lives and multiplies, and evidently means to abide
among us, if we can find the right regulation for him. We
shall have to find it; we are now engaged in the search;
and have at least discovered that of two methods, the old
Demerara method, and the new Demerara method, neither
will answer.
Alas, my friends, I understand well your rage against
the poor Negro's slavery ; what said rage proceeds from ;
and have a perfect sympathy with it, and even know it by
experience. Can the oppressor of my black fellow-man be
of any use to me in particular 3 Am I gratified in my mind
by the ill-usage of any two- or four-legged thing; of any
horse or any dog? Not so, I assure you. In me too the
natural sources of human rage exist more or less, and the
capability of flying out into “fiery wrath against oppres-
sion,” and of signing petitions; both of which things can
be done very cheap. Good heavens, if signing petitions
THE NIGGER QUESTION. 183
would do it, if hopping to Rome on one leg would do it,
think you it were long undone !
Frightful things are continually told us of Negro slavery,
of the hardships, bodily and spiritual, suffered by slaves.
Much exaggerated, and mere exceptional cases, say the op-
ponents. Exceptional cases, I answer; yes, and universal
Ones | On the whole, hardships, and even oppressions and
injustices are not unknown in this world; I myself have
suffered such, and have not you? It is said, Man, of what-
ever colour, is born to such, even as the sparks fly upwards.
For in fact labour, and this is properly what we call hard-
ship, misery, &c. (meaning mere ugly labour not yet done),
labour is not joyous but grievous; and we have a good deal
of it to do among us here. We have, simply, to carry the
whole world and its businesses upon our backs, we poor
united Human Species; to carry it, and shove it forward,
from day to day, somehow or other, among us, or else be
ground to powder under it, one and all. No light task, let
me tell you, even if each did his part homestly, which each
doesn’t by any means. No, only the noble lift willingly
with their whole strength, at the general burden; and in
such a crowd, after all your drillings, regulatings, and
attempts at equitable distribution, and compulsion, what
deceptions are still practicable, what errors are inevitable !
Many cunning ignoble fellows shirk the labour altogether;
and instead of faithfully lifting at the immeasurable uni-
versal handbarrow with its thousand-million handles, con-
trive to get on some ledge of it, and be lifted
What a story we have heard about all that, not from
vague rumour since yesterday, but from inspired prophets,
speakers and seers, ever since speech began How the
giant willing spirit, among white masters, and in the best-
regulated families, is so often not loaded only but over-
184 MISCELLANTES.
loaded, crushed-down like an Enceladus; and, all his life, has
to have armies of pigmies building tabernacles on his chest;
marching composedly over his neck, as if it were a high-
way; and much amazed if, when they run their straw spear
into his nostril, he is betrayed into sudden Sneezing, and
oversets some of them. [Some laughter, the speaker himself
looking terribly serious.] My friends, I have come to the sad
conclusion that SLAVERY, whether established by law, or by
law abrogated, exists very extensively in this world, in and
out of the West Indies; and, in fact, that you cannot abolish
slavery by act of parliament, but can only abolish the name
of it, which is very little !
In the West Indies itself, if you chance to abolish Slavery
to Men, and in return establish Slavery to the Devil (as we
see in Demerara), what good is it? To save men's bodies,
and fill them with pumpkins and rum, is a poor task for
human benevolence, if you have to kill their soul, what soul
there was, in the business! Slavery is not so easy to be
abolished; it will long continue, in spite of acts of parlia-
ment. And shall I tell you which is the one intolerable
sort of slavery; the slavery over which the very gods weep?
That sort is not rifest in the West Indies; but, with all its
sad fruits, prevails in nobler countries. It is the slavery of
the strong to the weak; of the great and noble-minded to
the small and mean The slavery of Wisdom to Folly.
When Folly all “emancipated,” and become supreme,
armed with ballot-boxes, universal suffrages, and appealing
to what Dismal Sciences, Statistics, Constitutional Philoso-
phies, and other Fool Gospels it has got devised for itself,
can say to Wisdom : “Be silent, or thou shalt repent it !
Suppress thyself, I advise thee; camst thou not contrive to
cease, then?” That also, in some anarchic-constitutional
epochs, has been seen. When, of high and noble objects,
THE NIGGER QUESTION. 185
there remained, in the market-place of human things, at
length none; and he that could not make guineas his pur-
suit, and the applause of flunkies his reward, found himself
in such a minority as seldom was before.
Minority, I know, there always was: but there are de-
grees of it, down to minority of one,—down to suppression
of the unfortunate minority, and reducing it to zero, that
the flunky-world may have peace from it henceforth. The
flunky-world has peace; and descends, manipulating its
ballot-boxes, Coppock suffrages, and divine constitutional
apparatus; quoting its Dismal Sciences, Statistics, and other
satisfactory Gospels and Talmuds,-into the throat of the
Devil; not bothered by the importunate minority on the
road. Did you never hear of “Crucify him Crucify him ſ”
That was a considerable feat in the suppressing of minori-
ties; and is still talked-of on Sundays, with very little un-
derstanding, when I last heard of it. My friends, my friends,
I fear we are a stupid people; and stuffed with such de-
lusions, above all with such immense hypocrisies and self-
delusions, from our birth upwards, as no people were before;
God help us l—Emancipated? Yes, indeed, we are emanci-
pated out of several things, and into several things. No
man, wise or foolish, any longer can control you for good
or for evil. Foolish Tomkins, foolish Jobson, cannot now
singly oppress you: but if the Universal Company of the
Tomkinses and Jobsons, as by law established, can more
than ever? If, on all highways and byways, that lead to
other than a Tomkins–Jobson winning-post, you meet, at
the second step, the big, dumb, universal genius of Chaos,
and are so placidly yet peremptorily taught, “Halt here !”
There is properly but one slavery in the world. One sla-
very, in which all other slaveries and miseries that afflict
the earth are included; compared with which the worst West-
186 MISCELLANTES.
Indian, white, or black, or yellow slaveries are a small mat-
ter. One slavery over which the very gods weep. Other
slaveries, women and children and stump- orators weep
Over ; but this is for men and gods ! [Sensation; some, how-
ever, took snuff.]
If precisely the Wisest Man were at the top of society,
and the next-wisest next, and so on till we reached the
Demerara Nigger (from whom downwards, through the
horse, &c., there is no question hitherto), then were this a
perfect world, the extreme maximum of wisdom produced in
it. That is how you might produce your maximum, would
some god assist. And I can tell you also how the minimum
were producible. Let no man in particular be put at the
top ; let all men be accounted equally wise and worthy,
and the notion get abroad that anybody or nobody will
do well enough at the top; that money (to which may be
added success in stump-oratory) is the real symbol of wis-
dom, and supply-and-demand the all-sufficient substitute for
command and obedience among two-legged animals of the
unfeathered class: accomplish all those remarkable convic-
tions in your thinking department; and then in your prac-
tical, as is fit, decide by count of heads, the vote of a Deme-
rara Nigger equal and no more to that of a Chancellor
Bacon: this, I perceive, will (so soon as it is fairly under
way, and all obstructions left behind) give the minimum of
wisdom in your proceedings. Thus were your minimum
producible, with no God needed to assist, nor any Demon
even, except the general Demon of Ignavia (Unvalour), lazy
Indifference to the production or non-production of such
things, which runs in our own blood. Were it beautiful,
think you? Folly in such millionfold majority, at length
peaceably supreme in this earth. Advancing on you as the
huge buffalo-phalanx does in the Western Deserts; or as,
THE NIGGER QUESTION. 187
on a smaller scale, those bristly creatures did in the Country
of the Gadarenes. Rushing, namely, in wild stampede (the
Devil being in them, some small fly having stung them),
boundless, one wing on that edge of your horizon, the
other wing on that, and rearward whole tides and oceans
of them : — so could Folly rush; the enlightened public
One huge Gadarenes-swinery, tail cocked, snout in air, with
joyful animating short Squeak; fast and ever faster; down
steep places, to the sea of Tiberias, and the bottomless
cloacas of Nature: quenched there, since nowhere sooner.
My friends, such sight is too sublime, if you are out in it,
and are not of it!—
Well, eacept by Mastership and Servantship, there is no
conceivable deliverance from Tyranny and Slavery. Cosmos
is not Chaos, simply by this one quality, That it is go-
verned. Where wisdom, even approximately, can contrive
to govern, all is right, or is ever striving to become so;
where folly is “emancipated,” and gets to govern, as it
soon will, all is wrong. That is the sad fact; and in other
places than Demerara, and in regard to other interests than
those of sugar-making, we sorrowfully experience the same.
I have to complain that, in these days, the relation of
master to servant, and of superior to inferior, in all stages
of it, is fallen sadly out of joint. As may well be, when the
very highest stage and form of it, which should be the
summary of all and the keystone of all, is got to such a
pass. Kings themselves are grown sham-kings; and their
subjects very naturally are sham-subjects; with mere lip-
homage, insincere to their sham-kings; — sincere chiefly
when they get into the streets (as is now our desperate
case generally in Europe) to shoot them down as nuisances.
Royalty is terribly gone; and loyalty in consequence has
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188 MISCELLANIES.
had to go. No man reverences another; at the best, each
man slaps the other good-humouredly on the shoulder, with,
“Hail, fellow; well met:” – at the worst (which is sure
enough to follow such unreasonable good-humour, in a world
like ours), clutches him by the throat, with, “Tyrannous son
of perdition, shall I endure thee, then, and thy injustices
forever ?” We are not yet got to the worst extreme, we
here in these Isles; but we are well half-way towards it,
I often think.
Certainly, by any ballot-box, Jesus Christ goes just as
far as Judas Iscariot; and with reason, according to the
New Gospels, Talmuds and Dismal Sciences of these days.
Judas looks him in the face; asks proudly, “Am not I as
good as thou? Better, perhaps ſ” slapping his breeches-
pocket, in which is audible the cheerful jingle of thirty
pieces of silver. “Thirty of them here, thou cowering
pauper P’ My philanthropic friends, if there be a state of
matters under the stars which deserves the name of damn-
able and damned, this I perceive is it ! Alas, I know well
whence it came, and how it could not help coming;-and I
continually pray the gods its errand were done, and it had
begun to go its ways again. Wain hope, at least for a cen-
tury to come ! And there will be such a sediment of Egyp-
tian mud to sweep away, and to fish all human things out
of again, once this most sad though salutary deluge is well
over, as the human species seldom had before. Patience,
patience l—
In fact, without real masters you cannot have servants;
and a master is not made by thirty pieces or thirty-million
pieces of silver; only a sham-master is so made. The Dis-
mal Science of this epoch defines him to be master good
enough ; but he is not such : you can see what kind of
master he proves, what kind of servants he manages to
THE NIGGER QUESTION. 189
have. Accordingly, the state of British servantship, of Ame-
rican helpship—I confess to you, my friends, if looking out
for what was least human and heroic, least lovely to the
Supreme Powers, I should not go to Carolina at this time;
I should sorrowfully stay at home ! Austere philosophers,
possessed even of cash, have talked to me about the pos-
sibility of doing without servants; of trying somehow to
serve yourself (boot-cleaning &c. done by contract), and so
escaping from a never-ending welter, dirtier for your mind
than boot-cleaning itself. Of which the perpetual fluctua-
tion, and change from month to month, is probably the most
inhuman element; the fruitful parent of all else that is evil,
unendurable and inhuman. A poor Negro overworked on
the Cuba, sugar-grounds, he is sad to look upon; yet he
inspires me with sacred pity, and a kind of human respect
is not denied him; him, the hapless brother mortal, perform-
ing something useful in his day, and only suffering inhuman-
ity, not doing it or being it. But with what feelings can
I look upon an over-fed White Flunky, if I know his ways 2
Disloyal, unheroic, this one ; inhuman in his character, and
his work, and his position; more so no creature ever was.
Pity is not for him, or not a soft kind of it; nor is any
remedy visible, except abolition at no distant date He
is the flower of nomadic servitude, proceeding by month's
warning, and free supply-and-demand; if obedience is not
in his heart, if chiefly gluttony and mutiny are in his heart,
and he has to be bribed by high feeding to do the shows of
obedience,—what can await him, or be prayed for him, among
men, except even “abolition”?
The Duke of Trumps, who sometimes does me the honour
of a little conversation, owned that the state of his domestic
service was by no means satisfactory to the human mind.
“Five-and-forty of them,” said his Grace; “really, I sup-
190 MISCELLANIES.
“pose, the cleverest in the market, for there is no limit to
“ the wages: I often think how many quiet families, all
“ down to the basis of society, I have disturbed, in attract-
“ing gradually, by higher and higher offers, that set of fel-
“lows to me; and what the use of them is when here ! I
“feed them like aldermen, pay them as if they were sages
“ and heroes:–Samuel Johnson's wages, at the very last
“ and best, as I have heard you say, were 300l. or 500l. a
“year; and Jellysnob, my butler, who indeed is clever, gets,
“I believe, more than the highest of these sums. And,
“shall I own it to you? In my young days, with one valet,
“I had more trouble saved me, more help afforded me to
“live, actually more of my will accomplished,—than from
“ these forty-five I now get, or ever shall. It is all a se-
“rious comedy; what you call a melancholy sham. Most
“civil, obsequious, and indeed expert fellows these; but bid
“one of them step-out of his regulated sphere on your behalf!
“An iron law presses on us all here; on them and on me.
“In my own house, how much of my will can I have done,
“ dare I propose to have done? Prudence, on my side, is
“prescribed by a jealous and ridiculous point-of-honour atti-
“tude on theirs. They lie here more like a troop of foreign
“ soldiers that had invaded me, than a body of servants I
“ had hired. At free quarters; we have strict laws of war
“established between us; they make their salutes, and do
“ certain bits of specified work, with many becks and scrap-
“ings; but as to service, properly so called—l—I lead the
“life of a servant, sir; it is I that am a slave; and often I
“think of packing the whole brotherhood of them out of
“ doors one good day, and retiring to furnished lodgings;
“but have never done it yet!”—Such was the confession of
his Grace.
For, indeed, in the long-run, it is not possible to buy
THE NIGGER QUESTION. 191
obedience with money. You may buy work done with money:
from cleaning boots to building houses, and to far higher
functions, there is much work bought with money, and got
done in a supportable manner. But, mark withal, that is
only from a class of supportably wise human creatures:
from a huge and ever-increasing insupportably foolish class
of human creatures you cannot buy work in that way; and
the attempt in London itself, much more in Demerara, turns
out a very “serious comedy” indeed! Who has not heard
of the Distressed Needlewomen in these days? We have
thirty-thousand Distressed Needlewomen, – the most of
whom cannot sew a reasonable stitch ; for they are, in fact,
Mutinous Serving-maids, who, instead of learning to work
and to obey, learned to give warning: “Then suit yourself,
Ma'am " Hapless enfranchised White Women, who took
the “freedom” to serve the Devil with their faculties, in-
stead of serving God or man; hapless souls, they were
“ enfranchised” to a most high degree, and had not the wis-
dom for so ticklish a predicament, “Then suit yourself,
Ma’am ;”—and so have tumbled from one stage of folly to
the other stage; and at last are on the street, with five
hungry senses, and no available faculty whatever. Having
finger and thumb, they do procure a needle, and call them-
selves Distressed Needlewomen, but cannot sew at all. I
have inquired in the proper places, and find a quite passion-
ate demand for women that can sew, such being unattain-
able just now. “As well call them Distressed Astronomers
“ as Distressed Needlewomen ſ” said a lady to me: “I my-
“self will take three sewing Needlewomen, if you can get
“ them for me today.” Is not that a sight to set before the
curious?
Distressed enough, God knows;–but it will require
quite other remedies to get at the bottom of their complaint,
()
192 MISCELLANIES.
I am afraid. O Brothers O Sisters It is for these White
Women that my heart bleeds and my soul is heavy; it is
for the sight of such mad notions and such unblessed doings
now all-prevalent among mankind,-alas, it is for such life-
theories and such life-practices, and ghastly clearstarched life-
hypocrisies, playing their part under high Heaven, as render
these inevitable and unaidable,_that the world of today
looks black and vile to me, and with all its guineas, in the
nostril smells badly It is not to the West Indies that I run
first of all; and not thither with “enfranchisement” first of all,
when I discern what “enfranchisement” has led to in hope-
fuler localities. I tell you again and again, he or she that
will not work, and in the anger of the gods cannot be com—
pelled to work, shall die And not he or she only ; alas,
alas, were it the guilty only 1–But as yet we cannot help
it ; as yet, for a long while, we must be patient, and let the
Exeter-Hallery and other tragic Tomfoolery rave itself out.
[Deep silence in the small remnant of audience;—the gentleman
in white trousers came in again, his creaking painfully audible in
spite of efforts.]
My friends, it is not good to be without a servant in this
world; but to be without master, it appears, is a still fataler
predicament for some. Without a master, in certain cases,
you become a Distressed Needlewoman, and cannot so much
as live. Happy he who has found his master, I will say; if
not a good master, then some supportable approximation to
a good one; for the worst, it appears, in some cases, is pre-
ferable to none !
Happy he who has found a master;-and now, farther
I will say, having found, let him well keep him. In all
human relations permanency is what I advocate; nomadism,
continual change, is what I perceive to be prohibitory of
any good whatsoever. Two men that have got to coöperate
THE NIGGER QUESTION. 193
will do well not to quarrel at the first cause of offence, and
throw-up the concern in disgust, hoping to suit themselves
better elsewhere. For the most part such hope is fallacious;
and they will, on the average, not suit themselves better,
but only about as well,—and have to begin again bare,
which loss often repeated becomes immense, and is finally
the loss of everything, and of their joint enterprise itself.
For no mutual relation while it continues “bare,” is yet a
human one, or can bring blessedness, but is only waiting to
become such,-mere new-piled crags, which, if you leave
them, will at last “gather moss,” and yield some verdure
and pasture. O my friends, what a remedy is this we have
fallen upon, for everything that goes wrong between one
man and another : “Go, then ; I give you a month's warn-
ing !” What would you think of a sacrament of marriage
constructed on such principles? Marriage by the month,
why this too has been tried, and is still extensively practised
in spite of Law and Gospel; but it is not found to do! The
legislator, the preacher, all rational mortals, answer, “No,
no ſ” You must marry for longer than a month, and the
contract not so easily revocable, even should mistakes occur,
as they sometimes do.
I am prepared to maintain against all comers, That in
every human relation, from that of husband and wife down
to that of master and servant, nomadism is the bad plan, and
continuance the good. A thousand times, since I first had
servants, it has occurred to me, How much better had I ser–
vants that were bound to me, and to whom I were bound !
Doubtless it were not easy; doubtless it is now impossible:
but if it could be done ! I say, if the Black gentleman is
born to be a servant, and, in fact, is useful in God’s creation
only as a servant, then let him hire not by the month, but
by a very much longer term. That he be “hired for life,”—
VOL. XI. (Misc. vol. 6.) O
194 MISCELLANIES.
really here is the essence of the position he now holds !
Consider that matter. All else is abuse in it, and this only
is essence;—and the abuses must be cleared away. They
must and shall ! Yes; and the thing itself seems to offer
(its abuses once cleared away) a possibility of the most
precious kind for the Black man and for us. Servants hired
for life, or by a contract for a long period, and not easily
dissoluble; SO and not otherwise would all reasonable mor-
tals, Black and White, wish to hire and to be hired I
invite you to reflect on that; for you will find it true. And
if true, it is important for us, in reference to this Negro
Question and some others. The Germans say, “You must
empty-out the bathing-tub, but not the baby along with it.”
Fling-out your dirty water with all zeal, and set it careering
down the kennels; but try if you can keep the little child !
How to abolish the abuses of slavery, and save the pre-
cious thing in it: alas, I do not pretend that this is easy,
that it can be done in a day, or a single generation, or a
single century: but I do surmise or perceive that it will, by
straight methods or by circuitous, need to be done (not in
the West-Indian regions alone); and that the one way of
helping the Negro at present (Distressed Needlewomen &c.
being quite out of our reach) were, by piously and strenu-
ously beginning it. Begun it must be, I perceive ; and
carried on in all regions where servants are born and
masters; and are not prepared to become Distressed Needle-
women, or Demerara Niggers, but to live in some human
manner with one another. And truly, my friends, with
regard to this world-famous Nigger Question,--which per-
haps is louder than it is big, after all,—I would advise you
to attack it on that side. Try against the dirty water, with
an eye to save the baby! That will be a quite new point of
attack; where, it seems to me, some real benefit and victory
THE NIGGER QUESTION. 195
for the poor Negro, might before long be accomplished; and
something else than Demerara freedom (with its rum-bottle
and no breeches, “baby’ quite gone down into the kennels (),
or than American stump-oratory, with mutual exasperation
fast rising to the desperate pitch, might be possible for
philanthropic men and women of the Anglo-Saxon type.
Try this; perhaps the very Carolina planter will coöperate
with you; he will, if he has any wisdom left in this exas-
peration | If he do not, he will do worse; and go a strange
road with those Niggers of his.
By one means or another these enormities we hear of
from the Slave States, though I think they are hardly so
hideous, any of them, as the sight our Own Demerara now
offers, must be heard of no more. Men will and must sum-
mon “indignation-meetings” about them; and simple per-
sons,—like Wilhelm Meister's Felix flying at the cook's
throat for plucking pigeons, yet himself seen shortly after
pelting frogs to death with pebbles that lay handy, will
agitate their caucuses, ballot-boxes, dissever the Union, and,
in short, play the very devil, if these things are not abated,
and do not go on abating more and more towards perfect
abolition. Unjust master over servant hired for life is, once
for all, and shall be, unendurable to human souls. To cut
the tie, and “fling Farmer Hodge's horses quite loose” upon
the supply-and-demand principle: that, I will believe, is not
the method | But by some method, by hundredfold restric-
tions, responsibilities, laws, conditions, cunning methods,
Hodge must be got to treat his horses justly, for we cannot
stand it longer. And let Hodge think well of it, I mean
the American two-footed Hodge, for there is no other sal-
vation for him. And if he would avoid a consummation like
our Demerara, one, I would advise him to know this secret;
which our poor Hodge did not know, or would not practise,
196 MISCELLANIES.
and so is come to such a pass!—Here is part of my answer
to the Hon. Hickory Buckskin, a senator in those Southern
States, and man of really respectable attainments and di-
mensions, who in his despair appears to be entertaining
very violent projects now and then, as to uniting with our
West Indies (under a New Downing Street), forming a West-
Indian empire, &c. &c.
‘The New Downing Street, I take it, is at a great distance
‘ here; and we shall wait yet awhile for it, and run good
‘ risk of losing all our Colonies before we can discover the
‘way of managing them. On that side do not reckon upon
‘ help. At the same time, I can well understand you should
* “publicly discuss the propriety of severing the Union,” and
‘ that the resolution should be general “you will rather die,”
‘ &c. A man, having certified himself about his trade and
* post under the sun, is actually called upon to “die” in vin-
‘dication of it, if needful; in defending the possibilities he
‘has of carrying it on, and eschewing with it the belly of
“Perdition, when extraneous Insanity is pushing it thither.
“All this I presuppose of you, of men born of your lineage;
‘ and have not a word to say against it.
“Meanwhile suffer me to say this other thing. You will
‘ not find Negro Slavery defensible by the mere resolution,
‘ never so extensive, to defend it. No, there is another con-
‘dition wanted: That your relation to the Negroes, in this
‘thing called Slavery (with such an emphasis upon the
‘word) be actually fair, just and according to the facts;–
“fair, I say, not in the sight of New-England platforms, but
‘ of God Almighty the Maker of both Negroes and you.
‘That is the one ground on which men can take their stand;
‘ in the long-run all human causes, and this cause too, will
‘come to be settled there. Forgive me for saying that I do
‘ not think you have yet got to that point of perfection
THE NIGGER QUESTION. 197
‘with your Negro relations; that there is probably much in
‘them not fair, nor agreeable to the Maker of us, and to the
‘eternal laws of fact as written in the Negro's being and
in ours.
‘The advice of advices, therefore, to men so circum-
‘ stanced were, With all diligence make them so! Other-
‘wise than so, they are doomed by Earth and by Heaven.
• Demerara may be the maddest remedy, as I think it is a
‘ very mad One: but some remedy we must have ; or if none,
then destruction and annihilation, by the Demerara or a
‘worse method. These things it would behove you of the
* Southern States, above all men, to be now thinking of.
‘How to make the Negro's position among his White fellow-
‘creatures a just one,—the real and genuine expression of
‘what commandment the Maker has given to both of you, by
‘ making the One of you thus and the other so, and putting
‘you in juxtaposition on this Earth of His 2 That you,
‘should cut the ligature, and say, “He has made us equal,”
“would be saying a palpable falsity, big with hideous ruin
‘ for all concerned in it: I hope and believe, you, with our
‘ example before you, will say something much better than
‘ that. But something, very many things, do not hide from
‘yourselves, will require to be said And I do not pretend
‘that it will be easy or soon done, to get a proper code of
‘laws (and still more difficult, a proper system of habits,
‘ways of thinking, for a basis to such “code”) on the rights
‘ of Negroes and Whites. But that also, you may depend
‘ upon it, has fallen to White men as a duty;-to you now
‘in the first place, after our sad failure. And unless you can
‘do it, be certain, neither will you be able to keep your
“Negroes; your portion too will be the Demerara or a worse
‘ one. This seems to me indubitable.
“Or perhaps you have already begun? Persist diligently,
198 MISCELLANTES.
“if so; but at all events, begin For example, ought there
not to be in every Slave State, a fixed legal sum, on pay-
ing which, any Black man was entitled to demand his free-
dom? Settle a fair sum ; and let it stand fixed by law.
If the poor Black can, by forethought, industry, self-denial,
accumulate this sum, has he not proved the actual “free-
dom” of his soul, to a fair extent: in God’s name, why will
you keep his body captive? It seems to me, a well-con-
sidered law of this kind might do you invaluable service:
4
4.
4
<
6
4.
&
6
&
—might it not be a real safety-valve, and ever-open chimney,
for that down-pressed Slave-world with whatever injustices
are still in it; whereby all the stronger and really worthier
elements would escape peaceably, as they arose, instead of
accumulating there, and convulsing you, as now? Or again,
look at the Serfs of the Middle Ages: they married and
gave in marriage; nay, they could not even be divorced
from their natal soil; had home, family, and a treatment
that was human. Many laws, and gradually a whole code
of laws, on this matter, could be made 1 And will have
to be made; if you would avoid the ugly Demerara issue,
4
&
4
4
6
&
6
&
6
4.
4
or even uglier which may be in store. I can see no other
6
road for you. This new question has arisen, million-voiced:
“What are the wages of a Black servant, hired for life by
<
* White men?” This question must be answered, in some
‘ not insupportably erroneous way: gods and men are warm-
‘ing you that you must answer it, if you would continue
‘ thore ſº-The Hon. Hickory never acknowledged my letter;
but I hope he is getting on with the advice I gave him, all
the same !
For the rest, I never thought the “rights of Negroes”
worth much discussing, nor the rights of men in any form;
the grand point, as I once said, is the mights of men,_what
THE NIGGER QUESTION. 199
portion of their “rights” they have a chance of getting
sorted out, and realised, in this confused world. We will
not go deep into the question here about the Negro's rights.
We will give a single glance into it, and see, for one thing,
how complex it is.
West-India Islands, still full of waste fertility, produce
abundant pumpkins: pumpkins, however, you will observe,
are not the sole requisite for human well-being. No ; for a
pig they are the one thing needful; but for a man they are
only the first of several things needful. The first is here;
but the second and remaining, how are they to be got?
The answer is wide as human society itself. Society at
large, as instituted in each country of the world, is the ans-
wer such country has been able to give : Here, in this poor
country, the rights of man and the mights of man are—such
and such An approximate answer to a question capable
only of better and better solutions, never of any perfect, or
absolutely good One. Nay, if we inquire, with much nar-
rower scope, as to the right of chief management in culti-
vating those West-India lands: as to the “right of pro-
perty” so-called, and of doing what you like with your own?
Even this question is abstruse enough. Who it may be that
has a right to raise pumpkins and other produce on those
Islands, perhaps none can, except temporarily, decide. The
Islands are good withal for pepper, for sugar, for sago,
arrow-root, for coffee, perhaps for cinnamon and precious
spices; things far nobler than pumpkins; and leading to-
wards Commerces, Arts, Polities and Social Developments,
which alone are the noble product, where men (and not pigs
with pumpkins) are the parties concerned Well, all this
fruit too, fruit spicy and commercial, fruit spiritual and ce-
lestial, so far beyond the merely pumpkinish and grossly
terrene, lies in the West-India lands: and the ultimate
200 MISCELLANIES.
“proprietorship” of them,--why, I suppose, it will vest in
him who can the best educe from them whatever of noble
produce they were created fit for yielding. He, I compute,
is the real “Vicegerent of the Maker” there; in him, better
and better chosen, and not in another, is the “property”
vested by decree of Heaven's chancery itself!
Up to this time it is the Saxon British mainly; they
hitherto have cultivated with some manfulness: and when
a manfuler class of cultivators, stronger, worthier to have
such land, abler to bring fruit from it, shall make their ap-
pearance,—they, doubt it not, by fortune of war, and other
confused negotiation and vicissitude, will be declared by
Nature and Fact to be the worthier, and will become pro-
prietors, perhaps also only for a time. That is the law, I
take it; ultimate, Supreme, for all lands in all countries
under this sky. The one perfect eternal proprietor is the
Maker who created them : the temporary better or worse
proprietor is he whom the Maker has sent on that mission;
he who the best hitherto can educe from said lands the
beneficent gifts the Maker endowed them with; or, which
is but another definition of the same person, he who leads
hitherto the manfulest life on that bit of soil, doing, better
than another yet found can do, the Eternal Purpose and
Supreme Will there.
And now observe, my friends, it was not Black Quashee,
or those he represents, that made those West-India Islands
what they are, or can, by any hypothesis, be considered to
have the right of growing pumpkins there. For countless
ages, since they first mounted oozy, on the back of earth-
quakes, from their dark bed in the Ocean deeps, and reeking
saluted the tropical Sun, and ever onwards till the European
white man first saw them some three short centuries ago,
those Islands had produced mere jungle, Savagery, poison-
THE NIGGER QUESTION. 201
reptiles and swamp-malaria: till the white European first
saw them, they were as if not yet created,—their noble
elements of cinnamon, sugar, coffee, pepper black and gray,
lying all asleep, waiting the white enchanter who should
say to them, Awake! Till the end of human history and
the sounding of the Trump of Doom, they might have lain
so, had Quashee and the like of him been the only artists in
the game. Swamps, fever-jungles, man-eating Caribs, rattle-
Snakes, and reeking waste and putrefaction, this had been
the produce of them under the incompetent Caribal (what
we call Cannibal) possessors, till that time; and Quashee
knows, himself, whether ever he could have introduced an
improvement. Him, had he by a miraculous chance been
wafted thither, the Caribals would have eaten, rolling him
as a fat morsel under their tongue; for him, till the sound-
ing of the Trump of Doom, the rattlesnakes and savage-
ries would have held-on their way. It was not he, then; it
was another than hel Never by art of his could one pump-
kin have grown there to solace any human throat; nothing
but savagery and reeking putrefaction could have grown
there. These plentiful pumpkins, I say therefore, are not
his: no, they are another's; they are his only under condi-
tions. Conditions which Exeter Hall, for the present, has
forgotten; but which Nature and the Eternal Powers have
by no manner of means forgotten, but do at all moments
keep in mind; and, at the right moment, will, with the due
impressiveness, perhaps in a rather terrible manner, bring
again to our mind also
If Quashee will not honestly aid in bringing-out those
Sugars, cinnamons and nobler products of the West-Indian
Islands, for the benefit of all mankind, then I say neither
will the Powers permit Quashee to continue growing pump-
kins there for his own lazy benefit; but will shear him out,
|
202 MISCELLANTES.
by and by, like a lazy gourd overshadowing rich ground;
him and all that partake with him, perhaps in a very ter-
rible manner. For, under favour of Exeter Hall, the “ter-
rible manner” is not yet quite extinct with the Destinies in
this Universe; nor will it quite cease, I apprehend, for soft
Souwder or philanthropic stump-oratory now or henceforth.
No ; the gods wish besides pumpkins, that spices and valu-
able products be grown in their West Indies; thus much
they have declared in so making the West Indies:—in-
finitely more they wish, that manful industrious men occupy
their West Indies, not indolent two-legged cattle, however
“happy” over their abundant pumpkins ! Both these things,
we may be assured, the immortal gods have decided upon,
passed their eternal Act of Parliament for: and both of
them, though all terrestrial Parliaments and entities oppose
it to the death, shall be done. Quashee, if he will not help
in bringing-out the spices, will get himself made a slave
again (which state will be a little less ugly than his present
one), and with beneficent whip, since other methods avail
not, will be compelled to work.
Or, alas, let him look across to Haiti, and trace a far sterner
prophecy I Let him, by his ugliness, idleness, rebellion, banish
all White men from the West Indies, and make it all one
Haiti, with little or no sugar growing, black Peter extermi-
nating black Paul, and where a garden of the Hesperides
might be, nothing but a tropical dog-kennel and pestiferous
jungle, does he think that will forever continue pleasant to
gods and men? I see men, the rose-pink cant all peeled
away from them, land one day on those black coasts; men
sent by the Laws of this Universe, and inexorable Course of
Things; men hungry for gold, remorseless, fierce as the old
Buccaneers were;—and a doom for Quashee which I had
rather not contemplatel The gods are long-suffering; but
THE NIGGER QUESTION. 203
the law from the beginning was, He that will not work shall
perish from the earth; and the patience of the gods has limits 1
Before the West Indies could grow a pumpkin for any
Negro, how much European heroism had to spend itself in
obscure battle; to sink, in mortal agony, before the jungles,
the putrescences and waste Savageries could become arable,
and the Devils be in some measure chained there ! The
West Indies grow pine-apples, and sweet fruits, and spices;
we hope they will one day grow beautiful Heroic human
Lives too, which is surely the ultimate object they were
made for: beautiful souls and brave; sages, poets, what
not; making the Earth nobler round them, as their kindred
from of old have been doing; true “splinters of the old Harz
Rock;” heroic white men, worthy to be called old Saxons,
browned with a mahogany tint in those new climates and
conditions. But under the soil of Jamaica, before it could
even produce spices or any pumpkin, the bones of many
thousand British men had to be laid. Brave Colonel Fortes-
cue, brave Colonel Sedgwick, brave Colonel Brayne,—the
dust of many thousand strong old English hearts lies there;
worn-down swiftly in frightful travail, chaining the Devils,
which were manifold. Heroic Blake contributed a bit of his
life to that Jamaica. A bit of the great Protector's own life
lies there; beneath those pumpkins lies a bit of the life that
was Oliver Cromwell's. How the great Protector would
have rejoiced to think, that all this was to issue in growing
pumpkins to keep Quashee in a comfortably idle condition
No ; that is not the ultimate issue; not that.
The West-Indian Whites, so soon as this bewilderment
of philanthropic and other jargon abates from them, and their
poor eyes get to discern a little what the Facts are and
what the Laws are, will strike into another course, I appre-
hend I apprehend they will, as a preliminary, resolutely
204 MISCELIANIES.
Téfuse to permit the Black man any privilege whatever of
pumpkins till he agree for work in return. Not a square
inch of soil in those fruitful Isles, purchased by British
blood, shall any Black man hold to grow pumpkins for him,
except on terms that are fair towards Britain. Fair; see
that they be not unfair, not towards ourselves, and still
more, not towards him. For injustice is forever accursed:
and precisely our unfairness towards the enslaved Black
man has, -by inevitable revulsion and fated turn of the
wheel,-brought about these present confusions.
Fair towards Britain it will be, that Quashee give work
for privilege to grow pumpkins. Not a pumpkin, Quashee,
not a square yard of soil, till you agree to do the State so
many days of service. Annually that soil will grow you
pumpkins; but annually also, without fail, shall you, for the
owner thereof, do your appointed days of labour. The State
has plenty of waste soil; but the State will religiously give
you none of it on other terms. The State wants sugar from
these Islands, and means to have it; wants virtuous indus-
try in these Islands, and must have it. The State demands
of you such service as will bring these results, this latter
result which includes all. Not a Black Ireland, by immi-
gration, and boundless black supply for the demand; not
that, may the gods forbid!—but a regulated West Indies,
with black working population in adequate numbers; all
“happy,” if they find it possible; and not entirely unbeauti-
ful to gods and men, which latter result they must find
possible ! All “happy” enough; that is to say, all working
according to the faculty they have got, making a little more
divine this Earth which the gods have given them. Is
there any other “happiness,”—if it be not that of pigs
fattening daily to the slaughter? So will the State speak
by and by. -
THE NIGGER QUESTION. 205
Any poor idle Black man, any idle White man, rich or
poor, is a mere eye-sorrow to the State; a perpetual blister
on the skin of the State. The State is taking measures,
some of them rather extensive, in Europe at this very time,
and already, as in Paris, Berlin and elsewhere, rather tre-
mendous measures, to get its rich white men set to work;
for alas, they also have long sat Negro-like up to the ears
in pumpkin, regardless of ‘work,' and of a world all going
to waste for their idleness! Extensive measures, I say;
and already (as, in all European lands, this scandalous Year
of street-barricades and fugitive sham-kings exhibits) tre-
mendous measures; for the thing is urgent to be done.
The thing must be done everywhere; must is the word.
Only it is so terribly difficult to do; and will take genera-
tions yet, this of getting our rich European white men ‘set
to work’ſ But yours in the West Indies, my obscure Black
friends, your work, and the getting of you set to it, is
a simple affair; and by diligence, the West-Indian legisla-
tures, and Royal governors, setting their faces fairly to the
problem, will get it done. You are not “slaves' now; nor
do I wish, if it can be avoided, to see you slaves again: but
decidedly you will have to be servants to those that are
born wiser than you, that are born lords of you; servants
to the Whites, if they are (as what mortal can doubt they
are?) born wiser than you. That, you may depend on it,
my obscure Black friends, is and was always the Law of the
World, for you and for all men: To be servants, the more
foolish of us to the more wise; and only sorrow, futility
and disappointment will betide both, till both in some ap-
proximate degree get to conform to the same. Heaven's
laws are not repealable by Earth, however Earth may try,
—and it has been trying hard, in some directions, of late |
I say, no well-being, and in the end no being at all, will be
206 MISCELLANTES.
possible for you or us, if the law of Heaven is not complied
with. And if “slave' mean essentially “servant hired for
life,'—for life, or by a contract of long continuance and not
easily dissoluble,_I ask once more, Whether, in all human
things, the ‘contract of long continuance’ is not precisely
the contract to be desired, were the right terms once found
for it? Servant hired for life, were the right terms once
found, which I do not pretend they are, seems to me much
preferable to servant hired for the month, or by contract
dissoluble in a day. What that amounts to, we have
known, and our thirty-thousand Distressed Astronomers have
known; and we don't want that! [Some assent in the small
remnant of an audience. “Silence 1” from the Chair.]
To state articulately, and put into practical Lawbooks,
what on all sides is fair from the West-Indian White to
the West-Indian Black; what relations the Eternal Maker
has established between these two creatures of His ; what
He has written down with intricate but ineffaceable record,
legible to candid human insight, in the respective qualities,
strengths, necessities and capabilities of each of the two :
this, as I told the Hon. Hickory my Carolina correspondent,
will be a long problem ; only to be solved by continuous
human endeavour, and earnest effort gradually perfecting it-
self as experience successively yields new light to it. This
will be to “find the right terms; terms of a contract that
will endure, and be sanctioned by Heaven, and obtain pro-
sperity on Earth, between the two. A long problem, terribly
neglected hitherto;-whence these West-Indian sorrows,
and Exeter-Hall monstrosities, just now ! But a problem
which must be entered upon, and by degrees be completed.
A problem which, I think, the English People also, if they
mean to retain human Colonies, and not Black Irelands in
addition to the White, cannot begin too soon. What are
THE NIGGER QUESTION. 207
the true relations between Negro and White, their mutual
duties under the sight of the Maker of them both; what
human laws will assist both to comply more and more with
these ? The solution, only to be gained by earnest endea-
vour, and sincere reading of experience, such as have never
yet been bestowed on it, is not yet here; the solution is
perhaps still distant. But some approximation to it, various
real approximations, could be made, and must be made :-
this of declaring that Negro and White are unrelated, loose
from one another, on a footing of perfect equality, and sub-
ject to no law but that of supply-and-demand according to
the Dismal Science; this, which contradicts the palpablest
facts, is clearly no solution, but a cutting of the knot
asunder; and every hour we persist in this is leading us
towards dissolution instead of solution |
What, then, is practically to be done by us poor English
with our Demerara and other blacks? Well, in such a mess
as we have made there, it is not easy saying what is first to
be done ! But all this of perfect equality, of cutting quite
loose from one another; all this, with ‘immigration loan,”
‘happiness of black peasantry,’ and the other melancholy
stuff that has followed from it, will first of all require to be
wndone, and the ground cleared of it, by way of preliminary
to ‘doing’l After that there may several things be possible.
Already one hears of Black Adscripti glebae; which seems
a promising arrangement, one of the first to suggest itself in
such a complicacy. It appears the Dutch Blacks, in Java,
are already a kind of Adscripts, after the manner of the old
European serfs; bound, by royal authority, to give so many
days of work a year. Is not this something like a real
approximation; the first step towards all manner of such?
Wherever, in British territory, there exists a Black man, and
needful work to the just extent is not to be got out of him,
208 MISCELLANTES.
such a law, in defect of better, should be brought to bear
upon said Black man How many laws of like purport,
conceivable some of them, might be brought to bear upon
the Black man and the White, with all despatch by way of
solution instead of dissolution to their complicated case just
now ! On the whole, it ought to be rendered possible, ought
it not, for White men to live beside Black men, and in some
just manner to command Black men, and produce West-
Indian fruitfulness by means of them 3 West-Indian fruit-
fulness will need to be produced. If the English cannot
find the method for that, they may rest assured there will
another come (Brother Jonathan or still another) who can.
He it is whom the gods will bid continue in the West
Indies; bidding us ignominiously, “Depart, ye quack-ridden,
incompetent l”—
One other remark, as to the present Trade in Slaves,
and to our suppression of the same. If buying of Black
war-captives in Africa, and bringing them over to the Sugar-
Islands for sale again be, as I think it is, a contradiction of
the Laws of this Universe, let us heartily pray Heaven to
end the practice; let us ourselves help Heaven to end it,
wherever the opportunity is given. If it be the most fla-
grant and alarming contradiction to the said Laws which is
now witnessed on this Earth; SO flagrant and alarming that
a just man cannot exist, and follow his affairs, in the same
Planet with it; why, then indeed—— But is it, quite cer-
tainly, such 3 Alas, look at that group of unsold, unbought,
unmarketable Irish “free” citizens, dying there in the ditch,
whither my Lord of Rackrent and the constitutional sheriffs
have evicted them ; or at those “divine missionaries,” of the
same free country, now traversing, with rags on back, and
child on each arm, the principal thoroughfares of London, to
THE NIGGER QUESTION. 209
tell men what “freedom” really is;–and admit that there
may be doubts on that point l But if it is, I say, the most
alarming contradiction to the said Laws which is now wit-
nessed on this earth; so flagrant a contradiction that a just
man cannot exist, and follow his affairs, in the same Planet
with it, then, sure enough, let us, in God’s name, fling-aside
all our affairs, and hasten out to put an end to it, as the first
thing the Heavens want us to do. By all manner of means.
This thing done, the Heavens will prosper all other things
with us! Not a doubt of it, provided your premiss be not
doubtful.
But now, furthermore, give me leave to ask, Whether the
way of doing it is this somewhat surprising one, of trying
to blockade the Continent of Africa itself, and to watch
slave-ships along that extremely extensive and unwhole-
some coast 3 The enterprise is very gigantic ; and proves
hitherto as futile as any enterprise has lately done. Certain
wise men once, before this, set about confining the cuckoo
by a big circular wall; but they could not manage it !—
Watch the coast of Africa? That is a very long Coast;
good part of the Coast of the terraqueous Globe And the
living centres of this slave mischief, the live coals that pro-
duce all this world-wide smoke, it appears, lie simply in two
points, Cuba and Brazil, which are perfectly accessible and
manageable.
If the Laws of Heaven do authorise you to keep the
whole world in a pother about this question; if you really
can appeal to the Almighty God upon it, and set common
interests, and terrestrial considerations, and common sense,
at defiance in behalf of it, why, in Heaven's name, not go
to Cuba and Brazil with a sufficiency of Seventy-fours; and
signify to those nefarious countries: “Nefarious countries,
“your procedure on the Negro Question is too bad; see, of
VOL. XI. (Misc. vol. 6.) P
210 MISCELLANTES.
“all the solecisms now submitted to on Earth, it is the most
“ alarming and transcendent, and, in fact, is such that a
“just man cannot follow his affairs any longer in the same
“Planet with it. You clearly will not, you nefarious popu-
“lations, for love or fear, watching or entreaty, respect the
“rights of the Negro enough ;-wherefore we here, with our
“Seventy-fours, are come to be King over you, and will on
“the spot henceforth see for ourselves that you do it!”
Why not, if Heaven do send us? The thing can be
done; easily, if you are sure of that proviso. It can be
done: it is the way to “suppress the Slave-trade;” and so
far as yet appears, the one way. -
Most thinking people, if hen-stealing prevail to a plainly
unendurable extent, will you station police-officers at every
hen-roost; and keep them watching and cruising incessantly
to and fro over the Parish, in the unwholesome dark, at
enormous expense, with almost no effect? Or will you not
try rather to discover where the fox's den is, and kill the
fox Which of those two things will you do? Most think-
ing people, you know the fox and his den; there he is, -
kill him, and discharge your cruisers and police-watchers!—
[Laughter.]
O my friends, I feel there is an immense fund of Human
Stupidity circulating among us, and much clogging our
affairs for some time past! A certain man has called us,
“of all peoples the wisest in action;” but he added, “the
stupidest in speech:”—and it is a sore thing, in these con-
stitutional times, times mainly of universal Parliamentary
and other Eloquence, that the “speakers” have all first to
emit, in such tumultuous volumes, their human stupor, as
the indispensable preliminary, and everywhere we must first
see that and its results out, before beginning any business.-
(Euplicit Ms.)
TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS AGO.
A FRAGMENT ABOUT DUELS.
[1850.]
TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS AGO.1
DUELLING.
DUELLING, in Queen Elizabeth's reign, was very prevalent;
nor has it abated in King James's. It is one of the sinceri-
ties of Human Life, which bursts through the thickest-
quilted formulas; and in Norse-Pagan, in Christian, New-
Christian, and all manner of ages, will, one way or the other,
contrive to show itself.
A background of wrath, which can be stirred-up to the
murderous infernal pitch, does lie in every man, in every
creature; this is a fact which cannot be contradicted;—
which indeed is but another phasis of the more general fact,
that every one of us is a Self, that every one of us calls
himself I. How can you be a Self, and not have tendencies
to self-defence . This background of wrath, which surely
ought to blaze-Out as seldom as possible, and them as nobly
as possible,_may be defined as no other than the general
radical fire, in its least-elaborated shape, whereof Life itself
is composed. Its least-elaborated shape, this flash of ac-
cursed murderous rage;—as the glance of mother's-love, and
all intermediate warmths and energies and genialities, are
the same element better elaborated. Certainly the elabora-
1 Found recently in Leigh Hunt's Journal, Nos. 1, 3, 6 (Saturday 7th December
1850 et seqq.). Said there to be ‘from a Waste-paper Bag' of mine. Apparently
some fraction of a certain History (Failure of a History) of James I., of which I
have indistinct recollections. (Note of 1857.)
214 IMISCELLANTES.
tion is an immense matter, indeed, is the whole matter!
But the figure, moreover, under which your infernal element
itself shall make its appearance, nobly or else ignobly, is
very significant. From Indian Tomahawks, from Irish Shil-
lelahs, from Arkansas Bowie-knives, up to a deliberate Norse
Holmgang, to any civilised Wager of Battle, the distance is
great.
Certain small fractions of events in this kind, which give
us a direct glance into Human Existence in those days, are
perhaps, in the dim scarcity of all events that are not dead
and torpid, worth Snatching from the general leaden haze
of my erudite friend, and saving from bottomless Nox for
a while.
NO. I.
EIOLLES OF BIAUGHTON.
John Holles, Esquire, or, to speak properly, Sir John
Holles, of Haughton, in Notts; the same Sir John whom we
saw lately made Comptroller of the Prince's Household;—
an indignant man, not without some relation to us here:
John Holles indignantly called it “political simony” this sell-
ing of honours; which indeed it was: but what then 3 It
was doable, it was done for others; it was desirable to John
also, who possessed the requisite cash. He was come of
London citizens, had got broad lands and manors, Haugh-
ton, Erby and others; had wealth in abundance,—‘his father
used to keep a troop of players: he now, in this epoch, for
a consideration of 10,000l., gets himself made Earl of Clare.
We invite our readers to look back some two-score years
upon his history, and notice slightly the following circum-
stances there.
TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS AGO. 215
John Holles, Esquire, of Haughton, in Notts, a youth of
fortune, spirit and accomplishment, who had already seen
service under the Veres, the Frobishers, by land and sea,
did in 1591, in his twenty-sixth year, marry his fair neigh-
bour, Anne Stanhope;—Mistress Anne Stanhope, daughter
of Sir Thomas Stanhope, in those parts, from whom innumer-
able Chesterfields, Harringtons and other Stanhopes extant
to this very day descend. This fair Anne Stanhope, beau-
tiful in her fardingales and antiquarian headgear, had been
the lady of John Holles's heart in those old times; and he
married her, thinking it no harm. But the Shrewsburys,
of Worksop, took offence at it. In his father's time, who
kept the troop of players and did other things, John Holles
had been bespoken for a daughter of the Shrewsburys; and
now here has he gone-over to the Stanhopes, enemies of
the house of Shrewsbury. Ill blood in consequence; fer-
ment of high humours; a Montague-and-Capulet business;
the very retainers, on both sides, biting thumbs at One
another.
Pudsey, a retainer on the Shrewsbury Worksop side, bit
his thumb at Orme, a retainer on the Holles Haughton side;
was called-out with drawn rapier; was slain on the spot,
like fiery Tybalt, and never bit his thumb more. Orme,
poor man, was tried for murder; but of course the Holleses
and the Stanhopes could not let him be hanged; they made
interest, they fee’d law-counsel,-they smuggled him away
to Ireland, and he could not be hanged. Whereupon Ger-
vase Markham, a passably loose-tongued, loose-living gen-
tleman, sworn squire-of-dames to the Dowager of Shrews-
bury, took upon himself to say publicly, “That John Holles
was himself privy to Pudsey's murder; that John Holles
And thereupon John
p:
himself, if justice were done—!
Holles, at Haughton, in Notts, special date not given, pre-
216 MISCELLANTES.
sumable date 1594 or ’95, indited this emphatic Note, already
known to some readers:
‘For Gervase Markham.
‘Whereas you have said that I was guilty of that villany
‘ of Orme in the death of Pudsey, I affirm that you lie, and
‘lie like a villain; which I shall be ready to make good
‘ upon yourself, or upon any gentleman my equal living.—
‘JOHN HOLLES.”
Gervase Markham, called upon in this emphatic way,
answered, “Yes, he would fight; certainly;-and it should
be in Worksop Park, on such a day as would suit Holles
best.” Worksop Park; locked Park of the Shrewsburys
Holles, being in his sound wits, cannot consent to fight
there; and Markham and the world silently insinuate, “Are
you subject to niceties in your fighting, then? Readier,
after all, with your tongue than with your rapier?” These
mew intolerabilities John Holles had to pocket as he could,
to keep close in the scabbard, beside his rapier, till perhaps
a day would come.
Time went on : John Holles had a son; then, in 1597, a
second son, Denzil by name. Denzil Holles, Oliver Crom-
well's Denzil: yes, reader, this is he ; come into the world
not without omens ! For at his christening, Lady Stanhope,
glad matron, came ās grandmother and godmother; and
Holles, like a dutiful son-in-law, escorted her homewards
through the Forest again. Forest of merry Sherwood,
where Robin Hood and others used to inhabit; that way
lies their road. And now, riding so toward Shelton House,
through the glades of Sherwood, whom should they chance
to meet but Gervase Markham also ambling along, with
some few in his company Here, then, had the hour ar-
rived.
TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS AGO. 217
With slight salutation and time of day, the two parties
passed on : but Holles, with convenient celerity, took leave
of his mother-in-law: “Adieu, noble Madam, it is all straight
road now !” Waving a fond adieu, Holles gallops back
through Sherwood glades; overtakes Markham ; with brief
emphasis, bids him dismount, and stand upon his guard.
And so the rapiers are flashing and jingling in the Forest
of Sherwood; and two men are flourishing and fencing,
their intents deadly and not charitable. “Markham,” cried
Holles, “guard yourself better, or I shall spoil you pre-
sently;” for Markham, thrown into a flurry, fences ill; in
fact, rather capers and flourishes than fences; his antagonist
standing steady in his place the while, supple as an eel,
alert as a serpent, and with a sting in him too. See, in few
passes, our alert Holles has ended the capering of Markham;
has pierced and spitted him through the lower abdominal
regions, in very important quarters of the body, “ coming
out at the small of the back'ſ That, apparently, will do for
Markham; loose-tongued, loose-living Gervase Markham lies
low, having got enough. Visible to us there, in the glades
of ancient Sherwood, in the depths of long-vanished years
O Dryasdust, was there not a Human Existence going-on
there too; of hues other than the leaden-hazy? The fruit-
trees looked all leafy, blossomy, my erudite friend, and the
Life-tree Igdrasil which fills this Universe; and they had
not yet rotted to brown peat Torpid events shall be
simply damnable, and continually claim oblivion from all
souls; but the smallest fractions of events not torpid shall
be welcome. John Holles, “with his man Acton, leaving
Markham in this sated condition, ride home to Haughton
with questionable thoughts.
Nevertheless Markham did not die. He was carried
home to Worksop, pale, hopeless; pierced in important
218 MISCELLANTES.
quarters of the body: and the Earl of Shrewsbury ‘gathered
a hundred retainers to apprehend Holles;' and contrariwise
the Earl of Sheffield came to Haughton with fifty retainers
to protect Holles;–and in the mean while Markham began
to show symptoms of recovering, and the retainers dispersed
themselves again. The Doctor declared that Markham
would live; but that, but that—Here, we will suppose,
the Doctor tragi-comically shook his head, pleading the im-
perfections of language 1 Markham did live long after;
breaking several of the commandments, but keeping one of
them it is charitably believed. For the rest, having ‘vowed
never to eat supper nor to take the Sacrament till he was
revenged on Holles, he did not enjoy either of those conso-
lations in this world.”
Such doings went forward in Sherwood Forest and in
our English Life-arena elsewhere; the trees being as yet all
green and leafy.
NO. II. *
CROYDON RACES.
Sardanapalus Hay, and other Scotch favourites of King
James, have transiently gleamed athwart us; their number
is in excess, not in defect. These hungry magnificent indi-
viduals, of whom Sardanapalus Hay is one, and Supreme
Car another, are an eye-sorrow to English subjects; and
sour looks, bitter gibes, followed by duels within and with-
out the verge, keep his Majesty's pacificatory hand in use.
How many duels has he soldered-up, with difficulty: for the
2 The above facts are given in Gervase Holles's Manuscript Memoirs of the
Family of IIolles (in Biographia Britannica, Š Holles); a Manuscript which some of
our Dryasdust Societies ought to print.
TWO ETUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS AGO. 219
English are of a grim humour when soured; and the Scotch
too are fierce and proud; and it is a truculent swash-buckler
age, ready with its stroke, in whatever else it may be
wanting.
Scotch Maxwell, James Maxwell, Usher of the Black or
some kind of Rod, did he not, in his insolent sardonic way,
of which he is capable, take a certain young tastefully
dizened English gentleman by the bandstring, may perhaps
by the earring and its appendage, by some black ribbon in
or about the ear; and so, by the ribbon, lead him out from
the Royal Presence,—as if he had been a nondescript in
Natural History; some tame rabbit, of unusual size and
aspect, with ribbon in its earl Such touches of sardonic
humour please me little. The Four Inns of Court were in
deadly emotion; and fashionable Young England in general
demanded satisfaction, with a growl that was tremendous
enough. Sardonic Maxwell had to apologise in the com-
pletest manner-and be more wary in future how he led-
out fashionable young gentlemen.
“Beat pacifici, Happy are the peacemakers,” said his
Majesty always. Good Majesty; shining examples of jus-
tice too he is prepared to afford; and has a smarl in him
which can occasionally bite. Of Crichton Lord Sanquhar,
from the pleasant valley of Nith, how the Fencing-master
accidentally pricked an eye out of him, and he forgave it;
how, much wrought-upon afterwards, he was at last induced
to have the Fencing-master assassinated;—and to have him-
self executed in Palace Yard in consequence, and his two
assassin servants hanged in Fleet Street; rough Border
serving-men of all work, too unregardful of the gallows: of
this unadmirable Crichton the whole world heard, not without
pity, and can still hear.”
8 State Thials.
220 MISCELLANIES.
This of Croydon Races, too, if we read old Osborne with
reflection, will become significant of many things. How the
races were going On, a new delightful invention of that age;
and Croydon Heath was populous with multitudes come to
see; and between James Ramsay of the Dalhousie Ramsays,
and Philip Herbert of the Montgomery Herberts, there rose
Sudden strife; sharp passages of wit, ending in a sharp
stroke of Ramsay's switch over the crown and face of my
Lord Montgomery, the great Earl of Pembroke's brother,
and himself capable to be Earl Pembroke It is a fact of
the most astonishing description: undeniable,_though the
exact date and circumstances will now never be discovered
in this world. It is all vague as cloud, in old Osborne; lies
off or on, within sight of Prince Henry's Pageant; exact
date of it never to be known. Yet is it well recognisable as
distant ill-defined land, and no cloud; not dream but aston-
ishing fact. Can the reader sufficiently admire at it? The
honourable Philip Herbert, of the best blood of England,
here is he switched over the crown by an accursed Scotch
Ramsay ! We hear the swift-stinging descent of the igno-
minious horse-switch; we see the Swift-blazing countenances
of gods and men.
Instantaneous shriek, as was inevitable, rises near and
far: The Scotch insolence, Scotch pride and hunger, Scotch
damnability And ‘a cripple man, with only the use of
three fingers, crooked of shape, hot of temper, rode about
the field with drawn dagger; urging in a shrill manner,
that we should prick every Scotch lown of them home to
their own beggarly country again, or to the Devil,—off
Croydon Heath, at least. The name of this shrill indivi-
dual, with dagger grasped between two fingers and a
thumb, was ‘John Pinchback’ or Pinchbeck; and appears
here in History, with something like golden lustre, for one
TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS AGO. 221
moment and no more. “Let us breakfast on them at Croy-
don,” cries Pinchbeck, in a shrill, inspired manner; “and
sup on them at London " The hour was really ominous.
But Philip Herbert, beautiful young man, himself of infirm
temper and given to strokes, stood firmly dissuasive : he is
in the King's service, how shall he answer it; he was him-
self to blame withal. And young Edward Sackville is, with
his young friend Bruce of Kinloss, firmly dissuasive ; it is
the Bruce whom we saw at the chapel-door, stepping-out a
new-made knight, now here with Sackville; dear friends
these, not always to be friends ! But for the present they
are firmly dissuasive; all considerate persons are dissuasive.
Pinchbeck's dagger brandishes itself in vain.
Sits the wind so, O Pinchbeck? Sidney's sister, Pem-
broke's mother: this is her son, and he stands a switch 3–
Yes, my shrill crookbacked friend, to avoid huge riot and
calamity, he does so : and I see a massive nobleness in the
man, which thou, egregious cock of bantam, wilt never in
this world comprehend, but only crow over in thy shrill
way. Ramsay and the Scots, and all persons, rode home
unharmed that night; and my shrill friend gradually com-
posed himself again. Philip Herbert may expect knight-
hoods, lordhoods, court-promotions: neither did his heroic
mother ‘tear her hair, I think, to any great extent, except
in the imaginations of Osborne, Pinchbeck and suchlike.
This was the scene of Croydon Races; a fact, and signi-
ficant of many facts, that hangs-out for us like a cloud-island,
and is not cloud.”
4 Francis Osborne's Traditional Memorials on the Reign of James the First (Re-
printed in Sir Walter Scott's History of the Court of James I., Edinburgh, 1811),
pp. 220-227. $
222 MISCELLANTES.
NO. III.
SIR. THOMAS DUTTON AND SIR, HATTON CEIEEK.
His Majesty, as I perceive in spite of calumnies, was not
a “coward; see how he behaved in the Gowrie Conspiracy
and elsewhere. But he knew the value, to all persons, and
to all interests of persons, of a whole skin; how unthrifty
everywhere is any solution of continuity, if it can be avoided!
He struggled to preside pacifically over an age of some
ferocity much given to wrangling. Peace here, if possible;
skins were not made for mere slitting and slashing ! You
that are for war, cannot you go abroad, and fight the Papist
Spaniards? Over in the Netherlands there is always fight-
ing enough. You that are of ruffling humour, gather your
truculent ruffians together; make yourselves colonels over
them; go to the Netherlands, and fight your bellyfull
Which accordingly many do, earning deathless war-
laurels for the moment; and have done, and will continue
doing, in those generations. Our gallant Veres, Earl of Ox-
ford and the others, it has long been their way: gallant
Cecil, to be called Earl of Wimbledon; gallant Sir John
Burroughs, gallant Sir Hatton Cheek, it is still their way.
Deathless military renowns are gathered there in this
manner; deathless for the moment. Did not Ben Jonson,
in his young hard days, bear arms very manfully as a pri-
vate soldado there? Ben, who now writes learned plays
and court-masks as Poet Laureate, served manfully with
pike and sword there for his groat a day with rations. And
once when a Spanish soldier came strutting forward be-
tween the lines, flourishing his weapon, and defying all
persons in general,—Ben stept forth, as I hear;” fenced that
° Life of Ben Jonson.
TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS AGO. 223
braggart Spaniard, since no other would do it; and ended
by soon slitting him in two, and so silencing him Ben's
war-tuck, to judge by the flourish of his pen, must have had
a very dangerous stroke in it.
‘Swashbuckler age, we said; but the expression was in-
correct, except as a figure. Bucklers went out fifty years
ago, ‘about the twentieth of Queen Elizabeth; men do not
now swash with them, or fight in that way. Iron armour
has mostly gone out, except in mere pictures of soldiers:
Ring James said, It was an excellent invention; you could
get no harm in it, and neither could you do any. Bucklers,
either for horse or foot, are quite gone. Yet old Mr. Stowe,
good chronicler, can recollect when every gentleman had
his buckler: and at length every serving-man and City
dandy. Smithfield,—still a waste field, full of puddles in
wet weather, was in those days full of buckler-duels, every
Sunday and holiday in the dry season; and was called
Ruffian's Rig, or some such name.
A man, in those days, bought his buckler, of gilt leather
and wood, at the haberdasher's; “hung it over his back, by
a strap fastened to the pommel of his sword in front. Ele-
gant men showed what taste, or sense of poetic beauty, was
in them, by the fashion of their buckler. With Spanish
beaver, with starched ruff, and elegant Spanish cloak, with
elegant buckler hanging at his back, a man, if his mousta-
chios and boots were in good order, stepped forth with some
satisfaction. Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the
pard; a decidedly truculent-looking figure. Jostle him in
the street thoroughfares, accidentally splash his boots as
you pass, -by Heaven, the buckler gets upon his arm, the
sword flashes in his fist, with oaths enough; and you too
being ready, there is a noise! Clink, clank, death and fury;
224 MISCELLANTES.
all persons gathering round, and new quarrels springing
from this one ! And Dogberry comes up with the town-
guard? And the shopkeepers hastily close their shops?
Nay, it is hardly necessary, says Mr. Howe: these buckler-
fights amount only to noise, for most part; the jingle of
iron against tin and painted leather. Ruffling swashers
strutting along, with big oaths and whiskers, delight to pick
a quarrel; but the rule is, you do not thrust, you do not
strike below the waist; and it was oftenest a dry duel—
mere noise, as of working tinsmiths, with profane swearing !
Empty vapouring bullyrooks and braggarts, they encumber
the thoroughfares mainly. Dogberry and Verges ought to
apprehend them. I have seen, in Smithfield on a dry holi-
day, ‘thirty of them on a side, fighting and hammering as
if for life; and was not at the pains" to look at them, the
blockheads; their moise as the mere beating of old kettles
to me !
The truth is, serving-men themselves, and City appren-
tices, had got bucklers; and the duels, no death following,
ceased to be sublime. About fifty years ago, serious men
took to fighting with rapiers, and the buckler fell away.
Holles in Sherwood, as we saw, fought with rapier, and he
soon spoiled Markham. Rapier and dagger especially; that
is a more silent duel, but a terribly serious one ! Perhaps
the reader will like to take a view of one such serious duel
in those days, and there with close this desultory chapter.
It was at the siege of Juliers, in the Netherlands wars,
of the year 1610; we give the date, for wars are perpetual,
° Stowe's Chronicle, and Howe's Continuation, 1024, &c.
7 Siege began in the latter end of July 1610; ended victoriously, 4th September
following : principal assaults were, 10th August and 14th August ; in one of which
this affair of ours must have taken rise. Siege commanded by Christian of Anhalt,
TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS AGO. 225
or nearly so, in the Netherlands. At one of the storm-parties
of the siege of Juliers, the gallant Sir Hatton Cheek, above
alluded to, a superior officer of the English force which fights
there under my Lord Cecil, that shall be Wimbledon; the
gallant Sir Hatton, I say, being of hot temper, superior
officer, and the service a storm-party on some bastion or
demilune, speaks sharp word of command to Sir Thomas
Dutton, the officer under him, who also is probably of hot
temper in this hot moment. Sharp word of command to
Dutton; and the movement not proceeding rightly, sharp
word of rebuke. To which Dutton, with kindled voice,
answers something sharp; is answered still more sharply
with voice high-flaming;-whereat Dutton suddenly holds
in ; says merely, “He is under military duty here, but
perhaps will not always be so;” and rushing forward, does
his order silently, the best he can. His order done, Dutton
straightway lays down his commission; packs up, that
night, and returns to England.
Sir Hatton Cheek prosecutes his work at the siege of
Juliers; gallantly assists at the taking of Juliers, triumph-
ant over all the bastions and half-moons there; but hears
withal that Dutton is, at home in England, defaming him
as a choleric tyrant and so forth. Dreadful news; which
brings some biliary attack on the gallant man, and reduces
him to a bed of sickness. Hardly recovered, he despatches
message to Dutton, That he will request to have the plea-
sure of his company, with arms and seconds ready, on some
a famed Protestant Captain of those times. Henri IV. of France was assassinated
while setting-out for this siege ; Prince Maurice of Nassau was there ; ‘Dutch
* troops, French, English and German' (Brandenburgers and Pfalz-Neuburgers chiefly,
versus Kaiser Rodolf II. and his unjust seizure of the Town) ‘fought with the
greatest unity.’ Prelude to the Thirty-Years War, and one of the principal
sources of it, this Controversy about Juliers. (Carl Friedrich Pauli: Allgemeine
Preussische Staats-Geschichte, 4to, Halle, 1762, iii. 502-527.)
WOL. XI. (Misc, vol. 6.) Q
226 MISCELLANTES.
neutral ground,-Calais sands for instance,—at an early day,
if convenient. Convenient; yes, as dinner to the hungry !
answers Dutton; and time, place and circumstances are ra-
pidly enough agreed upon. -
And so, on Calais sands, in a winter morning of the year
1610, this is what we see, most authentically, through the
lapse of dim Time. Two gentlemen stript to the shirt and
waistband; in the two hands of each a rapier and dagger
clutched; their looks sufficiently serious ! The seconds,
having stript, equipt, and fairly overhauled and certified
them, are just about retiring from the measured fate-circle,
not without indignation that they are forbidden to fight.
Two gentlemen in this alarming posture; of whom the Uni-
verse knows, has known, and will know nothing, except
that they were of choleric humour, and assisted in the
Netherlands wars l They are evidently English human
creatures, in the height of silent fury, and measured circuit
of fate; whom we here audibly name once more, Sir Hatton
Cheek, Sir Thomas Dutton, knights both, soldadoes both.
Ill-fated English human creatures, what horrible confusion
of the Pit is this ?
Dutton, though in suppressed rage, the seconds about to
withdraw, will explain some things if a word were granted.
“No words,” says the other; “stand on your guard!” bran-
dishing his rapier, grasping harder his dagger. Dutton, now
silent too, is on his guard. Good Heavens: after some brief
flourishing and flashing, the gleam of the swift clear steel
playing madly in one's eyes,—they, at the first pass, plunge
home on one another; home, with beak and claws; home to
the very heart! Cheek's rapier is through Dutton's throat
from before, and his dagger is through it from behind,-the
windpipe miraculously missed; and, in the same instant,
Dutton's rapier is through Cheek's body from before, his
TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS AGO. 227
dagger through his back from behind,-lungs and life not
missed; and the seconds have to advance, ‘pull out the
four bloody weapons,’ disengage that hell-embrace of theirs.
This is serious enough Cheek reels, his life fast flowing;
but still rushes rabid on Dutton, who merely parries, skips;
till Cheek reels down, dead in his rage. “He had a bloody
burial there that morning,” says my ancient friend.” He
will assist no more in the Netherlands or other wars.
Such scene does History disclose, as in Sunbeams, as in
blazing hell-fire, on Calais sands, in the raw winter morn-
ing; then drops the blanket of centuries, of everlasting
Night, over it, and passes on elsewhither. Gallant Sir Hat-
ton Cheek lies buried there, and Cecil of Wimbledon, son of
Burleigh, will have to seek another superior officer. What
became of the living Dutton afterwards, I have never to this
moment had the least hint.
8 Wilson (in Kennet), ii. 684.
THE OBER A.
TEIE OPERA.1
[“DEAR P.,-Not having anything of my own which I could con-
tribute (as is my wish and duty) to this pious Adventure of yours,
and not being able in these busy days to get anything ready, I decide
to offer you a bit of an Excerpt from that singular Conspectus of Eng-
Jand, lately written, not yet printed, by Professor Ezechiel Peasemeal,
a distinguished American friend of mine. Dr. Peasemeal will excuse
my printing it here. His Conspectus, a work of some extent, has al-
ready been crowned by the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Buncombe,
which includes, as you know, the chief thinkers of the New World;
and it will probably be printed entire in their “Transactions' one day.
Meanwhile let your readers have the first taste of it; and much good
may it do them and you!”—T. C.]
MUSIC is well said to be the speech of angels; in fact, no-
thing among the utterances allowed to man is felt to be
so divine. It brings us near to the Infinite; we look for
moments, across the cloudy elements, into the eternal Sea of
Light, when song leads and inspires us. Serious nations,
all nations that can still listen to the mandate of Nature,
have prized song and music as the highest; as a vehicle
1 KEEPSAKE for 1852.—The “dear P.” there, I recollect, was my old friend
Procter (Barry Cornwall); and his ‘pious Adventure' had reference to that same
Publication, under touching human circumstances which had lately arisen.
232 MISCELLANTES.
for worship, for prophecy, and for whatsoever in them was
divine. Their singer was a vates, admitted to the council of
the universe, friend of the gods, and choicest benefactor to
I(18 lil.
Reader, it was actually so in Greek, in Roman, in Moslem,
Christian, most of all in Old-Hebrew times: and if you look
how it now is, you will find a change that should astonish
you. Good Heavens, from a Psalm of Asaph to a seat at
the London Opera in the Haymarket, what a road have men
travelled! The waste that is made in music is probably
among the saddest of all our squanderings of God’s gifts.
Music has, for a long time past, been avowedly mad, di-
vorced from sense and the reality of things; and runs about
now as an open Bedlamite, for a good many generations
back, bragging that she has nothing to do with sense and
reality, but with fiction and delirium only ; and stares with
unaffected amazement, not able to suppress an elegant
burst of witty laughter, at my suggesting the old fact
to her.
Fact nevertheless it is, forgotten, and fallen ridiculous as
it may be. Tyrtaeus, who had a little music, did not sing
Barbers of Seville, but the need of beating back one's coun-
try's enemies; a most true song, to which the hearts of men
did burst responsive into fiery melody, followed by fiery
strokes before long. Sophocles also sang, and showed in
grand dramatic rhythm and melody, not a fable but a fact,
the best he could interpret it; the judgments of Eternal
Destiny upon the erring sons of men. AEschylus, Sophocles,
all noble poets were priests as well; and sang the truest
(which was also the divinest) they had been privileged to
discover here below. To “sing the praise of God,” that, you
will find, if you can interpret old words, and see what new
things they mean, was always, and will always be, the busi-
THE OPERA. 233
ness of the singer. He who forsakes that business, and,
wasting our divinest gifts, sings the praise of Chaos, what
shall we say of him
David, king of Judah, a soul inspired by divine music
and much other heroism, was wont to pour himself in song;
he, with seer's eye and heart, discerned the Godlike amid
the Human; struck tones that were an echo of the sphere-
harmonies, and are still felt to be such. Reader, art thou
one of a thousand, able still to read a Psalm of David, and
catch some echo of it through the old dim centuries; feeling
far off, in thy own heart, what it once was to other hearts
made as thine? To sing it attempt not, for it is impossible
in this late time; only know that it once was sung. Then
go to the Opera, and hear, with unspeakable reflections,
what things men now sing ! ” “ ”
Of the Haymarket Opera my account, in fine, is this:
Lustres, candelabras, painting, gilding at discretion; a hall
as of the Caliph Alraschid, or him that commanded the
slaves of the Lamp; a hall as if fitted-up by the genii, re-
gardless of expense. Upholstery, and the outlay of human
capital, could do no more. Artists, too, as they are called,
have been got together from the ends of the world, regard-
less likewise of expense, to do dancing and singing, some of
them even geniuses in their craft. One singer in particular,
called Coletti or some such name, seemed to me, by the cast
of his face, by the tones of his voice, by his general bearing,
so far as I could read it, to be a man of deep and ardent
sensibilities, of delicate intuitions, just sympathies; origin-
ally an almost poetic soul, or man of genius, as we term
it; stamped by Nature as capable of far other work than
squalling here, like a blind Samson, to make the Philistines
sport l
234 MTSCELLANTES.
Nay, all of them had aptitudes, perhaps of a distinguished
kind; and must, by their own and other people's labour,
have got a training equal or superior in toilsomeness, ear-
nest assiduity and patient travail to what breeds men to the
most arduous trades. I speak not of kings, grandees, or the
like show-figures; but few soldiers, judges, men of letters,
can have had such pains taken with them. The very ballet-
girls, with their muslim saucers round them, were perhaps
little short of miraculous; whirling and spinning there in
strange mad vortexes, and then suddenly fixing themselves
motionless, each upon her left or right great toe, with the
other leg stretched out at an angle of ninety degrees, as
if you had suddenly pricked into the floor, by one of their
points, a pair, or rather a multitudinous cohort, of mad rest-
lessly jumping and clipping scissors, and so bidden them
rest, with opened blades, and stand still, in the Devil's name!
A truly notable motion; marvellous, almost miraculous, were
not the people there so used to it. Motion peculiar to the
Opera ; perhaps the ugliest, and Surely one of the most diffi-
cult, ever taught a female creature in this world. Nature
abhors it; but Art does at least admit it to border on the
impossible. One little Cerito, or Taglioni the Second, that
night when I was there, went bounding from the floor as if
she had been made of Indian-rubber, or filled with hydrogen
gas, and inclined by positive levity to bolt through the ceil-
ing; perhaps neither Semiramis nor Catherine the Second
had bred herself so carefully.
Such talent, and such martyrdom of training, gathered
from the four winds, was now here, to do its feat and be
paid for it. Regardless of expense, indeed! The purse of
Fortunatus seemed to have opened itself, and the divine art
of Musical Sound and Rhythmic Motion was welcomed with
an explosion of all the magnificences which the other arts,
THE OPERA. 235
fine and coarse, could achieve. For you are to think of
some Rossini or Bellini in the rear of it, too: to say nothing
of the Stanfields, and hosts of scene-painters, machinists,
engineers, enterprisers;–fit to have taken Gibraltar, writ-
ten the History of England, or reduced Ireland into Indus-
trial Regiments, had they so set their minds to it!
Alas, and of all these notable or noticeable human ta-
lents, and excellent perseverances and energies, backed by
mountains of wealth, and led by the divine art of Music and
Rhythm vouchsafed by Heaven to them and us, what was
to be the issue here this evening? An hour's amusement,
not amusing either, but wearisome and dreary, to a high-
dizened select populace of male and female persons, who
seemed to me not much worth amusing ! Could any one
have pealed into their hearts once, one true thought, and
glimpse of Self-vision: “High-dizened, most expensive per-
sons, Aristocracy so-called, or Best of the World, beware,
beware what proofs you are giving here of betterness and
bestness ſ” And then the salutary pang of conscience in
reply: “A select populace, with money in its purse, and
drilled a little by the posture-master: good Heavens ! if
that were what, here and everywhere in God's Creation, I
am 3 And a world all, dying because I am, and show my-
self to be, and to have long been, even that? John, the
carriage, the carriage; Swift | Let me go home in silence,
to reflection, perhaps to sackcloth and ashes " This, and
not amusement, would have profited those high-dizened
persons.
Amusement, at any rate, they did not get from Euterpe
and Melpomene. These two Muses, sent-for regardless of
expense, I could see, were but the vehicle of a kind of ser-
vice which I judged to be Paphian rather. Young beauties
of both sexes used their opera-glasses, you could notice, not
236 MISCELLANTES.
entirely for looking at the stage. And, it must be owned,
the light, in this explosion of all the upholsteries, and the
human fine arts and coarse, was magical; and made your
fair one an Armida, if you liked her better so. Nay, cer-
tain old Improper-Females (of quality), in their rouge and
jewels, even these looked some reminiscence of enchantment;
and I saw this and the other lean domestic Dandy, with icy
smile on his old worn face; this and the other Marquis Cha-
tabagues, Prince Mahogany, or the like foreign Dignitary,
tripping into the boxes of said females, grinning there
awhile, with dyed moustachios and macassar-oil graciosity,
and then tripping out again;–and, in fact, I perceived that
Coletti and Cerito and the Rhythmic Arts were a mere ac-
companiment here.
Wonderful to see; and sad, if you had eyes | Do but
think of it. Cleopatra threw pearls into her drink, in mere
waste; which was reckoned foolish of her. But here had
the Modern Aristocracy of men brought the divinest of
its Arts, heavenly Music itself; and, piling all the uphols-
teries and ingenuities that other human art could do, had
lighted them into a bonfire to illuminate an hour's flirtation
of Chatabagues, Mahogany, and these improper persons !
Never in Nature had I seen such waste before. O Coletti,
you whose inborn melody, once of kindred, as I judged, to
‘the Melodies Eternal, might have valiantly weeded-out
this and the other false thing from the ways of men, and
made a bit of God's Creation more melodious, they have
purchased you away from that; chained you to the wheel
of Prince Mahogany's chariot, and here you make sport for
a macassar Chatabagues and his improper-females past the
prime of lifel Wretched spiritual Nigger, O, if you had
some genius, and were not a born Nigger with mere appe-
tite for pumpkin, should you have endured such a lot? I
THE OPERA. 237
lament for you beyond all other expenses. Other expenses
are light; you are the Cleopatra's pearl that should not
have been flung into Mahogany's claret-cup. And Rossini,
too, and Mozart and Bellini O Heavens ! when I think
that Music too is condemned to be mad, and to burn herself,
to this end, on such a funeral pile,_your celestial Opera-
house grows dark and infernal to me! Behind its glitter
stalks the shadow of Eternal Death; through it too, I look
not up into the divine eye, as Richter has it, “but down
into the bottomless eye-socket'—not up towards God, Hea-
ven, and the Throne of Truth, but too truly down towards
Falsity, Vacuity, and the dwelling-place of Everlasting De-
spair. * * *
Good sirs, surely I by no means expect the Opera will
abolish itself this year or the next. But if you ask me, Why
heroes are not born now, why heroisms are not done now?
I will answer you: It is a world all calculated for strangling
of heroisms. At every ingress into life, the genius of the
world lies in wait for heroisms, and by seduction or compul-
sion unweariedly does its utmost to pervert them or extin-
guish them. Yes; to its Hells of sweating tailors, distressed
needlewomen and the like, this Opera of yours is the appro-
priate Heaven! Of a truth, if you will read a Psalm of
Asaph till you understand it, and then come hither and hear
the Rossini-and-Coletti Psalm, you will find the ages have
altered a good deal. * & k
Nor do I wish all men to become Psalmist Asaphs and
famatic Hebrews. Far other is my wish; far other, and
wider, is now my notion of this Universe. Populations of
stern faces, stern as any Hebrew, but capable withal of
bursting into inextinguishable laughter on Occasion:—do
you understand that new and better form of character?
Laughter also, if it come from the heart, is a heavenly
238 * MISCELLANTES.
thing. But, at least and lowest, I would have you a Popu-
lation abhorring phantasms; — abhorring unveracity in all
things; and in your “amusements,” which are voluntary
and not compulsory things, abhorring it most impatiently of
all. * * * g
PROJECT OF A NATIONAL EXHIBITION OF
SCOTTISH PORTRAITS.
[1854.]
NATIONAL EXHIBITION OF SCOTTISH PORTRAITS."
To DAVID LAING, Esquire (Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of
Scotland), Signet Library, Edinburgh.
MY DEAR SIR, Chelsea, 3d May 1854.
With regard to that General Ewhibition of Scottish
Historical Portraits, it is certain there are many people more
qualified to speak than I. In fact, it has never been with
me more than an aspiration; an ardent wish, rather without
much hope: to make it into an executable project there are
needed far other capacities and opportunities than mine.
However, you shall at Once hear what my crude notions on
the subject are or have been, since you wish it.
First of all, then, I have to tell you, as a fact of personal
experience, that in all my poor Historical investigations it
has been, and always is, one of the most primary wants to
procure a bodily likeness of the personage inquired after; a
good Portrait if such exists; failing that, even an indiffer-
ent if sincere one. In short, any representation, made by a
faithful human creature, of that Face and Figure, which he
saw with his eyes, and which I can never see with mine,
is now valuable to me, and much better than none at all.
This, which is my own deep experience, I believe to be, in
a deeper or less deep degree, the universal one; and that
1 Printed in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, vol. i. part 3
(4to, Edinburgh, 1855).
VOL. XI. (Misc. vol. 6.) R.
242 MISCELLANTES.
every student and reader of History, who strives earnestly
to conceive for himself what manner of Fact and Man this
or the other vague Historical Name can have been, will, as
the first and directest indication of all, search eagerly for
a Portrait, for all the reasonable Portraits there are; and
never rest till he have finade out, if possible, what the man's
natural face was like. Often I have found a Portrait supe-
rior in real instruction to half-a-dozen written ‘Biographies,”
as Biographies are written;–or rather, let me say, I have
found that the Portrait was as a small lighted candle by
which the Biographies could for the first time be read, and
some human interpretation be made of them; the Biogra-
phied Personage no longer an empty impossible Phantasm,
or distracting Aggregate of inconsistent rumours—(in which
state, alas his usual one, he is worth nothing to anybody,
except it be as a dried thistle for Pedants to thrash, and for
men to fly out of the way of), but yielding at last some
features which one could admit to be human. Next in di-
rectness are a man's genuine Letters, if he have left any,
and you can get to read them to the bottom: of course, a
man's actions are the most complete and indubitable stamp
of him; but without these aids, of Portraits and Letters,
they are in themselves so infinitely abstruse a stamp, and
so confused by foreign rumour and false tradition of them,
as to be oftenest undecipherable with certainty.
This kind of value and interest I may take as the high-
est pitch of interest there is in Historical Portraits; this,
which the zealous and studious Historian feels in them: and
one may say, all men, just in proportion as they are ‘Histo-
rians’ (which every mortal is, who has a memory, and attach-
ments and possessions in the Past), will feel something of
the same, every human creature, something. So that I
suppose there is absolutely nobody so dark and dull, and
EXHIBITION OF SCOTTISH PORTRAITS. 243
everyway sunk and stupefied, that a Series of Historical
Portraits, especially of his native country, would not be of
real interest to him;-real I mean, as coming from himself
and his own heart, not imaginary, and preached-in upon him
by the Newspapers; which is an important distinction.
And all this is quite apart from the artistic value of the
Portraits (which also is a real value, of its sort, especially
for some classes, however exaggerated it may sometimes
be): all this is a quantity to be added to the artistic value,
whatever it may be ; and appeals to a far deeper and more
universal principle in human nature than the love of Pic-
tures is. Of which principle some dimmer or clearer form
may be seen continually active wherever men are ;-in your
Antiquarian Museum, for example, may be seem, giving very
conspicuous proofs of itself, sanctioned more or less by all
the world ! If one would buy an indisputably authentic old
shoe of William Wallace for hundreds of pounds, and run to
look at it from all ends of Scotland, what would one give
for an authentic visible shadow of his face, could such, by
art natural or art magic, now be had
It has always struck me that Historical Portrait-Galleries
far transcend in worth all other kinds of National Collections
of Pictures whatever; that in fact they ought to exist (for
many reasons, of all degrees of weight) in every country, as
among the most popular and cherished National Possessions:
—and it is not a joyful reflection, but an extremely mournful
one, that in no country is there at present such a thing to
be found. What Louis-Philippe may have collected, in the
way of French Historical Portrait, at Versailles, I did not
see: if worth much (which I hear it is not), it might have
proved the best memorial left by him, one day. Chancellor
Clarendon made a brave attempt in that kind for England;
but his House and ‘Gallery’ fell all asunder, in a sad way;
244 MISCELLANTES.
and as yet there has been no second attempt that I can hear
of. As matters stand, Historical Portraits abound in Eng-
land; but where they are, or where any individual of them
is, no man knows, or can discover except by groping and
hunting (underground, as it were, and like the mole !) in an
almost desperate manner: even among the intelligent and
learned of your acquaintance, you inquire to no purpose.
Nor is the English National Gallery poorer in this respect
than others, perhaps even much the reverse. The sad rule
holds in all countries.
In the Dresden Gallery, for instance, you find Flayings
of Bartholomew, Flayings of Marsyas, Rapes of the Sa-
bines: but if you ask for a Portrait of Martin Luther, of
Friedrich the Wise, may even of August the Big, of Mar-
shal Saxe or poor Count Brühl, you will find no satisfactory
answer. In Berlin itself, which affects to be a wiser city,
I found, not long ago, Picture-Galleries not a few, with an-
cient and modern virtù in abundance and superabundance,
—whole acres of mythological smearing (Tower of Babel,
and I know not what), by Kaulbach and others, still going
on : but a genuine Portrait of Frederic the Great was a thing I
could nowhere hear of That is strange, but that is true.
I roamed through endless lines of Pictures; inquired far and
wide, even Sculptor Rauch could tell me nothing: at last it
was chiefly by good luck that the thing I was in quest of
turned up.–This I find to be one of the saddest of those
few defects in the world which are easily capable of remedy:
I hope you in Scotland, in the ‘new National Museum' we
hear talk of, will have a good eye to this, and remedy it
in your own case ! Scotland at present is not worse than
other countries in the point in question: but neither is it at
all better; and as Scotland, unlike some other countries, has
a History of a very readable nature, and has never published
EXHIBITION OF SCOTTISH PORTRAITS. 245
even an engraved series of National Portraits, perhaps the
evil is more sensible and patent there than elsewhere. It is
an evil which should be everywhere remedied : and if Scot-
land be the first to set an example in that respect, Scotland
will do honourably by herself, and achieve a benefit to all
the world.
From this long Prologue, if you have patience to consider
it over, you will see sufficiently what my notion of the main
rules for executing the Project would be. The grand in-
terest to be held in view is that which I have defined as the
Historian's, the ingenuous sincere Student of History's. In-
genuous and sincere student; not pedantic, fantastic and
imaginary ! It seems to me all real interest for the other
classes of mankind, down to the most ignorant class, may
well be considered as only a more and more diluted form of
that interest. The rule therefore is, Walk straight towards
that ; not refusing to look to the right and left, but keeping
your face steadily on that: if you can manage to secure
that well, all else will follow from it, or attend it. Ask
always, What would the best-informed and most ingenuous
Scottish soul like most to see, for illuminating and verifying
of Scottish History to himself? This is what it concerns us
to try if we can get for him and for the world;—and, on the
whole, this only; for it is certain, all other men will by and
by follow this best-informed and most ingenuous one ; and
at the end of the account, if you have served him well, you
will turn-out to have served everybody well.
Great zeal, great industry will of course be needed in
hunting-up what Portraits there are, scattered wide over
country mansions in all parts of Scotland;—in gathering-in
your raw-material, so to speak. Next, not less, but even
more important, will be skill,—knowledge, judgment, and
246 MISCELLANTES.
above all, fidelity, in selecting, exhibiting and elucidating
these. That indeed, I reckon, will be the vitalest condi-
tion of all; the cardinal point, on which success or failure
will turn. You will need the best Pictorial judgment (some
faithful critic who really knows the Schools and Epochs of
Art a little, and can help towards the solution of so many
things that will depend on that); especially all the Histori-
cal knowledge and good sense that can be combined upon
the business will be indispensable ! For the rest, I would
sedulously avoid all concern with the vulgar Showman or
Charlatan line of action in this matter. For though the
thing must depend, a good deal at least, on popular Sup-
port, the real way to get that (especially in such a matter)
is, to deserve it: the thing can by no means be done by
Yankee-Barnum methods ; nor should it, if it could.—In a
word, here as everywhere, to winnow-out the chaff of the
business, and present in a clear and pure state what of wheat
(little or much) may be in it; on this, as I compute, the
Project will stand or fall. If faithfully executed,—the chaff
actually well suppressed, the wheat honestly given,_I can-
not doubt but it might succeed. Let it but promise to de-
serve success, I suppose honourable help might be got for
it among the wealthier and wiser classes of Scotchmen.
But to come now to your more specific questions, I
should be inclined, on the above principles, to judge:
19. That no living Scotchman's portrait should be ad-
mitted, however ‘Historical’ it promised to be. And I would
farther counsel that you should be extremely chary about
such ‘Historical men’ as have died within the last twenty-
five or thirty years; it requires always the space of a gene-
ration to discriminate between popular monstrosities and
Historical realities, in the matter of Men,_to let mere dust-
clouds settle into their natural place and bulk. But from
EXHIBITION OF SCOTTISH PORTRAITS. 247
that point, especially from the beginning of this century,
you have free scope, and ever freer, backwards to the very
beginning of things, which, alas, in the Pictorial respect, I
fear will only be some two or three centuries, or little more
The oldest Scottish portrait I can recollect to have seen, of
any worth, is that of James IV. (and only as an engraving,
the original at Taymouth), though probably enough you
may know of older. But for the earlier figures,--I would
go back to Colm and Adamnan,—if I could, by any old il-
luminated missal or otherwise? You will have engravings,
coins, casts of sepulchral monuments—I have seen Bruce's
skull, at feast, cast in plaster! And remember always that
any genuine help to conceive the actual likeness of the man
will be welcome, in these as indeed in all cases. The one
question is, that they be genuine (or, if not, well marked as
doubtful, and in what degree doubtful); that they be “helps,”
instead of hindrances and criminal misguidances !
2°. In regard to modern pictures representing historical
events, my vote would clearly be, To make the rule absolute
not to admit any one of these ; at least not till I saw one
that was other than an infatuated blotch of insincere ignor-
ance, and a mere distress to an earnest and well-instructed
eye Since the time of Hollar, there is not the least veracity,
even of intention, in such things; and, for most part, there
is an ignorance altogether abject. Wilkie's John Know, for ex-
ample: no picture that I ever saw by a man of genius can
well be, in regard to all earnest purposes, a more perfect
failure | Can anything, in fact, be more entirely useless for
earnest purposes, more unlike what ever could have been
the reality, than that gross Energumen, more like a boxing
Butcher, whom he has set into a pulpit surrounded with
draperies, with fat-shouldered women, and play-actor men
in mail, and labelled KNOX? I know the picture only by
248 MISCELLANIES.
engravings, always hasten-on when I see it in a window,
and would not for much have it hung on the wall beside
me! So, too, I have often seen a Battle of Worcester, by
some famed Academician or other, which consists of an
angry man and horse (man presumably intended for Crom-
well, but not like him), -man, with heavy flapping Spanish
cloak, &c., and no hat to his head, firing a pistol over his
shoulder into what seems a dreadful shower of rain in the
distancel What can be the use of such things, except to
persons who have turned their back on real interests, and
gone wool-gathering in search of imaginary? All that
kind of matter, as indisputable ‘chaff, ought to be"severely
purged away.
3°. With respect to plurality of portraits, when you have
the offer of more than one? The answer to that, on the
principles already stated, will come. Out different in different
cases, and be an affair of consideration and compromise. For
the earlier (and more uncertain) figures, I should incline to
admit all that could be got ; certainly all that could be found
genuine, that were “helps, as above said. Nay, such even
as were only half-genuine, if there were no others; marking
well their doubtful character. As you come lower down, the
selection will be stricter; and in quite modern times when
pictures are plentiful, I should think one portrait would in
general be the rule. But of course respect must be had to
the importance of the man, the eacellence of the portraits
offered (or their peculiar worth for your objects), the quan-
tity of house-room you are like to have, &c. &c.; and the
decision will be the summary and adjustment of all these
considerations.
For example, during the Reformation period I would take
of John Knox, and his consorts and adversaries (Lethington,
Kirkcaldy, Regents Murray, Morton, and Mar, Buchanan,
EXEIIBITION OF SCOTTISEI PORTRAITS. 249
Bothwell, even Rizzio, and the like), any picture I could
get; all attainable pictures, engravings, &c., or almost all,
unless they be more numerous than I suppose,_might pro-
mise to be “helps, in that great scarcity, and great desire to
be helped. While, again, in reference to The Forty-five, where
pictures abound, and where the personages and their affair
are so infinitely insignificant in comparison, I should expect
that one portrait, and that only of the very topmost men,
would well suffice. Yet there is a real interest, too, in that
poor Forty-five, for, in fine, we lie very near it still, and
that is always a great point; and I should somehow like to
have a Hawley, a Sir John Cope, Wade, and Duke of Cum-
berland smuggled in, by way of “illustrative Notes, if that
were possible. Nay, I really think it should be done; and,
on the whole, perceive that The Forty-five will be one of your
more opulent fields.
The question, “Who is a Historical Character?” is, in
many cases, already settled, and, in most cases, will be
capable of easy settlement. In general, whoever lives in the
memory of Scotchmen, whoever is yet practically recognis-
able as a conspicuous worker, speaker, singer, or sufferer in
the past time of Scotland, he is a ‘Historical Character,’
and we shall be glad to see the veritable likeness of him.
For examples, given at random –George Buchanan, David
Rizzio, Lord Hailes, Lord Kames, Monboddo, Bozzy, Burns,
Gawin Douglas, Barbour, Jamie Thomson. I would take in,
and eagerly, David Dale (of the cotton manufacture), less
eagerly Dundas (of the suffrage ditto), and, in general, ask
myself, Who said, did, or suffered anything truly memorable,
or even anything still much remembered? From Bruce down
to Heathfield and Abercromby, the common History-books
will direct you plentifully as to one class; and for the others,
knowledge and good judgment will be the methods.
250 MISCELLANTES.
4°. Lastly, as to the Catalogue. I am accustomed to
conceive the Catalogue, if well done, as one of the best parts
of the whole. Brevity, sound knowledge, exactitude, fidelity,
ought to be the characteristic of every feature of it. Say
you allow, on the average, not more than half a page to
each, in by far the majority of cases; hardly more than a
page to any : historical, lucid, above all things exact. I
would give the essence of the man's history, condensed to the
very utmost ; the dates, his birth, death, main transactions,
—in short, the bones of his history; then add reference to
books and sources (carefully distinguishing the good from
the less good), where his history and character can be
learned farther by such as wish to study it. Afterwards, in
a line or two, indicate the actual habitat of the picture here
exhibited; its history, if it have one; that it is known to be
by such and such a master (and on what authority), or that
it is only guessed. What value and excellence might lie in
such a Catalogue, if rightly done, I need not say to David
Laing; nor what labour, knowledge and resources would
be needed to do it well | Perhaps divided among several
men (with some head to preside over all), according to the
several periods and classes of subject;-I can perceive work
enough for you, among others, there ! But, on the whole,
it could be done; and it would be well worth doing, and
a permanently useful thing. I would have it printed in
some bound form, not as a pamphlet, but still very cheap;
I should expect a wide immediate sale for it at railway
stations and elsewhere while the Exhibition went on, and
a steady and permanent sale for it afterwards for a long
time indeed. A modern Nicolson, done according to the
real want of the present day; and far beyond what any
‘Historical Library,’ with its dusty pedantries, ever was
before l
EXHIBITION OF SCOTTISH PORTRAITS. 251
But enough now. Your patience must not be quite
ridden to death, and the very paper admonishes me to have
done. Accept in good part what hasty stuff I have written;
forgive it at least. I must say, this small National Project
has again grown to look quite beautiful to me;—possible
surely in some form, and full of uses. Probably the real
“Crystal Palace” that would beseem poor old Scotland in
these days of Exhibitions,—a country rather eminently rich
in men perhaps, which is the pearl and soul of all other
“riches.”
Believe me yours ever truly,
T. CARLYLE.”
* Some efforts, I believe, were made in the direction indicated, by Gentlemen
of the Antiquarian Society and others; but as yet without any actual “Exhibition”
coming to light. Later, and for Britain at large, we have had, by the Government
itself, some kind of “Commission” or “Board” appointed, for forming a permanent
“National Portrait-Gallery,”--with what success, is still to be seen.—(Note of
1857.)
THE PRINZENRAUB.
A GLIMPSE OF SAXON HISTORY.
[1855.]
THE PRINZENRAUB.1
OVER seas in Saxony, in the month of July 1455, a notable
thing befell; and this in regard to two persons who have
themselves, by accident, become notable. Concerning which
we are now to say something, with the reader's permission.
Unluckily, few English readers ever heard of the event; and
it is probable there is but one English reader or writer (the
present reviewer, for his sins) that was ever driven or led to
inquire into it: so that it is quite wild soil, very rough for
the ploughshare; neither can the harvest well be consider-
able. “English readers are so deeply ignorant of foreign
history, especially of German history !” exclaims a learned
professor. Alas, yes; English readers are dreadfully ignor-
ant of many things, indeed of most things;–which is a la-
mentable circumstance, and ought to be amended by degrees.
But, however all this may be, here is somewhat in rela-
tion to that Saxon business, called the Prinzenraub, or Steal-
ing of the Princes, and to the other “pearls of memory” (do
1 WESTMINSTER REVIEW, No. 123, January 1855.-1. Schreiters Geschichte des
Prinzenraubs (Schreiter's History of the Stealing of the Princes). Leipzig, 1804.
2. Johann Hübners, Rectoris der Schule 2w S. Johannis in Hamburg, Genealo-
gische Tabellen (Genealogical Tables, by Johann Hübner, Rector of St. John's
School in Hamburg), 3 vols. oblong 4to. Leipzig, 1725-1728.
3. Genealogische Tafeln zur Staatengeschichte der Germanischen wºnd Slawischen.
TVölker in 19ten Jahrhundert (Genealogical Tables for the State History of the Ger-
manic and Slavic Nations in the 19th Century). By Dr. Friedrich Maximilian
CErtel. 1 vol. oblong 12mo, Leipzig, 1846.
256 MISCELLANTES.
not call them old buttons of memory!) which string them-
selves upon the threads of that. Beating about in those
dismal haunted wildernesses; painfully sorting and sifting
in the historical lumber-rooms and their dusty fusty imbro-
glios, in quest of far other objects, this is what we have
picked-up on that accidental matter. To which the reader,
if he can make any use of it, has our welcome and our
blessing.
The Wettin Line of Saxon Princes, the same that yet
endures, known by sight to every English creature (for the
high individual, Prince Albert, is of it), had been lucky
enough to combine in itself, by inheritance, by good man-
agement, chiefly by inheritance and mere force of survival,
all the Three separate portions and divided dignities of that
country: the Thüringen Landgraviate, the Meissen Mark-
graviate, and the ancient Duchy and Electorate of Saxony;
and to become very great among the Princes of the German
Empire. It was in 1423 that Elector Frederick, named der
Streitbare (the Fencible, or Prompt-to-fight), one of the not-
ables of this line, had got from Emperor Sigismund, for
help rendered (of which poor Sigismund had always need, in
all kinds), the vacant Kur (Electorship) and Dukedom of
Saxony; after which accession, and through the earlier por-
tion of the fifteenth century, this Saxon House might fairly
reckon itself the greatest in Germany, till Austria, till Bran-
denburg gradually rose to overshadow it. Law of primo-
geniture could never be accepted in that country; nothing
but divisions, redivisions, coalescings, splittings, and never-
ending readjustments and collisions were prevalent in con-
sequence; to which cause, first of all, the loss of the race by
Saxony may be ascribed.
To enter into all that, be far from us. Enough to say
TELE PRINZENRAUB. 257
that this Streitbare, Frederick the Fencible, left several sons,
and none of them without some snack of principality taken
from the main lot : several sons, who, however, by death
and bad behaviour, pretty soon reduced themselves to two:
1st, the eldest, a Frederick, named the Placid, Peaceable, or
Pacific (Friedrich der Sanftmüthige), who possessed the elec-
torate, and indivisible, inalienable land thereto pertaining
(Wittenberg, Torgau, &c.; a certain ‘ circle' or province in
the Wittenberg region; of which, as Prussia has now got all
or most of it, the exact boundaries are not known to me);
and 2d, a Wilhelm, who in all the other territories ‘ruled
conjointly’ with Frederick.
Conjointly: were not such lands likely to be beautifully
‘ruled’? Like a carriage-team with two drivers on the box |
Frederick, however, was Pacific; probably an excellent good-
matured man; for I do not find that he wanted fire either,
and conclude that the friendly elements abounded in him.
Frederick was a man that could be lived with ; and the
conjoint government went on, without visible outbreak, be-
tween his brother Wilhelm and him, for a series of years.
For twelve years, better or worse;—much better than our
own red and white Roses here at home, which were fast
budding into battles of St. Albans, battles of Towton, and
other sad outcomes about that time ! Of which twelve years
we accordingly say nothing.
But now in the twelfth year, a foolish second-cousin, a
Friedrich the Silly (Einfältige), at Weimar, died childless,
A.D. 1440; by which event extensive Thuringian possessions
fell into the main lot again; whereupon the question arose,
How to divide them? A question difficult to solve; which
by and by declared itself to be insoluble; and gave rise
to open war between the brothers Frederick Pacific and
Wilhelm of Meissen. Frederick proving stronger, Wilhelm
VOL. XI. (Misc. vol. G.) S
258 MISCELLANIES.
called-in the Bohemians,—confused Hussite, Ziska-Podie-
brad populations, bitter enemies of Orthodox Germany;
against whom Frederick sent celebrated fighting captains,
Kunz von Kaufungen and others; who did no good on the
Bohemians, but showed all men how dangerous a conflagra-
tion had arisen here in the heart of the country, and how
needful to be quenched without delay. Accordingly the
neighbours all ran up, Kaiser Frederick III. at the head of
them (a cunning old Kaiser, Max's father); and quenched it
was, after four or five years' ruinous confusion, by the ‘treaty
of Naumburg in 1450,—most obscure treaty, not necessary
to be laid before the roader;-whereby, if not joint govern-
ment, peaceable division and separation could ensue.
The conflagration was thus put out; but various coals
of it continued hot for a long time, Kunz von Kaufungen,
above mentioned, the hottest of all. Kunz or Conrad, born
squire or ritter of a certain territory and old tower called
Kaufungen, the site of which old tower, if now no ruins of it,
can be seen near Penig on the Mulde river, some two-hours
ride south-east of Altenburg in those Thuringian or Upper
Saxon regions,—Kunz had made himself a name in the
world, though unluckily he was short of property otherwise
at present. For one thing, Kunz had gained great renown
by beating Albert of Brandenburg, the Albert named Achilles,
third Hohenzollern Elector of Brandenburg, and the fiercest
fighter of his day (a terrible hawk-nosed, square-jawed, lean,
ancient man, ancestor of Frederick the Great); Kunz, I say,
had beaten this potentate, being hired by the town of Nürn-
berg, Albert's rebellious town, to do it; or if not beaten him
(for Albert prevailed in the end), had at least taken him
captive in some fight, and made him pay a huge ransom.
He had also been in the Hussite wars, this Kunz, fighting up
and down : a German condottiere, I find, or Dugald Dalgetty
THE PRINZENRAUB. 259
of the epoch; his last stroke of work had been this late en-
gagement, under Frederick the Peaceable, to fight against
brother Wilhelm and his Bohemian allies.
In this last enterprise Kunz had prospered but indiffer-
ently. He had indeed gained something they called the
‘victory of Gera,’—loud honour, I doubt not, and temporary
possession of that little town of Gera;-but in return, had
seen his own old tower of Kaufungen and all his properties
wasted by ravages of war. Nay, he had at length been
taken captive by the Bohemians, and been obliged to ran-
som himself by huge outlay of money :-4,000 goldgulden, or
about 2,000l. Sterling; a crushing sum ! With all which
losses, why did not Kunz lose his life too, as he might easily
have done? It would have been better for him. Not having
lost his life, he did of course, at the end of the war, claim
and expect indemnity: but he could get none, or not any
that was satisfactory to him.
Elector Frederick had had losses of his own; was dis-
posed to stick to the letter of his contracts in reference to
Kunz : not even the 4,000 goldgulden of Bohemian ransom
would he consent to repay. Elector Frederick alleged that
Kunz was not his liegeman, whom he was bound to protect;
but only his soldier, hired to fight at so much per day, and
stand the risks himself. In fine, he exasperated Kunz very
much ; and could be brought to nothing, except to agree
that arbitrators should be named, to settle what was really
due from one to the other;-a course of little promise to
indigent, indignant Kunz. The arbitrators did accordingly
meet, and Kunz being summoned, made his appearance;
but not liking the figure of the court, went away again
without waiting for the verdict; which accordingly did fall
out infinitely short of his wishes or expectations, and made
the indigent man still more indignant. Violent speeches
260 MISCELLANIES.
were heard from him in consequence, and were officiously
reported; nay, some say, were heard by the Elector him-
self: for example, That a man might have vengeance, if
he could get nothing else; that an indigent, indignant
fighting man, driven utterly desperate, would harry and
destroy; would do this and also that, of a direful and
dreadful nature. To which the Elector answered: “Don’t
burn the fishponds, at any rate; the poor fishes in their
ponds!”—still farther angering Kunz. Kunz was then heard
growling about “vengeance not on this unjust Elector's
land and people, but on his flesh and blood;” in short,
growing ever more intemperate, grim of humour, and vio-
lent of speech, Kunz was at last banished the country;
ordered flatly to go about his business, and growl else-
where. He went, with certain indigent followers of his,
across into Bohemia; where, after groping about, he pur-
chased an old castle, Isenburg the name of it; castle hang-
ing somewhere on the western slopes of the Erzgebirge
(Metal Mountains so-called), convenient for the Saxon from-
tier, and to be had cheap : this empty damp old castle of
Isenburg Kunz bought; and lived there, in such humour as
may be conceived. Revenge on this unjust Elector, and
“not on his land and people, but on his flesh and blood,”
was now the one thought of Kunz.
Two Misnian squires, Mosen and Schönberg, former sub-
alterns of his, I suppose, and equally disaffected as himself,
were with him at Isenburg; besides these, whose connec-
tions and followers could assist with head or hand, there was
in correspondence with him one Schwalbe, a Bohemian by
birth, officiating now as cook (cook or Scullion, I am uncer-
tain which) in the electoral Castle itself at Altenburg; this
Schwalbe, in the way of intelligence and help for plotting,
was of course the most important of all. Intelligence enough
THE PRINZENRAUB. - 261
from Schwalbe and his consorts; and schemes grounded
thereon; first one scheme and then another, in that hungry
castle of Isenburg, we need not doubt. At length word
came from Schwalbe, That on the 7th of July (1455) the
Elector was to take a journey to Leipzig; Electress and
two Princes (there were but two, still boys) to be left behind
at Altenburg: whether anything could follow out of that?
Most of the servants, Schwalbe added, were invited to a
Supper in the town, and would be absent drinking. Absent
drinking; Princes left unguarded? Much can follow out of
that I Wait for an opportunity till Doomsday, will there
ever come a better? Let this, in brief, be the basis of our
grand scheme; and let all hands be busy upon it. Isenburg
expects every man to do his duty —Nor was Isenburg dis-
appointed.
The venerable little Saxon town of Altenburg lies, among
intricate woods and Metal-Mountain wildernesses, a good
day's riding west from Isenburg: nevertheless, at the fit
date, Isenburg has done its duty; and in spite of the intri-
cacies and the hot weather, Kunz is on the ground in full
readiness. Towards midnight, namely, on the 7th of July
1455, Kunz, with a party of thirty men, his two Misnian
Squires among them, well-mounted and armed, silently ap-
proaches the rendezvous under the Castle of Altenburg;
softly announces himself, by whew of whistling, or some
concerted signal, audible in the stillness of the ambrosial
night. Cook Schwalbe is awake; Cook Schwalbe answers
signal; flings him down a line, fixes his rope-ladders: Kunz,
with his Misnian squires and a select few more, mounts
aloft; leaving the rest below, to be vigilant, to seize the
doors especially, when once we are masters of them from
within.
Kunz, who had once been head chamberlain here, knows
262 * MISCELLANIES.
every room and passage of this royal Castle; probably his
Misnians also know it, or a good deal of it, from of old.
They first lock all the servants' doors; lock the Electress's
door; walk then into the room where the two Princes sleep,
in charge of their ancient governess, a feeble old lady, who
can give no hindrance;—they seize the two Princes, boys of
twelve and fourteen; descend with them, by the great stair-
Ca,Se, into the court of the Castle, successfully so far;-or
rather, not quite successfully, but with a mistake to mend.
They find, when in the court of the Castle, that here indeed
is Prince Ernst, the eldest boy, but that instead of Prince
Albert we have brought his bedfellow, a young Count Barby,
of no use to us. This was Mosen the Misnian's mistake;
stupid Mosen Kunz himself runs aloft again; finds now
the real Albert, who had hid himself below the bed; de-
scends with the real Albert. “To horse now, to horse, my
men, without delay!” These noises had awakened the Elec-
tress; to what terrors and emotions we can fancy. Finding
her door bolted, but learning gradually what is toward, she
speaks or shrieks, from the window, a passionate prayer, in
the name of earth and heaven, Not to take her children from
her. “Whatsoever your demands are, I will see them
granted, only leave my children "-" Sorry we cannot, high
Lady ſ” thought Kunz, and rode rapidly away; for all the
Castle is now getting awake, and locks will not long keep
every one imprisoned in his room.
Kunz, forth again into the ambrosial night, divides his
party into two, one Prince with each ; Kunz himself lead-
ing the one, Mosen to lead the other. They are to ride by
two different roads towards Bohemia, that if one misluck,
there may still be another to make terms. Kunz himself,
with the little Albert he has got on hand (no time to change
princes at present), takes the more northerly road; and both
THE PRINZENRAUB. 263
dive into the woods. Not a moment to be lost; for already
the alarm-bell is out at Altenburg,_some servant having
burst his door, and got clutch of it; the results of which
will be manifold! Result first could not fail: The half-
drunk servants, who are out at Supper, come tumbling
home; listen open-mouthed, then go tumbling back into
the little town, and awaken its alarm-bell; which awakens,
in the usual progression, all others whatsoever; so that
Saxony at large, to the remotest village, from all its bel-
fries, big and little, is ringing madly; and all day Kunz, at
every thin place of the forest, hears a ding-dong of doom
pronounced against him, and plunges deviously forward all
the more intently.
A hot day, and a dreadful ride through boggy wastes
and intricate mountain woods; with the alarm-bell, and
shadow of the gallows, dogging one all the way. Here,
however, we are now, within an hour of the Bohemian
border;-cheerily, my men, through these wild woods and
hills | The young Prince, a boy of twelve, declares him-
self dying of thirst. Kunz, not without pity, not without
anxiety on that head, bids his men ride on ; all but him-
self and two squires shall ride on, get everything ready at
Isenburg, whither we and his young Highness will soon
follow. Runz encourages the Prince ; dismounts, he and
his squires, to gather him some bilberries. Kunz is busy
in that search,--when a black figure staggers-in upon the
scene; a grimy Köhler, namely (Collier, Charcoal-burner),
with a long poking-pole (what he calls schirbaum) in his
hand: grimy Collier, just awakened from his after-dinner
nap ; somewhat astonished to find company in these soli-
tudes. “How, what I Who is the young gentleman?
What are my Herren pleased to be doing here ?” inquired
the Collier. “Pooh, a youth who has run away from his
264. MISCELLANIES.
relations; who has fallen thirsty : do you know where
bilberries are 3—No?—Then why not walk on your way,
my grim one?” The grim one has heard ringing of alarm-
bells all day; is not quite in haste to go: Kunz, whirling
round to make him go, is caught in the bushes by the
spurs, falls flat on his face; the young Prince whispers ea-
gerly, “I am Prince Albert, and am stolen I’—Whew—wew !
—One of the squires aims a blow at the Prince, so it is said;
perhaps it was at the Collier only: the Collier wards with his
poking-pole, strikes fiercely with his poking-pole, fells down
the squire, belabours Kunz himself. During which the Col-
lier's dog lustily barks; and, behold, the Collier's Wife comes
running on the scene, and with her shrieks brings a body of
other colliers upon it: Kunz is evidently done !
He surrenders, with his squires and Prince; is led, by this
black bodyguard, armed with axes, shovels, poking-poles, to
the neighbouring monastery of Grünhain (Green Grove), and
is there safe warded under lock-and-key. The afternoon of
July 8th, 1455; what a day for him and for others!—I re-
mark, with certainty, that dusty riders, in rather unusual
numbers, and of miscellaneous equipment, are also enter-
ing London City, far away, this very evening; a constitu-
tional parliament having to take seat at Westminster, to-
morrow, 9th July 1455, of all days and years,” to settle
what the battle of St. Albans, lately fought, will come to.
For the rest, that the King of England has fallen imbecile,
and his she-wolf of France is on flight; that probably York
will be Protector again (till he lose his head), and that
the troubles of mankind are not limited to Saxony and its
Metal Mountains, but that the Devil everywhere is busy, as
usual —This consideration will serve at least to date the
affair of Kunz for us, and shall therefore stand umerased.
* Henry's History of Britain, vi. 108.
THE PRINZENRAUB. 265
From Grünhain Monastery the Electress, gladdest of
Saxon mothers, gets back her younger boy to Altenburg,
with hope of the other: praised be heaven forever for it.
“And you, O Collier of a thousand! what is your wish, what
is your want?—How dared you beard such a lion as that
Kunz, you with your simple poking-pole, you Collier sent of
heaven ſ”—“Madam, I drilled him soundly with my poking-
pole (hab inn weidlich getrilli);” at which they all laughed, and
called the Collier der Triller, the Driller.
Meanwhile, Mosen the Misnian is also faring ill; with
the alarm-bells all awake about him, and the country risen
in hot chase. Six of his men have been caught; the rest
are diving ever deeper into the thickets. In the end, they
seek shelter in a cavern, stay there perdue for three days,
not far from the castle of Steina, still within the Saxon
border. Three days, while the debate of Westminster is
prosperously proceeding, and imbecile Henry the Sixth takes
his ease at Windsor, these poor fellows lie quaking, hungry,
in their cave; and dare not debate, except in whispers; very
uncertain what the issue will be. The third day they hear
from colliers or wandering woodmen, accidentally talking
together in their neighbourhood, that Kunz is taken, tried,
and most probably beheaded. Well-a-day ! Well-a-day !
Hereupon they open a correspondence with the nearest
Amtmann, him of Zwickau: to the effect, That if free par-
don is granted, they will at once restore Prince Ernst; if
not, they will at once kill him. The Amtmann of Zwickau
is thrown into excitement, it may well be supposed : but
what can the Amtmann or any official person do? Accede
to their terms, since, as desperate men, they have the power
of enforcing them. It is thought, had they even demanded
Kunz’s pardon, it must have been granted; but they fancied
Runz already ended, and did not insist on this. Enough,
266 MISCELLANTES.
on the 11th of the month, fourth day since the flight, third
day in this hunger-cave of Steina, Prince Ernst was given
up ; and Mosen, Schönfels and Co., refreshed with food, fled
Swiftly, unharmed, and ‘were never heard of more,’ say my
authorities.
Prince Ernst was received by his glad father at Chem-
nitz; soon carried to his glad mother and brother at Al-
tenburg: upon which the whole court, with trembling joy,
made a pilgrimage to Ebersdorf, a monastery and shrine in
those parts. They gave pious thanks there, one and all;
the mother giving suitable dotation furthermore; and, what
is notable, hanging-up among her other votive gifts two
coats (she, says rumour and prints; but I guess it was the
lucrative showmen after her): the coat of Kunz, leather buff
T suppose, and the coat of The Driller, Triller, as we call
that heaven-sent Collier, coat grimy black, and made of
what stuff I know not. Which coats were still shown in
the present generation; may perhaps are still to be seen at
this day, if a judicious tourist made inquiry for them.
On the 14th, and not till then, Kunz of Kaufungen, tried
and doomed before, laid his head on the block at Freyberg:
some say, pardon had been got for him from the joyful
Serene Highnesses, but came an hour too late. This seems
uncertain, seems improbable: at least poor Dietrich of Kau-
fungen, his younger brother, was done to death at Alten-
burg itself some time after, for “inconsiderate words’ uttered
by him,_feelings not sufficiently under one's control. That
Schwalbe, the Bohemian Cook, was torn with ‘red-hot pin-
cers,’ and otherwise mercilessly mangled and strangled, need
not be stated. He and one or two others, supposed to be
concerned in his peculiar treason, were treated so; and with
this the gallows-part of the transaction ended.
As to the Driller himself, when asked what his wish was,
THE PRINZENRAUB. 267
it turned out to be modest in the extreme: Only liberty to
cut, of scrags and waste wood, what would suffice for his
charring purposes, in those wild forests. This was granted
to the man and his posterity; made sure to him and them
by legal deed : and to this was added, So many yearly
bushels of corn from the electoral stockbarns, and a hand-
some little farm of land, to grow cole and sauerkraut, and
support what cows and sheep, for domestic milk and wool,
were necessary to the good man and his successors. ‘Which
properties,” I am vaguely told, but would go to see it with
my eyes, were I touring in those parts, “they enjoy to this
day. Perhaps it was a bit of learned jocularity on the
part of the old conveyancers, perhaps in their high chancery
at Altenburg they did not know the man’s real name, or
perhaps he had no very fixed one; at any rate, they called
him merely Triller (Driller), in these important documents:
which courtly nickname he or his sons adopted as a sur-
name that would do very well; surname borne by them
accordingly ever since, and concerning which there have
been treatises written.”
This is the tale of Kunz of Kaufungen; this is that ad-
venture of the Prinzenraub (Stealing of the Princes), much
wondered at, and talked of, by all princes and all courtiers
in its own day, and never quite forgotten since; being in-
deed apt for remembrance, and worthy of it, more or less.
For it actually occurred in God's Creation, and was a fact,
four-hundred years ago; and also is, and will forever con-
tinue one,—ever-enduring part and parcel of the Sum of
Things, whether remembered or not. In virtue of which
peculiarity it is much distinguished from innumerable other
3 Groshupf's Oratio de gentis Trilleriance ortu (cited in Michaelis, Geschichte der
Chur- und Fürstlichen Häuser in Teutschland, i. 469) is one.—See, for the rest,
Schurzfleisch, Dissertatio de Conrado Kawfungo (Wittenberg, 1720); Tenzel (Gotha,
1700); Rechenberg, De Raptu Ernesti et Alberti; Sagittarius, Fabricius, &c. &c.
268 MISCELLANTES.
tales of adventures which did not occur in God's Creation,
but only in the waste chambers (to be let unfurnished) of
certain human heads, and which are part and parcel only
of the Sum of Nothings; which nevertheless obtain some
temporary remembrance, and lodge extensively, at this epoch
of the world, in similar still more unfurnished charabers.
In comparison, I thought this business worth a few words
to the ingenuous English reader, who may still have rooms
to let, in that sense. Not only so; but it seemed to deserve
a little nook in modern memory for other peculiar reasons,
—which shall now be stated with extreme brevity.
The two boys, Ernst and Albert, who, at the time of
their being stolen, were fourteen and twelve years old re-
spectively, and had Frederick the Peaceable, the Placid or
Pacific, for father, came safe to manhood. They got, by
lucky survivorship, all these inextricable Saxon Territories
combined into Two round lots; — did not, unfortunately,
keep them so ; but split them again into new divisions,—
for new despair of the historical student, among others!—
and have at this day extensive posterity, of thrice-complex
relationship, of unintelligible names, still extant in the high
places of the world. Unintelligible names, we may well say;
each person having probably from ten to twenty names:
not John or Tom; but Joachim John Ferdinand Ernst Al-
brecht; Theodor Tom Carl Friedrich Kunz;–as if we should
say, Bill Walter Kit all as one name; every one of which
is good, could you but omit the others' Posterity of un-
intelligible names, thrice-complex relationship;-and in fine,
of titles, qualities and territories that will remain forever
unknown to man. Most singular princely nomenclature,
which has often filled me with amazement. Designations
worse than those of the Naples Lazzaroni; who indeed “have
THE PRINZENRAUB. 269
no names,” but are, I conclude, distinguished by Numbers,
No. 1, No. 2, and can be known when mentioned in human
speech ! Names, designations, which are too much for the
human mind;—which are intricate, long-winded; abstruse
as the Sibyl's Oracles; and flying about, too, like her leaves;
with every new accident, every new puff of wind. Ever-
fluctuating, ever-splitting, coalescing, re-splitting, re-com-
bining, insignificant little territories, names, relationships
and titles; inextricably indecipherable, and not worth deci-
phering; which only the eye of the Old Serpent could or
would decipher l—Let us leave them there; and remark
that they are all divided, after our little stolen Ernst and
Albert, into Two main streams or Lines, the Ernst or Er-
mestine Line, and the Albert or Albertine Line; in which two
grand divisions they flow on, each of them many-branched,
through the wilderness of Time ever since. Many-branched
each of the two, but conspicuously separate each from the
other, they flow on; and give us the comfort of their com-
pany, in great numbers, at this very day. We will note a
few of the main phenomena in these two Saxon Lines,
higher trees that have caught our eye, in that sad wilder-
ness of princely shrubbery unsurveyable otherwise.
ERNESTINE LINE.
Ernst, the elder of those two stolen boys, became Kuº-
first (Elector); and got for inheritance, besides the ‘in-
alienable properties’ which lie round Wittenberg, as we have
said, the better or Thuringian side of the Saxon country—
that is, the Weimar, Gotha, Altenburg, &c. Principalities:
—while the other youth, Albert, had to take the ‘Osterland
(Easternland), with part of Meissen,’ what we may in ge-
neral imagine to be (for no German Dryasdust will do you
270 MISCELLANTES.
the kindness to say precisely) the eastern region of what
is Saxony in our day. These Albertines, with an inferior
territory, had, as their main towns, Leipzig and Dresden, a
Residenz-Schloss (or sublime enough Ducal Palace) in each
eity, Leipzig as yet the grander and more common one.
There, at Leipzig chiefly, I say, lived the august younger
or Albertine Line; especially there lived Prince Albert him-
self, a wealthy and potent man, though younger. But it is
with Ernst that we are at present concerned.
As for Ernst, the elder, he and his lived chiefly at Wit-
tenberg, as I perceive ; there or in the neighbourhood, was
their high Schloss; distinguished among palaces. But they
had Weimar, they had Altenburg, Gotha, Coburg,_above
all, they had the Wartburg, one of the most distinguished
Strong Houses any Duke could live in, if he were of frugal
and heroic turn. Wartburg, built by fabulous Ludwig the
Springer, which grandly overhangs the town of Eisenach,
grandly the general Thuringian forest; it is now, Ma-
gician Klingsohr having sung there, St. Elisabeth having
lived there and done conscious miracles, Martin Luther
having lived there and done unconscious ditto, -the most
interesting Residenz, or old grim shell of a mountain Castle
turned into a tavern, now to be found in Germany, or per-
haps readily in the world. One feels, standing in Luther's
room, with Luther's poor old Oaken table, oaken inkholder
still there, and his mark on the wall which the Devil has
not yet forgotten, as if here once more, with mere Heaven
and the silent Thuringian Hills looking on, a grand and
grandest battle of “One man versus the Devil and all men”
was fought, and the latest prophecy of the Eternal was
made to these sad ages that yet run; as if here, in fact,
of all places that the sun now looks upon, were the holiest
for a modern man. To me, at least, in my poor thoughts,
THE PRINZENRAUB. 271
there seemed something of authentically divine in this lo-
cality; as if immortal remembrances and sacred influences
and monitions were hovering over it; speaking sad, and
grand, and valiant things to the hearts of men. A dis-
tinguished person, whom I had the honour of attending
on that occasion, actually stooped down, when he thought
my eye was off him; kissed the old Oaken table, though one
of the grimmest men now living; and looked like lightning
and rain all the morning after, with a visible moisture in
those sun-eyes of his, and not a word to be drawn from him.
Sure enough, Ernst and his line are not at a loss for Resi-
dences, whatever else he and they may want.
Ernst’s son was Frederick the Wise, successor in the Kur
(Electorship) and paternal lands; which, as Frederick did
not marry and there was only one other brother, were not
farther divided on this occasion. Frederick the Wise, born
in 1463, was that ever-memorable Kunfirst who saved Lu-
ther from the Diet of Worms in 1521. A pious Catholic,
with due horror of heresy up to that time, he listened with
all his faculties to the poor Monk's earnest speech of four
hours; knew not entirely what to think of it; thought at
least, “We will hear this man farther, we will not burn
this man just yet!"—and Snatched him up accordingly, and
stuck him safe into the Wartburg for a year. Honour to
such a Kurfürst:-and what a luck to him and us that he
was there to do so ever-memorable a thing, just in the nick
of time ! A Kurfürst really memorable and honourable, by
that and by many other acts of wisdom, piety and prudent
magnanimity; in which qualities History testifies that he
shone. He could have had the Kaisership, on Max's death,
some years before, but preferred to have young Charles V.,
Max's grandson, elected to it. Whereby it came that the
grand Reformation Cause, at once the grandest blessing
272 MISCELLANTES.
and the grandest difficulty, fell to the guidance, not of
noble German veracity and pious wisdom, but of long-
headed obstinate Flemish cunning; and Elector Frederick
indeed had an easier life, but Germany has ever since had
a much harder one ! Two portraits of this wise Frederick,
one by Albert Dürer, and another of inferior quality by
Lucas Kranach, which represent to us an excellent, rather
corpulent, elderly gentleman, looking-out from under his
electoral cap, with a fine placid, honest and yet vigilant
and sagacious aspect, are well known to print-collectors:
but his history, the practical physiognomy of his life and
procedure in this world, is less known to hereditary govern-
ing persons, and others, than it ought to be, if there were
any chance of their taking pattern by him He was twenty
years Luther's senior; they never met personally, much as
they corresponded together, during the next four years,
both living oftenest in the same town. He died in 1525,
and was succeeded by his brother, John the Steadfast (Jo-
hann der Beständige).
This brother, Johann der Beständige, was four years
younger; he also was a wise and eminently Protestant
man. He struggled very faithfully for the good Cause, dur-
ing his term of sovereignty; died in 1532 (fourteen years
before Luther), having held the Electorate only seven years.
Excellent man, though dreadfully fat; so that they had to
screw him up by machinery when he wished to mount on
horseback, in his old days.-His son was Johann Friedrich,
the Magnanimous by epithet (der Grossmüthige), under whom
the Line underwent sad destinies; lost the Electorship, lost
much ; and split itself after him, into innumerable branches,
who are all of a small type ever since; and whom we shall
leave for a little, till we have brought forward the Albertine
Line.
THE PRINZENRAUB. 273
ALDERTINE LINE.
Albert the Courageous (der Beherzte) was the name this
little stolen boy attained among mankind, when he grew
to maturity and came to his properties in Meissen and the
Osterland. What he did to merit such high title might,
at this date, in this place, be difficult to say. I find he was
useful in the Netherlands, assisting Kaiser Max (or rather
young Prince Max, Kaiser indeed, and Charles W.’s grand-
father, in time coming) when the said young Max wedded
the beautiful young Mary of Burgundy, the great heiress
in those parts. Max got the Netherlands by this fine match,
and came into properties enough ; and soon into endless
troubles and sorrows thereby; in all which, and in others
that superadded themselves, Albert the Courageous was
helpful according to ability; distinguishing himself indeed
throughout by loyalty to his Kaiser; and in general, I think,
being rather of a conservative turn. The rest of his merit
in History, we conclude, it was work that had mainly a
Saxon, or at most a German fame, and did not reach the
ear of the general world. However, sure enough it all lies
safely funded in Saxon and German Life to this hour. Saxony
reaping the full benefit of it (if any); and it shall, not con-
cern us here. Only on three figures of the posterity be-
gotten by him shall we pause a little, then leave him to his
fate. Elector Moritz, Duke George, August the Strong: on
these three we will glance for one moment; the rest, in
mute endless procession, shall rustle past unseen by us.
Albert's eldest son, then, and successor in the eastern
properties and residences, was Duke George of Saxony,
called ‘of Saxony, as all those Dukes, big and little, were
and still are, Herzog Georg von Sachsen : of whom, to make
WOL. XI. (Misc. vol. 6.) T
274 MISCELLANIES.
him memorable, it is enough to say that he was Luther's
Duke George ' Yes, this is he with whom Luther had such
Wrangling and jangling. Here, for the first time, English
country-gentlemen may discern “Duke George” as a fact,
though a dark one, in this world; see dimly who begat him,
where he lived, how he actually was (presumably) a human
Creature, and not a mere rumour of a name. “Fear of Duke
George?” said Luther: “No, not that. I have seen the
King of Chaos in my time, Sathanas himself, and thrown
my inkbottle at him. Duke George I Had I had business
in Leipzig, I should have gone thither, if it had rained Duke
Georges for nine days running !” Well, reader, this is he:
George the Rich, called also the Barbatus (Beardy), likewise
the Learned: a very magnificent Herr; learned, bearded,
gilded, to a notable, degree; and much reverenced by many,
though Luther thought so little of him. -
He was strong for the old religion, while his cousins
went so valiantly ahead for the new. He attended at Diets,
argued, negotiated; offered to risk life and fortune, in some
diplomatic degree, but was happily never called to do it.
His Brother, and most of his people, gradually became Pro-
testants, which much grieved him. Pack, unfortunate Herr
Pack, whose ‘revelations’ gave rise to the Schmalkaldic
League, and to the first Protestant War, had been his se-
Cretary. Pack ran off from him ; made said ‘revelations,’
That there was a private bargain, between Duke George
and others, headed by the Kaiser, to cut-off and forfeit
Philip of Hessen, the chief Protestant, that &c. &c.; where-
by, in the first place, poor Pack lost his head; and, in the
second place, poor Duke George's troubles were increased
fourfold and tenfold.
Poor soul, he had lost most of his ten children, some
of them in infancy, others in maturity and middle age, by
TELE PRINZENRAUB. * 275
death; was now himself getting old, within a year or two
of seventy; and his troubles not in the least diminishing.
At length he lost his wife; the good old dame, a princess
of Bohemia, who had been his stay in all sorrows, she too
was called away from him. Protestantism spreading, the
Devil broken loose, all was against Duke George; and he
felt that his own time must now be nigh. His very Brother,
now heir-apparent by the death of all the young men, was
of declared Protestant tendencies. George wrote to his
Brother, who, for the present, was very poor, offering to
give him up the government and territories at once, on con-
dition that the Catholic Religion should be maintained in-
tact: Brother respectfully refused. Duke George then made
a will, to the like effect; summoned his Estates to sanction
it; Estates would not sanction: Duke George was seized
with dreadful bowel-disorders, and lay down to die. Sor-
row on it ! Alas, alas !
There is one memorability of his sad last moments: A
reverend Pater was endeavouring to strengthen him by
assurances about his own good works, about the favour of
the Saints and suchlike, when Dr. Rothe, the Crypto-Pro-
testant medical gentleman, ventured to suggest in the ex-
treme moment, “Gnádiger Herr, you were often wont to say,
Straightforward is the best runner! Do that yourself; go
straight to the blessed Saviour and eternal Son of God,
who bore our sins; and leave the dead Saints alone !”—
“Ey, then, help me, them,” George groaned out in low sad
murmur, “true Saviour, Jesus Christ; take pity on me, and
save me by thy bitter sorrows and death !” and yielded-up
his soul in this manner. A much-afflicted, hard-struggling,
and not very useful man. He was so learned, he had writ-
ten his Father Albert's exploits in Latin; of which respect-
able ‘Monograph,” Fabricius, in his Chronicle, has made use.
276 * MISCELLANIES.
Fabricius: not that big Hamburg Fabricius of the Biblio-
thecas; but an earlier minor one, Georg Goldschmied his ver-
nacular name, who was ‘crowned poet by Kaiser Max, be-
came head-schoolmaster in Meissen, and wrote meritorious
chronicles, indifferently exact, Rerum Misnicarum, and such-
like, he is the Fabricius to whom the respectable Mono-
graph fell. Of this poor Duke's palaces and riches, at Leip-
zig and elsewhere, I say nothing, except that they were
very . grand. He wore a magnificent beard, too, dagger-
shaped and very long; was of heroic stature and carriage;
truly a respectable-looking man. I will remember nothing
more of him, except that he was withal an ancestor of
Frederick the Great : no doubt of that small interesting
fact. One of his daughters was married to Philip the Magna-
nimous of Hessen,_wife insufficient for magnanimous Philip,
wherefore he was obliged to marry a second, or supple-
ment to her, which is a known story ! But another of Duke
George's daughters, who alone concerns us here, was spouse
to Joachim II., sixth Kurfürst of Brandenburg, who bore
him Johann George, seventh ditto, in lawful wedlock; and
so was Frederick the Unique's great-grandfather's great-
grandmother, that is to say, lineal ancestress in the seventh
generation. If it rained Duke Georges nine days running,
I would say no more about them.
We come now to Elector Moritz, our second figure.
George's brother, Henry, succeeded; lived only for two
years; in which time all went to Protestantism in the east-
ern parts of Saxony, as in the western. This Henry's eldest
son, and first successor, was Morite, the “Maurice” known
in English Protestant books; who, in the Schmalkaldic
League and War, played such a questionable game with
his Protestant cousin, of the elder or Ernestine Line,—quite
ousting said cousin, by superior jockeyship, and reducing
THE PRINZENRAUB. 277
his Line and him to the second rank ever since. This
cousin was Johann Friedrich the Magnanimous, of the Er-
nestine Line; whom we left above waiting for that cata-
strophe; and it came about in this manner.
Duke Moritz refused, namely, to join his poor cousin and
other fellow Protestants in the Schmalkaldic League or
War, in spite of Secretary Pack's denunciations, and the
evidence of facts. Duke Moritz waited till the Kaiser
(Charles V., year 1547), and their own ill-guidance, had
beaten to pieces and ruined said League and War; till
the Kaiser had captured Johann Frederick the Magnani-
mous in person, and was about to kill him. And then, at
this point of the game, by dextrous management, Duke
Moritz got the Electorship transferred to himself; Elec-
torship, with Wittenberg and the ‘imalienable lands and
dignities;’—his poor cousin sitting prisoner the while, in
imminent danger of his life; not getting loose for five
years, but following the Kaiser like condemned luggage,
up and down, in a very perilous and uncomfortable man-
mer! This from Moritz, who was himself a Protestant, only
better skilled in jockeyship, was not thought handsome con-
duct, nor could it be.
However, he made it good; succeeded in it, what is
called succeeding. Neither is the game yet played out,
nor Moritz publicly declared (what he full surely is, and
can by discerning eyes be seen to be) the loser. Moritz
kept his Electorship, and, by cunning jockeying, his Pro-
testanism too; got his Albertime or junior Line pushed into
the place of the Ernestine or first; in which dishonourably
acquired position it continues to this day; performing ever
since the chief part in Saxony, as Electors, and now as
Kings of Saxony;-which seems to make him out rather
as winner in the game? For the Ernestime, or honourable
278 MISCELLANTES.
Protestant Line is ever since in a secondary, diminished,
and as it were, disintegrated state, a Line broken small;
nothing now but a series of small Dukes, Weimar, Gotha,
Coburg, and the like, in the Thuringian region, who, on
mere genealogical grounds, put Sachsen to their name:
Sachsen-Coburg, Sachsen-Weimar, &c.;-and do not look
like winners. Nor perhaps are they, if they also have
played too ill ! Perhaps neither of the two is winner; for
there are many other hands in the game withal: sure I am
only that Moritz has lost, and never could win! As perhaps
may appear yet, by and by.
But, however that may be, the Ernestine Line has
clearly got disintegrated, broken small, and is not in a cul-
minating condition. These, I say, are the Dukes who in
the present day put Sachsen to their name: sons of Ernst,
sons of Johann Friedrich the Magnanimous, all now in a
reduced condition: while the sons of Albert, nephews of
George the Dagger-bearded (“if it rain Duke Georges'),
are Kings of Saxony, so-called Kings. No matter: nay,
who knows whether it is not perhaps even less than no-
thing to them, this grand dignity of theirs? Whether, in
very truth, if we look at substance and not semblance, the
Albertine Line has risen since Moritz's time; or in spite
of all these crowns and appearances, sublime to the valet
judgment, has fallen and is still falling? I do not find,
in fact, that it has ever done anything considerable since ;
which is the one sure symptom of rising. My probable
conjecture rather is, that it has done (if Nature's Register,
if the Eternal Daybook, were consulted) very little indeed,
except dwindle into more and more contemptibility, and
impotence to do anything considerable whatever ! Which
is a very melancholy issue of Moritz's great efforts; and
might give rise to unspeakable considerations, in many a
THE PRINZENRAUB. 279
high man and many a low, for which there is not room
in this place.
Johann Frederick, it is well known, sat magnanimously
playing chess, while the Kaiser's sentence, of death, was
brought in to him : he listened to the reading of the sen-
tence; said a polite word or two; then turning round, with
“Pergamus, Let us proceed!” quietly played on till the
checkmate had been settled.* Johann Frederick magnani-
mously waited-out his five years of captivity, excellent old
Lucas Kranach, his painter and humble friend, refusing to
quit him, but steadfastly sharing the same; then quietly
returned (old Lucas still with him) to his true loving-
hearted wife, to the glad friends whose faith had been
tried in the fire. With such a wife waiting him, and such
a Lucas attending him, a man had still something left, had
his lands been all gone; which in Johann Frederick's case,
they were still far from being. He settled at Weimar, having
lost electoral Wittenberg and the inalienable properties; he
continued to do here, as formerly, whatever wise and noble
thing he could, through the short remainder of his life:–
one wishes he had not founded all that imbroglio of little
dukes But perhaps he could not help it: law of primo-
geniture, except among the Brandenburg Hohenzollerns,
always a wise, decisive, thrifty and growing race, who had
the fine talent of “annihilating rubbish,’ was not yet known
in those countries. Johann Frederick felt, most likely, that
he, for One, in this aspect of the stars, was not founding
kingdoms | But indeed it was not he, it was his successors,
his grandson and great-grandson chiefly, that made these
multiplex divisions and confusions on the face of the Ger-
man mother-earth, and perplexed the human soul with this
inextricable wilderness of little dukes. From him, however,
* De Wette: Lebens-Geschichte der Herzoge zu Sachsen (Weimar, 1770), i. 39.
280 MISCELLANTES.
they do all descend; this let the reader know, and let it
be some slight satisfaction to him to have got a historical
double-girth tied round them in that manner, and see Two
compact Bundles made of them, in the mean while.
Moritz, the new Elector, did not last long. Shortly after
Johann Frederick got home to Weimar, Moritz had already
found his death, in prosecution of that game begun by him.
It is well known he had no sooner made the Electorate
sure to himself than he too drew Sword against the Kaiser;
beat the Kaiser; chased him into the Tyrol mountains;
could have taken him there, but—“I have no cage big
enough to hold such a bird,” said Moritz: so he let the
Kaiser run; and made the Treaty of Passau with him in-
stead. Treaty of Passau (A.D. 1552), by which Johann Fre-
derick's liberty was brought about, for one thing, and many
liberties were stipulated for the Protestants; upon which
Treaty indeed Germany rested from its religious battles, of
the blood-shedding sort, and fought only by ink thenceforth,
—till the Thirty-Years War came, and a new Treaty, that
of Münster or Westphalia (1648), had to succeed.
Shortly after Passau, Moritz, now on the Kaiser's side,
and clear for peace and submission to said treaty, drew-out
against his oldest comrade, Albert Hohenzollern of Anspach,
—‘Albert Alcibiades' as they call him, that far-shining, too-
impetuous Failure of a Frederick the Great; drew-out, I
say, against this Alcibiades, who would not accept the
Treaty of Passau; beat Alcibiades in the battle of Sievers-
hausen, but lost his own life withal in it, no more, either
of fighting or diplomatising, needed from him ;-and thus,
after only some six years of Electorship, slept with his fa-
thers, no Elector, but a clod of the valley.
His younger brother succeeded; from whom, in a direct
line, come all the subsequent Saxon potentates; and the
TEIE PRINZENRAUB. 281
present King of Saxony, with whom one has no acquaint-
ance, nor much want of any. All of them are nephews, so
to speak, of Elector Moritz, grand-nephews of Duke George
the Dagger-bearded (“if it rained Duke Georges'). Duke
George is, as it were, the grand-uncle of them all; as Al-
bert, our little stolen boy for whom Kunz von Kaufungen
once gathered bilberries, is father of him and of them all.
A goodly progeny, in point of numbers; and handsomely
equipt and decorated by a liberal world: most expensive
people, – in general not admirable otherwise. Of which
multifarious progeny I will remember farther only one, or
at most two; having no esteem for them myself, nor wish
to encumber anybody's innocent memory with what perhaps
deserves oblivion better, and at all events is rapidly on the
way to get it, with or without my sanction. Here, how-
ever, is our third figure, August the Strong.
Friedrich August, the big King of Poland, called by
some of his contemporaries August the Great, which epi-
thet they had to change for August der Starke, August the
Physically Strong : this August, of the three-hundred and
fifty-four bastards, who was able to break a horse-shoe with
his hands, and who lived in this world regardless of ex-
pense,_he is the individual of this junior-senior Albertime
Line, whom I wish to pause one moment upon : merely with
the remark, that if Moritz had any hand in making him the
phenomenon he was, Moritz may well be ashamed of his
work. More transcendent king of gluttonous flunkies sel-
dom trod this lower earth. A miracle to his own century,
—to certain of the flunky species a quasi-celestial miracle,
bright with diamonds, with endless mistresses, regardless
of expense,_to other men a prodigy, portent and quasi-in-
fernal miracle, awakening insoluble inquiries: Whence this,
ye righteous gods, and above all, whither | Poor devil, he
282 MISCELLANTES.
was full of good humour too, and had the best of stomachs.
A man that had his own troubles withal. His miscellany
of mistresses, very pretty some of them, but fools all, would
have driven most men mad. You may discern dimly in
the flunky histories, in babbling Pöllnitz and others, what
a set they were ; what a time he must have had with their
jealousies, their sick vapours, megrims, angers and infatua-
tions;–springing, on occasion, out of bed in their shift, like
wild-cats, at the throat of him, fixing their mad claws in
him, when he merely enters to ask, “How do you do, mon
chow 2° Some of them, it is confidently said, were his own
children. The unspeakably unexemplary mortal
He got his skin well beaten, -cow-hided, as we may
say, - by Charles XII., the rough Swede, clad mostly in
leather. He was coaxed and driven-about by Peter the
Great, as Irish post-horses are, long miles, with a bundle
of hay, never to be attained, stuck upon the pole of the
coach. He reduced himself to utter bankruptcy. He had
got the crown of Poland by pretending to adopt Papistry,
—the apostate, and even pseudo-apostate; and we may say
he has made Protestant Saxony, and his own House first
of all, spiritually bankrupt ever since. He died at last, at
Warsaw (year 1733), of an ‘old man's foot; highly com-
posed, eupeptic to the last; busy in scheming-out a parti-
tion of Poland,-a thing more than once in men's heads,
but not to be completed just yet. Adieu to him forever
and a day.
One of his bastards was Rutowsky, long conspicuous in
poor Saxony as their chief military man; whom the Prus-
sians beat at Kesselsdorf–who was often beaten; whom
Frederick the Great at last shut-up in Pirna. Another was
the Chevalier de Save, also a kind of general, good for very
* Pöllnitz: La Saace Galante; Mémoires et Letlh'es, &c.
THE PRINZENRAUB. 283
little. But by far the notablest was he of Aurora von Königs-
mark's producing, whom they called Comte de Save in his own
country, and who afterwards in France became Maréchal de
Save; a man who made much noise in the world for a time.
Of him also let us say an anecdotic word. Baron d'Espag-
mac and the biographers had long been uncertain about the
date of his birth, date and place alike dubious. For whose
sake, here at length, after a century of searching, is the
extract from the baptismal register, found by an inquiring
man. Poor Aurora, it appears, had been sent to the Harz
Mountains, in the still autumn, in her interesting situation;
lodges in the ancient highland town of Goslar, anonym-
ously, very privately; and this is what the books of the
old Marktkirche (Market-Church) in that remote little place
still bear:
“Den acht-und-zwenzigsten October’—But we must trans-
late: ‘The twenty-eighth of October, in the year Sixteen-
‘ hundred and ninety-six, in the evening, between seven
‘ and eight o'clock, there was born, by the high Lady (von
‘der wornehmen Frau) who lodges in R. Heinrich Christoph
“Winkel’s house, a Son; which Son, on the 30th ejusdem,
‘ was in the evening baptised, in M. S. Alb's house, and, by
‘the name Mauritius, incorporated to the Lord Jesus (dem
* Herrn Jesu einverleibt). Godfathers were Herr Dr. Trumph,
* R. N. Dusings and R. Heinrich Christoph Winkel.” Which
ought to settle that small matter, at least.
On the authority of Baron d’Espagnac, I mention one
other thing of this Mauritius, or Moritz, Maréchal de Saxe ;
who, like his father, was an immensely strong man. Walk-
ing once in the streets of London, he came into collision
with a scavenger, had words with the scavenger, who per-
haps had splashed him with his mud-shovel, or the like.
0 Cramer: Aurora von Königsmark (Leipzig, 1836), i. 126.
284 MISCELLANIES.
Scavenger would make no apology; willing to try a round
of boxing instead. Moritz grasps him suddenly by the
back of the breeches; whirls him aloft, in horizontal posi-
tion; pitches him into his own mudcart, and walks on." A
man of much physical strength, till his wild ways wasted
it all.
He was tall of stature, had black circular eyebrows, black
bright eyes, brightness partly intellectual, partly animal,—
oftenest with a smile in them. Undoubtedly a man of un-
bounded dissoluteness; of much energy, loose native in-
genuity; and the worst speller probably ever known. Take
this one specimen, the shortest I have, not otherwise the
best; specimen achieved, when there had a proposal risen
in the obsequious Académie Française to elect this Maréchal
a member. The Maréchal had the sense to decline. Ils veule
me fere de la Cadémie, writes he: sela miret com une bage a un
chas; meaning probably, Ils veulent me faire de l'Académie ;
cela m'iroit comme une bague à un chat : “They would have me
in the Academy; it would suit me as a ring would a cat,'
—or say, a pair of breeches a cock. Probably he had
much skill in war; I cannot judge : his victories were very
pretty; but it is to be remembered, he gained them all
over the Duke of Cumberland; who was beaten by every-
body that tried, and never beat anything, except once some
starved Highland peasants at Culloden.
To resume and conclude. August the Physically Strong,
be it known in brief, then, is great-grandson of an Elector
called Johann Georg I., who behaved very ill in the Thirty-
Years War; now joining with the great Gustavus, now de-
serting him ; and seeking merely, in a poor tortuous Way,
little to the honour of German Protestantism in that epoch,
to save his own goods and skin; wherein, too, he did not
7 Espagnac: Vie du Maréchal de Saxe (ii. 274, of the German Translation).
THE PRINZENRAUB. 285
even succeed: August the Physically Strong, and Pseudo-
Papist apostate, is great-grandson of that poor man; who
again is grand-nephew of the worldly-wise Elector Moritz,
Passau-Treaty Moritz, questionable Protestant, questionable
friend and enemy of Charles W., with ‘No cage fit to hold
so big a bird,'—and is therefore also great-grand-nephew of
Luther's friend, “If it rained Duke Georges.’ To his gene-
ration there are six from Duke George's, five from Elector
Moritz's: that is the genealogy. And if I add, that the
son of August the Physically Strong was he who got to
be August III., King of Poland; spent his time in smoking
tobacco; and had Brühl for minister, Brühl of the three-
hundred and sixty-five suits of clothes, who brought Frede-
rick of Prussia and the Seven-Years War into his country,
and thereby, so to speak, quite broke the back of Saxony,
I think we may close our excerpts from the Albertine Line.
Of the elder or Ernestine Line, in its disintegrated state, I
will hastily subjoin yet a word, with the reader's leave, and
then end.
ERNESTINE LINE (in the disintegrated state, or broken small).
Noble Johann Frederick, who lost the Electorate, and
retired to Weimar, nobler for his losses, is not to be par-
ticularly blamed for splitting his territory into pieces, and
founding that imbroglio of little dukedoms, which run about,
ever shifting, like a mass of quicksilver cut into little sepa-
rate pools and drops; distractive to the human mind, in a
geographical and in far deeper senses. The case was not
peculiar to Johann Frederick of the Ernestine Line; but was
common to all German dukes and lines. The pious German
mind grudges to lop anything away; holds by the palpably
superfluous; and in general “cannot annihilate rubbish;-
286 MISCELLANIES.
that is its inborn fault. Ilaw of primogeniture, for such
Small sovereignties and dukedoms, is hardly yet, as the
general rule, above a century old in that country; which,
for sovereigns and for citizens, much more than for geogra-
phers, was eertainly a strange state of matters
The Albertine Line, Electoral though it now was, made
apanages, subdivisions, unintelligible little dukes and duke-
ries of a similar kind, though perhaps a little more charily:
almost within a century we can remember little sovereign
dukes of that line. A Duke of Weissenfels, for instance;
foolish old gawk, whom Wilhelmina Princess Royal recol-
lects for his distracted notions,”—which were well shaken-
out of him by Wilhelmina's Brother afterwards. Or again,
contemporaneously, that other little Duke, what was the
title of him 3–who had built the biggest bassoon ever heard
of; thirty feet high, or so; and was seen playing on it from
a trap-ladder;”—poor soul, denied an employment in this
world, and obliged to fly to bassoons!
Then, too, a Duke of Merseburg,” who was dining so-
lemnly, when the “Old Dessauer” (Leopold of Anhalt-Des-
sau, conqueror at Kesselsdorf afterwards, and a great rough
Prussian son of Mars) broke-in upon him, in a friendly man-
ner, half-drunk, with half-drunk grenadiers whom he had
been reviewing; and reviewed and paraded them again
there within the sublime ducal dining-room itself, and fired
volleys there (to the ruin of mirrors and cut-glass); and
danced with the princesses, his officers and he, a princess
in your left-hand, a drawn sword in your right;-and drank
and uproared, in a Titanic manner, for about eight hours;
making a sorcerer's-Sabbath of the poor duke's solemn din-
8 Mémoires de Wilhelmine de Prusse, Margrave de Baº'eith.
9 Pöllnitz: Mémoires et Lettres.
* Same as the Bassoon Duke.-ED.
THE PRINZENRAUT3. 287
ner.” Sachsen-Weissenfels, Sachsen-Merseburg, Sachsen-
Zeitz:-there were many little dukes of the Albertine Line,
too, but happily they are now all dead childless; and their
apanages have fallen home to the general mass, which does
not henceforth make subdivisions of itself. The Ernestine
Line was but like the Albertine, and like all its neighbours,
in that respect.
So, too, it would be cruel to say of these Ernestine little
Dukes that they have no history; though it must be owned,
in the modern state of the world, they are ever more, and
have long been, almost in the impossibility of having any.
To build big bassoons, and play on them from trap-ladders;
to do hunting, build opera-houses, give court-shows: what
else, if they do not care to serve in foreign armies, is well
possible for them 3 It is a fatal position; and they really
ought to be delivered from it. Perhaps, then, they might
do better. Nay perhaps already here and there they have
more history than we are all aware of. The late Duke of
Weimar was beneficent to men-of-letters; had the alto-
gether essential merit, too, which is a very singular one,
of finding out, for that object, the real men-of-letters instead
of the counterfeit. A Duke of Sachsen-Gotha, of earlier
date, went into the Grumbach’sche Handel (sad ‘Grumbach
Brabble, consisting of wild-justice in high quarters, by as-
Sassination or sudden homicide in the street, with conse-
quences; of all which the English reader happily knows
nothing), went into it bravely, if rashly, in generous pity
for Grumbach, in high hope for himself withal; and got
thrown into jail for life, poor Duke Where also his Wife
attended him, like a brave true woman, “for twenty years.’
—On the whole, I rather think they would still gladly have
ii Des weltberiihinten Fürstens Leopoldi von Anhalt-Dessaw Leben, &c. (Leipzig,
1742), pp. 108-112.
288 MISCELLANIES.
histories if they could; and am willing to regret that brave
men and princes, descended presumably from Witekind and
the gods, certainly from John the Steadfast and John Fre-
derick the Magnanimous, should be reduced to stand inert
in the whirling arena of the world in that manner, swathed
in old wrappages and packthread meshes, into inability to
move ; watching sadly the Centuries with their stormful
opulences rush past you, Century after Century in vain
But it is better we should close. Of the Ernestine Line,
in its disintegrated state, let us mention only two names,
in the briefest manner, who are not quite without signifi-
cance to men and Englishmen; and therewith really end.
The first is Bernhard of Weimar; champion of Elizabeth
Stuart, Ex-queen of Bohemia; famed captain in the Thirty-
Years War; a really notable man. Whose Life Goethe
once thought of writing; but prudently (right prudently,
as I can now see) drew out of it, and wrote nothing. Not
so easy to dig-out a Hero from the mountainous Owl-drop-
pings, deadening to the human nostril, which moulder in
Record Offices and Public Libraries; patrolled-over by mere
irrational monsters, of the gryphon and vulture and chi-
mera species 1 Easier, a good deal, to versify the Ideal
a little, and stick-by ballads and the legitimate drama.
Bernhard was Johann Frederick the Magnanimous's great-
grandson: that is his genealogy; great-grandson of little
stolen Ernst's grandson. He began in those Bohemian
Campaigns (1621), a young lad of seventeen; Rittmeister
to one of his elder Brothers; some three of whom, in vari-
ous capacities, fought in the Protestant wars of their time.
Very ardent Protestants, they and he ; men of devout mind
withal; as generally their whole Line, from Johann Fre-
derick the Magnanimous downwards, were distinguished by
being. He had risen to be a famed captain, while still
THE PRINZENRAUB. 289
young; and, under and after the great Gustavus, he did
exploits to make the whole world know him. He ‘was in
two-and-thirty battles; gained, or helped to gain, almost
all of them; but unfortunately lost that of Nördlingen, which,
next to Lützen, was the most important of all. He had
taken Breisach (in the Upper-Rhine country), thought to be
inexpugnable; and was just in sight of immense ulterior
achievements and advancements, when he died suddenly
(1639), still only in his thirty-fifth year. The Richelieu
French poisoned him (so ran and runs the rumour); at
least he died conveniently for Richelieu, for Germany most
inconveniently; and was in truth a mighty kind of man;
distinguished much from the imbroglio of little Dukes :
‘grandson's great-grandson, as I said, ‘of’
Or, alas, is
it hopeless to charge a modern reader's memory even with
Bernhard |
Another individual of the Ernestine Line, surely notable
to Englishmen, and much to be distinguished amid that
imbroglio of little Dukes, is the ‘Prinz ALBRECHT Franz Aw-
gust Karl Emanuel von Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha, whom we call,
in briefer English, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg; actual
Prince Consort of these happy realms. He also is a late,
very late, grandson of that little stolen Ernst. Concerning
whom both English History and English Prophecy might
say something, but not conveniently in this place. By
the generality of thinking Englishmen he is regarded as a
man of solid sense and worth, seemingly of superior talent,
placed in circumstances beyond measure singular. Very
complicated circumstances; and which do not promise to
grow less so, but the contrary. For the Horologe of Time
goes inexorably on; and the Sick Ages ripen (with terrible
rapidity at present) towards Who will tell us what ?
The human wisdom of this Prince, whatever share of it he
WOL, XI. (Misc. vol. 6.) U
290 MISCELLANTES.
has, may one day be unspeakably important to mankind!—
But enough, enough. We will here subjoin his Pedigree
at least; which is a very innocent Document, riddled from
the big Historical cinderheaps, and may be comfortable to
Some persons:
‘Ernst the Pious, Duke of Sachsen-Gotha (1601–1675), was one
of Bernhard of Weimar's elder brothers; great-grandson of Johann
Frederick the Magnanimous, who lost the Electorate. Had been a
soldier in his youth; succeeded to Gotha and the main part of the
Territories; and much distinguished himself there. A patron of
learning, among other good things; set Seckendorf on compiling the
History of the Reformation. To all appearance, an excellent, pru-
dent and really pious Governor of men. He left seven sons; who
at first lived together at Gotha, and ‘governed conjointly;' but at
length divided the Territories; Frederick the eldest taking Gotha,
where various other Fredericks succeeded him, and the line did not
die out till 1824. The other six brothers likewise all founded ‘Lines,”
Coburg, Meinungen, Römhild, Eisenberg, Hildburghausen, Saalfeld,
most of which soon died out; but it is only the youngest brother, he
of Saalfeld with his Line, that concerns us here.
1° JoHANN ERNST (1658–1729), youngest son of Ernst the Pious;
got Saalfeld for his portion. The then Coburg Line died out in
1678, upon which arose great arguings as to who should inherit;
arguings, bargainings; and, between Meinungen and Saalfeld espe-
cially, a lawsuit in the Reichshofrath (Imperial Aulic Council, as we
call it), which seemed as if it would never end. At length, in 1735,
Saalfeld, “after two-hundred and six Conclusa (Decrees) in its favour,”
carried the point over Meinungen; got possession of ‘Coburg Town,
and nearly all the Territory,’ and holds it ever since. Johann Ernst
was dead in the interim ; but had left his son,
2° FRANz JosLAs (born 1697), Duke of Sachsen-Saalfeld,—who,
as we see, in 1735, after these ‘206 Decrees,’ got Coburg too, and
adopted that town as his Residenz; Duke of Sachsen-Coburg-Saalfeld
thenceforth. A younger son of this Franz Josias was the “Cobourg”
(Austrian General) thrice-famous in the French Newspapers of 1792–
’94, if now forgotten. His (Franz Josias's) eldest son and successor was
THE PRINZENRAUB. 291
3° ERNST FRIEDRICH (1724–1800);-and his
4° FRANZ FRIEDRICH ANTON (1750–1806). He left three daugh-
ters, one of whom became Duchess of Kent, and mother of Queen
Victoria : likewise three sons; the youngest of whom is Leopold,
now King of the Belgians; and the eldest of whom was
5° ERNST ANTON KARL LUDwig (1784–1844); to whom Sachsen-
Gotha fell in 1824;--whose elder son is now reigning Duke of
Sachsen-Coburg-Saalfeld-Gotha (chief Residence Gotha); and whose
younger is -
6° PRINCE ALBERT, whom we know.”
So that the young gentleman who will one day (it is
hoped, but not till after many years) be King of England,
is visibly, as we count, Thirteenth in direct descent from
that little boy Ernst whom Kunz von Kaufungen stole.
Ernst's generation and Twelve others have blossomed-out
and grown big, and have faded and been blown away; and
in these 400 years, since Kunz did his feat, we have arrived
so far. And that is the last ‘pearl, or odd button, I will
string on that Transaction.
*m-º-º-º-º:
*...* Here is a Letter since received, which may be worth
printing:
‘Royal Society, Somerset House, 6th August 1856.
‘DEAR SIR,--I am a stranger to you, though not to your works;
and would not intrude on your time and attention, were it not that
the subject on which I write may perhaps procure me your indulg-
CIlC6. - -
‘I have taken a walk into Bohemia, and visited, on the way,
some of the places identified with the Prinzenraub. The old town
of Altenburg is picturesque in situation, architecture and the cos-
tume of its Wendish population. In the castle, which stands on a
hill resembling that at Edinburgh, are to be seen the dresses worn by
12 Hübner, tab. 163; CErtel, tab. 70; Michaelis, Chur- und Fürstlichen Häuser
in Teutschland, i. 511.525. . *
292 MISCELLANTES.
the young Princes at the time of their kidnapping, ancient weapons,
armour, &c., old chambers and modern halls, and a walled-up win-
dow marking the situation of the one through which Kunz carried-off
his princely booty.
‘The estate which was given to the Driller is situate about half-
an-hour's walk to the east of Zwickau ; a town that recalls Luther
to memory. He (Luther) often ascended the tall church-tower to
enjoy the prospect around ; and there remains on the top an old
clumsy table said to have been his.
‘The Driller family is not extinct. Three male representatives
are living at Freyberg and other places in Saxony; but the estate has
been out of their possession for many years. It lies pleasantly on
one side of a narrow glen, and is now the site of a large brewery—
Driller Bierbrauered—famed in all the country round for the excel-
lence of its beer. By experience acceptably gathered on the spot on
a hot afternoon, I can testify that the Driller beer is equal to its
reputation. Hence there is something besides a patriotic sentiment
to attract customers to the shady gardens and spacious guest-cham-
bers of the brewery; and to justify the Writing over the entrance,—
Dulcius eac ipso fonte bibuntur aquae.
“In one of the rooms I saw a full-length painting of the Driller;
a sturdy, resolute-looking fellow, with ample black beard, grasping
his pole, and supporting the young Prince whom he has just rescued.
Also two miniatures; one inscribed Georg Schmidt od. Thriller ; the
other, a likeness of his Wife, a rustic dame of quiet expression, with
gray eyes and arched eyebrows. Also a portrait of Kunz, very dif-
ferent from what I expected. He bears a striking resemblance to our
portraits of Sir Philip Sidney; with crisp curly hair, ample forehead,
well-opened eye, pointed beard, and wearing a gold chain. Also a
thin quarto containing a history of the Prinzenraub, with portraits,
and engravings of the incidents: The stealing of the princes from
the castle—the rescue—the joyful return—the beheading of Kunz,
&c. All these things help to keep-up a little enthusiasm among the
Saxons, and perhaps encourage trade.
‘On the 8th of July of last year (1855), a festival was held to
celebrate the four-hundredth anniversary of the Prinzenraub. A long
procession, headed by Herr Ebert, the chief proprietor (since de-
ceased), walked from Zwickau to the brewery, passing under two
TEIE PRINZENRAUB. 293
triumphal arches on the way. The leader was followed by a long
file of coalers, by friends on foot and in carriages, and bands of music
in wagons; altogether about eight-hundred persons. They kept-up
the celebration with right good will, and drank, so the Braumeister
told me, a hundred eimers of beer.
‘A similar festival was held on the same day at Altenburg, Harten-
stein, Grünhain, attended by people from all the neighbouring villages,
when not a few paid a visit to the Prinzenhöhle, the cave in which
Prince Ernst was hidden.
“I did not see the monastery of Ebersdorf; but I was informed
by Sundry persons that the Driller's coat is still to be seen there.
“I remain, yours with much respect,
* WALTER WHITE.
‘THOMAS CARLYLE, ESQ.’
IN AU G-URAL AIDDRESS
AT EDINBURGH, 2d APRIL 1866,
ON BEING INSTALLED AS RECTOR OF THE UNIVERSITY THERE.
INAUGURAL ADDRESS.
GENTLEMEN,
I have accepted the office you have elected me
to, and it is now my duty to return thanks for the great
honour done me. Your enthusiasm towards me, I must
admit, is in itself very beautiful, however undeserved it
may be in regard to the object of it. It is a feeling hom-
ourable to all men, and one well known to myself when
I was of an age like yours, nor is it yet quite gone. I
can only hope that, with you too, it may endure to the
end,-this noble desire to honour those whom you think
worthy of honour; and that you will come to be more and
more select and discriminate in the choice of the object of
it :—for I can well understand that you will modify your
opinions of me and of many things else, as you go on
[Laughter and cheers]. It is now fifty-six years, gone last
November, since I first entered your City, a boy of not
quite fourteen; to ‘attend the classes’ here, and gain know-
ledge of all kinds, I could little guess what, my poor mind
full of wonder and awe-struck expectation; and now, after
a long course, this is what we have come to [Cheers]. There
is something touching and tragic, and yet at the same time
beautiful, to see, as it were, the third generation of my
dear old native land rising up and saying, “Well, you are
not altogether an unworthy labourer in the vineyard; you
298 MISCELLANTES.
have toiled through a great variety of fortunes, and have
had many judges: this is our judgment of you!” As the
old proverb says, “He that builds by the wayside has many
masters.' We must expect a variety of judges; but the
voice of young Scotland, through you, is really of some
value to me; and I return you many thanks for it, though
I cannot go into describing my emotions to you, and per-
haps they will be much more perfectly conceivable if ex-
pressed in silence [Cheers].
When this office was first proposed to me, some of you
know I was not very ambitious to accept it, but had my
doubts rather. I was taught to believe that there were
certain more or less important duties which would lie in
my power. This, I confess, was my chief motive in going
into it, and overcoming the objections I felt to such things:
if I could do anything to serve my dear old Alma Mater
and you, why should not I? [Loud cheers.] Well, but on
practically looking into the matter when the office actually
came into my hands, I find it grows more and more un-
certain and abstruse to me whether there is much real duty
that I can do at all. I live four hundred miles away from
you, in an entirely different scene of things; and my weak
health, with the burden of the many years now accumu-
lating on me, and my total unacquaintance with such sub-
jects as concern your affairs here, — all this fills me with
apprehension that there is really nothing worth the least
consideration that I can do on that score. You may de-
pend on it, however, that if any such duty does arise in
any form, I will use my most faithful endeavour to do in
it whatever is right and proper, according to the best of
my judgment [Cheers].
Meanwhile, the duty I at present have, which might
be very pleasant, but which is not quite so, for reasons you
INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 299
may fancy, is to address some words to you, if possible
not quite useless, nor incongruous to the occasion, and on
subjects more or less cognate to the pursuits you are en-
gaged in. Accordingly, I mean to offer you some loose
observations, loose in point of order, but the truest I have,
in such form as they may present themselves; certain of
the thoughts that are in me about the business you are
here engaged in, what kind of race it is that you young
gentlemen have started on, and what sort of arena you
are likely to find in this world. I ought, I believe, accord-
ing to custom, to have written all that down on paper,
and had it read out. That would have been much handier
for me at the present moment [A laugh];-but on attempt—
ing the thing, I found I was not used to write speeches,
and that I didn’t get on very well. So I flung that aside;
and could only resolve to trust, in all superficial respects,
to the suggestion of the moment, as you now see. You
will therefore have to accept what is readiest; what comes
direct from the heart; and you must just take that in com-
pensation for any good order or arrangement there might
have been in it. I will endeavour to say nothing that is
not true, so far as I can manage; and that is pretty much
all I can engage for [A laugh].
Advices, I believe, to young men, as to all men, are
very seldom much valued. There is a great deal of ad-
vising, and very little faithful performing; and talk that
does not end in any kind of action is better suppressed
altogether. I would not, therefore, go much into advising;
but there is one advice I must give you. In fact, it is the
summary of all advices, and doubtless you have heard it
a thousand times; but I must nevertheless let you hear it
the thousand-and-first time, for it is most intensely true,
whether you will believe it at present or not:-namely,
300 MISCELLANTES.
That above all things the interest of your whole life de-
pends on your being diligent, now while it is called today,
in this place where you have come to get education 1 Dili-
gent : that includes in it all virtues that a student can
have ; I mean it to include all those qualities of conduct
that lead on to the acquirement of real instruction and im-
provement in such a place. If you will believe me, you who
are young, yours is the golden season of life. As you
have heard it called, so it verily is, the seed-time of life;
in which, if you do not sow, or if you sow tares instead of
wheat, you cannot expect to reap well afterwards, and you
will arrive at little. And in the course of years, when you
come to look back, if you have not done what you have
heard from your advisers, and among many counsellers
there is wisdom, you will bitterly repent when it is too
late. The habits of study acquired at Universities are of the
highest importance in after-life. At the season when you
are young in years, the whole mind is, as it were, fluid,
and is capable of forming itself into any shape that the
owner of the mind pleases to allow it, or constrain it, to
form itself into. The mind is then in a plastic or fluid
state; but it hardens gradually, to the consistency of rock
or of iron, and you cannot alter the habits of an old man :
he, as he has begun, so he will proceed and go on to
the last. -
By diligence I mean, among other things, and very
chiefly too, honesty, in all your inquiries, and in all you
are about. Pursue your studies in the way your conscience
can name honest. More and more endeavour to do that.
Keep, I should say for one thing, an accurate separation
between what you have really come to know in your minds
and what is still unknown. Leave all that latter on the
hypothetical side of the barrier, as things afterwards to be
INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 301
acquired, if acquired at all; and be careful not to admit a
thing as known when you do not yet know it. Count a
thing known only when it is imprinted clearly on your
mind, and has become transparent to you, so that you may
survey it on all sides with intelligence. There is such a
thing as a man endeavouring to persuade himself, and en-
deavouring to persuade others, that he knows things, when
he does not know more than the outside skin of them ; and
yet he goes flourishing about with them [Hear, hear, and a
laugh]. There is also a process called cramming, in some
Universities [A laugh],-that is, getting-up such points of
things as the examiner is likely to put questions about.
Avoid all that, as entirely unworthy of an honourable mind.
Be modest, and humble, and assiduous in your attention to
what your teachers tell you, who are profoundly interested
in trying to bring you forward in the right way, so far as
they have been able to understand it. Try all things they
set before you, in order, if possible, to understand them, and
to follow and adopt them in proportion to their fitness for
you. Gradually see what kind of work you individually
can do; it is the first of all problems for a man to find out
what kind of work he is to do in this universe. In short,
morality as regards study is, as in all other things, the prim-
ary consideration, and overrules all others. A dishonest man
cannot do anything real; he never will study with real
fruit; and perhaps it would be greatly better if he were
tied up from trying it. He does nothing but darken counsel
by the words he utters. That is a very old doctrine, but
a very true one; and you will find it confirmed by all the
thinking men that have ever lived in this long series of
generations of which we are the latest.
I daresay you know, very many of you, that it is now
302 MISCELLANTES,
some seven hundred years since Universities were first set-
up in this world of ours. Abelard and other thinkers had
arisen with doctrines in them which people wished to hear
of, and students flocked towards them from all parts of the
world. There was no getting the thing recorded in books,
as you now may. You had to hear the man speaking to
you vocally, or else you could not learn at all what it was
that he wanted to say. And so they gathered together,
these speaking ones, the various people who had anything
to teach ; –and formed themselves gradually, under the
patronage of kings and other potentates who were anxious
about the culture of their populations, and nobly studious of
their best benefit; and became a body-corporate, with high
privileges, high dignities, and really high aims, under the
title of a University.
Possibly too you may have heard it said that the course
of centuries has changed all this; and that ‘the true Uni-
versity of our days is a Collection of Books.’ And beyond
doubt, all this is greatly altered by the invention of Print-
ing, which took place about midway between us and the
origin of Universities. Men have not now to go in person
to where a Professor is actually speaking; because in most
cases you can get his doctrine out of him through a book;
and can then read it, and read it again and again, and study
it. That is an immense change, that one fact of Printed
Books. And I am not sure that I know of any University
in which the whole of that fact has yet been completely
taken in, and the studies moulded in complete conformity
with it. Nevertheless, Universities have, and will continue
to have, an indispensable value in society;-I think, a very
high, and it might be, almost the highest value. They
began, as is well known, with their grand aim directed on
Theology, =their eye turned earnestly on Heaven. And
INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 303
perhaps, in a sense, it may be still said, the very highest
interests of man are virtually intrusted to them. In regard
to theology, as you are aware, it has been, and especially
was then, the study of the deepest heads that have come
into the world,—what is the nature of this stupendous Uni-
verse, and what are our relations to it, and to all things
knowable by man, or known only to the great Author of
man and it. Theology was once the name for all this; all
this is still alive for man, however dead the name may
grow ! In fact, the members of the Church keeping theology
in a lively condition [Laughter] for the benefit of the whole
population, theology was the great object of the Universi-
ties. I consider it is the same intrinsically now, though very
much forgotten, from many causes, and not so successful
[A laugh] as might be wished, by any manner of means !
It remains, however, practically a most important truth,
what I alluded to above, that the main use of Universities
in the present age is that, after you have done with all
your classes, the next thing is a collection of books, a great
library of good books, which you proceed to study and to
read. What the Universities can mainly do for you, what
I have found the University did for me, is, That it taught
me to read, in various languages, in various sciences; so
that I could go into the books which treated of these things,
and gradually penetrate into any department I wanted to
make myself master of, as I found it suit me.
Well, Gentlemen, whatever you may think of these his-
torical points, the clearest and most imperative duty lies on
every one of you to be assiduous in your reading. Learn
to be good readers, which is perhaps a more difficult thing
than you imagine. Learn to be discriminative in your read-
ing; to read faithfully, and with your best attention, all
304 MISCELLANTES.
kinds of things which you have a real interest in, a real not
an imaginary, and which you find to be really fit for what
you are engaged in. Of course, at the present time, in a
great deal of the reading incumbent on you, you must be
guided by the books recommended by your Professors for
assistance towards the effect of their prelections. And then,
when you leave the University, and go into studies of your
own, you will find it very important that you have chosen
a field, some province specially suited to you, in which you
can study and work. The most unhappy of all men is the
man who cannot tell what he is going to do, who has got
no work cut-out for him in the world, and does not go into
it. For work is the grand cure of all the maladies and
miseries that ever beset mankind,-honest work, which you
intend getting done.
If, in any vacant vague time, you are in a strait as to
choice of reading, a very good indication for you, perhaps
the best you could get, is towards some book you have a
great curiosity about. You are then in the readiest and
best of all possible conditions to improve by that book.
It is analogous to what doctors tell us about the physical
health and appetites of the patient. You must learn, how-
ever, to distinguish between false appetite and true. There
is such a thing as a false appetite, which will lead a man
into vagaries with regard to diet; will tempt him to eat
spicy things, which he should not eat at all, nor would, but
that the things are toothsome, and that he is under a mo-
mentary baseness of mind. A man ought to examine and
find out what he really and truly has an appetite for, what
suits his constitution and condition; and that, doctors tell
him, is in general the very thing he ought to have. And so
with books.
INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 305
As applicable to all of you, I will say that it is highly
expedient to go into History; to inquire into what has
passed before you on this Earth, and in the Family of Man.
The history of the Romans and Greeks will first of all
concern you; and you will find that the classical know-
ledge you have got will be extremely applicable to eluci-
date that. There you have two of the most remarkable
races of men in the world set before you, calculated to open
innumerable reflections and considerations; a mighty ad-
vantage, if you can achieve it ; – to say nothing of what
their two languages will yield you, which your Professors
can better explain; model languages, which are universally
admitted to be the most perfect forms of speech we have yet
found to exist among men. And you will find, if you read
well, a pair of extremely remarkable nations, shining in the
records left by themselves, as a kind of beacon, or solitary
mass of illumination, to light-up some noble forms of human
life for us, in the otherwise utter darkness of the past ages;
and it will be well worth your while if you can get into the
understanding of what these people were, and what they
did. You will find a great deal of hearsay, of empty rumour
and tradition, which does not touch on the matter; but per-
haps some of you will get to see the old Roman and the old
Greek face to face; you will know in some measure how
they contrived to exist, and to perform their feats in the
world.
I believe, also, you will find one important thing not
much noted, That there was a very great deal of deep re-
ligion in both nations. This is pointed out by the wiser
Rind of historians, and particularly by Ferguson, who is
very well worth reading on Roman history, and who, I
believe, was an alumnus of our own University. His
book is a very creditable work. He points out the pro-
VOL. XI. (Misc. vol. 6.) Y.
306 MISCELLANIES.
foundly religious nature of the Roman people, notwith-
standing their ruggedly positive, defiant and fierce ways.
They believed that Jupiter Optimus Maximus was lord of
the universe, and that he had appointed the Romans to
become the chief of nations, provided they followed his
commands,--to brave all danger, all difficulty, and stand
up with an invincible front, and be ready to do and die;
and also to have the same sacred regard to truth of promise,
to thorough veracity, thorough integrity, and all the virtues
that accompany that noblest quality of man, valour, – to
which latter the Romans gave the name of ‘virtue’ proper
(virtus, manhood), as the crown and summary of all that
is ennobling for a man. In the literary ages of Rome this
religious feeling had very much decayed away; but it still
retained its place among the lower classes of the Roman
people. Of the deeply religious nature of the Greeks, along
with their beautiful and sunny effulgences of art, you have
striking proof, if you look for it. In the tragedies of
Sophocles there is a most deep-toned recognition of the
eternal justice of Heaven, and the unfailing punishment of
crime against the laws of God. I believe you will find in
all histories of nations, that this has been at the origin and
foundation of them all; and that no nation which did not
contemplate this wonderful universe with an awestricken
and reverential belief that there was a great unknown,
omnipotent, and all-wise and all-just Being, superintending
all men in it, and all interests in it, no nation ever came
to very much, nor did any man either, who forgot that. If
a man did forget that, he forgot the most important part
of his mission in this world.
Our own history of England, which you will naturally
take a great deal of pains to make yourselves acquainted
with, you will find beyond all others worthy of your study.
INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 307
For indeed I believe that the British nation,-including in
that the Scottish nation,-produced a finer set of men than
any you will find it possible to get anywhere else in the
world [Applause]. I don’t know, in any history of Greece or
Rome, where you will get so fine a man as Oliver Cromwell,
for example [Applause]. And we too have had men worthy
of memory, in our little corner of the Island here, as well
as others; and our history has had its heroic features all
along; and did become great at last in being connected
with world-history:—for if you examine well, you will find
that John Knox was the author, as it were, of Oliver Crom-
well; that the Puritan revolution never would have taken
place in England at all, had it not been for that Scotchman
[Applause]. That is an authentic fact, and is not prompted
by national vanity on my part, but will stand examining
[Laughter and applause]. x
In fact, if you look at the struggle that was then going
on in England, as I have had to do in my time, you will see
that people were overawed by the immense impediments
lying in the way. A small minority of God-fearing men
in that country were flying away, with any ship they could
get, to New England, rather than take the lion by the beard.
They durst not confront the powers with their most just
complaints, and demands to be delivered from idolatry.
They wanted to make the nation altogether conformable
to the Hebrew Bible, which they, and all men, understood
to be the exact transcript of the Will of God;—and could
there be, for man, a more legitimate aim 2 Nevertheless,
it would have been impossible in their circumstances, and
not to be attempted at all, had not Knox succeeded in it
here, some fifty years before, by the firmness and nobleness
of his mind. For he also is of the select of the earth to me,
—John Knox [Applause]. What he has suffered from the
308 MISCELLANIES.
ungrateful generations that have followed him should really
make us humble ourselves to the dust, to think that the
most excellent man our country has produced, to whom
we owe everything that distinguishes us among the nations,
should have been so sneered at, misknown, and abused
[Applause]. Knox was heard by Scotland; the people heard
him, believed him to the marrow of their bones: they took
up his doctrine, and they defied principalities and powers
to move them from it. “We must have it,” they said; “we
will and must " It was in this state of things that the
Puritan struggle arose in England; and you know well
how the Scottish earls and nobility, with their tenantry,
marched away to Dunse Hill in 1639, and sat down there:
just at the crisis of that struggle, when it was either to be
suppressed or brought into greater vitality, they encamped
On Dumse Hill,—thirty-thousand armed men, drawn out for
that occasion, each regiment round its landlord, its earl, or
whatever he might be called, and zealous all of them “For
Christ's Crown and Covenant. That was the signal for all
England's rising up into unappeasable determination to have
the Gospel there also ; and you know it went on, and came
to be a contest whether the Parliament or the King should
rule; whether it should be old formalities and use-and-wont,
or something that had been of new conceived in the souls
of men, namely, a divine determination to walk according
to the laws of God here, as the sum of all prosperity; which
of these should have the mastery : and after a long, long
agony of struggle, it was decided—the way we know.
I should say also of that Protectorate of Oliver Crom-
well’s, notwithstanding the censures it has encountered,
and the denial of everybody that it could continue in the
world, and so on, it appears to me to have been, on the
INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 309 .
whole, the most salutary thing in the modern history of
England. If Oliver Cromwell had continued it out, I don’t
know what it would have come to. It would have got
corrupted probably in other hands, and could not have
gone on ; but it was pure and true, to the last fibre, in his
mind; there was perfect truth in it while he ruled over it.
Macchiavelli has remarked, in speaking of the Romans,
that Democracy cannot long exist anywhere in the world;
that as a mode of government, of national management or
administration, it involves an impossibility, and after a little
while must end in wreck. And he goes on proving that,
in his own way. I do not ask you all to follow him in that
conviction [Hear], but it is to him a clear truth; he con-
siders it a solecism and impossibility that the universal mass
of men should ever govern themselves. He has to admit
of the Romans, that they continued a long time; but be-
lieves it was purely in virtue of this item in their consti-
tution, namely, of their all having the conviction in their
minds that it was solemnly necessary, at times, to appoint
a Dictator; a man who had the power of life and death
over everything, who degraded men out of their places,
ordered them to execution, and did whatever seemed to him
good in the name of God above him. He was commanded
to take care that the republic suffer no detriment. And
Macchiavelli calculates that this was the thing which puri-
fied the social system from time to time, and enabled it to
continue as it did. Probable enough, if you consider it.
And an extremely proper function surely, this of a Dictator,
if the republic was composed of little other than bad and
tumultuous men, triumphing in general over the better, and
all going the bad road, in fact. Well, Oliver Cromwell's
Protectorate, or Dictatorate if you will let me name it so,
lasted for about ten years, and you will find that nothing
310. MISCELLANIES.
which was contrary to the laws of Heaven was allowed to
live by Oliver [Applause].
For example, it was found by his Parliament of Notables,
what they call the “Barebones Parliament,’—the most zeal-
ous of all Parliaments probably [Laughter], that the Court
of Chancery in England was in a state which was really
capable of no apology; no man could get up and say that
that was a right court. There were, I think, fifteen-thou-
sand, or fifteen-hundred [Laughter], I really don’t remember
which, but we will call it by the latter number, to be safe
[Renewed laughter];-there were fifteen-hundred cases lying
in it undecided; and one of them, I remember, for a large
amount of money, was eighty-three years old, and it was
going on still; wigs were wagging over it, and lawyers
were taking their fees, and there was no end of it. Upon
view of all which, the Barebones people, after deliberation
about it, thought it was expedient, and commanded by the
Author of Man and Fountain of Justice, and in the name of
what was true and right, to abolish said court. Really, I
don’t know who could have dissented from that opinion.
At the same time, it was thought by those who were wiser
in their generation, and had more experience of the world,
that this was a very dangerous thing, and wouldn’t suit at
all. The lawyers began to make an immense noise about
it [Laughter]. All the public, the great mass of solid and
well-disposed people who had got no deep insight into
such matters, were very adverse to it: and the Speaker of
the Parliament, old Sir Francis Rous, who translated the
Psalms for us, those that we sing here every Sunday in
the Church yet; a very good man, and a wise and learned,
Provost of Eton College afterwards,--he got a great num-
ber of the Parliament to go to Oliver the Dictator, and lay
down their functions altogether, and declare officially, with
INAUGURAL ADDRESS: 311
their signature, on Monday morning, that the Parliament
was dissolved. The act of abolition had been passed on
Saturday night; and on Monday morning Rous came and
said, “We cannot carry-on the affair any longer, and we
remit it into the hands of your Highness.” Oliver in that
way became Protector, virtually in some sort a Dictator,
for the first time.
And I give you this as an instance that Oliver did faith-
fully set to doing a Dictator's function, and of his prudence
in it as well. Oliver felt that the Parliament, now dismissed,
had been perfectly right with regard to Chancery, and that
there was no doubt of the propriety of abolishing Chancery,
or else reforming it in some kind of way. He considered
the matter, and this is what he did. He assembled fifty or
sixty of the wisest lawyers to be found in England. Happily,
there were men great in the law; men who valued the laws
of England as much as anybody ever did; and who knew
withal that there was something still more sacred than any
of these [A laugh]. Oliver said to them, “Go and examine
this thing, and in the name of God inform me what is neces-
sary to be done with it. You will see how we may clean-out
the foul things in that Chancery Court, which render it poison
to everybody.
course of six weeks,—(there was no public speaking then,
22
Well, they sat down accordingly, and in the
no reporting of speeches, and no babble of any kind, there
was just the business in hand), they got some sixty propo-
sitions fixed in their minds as the summary of the things
that required to be done. And upon these sixty propositions,
Chancery was reconstituted and remodelled; and so it got
a new lease of life, and has lasted to our time. It had be-
come a nuisance, and could not have continued much longer.
That is an instance of the manner of things that were done
when a Dictatorship prevailed in the country, and that was
312 MISCELLANIES.
how the Dictator did them. I reckon, all England, Parlia-
mentary England, got a new lease of life from that Dicta-
torship of Oliver's; and, on the whole, that the good fruits
of it will never die while England exists as a nation.
In general, I hardly think that out of common history-
books you will ever get into the real history of this country,
or ascertain anything which can specially illuminate it for
you, and which it would most of all behove you to know.
You may read very ingenious and very clever books, by
men whom it would be the height of insolence in me to do
other than express my respect for. But their position is
essentially sceptical. God and the Godlike, as our fathers
would have said, has fallen asleep for them; and plays no
part in their histories. A most sad and fatal condition of
matters; who shall say how fatal to us all ! A man un-
happily in that condition will make but a temporary ex-
planation of anything:—in short, you will not be able, I
believe, by aid of these men, to understand how this Island
came to be what it is. You will not find it recorded in
books. You will find recorded in books a jumble of tumults,
disastrous ineptitudes, and all that kind of thing. But to
get what you want, you will have to look into side sources,
and inquire in all directions. -
I remember getting Collins's Peerage to read, a very
poor performance as a work of genius, but an excellent book
for diligence and fidelity. I was writing on Oliver Crom-
well at the time [Applause]. I could get no biographical
dictionary available; and I thought the Peerage Book, since
most of my men were peers or sons of peers, would help
me, at least would tell me whether people were old or
young, where they lived, and the like particulars, better
than absolute nescience and darkness. And accordingly I
INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 313
found amply all I had expected in poor Collins, and got a
great deal of help out of him. He was a diligent dull Lon-
don bookseller, of about a hundred years ago, who compiled
out of all kinds of parchments, charter-chests, archives, books
that were authentic, and gathered far and wide, wherever
he could get it, the information wanted. He was a very
meritorious man.
I not only found the solution of everything I had ex-
pected there, but I began gradually to perceive this im-
mense fact, which I really advise every one of you who read
history to look out for, if you have not already found it.
It was that the Kings of England, all the way from the
Norman Conquest down to the times of Charles I., had ac-
tually, in a good degree, so far as they knew, been in the
habit of appointing as Peers those who deserved to be ap-
pointed. In general, I perceived, those Peers of theirs were
all royal men of a sort, with minds full of justice, valour
and humanity, and all kinds of qualities that men ought to
have who rule over others. And then their genealogy, the
kind of sons and descendants they had, this also was re-
markable:–for there is a great deal more in genealogy than
is generally believed at present. I never heard tell of any
clever man that came of entirely stupid people [Laughter].
If you look around, among the families of your acquaint-
ance, you will see such cases in all directions; — I know
that my own experience is steadily that way; I can trace
the father, and the son, and the grandson, and the family
stamp is quite distinctly legible upon each of them. So
that it goes for a great deal, the hereditary principle,_in
Government as in other things; and it must be again re-
cognised so soon as there is any fixity in things. You
will remark, too, in your Collins, that, if at any time the
genealogy of a peerage goes awry, if the man that actually
314 MISCELLANIES.
holds the peerage is a fool,-in those earnest practical
times, the man soon gets into mischief, gets into treason
probably,–soon gets himself and his peerage extinguished
altogether, in short [Laughter].
From those old documents of Collins, you learn and
ascertain that a peer conducts himself in a pious, high-
minded, grave, dignified and manly kind of way, in his
course through life, and when he takes leave of life:–his
last will is often a remarkable piece, which one lingers over.
And then you perceive that there was kindness in him as
well as rigour, pity for the poor; that he has fine hospi-
talities, generosities, in fine, that he is throughout much
of a noble, good and valiant man. And that in general the
Ring, with a beautiful approximation to accuracy, had no-
minated this kind of man; saying, “Come you to me, sir.
Come out of the common level of the people, where you are
liable to be trampled upon, jostled about, and can do in a
manner nothing with your fine gift; come here and take a
district of country, and make it into your own image more
or less; be a king under me, and understand that that is
your function.” I say this is the most divine thing that a
human being can do to other human beings, and no kind of
thing whatever has so much of the character of God Al-
mighty's Divine Government as that thing, which, we see,
went on all over England for about six hundred years.
That is the grand soul of England’s history [Cheers]. It is
historically true that, down to the time of James, or even
Charles I., it was not understood that any man was made
a Peer without having merit in him to constitute him a
proper subject for a peerage. In Charles I.'s time it grew
to be known or said that, if a man was born a gentleman,
and cared to lay-out 10,000l. judiciously up and down among
courtiers, he could be made a Peer. Under Charles II. it
INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 315
went on still faster, and has been going on with ever-in-
creasing velocity, until we see the perfectly breakneck pace
at which they are going now [A laugh], so that now a peerage
is a paltry kind of thing to what it was in those old times.
I could go into a great many more details about things of
that sort, but I must turn to another branch of the subject.
First, however, one remark more about your reading. I
do not know whether it has been sufficiently brought home
to you that there are two kinds of books. When a man
is reading on any kind of subject, in most departments of
books,—in all books, if you take it in a wide sense, he will
find that there is a division into good books and bad books.
Everywhere a good kind of book and a bad kind of book.
I am not to assume that you are unacquainted, or ill ac-
quainted, with this plain fact; but I may remind you that
it is becoming a very important consideration in our day.
And we have to cast aside altogether the idea people have,
that if they are reading any book, that if an ignorant man
is reading any book, he is doing rather better than nothing
at all. I must entirely call that in question; I even ven-
ture to deny that [Laughter and cheers]. It would be much
safer and better for many a reader, that he had no concern
with books at all. There is a number, a frightfully in-
creasing number, of books that are decidedly, to the readers
of them, not useful [Hear]. But an ingenuous reader will
learn, also, that a certain number of books were written by
a supremely noble kind of people,_not a very great num-
ber of books, but still a number fit to occupy all your read-
ing industry, do adhere more or less to that side of things.
In short, as I have written it down somewhere else, I con-
ceive that books are like men's souls; divided into sheep
and goats [Laughter and cheers]. Some few are going up,
and carrying us up, heavenward; calculated, I mean, to
316 MISCELLANIES.
be of priceless advantage in teaching, in forwarding the
teaching of all generations. Others, a frightful multitude,
are going down, down; doing ever the more and the wider
and the wilder mischief. Keep a strict eye on that latter
class of books, my young friends !—
And for the rest, in regard to all your studies and read-
ings here, and to whatever you may learn, you are to re-
member that the object is not particular knowledges, not
that of getting higher and higher in technical perfections,
and all that sort of thing. There is a higher aim lying at
the rear of all that, especially among those who are in-
tended for literary or speaking pursuits, or the sacred
profession. You are ever to bear in mind that there lies
behind that the acquisition of what may be called wisdom;
—namely, sound appreciation and just decision as to all
the objects that come round you, and the habit of behav-
ing with justice, candour, clear insight, and loyal adherence
to fact. Great is wisdom; infinite is the value of wisdom.
It cannot be exaggerated; it is the highest achievement
of man: ‘Blessed is he that getteth understanding.’ And
that, I believe, on occasion, may be missed very easily;
never more easily than now, I sometimes think. If that
is a failure, all is failure l—However, I will not touch fur-
ther upon that matter.
But I should have said, in regard to book-reading, if it
be so very important, how very useful would an excellent
library be in every University I hope that will not be
neglected by the gentlemen who have charge of you; and,
indeed, I am happy to hear that your library is very much
improved since the time I knew it, and I hope it will go on
improving more and more. Nay, I have sometimes thought,
why should not there be a library in every county town,
for benefit of those that could read well, and might if per-
INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 317
mitted ? True, you require money to accomplish that ;-
and withal, what perhaps is still less attainable at present,
you require judgment in the selectors of books; real insight
into what is for the advantage of human souls, the exclu-
sion of all kinds of clap-trap books which merely excite the
astonishment of foolish people [Laughter], and the choice
of wise books, as much as possible of good books. Let us
hope the future will be kind to us in this respect.
In this University, as I learn from many sides, there is
considerable stir about endowments; an assiduous and praise-
worthy industry for getting new funds collected to encour-
age the ingenuous youth of Universities, especially of this
our chief University [Hear, hear]. Well, I entirely partici-
pate in everybody's approval of the movement. It is very
desirable. It should be responded to, and one surely ex-
pects it will. At least, if it is not, it will be shameful to
the country of Scotland, which never was so rich in money
as at the present moment, and never stood so much in need
of getting noble Universities, and institutions to counteract
many influences that are springing up alongside of money.
It should not be slack in coming forward in the way of
endowments [A laugh]; at any rate, to the extent of rival-
ling our rude old barbarous ancestors, as we have been
pleased to call them. Such munificence as theirs is beyond
all praise; and to them, I am sorry to say, we are not yet
by any manner of means equal, or approaching equality
[Laughter]. There is an abundance and over-abundance of
money. Sometimes I cannot help thinking that probably
never has there been, at any other time, in Scotland, the
hundredth part of the money that now is, or even the thou-
sandth part. For wherever I go, there is that same gold-
nuggeting [A laugh],-that “unexampled prosperity, and
318 MISCELLANTES.
men counting their balances by the million sterling. Money
was never so abundant, and nothing that is good to be
done with it [Hear, hear, and a laugh]. No man knows,
or very few men know, what benefit to get out of his
money. In fact, it too often is secretly a curse to him.
Much better for him never to have had any. But I do not
expect that generally to be believed [Laughter]. Neverthe-
less, I should think it would be a beneficent relief to many
a rich man who has an honest purpose struggling in him,
to bequeath some house of refuge, so to speak, for the
gifted poor man who may hereafter be born into the world,
to enable him to get on his way a little. To do, in fact,
as those old Norman kings whom I have been describing;
to raise some noble poor man out of the dirt and mud,
where he is getting trampled on unworthily by the un-
worthy, into some kind of position where he might acquire
the power to do a little good in his generation I I hope
that as much as possible will be achieved in this direction;
and that efforts will not be relaxed till the thing is in a
satisfactory state. In regard to the classical department,
above all, it surely is to be desired by us that it were pro-
perly supported,—that we could allow the fit people to have
their scholarships and subventions, and devote more leisure
to the cultivation of particular departments. We might
have more of this from Scotch Universities than we have ;
and I hope we shall.
I am bound, however, to say that it does not appear
as if, of late times, endowment were the real soul of the
matter. The English, for example, are the richest people in
the world for endowments in their Universities; and it is
an evident fact that, since the time of Bentley, you cannot
name anybody that has gained a European name in schoº
INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 319
larship, or constituted a point of revolution in the pursuits
of men in that way. The man who does so is a man worthy
of being remembered; and he is poor, and not an Eng-
lishman. One man that actually did constitute a revolu-
tion was the son of a poor weaver in Saxony; who edited
his Tibullus, in Dresden, in a poor comrade's garret, with
the floor for his bed, and two folios for pillow; and who,
while editing his Tibullus, had to gather peasecods on the
streets and boil them for his dinner. That was his en-
dowment [Laughter]. But he was recognised soon to have
done a great thing. His name was Heyne [Cheers]. I can
remember, it was quite a revolution in my mind when I got
hold of that man's edition of Virgil. I found that, for the
first time, I understood Virgil; that Heyne had introduced
me, for the first time, into an insight of Roman life and
ways of thought ; had pointed out the circumstances in
which these works were written, and given me their inter-
pretation. And the process has gone on in all manner of
developments, and has spread out into other countries.
On the whole, there is one reason why endowments are
not given now as they were in old days, when men founded
abbeys, colleges, and all kinds of things of that description,
with such success as we know. All that has now changed;
a vast decay of zeal in that direction. And truly the reason
may in part be, that people have become doubtful whether
colleges are now the real sources of what I called wisdom;
whether they are anything more, anything much more, than
a cultivating of man in the specific arts. In fact, there has
been in the world a suspicion of that kind for a long time
[A laugh]. There goes a proverb of old date, “An ounce of
mother-wit is worth a pound of clergy’ [Laughter]. There
is a suspicion that a man is perhaps not nearly so wise as
he looks, or because he has poured out speech so copiously
320 MISCELLANIES.
[Laughter]. When ‘the seven free arts, which the old Uni-
versities were based on, came to be modified a little, in order
to be convenient for the wants of modern society, though
perhaps some of them are obsolete enough even yet for some
of us, there arose a feeling that mere vocality, mere culture
of speech, if that is what comes out of a man, is not the
synonym of wisdom by any means ! That a man may be
a “great speaker,’ as eloquent as you like, and but little real
substance in him, especially, if that is what was required
and aimed at by the man himself, and by the community
that set him upon becoming a learned man. Maid-servants,
I hear people complaining, are getting instructed in the
‘ologies, and are apparently becoming more and more ig-
morant of brewing, boiling, and baking [Laughter] ; and
above all, are not taught what is necessary to be known,
from the highest of us to the lowest,-faithful obedience,
modesty, humility, and correct moral conduct.
Oh, it is a dismal chapter all that, if one went into it,
what has been done by rushing after fine speech I I have
written down some very fierce things about that, perhaps
considerably more emphatic than I could now wish them
to be ; but they were and are deeply my conviction [Hear,
hear]. There is very great necessity indeed of getting a
little more silent than we are. It seems to me as if the
finest nations of the world,—the English and the American,
in chief—were going all off into wind and tongue [Applause
and laughter]. But it will appear sufficiently tragical by
and by, long after I am away out of it. There is a time
to speak, and a time to be silent. Silence withal is the
eternal duty of a man. He won’t get to any real under-
standing of what is complex, and what is more than aught
else pertinent to his interests, without keeping silence too.
INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 321
‘Watch the tongue, is a very old precept, and a most true
OL162.
I don’t want to discourage any of you from your Demos-
themes, and your studies of the niceties of language, and all
that. Believe me, I value that as much as any one of you.
I consider it a very graceful thing, and a most proper, for
every human creature to know what the implement which
he uses in communicating his thoughts is, and how to make
the very utmost of it. I want you to study Demosthenes,
and to know all his excellences. At the same time, I must
say that speech, in the case even of Demosthenes, does not
seem, on the whole, to have turned to almost any good
account. He advised next to nothing that proved prac-
ticable; much of the reverse. Why tell me that a man is
a fine speaker, if it is not the truth that he is speaking?
Phocion, who mostly did not speak at all, was a great deal
nearer hitting the mark than Demosthenes [Laughter]. He
used to tell the Athenians, “You can’t fight Philip. Better
if you don’t provoke him, as Demosthenes is always urg-
ing you to do. You have not the slightest chance with
Philip. He is a man who holds his tongue; he has great
disciplined armies; a full treasury; can bribe anybody you
like in your cities here; he is going on steadily with an
unvarying aim towards his object; while you, with your
idle clamourings, with your Cleon the Tanner spouting to
you what you take for wisdom—ſ Philip will infallibly
beat any set of men such as you, going on raging from
shore to shore with all that rampant nonsense.” Demos-
themes said to him once, “Phocion, you will drive the Athe-
nians mad some day, and they will kill you.” “Yes,” Pho-
cion answered, “me, when they go mad; and as soon as
they get same again, you!” [Laughter and applause.]
It is also told of him how he went once to Messene, on
VOL. XI. (Misc. vol. 6.) Y
322 MISCELLANTES.
some deputation which the Athenians wanted him to head,
on some kind of matter of an intricate and contentious na-
ture: Phocion went accordingly; and had, as usual, a clear
story to have told for himself and his case. He was a man
of few words, but all of them true and to the point. And
so he had gone on telling his story for a while, when there
arose some interruption. One man, interrupting with some-
thing, he tried to answer; then another, the like; till finally,
too many went in, and all began arguing and bawling in
endless debate. Whereupon Phocion struck-down his staff;
drew back altogether, and would speak no other word to
any man. It appears to me there is a kind of eloquence in
that rap of Phocion's staff which is equal to anything De-
mosthenes ever said: “Take your own way, then; I go out
of it altogether” [Applause].
Such considerations, and manifold more connected with
them,-innumerable considerations, resulting from observa-
tion of the world at this epoch,-have led various people
to doubt of the salutary effect of vocal education altogether.
I do not mean to say it should be entirely excluded; but I
look to something that will take hold of the matter much
more closely, and not allow it to slip out of our fingers, and
remain worse than it was. For, if a ‘good speaker, never
so eloquent, does not see into the fact, and is not speak-
ing the truth of that, but the untruth and the mistake of
that, is there a more horrid kind of object in creation ?
[Loud cheers.] Of such speech I hear all manner of people
say, “How excellent!” Well, really it is not the speech,
but the thing spoken, that I am anxious about ! I really
care very little how the man said it, provided I understand
him, and it be true. Excellent speaker ? But what if he is
telling me things that are contrary to the fact ; what if he
has formed a wrong judgment about the fact, if he has in
INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 323
his mind (like Phocion's friend, Cleon the Tanner) no power
to form a right judgment in regard to the matter? An
excellent speaker of that kind is, as it were, saying, “Ho,
every one that wants to be persuaded of the thing that is
not true; here is the man for you !” [Great laughter and
applause.] I recommend you to be very chary of that kind
of excellent speech [Renewed laughter].
Well, all that sad stuff being the too well-known pro-
duct of our method of vocal education,-the teacher merely
Operating on the tongue of the pupil, and teaching him to
wag it in a particular way [Laughter], it has made various
thinking men entertain a distrust of this not very salutary
way of procedure; and they have longed for some less theo-
retic, and more practical and concrete way of working-out
the problem of education;–in effect, for an education not
vocal at all, but mute except where speaking was strictly
needful. There would be room for a great deal of descrip-
tion about this, if I went into it; but I must content myself
with saying that the most remarkable piece of writing on
it is in a book of Goethe's, the whole of which you may
be recommended to take up, and try if you can study it
with understanding. It is one of his last books; written
when he was an old man above seventy years of age: I
think, one of the most beautiful he ever wrote; full of
meek wisdom, of intellect and piety; which is found to
be strangely illuminative, and very touching, by those who
have eyes to discern and hearts to feel it. This about edu-
cation is one of the pieces in Wilhelm Meister's Travels; or
rather, in a fitful way, it forms the whole gist of the book.
I first read it many years ago; and, of course, I had to read
into the very heart of it while I was translating it [Applause];
and it has ever since dwelt in my mind as perhaps the most
324 MISCELLANTES.
remarkable bit of writing which I have known to be exe-
cuted in these late centuries. I have often said that there
are some ten pages of that, which, if ambition had been my
only rule, I would rather have written, been able to write,
than have written all the books that have appeared since I
came into the world [Cheers]. Deep, deep is the meaning of
what is said there. Those pages turn on the Christian reli-
gion, and the religious phenomena of the modern and the
ancient world: altogether sketched out in the most ačrial,
graceful, delicately wise kind of way, so as to keep himself
Out of the common controversies of the street and of the
forum, yet to indicate what was the result of things he had
been long meditating upon.
Among others, he introduces in an airy, sketchy kind
of way, with here and there a touch, - the sum-total of
which grows into a beautiful picture, a scheme of entirely
mute education, at least with no more speech than is abso-
lutely necessary for what the pupils have to do. Three
of the wisest men discoverable in the world have been got
together, to consider, to manage and supervise, the function
which transcends all others in importance,—that of building
up the young generation so as to keep it free from that
perilous stuff that has been weighing us down, and clogging
every step;-which function, indeed, is the only thing we
can hope to go on with, if we would leave the world a little
better, and not the worse, of our having been in it, for those
who are to follow. The Chief, who is the Eldest of the
three, says to Wilhelm : “Healthy well-formed children
bring into the world with them many precious gifts; and
very frequently these are best of all developed by Nature
herself, with but slight assistance, where assistance is seen
to be wise and profitable, and with forbearance very often
on the part of the overseer of the process. But there is
INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 325
one thing which no child brings into the world with him,
and without which all other things are of no use.” Wilhelm,
who is there beside him, asks, “And what is that?” “All
want it,” says the Eldest; “perhaps you yourself.” Wil-
helm says, “Well, but tell me what it is?” “It is,” answers
the other, “Reverence (Ehrfurcht); Reverence tº Honour
done to those who are greater and better than ourselves;
honour distinct from fear. Ehrfurcht; the soul of all reli-
gion that has ever been among men, or ever will be.
And then he goes into details about the religions of the
modern and the ancient world. He practically distinguishes
the kinds of religion that are, or have been, in the world;
and says that for men there are three reverences. The
boys are all trained to go through certain gesticulations;
to lay their hands on their breast and look up to heaven,
in sign of the first reverence; other forms for the other two:
so they give their three reverences. The first and simplest
is that of reverence for what is above us. It is the soul of
all the Pagan religions; there is nothing better in the am-
tique man than that. Then there is reverence for what is
around us, reverence for our equals, to which he attributes
an immense power in the culture of man. The third is
reverence for what is beneath us; to learn to recognise in
pain, in sorrow and contradiction, even in those things,
odious to flesh and blood, what divine meanings are in
them ; to learn that there lies in these also, and more than
in any of the preceding, a priceless blessing. And he de-
fines that as being the soul of the Christian religion,-the
highest of all religions; ‘a height,’ as Goethe says (and that
is very true, even to the letter, as I consider), ‘a height to
‘which mankind was fated and enabled to attain; and from
‘which, having once attained it, they can never retrograde.”
Man cannot quite lose that (Goethe thinks), or permanently
326 MISCELLANTES.
descend below it again; but always, even in the most de-
graded, Sunken and unbelieving times, he calculates there
will be found some few souls who will recognise what this
highest of the religions meant; and that, the world having
once received it, there is no fear of its ever wholly disap-
pearing.
The Eldest then goes on to explain by what methods
they seek to educate and train their boys; in the trades,
in the arts, in the sciences, in whatever pursuit the boy
is found best fitted for. Beyond all, they are anxious to
discover the boy's aptitudes; and they try him and watch
him continually, in many wise ways, till by degrees they
can discover this. Wilhelm had left his own boy there,
perhaps expecting they would make him a Master of Arts,
or something of the kind; and on coming back for him,
he sees a thunder-cloud of dust rushing over the plain, of
which he can make nothing. It turns out to be a tempest
of wild horses, managed by young lads who had a turn for
horsemanship, for hunting, and being grooms. His own
son is among them; and he finds that the breaking of colts
has been the thing he was most suited for [Laughter].
The highest outcome, and most precious of all the fruits
that are to spring from this ideal mode of educating, is
what Goethe calls Art:-of which I could at present give
no definition that would make it clear to you, unless it were
clearer already than is likely [A laugh]. Goethe calls it
music, painting, poetry: but it is in quite a higher sense
than the common one ; and a sense in which, I am afraid,
most of our painters, poets and music-men would not pass
muster [A laugh]. He considers this as the highest pitch
to which human culture can go; infinitely valuable and en-
nobling; and he watches with great industry how it is to
be brought about in the men who have a turn for it. Very
INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 327
wise and beautiful his notion of the matter is. It gives one
an idea that something far better and higher, something as
high as ever, and indubitably true too, is still possible for
man in this world.—And that is all I can say to you of
Goethe's fine theorem of mute education.
I confess it seems to me there is in it a shadow of what
will one day be ; will and must, unless the world is to come
to a conclusion that is altogether frightful: some kind of
scheme of education analogous to that; presided over by
the wisest and most sacred men that can be got in the
world, and watching from a distance: a training in practi-
cality at every turn; no speech in it except speech that
is to be followed by action, for that ought to be the rule
as nearly as possible among men. Not very often or
much, rarely rather, should a man speak at all, unless
it is for the sake of something that is to be done; this
spoken, let him go and do his part in it, and say no more
about it.
I will only add, that it is possible, -all this fine theorem
of Goethe's, or something similar ! Consider what we have
already; and what “ difficulties' we have overcome. I
should say there is nothing in the world you can conceive
so difficult, prima facie, as that of getting a set of men
gathered together as soldiers. Rough, rude, ignorant, dis-
obedient people; you gather them together, promise them
a shilling a day; rank them up, give them very severe and
sharp drill; and by bullying and drilling and compelling
(the word drilling, if you go to the original, means ‘beating,”
“steadily tormenting to the due pitch), they do learn what
it is necessary to learn ; and there is your man in red coat,
a trained soldier; piece of an animated machine incom-
parably the most potent in this world; a wonder of wonders
to look at. He will go where bidden; obeys one man, will
328 MISCELLANIES.
walk into the cannon's mouth for him ; does punctually
whatever is commanded by his general officer. And, I be-
lieve, all manner of things of this kind could be accom-
plished, if there were the same attention bestowed. Very
many things could be regimented, Organised into this mute
system ; — and perhaps in some of the mechanical, com-
mercial and manufacturing departments some faint incipi-
ences may be attempted before very long. For the saving
of human labour, and the avoidance of human misery, the
effects would be incalculable, were it set about and begun
even in part.
Alas, it is painful to think how very far away it all is,
any real fulfilment of such things! For I need not hide
from you, young Gentlemen,_and it is one of the last things
I am going to tell you, -that you have got into a very
troublous epoch of the world; and I don’t think you will
find your path in it to be smoother than ours has been,
though you have many advantages which we had not.
You have careers open to you, by public examinations and
so on, which is a thing much to be approved of, and which
we hope to see perfected more and more. All that was
entirely unknown in my time, and you have many things
to recognise as advantages. But you will find the ways of
the world, I think, more anarchical than ever. Look where
one will, revolution has come upon us. We have got into
the age of revolutions. All kinds of things are coming to
be subjected to fire, as it were: hotter and hotter blows the
element round everything. Curious to see how, in Oxford
and other places that used to seem as lying at anchor in the
stream of time, regardless of all changes, they are getting
into the highest humour of mutation, and all sorts of new
ideas are afloat. It is evident that whatever is not incon-
sumable, made of asbestos, will have to be burnt, in this
INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 329
world. Nothing other will stand the heat it is getting ex-
posed to.
And in saying that, I am but saying in other words
that we are in an epoch of anarchy. Anarchy plus a con-
stable ! [Laughter.] There is nobody that picks one's pocket
without some policeman being ready to take him up [Re-
newed laughter]. But in every other point, man is becoming
more and more the son, not of Cosmos, but of Chaos. He
is a disobedient, discontented, reckless and altogether waste
kind of object (the commonplace man is, in these epochs);
and the wiser kind of man,—the select few, of whom I hope
you will be part, has more and more to see to this, to
look vigilantly forward; and will require to move with
double wisdom. Will find, in short, that the crooked things
he has got to pull straight in his own life all round him,
wherever he may go, are manifold, and will task all his
strength, however great it be.
But why should I complain of that either ? For that
is the thing a man is born to, in all epochs. He is born
to expend every particle of strength that God Almighty
has given him, in doing the work he finds he is fit for ; to
stand up to it to the last breath of life, and do his best.
We are called upon to do that; and the reward we all get,
—which we are perfectly sure of, if we have merited it, is
that we have got the work done, or at least that we have
tried to do the work. For that is a great blessing in itself;
and I should say, there is not very much more reward than
that going in this world. If the man gets meat and clothes,
what matters it whether he buy those necessaries with seven
thousand a year, or with seven million, could that be, or
with seventy pounds a year? He can get meat and clothes
for that; and he will find intrinsically, if he is a wise man,
wonderfully little real difference [Laughter].
330 MISCELLANIES.
On the whole, avoid what is called ambition; that is not
a fine principle to go upon, and it has in it all degrees
of vulgarity, if that is a consideration. “Seekest thou great
things, seek them not : I warmly second that advice of the
wisest of men. Don’t be ambitious; don’t too much need
success; be loyal and modest. Cut down the proud tower-
ing thoughts that get into you, or see that they be pure as
well as high. There is a nobler ambition than the gaining
of all California would be, or the getting of all the suffrages
that are on the Planet just now [Loud and prolonged cheers].
Finally, Gentlemen, I have one advice to give you, which
is practically of very great importance, though a very hum-
ble one. In the midst of your zeal and ardour, for such,
I foresee, will rise high enough, in spite of all the counsels
to moderate it that I can give you, -remember the care of
health. I have no doubt you have among you young souls
ardently bent to consider life cheap, for the purpose of get-
ting forward in what they are aiming at of high; but you
are to consider throughout, much more than is done at pre-
sent, and what it would have been a very great thing for
me if I had been able to consider, that health is a thing to
be attended to continually; that you are to regard that
as the very highest of all temporal things for you [Applause].
There is no kind of achievement you could make in the
world that is equal to perfect health. What to it are nug-
gets and millions? The French financier said, “Why, is
there no sleep to be sold ſ” Sleep was not in the market
at any quotation [Laughter and applause].
It is a curious thing, which I remarked long ago, and
have often turned in my head, that the old word for
‘holy’ in the Teutonic languages, heilig, also means ‘healthy.'
Thus Heilbronn means indifferently ‘holy-well' or ‘health-
INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 331
well. We have in the Scotch, too, ‘hale, and its deriva-
tives; and, I suppose, our English word ‘whole' (with a
‘w'), all of one piece, without any hole in it, is the same
word. I find that you could not get any better definition
of what ‘holy’ really is than ‘healthy.’ Completely healthy;
mens sana in corpore samo [Applause]. A man all lucid, and
in equilibrium. His intellect a clear mirror geometrically
plane, brilliantly sensitive to all objects and impressions
made on it, and imaging all things in their correct pro-
portions; not twisted up into convex or concave, and dis-
torting everything, so that he cannot see the truth of the
matter without endless groping and manipulation: healthy,
clear and free, and discerning truly all round him. We
never can attain that at all. In fact, the operations we
have got into are destructive of it. You cannot, if you are
going to do any decisive intellectual operation that will
last a long while; if, for instance, you are going to write a
book,+you cannot manage it (at least, I never could) with-
out getting decidedly made ill by it; and really one never-
theless must; if it is your business, you are obliged to follow
out what you are at, and to do it, if even at the expense
of health. Only remember, at all times, to get back as fast
as possible out of it into health ; and regard that as the
real equilibrium and centre of things. You should always
look at the heilig, which means ‘holy’ as well as ‘healthy.’
And that old etymology, -what a lesson it is against
certain gloomy, austere, ascetic people, who have gone
about as if this world were all a dismal prison-house ! It
has indeed got all the ugly things in it which I have been
alluding to ; but there is an eternal sky over it; and the
blessed sunshine, the green of prophetic spring, and rich
harvests coming, all this is in it too. Piety does not mean
that a man should make a sour face about things, and re-
332 MISCELLANTES.
fuse to enjoy wisely what his Maker has given. Neither
do you find it to have been so with the best sort, with
old Knox, in particular. No ; if you look into Knox, you
will find a beautiful Scotch humour in him, as well as the
grimmest and sternest truth when necessary, and a great
deal of laughter. We find really some of the sunniest
glimpses of things come out of Knox that I have seen in
any man; for instance, in his History of the Reformation,--
which is a book I hope every one of you will read [Ap-
plause], a glorious old book.
On the whole, I would bid you stand up to your work,
whatever it may be, and not be afraid of it; not in sorrows
or contradictions to yield, but to push on towards the goal.
And don’t suppose that people are hostile to you or have
you at ill-will, in the world. In general, you will rarely
find anybody designedly doing you ill. You may feel often
as if the whole world were obstructing you, setting itself
against you: but you will find that to mean only, that the
world is travelling in a different way from you, and, rush-
ing on in its own path, heedlessly treads on you. That is
mostly all: to you no specific ill-will;-only each has an
extremely good-will to himself, which he has a right to
have, and is rushing on towards his object. Keep out of
literature, I should say also, as a general rule [Laughter],
—though that is by the bye. If you find many people who
are hard and indifferent to you, in a world which you con-
sider to be inhospitable and cruel, as often indeed happens
to a tender-hearted, striving young creature, you will also
find there are noble hearts who will look kindly on you;
and their help will be precious to you beyond price. You
will get good and evil as you go on, and have the success
that has been appointed you.
INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 333
I will wind-up with a small bit of verse, which is from
Goethe also, and has often gone through my mind. To me
it has something of a modern psalm in it, in some measure.
It is deep as the foundations, deep and high, and it is true
and clear:-no clearer man, or nobler and grander intellect
has lived in the world, I believe, since Shakspeare left it.
This is what the poet sings;–a kind of road-melody or
marching-music of mankind:
“The Future hides in it
Gladness and sorrow ;
We press still thorow,
Nought that abides in it
Daunting us, Onward.
And solemn before us,
Weiled, the dark Portal;
Goal of all mortal:—
Stars silent rest o'er us,
Graves under us silent
While earnest thou gazest,
Comes boding of terror,
Comes phantasm and error;
Perplexes the bravest
With doubt and misgiving.
But heard are the Voices,
Heard are the Sages,
The Worlds and the Ages:
“Choose well; your choice is
Brief, and yet endless.
Here eyes do regard you,
In Eternity's stillness;
Here is all fulness,
Ye brave, to reward you ;
Work, and despair not.””
334 MISCELLANTES.
Work, and despair not: Wir heissen euch hoffen, ‘We bid
you be of hope l’—let that be my last word. Gentlemen,
I thank you for your great patience in hearing me; and,
with many most kind wishes, say Adieu for this time.
PINIs of RECTORSHIP-‘Edinburgh University. Mr. Carlyle, ex-Lord
* Rector of the University of Edinburgh, has been asked to deliver a vale-
‘dictory address to the students, but has declined. The following is a
‘ copy of the correspondence.
* 2 S.-W. Circus Place, Edinburgh, 3d December 1868.
‘SIR,-On the strength of being Vice-President of the
‘Committee for your election as Lord Rector of the Uni-
‘ versity of Edinburgh, I have been induced to write to you,
‘in order to know if you will be able to deliver a Vale-
‘ dictory. Address to the Students. Mr. Gladstone gave us
‘ one, and we fondly hope you will find it convenient to
‘ do so as well. Your Inaugural Address is still treasured
‘ up in our memories, and I am sure nothing could give us
‘greater pleasure than once more to listen to your words.
“I trust you will pardon me for this intrusion; and hoping
‘to receive a favourable answer, I am, &c.
‘A. ROBERTSON, M.A.
‘T. CARLYLE, ESQ.’ “
“Chelsea, 9th December 1868.
‘DEAR SIR,--I much regret that a Waledictory Speech
‘ from me, in present circumstances, is a thing I must not
‘think of. Be pleased to assure the young Gentlemen who
‘ were so friendly towards me, that I have already sent
FINIS OF RECTORSHIP. 335
‘them, in silence, but with emotions deep enough, perhaps
‘too deep, my loving Farewell, and that ingratitude, or want
‘ of regard, is by no means among the causes that keep me
‘absent. With a fine youthful enthusiasm, beautiful to look
‘ upon, they bestowed on me that bit of honour, loyally all
“ they had; and it has now, for reasons one and another,
‘ become touchingly memorable to me, touchingly, and
‘ even grandly and tragically,–never to be forgotten for
‘the remainder of my life.
‘Bid them, in my name, if they still love me, fight the
‘good fight, and quit themselves like men, in the warfare,
‘to which they are as if conscript and consecrated, and
‘which lies ahead. Tell them to consult the eternal oracles
‘(not yet inaudible, nor ever to become so, when worthily
‘inquired of); and to disregard, nearly altogether, in com-
“ parison, the temporary noises, menacings and deliriums.
‘May they love Wisdom as Wisdom, if she is to yield her
‘treasures, must be loved,—piously, valiantly, humbly, be-
‘yond life itself or the prizes of life, with all one's heart,
‘and all one's soul:—in that case (I will say again), and
‘ not in any other case, it shall be well with them.
‘Adieu, my young Friends, a long adieu.
‘Yours with great sincerity,
‘T. CARLYLE.
‘A. ROBERTSON, ESQ.”
* Edinburgh Newspapers of December 12-13, 1868.
SHOOTING NIAGARA : AND AFTER 2
[August 1867.]
VOL. XI. (Misc, vol. 6.) Z
SHOOTING NIAGARA : AND AFTER 21
I.
THERE probably never was since the Heptarchy ended, or
almost since it began, so hugely critical an epoch in the
history of England as this we have now entered upon,
with universal self-congratulation and flinging-up of caps;
nor one in which,--with no Norman Invasion now ahead,
to lay hold of it, to bridle and regulate it for us (little
thinking it was for us), and guide it into higher and wider
regions,—the question of utter death or of nobler new life
for the poor Country was so uncertain. Three things seem
to be agreed upon by gods and men, at least by English
men and gods; certain to happen, and are now in visible
course of fulfilment.
19 Democracy to complete itself; to go the full length of
its course, towards the Bottomless or into it, no power now
extant to prevent it or even considerably retard it, till we
have seen where it will lead us to, and whether there will
then be any return possible, or none. Complete “liberty”
to all persons; Count of Heads to be the Divine Court of
Appeal on every question and interest of mankind; Count
1 Reprinted from Macmillan's Magazine, for August 1867. With some Additions
and Corrections,
2^
2'
340 MISCELLANTES.
of Heads to choose a Parliament according to its own heart
at last, and sit with Penny Newspapers zealously watching
the same; said Parliament, so chosen and so watched, to
do what trifle of legislating and administering may still be
needed in such an England, with its hundred-and-fifty mil-
lions “free more and more to follow each his own nose, by
way of guide-post in this intricate world.
29 That, in a limited time, say fifty years hence, the
Church, all Churches and so-called religions, the Christian
Religion itself, shall have deliquesced,—into “Liberty of
Conscience,” Progress of Opinion, Progress of Intellect, Phil-
anthropic Movement, and other aqueous residues, of a vapid
badly-scented character;-and shall, like water spilt upon
the ground, trouble nobody considerably thenceforth, but
evaporate at its leisure.
3° That, in lieu thereof, there shall be Free Trade, in
all senses, and to all lengths: unlimited Free Trade,-
which some take to mean, “Free racing, ere long with un-
limited speed, in the career of Cheap and Nasty;’—this
beautiful career, not in shop-goods only, but in all things
temporal, spiritual and eternal, to be flung generously open,
wide as the portals of the Universe; so that everybody
shall start free, and everywhere, “under enlightened popu-
lar suffrage, the race shall be to the swift, and the high
office shall fall to him who is ablest if not to do it, at least
to get elected for doing it.
These are three altogether new and very considerable
achievements, lying visibly ahead of us, not far off-and
so extremely considerable, that every thinking English crea-
ture is tempted to go into manifold reflections and inquiries
upon them. My own have not been wanting, any time
these thirty years past, but they have not been of a joyful
or triumphant nature; not prone to utter themselves; in-
SHOOTING NIAGARA : AND AFTER Ž 341
deed expecting, till lately, that they might with propriety
lie unuttered altogether. But the series of events comes
Swifter and swifter, at a strange rate; and hastens unex-
pectedly, - “velocity increasing’ (if you will consider, for
this too is as when the little stone has been loosened, which
sets the whole mountain-side in motion) “as the square of
the time:’—so that the wisest Prophecy finds it was quite
wrong as to date; and, patiently, or even indolently wait-
ing, is astonished to see itself fulfilled, not in centuries as
anticipated, but in decades and years. It was a clear
prophecy, for instance, that Germany would either become
honourably Prussian or go to gradual annihilation: but who
of us expected that we ourselves, instead of our children’s
children, should live to behold it; that a magnanimous and
fortunate Herr von Bismarck, whose dispraise was in all the
Newspapers, would, to his own amazement, find the thing
now doable ; and would do it, do the essential of it, in a
few of the current weeks? That England would have to
take the Niagara leap of completed Democracy one day,
was also a plain prophecy, though uncertain as to time.
II.
The prophecy, truly, was plain enough this long while :
Aóyua yap airóv tíc utragáAAst; “For who can change the
opinion of these people !” as the sage Antoninus notes. It
is indeed strange how prepossessions and delusions seize
upon whole communities of men; no basis in the notion
they have formed, yet everybody adopting it, everybody
finding the whole world agree with him in it, and accept
it as an axiom of Euclid; and, in the universal repetition
and reverberation, taking all contradiction of it as an in-
sult, and a sign of malicious insanity, hardly to be borne
342 MISCELLANTES.
with patience. “For who can change the opinion of these
people 7" as our Divus Imperator says. No wisest of mor-
tals. This people cannot be convinced out of its “axiom
of Euclid” by any reasoning whatsoever; on the contrary,
all the world assenting, and continually repeating and re-
verberating, there soon comes that singular phenomenon,
which the Germans call Schwärmerey (‘ enthusiasm is our
poor Greek equivalent), which means simply ‘Swarmery,’
or the “Gathering of Men in Swarms, and what prodigies
they are in the habit of doing and believing, when thrown
into that miraculous condition. Some big Queen Bee is in
the centre of the swarm; but any commonplace stupidest
bee, Cleon the Tanner, Beales, John of Leyden, John of
Bromwicham, any bee whatever, if he can happen, by noise
or otherwise, to be chosen for the function, will straightway
get fatted and inflated into bulk, which of itself means com-
plete capacity; no difficulty about your Queen Bee: and
the Swarm once formed, finds itself impelled to action, as
with one heart and one mind. Singular, in the case of
human swarms, with what perfection of unanimity and quasi-
religious conviction the stupidest absurdities can be received
as axioms of Euclid, may as articles of faith, which you are
not only to believe, unless malignantly insane, but are (if
you have any honour or morality) to push into practice, and
without delay see done, if your soul would live! Divine
commandment to vote (“Manhood Suffrage,”—Horsehood,
Doghood ditto not yet treated of); universal “glorious
Liberty” (to Sons of the Devil in overwhelming majority,
as would appear); count of Heads the God-appointed way
in this Universe, all other ways Devil-appointed; in one
brief word, which includes whatever of palpable incredi-
bility and delirious absurdity, universally believed, can be
uttered or imagined on these points, “the equality of men,”
SHOOTING NIAGARA : AND AFTER Ž 343
any man equal to any other; Quashee Nigger to Socrates
or Shakspeare; Judas Iscariot to Jesus Christ;-and Bedlam
and Gehenna equal to the New Jerusalem, shall we say?
If these things are taken up, not only as axioms of Euclid,
but as articles of religion burning to be put in practice for
the salvation of the world,—I think you will admit that
Swarmery plays a wonderful part in the heads of poor Man-
kind; and that very considerable results are likely to follow
from it in our day !
But you will in vain attempt, by argument of human
intellect, to contradict or turn aside any of these divine
axioms, indisputable as those of Euclid, and of sacred or
quasi-celestial quality to boot : if you have neglected the
one method (which was a silent one) of dealing with them
at an early stage, they are thenceforth invincible; and will
plunge more and more madly forward towards practical
fulfilment. Once fulfilled, it will then be seen how cre-
dible and wise they were. Not even the Queen Bee but
will then know what to think of them. Then, and never
till then.
By far the notablest case of Swarmery, in these times,
is that of the late American War, with Settlement of the
Nigger Question for result. Essentially the Nigger Question
was one of the smallest ; and in itself did not much concern
mankind in the present time of struggles and hurries. One
always rather likes the Nigger; evidently a poor blockhead
with good dispositions, with affections, attachments, with
a turn for Nigger Melodies, and the like:–he is the only
Savage of all the coloured races that doesn’t die out on
sight of the White Man; but can actually live beside him,
and work and increase and be merry. The Almighty Maker
has appointed him to be a Servant. Under penalty of
344 MISCELLANIES.
Heaven's curse, neither party to this pre-appointment shall
neglect or misdo his duties therein; — and it is certain
(though as yet widely unknown), Servantship on the no-
madic principle, at the rate of so many shillings per day,
cannot be other than misdone. The whole world rises in
shrieks against you, on hearing of such a thing:—yet the
whole world, listening to those cool Sheffield disclosures of
rattening, and the market-rates of murder in that singular
‘Sheffield Assassination Company (Limited), feels its hair
rising on end;—to little purpose hitherto; being without
even a gallows to make response! The fool of a world
listens, year after year, for above a generation back, to
“disastrous strikes,” “merciless lockouts,” and other details
of the nomadic scheme of servitude; nay is becoming tho-
roughly disquieted about its own too lofty-minded flunkies,
mutinous maid-servants (ending, naturally enough, as “dis-
tressed needle-women” who cannot sew; thirty-thousand
of these latter now on the pavements of London), and the
kindred phenomena on every hand: but it will be long
before the fool of a world open its eyes to the taproot of
all that, to the fond notion, in short, That servantship
and mastership, on the nomadic principle, was ever, or will
ever be, except for brief periods, possible among human
creatures. Poor souls, and when they have discovered it,
what a puddling and weltering, and scolding and jargon-
ing, there will be, before the first real step towards remedy
is taken
Servantship, like all solid contracts between men (like
wedlock itself, which was once nomadic enough, temporary
enough 1), must become a contract of permanency, uot easy
to dissolve, but difficult extremely,–a “contract for life,”
if you can manaeeit (which you cannot, without many wise
laws and regulations, and a great deal of earnest thought
SHOOTING NIAGARA : AND AFTER 7 345
and anxious experience), will evidently be the best of
all.” And this was already the Nigger's essential position.
Mischief, irregularities, injustices did probably abound be-
tween Nigger and Buckra; but the poisonous taproot of all
mischief, and impossibility of fairness, humanity, or well-
doing in the contract, never had been there ! Of all else the
remedy was easy in comparison; vitally important to every
just man concerned in it; and, under all obstructions (which
in the American case, begirt with frantic “Abolitionists,”
fire-breathing like the old Chimaera, were immense), was
gradually getting itself done. To me individually the
Nigger's case was not the most pressing in the world, but
among the least so I America, however, had got into Swarm-
ery upon it (not America's blame either, but in great part
ours, and that of the nonsense we sent over to them); and
felt that in the Heavens or the Earth there was nothing so
godlike, or incomparably pressing to be done. Their energy,
their valour, their &c. &c. were worthy of the stock they
sprang from :—and now, poor fellows, done it they have,
with a witness. A continent of the earth has been sub-
merged, for certain years, by deluges as from the Pit of
Hell; half a million (some say a whole million, but surely
they exaggerate) of excellent White Men, full of gifts and
faculty, have torn and slashed one another into horrid death,
in a temporary humour, which will leave centuries of re-
* “Ilias (Americana) in Nuce.
* PETER of the North (to PAUL of the South): “Paul, you unaccountable scoundrel,
“I find you hire your servants for life, not by the month or year as I do You are
‘going straight to Hell, you — ”
‘PAUL : “Good words, Peter | The risk is my own ; I am willing to take the
“risk. Hire you your servants by the month or the day, and get straight to
* Heaven; leave me to my own method.”
* PETER : “No, I won’t. I will beat your brains out first l’’ (And is trying
“dreadfully ever since, but cannot yet manage it.)—T. C.
* 3d May 1863.”—(Macmillan's Magazine, for August 1863.)
346 MISCELLANTES.
membrance fierce enough: and three million absurd Blacks,
men and brothers (of a sort), are completely “emancipated;”
launched into the career of improvement, likely to be ‘im-
proved off the face of the earth’ in a generation or two
That is the dismal prediction to me, of the warmest enthu-
siast to their Cause whom I have known of American men,
—who doesn’t regret his great efforts either, in the great
Cause now won, Cause incomparably the most important on
Earth or in Heaven at this time. Papae, papa; ; wonderful
indeed!
In our own country, too, Swarmery has played a great
part for many years past; and especially is now playing,
in these very days and months. Our accepted axioms about
“Liberty,” “Constitutional Government,” “Reform,” and the
like objects, are of truly wonderful texture: venerable by
antiquity, many of them, and written in all manner of Can-
onical Books; or else, the newer part of them, celestially
clear as perfect unanimity of all tongues, and Voa, populi vow
Dei, can make them: axioms confessed, or even inspirations
and gospel verities, to the general mind of man. To the
mind of here and there a man it begins to be suspected
that perhaps they are only conditionally true; that taken
unconditionally, or under changed conditions, they are not
true, but false and even disastrously and fatally so. Ask
yourself about “Liberty,” for example; what you do really
mean by it, what in any just and rational soul is that Divine
quality of liberty? That a good man be “free,” as we call
it, be permitted to unfold himself in works of goodness and
nobleness, is surely a blessing to him, immense and indis-
pensable;—to him and to those about him. But that a bad
man be “free,”—permitted to unfold himself in his particular
way, is contrariwise the fatalest curse you could inflict on
SHOOTING NIAGARA : AND AFTER 3 347
him; curse and nothing else, to him and all his neighbours.
Him the very Heavens call upon you to persuade, to urge,
induce, compel, into something of well-doing; if you abso-
lutely cannot, if he will continue in ill-doing, then for him
(I can assure you, though you will be shocked to hear it),
V the one “blessing” left is the speediest gallows you can lead
him to. Speediest, that at least his ill-doing may cease
quêm primilm. Oh, my friends, whither are you buzzing
and swarming, in this extremely absurd manner? Expecting
a Millennium from “extension of the suffrage,” laterally,
vertically, or in whatever way?
All the Millenniums I ever heard of heretofore were to
be preceded by a “chaining of the Devil for a thousand
years,”—laying him up, tied neck-and-heels, and—put beyond
stirring, as the preliminary. You too have been taking |
preliminary steps, with more and more ardour, for a thirty
years back; but they seem to be all in the opposite direc-
tion: a cutting asunder of straps and ties, wherever you
might find them; pretty indiscriminate of choice in the
matter: a general repeal of old regulations, fetters and re-
strictions (restrictions on the Devil originally, I believe, for
most part, but now fallen slack and ineffectual), which had
become unpleasant to many of you, --with loud shouting
from the multitude, as strap after strap was cut, 'y,
glory, another strap is gone !”—this, I think, has mainly
been the sublime legislative industry of Parliament since it
became “Reform Parliament;” victoriously successful, and
thought sublime and beneficent by some. So that now
hardly any limb of the Devil has a thrum or tatter of rope
, or leather left upon it:-there needs almost superhuman
v/ heroism in you to “whip” a garotter; no Fenian taken with
the reddest hand is to be meddled with, under penalties;
hardly a murderer, never so detestable and hideous, but

{

348 MISCELLANTES.
**
you find him “insane,” and board him at the public expense,
—a very peculiar British Prytaneum of these days l And in
fact, THE DEVIL (he, verily, if you will consider the sense
of words) is likewise become an Emancipated Gentleman;
lithe of limb, as in Adam and Eve's time, and scarcely a toe
or finger of him tied any more. And you, my astonishing
friends, you are certainly getting into a millennium, such as
never was before, hardly even in the dreams of Bedlam.
Better luck to you by the way, my poor friends;–a little
less of buzzing, humming, swarming (i. e. tumbling in infinite
noise and darkness), that you might try to look a little, each
for himself, what kind of “way” it is 1
But indeed your “Reform” movement, from of old, has
been wonderful to me; everybody meaning by it, not ‘Re-
formation, practical amendment of his own foul courses, or
even of his neighbour's, which is always much welcomer;
no thought of that whatever, though that, you would say,
is the one thing to be thought of and aimed at ;-but mean-
ing simply “Extension of the Suffrage.” Bring in more
voting; that will clear away the universal rottenness, and
quagmire of mendacities, in which poor England is drown-
ing; let England only vote sufficiently, and all is clean and
sweet again. A very singular swarmery this of the Reform
movement, I must say.
III.
Inexpressibly delirious seems to me, at present in my
solitude, the puddle of Parliament and Public upon what
it calls the “Reform Measure;” that is to say, The calling
in of new supplies of blockheadism, gullibility, bribeability,
amenability to beer and balderdash, by way of amending
the woes we have had from our previous supplies of that
SHOOTING NIAGARA : AND AFTER 7 349
bad article. The intellect of a man who believes in the
possibility of “improvement” by such a method is to me a
finished-off and shut-up intellect, with which I would not
argue: mere waste of wind between us to exchange words
on that class of topics. It is not Thought, this which my
reforming brother utters to me with such emphasis and elo-
quence; it is mere ‘reflex and reverberation, repetition of
what he has always heard others imagining to think, and
repeating as orthodox, indisputable, and the gospel of our
salvation in this world. Does not all Nature groan every-
where, and lie in bondage, till you give it a Parliament?
Is one a man at all unless one have a suffrage to Parlia-
ment 2 These are axioms admitted by all English crea-
tures for the last two hundred years. If you have the
misfortune not to believe in them at all, but to believe
the contrary for a long time past, the inferences and in-
spirations drawn from them, and the “swarmeries' and en-
thusiasms of mankind thereon, will seem to you not a little
marvellous!—
Meanwhile the good that lies in this delirious “new Re-
form Measure,”—as there lies something of good in almost
everything, is perhaps not inconsiderable. It accelerates
notably what I have long looked upon as inevitable;—
pushes us at Once into the Niagara Rapids: irresistibly pro-
pelled, with ever-increasing velocity, we shall now arrive;
who knows how soon / For a generation past, it has been
growing more and more evident that there was only this
issue; but now the issue itself has become imminent, the
distance of it to be guessed by years. Traitorous Politi-
cians, grasping at votes, even votes from the rabble, have
brought it on;–one cannot but consider them traitorous;
and for one's own poor share, would rather have been shot
350 MISCELLANIES.
wº
than been concerned in it. And yet, after all my silent
indignation and disgust, I cannot pretend to be clearly sorry
that such a consummation is expedited. I say to myself,
“Well, perhaps the sooner such a mass of hypocrisies, uni-
versal mismanagements and brutal platitudes and infideli-
ties ends,--if not in some improvement, then in death and
finis, may it not be the better? The sum of our sins, in-
creasing steadily day by day, will at least be less, the sooner
the settlement is ſ” Nay have not I a kind of secret satis-
faction, of the malicious or even of the judiciary kind (scha-
denfreude, ‘mischief joy,' the Germans call it, but really it
is justice-joy withal), that he they call “Dizzy” is to do it;
that other jugglers, of an unconscious and deeper type,
having sold their poor Mother's body for a mess of Official
Pottage, this clever conscious juggler steps in, “Soft you,
my honourable friends; I will weigh-out the corpse of your
Mother (mother of mine she never was, but only stepmother
and milk-cow); — and you sha’n’t have the pottage : not
yours, you observe, but mine !” This really is a pleasing
trait of its sort. Other traits there are abundantly ludicrous,
but they are too lugubrious to be even momentarily plea-
sant. A superlative Hebrew Conjuror, spell-binding all the
great Lords, great Parties, great Interests of England, to
his hand in this manner, and leading them by the nose, like
helpless mesmerised somnambulant cattle, to such issue,
did the world ever see a flebile ludibrium of such magnitude
before ? Lath-sword and Scissors of Destiny; Pickleherring
and the Three Parca, alike busy in it. This too, I suppose,
we had deserved. The end of our poor Old England (such
an England as we had at last made of it) to be not a tearful
Tragedy, but an ignominious Farce as well l—
Perhaps the consummation may be now nearer than is
thought. It seems to me sometimes as if everybody had
SHOOTING NIAGARA : AND AFTER 2 351
privately now given-up serious notion of resisting it. Beales
and his ragamuffins pull down the railings of Her Majesty's
Park, when Her Majesty refuses admittance; Home-Secre-
tary Walpole (representing England's Majesty) listens to a
Colonel Dickson talking of “barricades,” “improvised pikes,”
&c.; does not order him to be conducted, and if necessary
to be kicked, down stairs, with injunction never to return,
in case of worse; and when Beales says, “I will see that
the Queen's Peace is kept,” Queen (by her Walpole) ans-
wers, “Will you, then; God bless you !” and bursts into
tears. Those “tears' are certainly an epoch in England;
nothing seen, or dreamt of, like them in the History of poor
England till now.
In the same direction we have also our remarkable
“Jamaica Committee;” and a Lord Chief Justice ‘speaking
six hours' (with such “eloquence,” such &c. &c. as takes
with ravishment the general Editorial ear, Penny and Three-
penny), to prove that there is no such thing, nor ever was,
as Martial Law;-and that any governor, commanded sol-
dier, or official person, putting down the frightfulest Mob-
insurrection, Black or White, shall do it with the rope round
his neck, by way of encouragement to him. Nobody ans-
wers this remarkable Lord Chief Justice, “Lordship, if you
were to speak for six hundred years, instead of six hours,
you would only prove the more to us that, unwritten if you'
will, but real and fundamental, anterior to all written laws
and first making written laws possible, there must have been,
and is, and will be, coeval with Human Society, from its
first beginnings to its ultimate end, an actual Martial Law,
of more validity than any other law whatever. Lordship,
if there is no written law that three and three shall be six,
do you wonder at the Statute-Book for that omission? You
may shut those eloquent lips, and go home to dinner. May
352 MISCELLANTES.
your shadow never be less; greater it perhaps has little
chance of being.”
Truly one knows not whether less to venerate the Ma-
jesty's Ministers, who, instead of rewarding their Governor
Eyre, throw him out of window to a small loud group, small
as now appears, and nothing but a group or knot of rabid
Nigger-Philanthropists, barking furiously in the gutter, and
threatening one's Reform Bill with loss of certain friends
and votes (which could not save it, either, the dear object),
—or that other unvenerable Majesty's Ministry, which, on
Beales's generous undertaking for the Peace of an afflicted
Queen's Majesty, bursts into tears.
Memorable considerably, and altogether new in our
History, are both those ministerial feats; and both point
significantly the same way. The perceptible, but as yet
unacknowledged truth is, people are getting dimly sensible
that our Social Affairs and Arrangements, all but the money-
safe, are pretty universally a Falsehood, an elaborate old-
established Hypocrisy, which is even serving its own poor
private purpose ill, and is openly mismanaging every public
purpose or interest, to a shameful and indefensible extent.
For such a Hypocrisy, in any detail of it (except the money-
safe), nobody, official or other, is willing to risk his skin;
but cautiously looks round whether there is no postern to
retire by, and retires accordingly,–leaving any mob-leader,
Beales, John of Leyden, Walter the Penniless, or other im-
potent enough loud individual, with his tail of loud Roughs,
to work their own sweet will. Safer to humour the mob
than repress them, with the rope about your neck. Every-
body sees this official slinking-off, has a secret fellow-feeling
with it; nobody admires it ; but the spoken disapproval is
languid, and generally from the teeth outwards. “Has not
everybody been very good to you?” say the highest Edi-
SHOOTING NIAGARA : AND AFTER } 353
tors, in these current days, admonishing and soothing-down
Beales and his Roughs.
So that, if loud mobs, supported by one or two Elo-
quences in the House, choose to proclaim, some day, with
vociferation, as some day they will, “Enough of kingship,
and its grimacings and futilities Is it not a Hypocrisy and
Humbug, as you yourselves well know? We demand to
become Commonwealth of England; that will perhaps be bet-
ter, worse it cannot be ſ”—in such case, how much of avail-
able resistance does the reader think would ensue 3 From
official persons, with the rope round their neck, should you
expect a great amount 3 I do not ; or that resistance to
the death would anywhere, “within these walls’ or without,
be the prevailing phenomenon.
For we are a people drowned in Hypocrisy; saturated
with it to the bone :-alas, it is even so, in spite of far other
intentions at one time, and of a languid, dumb, but ineradic-
able inward protest against it still:—and we are beginning
to be universally conscious of that horrible condition, and
by no means disposed to die in behalf of continuing it ! It
has lasted long, that unblessed process; process of ‘lying
to steep in the Devil's Pickle, for above two hundred years
(I date the formal beginning of it from the year 1660, and
desperate return of Sacred Majesty after such an ousting as
it had got); process which appears to be now about com-
plete. Who could regret the finis of such a thing; finis on
any terms whatever ! Possibly it will not be death eternal,
possibly only death temporal, death temporary.
My neighbours, by the million against one, all expect
that it will almost certainly be New-birth, a Saturnian time,
with gold nuggets themselves more plentiful than ever. As
for us, we will say, Rejoice in the awakening of poor England
even on these terms. To lie torpid, sluttishly gurgling and
WOL. XI. (Misc, vol. 6.) AA
354 MISCELLANTES.
mumbling, spiritually in soak ‘in the Devil's Pickle' (choicest
elixir the Devil brews, is not unconscious or half-conscious
Hypocrisy, and quiet Make-believe of yourself and others strictly
that?) for above two hundred years: that was the infinitely
dismal condition, all others are but finitely so.
IV.
Practically the worthiest inquiry, in regard to all this,
would be : “What are probably the steps towards consum-
mation all this will now take; what are, in main features,
the issues it will arrive at, on unexpectedly (with immense
surprise to the most) shooting Niagara, to the bottom ? And
above all, what are the possibilities, resources, impediments,
conceivable methods and attemptings of its ever getting out
again?” Darker subject of Prophecy can be laid before no
man; and to be candid with myself, up to this date I have
never seriously meditated it, far less grappled with it as
a Problem in any sort practical. Let me avoid branch first
of this inquiry altogether. If “immortal smash, and shoot-
ing of the Falls, be the one issue ahead, our and the re-
formed Parliament's procedures and adventures in arriving
there are not worth conjecturing, in comparison l—And yet
the inquiry means withal, both branches of it mean, “What
are the duties of good citizens in it, now and onwards 3”
Meditated it must be, and light sought on it, however hard
or impossible to find It is not always the part of the in-
finitesimally small minority of wise men and good citizens
to sit silent; idle they should never sit.
Supposing the Commonwealth established, and Democracy
rampant, as in America, or in France by fits for 70 odd years
past,--it is a favourable fact that our Aristocracy, in their
SHOOTING NIAGARA : AND AFTER } 355
essential height of position, and capability (or possibility)
of doing good, are not at once likely to be interfered with;
that they will be continued farther on their trial, and only
the question somewhat more stringently put to them,
“What are you good for, then? Show us, show us; or else
disappear !” I regard this as potentially a great benefit;-
springing from what seems a mad enough phenomenon, the
fervid zeal in behalf of this “new Reform Bill” and all kin-
dred objects, which is manifested by the better kind of our
young Lords and Honourables; a thing very curious to me.
Somewhat resembling that bet of the impetuous Irish car-
penter, astride of his plank firmly stuck out of window in
the sixth story, “Two to one, I can saw this plank in so
many minutes;” and sawing accordingly, fiercely impetuous,
—with success! But from the maddest thing, as we said,
there usually may come some particle of good withal (if
any poor particle of good did lie in it, waiting to be dis-
engaged 1)—and this is a signal instance of that kind. Our
Aristocracy are not hated or disliked by any Class of the
People, but on the contrary are looked up to, with a cer-
tain vulgarly human admiration, and spontaneous recogni-
tion of their good qualities and good fortune, which is by
no means wholly envious or wholly servile, by all classes,
lower and lowest class included. And indeed, in spite of
lamentable exceptions too visible all round, my vote would
still be, That from Plebs to Princeps, there was still no Class
among us intrinsically so valuable and recommendable.
What the possibilities of our Aristocracy might still be?
this is a question I have often asked myself. Surely their
possibilities might still be considerable; though I confess
they lie in a most abstruse, and as yet quite uninvestigated
condition. But a body of brave men, and of beautiful polite
women, furnished gratis as they are, some of them (as my
356 MISCELLANTES.
Lord Derby, I am told, in a few years will be) wita not far
from two-thirds of a million sterling annually,–ought to be
good for something, in a society mostly fallen vulgar and
chaotic like ours! More than once I have been affected
with a deep sorrow and respect for noble souls among
them, and their high stoicism, and silent resignation to a
kind of life which they individually could not alter, and
saw to be so empty and paltry; life of giving and receiv-
ing Hospitalities in a gracefully splendid manner. “This,
then” (such mute soliloquy I have read on some noble
brow), “this, and something of Village-schools, of Consult-
ing with the Parson, care of Peasant Cottages and Econo-
mies, is to be all our task in the world? Well, well; let us
at least do this, in our most perfect way !”
In past years, I have sometimes thought what a thing
it would be, could the Queen ‘in Council (in Parliament or
wherever it were) pick out some gallant-minded, stout, well-
gifted Cadet, — younger Son of a Duke, of an Earl, of a
Queen herself; younger Son doomed now to go mainly to
the Devil, for absolute want of a career;-and say to him,
“Young fellow, if there do lie in you potentialities of go-
verming, of gradually guiding, leading and coercing to a
noble goal, how sad is it they should be all lost They
are the grandest gifts a mortal can have; and they are, of
all, the most necessary to other mortals in this world. See,
I have scores on scores of ‘Colonies, all ungoverned, and
nine-tenths of them full of jungles, boa-constrictors, rattle-
Snakes, Parliamentary Eloquences, and Emancipated Niggers
ripening towards nothing but destruction: one of these you
shall have, you as Vice-King; on rational conditions, and ad
vitam aut culpam it shall be yours (and perhaps your pos-
terity’s if worthy): go you and buckle with it, in the name
of Heaven; and let us see what you will build it to " To
SHOOTING NIAGARA : AND AFTER 3 357
something how much better than the Parliamentary Elo-
quences are doing, -thinks the reader ? Good Heavens,
these West-India Islands, some of them, appear to be the
richest and most favoured spots on the Planet Earth. Ja-
maica is an angry subject, and I am shy to speak of it.
Poor Dominica itself is described to me in a way to kindle
a heroic young heart; look at Dominica for an instant.
Hemispherical, they say, or in the shape of an Inverted
Washbowl; rim of it, first twenty miles of it all round,
starting from the sea, is flat alluvium, the fruitfulest in
Nature, fit for any noblest spice or product, but unwhole-
some except for Niggers held steadily to their work: ground
then gradually rises, umbrageously rich throughout, becomes
fit for coffee; still rises, now bears oak woods, cereals, In-
dian corn, English wheat, and in this upper portion is salu-
brious and delightful for the European,—who might there
spread and grow, according to the wisdom given him; say
only to a population of 100,000 adult men; well fit to de-
fend their Island against all comers, and beneficently keep
steady to their work a million of Niggers on the lower
ranges. What a kingdom my poor Friedrich Wilhelm, fol-
lowed by his Friedrich, would have made of this Inverted
Washbowl; clasped round and lovingly kissed and laved
by the beautifulest seas in the world, and beshone by the
grandest sun and sky!
“Forever impossible,” say you; “contrary to all our no-
tions, regulations and ways of proceeding or of thinking” 3
Well, I daresay. And the state your regulations have it
in, at present, is: Population of 100 white men (by no
means of select type); unknown cipher of rattlesnakes,
profligate Niggers and Mulattoes; governed by a Piebald”
Parliament of Eleven (head Demosthenes there a Nigger
Tinman), and so exquisite a care of Being and of Well-
358 MISCELLANTES.
being that the old Fortifications have become jungle-quar-
ries (Tinman “at liberty to tax himself”), vigorous roots
penetrating the old ashlar, dislocating it everywhere, with
tropical effect; old cannon going quietly to honeycomb and .
oxide of iron, in the vigorous embrace of jungle : military
force nil, police force next to nil; an Island capable of being
taken by the crew of a man-of-war's boat. And indeed
it was nearly lost, the other year, by an accidental collision
of two Niggers on the street, and a concourse of other idle
Niggers to see,_who would not go away again, but idly
re-assembled with increased numbers on the morrow, and
with ditto the next day; assemblage pointing ad infinitum
seemingly,–had not some charitable small French Gover-
nor, from his bit of Island within reach, sent over a Lieu-
tenant and twenty soldiers, to extinguish the devouring
absurdity, and order it home straightway to its bed. Which
instantly saved this valuable Possession of ours, and left our
Demosthenic Tinman and his Ten, with their liberty to tax
themselves as heretofore. Is not “Self-government” a sub-
lime thing, in Colonial Islands and some others?—But to
leave all this.
W.
I almost think, when once we have made the Niagara
leap, the better kind of our Nobility, perhaps after experi-
menting, will more and more withdraw themselves from the
Parliamentary, Oratorical or Political element; leaving that
to such Cleon the Tanner and Company as it rightfully be-
longs to ; and be far more chary of their speech than now.
‘Speech issuing in no deed is hateful and contemptible:—
how can a man have any nobleness who knows not that?
In God’s name, let us find out what of noble and profitable
SHOOTING NIAGARA : AND AFTER 7 359
we can do; if it be nothing, let us at least keep silence, and
bear gracefully our strange lot —
The English Nobleman has still left in him, after such
sorrowful erosions, something considerable of chivalry and
magnanimity: polite he is, in the finest form; politeness,
modest, simple, veritable, ineradicable, dwells in him to the
bone; I incline to call him the politest kind of nobleman or
man (especially his wife the politest and gracefulest kind
of woman) you will find in any country. An immense en-
dowment this, if you consider it well ! A very great and
indispensable help º, other faculties of kingship a
man may have. Indeed it springs from them all (its sources,
every kingly faculty lying in you); and is as the beautiful
natural skin, and visible sanction, index and outcome of
them all. No king can rule without it; none but potential
kings can really have it. In the crude, what we call unbred
or Orson form, all ‘men of genius' have it; but see what it
avails some of them,-your Samuel Johnson, for instance,—
in that crude form, who was so rich in it, too, in the crude
way !
Withal it is perhaps a fortunate circumstance, that the
population has no wild notions, no political enthusiasms of
a “New Era” or the like. This, though in itself a dreary
and ignoble item, in respect of the revolutionary Many, may
nevertheless be for good, if the Few shall be really high
and brave, as things roll on.
Certain it is, there is nothing but vulgarity in our People's
expectations, resolutions or desires, in this Epoch. It is all
a peaceable mouldering or tumbling down from mere rot-
tenness and decay; whether slowly mouldering or rapidly
tumbling, there will be nothing found of real or true in the
rubbish-heap, but a most true desire of making money easily,
360 MISCELLANIES.
and of eating it pleasantly. A poor ideal for “reformers,”
sure enough. But it is the fruit of long antecedents, too;
and from of old, our habits in regard to “reformation,” or
repairing what went wrong (as something is always doing),
have been strangely didactic And to such length have we
at last brought it, by our wilful, conscious, and now long-
continued method of using varnish, instead of actual repair
by honest carpentry, of what we all knew and saw to have
gone undeniably wrong in our procedures and affairs Me-
thod deliberately, steadily, and even solemnly continued,
with much admiration of it from ourselves and others, as
the best and only good one, for above two hundred years.
Ever since that annus mirabilis of 1660, when Oliver
Cromwell's dead clay was hung on the gibbet, and a much
easier “reign of Christ” under the divine gentleman called
Charles II. was thought the fit thing, this has been our
steady method : varnish, varnish ; if a thing have grown
So rotten that it yawns palpable, and is so inexpressibly
ugly that the eyes of the very populace discern it and
dotest it, bring out a new pot of varnish, with the requi-
site supply of putty; and lay it on handsomely. Don’t
spare varnish ; how well it will all look in a few days, if
laid on well ! Varnish alone is cheap and is safe; avoid
carpentering, chiselling, sawing and hammering on the old
quiet House;—dry-rot is in it, who knows how deep; don’t
disturb the old beams and junctures: varnish, varnish, if
you will be blessed by gods and men This is called the
Constitutional System, Conservative System, and other fine
names; and this at last has its fruits, such as we see.
Mendacity hanging in the very air we breathe; all men
become, unconsciously or half or wholly consciously, liars
to their own souls and to other men's; grimacing, finess-
ing, periphrasing, in continual hypocrisy of word, by way of
SHOOTING NIAGARA : AND AFTER 3 361
varnish to continual past, present, future misperformance
of thing :-clearly sincere about nothing whatever, except
in silence, about the appetites of their own huge belly, and
the readiest method of assuaging these. From a Popula-
tion of that sunk kind, ardent only in pursuits that are low
and in industries that are sensuous and beaverish, there is
little peril of human enthusiasms, or revolutionary transports,
such as occurred in 1789, for instance. A low-minded pecus
all that; essentially torpid and ignavum, on all that is high
or nobly human in revolutions.
It is true there is in such a population, of itself, no help
at all towards reconstruction of the wreck of your Niagara
plunge; of themselves they, with whatever cry of “liberty”
in their mouths, are inexorably marked by Destiny as slaves;
and not even the immortal gods could make them free,_
except by making them anew and on a different pattern.
No help in them at all, to your model Aristocrat, or to
any noble man or thing. But then likewise there is no
hindrance, or a minimum of it ! Nothing there in bar of
the noble Few, who we always trust will be born to us,
generation after generation; and on whom and whose living
of a noble and valiantly cosmic life amid the worst impedi-
ments and hugest anarchies, the whole of our hope depends.
Yes, on them only If amid the thickest welter of sur-
rounding gluttony and baseness, and what must be reck-
oned bottomless anarchy from shore to shore, there be found
no man, no small but invincible minority of men, capable
of keeping themselves free from all that, and of living a
heroically human life, while the millions round them are
noisily living a mere beaverish or doglike One, then truly
all hope is gone. But we always struggle to believe Not.
Aristocracy by title, by fortune and position, who can doubt
but there are still precious possibilities among the chosen
362 MISCELLANIES.
of that class? And if that fail us, there is still, we hope,
the unclassed Aristocracy by nature, not inconsiderable in
numbers, and supreme in faculty, in wisdom, human talent,
Inobleness and courage, who derive-their patent of nobility
#.God.' If indeed these also fail us,
iº. the unanimous torrent of brutish
hoofs and hobnails, and cannot vindicate themselves into
clearness here and there, but at length cease even to try
it, then indeed it is all ended: national death, scandalous
‘Copper-Captaincy’ as of France, stern Russian Abolition
and Erasure as of Poland; in one form or another, well
deserved annihilation, and dismissal from God’s universe,

that and nothing else lies ahead for our once heroic Eng-
land too.
How many of our Titular Aristocracy will prove real
gold when thrown into the crucible 3 That is always a
highly interesting question to me; and my answer, or guess,
has still something considerable of hope lurking in it. But
the question as to our Aristocracy by Patent from God the
Maker, is infinitely interesting. How many of these, amid
the ever-increasing bewilderments, and welter of impedi-
ments, will be able to develop themselves into something
of Heroic Well-doing by act and by word? How many of
them will be drawn, pushed and seduced, their very docility
and lovingness assisting, into the universal vulgar whirlpool
of Parliamenteering, Newspapering, Novel-writing, Comte-
Philosophy-ing, immortal Verse-writing, &c. &c. (if of vocal
turn, as they mostly will be, for some time yet) 3 How
many, by their too desperate resistance to the unanimous
vulgar of a Public round them, will become spasmodic in-
stead of strong; and will be overset, and trodden out,
under the hoofs and hobnails above-Said? Will there, in
SHOOTING NIAGARA : AND AFTER 3 363
short, prove to be a recognisable small nucleus of Invincible
”Apatot fighting for the Good Cause, in their various wisest
ways, and never ceasing or slackening till they die? This
is the question of questions, on which all turns; in the
answer to this, could we give it clearly, as no man can,
lies the oracle-response, “Life for you,” “Death for you”!
Looking into this, there are fearful dubitations many. But
considering what of Piety, the devoutest and the bravest
yet known, there once was in England, and how exten-
sively, in stupid, maundering and degraded forms, it still
lingers, one is inclined timidly to hope the best
The best: for if this small Aristocratic nucleus can hold
out and work, it is in the sure case to increase and increase;
to become (as Oliver once termed it) “a company of poor
men, who will spend all their blood rather.” An openly
belligerent company, capable at last of taking the biggest
slave Nation by the beard, and saying to it, “Enough, ye
slaves, and servants of the mud-gods; all this must cease !
Our heart abhors all this; our soul is sick under it; God’s
curse is on us while this lasts. Behold, we will all die
rather than that this last. Rather all die, we say :-what
is your view of the corresponding alternative on your own
part?” I see well it must at length come to battle; actual
fighting, bloody wrestling, and a great deal of it: but were
it unit against thousand, or against thousand-thousand, on
the above terms, I know the issue, and have no fear about
it. That also is an issue which has been often tried in
Human History; and, ‘while God lives'—(I hope the phrase
is not yet obsolete, for the fact is eternal, though so many
have forgotten it !) — said issue can or will fall only one
way.
364 MISCELLANTES.
WI.
What we can expect this Aristocracy of Nature to do
for us? They are of two kinds: the Speculative, speaking
or vocal ; and the Practical or industrial, whose function
is silent. These are of brother quality; but they go very
different roads: “men of genius' they all emphatically are,
the “inspired Gift of God' lodged in each of them. They
do infinitely concern the world and us; especially that first
or speaking class, provided God have ‘touched their lips
with his hallowed fire’ſ Supreme is the importance of these.
They are our inspired speakers and seers, the light of the
world; who are to deliver the world from its swarmeries,
its superstitions (political or other); — priceless and indis-
pensable to us that first Class 1
Nevertheless it is not of these I mean to speak at pre-
sent; the topic is far too wide, nor is the call to it so im-
mediately pressing. These Sons of Wisdom, gifted to speak
as with hallowed lips a real God’s-message to us, I don't
much expect they will be numerous, for a long while yet,
nor even perhaps appear at all in this time of Swarmeries,
or be disposed to speak their message to such audience as
there is. And if they did, I know well it is not from my
advice, or any mortal’s, that they could learn their feasible
way of doing it. For a great while yet, most of them will
fly off into “Literature,” into what they call Art, Poetry
and the like; and will mainly waste themselves in that
inane region,-fallen so iname in our mad era. Alas, though
born Sons of Wisdom, they are not exempt from all our
‘Swarmeries, but only from the grosser kinds of them. This
of “Art,” “Poetry” and so forth, is a refined Swarmery;
the most refined now going; and comes to us, in venerable
form, from a distance of above a thousand years. And is
SHOOTING NIAGARA : AND AFTER 2 365
still undoubtingly sanctioned, canonised and marked sacred,
by the unanimous vote of cultivated persons to this hour.
How stir such questions in the present limits? Or in fact,
what chance is there that a guess of mine, in regard to
what these born Sons of Wisdom in a yet unborn section
of Time will say, or to how they will say it, should avail
in the least my own contemporaries, much less them or
theirs? Merely on a point or two I will hint what my poor
wish is ; and know well enough that it is the drawing a
bow, not at a venture indeed, but into the almost utterly
dark.
First, then, with regard to Art, Poetry and the like,
which at present is esteemed the supreme of aims for vocal s
genius, I hope my literary Aristos will pause, and seriously
make question before embarking on that ; and perhaps will
end, in spite of the Swarmeries abroad, by devoting his
divine faculty to something far higher, far more vital to
us. Poetry? It is not pleasant singing that we want, but
wise and earnest speaking:—‘Art,” “High Art’ &c. are very
fine and ornamental, but only to persons sitting at their
ease: to persons still wrestling with deadly chaos, and still
fighting for dubious existence, they are a mockery rather.
Our Aristos, well meditating, will perhaps discover that the
genuine ‘Art in all times is a higher synonym for God . .
mighty's Facts, which come to us direct from Heaven, but
in so abstruse a condition, and cannot be read at all till
the better intellect interpret them. That is the real func-
tion of our Aristos and of his divine gift. Let him think
well of this 1 He will find that all real “Art' is definable as
Fact, or say as the disimprisoned ‘Soul of Fact; that any
other kind of Art, Poetry or High Art is quite idle in com-
parison.
The Bible itself has, in all changes of theory about it,
366 MISCELLANIES.
this as its highest distinction, that it is the truest of all
Books;–Book springing, every word of it, from the intens-
est convictions, from the very heart's core, of those who
penned it. And has not that been a “successful.” Book?
Did all the Paternoster-Rows of the world ever hear of one
so “successful” Homer's Iliad, too, that great Bundle of
old Greek Ballads, is nothing of a Fiction; it is the truest a
Patriotic Balladsinger, rapt into paroxysm and enthusiasm
for the honour of his native Country and native Parish,
could manage to sing. To “sing,' you will observe; always
sings, pipe often rusty, at a loss for metre (flinging-in his
ye, utv, 88); a rough, laborious, wallet-bearing man; but
with his heart rightly on fire, when the audience goes with
him, and ‘hangs on him with greed’ (as he says they often
do). Homer's Iliad I almost reckon next to the Bible; so
stubbornly sincere is it too, though in a far different element,
and a far shallower.
“Fiction,”—my friend, you will be surprised to discover
at last what alarming cousinship it has to Lying: don’t go
into “Fiction,” you Aristos, nor concern yourself with “Fine
Literature,” or Coarse ditto, or the unspeakable glories and
rewards of pleasing your generation; which you are not
sent hither to please, first of all! In general, leave “Lite-
rature,” the thing called “Literature” at present, to run
through its rapid fermentations (how more and more rapid
they are in these years 1), and to fluff itself off into Nothing,
in its own way, like a poor bottle of soda-water with the
cork sprung;-it won’t be long. In our time it has become
all the rage; highest noblemen and dignitaries courting a
new still higher glory there; innumerable men, women and
children rushing towards it, yearly ever more. It sat pain-
fully in Grub Street, in hungry garrets, so long; some few
heroic martyrs always serving in it, among such a miscel-
SHOOTING NIAGARA : AND AFTER 2 367
lany of semi-fatuous worthless ditto, courting the bubble
reputation in worse than the cannon's mouth ; in general, a
very flimsy, foolish set. But that little company of martyrs
has at last lifted Literature furiously or foamingly high in
the world. Goes like the Iceland geysers in our time, like
uncorked soda-water;-and will, as I said, soon have done.
Only wait: in fifty years, I should guess, all really serious
souls will have quitted that mad province, left it to the
roaring populaces; and for any Noble-man or useful person
it will be a credit rather to declare, “I never tried Litera-
ture; believe me, I have not written anything;"—and we
of “Literature” by trade, we shall sink again, I perceive, to
the rank of street-fiddling; no higher rank, though with end-
less increase of sixpences flung into the hat. Of “Litera-
ture” keep well to windward, my serious friend —
“But is not Shakspeare the highest genius” Yes, of
all the Intellects of Mankind that have taken the speaking
shape, I incline to think him the most divinely gifted; clear,
all-piercing like the sunlight, lovingly melodious; probably
the noblest human Intellect in that kind. And yet of Shak-
speare too, it is not the Fiction that I admire, but the Fact;
to say truth, what I most of all admire are the traces he
shows of a talent that could have turned the History of
England into a kind of Iliad, almost perhaps into a kind of
Bible. Manifest traces that way; something of epic in the
cycle of hasty Fragments he has yielded us (slaving for his
bread in the Bankside Theatre);-and what a work wouldn't
that have been 1 Marlborough said, He knew no English
History but what he had got from Shakspeare;—and truly
that is still essentially the serious and sad fact for most of
us; Fact thrice and four times lamentable, though Marl-
borough meant it lightly. Innumerable grave Books there
are; but for none of us any real History of England, intel-
368 MISCELLANTES.
ligible, profitable, or even conceivable in almost any section
Of it !
To write the History of England as a kind of BIBLE (or
in parts and snatches, to sing it if you could), this were work
for the highest Aristos or series of Aristoi in Sacred Litera-
ture (really a sacred kind, this); and to be candid, I discover
hitherto no incipiences of this; and greatly desire that
there were some ! Some I do expect (too fondly perhaps,
but they seem to me a sine quá non) from the Writing and
Teaching Heroes that will yet be born to us. For England
too (equally with any Judah whatsoever) has a History that
is Divine; an Eternal Providence presiding over every step
of it, now in Sunshine and soft tones, now in thunder and
storm, audible to millions of awe-struck valiant hearts in
the ages that are gone; guiding England forward to its
goal and work, which too has been highly considerable in
the world! The “interpretation” of all which, in the pre-
sent ages, has (what is the root of all our woes) fallen into
such a set of hands ! Interpretation scandalously ape-like, I
must say; impious, blasphemous;–totally incredible withal.
Which Interpretation will have to become pious and human
again, or else—or else vanish into the Bottomless Pit, and
carry us and our England along with it ! This, some in-
cipiences of this, I gradually expect from the Heroes that
are coming. And in fact this, taken in full compass, is the
one thing needed from them; and all other things are but
branches of this.
For example, I expect, as almost the first thing, new
definitions of LIBERTY from them; gradual extinction, slow
but steady, of the stupid “swarmeries of mankind on this
matter, and at length a complete change of their notions on
it. ‘Superstition and idolatry, sins real and grievous, sins
ultimately ruinous, wherever found,-this is now Our Eng-
SHOOTING NIAGARA : AND AFTER 2 369
lish, our Modern European form of them; Political, not Theo-
logical now ! England, Modern Europe, will have to quit
them or die. They are sins of a fatal slow-poisonous nature;
not permitted in this Universe. The poison of them is not
intellectual dimness chiefly, but torpid unveracity of heart:
not mistake of road, but want of pious earnestness in seek-
ing your road. Insincerity, unfaithfulness, impiety:—care-
less tumbling and buzzing about, in blind, noisy, pleasantly
companionable “swarms,’ instead of solitary questioning of
yourself and of the Silent Oracles, which is a sad, sore and
painful duty, though a much incumbent one upon a man.
The meaning of LIBERTY, what it veritably signifies in the
speech of men and gods, will gradually begin to appear
again? Were that once got, the eye of England were
couched; poor honest England would again see,_I will fancy
with what horror and amazement, the thing she had grown
to in this interim of swarmeries. To show this poor well-
meaning England, Whom it were desirable to furnish with
a “suffrage,” and Whom with a dog-muzzle (and plenty of
fresh water on the streets), against rabidity in the hot
weather: — what a work for our Hero speakers that are
coming !—
I hope also they will attack earnestly, and at length ex-
tinguish and eradicate, this idle habit of “accounting for the
Moral Sense,” as they phrase it. A most singular problem:
—instead of bending every thought to have more and ever
more of “Moral Sense,” and therewith to irradiate your own
poor soul, and all its work, into something of divineness, as
the one thing needful to you in this world ! A very futile
problem that other, my friends; futile, idle, and far worse;
leading to what Moral Ruin you little dream of ! The
Moral Sense, thank God, is a thing you never will “account
for;” that, if you could think of it, is the perennial Miracle
VOL. XI. (Misc, vol. 6.) JBB
V
370 MISCELLANIES.
of Man; in all times, visibly connecting poor transitory
Man here on this bewildered Earth with his Maker, who is
Eternal in the Heavens. By no Greatest Happiness Prin-
ciple, Greatest Nobleness Principle, or any Principle what-
ever, will you make that in the least clearer than it already
is;–forbear, I say; or you may darken it away from you
altogether ‘Two things,’ says the memorable Kant, deep-
est and most logical of Metaphysical Thinkers, “Two things
‘strike me dumb: the infinite Starry Heaven; and the
“Sense of Right and Wrong in Man.” Visible Infinites,
both; say nothing of them; don’t try to “account for them;”
for you can say nothing wise.
On the whole, I hope our Hero will, by heroic word, and
heroic thought and act, make manifest to mankind that ‘Re-
verence for God and for Man' is not yet extinct, but only
fallen into disastrous comatose sleep, and hideously dream-
ing; that the ‘Christian Religion itself is not dead,’ that
the soul of it is alive forevermore, and only the dead and
rotting body of it is now getting burial. The noblest of
modern Intellects, by far the noblest we have had since
Shakspeare left us, has said of this Religion: ‘It is a Height
to which the HUMAN SPECIES were fitted and destined to
‘ attain; and from which, having once attained it, they can
‘ never retrograde. Permanently, never. Never, they ;-
though individual Nations of them fatally can ; of which I
hope poor England is not one 3 Though, here as elsewhere,
the burial-process does offer ghastly enough phenomena:
Ritualisms, Puseyisms, Arches-Court Lawsuits, Cardinals of
8 * Zwei Dinge erfüllen das Gemüth mit immer neuer und zunehmender Bewun.
* derung und Ehrfurcht, je Öfter und anhaltender sich das Nachdenken damit
“beschäftigt : der bestirnte Himmel iber mir, und das moralische Gesetz in mir,’. . .
v. S. w. Kant's Sämmtliche Werke (Rosenkranz and Schubert's edition, Leipzig,
1838), viii. 312.
SHOOTING NIAGARA : AND AFTER 3 371
Westminster, &c. &c.;-making night hideous ! For a time
and times and half a time, as the old Prophets used to say.
One of my hoping friends, yet more sanguine than I
fully dare to be, has these zealous or enthusiast words: “A
“very great “work,” surely, is going on in these days, has
‘been begun, and is silently proceeding, and cannot easily
‘stop, under all the flying dungheaps of this new “Battle
‘ of the Giants” flinging their Dung-Pelion on their Dung-
‘Ossa, in these ballot-boxing, Nigger-emancipating, empty,
“dirt-eclipsed days:–no less a “work” than that of restor-
‘ing GOD and whatever was Godlike in the traditions and
‘recorded doings of Mankind; dolefully forgotten, or sham-
“remembered, as it has been, for long degraded and de-
‘grading hundreds of years, latterly Actually this, if you
‘ understand it well. The essential, still awful and ever-
“blessed Fact of all that was meant by “God and the God-
‘like” to men's souls is again struggling to become clearly
“revealed; will extricate itself from what some of us, too
“irreverently in our impatience, call “Hebrew old-clothes;”
‘ and will again bless the Nations; and heal them from their
‘basenesses, and unendurable woes, and wanderings in the
‘company of madness! This Fact lodges, not exclusively
“ or specially in Hebrew Garnitures, Old or New ; but in the
* Heart of Nature and of Man forevermore. And is not less
‘ certain, here at this hour, than it ever was at any Sinai
‘whatsoever. Kant’s “Two things that strike me dumb ;”
* —these are perceptible at Königsberg in Prussia, or at
‘Charing-cross in London. And all eyes shall yet see them
‘ better; and the heroic Few, who are the salt of the earth,
“shall at length see them well. With results for everybody.
“A great “work” indeed; the greatness of which beggars
* all others I’
372 MISCELLANTES,
VII.
Of the second, or silent Industrial Hero, I may now say
something, as more within my limits and the reader's.
This Industrial hero, here and there recognisable and
known to me, as developing himself, and as an opulent and
dignified kind of man, is already almost an Aristocrat by
class. And if his chivalry is still somewhat in the Orson
form, he is already by intermarriage and otherwise coming
into contact with the Aristocracy by title; and by degrees
will acquire the fit Valentinism, and other more important
advantages there. He cannot do better than unite with
this naturally noble kind of Aristocrat by title; the Indus-
trial noble and this one are brothers born; called and im-
pelled to coöperate and go together. Their united result
is what we want from both. And the Noble of the Future,
—if there be any such, as I well discern there must,-will
have grown out of both. A new “Valentine;” and perhaps
a considerably improved,—by such recontact with his wild
Orson kinsman, and with the earnest veracities this latter
has learned in the Woods and the Dens of Bears.
The Practical “man of genius' will probably not be alto-
gether absent from the Reformed Parliament:-his Make-
believe, the vulgar millionaire (truly a “bloated” specimen,
this l) is sure to be frequent there; and along with the mul-
titude of brass guineas, it will be very salutary to have a
gold one or two 1–In or out of Parliament, our Practical
hero will find no end of work ready for him. It is he that
has to recivilise, out of its now utter savagery, the world of
Industry;-think what a set of items: To change nomadic
contract into permanent; to annihilate the soot and dirt and
squalid horror now defacing this England, once so clean
and comely while it was poor; matters sanitary (and that
SHOOTING NIAGARA : AND AFTER } 373
not to the body only) for his people; matters governmental
for them; matters &c. &c.:—no want of work for this Hero,
through a great many generations yet!
And indeed Reformed Parliament itself, with or without
his presence, will, you would suppose, have to start at once
upon the Industrial question and go quite deep into it. That
of Trades Union, in quest of its “Four eights,” with assassin
pistol in its hand, will at once urge itself on Reformed Par-
liament: and Reformed Parliament will give us Blue Books
upon it, if nothing farther. Nay, almost still more urgent,
and what I could reckon, as touching on our Ark of the
Covenant, on sacred “Free Trade” itself-to be the preli-
minary of all, there is the immense and universal question
of Cheap and Nasty. Let me explain it a little.
“Cheap and nasty;” there is a pregnancy in that poor
vulgar proverb, which I wish we better saw and valued It
is the rude indignant protest of human nature against a mis-
chief which, in all times and places, haunts it or lies near
it, and which never in any time or place was so like utterly
overwhelming it as here and now. Understand, if you will
consider it, that no good man did, or ever should, encourage
“cheapness” at the ruinous expense of unfitness, which is
always infidelity, and is dishonourable to a man. If I want
an article, let it be genuine, at whatever price; if the price
is too high for me, I will go without it, unequipped with it
for the present, I shall not have equipped myself with
a hypocrisy, at any rate 1 This, if you will reflect, is
primarily the rule of all purchasing and all producing men.
They are not permitted to encourage, patronise, or in any
form countenance the working, wearing or acting of Hypo-
* “Eight hours to work, eight hours to play,
Eight hours to sleep, and eight shillings a day !”
Reformed Workman's Pisgah Song.
374 MISCELLANTES.
crisies in this world. On the contrary, they are to hate all
such with a perfect hatred; to do their best in extinguish-
ing them as the poison of mankind. This is the temper for
purchasers of work: how much more for that of doers and
producers of it! Work, every one of you, like the Demiurgus
or Eternal World-builder; work, none of you, like the Dia-
bolus or Denier and Destroyer, under penalties!
And now, if this is the fact, that you are not to pur-
chase, to make or to vend any ware or product of the
“cheap and nasty” genus, and cannot in any case do it
without sin, and even treason against the Maker of you, -
consider what a quantity of sin, of treason, petty and high,
must be accumulating in poor England every day ! It is
certain as the National Debt; and what are all National
money Debts, in comparison I Do you know the shop, sale-
shop, workshop, industrial establishment temporal or spiri-
tual, in broad England, where genuine work is to be had 3
I confess I hardly do; the more is my sorrow ! For a whole
Pandora's Box of evils lies in that one fact, my friend; that
one is enough for us, and may be taken as the sad summary
of all. Universal shoddy and Devil’s-dust cunningly varnished
over; that is what you will find presented you in all places,
as ware invitingly cheap, if your experience is like mine.
Yes; if Free Trade is the new religion, and if Free Trade
do mean Free racing with unlimited velocity in the career
of Cheap and Nasty, our Practical hero will be not a little
anxious to deal with that question. Infinitely anxious to
see how “Free Trade,” with such a devil in the belly of it,
is to be got tied again a little, and forbidden to make a very
brute of itself at this rate | -
Take one small example only. London bricks are re-
duced to dry clay again in the course of sixty years, or
sooner. Bricks, burn them rightly, build them faithfully,
SHOOTING NIAGARA : AND AFTER 3 375
with mortar faithfully tempered, they will stand, I believe,
barring earthquakes and cannon, for 6,000 years if you like
Etruscan Pottery (baked clay, but rightly baked) is some
3,000 years of age, and still fresh as an infant. Nothing I
know of is more lasting than a well-made brick;-we have
them here, at the head of this Garden (wall once of a Manor
Park), which are in their third or fourth century (Henry
Eighth's time, I was told), and still perfect in every par-
ticular.
Truly the state of London houses and London house-
building, at this time, who shall express how detestable it
is, how frightfull “Not a house this of mine,” said one in-
dignant gentleman, who had searched the London Environs
all around for any bit of Villa, “Alpha”-cottage or Omega,
which were less inhuman, but found none : “Not a built
house, but a congeries of plastered bandboxes; shambling
askew in all joints and corners of it; creaking, quaking
under every step;-filling you with disgust and despair"
For there lies in it not the Physical mischief only, but the
Moral too, which is far more. I have often sadly thought
of this. That a fresh human soul should be born in such
a place; born in the midst of a concrete mendacity; taught
at every moment not to abhor a lie, but to think a lie all
proper, the fixed custom and general law of man, and to
twine its young affections round that sort of object 1
England needs to be rebuilt once every seventy years.
Build it once rightly, the expense will be, say fifty per cent
more ; but it will stand till the Day of Judgment. Every
seventy years we shall save the expense of building all
England over again! Say nine-tenths of the expense, say
three-fourths of it (allowing for the changes necessary or
permissible in the change of things); and in rigorous arith-
metic, such is the saving possible to you; lying under your
376 MISCELLANTES.
nose there; soliciting you to pick it up, by the mere act
of behaving like sons of Adam, and not like scandalous
esurient Phantasms and sons of Bel and the Dragon.
Here is a thrift of money, if you want money ! The
money-saving would (you can compute in what short length
of time) pay your National Debt for you; bridge the ocean
for you; wipe away your smoky nuisances, your muddy
ditto, your miscellaneous ditto, and make the face of Eng-
land clean again;–and all this I reckon as mere zero in
eomparison with the accompanying improvement to your
poor souls, —now dead in trespasses and sins, drowned in
beer-butts, wine-butts, in gluttonies, slaveries, quackeries,
but recalled then to blessed life again, and the sight of
Heaven and Earth, instead of Payday, and Meux and Co.'s
Entire. Oh, my bewildered Brothers, what foul infernal
Circe has come over you, and changed you from men once
really rather noble of their kind, into beavers, into hogs
and asses, and beasts of the field or the slum ! I declare
I had rather die. . . .
One hears sometimes of religious controversies running
very high ; about faith, works, grace, prevenient grace, the
Arches Court and Essays and Reviews;–into none of which
do I enter, or concern myself with your entering. One thing
I will remind you of, That the essence and outcome of all
religions, creeds and liturgies whatsoever is, To do one's
work in a faithful manner. Unhappy caitiff, what to you
is the use of orthodoxy, if with every stroke of your ham-
mer you are breaking all the Ten Commandments, operat-
ing upon Devil’s-dust, and, with constant invocation of the
Devil, endeavouring to reap where you have not sown 3–
Truly, I think our Practical Aristos will address himself
to this sad question, almost as the primary one of all. It is
SHOOTING NIAGARA : AND AFTER } 377
Pºw
impossible that an Industry, national or personal, carried on
under ‘constant invocation of the Devil, can be a blessed or
happy one in any fibre or detail of it ! Steadily, in every
fibre of it, from heart to skin, that is and remains an In-
dustry accursed; nothing but bewilderment, contention,
misery, mutual rage, and continually advancing ruin, can
dwell there. Cheap and Nasty is not found on shop-counters
alone; but goes down to the centre, or indeed springs
from it. Overend-Gurney Bankruptcies, Chatham-and-Dover
Railway Financierings, – Railway “Promoters” generally,
(and no oakum or beating of hemp to give them, instead
of that nefarious and permicious industry);-Sheffield Saw-
grinders and Assassination Company; “Four eights,” and
workman's Pisgah Song: all these are diabolic short-cuts
towards wages; clutchings at money without just work
done; all these are Cheap and Nasty in another form. The
glory of a workman, still more of a master-workman, That
he does his work well, ought to be his most precious pos-
session; like “the honour of a soldier,” dearer to him than
life. That is the ideal of the matter:-lying, alas, how far
away from us at present l But if you yourself demoralise
your soldier, and teach him continually to invoke the Evil
Genius and to dishonour himself—what do you expect your
big Army will grow to ?—
“The prestige of England on the Continent,” I am told,
is much decayed of late; which is a lamentable thing to
various Editors; to me not. ‘Prestige, prastigium, magical
illusion,'—I never understood that poor England had in her
good days, or cared to have, any “prestige on the Continent”
or elsewhere; England was wont to follow her own affairs
in a diligent heavy-laden frame of mind, and had an almost
perfect stoicism as to what the Continent, and its extraneous
378 MISCELLANIES,
ill-informed populations might be thinking of her. Nor is
it yet of the least real importance what “prestiges, magical
illusions, as to England, foolish neighbours may take up ;
important only one thing, What England is. The account
of that in Heaven's Chancery, I doubt, is very bad: but as
to “prestige,” I hope the heart of the poor Country would
still say, “Away with your prestige; that won't help me or
hinder me ! The word was Napoleonic, expressive enough
of a Grand-Napoleonic fact: better leave it on its own side
of the Channel; not wanted here !”
Nevertheless, unexpectedly, I have myself something to
tell you about English prestige. “In my young time,” said
lately to me one of the wisest and faithfulest German
Friends I ever had, a correct observer, and much a lover
both of his own country and of mine, “In my boyhood.”
(that is, some fifty years ago, in Würzburg country, and
Central Germany), “when you were going to a shop to
“ purchase, wise people would advise you: “If you can find
“an English article of the sort wanted, buy that ; it will
“be a few pence dearer; but it will prove itself a well-
“made, faithful and skilful thing; a comfortable servant
“ and friend to you for a long time; better buy that.' And
“ now,” continued he, “directly the reverse is the advice
“given : “If you find an English article, don’t buy that ;
“ that will be a few pence cheaper, but it will prove only a
“more cunningly devised mendacity than any of the others;
“ avoid that above all.” Both were good advices; the for-
“mer fifty years ago was a good advice; the latter is now.”
Would to Heaven this were a prastigium or magical illusion
only l—
But to return to our Aristocracy by title.
SHOOTING NIAGABA : AND AFTER Ž 379
VIII.
Orsonism is not what will hinder our Aristocracy from
still reigning, still, or much farther than now, to the very
utmost limit of their capabilities and opportunities, in the
new times that come. What are these opportunities, grant-
ing the capability to be (as I believe) very considerable if
seriously exerted ?—This is a question of the highest in-
terest just now.
In their own Domains and land territories, it is evident
each of them can still, for certain years and decades, be a
complete king; and may, if he strenuously try, mould and
manage everything, till both his people and his dominion
correspond gradually to the ideal he has formed. Refrac-
tory subjects he has the means of banishing; the relations
between all classes, from the biggest farmer to the poorest
orphan ploughboy, are under his control; nothing ugly or un-
just or improper, but he could by degrees undertake steady
war against, and manfully subdue or extirpate. Till all his
Domain were, through every field and homestead of it, and
were maintained in continuing and being, manlike, decor-
Ous, fit; comely to the eye and to the soul of whoever
wisely looked on it, or honestly lived in it. This is a beau-
tiful ideal; which might be carried out on all sides to in-
definite lengths, not in management of land only, but in
thousandfold countenancing, protecting and encouraging of
human worth, and discountenancing and sternly repressing
the want of ditto, wherever met with among surrounding
mankind. Till the whole surroundings of a nobleman were
made noble like himself: and all men should recognise that
here verily was a bit of kinghood ruling “by the Grace of
God,” in difficult circumstances, but not in vain.
This were a way, if this were commonly adopted, of by
380 MISCELLANIES,
degrees reinstating Aristocracy in all the privileges, auth
rities, reverences and honours it ever had in its palmiest
times, under any Kaiser Barbarossa, Henry Fowler (Heinrich
der Vogler), Henry Fine-Scholar (Beau-clero), ºr Wilhelmu
Bastardus the Acquirer: this would be divine; blessed is
every individual that shall manfully, all his life, solitary or
in fellowship, address himself to this But, alas, this is an
ideal, and I have practically little faith in ºij. Discerning
well how few would seriously adopt this as a trade in life,
I can only say, “Blessed is every one that does!”—Readers
can observe that only zealous aspirants to be ‘noble' and
worthy of their title (who are not a numerous class) could
adopt this trade; and that of these few, only the fewest, or
the actually noble, could to much effect do it when adopted.
‘Management of one's land on this principle, yes, in some
degree this might be possible: but as to “fostering merit”
or human worth, the question would arise (as it did with
a late Noble Lord still in wide enough esteem),” “What is
merit? The opinion one man entertains of another!” [Hear,
hear !] By this plan of diligence in promoting human worth,
you would do little to redress our griefs; this plan would
be a quenching of the fire by oil: a dreadful plan In fact,
this is what you may see everywhere going on just now ;
this is what has reduced us to the pass we are at 1–To
recognise merit, you must first yourself have it; to recog-
mise false merit, and crown it as true, because a long tail
runs after it, is the saddest operation under the sun; and
it is one you have only to open your eyes and see every
day. Alas, no : Ideals won’t carry many people far. To
have an Ideal generally done, it must be compelled by the
vulgar appetite there is to do it, by indisputable advantage
seen in doing it.
* Lord Palmerston, in debate on Civil-Service Examination Proposal.




SHOOTING NIAGARA : AND AFTER } 381
And yet, in such an independent position; acknowledged
king of one's own territories, well withdrawn from the raging
inanities of “politics,” leaving the loud rabble and their
spokesmen to consummate all that in their own sweet way,
and make Anarchy again horrible, and Government or real
Kingship the thing desirable, one fancies there might be
actual scope for a kingly soul to aim at unfolding itself,
imprinting itself in all manner of beneficent arrangements
and improvements of things around it.
Schools, for example, schooling and training of its young
subjects in the way that they should go, and in the things
that they should do : what a boundless outlook that of
schools, and of improvement in school methods and school
purposes, which in these ages lie hitherto all superannuated
and to a frightful degree inapplicable ! Our schools go all
upon the vocal hitherto; no clear aim in them but to teach
the young creature how he is to speak, to utter himself by
tongue and pen;–which, supposing him even to have some-
thing to utter, as he so very rarely has, is by no means the
thing he specially wants in our times. How he is to work,
to behave and do; that is the question for him, which he
seeks the answer of in schools;–in schools, having now so
little chance of it elsewhere. In other times, many or most
of his neighbours round him, his superiors over him, if he
looked well and could take example, and learn by what
he saw, were in use to yield him very much of answer to
this vitalest of questions: but now they do not, or do it
fatally the reverse way ! Talent of speaking grows daily
commoner among one's neighbours; amounts already to a
weariness and a nuisance, so barren is it of great benefit,
and liable to be of great hurt: but the talent of right con-
duct, of wise and useful behaviour seems to grow rarer
every day, and is nowhere taught in the streets and thor-





382 MISCELLANIES.
oughfares any more. Right schools were never more de-
sirable than now. Nor ever more unattainable, by public
clamoring and jargoning, than now. Only the wise Ruler
(acknowledged king in his own territories), taking counsel
with the wise, and earnestly pushing and endeavouring all
his days, might do something in it. It is true, I suppose
him to be capable of recognising and searching out ‘the
wise,’ who are apt not to be found on the high roads at pre-
sent, or only to be transiently passing there, with closed
lips, swift step, and possibly a grimmish aspect of counte-
nance, among the crowd of loquacious sham-wise. To be
capable of actually recognising and discerning these; and
that is no small postulate (how great a one I know well):—
in fact, unless our Noble by rank be a Noble by nature, little
or no success is possible to us by him.
But granting this great postulate, what a field in the
Non-vocal School department, such as was not dreamt of
before | Non-vocal ; presided over by whatever of Pious
Wisdom this King could eliminate from all corners of the
impious world; and could consecrate with means and ap-
pliances for making the new generation, by degrees, less
impious. Tragical to think of: Every new generation is
born to us direct out of Heaven; white as purest writing-
paper, white as Snow;-everything we please can be writ-
ten on it;- and our pleasure and our negligence is, To
begin blotching it, scrawling, Smutching and smearing it,
from the first day it sees the Sun; towards such a consum-
mation of ugliness, dirt and blackness of darkness, as is too
often visible. Woe on us; there is no woe like this, – if
we were not sunk in stupefaction, and had still eyes to
discern or souls to feel it !—Goethe has shadowed out a
glorious far-glancing specimen of that Non-vocal, or very
partially vocal kind of School. I myself remember to have
SHOOTING NIAGARA : AND AFTER 3 383
seen an extremely small but highly useful and practicable
little corner of one, actually on work at Glasnevin in Ire-
land about fifteen years ago; and have often thought of
it since.
IX.
I always fancy there might much be done in the way
of military Drill withal. Beyond all other schooling, and
as supplement or even as succedaneum for all other, one
often wishes the entire Population could be thoroughly
drilled; into coöperative movement, into individual beha-
viour, correct, precise, and at once habitual and orderly as
mathematics, in all or in very many points, and ultimately
in the point of actual Military Service, should such be re-
quired of it!
That of commanding and obeying, were there nothing
more, is it not the basis of all human culture; ought not
all to have it; and how many ever do? I often say, The
one Official Person, royal, sacerdotal, scholastic, govern-
mental, of our times, who is still thoroughly a truth and
a reality, and not in great part a hypothesis and worn-out
humbug, proposing and attempting a duty which he fails
to do, is the Drill-Sergeant who is master of his work, and
who will perform it. By Drill-Sergeant understand, not
the man in three stripes alone; understand him as meaning
all such men, up to the Turenne, to the Friedrich of Prussia;
—he does his function, he is genuine; and from the highest
to the lowest no one Ask your poor King's Ma-
jesty, Captain-General of England, Defender of the Faith,
and so much else; ask your poor Bishop, sacred Overseer
of souls; your poor Lawyer, sacred Dispenser of justice;
your poor Doctor, ditto of health: they will all answer,
384 TS MISCELLANTES.
“Alas, no, worthy sir, we are all of us unfortunately fallen
not a little, some of us altogether, into the imaginary or
quasi-humbug condition, and cannot help ourselves; he alone
of the three stripes, or of the gorget and baton, does what
he pretends to ſ” That is the melancholy fact; well worth
considering at present.—Nay, I often consider farther, If,
in any Country, the Drill-Sergeant himself fall into the
partly imaginary or humbug condition (as is my frightful
ehension of him here in England, on survey of him in
his marvellous Crimean expeditions, marvellous Court-mar-
tial revelations, Newspaper controversies, and the like),
what is to become of that Country and its thrice-miserable
Drill-Sergeant? Reformed Parliament, I hear, has decided
on a “thorough Army reform,” as one of the first things.
So that we shall at length have a perfect Army, field-worthy
and correct in all points, thinks Reformed Parliament? Alas,
yes;–and if the sky fall, we shall catch larks, too !—
But now, what is to hinder the acknowledged King in
all corners of his territory, to introduce wisely a universal
system of Drill, not military only, but human in all kinds;
so that no child or man born in his territory might miss
the benefit of it, which would be immense to man, woman
and child? I would begin with it, in mild, soft forms, so
soon almost as my children were able to stand on their legs;
and I would never wholly remit it till they had done with
the world and me. Poor Wilderspin knew something of
this; the great Goethe evidently knew a great deal. This
of outwardly combined and plainly consociated Discipline, in
simultaneous movement and action, which may be practical,
symbolical, artistic, mechanical in all degrees and modes,
is one of the noblest capabilities of man (most sadly under-
valued hitherto); and one he takes the greatest pleasure



SHOOTING NIAGARA : AND AFTER 7 385
in exercising and unfolding, not to mention at all the in-
valuable benefit it would afford him if unfolded. From cor-
rect marching in line, to rhythmic dancing in cotillon or
minuet, and to infinitely higher degrees (that of symboling
in concert your “first reverence,” for instance, supposing
reverence and symbol of it to be both sincere!)—there is a
natural charm in it; the fulfilment of a deep-seated, uni-
versal desire, to all rhythmic social creatures | In man's
heaven-born Docility, or power of being Educated, it is es-
timable as perhaps the deepest and richest element; or the
next to that of music, of Sensibility to Song, to Harmony
and Number, which some have reckoned the deepest of all.
A richer mine than any in California for poor human crea-
tures; richer by what a multiple; and hitherto as good as
never opened,—worked only for the Fighting purpose. As-
suredly I would not neglect the Fighting purpose; no, from
sixteen to sixty, not a son of mine but should know the
Soldier's function too, and be able to defend his native soil
and self, in best perfection, when need came. But I should
not begin with this; I should carefully end with this, after
careful travel in innumerable fruitful fields by the way lead-
ing to this.
It is strange to me, stupid creatures of routine as we
mostly are, how in all education of mankind, this of simul-
taneous Drilling into combined rhythmic action, for almost
all good purposes, has been overlooked and left neglected
by the elaborate and many-sounding Pedagogues and Pro-
fessorial Persons we have had, for the long centuries past !
It really should be set on foot a little; and developed gra-
dually into the multiform opulent results it holds for us.
As might well be done, by an acknowledged king in his
own territory, if he were wise. To all children of men it
is such an entertainment, when you set them to it. I be-
VOL. XI. (Misc, vol. 6.) $ CC
386 MISCELLANTES.
!
lieve the vulgarest Cockney crowd, flung out millionfold
on a Whit-Monday, with nothing but beer and dull folly to
depend on for amusement, would at once kindle into some-
thing human, if you set them to do almost any regulated
act in common. And would dismiss their beer and dull
foolery, in the silent charm of rhythmic human companion-
ship, in the practical feeling, probably new, that all of us
are made on one pattern, and are, in an unfathomable way,
brothers to one another.
Soldier-Drill, for fighting purposes, as I have said, would
be the last or finishing touch of all these sorts of Drilling;
and certainly the acknowledged king would reckon it not
the least important to him, but even perhaps the most so,
in these peculiar times. Anarchic Parliaments and Penny
Newspapers might perhaps grow jealous of him ; in any
case, he would have to be cautious, punctilious, severely
correct, and obey to the letter whatever laws and regula-
tions they emitted on the subject. But that done, how
could the most anarchic Parliament, or Penny Editor, think
of forbidding any fellow-citizen such a manifest improve-
ment on all the human creatures round him 3 Our wise
hero Aristocrat, or acknowledged king in his own territory,
would by no means think of employing his superlative pri-
vate Field-regiment in levy of war against the most anarchic
Parliament; but, on the contrary, might and would loyally
help said Parliament in warring-down much anarchy worse
than its own, and so gain steadily new favour from it. From
it, and from all men and gods ! And would have silently
the consciousness, too, that with every new Disciplined
Man he was widening - A nar of God-
appointed Order in this world and Nation,-and was looking
forward to a day, very distant probably, but certain as Fate.


SHOOTING NIAGARA : AND AFTER } 387
For I suppose it would in no moment be doubtful to him
that, between Anarchy and Anti-ditto, it would have to
come to sheer fight at last ; and that nothing short of duel
to the death could ever void that great quarrel. And he
would have his hopes, his assurances, as to how the victory
would lie. For everywhere in this Universe, and in every
Nation that is not divorced from it and in the act of perishing
forever, Anti-Anarchy is silently on the increase, at all mo-
ments: Anarchy not, but contrariwise; having the whole
Universe forever set against it; pushing it slowly, at all
moments, towards suicide and annihilation. To Anarchy,
however million-headed, there is no victory possible. Pa-
tience, silence, diligence, ye chosen of the world ! Slowly
or fast, in the course of time, you will grow to a minority
that can actually step forth (sword not yet drawn, but
sword ready to be drawn), and say: “Here are we, Sirs;
we also are now minded to vote, -to all lengths, as you
may perceive. A company of poor men (as friend Oliver
termed us) who will spend all our blood, if needful" What
are Beales and his 50,000 roughs against such; what are
the noisiest anarchic Parliaments, in majority of a million
to one, against such 3 Stubble against fire. Fear not, my
friend; the issue is very certain when it comes so far as
this
X.
These are a kind of enterprises, hypothetical as yet, but
possible evidently more or less, and, in all degrees of them,
tending towards noble benefit to oneself and to all one's
fellow-creatures; which a man born noble by title and by
nature, with ample territories and revenues, and a life to
dispose of as he pleased, might go into, and win honour by,
388 MISCELLANTES.
even in the England that now is. To my fancy, they are
bright little potential breaks, and upturnings, of that dis-
astrous cloud which now overshadows his best capabilities
and him ;-as every blackest cloud in this world has withal
a ‘silver lining;' and is, full surely, beshone by the Heavenly
lights, if we can get to that other side of it! More of such
fine possibilities I might add: that of “Sanitary regulation,”
for example; To see the divinely-appointed laws and con-
ditions of Health, at last, humanly appointed as well; year
after year, more exactly ascertained, rendered valid, habitu-
ally practised, in one's own Dominion; and the old adjec-
tive “Healthy' once more becoming synonymous with “Holy,”
—what a conquest there ! But I forbear; feeling well
enough how visionary these things look; and how aerial,
high and spiritual they are; little capable of seriously tempt—
ing, even for moments, any but the highest kinds of men.
Few Noble Lords, I may believe, will think of taking this
course; indeed not many, as Noble Lords now are, could
do much good in it. Dilettantism will avail nothing in
any of these enterprises; the law of them is, grim labour,
earnest and continual; certainty of many contradictions,
disappointments; a life, not of ease and pleasure, but of
noble and sorrowful toil; the reward of it far off—fit only
for heroes |
Much the readiest likelihood for our Aristocrat by title
would be that of coalescing nobly with his two—Brothers,
the Aristocrats by nature, s jº greatly
need him ; especially ºv.º. one, wandering
now desolate enough, heard only as a Vow Clamantis e Deserto;
—though I suppose, it will be with the Silent or Industrial

one, as with the easier of the two, that our Titular first
comes into clear coöperation. This Practical hero, Aristo-
SHOOTING NIAGARA : AND AFTER 7 389
crat by nature, and standing face to face and hand to hand,
all his days, in life-battle with Practical Chaos (with dirt, dis-
order, nomadism, disobedience, folly and confusion), slowly
coercing it into Cosmos, will surely be the natural ally for
any titular Aristocrat who is bent on being a real one as the
business of his life. No other field of activity is half so pro-
mising as the united field which those two might occupy,
By nature and position they are visibly a kind of Kings,
actual British “Peers’ (or Vice-Kings, in absence and abey-
ance of any visible King); and might take manifold counsel
together, hold manifold ‘Parliament’ together (Voa e Deserto
sitting there as “Bench of Bishops, possibly I)—and might
mature and adjust innumerable things. Were there but
Three Aristocrats of each sort in the whole of Britain, what
beneficent unreported “Parliamenta,’—actual human consul-
tations and earnest deliberations, responsible to no ‘Bun-
combe, disturbed by no Penny Editor, on what the whole
Nine were earnest to see done ! By degrees, there would
some beginnings of success and Cosmos be achieved upon
this our unspeakable Chaos; by degrees something of light,
of prophetic twilight, would be shot across its unfathom-
able dark of horrors, prophetic of victory, sure though
far away.
Penny-Newspaper Parliaments cannot legislate on any-
thing; they know the real properties and qualities of no
thing, and don’t even try or want to know them,-know
only what ‘Buncombe’ in its darkness thinks of them. No
law upon a thing can be made, on such terms; nothing but
a mock-law, which Nature silently abrogates, the instant
your third reading is done. But men in contact with the
fact, and earnestly questioning it, can at length ascertain
what is the law of it, what it will behove any Parliament
(of the Penny-Newspaper sort or other) to enact upon it.


390 MISCELLANIES.
Whole crops and harvests of authentic “Laws,” now press-
ingly needed and not obtainable, upon our new British In-
dustries, Interests and Social Relations, I could fancy to be
got into a state of forwardness by small virtual Parliaments'
of this unreported kind,-into a real state of preparation
for enactment by what actual Parliament there was, itself
so incompetent for “legislating” otherwise. These are fond
dreams? Well, let us hope not altogether. Most certain
it is, an immense Body of Laws upon these new Industrial,
Commercial, Railway &c. Phenomena of ours are pressingly
wanted; and none of mortals knows where to get them.
For example, the Rivers and running Streams of England;
primordial elements of this our poor Birthland, face-features
of it, created by Heaven itself: Is Industry free to tumble
out whatever horror of refuse it may have arrived at into
the nearest crystal brook? Regardless of gods and men
and little fishes. Is Free Industry free to convert all our
rivers into Acherontic sewers; England generally into a
roaring sooty Smith's forge 3 Are we all doomed to eat
dust, as the Old Serpent was, and to breathe solutions of
soot ? Can a Railway Company with “Promoters” manage,
by feeing certain men in bombazeen, to burst through your
bedroom in the night-watches, and miraculously set all your
crockery jingling? Is an Englishman's house still his castle;
and in what sense?—Examples plenty
The Aristocracy, as a class, has as yet no thought of
giving-up the game, or ceasing to be what in the language
of flattery is called “Governing Class;” nor should, till it
have seen farther. In the better heads among them are
doubtless grave misgivings; serious enough reflections ris-
ing, perhaps not sorrowful altogether; for there must be
questions withal, “Was it so very blessed a function, then,

T- .
SHOOTING NIAGARA : AND AFTER 3 391
that of ‘Governing on the terms given?” But beyond doubt
the vulgar Noble Lord intends fully to continue the game,
—with doubly severe study of the new rules issued on it;
—and will still, for a good while yet, go as heretofore into
Electioneering, Parliamentary Engineering; and hope against
hope to keep weltering atop by some method or other, and
to make a fit existence for himself in that miserable old
way. An existence filled with labour and anxiety, with
disappointments and disgraces and futilities I can promise
him, but with little or nothing else. Let us hope he will
be wise to discern, and not continue the experiment too
long !
He has lost his place in that element; nothing but ser-
vices of a sordid and dishonourable nature, betrayal of his
own Order, and of the noble interests of England, can gain
him even momentary favour there. He cannot bridle the
wild horse of a Plebs any longer: —for a generation past,
he has not even tried to bridle it; but has run panting and
trotting meanly by the side of it, patting its stupid neck;
slavishly plunging with it into any “Crimean” or other
slough of black platitudes it might reel towards,-anxious
he, only not to be kicked away, not just yet; oh, not yet
for a little while ! Is this an existence for a man of any
honour; for a man ambitious of more honour? I should
say, not. And he still thinks to hang by the bridle, now
when his Plebs is getting into the gallop 3 Hanging by
its bridle, through what steep brambly places (scratching
out the very eyes of him, as is often enough observable),
through what malodorous quagmires and ignominious pools
will the wild horse drag him, till he quit hold ! Let him
quit, in Heaven's name. Better he should go yachting to
Algeria, and shoot lions for an occupied existence:—or stay
at home, and hunt rats? Why not? Is not, in strict truth,
392 MISCELLANTES.
the Ratcatcher our one real British Nimrod now !—Game-
preserving, Highland deer-stalking, and the like, will soon
all have ceased in this over-crowded Country; and I can
see, no other business for the vulgar Noble Lord, if he will
continue vulgar !—
SUMMARY OF WOL, WI.
Sl] MMAR Y.
ON THE SINKING OF THE WENGEUR.
THE first public notice in England of Lord Howe's victory and the destruc-
tion of the Vengeur. (p. 3.) —The French Convention, in its Reign of
Terror, had to give its own version of the matter. Barrère reports it as
a glorious victory for France: At length, unable to conceal the defeat,
he pictures the manner of it as a spectacle for the gods. His Report
translated, and published without comment, in the Morning Chronicle.
The French naturally proud of so heroic a feat. It finds its way into
English History. Extract from Carlyle’s ‘French Revolution: Letter
from Rear-Admiral Griffiths, denying altogether the correctness of the
account. Another Letter, giving an emphatic statement of the facts, as
witnessed by himself. Letter from T. Carlyle to “a distinguished French
friend: In the interest of all whom it may concern, let the truth be
known. (5.)—Letter from Rear-Admiral Griffiths to T. Carlyle, enclosing
a Copy of Letter from Rear-Admiral Renaudin, Captain of the sunken
Vengeur. The French Journals and official persons in no haste to canvass
the awkward-looking case. Response of one who did respond: Not a
recantation of an impudent amazing falsehood; but a faint whimper of
admission that it is probably false. Every windbag at length ripped; in
the longrun no lie can be successful. Of Nothing you can, with much lost
labour, make only—Nothing. (14.)
BAILLIE THE COVENANTER.
Mr. Robert Baillie, a solid comfortable Parish Minister of Kilwinning:
How he became gradually heated to the welding-pitch by the troubles of
the Seventeenth Century. (p. 27.)—Happily his copious loquacity prompted
him to use pen as well as tongue without stint. A collection of his Let-
ters printed, and reprinted. Like the hasty, breathless, confused talk of
a man, looking face to face on that great whirl of things. Strange to
consider; it, the very phenomenon itself, does stand depictured there,
had we intellect enough to decipher it: With intellect enough, even ‘your
396 SUMMARY.
constant assured friend Charles Rex' were no longer an enigma and
chimera. Duty of every reader to read faithfully; and of every writer
to write his wisest: Shall stealing the money of a man be a crime; and
stealing the time and brains of innumerable men be none 2 Warm-hearted,
canny, blundering, babbling Baillie | The daily tattle of men, as the air
carried it two-hundred years ago, becomes audible in these pages: With
all its shortcomings, perhaps no book of that period will better reward
the trouble of reading. (29.)—His account of the Scotch Encampment on
the Hill of Dunse: King Charles looking on it with a spy-glass; though
without much profit to himself. A far-off look into the domesticities of
Baillie: A journey to London: All here weary of Bishops: Strafford caged;
Canterbury to be pulled down; and everywhere a mighty drama going
on. (42)—Impressive passages in the Impeachment and Trial of Strafford.
How different from the dreary vacuity of ‘Philosophy teaching by experi-
ence,' is the living picture of the fact; such as even a Boswell or Baillie
can give, if they will honestly look Our far-off Fathers, face to face;
alive, and yet not alive. On our horizon, too, loom now inevitabilities
no less stern; one knows not sometimes, whether not very near at hand.
(51.)
- -
DR. FRANCIA.
The South-American Revolution, and set of revolutions, a great con-
fused phenomenon; worthy of better knowledge than men yet have of it.
(p. 69.)—Liberator Bolivar, a much-enduring and many-counselled man.
Of General San Martin, too, there is something to be said: His march
over the Andes into Chile; a feat worth looking at. Might not the Chilenos
as well have taken him for their Napoleon'? Don Ambrosio O'Higgins:
His industry and skill in road-making. O'Higgins the Second: Govern-
ing a rude business everywhere; but in South America of quite primitive
rudeness. Ecclesiastic Vampire-bats. An immense increase of soap-and-
water, the basis of all improvements in Chile. (71.)—By far the notablest
of these South-American phenomena, Dr. Francia and his Dictatorship
in Paraguay. Nothing could well shock the constitutional mind like this
tawny-visaged, lean, inexorable Dr. Francia. Our chief source of infor-
mation about him, a little Book by Messrs. Rengger and Longchamp: An
endless merit in a man's knowing when to have done. The Messrs. Ro-
bertson, and their Francia's Reign of Terror and other books: Given a
cubic inch of Castile soap, to lather it up in water so as to fill a wine-
puncheon. How every idle volume flies abroad like idle thistle-down;
frightful to think of, were it not for reaphook and rake. In all human
likelihood this sanguinary tyrant of Paraguay did mean something, could
we in quietness ascertain what. (80.)—Francia born about the year 1757;
of Portuguese or French extraction. Intended for a priest. Subject to
the terriblest fits of hypochondria. Sent to the University of Cordova in
Tucuman. Lank sallow boys in the Tucuman and other high Seminaries,
SUMMARY. 397
often dreadfully ill-dealt with, as times go: So much is unspeakable; and
a most strange Universe, this, to be born into Francia, arrived at man's
years, changes from Divinity to Law. Had doubtless gained some in-
sight into the veritable workings of the Universe: Endless heavy fod-
derings of Jesuit theology he did not take-in. French-Encyclopedic in-
fluences, and Gospel according to Volney, Jean-Jacques and Company:
An ill-fed, ghastly-looking flame; but a needful, and even kind of sacred
one. Francia perhaps the best and justest Advocate that ever took briefs
in that distant Assumpcion City. The people of that profuse climate in
careless abundance, troubling themselves about few things: One art they
seem to have perfected, that of riding. Their lives, like empty capacious
bottles, calling to the Heavens and the Earth, and to all Dr. Francias
who may pass that way. Francia a lonesome, down-looking man, apt to
be solitary even in the press of men: Passes everywhere for a man of
veracity, punctuality, of iron methodic rigour and rectitude. A Law-case;
an unjust judge discomfited. Francia's quarrel with his Father. A most
barren time: Not so much as a pair of Andalusian eyes that can lasso
him permanently. But now, far over the waters there have been Federa-
tions, Sansculottism : In the new Hemisphere, too, arise wild projects,
armed gatherings, invasions and revolts. A new figure of existence is
cut-out for the Assumpcion Advocate. (92.)—Not till a year after, did the
Paraguenos, by spontaneous movement, resolve on a career of freedom.
National Congress: Papers “compiled chiefly out of Rollin's Ancient His-
tory.’ Paraguay Republic: Don Fulgencio Yegros, President; two Asses-
sors; Francia, Secretary. Alas, these Gaucho populations are greedy,
superstitious, vain, mendacious : We know for certain but of one man
who would do himself an injury, to do a just or true thing, under that
sun. Secretary Francia flings-down his papers, and retires again into
privacy: An accidental meeting; description of the man, and of his
library. The reign of liberty becomes unendurable: A second Congress
got together: Fulgencio and Francia, joint Consuls. Next year, a third
Congress; and Francia gets himself declared Dictator. He never assem-
bled any Congress more; having stolen the constitutional palladiums, and
got his wicked will ! (106.)—A great improvement did, nevertheless, in all
quarters forthwith show itself: Every official in Paraguay had to bethink
him, and begin actually doing his work. The land had peace; a rabid
dog-kennel wide as South America raging round it, but kept-out as by lock-
and-key. A Conspiracy; to start with the massacre of Dr. Francia and
others, whatever it might close with: Francia not a man to be trifled-with
in plots. It was in this stern period he executed above forty persons. A
visitation of locusts: Two harvests in one season. (112.)—Sauerteig's Sun-
glances into the matter. No Reform, whether of an individual or a nation,
can be effected without stern suffering, stern working: Pity it cannot be
done by ‘tremendous cheers.' What they say about ‘love of power:' Love
of ‘power' to make flunkies come and go for you! A true man must tend
to be king of his own world. This Paraguay got the one veracious man
398 SUMMARY.
it had, to take lease of it. Funeral Eulogium, by the Reverend Manuel
Perez: Life is sacred, thinks his Reverence; but there is something more
sacred still. Dictator Francia, a man whose worth and meaning are not
soon exhausted. His efforts to rebuild the City of Assumpcion. His
desire to open a trade with the English Nation,-foolishly supposed to be
represented, and made accessible, in the House of Commons: Francia's
unreasonable detestation of a man who was not equal to his word. (117.)—
His sore struggle with imaginary workmen, cleric and laic: In despair he
erected his ‘Workman's Gallows: Such an institution of society, adapted
to our European ways, everywhere pressingly desirable. O Gauchos, South-
American and European, what a business is it, casting-out your Seven
Devils 1 (128.)—Francia; as he looked and lived, managing that thousand-
fold business for his Paraguenos, and keeping a sharp eye for assassins.
His treatment of M. Bonpland; of his old enemy Artigas: His rumoured
conduct to his dying Father. His interest in any kind of intelligent hu-
man creature, when such by rarest chance could be fallen-in with. So
lived, so laboured Dictator Francia; and had no rest but in Eternity. O
Francia, though thou hadst to execute some forty persons, I am not with-
out some pity for thee! (131.) -
AN ELECTION TO THE LONG PARLIAMENT.
How Pym, Hampden and others rode about the country to promote the
election of their own faction. Our entire ignorance, but for this fact, how
that celebrated Long Parliament was got together. (p. 139.)—Welcome
discovery of certain semi-official Documents, relative to the Election for
Suffolk. Sir Simonds D'Ewes, a most spotless man and High-Sheriff;
ambitious to be the very pink of Puritan magistrates: How shall any
shadow of Partiality be suffered to rest on his clear-polished character ?—
Hence these Documents. General character of our Civil-War documents
and records: Comparative emphasis and potency of Sir Simonds' affidavits.
An old contemporary England at large, as it stood and lived on that ‘ex-
treme windy day, may dimly suggest itself. (142.)—Samuel Duncon, Town-
constable, testifieth : Unconsciously, How the Polling was managed in
those old days: Consciously, How the Opposition Candidate was magna-
nimously allowed every precedence and facility; and yet couldn't win:
And, How in the rage of their disappointment and ingratitude, his party
scandalously upbraided the immaculate High-Sheriff himself with injustice
towards them. The High-Sheriff's own Narrative of his admirable car-
riage and ill-requited magnanimity. (147)—Another case Sir Simonds had
to clear-up: Being High-Sheriff, he returned himself for Sudbury: In this
too, he prospered, and sat for that Borough. A thin highflown character,
by no means without his uses. Colonel Pride in the end had to purge him
out, with four or five score others. He died soon after; leaving an un-
spotted pedant character and innumerable Manuscripts behind him. Some
SUMMARY. 399
Ninety and odd Volumes of his Papers in the British Museum. His Notes
of the Long Parliament, perhaps the most interesting of all the Manu-
scripts that exist there. Our sorrowful Dryasdust Printing Societies; and
what they might do towards a real History of England. (163.)
THE NIGGER QUESTION.
Occasional Discourse of an unknown Philanthropist: Doctrines and
practical notions pretty much in a ‘minority of one.’ Danger of our pro-
posed universal ‘Abolition-of-Pain Association' issuing in a universal
‘Sluggard-and-Scoundrel Protection Society.” Our West-Indian Colonies:
Black animal enjoyment, at the price of White human misery: Our entire
Black population equal in importance to perhaps ‘one of the streets of
Seven-Dials.' Exeter-Hall jargon, and bewildered Broad-brimmed Senti-
mentalism. (p. 171.)—‘Supply and demand’ brought to bear on the Black
* Labour - Market,' as well as on the White : Perennial Starvation: A
Black Ireland; and reality stranger than a nightmare dream. Such Social
Science, emphatically the dismal science: Not the West Indies alone, but
Europe generally, nearing the Niagara Falls. Nature and her Facts:
Every idle man, a perpetual Right to be guided, and even compelled, to
work honestly for his living: Idleness does, in all cases, inevitably rot and
become putrid. The true “Organisation of Labour' and reign of ‘universal
blessedness.’ (175.)—No enmity for the poor Negro; a merry-hearted,
affectionate kind of creature. We shall have to find the right regulation
for him : Neither the old method nor the new method now will answer.
Only the Noble work willingly with their whole strength: Slavishness,
and the need of slavery, exist everywhere in this world. The one intoler-
able slavery, that of the great and noble-minded to the small and mean.
Wise minorities, and despicable majorities: “Crucify him—Crucify him ſº
Maximum and Minimum of Social Wisdom. (182.)—Except by just Mas-
tership and Servantship, no conceivable deliverance from unjust Tyranny
and Slavery. Sham-kings and sham-subjects: Ballot-box perdition. The
White Flunky the flower of nomadic servitude and pretentious inutility:
How the Duke of Trumps proposed to emancipate himself from slavery.
Thirty-thousand Distressed Needlewomen, the most of whom cannot sew.
Alas, were it but the guilty that suffered from such ‘enfranchisement'ſ
Permanency in human relations the only condition of any good whatso-
ever: Marriage by the month. Servant ‘hired for life,' the true essence
of the Negro's position: How to abolish the abuses of slavery, and save
the precious thing in it: Unjust master over servant hired for life, once
for all unendurable to human souls. Letter of advice to the Hon. Hickory
Buckskin. (187.)—The speculative ‘rights' of Negroes, or of any men, an
abstruse and unprofitable inquiry: Their “mights,' or practical availabi-
lities, the sum-total of all that can personally concern them. . The ‘right'
to the West-India Islands, with those who have the ‘might to do the Will
400 SUMMARY.
of the Maker of them. He that will not work shall perish from the earth:
IBefore the West Indies could grow a pumpkin for any Negro, how much
British heroism had to spend itself in obscure battle ! England wants
sugar of these Islands, and means to have it: Wants virtuous industry in
these Islands, and must have it. Any idle man, Black or White, rich or
poor, a mere eye-sorrow, and must be set to work; only it is so terribly
difficult to do. To be servants the more foolish of us to the more wise,
the only condition of social welfare. West-Indian sorrows, and Exeter-
Hall monstrosities: Solution of the problem. Black Adscripti gleba :
Many things might be done, must be done, under frightful penalties. (198.)
—The ‘Slave-Trade: How it may easily be ‘suppressed,' if the urgency
be equal to the remedy. Alas, how many sins will need to be remedied,
when once we seriously begin l (208.)
TWO HUNDEED AND FIFTY YEARS AGO.
A FRAGMENT ABOUT DUICLS.
Duelling, one of the sincerities of Human Life, capable of taking many
forms. A background of wrath does lie in every man and creature: Dead-
liest rage, and tenderest love, different manifestations of the same radical
fire whereof Life is made. The elaboration an immense matter! (p. 213.)
No. I. Holles of Haughton.
How John Holles married the fair Anne Stanhope, and so gave offence
to the Shrewsburys. High feud between the two houses; the very re-
tainers biting thumbs, and killing one another. John Holles and Gervase
Markham: ‘Markham, guard yourself better, or I shall spoil you !' Loose-
tongued, loose-living Gervase Markham could not guard himself; and got
“spoilt accordingly. (p. 214.)
No. II. Croydon Races.
Scotch favourites of King James, and English jealousies. Scotch Max-
well, and his insolent Sardonic humour: Fashionable Young England in
deadly emotion. How his Majesty laboured to keep peace. At the Croy-
don Races there arose sudden strife; and the hour looked really ominous:
Philip Herbert (beautiful young man), of the best blood in England,
switched over the head by an accursed Scotch Ramsay! And Philip Her-
bert's rapier—did not flash-out. (p. 218.)
No. III. Sir Thomas Dutton and Sir Hatton Cheek.
How unthrifty everywhere is any solution of continuity, if it can be
avoided ! Peace here, if possible; over in the Netherlands is always fight-
ing enough. Swashbuckler duels had now gone-out: Fifty years ago,
serious men took to fighting with rapiers, and the buckler fell away: A
SUMMARY. 401
more silent duel, but a terribly serious one. Hot tempers at the siege of
Juliers: Under military duty; but not always to be so. Two gentlemen
on Calais sands, in the height of silent fury stript to the shirt and waist-
band; in the two hands of each a rapier and dagger clutched: A bloody
burial there that morning. Ill-fated English human creatures, what hor-
rible confusion of the Pit is this? (p. 222.)
THE OPERA.
Music the speech of Angels, raising and admitting the soul to the
Council of the Universe. It was so in old earnest times, whatever it may
have come to be with us. The waste that is made in music among the
saddest of all our squanderings of God's gifts. David's inspired Psalms;
and the things men are inspired to sing now at the Opera. (p. 231.) The
Haymarket Opera, with its lustres, painting, upholstery: Artists, too, got
together from the ends of the world; capable of far other work than squall-
ing here. The very ballet-girls, with their muslim saucers and mad ugly
caperings, little short of miraculous. And to think of some Rossini or
Bellini in the rear of it ! (233.)—All this to afford an hour's dreary amuse-
ment to a high-dizened select populace—not worth amusing. The Rhyth-
mic Arts, with their magical accessories, a mere accompaniment; the real
service of the evening Paphian rather. Wonderful to see, and sad if we
had eyes, what the Modern Aristocracy of men can deliberately do ! A
world all calculated for strangling of heroisms; and the ages have altered
strangely: They will alter yet again. (235.)
A NATIONAL EXHIBITION OF SCOTTISH PORTRAITS.
Historical interest in good Historical Portraits. Any representation by
a faithful human creature of a Face and Figure worth knowing, which he
saw, which we can never see, is invaluable. (p. 241.)—All this apart from
the artistic value of the Portraits. Historical Portrait-Galleries might far
transcend in worth all other kinds of National Collections of Pictures
whatsoever. In selecting Portraits, the grand question, What would the
best-informed and most ingenuous soul like most to see, for illuminating
and verifying History to himself? At the end of the account, to have
served him, will be to have served everybody. The thing can by no
means be done by Yankee-Barnum methods; nor should it, if it could.
(243.)—No portrait of any living man admitted, however ‘Historical’ it
promised to be: The space of a generation required, to discriminate be-
tween popular monstrosities and Historical realities. Engravings, coins,
casts; any genuine help to conceive the actual likeness of the man, should
be welcome. No modern pictures of historical events: Infatuated blotches
of insincere ignorance: Wilkie's John Knoa: ; Battle of Worcester, by some
VOL. XI. (Misc. vol. 6.) DD
402 SUMMARY.
famed Academician or other. All that kind of matter, as indisputable
“chaff,' to be severely purged away. Considerations respecting a plurality
of portraits of the same person. The question, Who is a Historical Cha-
racter? The Catalogue, if well done, one of the best parts of the whole
concern. (246.)
THE PRINZENRAUB.
A G.I.IMPSE OF SAXON HISTORY.
English ignorance of foreign history. German history, especially, quite
wild soil, very rough to the ploughshare. (p. 255.)—The Wettin Line of
Saxon Princes (Prince Albert's line); and its lucky inheritance and force
of survival: Through the earlier portion of the fifteenth century, one of
the greatest houses in Germany. Coalescings, splittings, never-ending
readjustments. Frederick the Pacific and his brother Wilhelm ‘rule con-
jointly;’ till they quarrel and take to fighting. Kunz von Kaufungen, a
German condottiere, employed by Frederick. The fighting over, Kunz is
dissatisfied with his bargain: Exasperations, and threats of revenge. Fre-
derick's two children left at home unguarded: Here is the opportunity
we have hungrily waited for A midnight surprise in the venerable little
town of Altenburg: The two Princes (but with a mistake to mend) carried
off: Sudden alarms, shrieks, a mother's passionate prayer: Away, rapidly,
through the woods. All Saxony, to the remotest village, from all its bel-
fries ringing madly. (256.)—Kunz, with Albert the younger Prince, within
an hour of the Bohemian border. A grimy Collier, much astonished to
find such company in the solitudes: The Prince rescued, and Kunz Safe-
warded under lock-and-key. The rest of his band, supposing their leader
dead, restore Prince Ernst, and are permitted to fly. Runz and others
soon after tried, and all their transactions ended. The Collier also not
allowed to go unrewarded. This little actual adventure worthy of a
nook in modern memory, for many reasons. (262.)—Inextricable confu-
sion and unintelligibility of Saxon princely names; each person having
from ten to twenty to hide among. Our two little stolen Princes the
heads of two main streams or Limes, which still continue conspicuously
distinct. The elder, or Ernestine Line, got for inheritance the better
side of the Saxon country: They had Weimar, Altenburg, Gotha, Coburg,
had especially the Wartburg too, and still have ; of all places the Sun
now looks upon, the holiest for a modern man: Immortal remembrances,
influences and monitions. Ernst's son, Frederick the Wise; who saved
Luther from the Diet of Worms: A man less known to hereditary go-
verning persons, and others, than he might be. His brother, John the
Steadfast, succeeded him; with whose son the Line underwent sad des-
tinies. (268) — Of the younger, or Albertime Line, there was ‘Duke
George; much reverenced by many, though Luther thought so little of
him: A much-afflicted, hard-struggling, and not very useful man. One
SUMIMARY. 403
of his daughters a lineal ancestress of Frederick the Great. Elector
Moritz, and his seemingly-successful jockeyship: The game not yet played
out. However that may be, the Ernestine Line has clearly got disinteg-
rated: Johann Friedrich the Magnanimous, then head of that elder line,
all now in a reduced condition: Why did he found all that imbroglio of little
dukes | The thrifty Brandenburg Hohenzollerns; and their fine talent of
‘annihilating rubbish.' Moritz, the new Elector, did not last long: No
cage big enough to hold a Kaiser: Beats Albert Alcibiades; and gets killed.
The present King of Saxony a far-off nephew of jockeying Moritz: A most
expensive progeny; in general not admirable otherwise. August the Strong,
of the three hundred and fifty-four bastards: More transcendent king of glut-
tonous flunkies seldom stalked this earth. His miscellany of mistresses,
very pretty some of them, but fools all: The unspeakably unexemplary
mortal! Protestant Saxony spiritually bankrupt ever since. One of his
bastards became Maréchal de Saxe, and made much noise for a time :
Like his father, an immensely strong man; of unbounded dissoluteness
and loose native ingenuity. (273.)—The elder or Ernestine Line, in its
undecipherable, disintegrated state. How the pious German mind holds
by the palpably Superfluous; and in general cannot annihilate rubbish:
The Ernestine Line was but like its neighbours in that. Cruel to say of
these Ernestine little Dukes, they have no history: Perhaps here and
there they have more history than we are aware of. Pity brave men,
descended presumably from Witekind and the gods, certainly from John
the Steadfast and John Frederick the Magnanimous, should be reduced
to stand thus inert, amid the whirling arena of the world ! (285.)—Bern-
hard of Weimar, a famed captain in the Thirty-Years War, whose Life
Goethe prudently did not write: Not so easy to dig-out a Hero from the
mouldering paper-heaps. Another individual of the Ernestine Line; not-
able to Englishmen as ‘Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg.' He also a late,
very late, grandson of that little stolen Ernst; concerning whom both Eng-
lish History and English Prophecy might say something. The Horologe
of Time goes inexorably on. (288.)
EDINBURGH INAUGURAL ADDRESS.
The desire to honour those worthy of honour, a feeling honourable to
all men: Necessity for selectest discrimination. Reminiscences of boy-
hood. The approving voice of Young Scotland really of some value: If
I could do anything to serve my dear old Alma Mater and you. A few
words, not quite useless, nor incongruous to the occasion. Advice seldom
much valued. The whole interest of after-life depends on early diligence:
Youth the golden season and seed-time of life: The habits of an old man
cannot alter. Honest study. Separate accurately in the mind what is
really known from what is still unknown. All ‘cramming entirely un-
worthy an honourable mind. Gradually see what kind of work you indi-
404 SUMMARY.
vidually can do. A dishonest man cannot bring forth real fruit. (p. 297.)
—Some seven-hundred years since Universities were first set up. No get-
ting things recorded in books then. All this greatly altered by the inven-
tion of Printing. Present and future uses of Universities. Theology. A
great library of books. Learn to be good readers, perhaps a more diffi-
cult thing than imagined. The most unhappy of men, he who cannot tell
what he is going to do. (301.)—Universal value of History. The old Ro-
mans and Greeks. A very great deal of deep religion in both nations. Our
own history. The Puritan Revolution. John Knox, the author of all that
distinguishes Scotland among the nations. Protectorate of Oliver Crom-
well. Democracy and Dictatorship. How the Court of Chancery got re-
formed. No real history of this country to be got out of the common
history-books. Collins's Peerage-book. Kings of England once in the
habit of appointing as Peers those who deserved it: That the grand soul
of England's history. A peerage now a paltry thing to what it was in
those old times. Good books and bad books. Infinite the value of Wis-
dom. Why not a library of good books in every county town 2 (312.)—
University endowments. Heyne's ‘endowment' of peashells and an empty
garret: His edition of Virgil. Mere speech-culture by no means the syno-
Inym of wisdom. Demosthenes and Phocion. Not the speech, but the thing
spoken that is important. (317.)—Goethe's wise thoughts and suggestions:
IEducation ; Christian Religion; Reverence; Art, or Human Perfecti-
bility. All is possible. Wonderful efficacy of soldier-drill. (323.)—A very
troublous epoch of the world: Age of revolutions. Sons of Chaos and of
Cosmos. A man's reward shall be in his own faithfulness. Do not too
much need success. Perfect Health, the highest of all temporal things.
Piety not gloomy asceticism. The world not so cruelly inhospitable as it
sometimes seems. Goethe's marching-Song of mankind. (328.)
Finis of Rectorship. (p. 834.)
SHOOTING NIAGARA : AND AFTER 2
Present critical epoch of England's history. Democracy to complete
itself, -in a Parliament zealously watched by Penny Newspapers. All
Churches and so-called Religions to deliquesce into Liberty, Progress and
philanthropic slush. Free Trade for everybody, in all senses and to all
lengths. Manifold reflections and dubitations. Unexpected velocity of
events. Germany become honourably Prussian. England's Niagara leap.
(p. 339.)—Strange how prepossessions and delusions seize on whole com-
munities of men. The singular phenomenon the Germans call Schwärm-
erey. No difficulty about your Queen Bee. Axioms of folly for articles of
faith. Any man equal to any other, and Bedlam and Gehenna to the New
Jerusalem. The one refutation. (341)—The late American War a notable
case of Swarmery. The Nigger Question essentially one of the smallest;
poor Nigger. Servantship on the nomadic principle cannot but be misdone
SUMMARY. 405
and disastrous. Sheffield Assassination Company, Limited. Thirty-thou-
sand ‘distressed needlewomen' on the pavements of London. A ‘contract
for life’ the Nigger's essential position. Injustices between Nigger and
Buckra. American Swarmery and a continent of the earth submerged
by deluges from the Pit of Hell. (343.) — Swarmery in our own country.
Our accepted axioms. “Liberty,’ for example. Chaining the Devil for a
thousand years. Strange notion of “Reform :' Not practical amendment,
but ‘extension of the suffrage.’ (346.)—The intellect that believes in the
possibility of ‘improvement' by such a method, a finished-off and shut-up
intellect. Something of good even in our ‘new Reform measure.’ The day
of settlement at least brought nearer. He they call ‘Dizzy' is to do it.
Not a tearful Tragedy, but an ignominious Farce as well. Beales and his
ragamuffins. Home-Secretary Walpole in tears. A Lord Chief Justice's
six hours of eloquent imbecility. An actual Martial Law the unseen basis
of all written laws, without which no effective law of any kind would be
even possible. Governor Eyre and the Nigger-Philanthropists. Our So-
cial Arrangements pretty much an old-established Hypocrisy. The demand
‘to become Commonwealth of England,' answered by official persons with
a rope round their necks. The end perhaps nearer than expected. (349.)
—What the duties of good citizens, now and onwards. Possibilities yet
remaining with our Aristocracy. Hopes and fears. Vice-Kings for the
Colonies. Even Dominica enough to kindle a heroic young heart. At pre-
sent all gone to jungle and sublime ‘Self-government.’ (354.) The better
kind of our Nobility still something considerable. Politeness the beautiful
natural index and outcome of all that is kingly. Nothing but vulgarity
in our People's expectations. Conservative varnish. Mendacity hanging
in the very air we breathe. Little help or hindrance from the populace.
The unclassed Aristocracy by nature, Supreme in wisdom and in courage:
If these also fail us, national death. One is inclined timidly to hope the
best. A company of poor men, who will spend all their blood rather. It
must at length come to battle. While God lives, the issue can or will fall
only one way. (358.)—Our inspired speakers and seers, who are to deliver
the world from its swarmeries. What is called Art, Poetry and the like.
How stir such questions in the present limits All real “Art' the impri-
soned ‘Soul of Fact.' The Bible the truest of all Books. Homer's Iliad,
too, the truest a Patriotic Ballad-singer could manage to sing. ‘Fiction,'
and its alarming cousinship to lying. Modern “Literature,' like a poor
bottle of soda-water with the cork sprung. Shakspeare, and his ability to
have turned the History of England into an Iliad, almost perhaps into a
kind of Bible. England, too (equally with any Judah whatsoever), has
a History that is divine. Incredible, and even impious interpretations.
(364.)—New definitions of LIBERTY: What it veritably signifies in the
speech of men and gods. Idle habit of ‘accounting for the Moral Sense.’
The Moral Sense, the perennial Miracle of Man, the visible link between
Earth and Heaven. Christian Religion, the soul of it alive forevermore;
its dead and rotting body now getting burial. A very great work going on
406 SUMMARY.
in these days: “God and the Godlike' again struggling to become clearly
revealed. (368.)—The Industrial Noble, and his born brother the Aristo-
crat by title; their united result what we want from both. The world of
Industry to be recivilised out of its now utter savagery. The Reformed
Parliament, with Trades Unions in search of their “Four eights.' The im-
mense and universal question of Cheap and Nasty. London houses and
house-building. England needs to be rebuilt once every seventy years.
Foul Circe enchantments. The essence and outcome of all religion, to
do one's work in a faithful manner. (372.)—Constant invocation of the
Devil, and diabolic short-cuts towards wages. The ‘prestige of England
on the Continent.’ Account as it stands in Heaven's Chancery. (376.)—
Opportunities and possibilities of Kingship still open to our titular Aris-
tocracy. Human worth: To recognise merit, a man must first have it.
Right Schools never more needed than now. Unless our Noble by rank
be a Noble by nature, little or no success is possible by him. Non-vocal
schools, presided over by ‘pious Wisdom.' (379.)—The Drill-Sergeant, the
one official reality. Blessedness of wise drill in every activity of life. The
richest and deepest element in all practical education. Silent charm of
rhythmic human companionship. Soldier-drill, the last or finishing touch
of all sorts of Drilling. Our wise hero Aristocrat, with his private Field-
regiment. The issue very certain when it comes so far as that. (383.)—
Wide enterprise still possible. Few noble Lords, as noble Lords now are,
could do much good in it. Much the readiest likelihood for our Aristo-
crat by title would be, to coalesce nobly with his ‘two untitled Brothers.'
Were there but three of each sort in the whole of Britain, what a ‘Par-
liament' they might be (387.)—Penny-Newspaper Parliaments. Immense
body of Laws pressingly wanted, and none of mortals knows where to get
them. Beyond doubt the vulgar noble Lord intends fully to continue
his game, to keep weltering atop, however ignominiously. Let us hope
he will be wise in time. (389.)
INDEX TO THE MISCELLANTES.
INDEX.
ABELARD, vi. 302.
Adieu, i. 395.
Affectation, difference between, and ge-
nuine originality, i. 16, 23; the bane
of literature, ii. 15.
Albert, Prince, Saxon Line of, vi. 256
(see Ernestine Line); his Horoscope
and Pedigree, 289.
Albert, Achºlles, Elector of Brandenburg,
vi. 258.
Albert, Alcibiades, vi. 280.
Albert the Courageous, vi. 273.
Albertine Line of Saxon Princes, vi. 273.
Almacks, high Art at, i. 299; gum-
flowers of, to be made living roses of
Eden, iv. 396.
Ambition, ii. 65; v. 179, 248, 269, 283.
See Love of Power.
American War, the late, vi. 343.
Amusements, unveracious, vi. 238.
Anarchy, no victory possible to, vi. 387.
Animal attachments, v. 266; a wise lit-
tle Blenheim cocker, 267; likeness to
man, 267.
Antoninus, vi. 341.
Apologue, the age of, iii. 245.
Aristocracy, our, a word to, iv. 207;
ominous condition of our, v. 359, 380,
402; an Aristocracy a corporation of
the Best and Bravest, 373; old Feudal
Aristocracies, 376, 379 ; a glimpse of
self-vision for them, vi. 235; by na-
ture infinitely important to us, 362;
vocal and industrial, 364, 379, 388; our
titled, still looked up to, 355; their
remaining possibilities, 355, 361, 379;
a wide field for younger sons, 355-57;
the politest kind of nobleman going,
359; born brother to the industrial
noble, 372; and to the teaching, 388;
vulgar noble lords, intent on their own
game, 390-91.
Arkwright, Richard, historical import-
ance of, v. 398.
Art, biographic interest in, iv. 5; neces-
sity for veracity, vi. 247, 364-5.
Artificial, the, as contrasted with the
natural, iii. 343.
Artist, German ideal of the true, i. 67,
264; in History, ii. 352; Opera Artists,
vi. 233.
Ass, the, and the moon, ii. 246.
Atheism, how, melts into nothingness,
ii. 278 ; Richter's Dream of, iii. 69 ;
an impossibility, iv. 114; proselyting
Atheist, 288, 294.
August the Strong, of the three hundred
and fifty-four bastards, vi. 281.
Bacon, Roger, iii. 222.
Badness by its nature negative, iv. 41.
See Evil.
Baffonnetus, Werner's parable of, i. 117.
Baillie the Covenanter, vi. 27-66 ; Scotch
Encampment on the Hill of Dunse,
42; domesticities of Kilwinning, 46;
Impeachment and trial of Strafford,
51.
Balaam and his Ass, iv. 208.
Ballet-girls, vi. 234.
Balmung, the wonderful Sword, iii. 165.
Barnardiston, Sir Nathaniel, vi. 145.
Barnum, Yankee, methods, vi. 246.
Battle, life a, iii. 376; all misunder-
standing, v. 331.
Beales, vi. 342, 352; answers for the
Queen’s peace, 351.
Bede, Venerable, v. 388.
Beetle, the, i. 396.
Beginnings, iii. 390.
Being, the lordliest Real-Phantasma-
gory, v. 7.
Believing, glory of knowing and, ii. 184;
mystic power of belief, iii. 360, 369;
iv. 10, 43, 308; the least spiritual be-
lief conceivable, 294; superstitious
ditto, 364.
Bentley, vi. 318.
Bernhard of Weimar, vi. 288.
Berserkir rage, deep-hidden in the Saxon
heart, v. 350.
Bible, the Hebrew, ii. 296 ; iv. 183, 314;
410
INI).EX.
a History of the primeval Church, ii.
355; Bible of World-History, infinite
in meaning as the Divine Mind it em-
blems, iv. 313; the truest of books,
vi. 366. See Israelitish History.
Biography, a good, almost as rare as a
well-spent life, i. 3; iii. 8; Biography,
iv. 3-22 ; the basis of all that can in-
terest, 4; of sparrows and cockcha-
fers, 20; need of brevity, 52; the high-
est Gospel a Biography, 67; ‘respect-
able’ English Biographies, v. 6, 221;
no heroic Poem but is at bottom a Bio-
graphy, 218; biographic worth of a
true Portrait, vi. 241.
Blºcks success with Germany, vi.
Bº ‘the Washington of Columbia,”
VI. [ U.
Bonaparte, Napoleon, iii. 381, 390; iv.
124; his ‘Tools to him that can handle
them,” our ultimate Political Evangel,
v. 106, 230; Varnhagen at the Court
of, 304.
Bomer, and his Edelstein, iii. 238; The
Frog and the Steer, 242.
Bompland, M., and how Dr. Francia
treated him, vi. 82, 133.
Books, Collections of, vi. 302; two kinds
of, 315-17.
Bookseller-System the, iv. 68, 258.
Boswell, iv. 18; his character and gifts,
32; his true Hero-worship for John-
son, 36; his Johnsoniad, 39; no in-
fringement of social privacy, 48.
Bricks, London, vi. 374.
Bº Translators, iii. 286 ; Critics, iv.
Brühl, Henry Count von, ii. 90.
Brummel, Beau, iv. 120.
IBuckskin, the Hon. Hickory, vi. 196.
Burns, ii. 3-71; his hard conditions, 8;
a true Poet-soul, 11 ; like a King in
exile, 12; sincerity, 13; his Letters,
16; tenderness and piercing emphasis
of thought, 21; the more delicate re-
lations of things, 26; indigmation, 29 ;
Scots wha hae, Macpherson’s Farewell,
30; Tam O’Shanter, The Jolly Beggars,
32; his Songs, 34; love of country, 39;
passionate youth never became clear
manhood, 41; his estimable Father,
42; v. 321 ; boyhood, and entrance
into life, ii. 43 ; invited to Edinburgh,
47; Sir Walter Scott's reminiscence
of him, 48; Excise and Farm scheme,
52; calumny, isolation, death, 54; his
failure chiefly in his own healt, 62; a
divine behest lay smouldering within
him, 68; his kinghood and kingdom,
iv. 59 ; a contemporary of Mirabeau,
v. 135, 345, 378.
Byrom's short career, i. 81 ; life-weari-
ness, 255; his manful yet unvictorious
struggle, 284; far enough from fault-
less, ii. 15, 42; iii. 96; sent forth as a
missionary to his generation, ii. 68;
poor Byron, who really had much sub-
stance in him, v. 247.
Cabanis's, Dr., metaphysical discoveries,
ii. 321 ; iii. 221.
Cagliostro, Count, iv. 311-390; a Liar of
the first magnitude, 317; singularly
prosperous career, 318; birth and boy-
hood, 323; with a Convent Apothe-
cary, 326; a touch of grim Humour,
327; returns to Palermo, 329; Forgery
and general Swindlery, 330; a Trea-
sure-digging dodge, and consequent
flight, 333; quack-talent, 341; mar-
riage, and a new game opened out,
343; temporary reverses, 346; potions
and love-philtres, 348; visits England,
and drives a prosperous trade in the
supernatural, 349; Freemasonry, 351 ;
his gift of Tongue, 361; successes and
exposures, 366; how he fleeced the
Cardinal de Rohan, 372; the Diamond-
Necklace business, 375; v. 29-96; again
in England, iv. 378; Goethe's visit to
his family at Palermo, 380; Caglios-
tro's Workday ended, 387.
Camille Desmoulins, v. 199.
Cant, ii. 15; iv. 38, 95; v. 164.
Capital Punishments, vi. 122.
Cash-payment, v. 376, 383.
Cathedral of Immensity, vi. 99.
Catherine of Russia, Diderot's visit to,
iv. 281.
Celts, the, v. 388.
Cervantes, i. 21; v. 227.
Cºry, Cromwell’s reform of, vi. 310,
311.
Change, the inevitable approach of,
manifest everywhere, iii. 351; vi. 64,
289; universal law of, iii. 369, 390;
iv. 164.
Characteristics, iii. 329-376.
Charlemagne, v. 6.
Charles I., vacuous, chimerical letters
of, vi. 38; judicial blindness, 46; at
Strafford’s Trial, 54; his time, 314.
Charles II., iv. 14; desperate return of,
vi. 353, 360.
Chartism, v. 325, 360, 370; the history of
Chartism not mysterious, 403.
Châtelet, the Marquise du, ii. 202; her
utter shamelessness, 205; unimagin-
able death-bed scene, 206
Chatham-and-Dover Railway, vi. 377.
Cheap and Nasty, vi. 340, 373-77.
Cheek, Sir Hatton, and Sir Thomas Dut-
ton, vi. 222.
Chesterfield, Lord, Johnson's Letter to,
iv. 70.
INDEX.
411
Childhood, fresh gaze of, ii. 293, 340;
happy Unconsciousness of, iii. 330.
Chivalry on the wane, iii. 222, 225; gone,
236, 360; v. 18.
Christ, the Divine Life of, i. 281; true
reverence for his sufferings and death,
282; allusion to by Tacitus, ii. 167; a
Sanctuary for all the wretched, v. 49.
Christian Religion, ineffaceable record of
the, ii. 233; its sacred silent, unfath-
omable depths, 234; Novalis's thoughts
on, 295; how it arose and spread abroad
among men, 328; dissipating into me-
taphysics, iii. 353; in the new epoch,
#o 340; its dead body getting buried,
370.
Church, the, and what it might be, v. 369;
‘church' done by machinery, 414.
Church History, a continued Holy Writ,
ii. 356; Mother-Church a superannu-
ated stepmother, iii. 360.
Circumstances, man not the product of
his, ii. 113; the victorious subduer,
iv. 56; their inevitable influence, 287;
v. 235.
Clive, Robert, v. 400.
Cleon the Tammer, vi. 321, 342, 358.
Clothes-horse, man never altogether a,
iv. 117.
Cobbett, William, a most brave pheno-
menon, v. 232, 279.
Codification, the new trade of, ii. 326;
iii. 313.
Coleridge, ii. 251.
Collins's Peerage, an excellent book for
diligence and fidelity, vi. 312-13.
Colonial Vice-Kings, vi. 356.
Commons, English House of, vi. 126.
Commonweal, European, tendency to a,
iii. 325. See Europe, European Revo-
lution.
Commonwealth of England demanded,
vi. 353-4.
Comdamine, M. de la, vi. 88.
Conquest, no, permanent if altogether
unjust, v. 357.
Conscience, the only safehold, iii. 81;
singular forms of, iv. 297 ; not found
in every character named human, v.
35, 39
Constancy the root of all excellence, ii.
266
Constitution, the English, v. 391, 395.
Contagion, spiritual, ii. 313; iii. 341.
Conversation, the phenomenon of, iv. 4,
218; sincere and insincere, 49.
Cooper, Fenimore, what he might have
given us, v. 219.
Copyright Bill, Petition on the, v. 427.
Corn-Law Rhymes, and Rhymer, iv.
177-211; an earnest, truth - speaking
man, 187; his bread-tax philosophy,
191; primary idea of all poetry, 195;
defects of manner, 197; glimpses into
the prophetic Book of Existence, 198;
the poor Workman's hopeless struggle,
202; Enoch Wray, an inarticulate,
half-audible Epic, 205.
Corn-Laws and Sliding-Scales, vi. 65.
Courage, true, iii. 394; iv. 92.
Court-life, teetotum terrors of, v. 27.
Cramming, University, vi. 301.
Creation and Manufacture, iii. 333; what
few things are made by man, v. 14.
See Man, Invention.
Creed, every, and Form of worship, a
form merely, i. 166.
Crichton, Lord Sanquhar, vi. 219.
Criticism, German literary, i. 60; the
Critical Philosophy, 87; petty critics,
294, See British.
Croker’s, Mr., edition of Boswell, iv. 25.
Cromwell, what he did, iv. 64; v. 372,
393; vi. 62; his worth in history, 307;
his Protectorate, 308-9; dead body hung
on the gibbet, 360.
Croydon Races, a quarrel at, vi. 220.
“Crucify him ſ” a considerable feat in the
suppression of minorities, vi. 185, 188.
Crusades, the, ii. 329.
Cui bono, i. 391.
Currie's, Dr., Life of Burns, ii. 5.
D'Alembert, iv. 262.
Dante, v. 117, 277.
Danton, an earthborn, yet honestly born
of Earth, v. 107.
David, King, vi. 233.
Death, the seal and immortal consecra-
tion of Life, ii. 63; iii. 346; Eternity
looking through Time, 388; if not al-
ways the greatest epoch, yet the most
noticeable, iv. 109.
Defoe, ii. 24.
Democracy, stern Avatar of, iv. 335; v.
18; true meaning of, 371 ; Macchia-
velli's opinion of, vi. 309; to complete
itself, 339.
Denial and Destruction, i. 253; ii. 183,
236; iv. 73,210, 232, 294; change from,
to affirmation and re-construction, iii.
298, 363.
Demosthenes and Phocion, vi. 321.
Derby, Lord, vi. 356.
Descriptive power, iv. 17.
Devil, the, become an emancipated gen-
tleman, vi. 347-8; constant invocation
of the, 377.
D'Ewes, Sir Simonds, High-Sheriff of
Suffolk, vi. 142; his immaculate elec-
tion affidavits, 144; Sir Simonds sat
spotless for Sudbury, 164; took Notes of
the Long Parliament, 164; purged out
with some four or five score others,
165; value of his Ms. Notes, 166.
Diamond Necklace, the, v. 3-96; the
412
INDEX.
various histories of those various Dia-
monds, 13; description of, 16; it changes
hands, 69; Diamonds for sale, 77; ex-
traordinary “Necklace Trial,’ 83.
Dickson, Colonel, not kicked out, vi.
351.
Dictatorships, use of, vi. 309.10.
Diderot, iv. 229-308; his Father, 239;
education, 240; precarious manner of
life, 245; his marriage, 252; general
scoundrelism, .254; authorship, 256;
his letters, 261; incredible activity,
273; garbled proof-sheets, 274; free,
open-handed life in Paris, 278; visits
Petersburg, 281; death, 284; mental
gifts, 285; a proselyting Atheist, 288;
utter shamelessness and uncleanness,
296 ; brilliant talk, 299; literary fa-
cility, 300; neither a coward nor in
any sense a brave man, 306.
Dilettantism, reign of, iv. 152.
Diligence, honest, vi. 299-301.
Dismal Science, the, vi. 177.
Dºight of Kings, and of Squires,
VI. O4.
Dizzy, him they call, vi. 350.
Do-nothing, the vulgar, contrasted with
the vulgar Drudge, iv. 181.
Dominica, as it is and might be, vi 357.
pºſing: Gallery of Weimar Authors, i.
Doubt, withering influence of, i. 253; the
inexhaustible material which Action
fashions into Certainty, iii. 356. See
Infidelity, Scepticism.
Dresden, bombardment of, ii. 96.
Drill, Soldier, vi. 327; Sergeant, the,
; k unspeakable value of wise drill,
-:).
Du Barry’s foul day done, v. 17.
Duelling, iii. 237; vi. 213.
Duke of Trumps, the, and his domestic
service, vi. 189.
Dumont's Sowvenirs sur Mirabeau, v.
111
Duncon's, Samuel, election affidavits, vi.
147.
Dunse, Scotch Encampment on the Hill
of, vi. 42.
Dupes and Impostors, v. 363.
Dutton, Sir Thomas, and Sir Hatton
Cheek, vi. 222
Duty, infinite nature of, iv. 79; v. 236;
duty-made-easy, iv. 306.
Edelstein. See Boner.
Education, real and so-called, iv. 184; v.
410, 415 ; how young souls are trained
to live on poison, vi. 93; frightful waste
of faculty and labour, 233.
Egalité, Philippe, v. 58.
Eighteenth Century, the, prosaic, ii. 8,
63; in it all the elements of the French
Revolution, 187, 238; iv. 231, 260; v.
146; an era of Cant, iv. 38; Hypocrisy
and Atheism dividing the world be-
tween them, 72, 287; v. 381; Indus-
trial victories of, 397.
Elizabethan Era, v. 396.
Eloquence, long-eared, how to acquire
the gift of, iv. 362.
Emigration, iii. 371 ; v. 418.
Enceladus betrayed into sudden sneezing,
VI. J S4E.
Enfranchisement, and what it has led to,
vi. 192. -
England, condition of, question, v. 325,
335; England guilty towards Ireland,
346, 348; Eras of England, 385-401;
whose the proprietorship of England,
389 ; two tasks assigned, 390; educa-
tion of, 415; over-population, 418; her
History worthy of study, vi. 306-15;
piety in, 363; History of, an Iliad,
or even almost a kind of Bible, 367;
needs to be rebuilt once every seventy
years, 375; ‘prestige" of, on the Con-
tinent, 377.
Ense’s, Varnhagen von, Memoirs, v. 289-
322; his peculiar qualifications, 293;
visit to Jean Paul, 295; fighting at
Wagram, 301; his experiences at the
Court of Napoleon, 304; Rahel, his
Wife, a kind of spiritual queen in Ger-
many, 309; her letters, 312; brilliant
talk, 314; her death, 318.
Envy, a putrid corruption of sympathy,
iv. 114
Epics, the old, believed Histories, iv. 9;
the true Epic of our Time, 206.
Equality of men, vi. 342.
Era, a New, began with Goethe, iii. 388,
393 ; iv. 164. See Spiritual.
Erasmus, i. 35. -
Ernestine Line of Saxon Princes, vi. 269,
277; in its disintegrated state, 285.
Error, and how to confute it, ii. 252.
Etruscan pottery, vi. 375.
Europe, like a set of parishes, v. 254;
modern revolutionary, 362 ; over-
ºwded, 422. See Commonweal, Feu-
Q13,i.
Evil, Origin of, speculations on the, iii.
6; evil, in the widest sense of the
word, 359; manfully fronted, v. 410.
See Badness, Right and Wrong.
Exeter-Hall twaddle, vi. 123, 173.
Eyre, Governor, rabid persecution of, vi.
352.
Fables, Four, i. 392; the fourteenth cen-
tury an age of Fable, iii. 245.
Fact, the smallest historical, contrasted
with the grandest fictitious event, iv.
14, 43. See Reality.
IFaith. See Believing.
INDEX.
413
Fame, no test of merit, i. 242; the fan-
tastic article so called, iv. 84. See
Popularity.
Fate, different ideas of, ii. 154; of So-
phocles, vi. 232.
Fault, what we mean by a, i. 294.
Faust, Goethe's, emphatically a work of
Art, i.178; the story a Christian my-
thus, 180; several attempts to body
it forth, 181; Goethe's success, 182;
his conception of Mephistopheles, 183;
of Faust himself, 184; of Margaret,
190; the original legend, iii. 252; like
ºth sons of departing worlds, iv.
6
Perguson on Roman History, vi. 305.
Feudal Europe, old, fallen a-dozing to
die, iv. 335.
IFichte's notion of the Literary Man, i.
69; his Philosophy, 90; ii. 276.
Fiction, and its kinship to lying, iv. 9 ;
vi. 366.
Flunky, the white, the flower of nomadic
servitude, vi. 189.
Tontaine, La., v. 295.
Toolishest, the, of existing mortals, iv. 7.
Fººleo, natural history of the, iv.
79.
Eortuna, i. 397.
Fouqué, Friedrich de la Motte, parent-
age, life and writings of, i. 324-330.
Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries,
German Literature of the, iii. 215-280.
“Four eights,” the reformed workman's,
vi. 373, 377.
Tourth Estate, beginnings of the, iv. 82;
its energetic youth, 257.
Fox, George, i. 85.
France, scandalous condition of, vi. 362.
Trancia, Dr., vi. 69-136; the notablest
of South-American Dictators, 80; pa-
rentage and schooling, 92; perhaps
the justest Advocate that ever took
briefs in that distant country, 97; an
unjust judge discomfited, 102; hypo-
chondria, 104; Secretary of a Para-
guay National Congress, 107; retires
into privacy, 109; his personal ap-
pearance, and library, 109; gets him-
self declared Dictator, 1.12; a con-
spiracy detected, and forty persons
executed, 114; two harvests in one
season, 116; his lease of Paraguay,
ll.9; Funeral Eulogium, 121 ; his mes-
sage to the English Nation, 126; his
“Workman's Gallows,’ 129; mode of
life, 131; treatment of M. Bonpland,
133; rumoured quarrel with his Fa-
ther, 134; his life of labour ended, 136.
Frederick, Elector, der Streitbare, vi.
256
Frederick the Pacific, vi. 257; differ.
ences with Kunz von Kaufungen, 259;
his two children stolen and recovered,
261
Frederick the Wise, who saved Luther
from the Diet of Worms, vi. 271.
IFrederick, August, the big King of Po-
land, vi. 281.
Frederick the Great at Dresden, ii. 92,
96; his favour for La Motte Fouqué,
i. 324; Voltaire's visit to, ii. 200; his
notion of Shakspeare, 228; a Philo-
sophe King, iv. 270.
Treedom, a higher, than freedom from
oppression, ii. 342.
Freemasonry, Cagliostro's, iv. 351.
Free Trade, in all senses and to all
lengths, vi. 340, 373.
French poetry, ii. 230; philosophy, 242,
321; Revolution, not yet completed,
v. 361; Convention, 372; Priesthood
destroyed, 375.
Friendship, in the old heroic sense, ii.
59.
Fugger Anton, of Augsburg, iii. 259.
Gadarenes Swinery, vi. 187.
Gallows, terror of the, v. 87; Dr. Fran-
, cia’s ‘workman’s gallows,’ vi. 129.
Genius ever a secret to itself, iii. 333,
339; v. 243. See Original Man.
Gentleman, modern, and meagre Pat-
tern-Figure, v. 4. See Respectability.
George, Duke of Saxony, whom Luther
thought so little of, vi. 274.
German Literature, State of, i. 33-100;
foreign ignorance of, 36; charge of
bad taste, 45; German authors not
specially poor, 52; high character of
German poetry, 74; charge of Mysti-
cism, 53; Irreligion, 98 ; First era of
German Literature, iii. 217, 295; phy-
sical science unfolds itself, 222; Di-
dactic period, 225; Fable literature,
245; on all hands an aspect of full
progress, 256; rudiments of a new
spiritual era, 298; for two centuries
in the sere leaf, iv. 154.
Germany, become honourably Prussian,
vi. 341.
Gesta Romanorum, the, iii. 246, 249.
Gigmanity, literary, iii. 41; iv. 132.
Gin, the most authentic demon in our
times, v. 355.
Girondins, the, v. 406.
Glasgow Thugs, v. 326, 354, 360.
Glasnevin, in Ireland, vi. 383.
God, the Living, no cunningly-devised
fable, iv. 291 ; judgments of, 338.
Gºe, the, vanished from the world,iii.
Goethe's pictorial criticism, i. 73 ; his
Poetry, 76; his Works, 233-299 ; his
Autobiography, 239; unexampled re-
putation, 241; the Teacher and Ex-
414
INDEX.
emplar of his age, 244; Werter and
Götz von Berlichingen, 247, 255; v.
252; his notions on suicide, i. 260 ;
Wilhelm Meister, 262-283; spiritual
manhood, 283 ; singularly emblematic
intellect, 285 ; a master of Humanity
and of Poetry, 287; not a ‘German
Voltaire,’ 290, 292; his faults, 294;
Sketch of his life and works, 366-384;
his prose, iii. 61; his intercourse with
Schiller, 142; Goethe's Portrait, 379 ;
Death of Goethe, 385-396 ; beginning
of a New Era, 388; Goethe's Works,
iv. 109-174; his greatness, 124; his
Wahrheit wnd. Dichtung, 128; child-
hood and parentage, 133; his father’s
hatred of the lºrench Army, 136 ;
beautiful Gretchen, 143; at Leipzig
University, 144; studies for the Law,
146; the good Frederike, 148; Goethe's
goodness and badness, 150; the Ger-
man Chaos, 153; first literary produc-
tions, 156; settles in Weimar, 157; in-
ward life as recorded in his Writings,
159; tribute from Fifteen Englishmen,
161; his spiritual significance, 171; a
comtemporary of Mirabeau, v. 134; on
Reverence and Education, vi. 324-27;
his Mason's Song, 333; his notion
about the Christian Religion, 370; non-
vocal schools, 382. See Faust, He-
lena, Novelle, The Tale, Madame de
Staël.
Goldsmith, i. 250 ; iv. 86.
Good, mo, that is possible but shall
one day be real, iii. 369; in Goodness
the surest instinct for the Good, iv.
3.39.
Good Man, the, ever a mystic creative
centre of Goodness, iv. 204; the work-
literally forever, v. 320. See Man.
Gottsched, Goethe's interview with, iv.
145.
Government, true, the showing what to
do, iv. 337.
Graphic, secret of being, iv. 17.
Gray, i. 251.
Great Men, the Fire-pillars of the world,
iii. 89, 389; iv. 55, 165; and Fire-
eaters, v. 229; on the Greatness of,
iv. 1.12; v. 225. See Man.
Greek Consecration of the Flesh, iv.
315; History, vi. 305-6.
Grillparzer's, IFranz, superior merits for
a playwright, ii. 123; his worst Play,
the Ahmfrant, 125; his ICônig Ottokar's
Glück whd Ende, 128.
Glimm, iv. 263.
Gunpowder, invention and benefit of, iii.
262.
Half-and-halfness, iii. 96; iv. 75, 292;
ing of the good and brave endures
the one thing wholly despicable and
forgettable, 316.
Hampden, John, vi. 139.
Happiness-controversy, the foolish, iii.
114; illustration of the ‘Greatest-Hap-
piness’ principle, iv. 348.
Hº, a good, still a desideratum, ii.
Hatred an inverse love, iv. 113.
Hazlitt, iii. 363.
Health, meaning and value of, v. 231,
245; the highest temporal good, vi. 330.
Heart, a loving, the beginning of know-
ledge, iv. 18, 119.
Heath’s, Carrion, Life of Oliver Ch'om-
well, vi. 140.
Heeren, Professor, and his rub-a-dub
style of moral-sublime, ii. 75.
Heldenbuch, the, iii. 152; specimen of the
old poetry, 155 ; connection with the
Mibelungen, 162.
Helena, Goethe's, a dainty little Phan-
tasmagoria, i. 171 ; half-literal, half-
parabolic style, 173; Helena, part of
a continuation of Faust, 178; intro-
ductory Notice by the Author, 191. ;
condensed elucidatory sketch of the
poem, with extracts, 194-196.
Helvetius's game-preserves, iv. 266.
Hengst and Horsa, iv. 224; v. 387.
Heptarchy, the, vi. 339.
Herbert, Philip, and James Ramsay, vi.
220.
Herder, iii. 61; iv. 151.
Heroic poems and heroic lives, ii. 69; iii.
8; iv. 311.
Heroine-worship, iii. 100; v. 310.
Heroisms, why, are not done now, vi.
37.
Hero-worship perennial in the human
bosom, iv. 38; v. 213; almost the only
creed that can never grow obsolete, iv.
114. See Heroine-worship.
Heyne, Life of, ii. 75-114; parentage,
boyhood and extreme penury, 78; a
poor incipient gerund-grinder, 82; a
school-triumph, 84 ; miseries of a poor
scholar, 86; his edition of Tibullus,
92; first interview with Theresa Weiss,
94; driven from Dresden by the Prus-
sian bombardment, 96; marries, 99;
his Wife's devoted courage, 99; ap-
pointed to a professorship in Göttin-
gen, 100; his Wife's death, 105; mar-
ries again, 106; University labours,
108; death, 110 ; successful struggle
with adversity, vi. 319.
Higgins, General O’, Director of Chile,
vi. 76.
|History, on, ii. 345-359; the basis of all
knowledge, 345; vain Philosophies of,
345; iv. 6; the more important part
of, lost without recovery, ii. 349; iii.
INDTEX.
415
89; artists and artisans of, ii. 353; infi-
nity, 354; iv. 260; the history of a na-
tion’s Poetry, the essence of its entire
doings, iii. 292; History the essence
of innumerable Biographies, iv. 6; the
true Poetry, 44; what things are called
‘Histories,’ 45; v. 5; on History again,
iv. 215-225 ; the Message from the
whole Past to each man, 2.17; Univer-
sal History the Autobiography of Man-
kind, 222; the grand sacred Epos, or
Bible of World-History, 313; Scott's
Historical Novels, v. 274; unspeak-
able value of contemporary memoirs,
vi. 37; of a sincere Portrait, 241; who
is a Historical Character, 249; study
of, 305.
Hitzig's Lives of Hoffmann and Werner,
i. 105.
Hoffmann's quick eye and fastidious feel-
ings, i. 141; his life, character and writ-
ings, 339.
Hºuſton Emperors, last of the, iii.
Hohenzollerns, the Brandenburg, and
their talent for annihilating rubbish,
vi. 279.
Holbach, Baron d’, iv. 267; his Philo-
sophes and Philosophesses, 275.
Holles, John, and his quarrel with Ger-
vase Markham, vi. 215.
Home-poetry, ii. 17, 36.
Homer, ii. 24; iii. 209.
Hoop, Père, iv. 275.
Hope's, Mr., Essay on the Origin and
Prospects of Man, iii. 364.
Horn's, Franz, merits as a literary his-
torian, i. 33.
Horse, the, willing to work can find food
and shelter, v. 345; Laissez-faire ap-
plied to horses, 352.
Horsemanship, Gaucho, vi. 100.
Horses, Farmer Hodge’s, vi. 195.
Hume's scepticism, i. 93; ii. 278 ; iii.
390; Hume and Johnson contrasted,
§ 01: fifteen Atheists at one cast,
Humility, Christian, ii. 234; blessed are
the humble, they that are not known,
v. 320. -
Humour, sensibility the essence of, i. 18;
ii. 31; the finest perfection of poetic
genius, iii. 127.
Huss, John, iii. 264.
Hypocrisy, old-established, vi. 352.
Idea, society the embodiment of an, iii.
343; great men, v. 229. See Man.
Idealism, ii. 274.
Ideals, v. 379.
Idleness, doom of, v. 341; how it inevit-
ably rots, vi. 180; Black and White
idleness, 205.
Ignavia, the general demon of, vi. 186.
Ignorant, right of the, to be guided by
the Wise, v. 371.
Iliad, Homer's, vi. 366.
Impossibility, every genius am, till he
appear, ii. 20; Mirabeau’s notion of
impossibilities, v. 149.
Impossible, not a good word to have
often in the mouth, v. 408. See New.
Imposture, Empire of, in flames, v. 92.
Improvisators, literary, ii. 250 ; v. 279.
Indignation, ii. 29.
Industrialisms, English, v. 391.
Infidelity, iv. 73.
Inheritance, infinite, of every human
soul, iv. 376.
Injustice, the one thing utterly intoler-
able, v. 356, 360; nothing unjust can
continue in this world, 366, 379.
Inspiration still possible, iii. 298, 333,
388; iv. 12.
Intellect, celebrated march of, iii. 348;
what might be done, with intellect
enough, vi. 38, 62.
Intellects, twenty-four million, awak-
ened into action, v. 412.
Inventions, human, ii. 241, 328; German
contributions to the general store, iii.
262; Irish ditto, iv. 13.
Invisible World, the, within and about
us, ii. 279.
Ireland, tragic mismanagement of, v.
346; Irish national character degraded,
347; England invaded by Irish desti-
tution, 348; a black, vi. 177.
Irving, Death of Edward, iv. 393.
Israelitish History, significance of, i.
279 ; iv. 308. See Bible.
iºde. ‘the Napoleon of Mexico,” vi.
69.
Jacobis, the two, i. 58 ; iii. 61.
Jamaica Committee, the, vi. 351.
James I., vi. 219, 222.
Jenny Geddes's stool, flight of, vi. 28,
42.
Jesuits, skill and zeal of the, iv. 241 ;
Jesuitism sick unto death, 268; vi. 94;
Jesuit Georgel, v. 22.
John of Leyden, – of Bromwicham, vi.
342, 352.
Johnson's, Dr., preventive against bad
biographies, i. 3; his sound practical
sense, 251 ; a small occurrence, iv. 16;
Boswell's Life of Johnson, 25-106; his
existence a reality which he trans-
acted awake, 56; poverty and sore ob-
struction, 57; boyish turn for royalty,
59; college mortifications and stubborn
pride, 60; his brave-hearted Wife, 63;
a literary career, 66; letter to Lord
Chesterfield, 70; his distracted era,
and manful honesty, 72; his Pallia-
416
INDEX.
mentary Debates, 81 ; tears of sacred
triumph, 83; a little circle around the
Wise man, 86; the conservation of
what was genuine in Toryism, 90; a
brave man, 92; a clear hater of Cant,
96; merciful, affectionate nature, 97;
market-place at Uttoxeter, 99; polite-
ness, 101 ; prejudices, 102; Johnson
and Hume, 104; his house in Gough
Square, a visit to, 82: mentioned, v.
383; vi. 359.
John the Steadfast, vi. 272.
John Frederick the Magnanimous, vi.
272, 277, 279, 285.
Jonson’s, Ben, war-tuck, vi. 223.
Juliers, siege of, vi. 224.
Hant's Philosophy, i. 86; ii. 274; Schil-
ler's opinion of, iii. 139; two things
that strike one dumb, vi. 370-71.
Kaufungen, ICunz von, vi. 258, 292; ex-
asperations with Elector Frederick,
259; steals his two Sons, 262; be-
headed, 266.
Keats's weak-eyed sensibility, ii. 25.
Rempis, Thomas à, iii. 255.
ICepler's true love of wisdom, ii. 189.
Rings, Nature's, and their poor dog-
hutch kingdoms, iv. 59; a true man
must tend to be Ring of his own world,
vi. 118; and slaves, v. 344. See Origi-
nal Man.
ICingship and politeness, vi. 359.
Rlingemann, TXr. August, the most in-
disputable of playwrights, ii. 132; his
Ahasuer, 134; Fawst, and his melo-
dramatic contract with the Devil, 136.
Klopstock, i. 56; iii. 61; his Allegory of
The Two Muses, 316.
ICnaves, given a world of, what must
come of it, iii. 374.
I(now thyself, iv. 313.
ICnox, John, one of the truest of the
true, v. 236 ; Wilkie's picture of, a
worthless failure, vi. 247; author of
the Puritan revolution, 307; his influ-
ence on Scotland, 308; beautiful Scotch
humour in him, 332.
Rotzebue, August von, a warning to all
gºwrights, ii. 122; iii. 314, 318; v.
227.
Labour, and free Effort, iii. 359; infi-
nite significance of, iv. 313; true or-
gamisation of, vi. 181; only the Noble
labour willingly with their whole
strength, 183. See Work, Working
Classes.
Laissez-faire, v. 340; applied to horses,
352; as good as done its part in many
provinces, 368, 422 ; when a reason-
able cry, 370.
Lamotte-Valois, the Countess de, iv.
376; her pedigree, birth, character and
career, v. 33-91.
Laughter, worth of true, vi. 237.
Lavater and Cagliostro, iv. 365.
Leopold of Anhalt-Dessau, vi. 286.
Lessing, i. 56.
Letter-writing, conventional, v. 256 ;
subjective, 312; veracious, vi. 35 ; va-
cuous and inane, 37.
Liberty, what really meant by, vi. 346;
new definitions of, 368-9.
Life, a means to an end, iii. 331 ; infi-
#: mystery of, iv. 311; v. 7. See
Ian.
Lion. See Soirées.
Literary Men, a perpetual priesthood, i.
69; ii. 165, 336; iii. 96, 323; iv. 256;
desirable to pay them by the quantity
they do not write, v. 218. See News-
paper-Editors.
Literature, the influence of, ii. 165; iii.
324; diseased self-consciousness, 355;
froth and substance, iv. 18; vi. 88;
domain of Belief, iv. 230; literary
shampooings, v. 252, 273; flesh-flies,
263; extempore writing, 275; sub-
jective writing, 312; its rapid fer-
mentations, vi. 364-66. See Read.
Locke, and his followers, i. 92; paved the
way for banishing Religion from the
world, 251 ; ii. 322; wrote his Essay
in a Dutch garret, 64.
Lockhart's Life of Burns, ii. 3; of Scott,
v. 217.
tºº houses and house-building, vi.
74-5.
Logic, the rushlight of, ii. 334 ; logic and
its limits, iii. 334; iv. 289; v. 103.
See Metaphysics:
Lope de Vega, v. 226.
Louis XV., ungodly age of, ii. 238; iv.
232, 270; v. 21 ; his “amende homon'-
able to God,” 26.
Lºhe beginning of all things, iv. 18,
II9.
Luther’s prose a half-battle, iii. 61; his
love of music and poetry, 79; before
the Diet of Worms, 81; his Psalm,
81; his Life the latest prophecy of the
Eternal, vi. 270.
Macchiavelli's opinion of Democracy, vi.
309
Machinery, age of, ii. 317; iv. 286; su-
pernatural, 10. See Mechanical.
Macpherson, ii. 30.
Magi, Oriental, books of the, iv. 314.
Magna Charta, v. 391.
Mahomet, vi. 118.
Maids, old and young, Richter's appeal
to, iii. 67.
Malthusian controversies, v. 419.
Man the clearest symbol of the Divinity,
INDEX.
417
iv. 115; the life of every man a Poem,
and Revelation of Infinity, 311; v. 7.
See Good, Great, Microcosm, Original
Man.
Manchester, its squalor and despair not
forever inseparable from it, v. 397;
Once organic, a blessing instead of an
affliction, 418.
Manhood, ii. 45; suffrage, vi. 342.
Marie-Antoinette, v. 18, 31, 47, 75.
Marriage-law, strange state of the, in
Germany, i. 150; the Marriage-cove-
* iv. 294; marriage by the month,
"VI, J.95.
Marlborough, and the History of Eng-
land, vi. 367.
Martin, General San, and his march over
the Andes, vi. 72.
Martial Law, the unseen basis of all
laws whatever, vi. 351.
Mastership and servantship the only
delivery from Tyranny and Slavery,
vi. 187, 192, 205.
Maxwell, James, and his insolent sar-
donic ways, vi. 219.
Mayflower, sailing of the, v. 394.
Mechanical Philosophy, i. 251 ; its in-
evitable Atheism, iv. 289. See Ma-
chinery.
Mechanism disturbing labour, v. 352.
Medea-caldron, the, vi. 117.
Meditation, iii. 333. See Silence.
Memoirs, value of, if honest, iv. 224; v.
290, 293; vi. 37.
Memory, mo wise, without wise Oblivion,
iv. 221; vi. 166; the strange alchemy
of, 37, 62.
Mendelsohn, author of Phaedon, i. 58.
Merchant Princes of Germany, iii. 258.
Mercifulness, true, iv. 97.
M. Lord Palmerston's notion of, vi.
Metaphysics, the disease of, perennial,
iii. 356 ; the forerunner of good, 372.
Microcosm, Man a, or epitomised mirror
of the Universe, iv. 40, 233. See Man.
Might and Right, v. 330, 364, 388. See
Rights.
Mignon, Goethe's exquisite delineation
of, i. 308.
Millenniums, vi. 347.
Milton, ii. 64; v. 277; mute Miltons, 233.
Minnesingers. See Swabian Era.
Migue, down to minority of one, vi.
Mirabeau, v. 99-184; by far the best-
gifted of all the notables of the French
Revolution, 109; his Father, the
tough choleric old Friend of Mem,
116; the Mirabeaus from Florence,
117 ; a notable kindred, exempt from
blockheads but liable to blackguards,
118; talent for choosing Wives, 120;
VOL. XI. (Misc. vol. 6.)
gruff courtiership, 121; at the Battle
of Casano, 123; of the whole strange
kindred, no stranger figure than the
Friend of Men, 125 ; his literary and
other gifts and eccentricities, 126;
his domestic difficulties, and Rhada-
manthine struggles, 130; birth of
Gabriel Honoré, lºst of the Mira-
beaus, 133; education, the scientific
paternal hand versus Nature , and
others, 135; sent to boarding-school,
138; banished to Saintes; fresh mis-
demeanours; Lettre de Cachet, and the
Isle of Rhé, 141 ; fighting in Cor-
sica, 143; the old Marquis's critical
survey of his strange offspring, 144;
the General Overturn, 147; the one
man who might have saved France,
148; marriage, 151; banished to Ma-
nosque, 153; in the castle of If, 155; a
stolen visit from his Brother, 156; at
Pontarlier, 158; Mirabeau and Sophie
Monnier escape into Holland, 161 ; in
the castle of Vincennes, 166 ; before
the Besançon and Aix Parlements,
169; the world's esteem now quite
against him, 172; States-General, his
flinging-up of the handful of dust,
176; deputy for Aix, 178; victory and
death, 179.
Mºle, the age of, now and ever, iii.
375.
Misery not so much the cause as the
effect of Immorality, iv. 338. See
Wretchedness.
Moderation, and other fine names, iii.
96. See Half-and-halfness.
Moral Sense, the, a perennial miracle,
vi. 369.
More's, Hannah, anti-German trumpet-
blast, iii. 284.
Moritz, Elector, and his superior jockey-
ship, vi. 276.
Moses, the Hebrew outlaw, ii. 167.
Müller, Friedrich, i. 181.
Müllner, Dr., supreme over playwrights,
; 143; his Newspaper qualifications,
57.
Musäus, Johann August, his life and
writings, i. 316; his Volksmährehen,
; moral and intellectual character,
Music, Luther's love of, iii. 79; divinest
of all the utterances allowed to man,
vi. 231; condemned to madness, 237.
Mystery, deep significance of, iii. 346;
mystical and intellectual enjoyment of
an object, iv. 261, 389.
Mysticism, i. 82; ii. 272, 309.
Mythologies, the old, once Philosophies,
iv. 9. See Pan, Sphinx.
Naigeon's Life of Diderot, iv. 235.
IEE
418
INDEX.
Names, inextricable confusion of Saxon
princely, vi. 268; Mirabeau’s expres-
sive Nicknames, v. 175.
Narratives, difference between mere, and
the broad actual History, ii. 351; the
grand source of our modern fictions,
iii. 246; mimic Biographies, iv. 7; nar-
rative, the staple of speech, 219.
National characteristics, i. 36, 299; ii.
36; v. 235; suffering, ii. 105. -
Nature, not dead matter, but the living
mysterious Garment of the Unseen, ii.
280; iii. 331; v. 7, 75; Book of, ii.
354; vi. 94; successive Revelations,
ii. 357.
Necessity, submission to, v. 330, 357.
Needlewomen, distressed, vi. 191, 344.
Negro population, our, up to the ears in
pumpkins, vi. 174; need to be eman-
cipated from their indolence, 179, 201;
the Negro alone of wild men can live
among men civilised, 182; injustices
of Negro slavery, 183; how to abolish
* 195, 204; Black Adscripti glebae,
07.
Netherlands, wars in the, vi. 222.
New, growth of the, v. 375; New Eras,
385; all new things strange and unex-
pected, 396.
Nibelungen Lied, the, iii. 147-211; an
old German Epos of singular poetic in-
terest, 166; extracts, and condensed
sketch of the Poem, 171; antiquarian
researches into its origin, 202.
Nigger Question, the, vi. 171-210, 343-6.
Night-Moth, Tragedy of the, i. 389.
Nineteenth Century, our poor, and its
indestructible Romance, v. 7 ; at once
destitute of faith and terrified at scep-
ticism, 244, 250; an age all calculated
for strangling of heroisms, vi. 237.
See Present Time, European Revolu-
tion.
Nobility, Ig-, ii. 60; vi. 183.
Nobleness, old, may become a new real-
ity, ii. 341. See Aristocracy.
Nomadism, vi. 189, 192.
Norman Nobles, v. 368; Normans and
Saxons originally of one stock, 390; in-
vasion, the, vi. 339.
North, Mr. Henry, of Mildenhall, vi.
145.
Northern Archaeology, iii. 147.
Novalis's perplexity with Wilhelm Meis-
ter, i. 270; ii. 294; speculations on
French Philosophy, 242; account of,
249-310 ; parentage and youth, 258;
death of his first love, 261; literary
labours, 268; illness and death, 269;
his Idealism, 279; extracts from his
Lehrlinge zu Sais, &c., 281 ; Philoso-
phic Fragments, 292; Hymms to the
Night, and Heinrich von Ofterdingen,
297; intellectual and moral charac-
teristics, 306.
Novelle, translated from Goethe, iv.
434-448.
Novels, Fashionable, iv. 7 ; partially liv-
ing, 11; what they must come to, 230;
Scott's Historical Novels, v. 274.
Newspaper-Editors, the Mendicant Friars
of these days, ii. 336; their unwearied
straw-thrashing, v. 270. See Fourth
Estate.
Obedience, duty of, v. 406.
Oblivion, the dark page on which Me-
mory writes, iv. 221. See Memory.
Obscene wit, iv. 277.
Oliva, the Demoiselle d’, v. 61.
Opera, the, vi. 231-238.
Oratory and Rhetoric, iii. 335.
Original Man, difficulty of understanding
an, i. 291, 294; ii. 20, 249; iii. 89; v.
99, 183, 309; the world’s injustice, ii.
70, 167; iv. 64; uses of, iii. 389, 393,
395; iv. 123; vi. 124; no one with
absolutely no originality, iv. 52; an
original Scoundrel, 316; the world’s
wealth consists solely in its original
men, and what they do for it, v. 101.
See Man.
Over-population, v. , 418; ‘preventive
check,’ 419 ; infanticide, 421; Emigra-
tion, 422.
Overend-Gurney Bankruptcies, vi. 377.
Palmerston's, Lord, notion of merit, vi.
380
Pan, the ancient symbol of, iv. 40.
Paper, rag-, invention of, iii. 263.
Paradise, the dream of, iii. 359.
Paraguay and its people, vi. 97.
Parker, Sir Philip, vi. 145.
Parliament, insufficiency of, v. 328;
Parliament during the last century,
381; fighting by Parliamentary Elo-
quence, 395 ; Parliamentary Radical-
ism, 402; Parliament, Long, an Elec-
tion to the, vi. 139-168; Samuel Dun-
con's affidavits concerning the election
for Suffolk, 147; ‘short and true re-
lation’ of the same by Sir Simonds
D’Ewes, 155; his valuable Notes of
the Long Parliament, 165; Penny-
Newspaper, vi. 389. See Commons,
ÇC.
Pascal and Novalis, resemblances be-
tween, ii. 308.
Past, the, the fountain of all Knowledge,
ii. 352; iv. 216; the true Past never
dies, iii. 371; vi. 62; sacred interest of,
iv. 16, 44.
Batrons of genius, and convivial Mae-
cenases, ii. 53; patronage twice cursed,
59; ditto twice blessed, iv. 68.
INDEX.
419
Pauperism, iv. 201.
Peerage, the English, once a noble real-
ity, vi. 313-14.
Peoples'-Books, iii. 279.
Periodical Windmills, ii. 319.
Permanency in human relations the basis
of all good, vi. 192.
Philosophes, the French, iv. 229, 260.
Philosophy teaching by Experience, ii.
347; iv. 6. See Kant.
Piºn's opposition to Demosthenes, vi.
Phosphorus, Werner's parable of, i. 127.
Playwrights, German and English, ii.
117; tricks of the trade, 125, 132, 149.
Pleasure, personal, ii. 238, 338; iii. 117.
Plebs, wild horse of a, vi. 391.
Poetic culture, i. 47, 65, 264; ii. 19.
Poetry, the true end of, i. 77; ii. 17, 76,
294; iii. 95, 292, 323; vi. 232; Eng-
lish and German poetry mutually il-
lustrative, i. 79; Poetry can never die,
99; not a mere stimulant, 252, 297;
ii. 335; our theories and genetic his-
tories of, iii. 219; poetry as Apolo-
gue, 245; what implied by a nation's
Poetry, 292 ; Epic, iv. 9; present con-
dition of, 177 ; the life of each man a
Poem, 311; what, vi. 365-67.
Poland, vi. 362.
Politeness, Johnson's, iv. 101.
Poor-Law Amendment Act, v. 337, 338;
laudable as a half-truth, damnable as
a whole, 341; whoever will not work
ought not to live, 345.
IPopularity and Originality, i. 291; ii.
348; iii. 3; v. 226; fell poison of po-
pular applause, iv. 396; v. 247. See
Fame.
Portraits, Project of a National Exhibi-
tion of Scottish, vi. 241-251.
Poverty, the lot of many poets and wise
men, ii. 64; advantages from, 66; iii.
27, 30; Christian-Orthodoxy’s dread
of, iv. 30.
Power, love of, vi. 118. See Ambition.
Present Time, the, ii. 315; iii. 348, 358;
in pangs of travail with the New, 363;
the Present the living sum-total of the
whole Past, 371; iv. 112. See Nine-
teenth Century.
Prestige, vi. 377.
Pride's purge, vi. 165.
Briest and Philosopher, old healthyiden-
tity of, ii. 357; iii. 345.
Tºriesthoods, v. 374.
Printing, invention of, iii. 263.
Prinzenraub, the, vi. 255-293.
Property, what is, v. 376; none eternal
but God the Maker's, 389.
Prose, good, better than bad Rhyme, iv.
209
Protestantism, modern, i. 152.
Public Opinion, Force of, ii. 239, 339.
Publishing Societies, what they might do
fººd, a real History of England, vi.
37.
Puffery, the deluge of, iv. 258.
Puritan Revolution, the, vi. 307-8.
Tºuritanism, v. 393.
Putrescence and social decay, iv. 337.
Pym, John, vi. 139.
Quackery, portentous age of, iv. 336;
dishonesty the raw material alike of
Quackery and Dupery, 339; decep-
tion and self-deception, 364, 370; por-
tentous age of, v. 362.
Quietest, the greatest by nature also the,
v. 243. See Silence, Wholeness.
Radicalism, Parliamentary, v. 402; Para-
lytic, 409.
Rahel Varnhagen von Ense.
IRailway Promoters, vi. 377.
Ram-dass the Hindoo man-god, v. 229.
Read, what it is to, an author, i. 175,
294; ii. 249, 304; vi. 38.
Readers, good, vi. 303.
Reality, deep significance of, iv. 9, 15,
230, 389; v. 9, 76; vi. 232.
Reform, iii. 226; not joyous but grievous,
vi. 117; Ministries, Benthamee, v. 405;
strange meaning of the new Reform
measure, vi. 348-50.
Peformation, era of the, iii. 226; in Scot-
land, iv. 47.
Reid, Dr., ii. 274.
Religion, utilitarian, i. 253; ii. 336; her-
oic idea of, iii. 28; self-conscious, 353;
how to teach, v. 413. See Christian.
Renmer, the. See Hugo von Trimberg.
Renunciation, the beginning of Life, ii.
265; one harmonious element of the
Highest, iv. 298.
Republic of Literature, i. 236. See Lite-
rary Men, Literature.
Respectability, iv. 317; baleful influence
of, v. 5, 221; how generated, S6. See
Gigmanity.
Revenge, duty of, v. 356.
Reverence, worth of, i. 276 ; not syco-
phancy, iv. 41, 204; need of enlighten-
ment, 121 ; reverence for the Highest,
in ourselves and in others, 312; our
want of, vi. 188; Goethe on, 325.
Reviewers, duty of, ii. 161; what is
called ‘reviewing,” ii. 353; iii. 355; the
trade well-nigh done, 289; Smelfun-
gus's despair, iv. 177. See Read.
Revolution, a European, rapidly proceed-
ing, iv. 123. See Commonweal, Europe.
Revolution, English, our great, vi. 36,
139; Civil-War Pamphlets, 141, 142;
Pride's purge, 165.
Revolution, French, meaning of the, ii.
See Ense.
420
INDEX.
341 ; masses of Quackism set fire to,
iv. 340; a greater work never done by
men so small, v. 103; the Event of
these modern ages, 187; Parliamentary
History of the, 187-210; Thiers's His-
tory, Mignet's, and others, 189; curious
collections of revolutionary books, pam-
phlets, &c., 194; death of Foulon, 197;
the Palais-Royal, white and black Cock-
ades, the Insurrection of Women, 200;
the Jacobins' Club, in its early days
of moral-sublime, 203; the September
Massacre, 206.
Revolution, the South-American, and set
of Revolutions, vi. 69.
Jºeynard the Foac, Apologue of, iii. 215;
researches into its origin, 265; analysis
of, 270; extract, showing the language
of our old Saxon Fatherland, 276.
Bichardson, ii. 24.
Richter, Jean Paul Friedrich, i. 3-29;
leading events of his life, 9; his multi-
farious works, 12; extract from Quin-
tus Fixlein, 28; poverty, ii. 66; blief
sketch of his life and writings, 354;
J. P. F. Richter again, iii. 3-75; his
peculiar style, 4; a true literary man,
heroic and devout, 7; interesting frag-
ment of Autobiography, 10; birth and
pedigree, 12 ; his good Father, and
early home, 13; self-vision, 20; edu-
cation and extreme poverty, 21 ; his
first productions, 28; this too a Spar-
tan Boy, 33; his Costume controversy,
34; dares to be poor, 39; triumphant
success of Hesperus, 46; his marriage,
49; unwearied diligence, 50; blindness
and death, 53; intellectual and lite-
rary character, 54; extracts, 61 ; on
Daughter-full houses, 66; his vast Ima-
gination, 68 ; his Dream of Atheism,
69 ; review of De Stael’s “Allemagne,’
ii. 363; Varnhagen’s pleasant visit to,
v. 295.
Bidicule not the test of truth, ii. 183.
JRight and Wrong infinitely different, iv.
79, 299; the question of, only the se-
cond question, 318. See Evil.
Rights and Mights, v. 356; the final
‘rights’ of man an abstruse inquiry,
364. See Might.
Robber-Towers and Free-Towns of Ger-
many, iii. 257.
Robertson's History of Scotland, iv. 47.
Robespierre's, Mahomet, scraggiest of
prophetic discourses, v. 104; an atra-
biliar Formula of a man, nearly two
years Autocrat of France, 105; once
an Advocate in Arras, vi. 123.
Rohan, Prince Cardinal de, and Cagli-
ostro, iv. 372; what he was, v. 20; how
he bore his dismissal from Court, and
what came of it, 27-94.
Roland of Roncesvalles, v. 6.
Roman Emperors, era of the, ii. 237;
conquests, v. 358; Romans out, Eng-
lish in, 387 ; History, vi. 305.6; the
Dictatorship, 309.
Romance, Translations from German,
Preface to, i. 311 ; the age of Rom-
ance can never cease, v. 3.; none ever
seemed romantic to itself, 6.
Rous, Sir Francis, and the Barebones
Parliament, vi. 310.
Rousseau, ii. 190, 221; iv. 9, 262; v.
384; vi. 96.
Rudolf of Hapsburg, iii. 219.
Sachs, Hans, a literary contemporary of
Luther, i. 40.
Satan, Milton's, ii. 68.
Sauerteig, on the significance of Reality, ,
iv. 9; on Life, 311; on National suffer-
ing, 338; on the Eras of England, v.
386; on Reforming a Nation, vi. 117.
Saxe, Maréchal de, vi. 283.
Saxon Heptarchy, the, iv. 224; v. 387 ;
character, v. 350; race, 386-401.
Saxony, Kings of, vi. 278, 280.
Scepticism, the sourness of the new fruit
of growing Knowledge, iii. 372; the
Sceptic's viaticum, iv. 284. See Doubt.
Schiller's ideal of the true Artist, i. 67;
his perfection of pomp-prose, iii. 62;
Schiller, 87-143; Correspondence with
Goethe, 90 ; his cosmopolitanism, 93;
his high aims, 97 ; literary life and
struggles, 98; connection with Goethe,
111; illness and quiet heroism, 113;
his character and mode of life, 118;
intellectual gifts, 123; contrast be-
tween the Robbers and the Maid of
Orleans, 130 ; Song of the Alps, 138;
his philosophy, 140. See Madame de
Stacl.
Schlegel, Friedrich, ii. 269; iii. 363.
Schleiermacher, v. 295.
Schools, non-vocal, vi. 323; and vocal,
Scotch metaphysics, i. 92; ii. 321 (see
Mechanical Philosophy); national cha-
racter, v. 235; vi. 219.
Scott, Sir Walter, v. 213-286; great man,
or not a great man, 225; one of the
healthiest of men, 231, 246; an old
Borderer, in new vesture, 233; early
environment, 234; infancy and young
manhood, 237 ; Metrical Romances,
and worldly prosperity, 244, 250; his
connexion with the Ballantynes, 248;
influence of Goethe, 252; the Author
of Waverley, 255; not much as a let-
ter-writer, 256; dinner with the Prince
Regent, 257; birtheve of a Waverley
Novel, 259; life at Abbotsford, 261;
literary value of the Waverley Novels,
INDEX.
421
270; extempore writing, 275; bank-
ruptcy, 282; a lonely, brave, impover-
ished man, 283
Scoundrelism, significance of, v. 85.
Selborne, Natural History of, iv. 20.
Self-forgetfulness, Werner’s notion of,
i. 136; how good men practise it, ii.
64. See Renunciation.
Self-interest, political systems founded
on, ii. 238, 240, 326.
Self-worship, iv. 122.
Seneca, our niceliest-proportioned Half-
and-half, iv. 284.
Sentimentalist, the, barremest of mor-
tals, iii. 338; Goethe's opinion of him,
§ 150; puking and sprawling, v.
32
Servants “hired for life,” vi. 193, 205.
Servantship, nomadic and pormanent,
vi. 344.
Shakspeare's humour, i. 21; no sectarian,
290; depth of insight, 298; iv. 167;
bombast, ii. 16; Novalis's thoughts
on, 294; good taste, iii. 167; compared
with Goethe, iv. 167; education, 184;
compared with Scott, v. 249 ; not an
easy writer, 277 ; beautiful human
soul, 393; what he might have made
of the History of England, vi. 367.
Sheffield Assassination Company Limited,
vi. 344, 377.
Sheep, significant resemblances between
men and, iv. 52, 117 ; v. 214.
Shelley, iii. 363.
Siegfried, the hero of old Northern Tra-
dition, iii. 162, 173.
Silence the grand epitome and sum-total
of all Harmony, iii. 346 ; out of, comes
Strength, iv. 51; significance and sa-
credness of, 293, 297 ; v. 218.
Sincerity, the grand secret for finding
readers, ii. 13; v. 249; the most pre-
cious of all attainments, iii. 322; iv.
188, 318; v. 363; vi. 35, 232. See
Original Man, Truthfulness, Whole-
IlêSS.
Slavery of Wisdom to Folly the one in-
tolerable sort, vi. 184.
Slave-trade, the, and how to suppress it,
vi. 208.
Sleep, curious to think of, v. 56.
Sluggard-and-Scoundrel Protection Soci-
ety, vi. 172.
Society, Machine of, ii. 324, 334; miracu-
lous power of association, iii. 340; so-
ciety a second all-embracing Life, 341;
wholeness and healthy unconscious-
ness, 344; burning-up of, iv. 232.
Soirées, Lion, the crowning phenomenon
of modern civilisation, v. 213.
Songs and their influence, ii. 34; divine
song, vi. 231.
Sophocles, tragedies of, vi. 306.
Sorrow, Sanctuary of, i. 283; ii. 233; v.
49.
Sower’s Song, the, i. 394.
Space. See Time.
Speaking, difference between, and pub-
lic-speaking, iv. 362. See Conversa-
tion.
Sphinx-Riddle, the, iii. 222.
Spiritual, the, the parent of the Visible,
iii. 220,352 ; rudiments of a new era,
298, 323, 369, 393 ; iv. 298.
Staël's, Madame de, “Allemagne,” Rich-
ter's review of, ii. 363; “Schiller,
goethe and Madame de Staël,” ii.
394.
Statistic Tables, beautifully reticulated,
but holding no knowledge, v. 332;
personal observation the only method,
334, 351.
Steal, thou shalt not, v. 377.
Stealing generically includes the whole
art of Scoundrelism, iv. 327 ; vi. 39.
Sterne, i. 21.
Stewart, Dugald, i. 92; his opinion of
Burns, ii. 25 ; of Idealism, 274.
Stilling’s, Jung, experience of Goethe,
iv. 148.
Strafford, passages in the Impeachment
and Trial of, vi. 52.
Strength. See Silence, Wisdom.
Stricker, the, an early German writer,
iii. 228.
Stuart, Mary, iv. 48.
Style, every man his own, i. 23 ; picto-
rial power, iv. 17 ; eccentricities of,
115.
Suffrage, v. 403.
Supply and demand, our grand maxim
OT, Il. 5.
Swabian Era, the, iii. 216; birth of Ger-
man Literature, 217, 295.
Swarmery, or the gathering of men into
swarms, vi. 342-6.
Swashbuckler age, vi. 223.
Swedenborgians in questionable com-
pany, iv. 336
Swift, i. 21.
Symbols of the Godlike, worn-out, iii.
362.
Tale, The, translated from Goethe, with
elucidations, iv. 401-433.
Tamerlane, ii. 169.
Taste, true poetic, not dependent on
riches, i. 48; German authors, 56; gift
of Poetry presupposes taste, iii. 167;
dilettante upholstery, iv. 153.
Tauler, Johann, iii. 253.
Taxation, spigot of, ii. 355; iv. 45.
Taylor's Historic Survey of German Po-
etry, 283-325.
Teufelsdröckh, on the Greatness of Great
Men, iv. 112.
422
INDEX.
Theatrical Reports, a vapid nuisance, ii.
Q
Thierry, M., v. 388.
Thinkers, how few are, v. 4; intellectual
thrift, 312.
Thought, how, rules the world, ii. 165;
iii. 388; v. 60, 76.
Thrift, value of, v. 336.
Tieck, Ludwig, his Volksmährehen and
other writings. i. 330 ; character and
poetic gifts, 336.
Time and Space, quidities not entities,
i. 194; ii. 277 ; the outer veil of Eter-
nity, iv. 44, 195.
Times, Signs of the, ii. 313.342.
Today, i. 397 ; the conflux of two Eter-
nities, ii. 316.
Tolerance, ii. 175 244; iv. 346.
Tongue, watch well thy, iv. 50; vi. 90;
miraculous gift of, iv. 218; v. 278.
See Eloquence.
Trades Union, in quest of its ‘Four
eights,” vi. 373.
Thiller, der, vi. 265, 266, 292.
Trimberg, Hugo von, iii. 230, 244; his
Renner a singular, clear-hearted old
book, 233.
Trimmers and truckers, iii. 362; v. 107.
Troubadour Period of Literature, iii. 216,
25.
Truth, individual, the beginning of so-
cial good, v. 348.
Truthfulness, ii. 196; iv. 219; vi. 247.
See Sincerity.
Two Hundred and Fifty Years ago, a
Fragment about Duels, vi. 213-227 ;
Holles of Haughton, 214; Croydon
Races, 218; Sir Thomas Dutton and
Sir Hatton Cheek, 222.
Tyll Eulenspiegel, adventures of, iii. 249.
Unconsciousness the first condition of
health, iii. 329, 346; the fathomless
domain of, iv. 293.
Dniversities, value of, vi. 301-3 ; endow-
ments, 317-19; of Prague and of Vienna,
iii. 261 ; disputed seniority of Oxford
and Cambridge, vi. 164.
Untamability, v. 37, 78.
TInveracity, vi. 238,247. See Sincerity.
Utilitarianism, i. 66, 95, 252; ii. 238,
332 ; iii. 118, 313, 374; Bentham's uti-
litarian funeral, iv. 128.
Valet, the, theory of Heroes, iii. 90.
Vampire-bats, ecclesiastic, vi. 79.
Varnhagen von Ense. See Ense.
Varnish, Conservative, vi. 360.
Vates and Seer, the true Poet a, iii. 388;
v. 248; vi. 232.
Vaticination, ii. 313.
Vengeur, on the Sinking of the, vi.
3-24.
Veracity. See Unveracity.
View-hunting, iii. 354.
Virgil’s dºneid, iv. 11.
Virtue, healthy and unhealthy, iii. 336;
synonym of Pleasure, iv. 297.
Vºsy, Jean Jacques and Company, vi.
Voltaire, i. 236, 252; ii. 165-246; Vol-
taire and Goethe contrasted, i. 290-2;
the man of his century, ii. 171; adroit-
ness, and multifarious success, 177 ;
rectitude, 180; essentially a Mocker,
182; petty explosiveness, 186; vanity
his ruling passion, 190; visit to the
Café de Procope, 191; lax morality,
195; the greatest of Persifiew,’s, 198;
visit to Frederick the Great, 200; his
trouble with his women, 201; his last
triumphal visit to Paris, 210; iv. 116;
death, ii. 217 ; his intellectual gifts,
219; criticisms of Shakspean e, 227; op-
position to Christianity, 231; of all
Frenchmen the most French, iv. 261.
Wages no index of well-being, v. 353.
Wagram, Napoleon at, v. 300.
Walpole, Horace, Memoirs of, v. 381.
Walpole, Home Secretary, bursts into
tears, vi. 351.
Walter the Penniless, vi. 352.
Wartburg, and its immortal remembran-
ces and monitions, vi. 270.
Watt, James, v. 399.
Weimar and its intellectual wealth, iv.
§ ; Duke of, vi. 287; Bernhard of,
88.
Weiss, Theresa. See Heyne.
Welser, Philippine, iii. 260.
Werner, Life and Writings of, i. 103-
168; his drama of the Sohme des Thals,
111; glimpses of hidden meaning,
132; prophetic aspirations, 135; his
mother's death, 139; intercourse with
Hoffmann, 141; Kreuz an der Ostsee,
142; Martin Luther, oder die Weihe
der Kraft, 145; his repeated divorces,
150; dislike for modern Protestantism,
152; becomes a Catholic, 155; death,
157; questionable character, 158; mel-
ancholy posthumous fragment, 162.
West-Indian Colonies, our, sinking into
ruin, vi. 173; whose the ‘proprietor-
ship’ of them, 199, 203.
Wettin Line of Saxon Princes, vi. 256.
White of Selborne, iv. 20.
Whole, only in the, can the parts be
truly seen, ii. 353.
Wholeness, and healthy unconscious-
ness, iii. 330, 345, 396 ; iv. 298, 318.
Wieland, i. 56.
Wilderspin, vi. 384.
Wilhelm of Meissen, vi. 257.
Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship and
INDEX.
423
Travels, i. 262-282, 303-310; Travels,
extract from, vi. 324.
Winkelmann, Johann, ii. 111.
Wisdom, one man with, stronger than all
men without, ii. 334; iii. 324, 385.
Wise man, the, alone strong, v. 359, 374.
Wisest man, the, at the top of society,
vi. 186.
Wolf, v. 295.
Women born worshippers, iv., 121.
Wººster, picture of the Battle of, vi.
24
Work, man's little, lies not isolated,
stranded, v.19; how it clutches hold
of this solid-seeming world, 75; the
mission of man, 342
Working classes, uneducated, and edu-
cated Unworking, iv. 185; ominous
condition of the, v. 325, 360; perfect
understanding, equivalent to remedy,
330; statistics hitherto of little avail,
332; what constitutes the well-being
of a man, 334, 343, 353 ; the poor
man seeking work and unable to find it,
345; the best-paid workman the loud-
est in complaint, 353; need of Govern-
ment, 368. See Labour.
Worms, the venerable city of, iii. 190.
Wrath, a background of, in every man
and creature, vi. 213.
Wretchedness, ii. 61; iii. 360.
Wrong. See Right.
Youth and Manhood, ii. 40; mudbath of
youthful dissipations, 44. See Edu-
cation.
END OF MISCELLANIES.
LONDON: RODSON AND SONS, PRINTERS, TANCRAS ROAD, N.W.
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