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LEIUFFICIO. SAREE
MISCELLANIES,
POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
H
35
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¡
MISCELLANIES.
POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
BY
London:
MOUNTSTUART E. GRANT DUFF,
MEMBER FOR THE ELGIN DISTRICT OF BURGHS,
MACMILLAN
NSFW OPENE
AND
46807
LÆSIS
CO.
1878.
The rights of translation reserved.
CHARLES DICKENS AND HVANS,
CRYSTAL PALACE PRE88.
1960 او اخم
3-6-30 TEK
ド
​CV
Read
NOTICE.
In this volume I have brought together and arranged,
in chronological order, some papers which have no
internal connection and which treat of widely divergent
subjects. Some of them appeared for the first time,
while others were introduced to a more extended public
than that for which they were originally prepared, in
the "Fortnightly" or "Contemporary" Reviews, and to
the managers of those periodicals I hereby return my
thanks.
MOUNTSTUART E. GRANT DUFF.
CAMPAGNE DES FLEURS,
ALGER-MUSTAPHA,
November 11th, 1878.
CONTENTS.
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS ON OPENING THE SECTION OF ECONOMIC
SCIENCE AND STATISTICS, AT THE DUNDEE MEETING OF THE
BRITISH ASSOCIATION IN 1867
EGYPT.-A LECTURE DELIVERED AT CULLEN, AND PRINTED IN THE
"CONTEMPORARY REVIEW" FOR FEBRUARY, 1874
MUST WE THEN BELIEVE CASSANDRA ?
OPENING ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT OF DEPARTMENT IV.,
'ECONOMY AND TRADE," OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR
THE PROMOTION OF SOCIAL SCIENCE, AT THE NINETEENTH
ANNUAL CONGRESS, HELD AT BRIGHTON, 1875
""
1847 AND 1876.-ADDRESS DELIVERED ON THE 4TH OF MARCH, 1876,
AT CLIFTON COLLEGE, AND PARTLY PRINTED IN THE "CONTEM-
PORARY REVIEW'
BALTHASAR GRACIAN.-FROM
APRIL, 1877
•
•
-
•
THE "FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW" OF
PAGE
1
12
57
94
114
144
viii
CONTENTS.
A PLEA FOR A RATIONAL EDUCATION.-FROM THE "FORTNIGHTLY
REVIEW" OF August, 1877
EMILIO CASTELAR.-FROM THE
AND JULY, 1878 .
•
99
"" FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW' OF JUNE
SPEECH ON THE POLITICAL SITUATION, DELIVERED AT PETERHEAD,
SEPTEMBER, 1878
PAGE
164
214
288
MISCELLANIES,
POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS
ON OPENING THE
SECTION OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND
STATISTICS, AT THE DUNDEE MEETING OF THE BRITISH
ASSOCIATION IN 1867.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,-It has been the custom to
open the proceedings of this section by an address, and
it has been the custom that that address should be a
brief one. I propose, with your permission, to follow
both these good customs.
This department of the British Association differs
from the others. They are occupied exclusively with
the study of external nature. We are occupied, as has
been truly said, with external nature only in so far as it
exerts an influence on the human mind. They treat of
physical sciences. Our section throws its roots, so to
speak, deep down among the physical sciences, but is
itself devoted to moral science. Looked at in another
light, our pursuits form the debateable land between the
men of thought and the men of action. In theory, of
course, we are given up exclusively to the examina-
tion of things as they are-to science; but do we not
B
2
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
continually stray over the border-line, and wander into
the consideration of things as they should be-into the
domain of the art of legislation and government? Those
who are familiar with the proceedings of this section
will not, I think, say No; and this intermediate character
of our department accounts, I suppose, for the fact that
it is from time to time presided over by Members of
Parliament, who, votaries of practical politics, cannot
pretend to be teachers of the sciences with which this
section is concerned-cannot even pretend to be the
fellow-labourers of some whom I see around me, but
are content to be, in this field, their disciples and
followers.
The British Association, founded in 1831, was one
of the results of that great upheaval of the national
mind, of which the political change which makes the
year 1832 so famous was perhaps the most conspicuous
symptom. The foundation of the Statistical Society,
and of our own section, both of which, I trust, have done
something to help on the forward movement of the
time, came shortly afterwards, and the latter of these
events must have been very nearly synchronised with
the commencement of that remarkable reactionary move-
ment which, taking its rise in the common room of Oriel,
has since so widely and variously influenced English life.
An eminent living writer might find, perhaps, in this
fact another illustration of the operation of Systole and
Diastole in human affairs.
Up to 1856 this section was exclusively occupied
with statistics. In that year, the centenary of the
publication of Quesnay's "Maximes Générales," and
eighty years after the appearance of Adam Smith's great
work, the kindred subject of economic science was wisely
added to our programme. Now, then, we are the
Section of Economic Science and Statistics. What do
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS.
3
these terms mean, and with what sort of subjects will
chance visitors who stray into these regions, from more
popular sections, find us dealing, during the next few
days? They will find us, in our character of students of
economic science, dealing with all the phenomena which
attend upon, and the principles which regulate, the
production, the distribution, and the exchange of wealth.
If they are quite unfamiliar with those inquiries, they
may come prejudiced against us, as cold and hard and
selfish. We deserve, gentlemen, no such character.
The considerations to which we call attention, the laws
which we point out, must be taken account of by the
most humane, and by the most imaginative, if their
attempts at world-bettering are not to shiver against
the realities of life. All human society, as has been well
said, rests on a material foundation, "and beneath all
systems of government, and all schemes of public
morality, there lies the science of the wealth of nations.'
The laws which we enunciate are no more, and no less,
hard or imperative than any of the laws with which
other sections have to do. "What," asked Mr. Mill, in
the House of Commons last year, "is more unfeeling
than the attraction of gravitation ?" If, however, gentle-
men, we claim for economic science a very high place,
we do not exaggerate its importance. No wise economist
ever pretended to explain more than a very limited
number of the complicated problems of society and life.
No wise economist ever laid himself open to the denun-
ciations levelled by M. Edgar Quinet, in his recent
brilliant work on the French Revolution, against those
who fondly fancy that they can account, on economical
principles alone, for that great moral and political earth-
quake.
"}
There surely never was a time in which it was
more plainly necessary to popularise this science. We
B 2
4
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
are told by alarmists that one of the results of reform
will be that matters which were considered settled will
be reopened; that Protection will again raise her head,
and that the ghosts of old fallacies will come back to
gibber in the House of Commons. I am one of those
who think such fears exaggerated; but surely the mere
possibility of our people lapsing into heresies such
as those which have seduced men of our race, in America
and Australia, should warn us to diffuse far and wide the
broad results of economic science. It is to be feared that,
even in circles where we might expect better things, there
is a very considerable misconception about the real teach-
ings of economists. Who can forget the opposition that
was excited by Mr. Cobden's negotiations in France, as
if, forsooth, he, of all men, was going to be false to the
principles by the advocacy of which he had put himself
in the first rank of contemporary statesmen? Is it sur-
prising that there should be so much hesitation about
the acceptance, I do not say of the mere fact of free
trade, but of some of its consequences? Count up the
schools in which an attempt is made at giving even a
glimpse into economic science. There are distinguished
professors of economic science at both Oxford and Cam-
bridge; but how many men are there who leave the
great English universities with any knowledge of it? *
Of the two economical questions to which your presi-
dent alluded last year, as to those which were, for the
moment, chiefly occupying the minds of men-the ques-
tion of our coal supply and the state of the money
market the first will, no doubt, slumber till the report
of the Royal Commission is given to the world. The
other still attracts attention; but the "wheel has come
full circle," the periodical reaction has set in, and the
* There are still far too few, but more than there were when this
address was delivered.
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS.
5
vast pile of gold mounts daily higher, waiting for the
spirit of confidence to return. Another economical
question has, however, come in these last few months
into great and painful prominence. I allude, of course,
to the question of trades unions, and to the relations of
capital and labour. The unhappy contests between these
natural allies is not the only joint in our armour. Many
eminent men have been declaring that England is falling
behind other nations in the industrial race, and that a
better and more extended technical education has become
a necessity. All attempts, however, to give a good
technical education will break down, if we do not imitate
Switzerland and Germany in creating a really good
system of elementary and middle-class education.* That
is the soil in which technical education must grow, and
at present that soil is wofully thin in many places.
Fortunately, however, the public mind is becoming
familiarised with the idea of an educational rate; and if
we have an educational rate to assist the poorest, why
not a system of graded schools, to which all classes may
repair if they see fit, and through which a ladder may be
built by which merit may climb to the high places of
society? How long will English farmers go on paying
that the children of their labourers may be educated
better than their own?
Amongst the measures of the late session, in which
this section may be supposed to take peculiar interest,
was the extension to all trades of the principle of the
Factory Acts-these Acts which for more than one
generation were so stoutly resisted in the name of
political economy, but which enlightened theory
approves, and which experience has justified. The com-
parative ease with which the bills of last session passed,
* It is gratifying to think how far a single decade carried us, in this
matter, under the auspices of the late administration (1878).
6
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
•
was creditable to the Government, creditable to the
interests affected, and, above all, creditable to Mr. Henry
Bruce, the Vice-President of the Council in the late
administration, whose abnegation of self, in the willing
support which he gave to bills with which his own name
will not be associated, was as remarkable as it is, I fear,
rare amongst politicians of any party.
(C
If it is easy to give a definition of our work as
students of economic science, which, although of
course liable to be pulled to pieces by critics, may be
taken as fairly correct, how different is the case with
our work as statisticians? Who can define statistics?
Quicquid agunt homines," in so far as it is susceptible of
being recorded and expressed numerically? That defini-
tion might, perhaps, be accepted by some, but there
would be many gainsayers. Two sets of men long dis-
puted as to which of them was most entitled to the
name of statisticians. There were those who considered
statistics to be equivalent to what used to be called
political arithmetic." There were those who, appealing
to the etymology of the word "statistics," and recalling
the history of the science, thought that they, and they
alone, were entitled to represent themselves as the suc-
cessors of the great Göttingen professors, who first gave
a systematic form to this kind of inquiry. The victory
has, for all practical purposes, remained with the first of
these two bodies of disputants; that is to say, the
science naturally tends to become more definite and pre-
cise, to restrict itself more and more within the circle of
those facts which can be recorded and tabulated. The
statistician has scarcely, perhaps, had so many hard
words thrown at him as his cousin the economist; but
he has all along been coupled with that unpopular
character, in public disfavour. Those who know nothing
else of Mr. Burke, know his sentence about "sophists,
(6
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS.
7
economists, and calculators." I even remember seeing it
quoted in a letter from an innkeeper, who had been
remonstrated with on account of an extortionate bill!
The statistician, however, no less than the economist,
can say something in his own justification. Have not
vital statistics done much to diminish the uncertainty in
providing for families, which used so much to increase
the anxieties of the trading and professional classes?
Have not sanitary statistics, even within the last few
years, added very much to the length and comfort both
of civilian and military life? Have not judicial sta-
tistics done their part in leading the public to accept
the doctrine at which the most enlightened criminalists
had already arrived by other paths that crime is best
repressed, not by severe, but by rapid and certain
punishment? Are not educational statistics, at this
very moment, convincing all intelligent persons in Great
Britain, that we must at length make "a long pull, a
strong pull, and a pull all together," to get at least a
modicum of education conveyed to the whole people ?
And while I speak of educational statistics, it may
not be amiss to recall one curious instance of the want
of them, which was lately pressed on the attention of
Parliament. A highly intelligent witness from Oxford,
examined before the committee which lately sat to
inquire into the educational system pursued at the two
great English universities, admitted that there was not
at this moment any official document in existence from
which the public could arrive at an idea, even approxi-
mately correct, of the vast revenues of Oxford and her
colleges*—revenues which only required to be used in the
spirit of her worthier sons, to make her incomparably
the most efficient, as she is incomparably the wealthiest,
university in the world. Surely it is monstrous that we
This is happily no longer the case.
M
8
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
can, with the greatest ease, find the revenue and the
expenditure of the University of Berlin, down to the
last dollar, and are unable to arrive at even a tolerable
guess as to the revenue and expenditure of a similar
institution in our own island!
The importance of military and naval statistics need
not be urged. Would that the most striking result of
inquiries into them could be brought home to all minds!
Would that everyone realised the fearful loss which the
vast armaments now kept up are entailing upon Europe!*
Would that the people of this quarter of the globe would
awake to the danger of being surpassed, in all the arts
of peace, by the great nation on the other side of the
Atlantic! An American politician came back last autumn
from Prussia, declaring that it was impossible to walk
ten yards, in a Prussian town, without meeting a soldier.
An English politician came back, at the same time, from
the United States, declaring that he had traversed the
country from end to end, without seeing even a single
soldier. When will monarchs, and cabinets, and popular
assemblies learn that old wisdom of William III., that
that nation will hold the balance of power, which, in
proportion to its strength, "has economised its material
resources to the highest point, and acquired the highest
degree of moral ascendancy, by an honest and consistent
allegiance to the laws of morality, in its domestic policy
and in its foreign relations"?
It would not be difficult to point out the obvious and
palpable advantages that arise to the community from
other branches of statistical inquiry; but in truth there
* The curse of militarism weighs now far more heavily upon the
Continent than it did when these words were spoken. "If this state of
things continues," said a French statesman, some little time ago, to an
English friend, "Europe will be reduced to beg at the barrack-door—
mendier à la porte des casernes!" and the present Government has
done its very best to inoculate our own people with this plague.
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS.
9
is no need, for cavillers would be silent, if not convinced,
were it not that our own friends sometimes give an
occasion to the enemy. To attempt to draw from
statistical facts inferences which they will not bear-to
resolve the whole play of social forces into a mere question
of numbers and averages-to pretend that figures govern
the world, instead of merely helping us to understand
how it is governed-is simply to injure the cause which
we profess to defend. Those who act in this way, are
almost as mischievous as those whose reckless abuses of
statistical methods have given point to the sneer that
nothing is so false as figures, except facts-the Rigbys of
political life, who manipulate their figures with a view,
not to arrive at truth, but to obtain a controversial
success. There is no poorer triumph than such a one
as this, for there is none easier; unless, indeed, it be the
triumph attained by fifth-rate theologians when they
quote isolated texts against each other, and each remains,
in the opinion of his followers, the master of the
unhonoured and unprofitable field of strife. It is, how-
ever, vain to argue against anything because it may be
abused. Of course a man who deals with statistics in
the spirit of the saying, "Tant pis pour les faits," can
make them prove anything; but surely no saying can be
farther from being the expression of the temper of any
man who has a right to call himself a statistician.
Perfect openness of mind, a determination to receive every
fact with equal favour, a determination to restrain, not
only the ordinary disturbing prejudices, but even that
love of hasty generalisation which is characteristic of
many fine intellects, a spirit resigned to collect, one by
one, the stones of a temple which a successor may build
up-these are the marks of a true student of this science.
I have said something about popularising economic
science. Arguments not less strong, though different,
10 MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
might be alleged in favour of popularising statistics. It
is in this department that we shall find the real value of
those men whose habits of mind lead them to take what
I may call the old view of the science, the view which
found favour with Schlözer when he said, "Statistics
are history in repose; history is statistics in motion.'
The more the science, properly so called, withdraws itself
up the heights of knowledge, the more necessary will it
be to have messengers constantly passing to the plains
below. It is satisfactory to see useful manuals of sta-
tistics being gradually multiplied, and getting down into
general circulation. The historical " Almanach de Gotha"
has been mother of a numerous progeny, amongst which
not the least useful is the Belgian "Annuaire" of Scheler,
and its younger sister, in our own country, the "States-
man's Year Book." It is strange that, while France has,
in a kindred class of literature, the excellent “ Annuaire
published in connection with the "Revue des Deux
Mondes," we have nothing more cosmopolitan than our
very parochial "Annual Register." An idea which was
some years ago put forward in the "Saturday Review,"
that it would be expedient to bring out a series of politico-
historical companions to Mr. Murray's handbooks, has not
yet been acted upon, but the realisation of so reasonable
a project is surely only deferred.
""
One of the greatest attractions of this science is
undoubtedly its international character. The first im-
pulse of a statistician who has arrived at what appear to
him satisfactory results, with regard to a group of facts
and figures in his own country, is to see how his conclu-
sions are affected by similar groups of facts and figures
in other countries. In so doing he is necessarily brought
into connection, not only with foreign knowledge, but
with foreign men of activity and intelligence, and so
This has now, alas ceased to exist (1878).
GOR
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS.
11
becomes one more link in the chain that is binding into
one great confederation the progressive nations of the
globe.
But I am forgetting that I promised to adhere to the
good custom of being brief. During the next week we
shall listen to many papers upon most important sub-
jects, both in our character of economists and of statisti-
cians. I trust we shall not only bring to all open and
unprejudiced minds, but recollect the precept of the
Pyrrhonists, "Be sober, and remember to doubt."
Working in this spirit, we may perhaps square a stone,
or shape a rafter, which some future "master of those
who know" may use in building up a system of politics,
which may do as much honour to the nineteenth cen-
tury after, as did that of Aristotle to the fourth century
before, the Christian era.
EGYPT.
A LECTURE DELIVERED AT CULLEN, AND PRINTED IN THE
"CONTEMPORARY REVIEW" FOR FEBRUARY, 1874.
Ar a quarter to one o'clock on the 16th October, the
Péluse slipped from her moorings in the harbour of
Marseilles, and passing slowly between the far-seen
pilgrimage church of Notre Dame de la Garde and the
Quarantine Station, took her course to the eastward.
Then followed a chequered week, of which the least
agreeable incidents were a gale of some eight-and-twenty
hours, and a night which we spent tossing about in a
ground-swell off the harbour of Alexandria; while the
most agreeable incidents were a lovely morning amongst
the Lipari Isles, which looked more charming than I
ever saw them look before, our first view of Crete, and
the society of M. Mariette, one of the greatest of living
Egyptologists.
Do you ask who were our other fellow-travellers?
Well, they were numerous-somewhat too numerous for
comfort, and you will have an excellent idea of what
they were like, if you will only read the description
given of his travelling companions by M. About in "Le
Fellah," for that amusing writer made the same voyage
in the same ship a few years ago. Only to complete the
picture, in our case, a few touches from Wilhelm Meister
EGYPT.
13
should be thrown in, for we had on board the whole of
the personnel of the Opéra Comique, which is, I dare-
say, at this very moment amusing the Alexandrians.
We ran early in the morning into the harbour which
Alexander, Cæsar, Antony, and so many others of the
greatest actors on the world's stage have made famous,
and were for some time in suspense as to our fate with
reference to quarantine, that scourge of Mediterranean
travel having been called into exceptional activity this
year, by the presence of the cholera in various parts of
Europe. Very soon, however, a boat came off, bringing
a letter which informed us that kind friends had made
every arrangement for our comfort, and that we should
perform our quarantine in a charming yacht fitted up
on purpose.
Hither we soon betook ourselves, a guardian from
the Lazaretto accompanying us, and our yacht hoisting
the yellow flag, as a warning to all persons to avoid
touching it, to say nothing of us-its terror-striking
inhabitants.
There was nothing, however, to prevent our receiving
visits, provided our visitors did not actually touch the
vessel, and we did receive a good many, conversing with
our friends over the side.
After some seventy-two hours of close but delightful
imprisonment, the quarantine authorities came to tell
us that we were free. Sir John Lubbock and I im-
mediately used our freedom by going on shore to call
on Dr. Gaillardot, a French physician and man of
science, who has given special attention to the Pre-
historic Antiquities and the botany of Egypt.
Somewhat later in the day we all set out for a long
drive to see the sights, and receive the first impressions
of Alexandria.
The sights proper are only two-Cleopatra's Needle
14
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
and Pompey's Pillar. Cleopatra's Needle* is an obelisk
of red granite, which is connected by the hieroglyphics
still legible upon it with Rameses II., of whom we
shall hear more. It was brought from Heliopolis, some say
by Cleopatra, whence the name which it usually bears.
Others say it was brought in the reign of Tiberius.
.
Pompey's Pillar is a tall column, also of granite,
which has nothing to do with Pompey, but was erected
in honour of Diocletian, and which, according to
M. Mariette and others, stood in the centre of the
um, a gigantic edifice, erected for religious,
literary, and other purposes, and dedicated to Serapis.
The above are the sights proper-the sights obli-
gatory. But not less interesting than they are the
light-house, marking the place where stood the famous
Pharos, whose name has become the word for light-
house in many languages; the island of Pharos itself,
long since united with the mainland; and the two great
harbours—one of which, the Eunostus, or port of Good
Return, bids fair to become, under the hands of English
engineers, one of first-rate importance, worthy to be the
gate of the Egypt of the future.
With the Alexandria of to-day, which everyone
abuses, we were on the whole agreeably surprised. It
would doubtless be a horrid place of residence, but the
newness and strangeness of everything is pleasant to the
eyes of the European traveller. We thought it in every-
thing, except situation, far superior to Smyrna, the place
with which it seemed natural to compare it.
Very charming to the eye was the variegated crowd
in the streets-a crowd of all lands, all dresses, all
colours, and all features. Very charming were the date-
palms laden with fruit, the unfamiliar forms of the
Acacia lebbek, of the true Sycomore, of a tall Tamarisk,
*Sister to the one now in London (1878).
EGYPT.
15
of the Bamboo, and many other trees, which were either
not known to us at all, or known only in stunted
specimens.
Very charming was it to taste the fresh sugar-cane
for the first time, to see the brown tents of the Bedouin
Arabs, and those more civilised, but hardly less strange,
Dahabeeahs, which convey so many of our countrymen
up the Nile.
We slept in Alexandria, and, starting betimes in the
morning, passed in little more than four hours over the
one hundred and thirty-one miles which separated us
from Cairo.
.
They were four memorable hours. First came Lake
Mareotis, looking, unhappily, as unlike as possible to
what Shelley had in his mind, when he wrote the lines:
But her choice sport was in the hours of sleep,
To glide adown old Nilus, when he threads
Egypt and Ethiopia, from the steep
Of utmost Axumé, until he spreads,
Like a calm flock of silver-fleecèd sheep,
His waters on the plain; and crested heads
Of cities and proud temples gleam amid,
And many a vapour-belted pyramid.
By Moris and the Mareotid lakes,
Strewn with faint blooms like bridal chamber floors;
Where naked boys bridling tame water-snakes,
Or charioteering ghastly alligators,
Had left on the sweet waters mighty wakes
Of those huge forms :--within the brazen doors
Of the great labyrinth slept both boy and beast,
Tired with the pomp of their Osirian feast.
Looking, I say, as unlike that as possible, but still a
great and historical expanse of water, with new birds,
and new water-plants dear to the eye of a botanist.
Next came the surprise, which should not have been
a surprise, of finding Egypt so intensely green in the
16
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
month of October, when nearly all other Mediterranean
lands are parched and burnt up.
Then, about sixty-five miles from our point of
departure, we crossed the Rosetta branch of the Nile, a
stream, now that the river had been falling for a fort-
night, nearly as broad as the Rhine at Cologne.
At last, after a good many more miles had been
traversed, came the Damietta branch-not quite so
large—and ere long one of our party called out, “I see
them!"
Yes, there far away to the south, like ghosts of
themselves, as known to us from pictures, were the
pyramids of Gizeh, with the Libyan Desert rising
behind them. That was one of the great moments of
life, like that in which one first caught sight of the
Dome of St. Peter's, or the Acropolis of Athens, or the
Mosque of St. Sophia.
Very soon after this we arrived at the station of
Cairo. I will not attempt a general description of Masr
the Victorious, for that is what El Kahira is said to
mean, since I am sure I should fail to convey to you, in
my own words, an adequate image of its kaleidoscopic
life. The best sketch I have seen is in a lecture
delivered by M. Brugsch, somewhere in Germany, which
is, however, not very accessible. The thing usually said
about the old part of Cairo is, that it is exactly like
the "Arabian Nights," and the thing usually said
happens, in this case, to be very true and apt.
The following passage, taken from an American
book, seems to me, to reflect, with great faithfulness,
the feeling of the place:
To our new eyes everything was picture. Vainly the hard road
was crowded with Moslem artisans home-returning from their work.
To the mere Moslem observer, they were carpenters, masons, labourers,
and tradesmen of all kinds. We passed many a meditating Cairene,
· EGYPT.
17
to whom there was nothing but the monotony of an old story in that
evening and in that road. But we saw all the pageantry of Oriental
romance quietly donkeying into Cairo.
I saw Fadladeen with a gorgeous turban and a long sash. His
chibouque, bound with coloured silk and gold threads, was borne
behind him by a black slave. Fat and fuming was Fadladeen as of old;
and though Fermouz was not by, it was clear to see in the languid
droop of his eye that choice Arabian verses were sung by the twilight
in his mind.
Abou Hassan sat by the city gate, and I saw Haroun Alraschid
quietly come up in that disguise of a Mosul merchant. I could not
but wink at Abou, for I knew him so long ago in the "Arabian
Nights." But he rather stared than saluted, as friends may in
a masquerade. There was Sindbad the Porter, too, hurrying to
Sindbad the Sailor. I turned and watched his form fade in the
twilight, yet I doubt if he reached Bagdad in time for the Eighth
History.
Then came Sakkas, men with hogskins slung over their backs,
full of water. I remembered the land and the time of putting wine
into old bottles, and was shoved back beyond glass. Pedlars-
swarthy fatalists, in lovely lengths of robe and turban-cried their
wares. To our Frank ears it was nothing but Babel jargon. Yet
had erudite Mr. Lane accompanied us-Mr. Lane, the Eastern
Englishman, who has given us so many glimpses into the silence and
mystery of Oriental life, like a good genius revealing to ardent lovers
the very hallowed heart of the hareem-we should have understood
those cries.
We should have heard "Sycomore figs-O grapes !" meaning that
said figs were offered, and the sweetness of sound that "grapes" hath
was only bait for the attention; or "Odours of Paradise-O flowers
of the henna!" causing Moslem maidens to tingle to their very nails'
ends; or, indeed, these pedlar poets, vending water-melons, sang,
"Consoler of the embarrassed, O pips !" Were they not poets there,
these pedlars, and full of Oriental extravagance? For the sweet
association of poetic names shed silvery sheen over the actual article
offered. The unwary philosopher might fancy that he was buying
∙comfort in a green water-melon, and the pietist dream of mementoes in
heaven in the mere earthy vanity of henna. But the philanthropic
merchant of sour limes cries, "God made them light-limes!"
Meaning not the fruit, nor the stomach of the purchaser, but his
purse. Will they never have done with hieroglyphics and sphinxes,
these Egyptians? Here a man rose-embowered chants, "The rose is a
O
18
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
thorn, from the sweat of the Prophet it bloomed !" Meaning, simply,
fresh roses.
These are masquerade manners, but they are pleasant. The
maiden buys not henna only, but a thought of heaven; the poet not
water-melons only, but a dream of consolation which truly will he
need.
Our first excursion was to Heliopolis, the On of the
Old Testament. You will recollect that Joseph married.
Asenath, the daughter of the high-priest of that city, and
the Armenians still consider as canonical an apocryphal
book known as the "History
History of Joseph and Asenath."
Heliopolis was never, it would seem, very large, but
it was a place of great importance -the Oxford or
St. Andrew's of Egypt. Nothing is more probable than
that Moses and Plato both studied there. If Moses did
study here, then the great obelisk of Osirtasen, which is
now the first object the traveller seeks out, must have
been quite familiar to him, for it was already older, in
his day, than any building in Scotland is now.
It stood, when we visited it, in the midst of a great
field of sugar-cane, which I here saw growing for the
first time, and which murmured round it in the breeze,
as charmingly as ever murmured the pines of Theocritus
upon the hills of Sicily.
Dean Stanley, whose short sketches of Egyptian
scenery, at the beginning of "Sinai and Palestine," are,
like so much else of the same kind that he has written,
the purest of pure gold, reminds us that this obelisk had
once many companions in the City of the Sun, and that
it was hence that those obelisks were taken to which so
many memories are attached, which touch us more nearly
than anything in Egypt-the obelisks of the Vatican,
the Lateran, and of the Porta del Popolo.
Hard by Heliopolis, at the village of Matareeah, is
the tree which the traditions of Eastern Christianity
EGYPT.
19
connect with the Flight into Egypt. It is a Sycomore
or Egyptian fig, of considerable though not of venerable
age; but, of course, it may be the descendant, as is
believed by the Copts, of an older tree which grew on
the same spot. However that may be, it now shelters
from the fierce Egyptian sun the most lovely jasmine,
some of which we gathered "in memoriam."
Our drive to Heliopolis introduced me to various
Egyptian plants, for which, I need hardly say, I kept a
sharp look-out, although the season of the year was the
reverse of propitious. One of the first I lit upon was the
Erigeron Canadense-a pushing American tourist whom
I have traced over half Europe, and who has actually
had the assurance to establish himself at Heliopolis.
Not less interesting in a different way was the Cleome
pentaphyllus, which we afterwards saw in every field, a
pretty climbing Cynanchum, and the Althaea cannabina,
a very handsome mallow, much used as a defence for
the fields of cotton (Gossypium vitifolium), which were
covered with their showy yellow flowers.
Here, too, I saw for the first time one of the commonest
of Egyptian birds, a lovely white heron, Ardetta rustica,
which travellers newly landed generally mistake for the
Ibis.
Of course we went to the Pyramids, and a very
delightful expedition it was; but do not be afraid, I am
not going to describe the Pyramids, and that for two
reasons. First, because you have all read descriptions of
them; and, secondly, because one of the uses of a sketchy
lecture like this is to direct your attention to the best
books on the subject of which it treats. I would advise
you, then, to read the very clear and vivid description of
her excursion to the Pyramids, which is given by Miss
Martineau in her "Eastern Life," and will only notice
one or two particulars in which our visit differed from
0 2
20
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
hers. In the first place, then, we were some months
earlier in the season than she, so that we looked from the
top of the Great Pyramid, with our back to the yellow
desert, over an immense extent of flooded country, from
the midst of which the villages rose like so many little
red islands.
In the next place, two of us, Sir John Lubbock and
myself, penetrated into the Second Pyramid, that of
Cephrenes, which is comparatively rarely visited, although
it is in no way more difficult to penetrate than the other.
In the third place, there are now absolutely no diffi-
culties which need be taken into account by any man
or woman of average health and strength, in going up,
coming down, or entering the Great Pyramid. You
drive to it from Cairo in an hour and a half, and the so-
called Pyramid Arabs understand the business of helping
you up and down, extremely well. I will not, I say,
waste time in description, but you will expect me to say
a word as to the purpose and history of the Pyramids,
because much light has been thrown on these matters of
late years.
There is then now no doubt whatever, amongst people
entitled to express an opinion, that the Pyramids were
simply tombs.
M
C
There was found some years ago in Phoenicia a sar-
cophagus, which is now in the Louvre. The beginning
of an inscription on it has been translated as follows:-
In the month of Bul, the fourteenth year of my reign, I, King
Ashmanezer, king of the Sidonians, son of King Tabnith, king of the
Sidonians, spake King Ashmanezer, king of the Sidonians, saying, “I
have been stolen away before my time-a son of the flood of days.
The whileom Great is dumb; the son of Gods is dead. And I rest in
this grave, even in this tomb, in the place which I have built. My
adjuration to all the Ruling Powers and all men: Let no one open
this resting-place, nor search for treasure, for there is no treasure with
Us; and let him not bear away the couch of My rest, and not trouble
EGYPT.
21
Us in this resting-place by disturbing the couch of My slumbers. . .
For all men who should open the tomb of My rest, or any man who
should carry away the couch of my rest, or any one who trouble me
on this couch: Unto them there shall be no rest with the departed;
they shall not be buried in a grave, and there shall be to them neither
son nor seed. . . . There shall be to them neither root below nor
fruit above, nor honour among the living under the sun. . .
""
Well the Great Pyramid was nothing more nor less
than the place where Choofoo, or Cheops as the Greeks
called him, meant to "lie in glory "-mightiest amongst
the dead, as he had been mightiest amongst the living.
He did not trust, like the Phoenician king, to words
marked on his sarcophagus to scare intruders. He trusted
to the skill of the architect to prevent the secret of his
resting-place ever being penetrated. Nor can it be denied
that, to a great extent, he succeeded. True, his tomb has
now been rifled, but according to some authorities it
remained inviolate for full five thousand years.
Cheops was a king of the fourth dynasty, about whom
many fables were told to the Father of History. That is..
not surprising when we recollect that the Father of
History lived about 456 B.C., in the days of the twenty-
seventh dynasty-very possibly three thousand five
hundred years, and more, after the death of Cheops.
No one can look, however, on this tremendous mass,
which is about as high as Strasburg Cathedral, covers
as much ground as Lincoln's Inn Fields, and is estimated
to contain eighty-five million cubic feet of stone-all
this, observe, after its whole outer casing has been taken
which has much diminished its size--without
feeling that he who raised for himself such a sepulchre
must have been a prince obeyed by enormous numbers of
people.
away,
Time, says an old writer-
Sadly overcometh all things, and now sitteth on a Sphinx and gazeth
22
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
on the ruins of Memphis and Old Thebes, gloriously triumphing and
turning old glories into dreams. The traveller, as he passeth through
these deserts, asketh-Who builded the Pyramids and he murmurs
something in reply, but what it is he heareth not.
And truly the riddle is only half read when we say
that Cheops raised the Great, Cephrenes the Second, and
Mycerinus the Third and much smaller Pyramid. Who,
we ask, as yet quite vainly, were the engineers? Who
were the labourers? Were they captives from afar, or
were they native Egyptians? Time, as yet, has murmured
nothing in reply, even to the most attentive ears. Our
children may learn something more about this mystery,
for the science of Egyptology is still in its infancy.
If anything could add to the glory of these stately
tombs, it would be the still older and still more mysterious
monument which stands close to them. I allude of course
to the Sphinx, the type of the countless Sphinxes that
have been carved in so many places in ancient and
modern days, but as much superior to anything of the
same kind as Kinglake's immortal description of it is to
all other descriptions.
Laugh and mock if you will at the worship of stone idols, but mark
ye this, ye breakers of images, that in one regard the stone idol bears
awful semblance of Deity-unchangefulness in the midst of change-
the same seeming will and intent for ever and ever inexorable! Upon
ancient dynasties of Ethiopian and Egyptian kings, upon Greek and
Roman, upon Arab and Ottoman conquerors, upon Napoleon dreaming
of an Eastern Empire, upon battle and pestilence, upon keen-eyed
travellers-Herodotus yesterday, and Warburton to-day-upon all and
more this unworldly Sphinx has watched, and watched like a Provi-
dence, with the same earnest eyes and the same sad tranquil mien.
And we, we shall die, and Islam will wither away, and the English-
man, straining far over to hold his loved India, will plant a firm foot
on the banks of the Nile and sit in the seats of the Faithful, and still
that sleepless rock will lie watching and watching the works of the
new busy race, with those same sad earnest eyes, and the same tranquil
mien everlasting. You dare not mock at the Sphinx.
EGYPT.
23
Travellers and others have formed many various
estimates of the character meant to be portrayed by the
Sphinx. The Arabs called it the Father of Fear.
To me it seemed to be, now at least, a good and
gracious creature, fit representative of that old Egyptian
life of the fourth dynasty, long, long anterior to the life
represented in the tombs of Thebes, with its complicated
and tremendous theology.
What then was the Sphinx, and when was it cut out
of the mighty rock on the edge of the desert? Alas! we
know not. Probably it was an object of worship, or the
symbol of an object of worship-for the stern, stately,
unadorned temple, known as that of Cephrenes, close by,
would appear to have been dedicated to it. Its Egyptian
name was Hou, but the meaning of that word is still a
mystery. As to the date of its creation we are no better
informed, but we do know that Cheops repaired it, so
that it is older than the Great Pyramid.
The voyage up the Nile is usually made in one of two
ways-by steamers which start at fixed times, and remain
a fixed time at each interesting place, or by sailing barges
with huge latteen sails, which travellers hire for them-
selves. The inconvenience of the first method is the
restraint, and the being thrown with persons whom you
have not yourself selected. The inconvenience of the
second method is the loss of time, and the constant
repetition of small worries, of which the works of
travellers who have described the great river are full to
weariness.
Happily for us, we were dependent on neither the
one nor the other method, of which the second would
have been hopelessly out of the question for busy men.
Thanks to the kindness of the Viceroy and of Nubar
Pacha, we made the journey in a steamer belonging
to His Highness, in the character of his guests, and
24 MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
accompanied by a member of his suite. I need not say
that under these circumstances we saw everything to the
best advantage, stopping where we liked, when we liked,
and as long as we liked, nor that all the troubles of a Nile
voyage being removed, we were able to give ourselves
entirely up to the study of what we went to see.
We embarked on the afternoon of November 1st, and
were well on our way when the sun broke through the
mists on the morning of All Souls.
Our start was, in one respect, an unfortunate one;
for we had hardly left Cairo when Mr. Greg was attacked
by an illness which, although it did not deprive us of the
charms of his conversation, deprived him, I am afraid, of
much of the pleasure of the journey.
We ran this first day some seventy miles, through a
country which offered little to interest in the immediate
neighbourhood of the river. Far away to the west rose
the Pyramids of Sakkarah, Abouseir, and Dashour, and
the strange structure known to the natives as the False
Pyramid. Sometimes the desert came down close to the
eastern bank, sometimes it receded, leaving a considerable
expanse, while in other places again there was only a
haugh, like those along the Deveron or the Spey.
Here and there we passed mud villages, or met huge
boats so deeply laden that their sides had to be built up
of clay, like "feal dykes," or rafts piled with earthen-
ware pitchers, slowly floating down-stream, or strange-
looking craft with mighty piles of chopped straw, as
picturesque in their way as the hay-barges of the Thames.
Once a man was perceived swimming the mighty flood
by the help of a bundle of reeds as a float.
Once we ran
aground, an operation which soon becomes a familiar one
as we go up the Nile. Often we saw shadoofs, the in-
artistic contrivance by which the people ladle the water
out of the river into the runnels which irrigate their
-
EGYPT.
25
fields. Many were the groves of palms, many the water-
birds, but for the most part the hours went by in quiet
reading and conversation, till the sun robing himself in
gold went down below the Libyan hills, leaving the
loamy western bank intensely black, and the orange
lines along the limestone cliffs on the east white and
ghostly.
And now, as we run up the Nile, let us, seeing that
there is not very much to observe in these first days,
have a little talk about the ancient history of Egypt.
But first let me premise that much that I shall tell
you in the next quarter of an hour is uncertain. You
may rely upon what I am going to say being pretty well
in accordance with the views of those best entitled to
express an opinion on such matters, but they would be
the first to admit the imperfection of their own know-
ledge, and to say that any day a papyrus may be dis-
covered which may at once revolutionise the whole
science of Egyptology.
Till, however, such a papyrus is discovered, you may
accept these as probable opinions.
The oldest historical King of Egypt was Menes, and
its ancient history extends from his reign to the decree
of the Emperor Theodosius, which, three hundred and
eighty-one years after our era, abolished the ancient
religion of the land and introduced Christianity.
You ask me, perhaps, when Menes lived. I reply
that I do not know, but you may judge that it was pretty
long ago, when I tell you that Menes was the first king
of the first dynasty, and that Joseph was prime minister
to the last king of the seventeenth dynasty.
From Menes to Theodosius thirty-four dynasties ruled
in the valley of the Nile.
The first ten of these are known as the dynasties of
the Old Empire.
26
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
The next seven are known as the dynasties of the
Middle Empire.
The next fourteen are known as the dynasties of the
New Empire.
The last three are known as those of the Lower
Empire or Lower periods-these last extending from
Alexander the Great three hundred and thirty-two years
before Christ, to Theodosius, whose date I have already
given you, three hundred and eighty-one years after
Christ.
The first three dynasties have left but few monu-
ments, so far as we at present know, but of course new
excavations may require this statement to be altered.
They reigned, according to Manetho, who has been much
rehabilitated by modern research, for seven hundred and
sixty-nine years, but whether they did, or did not, it is
at present impossible to say.
The fourth dynasty built the Pyramids of Gizeh, and
in its time Egypt was unquestionably a very civilised,
and, in many respects, a happy country, and that at a
period when not only our part of Europe, but even
Greece, the mother of our antiquity, was absolutely
barbarous.
We have very little information about the fifth
dynasty, but we know that under the sixth Egypt warred
successfully in Nubia, and carried on mining operations
in the Peninsula of Sinai.
After the sixth dynasty, a dark veil falls over the
history of the Nile valley to the end of the tenth
dynasty, with which the Old Empire, or first period of
Egyptian history, came to an end. It is believed that
during this interval the prosperity of the country re-
ceived a check, but whether in consequence of foreign
invasion, or some other calamity, is, as yet, quite
uncertain.
EGYPT.
27
J
The day dawns for us again with the eleventh
dynasty, whose seat was at Thebes, and not in any of
the old royal cities of Egypt-Memphis, or Thinis, or
far southern Elephantine. That dynasty has left us
some remains, whose comparative rudeness lends con-
firmation to the idea that the end of the Old Empire
had been gloomy and disastrous. Egypt under the
eleventh dynasty seems to have been no further ad-
vanced than under the third. We have seen similar
phenomena in Scotland-thanks to the long English
Wars.
•
With the twelfth dynasty we reach another period of
great splendour and high civilisation. Egypt is not
only once more in possession of the whole country from
the First Cataract to the Sea, but holds the Peninsula of
Sinai, and fights successfully with its neighbours the
Cushites, in the very regions which Sir Samuel Baker
has lately traversed, and which are just going to be
placed under the rule of Colonel Gordon, the distin-
guished leader of the famous force which was known to
the Chinese as the Ever-Victorious Army.
Under this dynasty was raised the obelisk of Helio-
polis, about which I have already spoken, and, according
to some, the great reservoir of Lake Moeris was dug out,
but M. Mariette is now inclined to consider it much
older.
Of the thirteenth dynasty and its doings we have
few details, but there is no doubt that under it Egypt
was prosperous, and it is believed that the same may be
said of the fourteenth, but after it came a new and
terrible change.
Pushed forward by some force, the nature of which
is unknown to us, a race of people coming from the
North-East invaded Egypt. Who were these people?
Kalmucks, I think, says one of the greatest living
28
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
authorities. Semites, I am pretty sure, says another.
So much is certain, that they were a pastoral race, and
that their Kings were the so-called Shepherds. The
invaders settled in Lower Egypt in the region near the
Suez Canal, and remained in the land a considerable
time. How long? Well! one great living authority
tells us five hundred and eleven years, and another great
living authority tells us, not nearly so long-less
probably than one hundred years.
.
Be this as it may, it seems pretty well agreed that
Joseph was Prime Minister of one of these Kings or
Pharaohs, most likely of Apophis, who was the last of
the seventeenth dynasty, which reigned in the Delta,
while a contemporary native-born Egyptian dynasty
reigned at Thebes.
At length, however, the old native-born Egyptians
grew strong enough, under their Theban Kings or
Pharaohs, to drive out these intrusive Pharaohs, which
they of course proceeded to do, a fact alluded to in
the Bible, where we are told that a new King arose
who knew not Joseph. So far from knowing Joseph, he
hated Joseph and everything connected with him, and
oppressed in every possible way Joseph's countrymen.
This oppression reached its height during the long reign
of Rameses II., or the Great, who reigned sixty-six
years, and under whom the two cities of Pithom and
Rameses, mentioned in Exodus, were built, largely by
Hebrew labour, as appears quite clearly from Egyptian
records, as well as from those which are so familiar
to us.
Rameses was a very powerful prince, and succeeded
in keeping down the foreign population in Lower Egypt,
partly by his own strength, partly by virtue of a treaty
concluded with the King of the Hittites; but his suc-
cessor Menepthah was not so powerful, and under him
EGYPT.
29
took place that Exodus, which has exercised such an
immense influence both on religion and history.
I do not think that it is at all generally known, that
there is still on the borders of Lake Menzaleh, close to
the Suez Canal, a population which there is every reason
to suppose is descended from the invaders, whose kings
were the so-called Shepherds, and with whom the
Hebrews were connected in some way that has not yet
been traced out. These people, if not now, at least very
recently, refused to pay certain taxes on the ground that
they were not Egyptians.
But to return to the sequence of my narrative.
With the last of the seventeenth dynasty, the Pharaoh to
whom Joseph was Prime Minister-a Pharaoh probably
not of Egyptian, but of Semitic birth, the Middle Empire
came to an end.
The eighteenth dynasty was far the most brilliant in
the whole of Egyptian annals. Its first king was Amosis,
who, driving out the Shepherd invaders, inaugurated a
period of splendour.
Strange to say, a number of jewels which he had
made to adorn the mummy of his mother-jewels which
were old long before Moses was born, are still preserved,
and would do credit to Castellani, if they had been made
by him yesterday.
I shall have something to say of the other kings of
this dynasty when I come to speak of Thebes, but all I
would ask you to remember, for the moment, is that
several of them carried their arms not only far to the
south, but also far into Asia, and that it was out of some
confused recollections of these victories and those of
Rameses II. under the nineteenth dynasty, that the
Greeks made up the idea of Sesostris, the great-but
quite fabulous-Egyptian conqueror.
The nineteenth dynasty is made famous by the
30
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
victories of Rameses I. in Asia, but already under his
successor, Sethi I., Egypt appears to have begun to
lose some of her outlying possessions acquired by the
eighteenth dynasty. His successor Rameses II. was a
great conqueror, as I have already mentioned, but it may
be doubted whether some of his conquests were not over
rebels, and he was obliged to conclude a treaty with the
Hittites, instead of forcing them to do his bidding by
arms.
The twentieth dynasty had one great monarch,
Rameses III., but on the whole it was not prosperous,
and before it ended Egypt had not only lost all its foreign
possessions, but saw the supreme power transferred from
the kings to the high priests.
These high priests continued to reign at Thebes, while
the twenty-first legitimate dynasty held sway at Tanis,
or San, in the Delta, the Zoan of the Bible.
The first sovereign of the twenty-second dynasty was
the Shishak of the Old Testament, who took Jerusalem
in the days of Rehoboam, and his date, 970 B.C., is the
first in Egyptian history which is absolutely certain.
Others we know only approximately.
.
About this dynasty we have little other information,
but there seems no doubt that they were not natives but
foreigners.
The period of the twenty-third dynasty was one of
disaster and confusion. The short-lived twenty-fourth
was not more fortunate, and the twenty-fifth, an Ethio-
pian one, was hardly more glorious, at least for Egypt.
It fared better with the twenty-sixth, of Libyan
origin. Its kings built those porticoes at Sais which
Herodotus so much admired, but of which no trace
remains, and Necho, one of them, was the first to send
an expedition from the Red Sea round the Cape of Good
Hope.
EGYPT.
31
The twenty-sixth dynasty closed in calamity, for it
was now the turn of the Persians, who had been subju-
gated by Egypt in the days of the eighteenth dynasty,
to take their revenge, and this they did under the leader-
ship of Cambyses, as Herodotus has told us in great
detail; and for one hundred and twenty-one years, that
is during all the period of the twenty-seventh dynasty,
Egypt was a Persian province. Then it revolted, and
for sixty-seven years under the twenty-eighth, twenty-
ninth, and thirtieth dynasties it combated the Persians
with considerable success, till at length the fortune of
war declared for them again.
Nectanebo II., the last of the thirtieth dynasty and
of the Pharaohs, was driven away beyond the First
Cataract, and Egypt becoming part of the Empire of
Darius, soon passed into the hands of the conqueror of
Darius-Alexander the Great, with whose advent the
New Empire came to a close.
Egypt now became a Greek kingdom, falling as it
did to Ptolemy, one of Alexander's generals, when his
great empire went to pieces, and the dynasty of the
Ptolemies lasted for two hundred and seventy-five years,
till one of them left his kingdom, in B.C. 30, to the
Romans, and from that time till it was subdued by the
Arabs, A.D. 640, Egypt remained a province, owing
allegiance first to Rome and then to Constantinople.
.
It was about halfway through this period, A.D. 381,
that the edict of the Emperor Theodosius put an end to
the old Egyptian religion, of which both the Ptolemies
and the Romans, up to that date, had been more than
tolerant, and established Christianity.
But we must now return to the river. The chief
interest of our second day consisted in a sunrise and
sunset of almost equal beauty, and in the contemplation
32
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
of a long line of cliffs falling sheer into the water on the
eastern bank, which is known as the Gebel et Tayr, or
the Mountain of the Bird, and which reminded me at a
distance of Dover cliffs, as they did, when closer, of the
outside of Leucadia, near the rock known as Sappho's
Leap.
On the top of these cliffs is a Coptic monastery, the
monks of which, equally skilled in swimming and beg-
ging-plunge into the river, and come out to collect
alms from passing vessels, accoutred in a garb even more
simple than that coat of sky-blue paint which satisfied
our ancestors. The rapid progress of our steamer saved
us from being boarded by these degenerate children of
the great Athanasius.
Our third day was made memorable by a visit to the
caves of Beni Hassan, which are decorated with wall-
paintings of the twelfth dynasty; the second, that is, you
will remember, of those of the Middle Empire, and the
same which raised the obelisk still standing at Heliopolis.
These caves have yielded to Egyptologists a very rich
harvest, for they are full of representations of the daily
life of the people at that remote period-say, speaking
roughly, two thousand eight hundred years before Christ.
It seems to me, and I know that others share my im-
pression-M. Renan for example-that that life must
have been curiously like the life of China. I was again
and again reminded, when in Egypt, of the following
very striking passage, which I quote from a book on
China, called the "Ever-Victorious Army":
The (miscalled) Celestial is a narrow-minded, but exceedingly
practical sort of being. He wants an ordered world, but one ordered
only in a certain kind of way. Before his rapt celestial vision lie the
fruitful plains of the Great Flowery Land, lively and bright with the
normal life of China, guarded on the north by snowy deserts which
are happily far away from him, and on the south by stormy seas with
EGYPT.
33
great winds and waves which he does not tempt. His ideal is a happy
family life, with age benignant, youth reverential, three or four genera-
tions living contentedly under the same roof; the fish-pond in front
well stocked; grain abundant; tea fragrant; the village harmonised;
the school well taught; the young Confucius of the family preparing
for competitive examinations; the ancestral tablets going far back and
recording honoured names; the ancestral hall well gilded, and a fit
meeting-place for the wise elders; the spirits of deceased ancestors
comforted with offerings and loving remembrances, not left to wander
friendless in the air; the holidays cheerful, with bright silks and
abundance of savoury dishes; the emperor benevolent; the people
obedient; foreign devils far away or reverential; evil appearing only
in the form of impossible demons, and hideous wicked emperors,
painted on the walls of his house as a warning to foolish youth; no
change in old customs to perplex the mind; the sacred books reveren-
tially read and remembered; the present definitely arranged; the
fruitage of the past stored; behind, sages and emperors; around,
happy families; beyond, a darkness with which he little concerns
himself, but into which his spirit may occasionally float a short way
on some Buddhist or Tauist idea.
But to return to the Beni Hassan pictures. It is in
them one finds the first mention of those tribes from
the North-East, who at a considerably later period
swarmed over the Egyptian border, and subjugated
many fair provinces to their sway.
In these caves, too, the traveller sees to his surprise
the Doric column, which was afterwards to be the glory
of the most beautiful of buildings, the crowning marvel
of the age of Pericles-the Parthenon of Athens-make
its first appearance in the world.
Exquisite was the view from them over the narrow
ribbon of green which makes the whole land of Egypt,
divided into two very unequal parts by its noble river,
and with the yellow Libyan wall abruptly ending it, to
the west.
After we had contemplated it for some time, Sir
John Lubbock and I climbed the rocks above the caves,
and stood on the edge of the Eastern Desert, which
D
34
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
stretches from the Nile to the Red Sea, as the one
beyond the Libyan range does to the Atlantic. It was
a scene of absolute desolation. Not a blade of grass,
not a moss, not a lichen. The whole surface was made
up of numbers numberless of a species of fossil known
as the Nummulite, from its resemblance to a piece of
money-the same which Strabo, finding at the Pyramids,
took to be the petrifactions of beans, which had been
served out as rations to their builders.
Here then was a witness to an antiquity, which,
although not great, geologically speaking, was enormously
greater, not only than the hoar antiquity of Egypt, but
even than that pre-historic antiquity of which we had
climbed the hill to look for some stray indications in flint
flakes or the like.
The next few days had all their special interests, and
some of them their small misfortunes, especially when
we lay for twenty hours under a bank, because the
engine had got out of order. Swimming in the Nile, in
defiance of the crocodile, which is in this part of the
river-though it is south of the line which marks on
the map the northern limit of that agreeable reptile—an
excessively rare animal; a visit to an Egyptian village,
which was really a hardly more artificial construction
than the dam of the beaver; a little walk in the morn-
ing to look out for plants in the great fields of Sorghum,
a noble cereal which grows some ten feet high; and
another at night to see the minarets of Girgeh standing
up against the afterglow, helped to while away this
enforced delay.
Other days had other interests-a visit to the key of
the irrigation works of Egypt, where the people were
working in parties, led generally by a girl who chanted
a ditty, all the rest joining. The words were Arabic,
but in other respects the scene might have been laid in
EGYPT.
35
1
the days of the Pharaohs. Then came the first Dôm
palm, a branching species far less elegant than the date,
but welcome as a wholly new vegetable form. Great
flocks of pelicans, like a "parliament" of crows, the first
indigo crop, all day long the soft movements of the
shadoof, and right and left the Eastern and Western
range, the old limits of the bed of the Nile, which has
made in countless ages all this wonderful Egypt, were
some of the principal impressions which I carried away.
But we must hurry on, for we are now at Keneh,
close to one of the most famous spots on the Nile.
The Temple of Denderah should not have been, but
was, the first Egyptian temple which we saw-should
not have been, I say, because it is comparatively quite
modern-was being built, in fact, during the life of
Christ, and was not quite finished till the days of Nero.
It stands, therefore, in somewhat the same relation to
the old temples of the land, that one of Scott's churches
does to a church which was built before the Reformation.
Imagine a huge brick wall standing up under a reach
of the Libyan range, which is here much broken,
and with little of its usual rim-like character. Sur-
rounded by this brick wall, which entirely hid all within
it from the view of the outer world, was the Sacred
enclosure, and within the Sacred enclosure the Temple
itself.
That temple was no edifice for public worship, like
our cathedrals. Huge though it was, it was simply the
oratory dedicated by a king-in this case by one of the
Ptolemies to a particular divinity, to Athor, considered
as the Goddess of Beauty, Goodness, and Truth.
It was divided into four parts, the first a mighty
portico, with columns three deep and about sixty feet
high; the second, the temple proper, where the priests
carried on all the arrangements preliminary to their
D 2
36
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
worship; the third, the Holy of Holies, with its adjuncts;
and the fourth, a chapel upstairs, opening on a terrace,
where certain deities were specially adored.
Almost every square inch of its vast wall space was
carved with figures, and written over with inscriptions
in the sacred, or hieroglyphic characters, setting forth to
the eye of the priests, and recording for all time, the
theology of those who raised it.
No foot except that of the king and the priests ever
trod its floors. It is doubtful, even, whether a few
initiated persons were allowed to watch from the Sacred
enclosure the long processions, of which the worship
largely consisted, as they wound about upon the terrace
to which I have alluded.
Such was the Temple of Denderah in the days of its
glory. Now, however, the great brick wall of the Sacred
enclosure has utterly disappeared, and the feet of the
profane may tread and search out every corner of the
vast edifice. Nor is this all, for over every accessible
part of it the carvings and the inscriptions have been
systematically destroyed, by superstitious savages who
defiled the names of Christianity or Islam.
Nevertheless, the patient research of Egyptologists.
has made all clear. We entered, and, thanks to
M. Mariette, whose Itinéraire we had with us, knew
that the gigantic columns which rose on our right were
covered with representations of the king, being acknow-
ledged as King of Lower, while those on the left repre-
sented him as being acknowledged as King of Upper
Egypt, introduced, too, in this character to the Goddess
of Beauty, Goodness, and Truth.
We entered the temple proper, and, thanks to the
same guidance, knew at once where the sacred vestments
were kept, and where the four sacred boats reposed,
where the perfumes and oils were compounded, and
EGYPT.
37
where the treasures were piled up. Nay, after going the
round of the side chapels, and knowing so well for what
each was intended, that we could, if so minded, have
said the appropriate prayer in each, we reached the very
Holy of Holies, and saw the niche in which the sacred
secret of the whole building reposed. Now, what was
that sacred secret? It was a golden sistrum or timbrel,
and its meaning, according to M. Mariette, was that all
things were and should ever be in motion and agitation,
should never rest, but continually energise. What is
this but a reading, two thousand years old, of the maxims
of one of our latest teachers:
The service of philosophy and of culture to the human spirit, is to
startle it into a sharp and eager observation. Every moment some
form grows perfect in hand or face; some tone on the hills or sea is
choicer than the rest; some mood of passion, or insight, or intellectual
excitement is irresistibly real and attractive for us-for that moment
only. Not the fruit of experience, but experience itself is the end.
A counted number of pulses only is given to us of a variegated,
dramatic life. How may we see in them all that is to be seen in
them by the finest senses? How can we pass most swiftly from point
to point, and be present always at the focus where the greatest number
of vital forces unite in their purest energy ?
To burn always with this hard, gem-like flame, to maintain this
ecstasy, is success in life. Failure is to form habits; for habit is rela-
tive to a stereotyped world; meantime it is only the roughness of the
eye that makes any two persons, things, situations, seem alike. While
all melts under our feet, we may well catch at any exquisite passion, or
any contribution to our knowledge that seems, by a lifted horizon, to set
the spirit free for a moment, or any stirring of the senses, strange
dyes, strange flowers, and curious odours, or work of the artist's hands,
or the face of one's friend. Not to discriminate every moment some
passionate attitude in those about us, and in the brilliance of their
gifts some tragic dividing of forces on their ways is, on this short day
of frost and sun, to sleep before evening.*
But we must return to the Temple. We penetrated
then, as I have said, into all its recesses, and did not
* Studies in the History of the Renaissance, by W. H. Pater.
38
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
neglect to climb the staircase, and picture to ourselves
the procession of priests moving along the terrace, and
stopping to pray at the Shrine of Osiris, the representa-
tive of incarnate goodness, and of Isis, the representative,
perhaps, in the late and much-altered form of Egyptian
belief, of the everlasting search of the creature after
incarnate goodness.
Nor did we fail to have some kindly thoughts about
those old Egyptians, as we rode slowly back to the river,
with the fresh breeze, from the still submerged fields,
blowing on our faces.
Denderah seen, we steamed on, and before the sun
had gone down we were running up to the quay of
Luxor, the eastern side of Thebes, for that city sat
crowned on either side of the Nile, like London, and
Petersburg, and so many of our modern capitals.
I soon landed, and glanced at the much-ruined
temple, built by Rameses II., but not otherwise very
notable; and, later in the evening, after the moon was
up, we made an expedition to Karnak.
Imagine forty acres of ruin, huge columns from forty
to seventy feet high, standing one hundred and thirty
or so together, enormous masses of walls like the wall of
Edinburgh Castle, avenues of half-destroyed sphinxes,
tall obelisks standing, tall obelisks thrown down, great
piles of masonry so undermined that you would tremble
to pass them, if you did not know that they have stood
as they are from time immemorial-a revel and prodi-
gality of ruin such as you see nowhere else on the earth's
surface, not even in Rome, and you will have some faint
idea of Karnak, the fallen glory of the Theban kings of
the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties.
Moonlight is not a friend to minute examination,
and I put off a further survey of Karnak to daylight,
but when daylight came, it so happened that I was far
EGYPT.
39
too unwell to return thither, and for some days was
unable to do anything except just to drag myself, as we
steamed up the river, to the only partially uncovered
temple of Esneh, whose pretty capitals show the in-
fluence of Greek art, and redeem much poor work.
.
At length we left the limestone behind, exchanging
it for low hills of sandstone, which sandstone itself
presently was left for granite. A bold island stood up
in the midst of the river, and there were high rocks in its
bed; while on the left a quay, planted with tall date
palms, looked across to them over the water, and, lo!
we were at Assouan, "the opening," the ancient Syene,
the farthest extremity of Egypt.
Our first excursion was to Elephantine, the large
island which lies opposite to Assouan, an interesting
place, partly for its Nilometer, and partly because one
here, for the first time, comes on a very large Nubian
element in the population.
Another was to Assouan itself, which is curious to a...
northern eye, crowded as it is with people from the
Upper Nile, brought hither by the trade in ivory,
ostrich feathers, and other Central African produce. Of
all these, the Bisharis are the strangest in their appear-
ance, and might, as far as appearance goes, pass for pure
savages.
I carry away from this frontier city of Egypt and
Ethiopia three other well-defined recollections :
First. The melancholy music of the Sakias, or
water-wheels, worked by oxen, which, from a point
some way below this, and all through Nubia, almost
supersede the Shadoof.
Secondly. The thick grove of lebbek trees, close to
which our vessel lay, and under which congregated the
chief business men of the place, in robes of many hues.
Thirdly. The high shrill voices of the Muezzins
40
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
answering each other, at eventide, from Assouan to
Elephantine, from Elephantine to Assouan.
Another excursion was to Philoe, the Iona of the
later Egyptian religion-of the later, I say, for its im-
portance only dates from the last indigenous Pharaoh,
Nectanebo II., who lost, as I told you, his throne to
the Darius who lost his, in turn, to Alexander. The
Ptolemies expended large sums in adorning this sanc-
tuary, and it is still covered with their ruined construc-
tions. Philo is a beautiful spot, whether one catches
sight of it amidst the currents which break the surface
of the river to the north, or sees it from the reach to the
southward, or gazes across it to the narrow strips of
green only a few yards wide, which form here, and
indeed in many parts of the country, the whole of
cultivable Nubia, or yet again looks along its colon-
nades at the island, weird and waste, as one fancies
the moon, covered all over with masses of granite one
would call boulders in the North, and which, repre-
senting as it does the ne plus ultra of desolation, was
very properly named by the Greeks Abaton, or the
untrodden.
Philoe is beautiful now, but I foresee that it will one
day be much more beautiful. I feel confident that it is
destined to be the Isola Bella of Egypt, for a very
moderate expenditure in hydraulic machinery, and in
superintendence, would turn it into the most delicious
of botanical gardens, on which you might have a speci-
men of every interesting plant that grows from the
Mediterranean seaboard to the source of the Nile.
This idea of turning Philo into a Botanical Garden,
leads me to say one word about the botany of Egypt.
The flora of that country consists of about one
thousand phanerogamous plants and ferns, including
the chief non-indigenous plants of ancient cultivation.
:
EGYPT.
41
Our own British flora consists, according to one of the
most authoritative computations, of one thousand four
hundred and twenty-five phanerogamous plants and
ferns.
The thousand Egyptian plants are divided into three
groups. Of these something more than a third belong
to the Mediterranean region, a third to the Nile valley,
and something less than a third to the Desert.
The best months for botanising are January and
February—especially the latter, but there was some-
thing to be done, though very little, even in November,
and by carefully utilising every walk and every excur-
sion to look out for plants, I contrived to find a good
many, amongst the most interesting of which were:
Acacia Nilotica, the Sont, or Gum-arabic tree;
Lawsonia inermis, which gives the henna, much used by
the Egyptian women to dye their nails; Cassia senna,
the Alexandrian senna of commerce; Cucumis colocyn-
thus, the colocynth of medicine; Zizyphus spina Christi,
which tradition connects with the Crown of Thorns;
Indigofera argentea, which produces the well-known
dye; Sesamum Orientale, which recalls the history of
the Forty Thieves; Asclepias procera, said to be used
higher up the Nile for poisoning arrows; Parkinsonia
digitata, believed to have been brought from India by
the troops of Alexander the Great; Ricinus communis,
the castor-oil plant; Hibiscus esculentus, an excellent
vegetable, with a beautiful yellow flower, much grown in
the fields; Panicetum typhoides, a tropical cereal, which
I found for the first and last time, just on the Nubian
frontier; Cordia myxa, which, under the name of Persea,
figures in a novel, deciphered by M. Brugsch from a
papyrus, almost, or altogether, the oldest composition of
its kind known in the world.
It is a curious fact that some of the plants most
42
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
closely connected with Egypt in the popular mind, have
almost or altogether disappeared. The Papyrus has, it
is believed, utterly vanished, the last known specimen,
which is in the possession of an excellent German
botanist at Cairo, Dr. Pfund, having been gathered by
Sieber in 1813. The sacred Lotus, the large white
scentless water-lily-which is often carried in the hands
of the gods, has become extremely rare-I could hear of
only one station for it. The Nymphæa lotus, white,
with the least shade of rose, and considered by Dr.
Pfund to be exactly the same as the Nymphaea thermalis,
which grows in the warm springs of Mehadia, in South-
Eastern Hungary, and which, in the time of Herodotus,
was much used for food, is not quite so rare, but still
very far from common. The water-lily, which one sees
everywhere in the Delta, is the Nymphæa cærulea.
.
A fourth excursion was to the wild and remote island
of Sehayl, to look from its summit over the tortuous
rapids which are known as the First Cataract, and to
think of old Herodotus, who, with his devouring love of
truth, so strangely mingled with weakness and credulity,
came hither to see whether the Nile really did issue from
an abyss near Syene between the hills of Krophi and
Mophi, as he was told in Sais.
Our rowers, fine, powerful, merry fellows-Nubians
to a man-made their labour lighter by a hideous chant :
"The camel that carried the Prophet-the camel the
Prophet rode on-the camel that carried the Prophet,"
and so on over and over, again and again, but hushed
their Babel to allow one of our party, as we floated down
in the afterglow, to add the waters of the First Cataract
to the long list of lakes and streams and seas in three
quarters of the globe, which she had connected in the
memory of her companions with the Lorelei of Heinrich
Heine.
EGYPT.
43
At length we left behind pretty Assouan, and steam-
ing rapidly down stream, stopped for an hour to look at
the ruins of Kom Ombos, a Ptolemaic Temple on the
Eastern bank, which recalled to my mind one of the
Satires of Juvenal, and is, as has been remarked, one of
the very few ruins on the Nile which gains anything
from its situation.
Kom means a mound, and on a mound the temple
is placed, a thing about as rare in the flat alluvial
valley of the Nile, as a hoopoe—which, by-the-way,
is one of the commonest Egyptian birds is in
England.
A
G
From Ombos we proceeded to the northward, ex-
amining, as we passed, some of the grottoes in the
narrow gorge of the Nile, near the vast quarries of sand-
stone at Silsileh, out of which the Egyptians got their
best building material. It is curious to see how com-
pletely the sandstone in these buildings has outlasted
both the limestone and the granite. The former has
been used up for lime, and the granite, which was
brought from Assouan, and was employed so largely, far
off in Lower Egypt, under the impression that it was
indestructible, has decomposed under the influence of
moisture and of the salts in the soil.
We did not linger long at Silsileh, but ran on to a
point near Edfou, on the western bank, where we made
our vessel snug for the night, taking, before it was dark,
a rather instructive walk in the fields, where we came
upon several peasant families preparing their evening
meal. These people, who, be it observed, are not
labourers, but small landowners, have no houses; they
have but tiny shelters a few yards round-in one part of
which you find a little pen with five or six sheep-in
another an oven, in another a few cooking utensils, while
they sleep on the open ground, or protected at the
44
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
utmost by a few stalks of the Sorghum, the large cane-
like grain of which I lately spoke.
Their food consists of lentils, and certain other vege-
tables, along with brown bread of the most admir-
able quality, and their drink is the water of the Nile;
to which, by the necessity of the case, they are always
near, for remember that in Egypt, wherever the Nile, or
the canals supplied by it, are not, life instantly ceases
and you are in the presence of the Desert, and of Death.
Next morning we visited the noble temple of Edfou,
another work of the Ptolemies, whom one learns to
respect when one sees how much these Greeks did, in
the land of their adoption.
Edfou is a grander and better preserved Denderah,
which has only lately been cleared out by M. Mariette,
and displayed in all its noble proportions.
Here the great Deity was Horus, the son of Isis and
Osiris, who was venerated under the semblance of a hawk,
the Holy of Holies being an enormous monolith of granite,
of many tons weight, which would appear to have been
his dwelling-place, surely the strangest birdcage which
it ever entered into the mind of man to invent.
I daresay you have often read notices of the old
Egyptian religion—some of them written by people who
thought they knew all about it. Distrust them. It
appears to me that up to this time the wisest Egyptolo-
gists have got to know very little about the old Egyptian
religion even at any one period, and it is clear that that
religion altered a great deal even in historic times.
My impression is that the basis of the religion was
Pantheism, but if you go on to ask me what was the
relation of the different Gods to the sum of things or
Supreme God, or what were the ideas which were enter-
tained either by the educated or uneducated at any
one period about a future state-though in some kind
EGYPT.
45
of future state they clearly believed I shall be obliged
to confess to the most complete bewilderment.
Evidently Egypt exercised the greatest possible
influence on minds of a religious cast, in the old world.
One sees this, for example, in any page in which
Herodotus alludes to it-a fact of which a modern poet*
has made good use. Few truer things have been said
about one side of the character of the great Halicarnassian
than are contained in the following lines:
•
He was a mild old man, and cherished much
The weight dark Egypt on his spirit laid 1;
And with a sinuous éloquence would touch
For ever at that haven of the dead.
Single romantic words by him were thrown,
As types, on men and places, with a power
Like that of shifting sunlight after shower
Kindling the cones of hills, and journeying on.
He feared the gods and heroes, and spake low,
That echo might not hear in her light room.
:.
We said good-bye with some regret to Edfou-a vast
dictionary of knowledge, for it is covered with hiero-
glyphics as yet only partially read, and passing, once
more, some hours at Esneh, ran on to Thebes.
*F. W. Faber.
Arrived at the wretched little village which styles
itself Luxor or the Palaces, I lost no time in returning to
Karnak to complete my survey of the ruins. I saw
Shishak the conqueror of Jerusalem portrayed upon the
walls, and the victories of Sethi I. I saw the Hall of
Ancestors, from which came a tablet now in Paris, which
is one of the most valuable documents in Egyptian
history. I saw the obelisk of the great Queen, or rather
Regent, Hatasou, who is among the most striking figures
in the story of the valley of the Nile, and a building
attributed to Thothmes III., whom I incline to think
46
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
the greatest of its rulers. I re-saw all the mighty
columns and mightier portals which I had seen before,
but, when all was done, I cannot say that I carried away
a very agreeable impression of Karnak. Even in its
glory there must have been something vulgar about it,
too many walls, too many pillars, too much of everything.
The mere love of bigness surely killed out the sense of
beauty in those who devised the parts of it which were
last built. And now the desolation is too complete. It
is ruin gone mad. In our own climate, or in Italy, all
this austerity of desolation would have been softened
down by ivy or other plants, which would have turned
it into a Paradise of green leaves and flowers, but in this
almost rainless region vegetation has not the slightest
chance, and Karnak is as bare as a stonecutter's yard;
whereas till the antiquaries swooped down upon it a year
or two ago, the Colosseum was the home of some four
hundred and fifty plants, enough to have a separate
Flora written for them by a countryman of our own.
The next two days were given entirely to the western
side of Thebes-the Libyan suburb, as it used to be
called.
It is covered with objects of the greatest interest,
most of which we visited, but I will only refer to the
most important.
These are the Colossi, the statue of Rameses II., and
the tombs of the Kings.
The Colossi are two great statues, as high as a tall
house, which sit alone in the midst of the great amphi-
theatre of yellow hills which walls in Thebes, and which,
when we saw them, were still surrounded by the waters
of the inundation. They represent Amenophis III., a
king of the eighteenth dynasty, whose territories
extended from Mesopotamia to Abyssinia, and are
* Dr. Deakin.
EGYPT.
47
certainly amongst the stateliest of the works of man.
The northernmost of the two became famous many
hundred years after it was raised, as the vocal Memnon
-the Greeks having taken it into their heads that it
represented that mythical personage, who was, if you
recollect, the son of Aurora. Nothing was more natural
than that they should further imagine that the statue of
the Sun emitted a musical sound when his mother the
Dawn appeared. They did so, and for centuries people
came from all the ends of the earth to listen to
Memnon.
It was strange as we stood hearing the bell-like
sound which part of the statue gives out when struck,
to remember that Strabo and Hadrian had done pretty
much the same.
The broken statue of Rameses II., Rameses the Great,
lies in the building which he reared to commemorate his
name, and to be for him a sort of mortuary chapel.
Dean Stanley says:
By some extraordinary catastrophe, the statue has been thrown
down, and the Arabs have scooped their millstones out of his face,
but you can still see what he was-the largest statue in the world.
Far and wide that enormous head must have been seen-eyes, mouth,
and ears.
Far and wide you must have seen his vast hands resting
on his elephantine knees. You sit on his breast and look at the
Osiride statues which support the portico of the temple, and which
anywhere else would put to shame even the Statues of the Cherubs
in St. Peter's-and they seem pigmies before him. His arm is thicker
than their whole bodies. The only part of the temple or palace at
all in proportion to him must have been the gateway, which rose in
pyramidal towers, now broken down, and rolling in a wild ruin down
to the plain.
any notion of
Nero towering
Nothing which now exists in the world can give
what the effect must have been when he was erect.
above the Colosseum may have been something like it; but he was of
bronze, and Rameses was of solid granite. Nero was standing with-
out any object; Rameses was resting in awful majesty after the con-
48
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
quest of the whole of the then known world. No one who entered
the building, whether it were temple or palace, could have thought of
anything else but that stupendous being, who thus had raised himself
up above the whole world of gods and men.
I cannot say that I was as much impressed as I
expected to be with this statue. When it was standing
erect, or even when it was merely overthrown, I have no
doubt it was very striking, but too little of the human
form is left to produce much effect; and besides, I confess
to thinking that Rameses the Great was a bit of an im-
postor, who, by assiduously putting his own name on
every building up and down the land, and by having his
victories, which were no doubt very great, continually
celebrated, both by pen and pencil, during his long reign
of sixty-six years, has rather usurped some of the fame
which belonged to others, to Thothmes III. for example.
In the time of Rameses the Great Egypt was certainly
on the decline. In that of Thothmes it reached its
highest point.
I wish I had time to read to you the translation of a
prayer, supposed to have been uttered by Rameses the
Great while surrounded by foes in Syria, taken from a
contemporary poem, called the Pentaour, in honour of
his exploits—but time presses, and I must hurry on.
The place where this great statue lies used to be
called the Hall of Osymandias, and it was some confused
report of it which, reaching Shelley, led him to write the
noble lines which are amongst the few great gifts which
modern poetry has made to Egypt.
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
EGYPT.
49
;
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Osymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
The tombs of the kings are approached through a
long ravine, wild as the wildest which you find in the
upper parts of the valleys of the Alps. Now and then,
once in a decade or so, tremendous rains fall on these
parched hills of the Thebaid, and a furious torrent sweeps
down this gorge; but in the interval, year after year, it
is absolutely dry, and absolutely silent--its bare stones
and ochre-coloured rocks glaring under a sun which is
fierce even on the 20th of November, and which in
summer must make it like the mouth of a furnace.
Up and up, higher and higher, round one turn after
another, you wind, till you think that the end of your
journey is receding as you advance. At length, after
three weary but most memorable miles, you reach the
last home of Egyptian royalty.
As soon as a Pharaoh came to the throne, he set to
work to hollow out and decorate his tomb. It was
always one of the greatest occupations of his life. I
should not, I think, exaggerate if I were to say that on
the tomb of the second king of the nineteenth dynasty,
Sethi I.—who made, by-the-way, the oldest canal from
the Red Sea to the Mediterranean-as much human
labour has been expended as would have built a Gothic
cathedral.
I should despair of conveying to your minds any idea
of the extraordinary elaboration of the details, and in
many places you see, fresh as if they had been made
B
50
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
AND
yesterday, the corrections in the drawings of his subor-
dinates suggested by the artist in charge. The whole
forms an immense repertory of knowledge about the
customs and the religio-philosophical ideas of the
Egyptians, under the nineteenth dynasty. These, it
would appear, were very different, and, as to the ideas,
far less simple and joyous than those which I have
described to you in connection with Beni Hassan. Nay,
these wondrous walls are so full of representations of the
tremendous trials through which the human soul was
supposed to have to go after death, and of the terrors of
the unseen land, that one of the monstrous diversions of
the reign of Nero was furnished by a party of Egyptians
and Nubians, who came to Rome to represent to the
eyes of the populace some of the scenes portrayed in this
very tomb.
But are these tombs beautiful, you ask me-beautiful
like a Greek Temple-beautiful like a church of the
Middle Ages? Certainly not, I reply; infinitely curious
—so curious as to send the mind wandering in mazes as
labyrinthine as are their chambers, which run far-no one
knows how far-into the mountains, but beautiful by no
means.
The first place at which we stopped, for any con-
siderable time after leaving Thebes, was Belianeh, where
we landed, and rode some eight miles over a plain green
with young wheat, beans, and clover, to the rocky frame-
work of the land—the so-called Hager, the same word,
by-the-way, which you know so well in the Biblical
phrase, "Now this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia."
The rise of the Nile this year has been some feet below
the normal one, and a good deal of land in Upper Egypt
will remain for twelve months uncultivated; but the
country which we traversed to-day lay rather low, and
had been thoroughly watered.
C
EGYPT.
51
Arrived at the Hager, we found, right under the
beetling Libyan range, the object of our search-the
beautiful Temple of Abydos as the Greeks called it, or of
Abouthis, that is, the City of This, as it was called by
their predecessors. This was the seat of Menes, the
oldest historical king of Egypt, as you recollect, and the
temple, although built ages and ages after his time, in
the days of the nineteenth dynasty, is nevertheless vastly
older than those I have described to you at Denderah and
Edfou.
It was built by Sethi I., the same whose tomb we
visited at Thebes, and the artistic skill displayed in its
adornment is of a higher order than is usual in Egyptian
works. Many, indeed, of the figures on the walls have
a great deal of beauty, whereas most Egyptian figures are
decidedly more strange than beautiful.
We looked here with great interest at the famous tablet
of Abydos, which was put up by Sethi I., and which con-
tains the names of seventy-five of his predecessors, be-
ginning with Menes, and ends with his own. I looked
with interest on this tablet, because it has been found of
much use in determining certain disputed matters of
great importance in Egyptian history, as also has a some-
what similar tablet, taken from a much more ruined
temple hard by, and now preserved in the British
Museum.
-
Great hopes are built upon excavations, which are to
be made by M. Mariette in this neighbourhood; for here
was the tomb of Osiris, and hither it was customary for
Egyptians, when they could, to be carried after their
death, just as the Persians are now constantly carried
to the city of Kerbela, that their bodies may rest in
its hallowed soil. It was sad to wander about the
necropolis, and see fragments of mummies lying around in
all directions-here a head, there two legs, there a trunk.
ਸ਼ 2
52
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
Decidedly, the old Egyptian method of disposing of their
dead was one of the least desirable that ever was hit upon.
The Greek, with its "two handfuls of white dust," was
far better.
We did not land again till we reached Syout, the
chief town of Upper Egypt, to which we paid a short
visit. It is a thriving place, surrounded by date and
gum-arabic trees, with some twenty-five thousand
inhabitants, and carries on a considerable trade in fine
earthenware.
After seeing the bazaar, which is better supplied than
any of the others which we visited south of Cairo, Sir John
Lubbock and I climbed the Libyan range, which rises
directly behind the town, to see some of the tombs with
which it is honeycombed, and to look-unsuccessfully as
it turned out for flint implements. The view from these
heights is believed to be perhaps the finest in Egypt,
except that from the citadel of Cairo, and can be at no
season more charming than when we saw it on the
24th of November, when nearly the whole valley is a
sheet of the most tender green, divided by the Nile,
which, very sinuous in this part of its course, meanders
through it like an azure ribbon. Azure, I say, for azure
even its dark-brown waters look, at a distance, under
such a sky.
In old times the wolf was specially venerated at
Syout, which indeed took its Greek name of Lycopolis
from that animal, and a great many wolf mummies have
been found in its hills; but it is chiefly famous in
history from its tombs having been a favourite resi-
dence of Christian hermits, one of whom, John of
Lycopolis, obtained such a reputation for sanctity, that
the Emperor Theodosius sent a special envoy to consult
him, as if his words had been oracles.
As we proceeded down the river the weather got
EGYPT
·
53
decidedly colder, and the north wind, blowing with great
violence, raised the Nile into something very like waves.
By the help, however, of its very strong current, and a
full head of steam, we went down at a great rate-about
fifteen miles an hour.
Pleasant it was to rush along, letting sights now
become familiar flit past the eye-the shadoofs and the
pigeon-towers,. the gum-arabic trees with their round
yellow blossoms, the great green sorghum fields, the
brown villages crumbling into the stream, or safe, a little
inland. Pleasant was it to behold, night and morning,
the long protecting arms of the twin ranges which keep
all external enemies far, far from Egypt, and the caves
in them which served first as tombs, then as hermitages
for the wild monks of the desert-enthusiasts like
Philammon in "Hypatia."
Pleasant was it to watch the white and black king-
fishers as they almost came on board.
Pleasant was it to see the great patient buffaloes and
the quick-paced donkeys, coming home from their day's
work. One gets to respect the donkey in Egypt, I can
tell you, almost as much as his fellow-labourer, the
grave and stately, but not too amiable, camel.
Pleasant were the white Sheikhs' tombs beneath the
rocks, and the bird-like boats which ran past us under
full sail-pleasant all the sights and sounds character-
istic of a well-defined portion of life which was rapidly
passing away.
Our last halt before reaching Cairo was at Bedrechyn,
where we went ashore and rode across the place where
once stood Memphis to Sakkarah, the cemetery of that
great city.
Of Memphis nothing remains but mounds of bricks.
It was too near the new capital, Cairo, and has been
used up as building material. Even, however, as late as
54
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
the twelfth century, when Abd-el-Ateef travelled, its
ruins were stupendous.
The chief objects of interest at Sakkarah are-First,
a pyramid which may possibly be of the time of the
first dynasty, and is, if so, far the oldest known relic of
the past of Egypt.
Secondly, the great underground galleries where the
successive Bulls, which were worshipped as the god Apis,
were buried; and thirdly, the Tomb of Tih.
The pyramid has not much to detain the traveller
beyond its supposed antiquity, but the tombs of the
Bulls are amongst the most curious things to be seen
anywhere. They are gigantic sarcophagi of the most
splendid granite, and weighing each of them many tons
-so large, indeed, that half-a-dozen people could easily
sit or stand round a table in the inside of each of them
and disposed along a gallery cut in the rock, perhaps
three hundred yards in length. Indeed this is only part of
the cemetery of the Bulls, for the roofs of two others are
not in a safe state, and people are not allowed to enter.
The worship of Apis is connected with the story of the
death of Cambyses, one of the most strange and tragic
which Herodotus relates, but too long for me to do more
than allude to it here.
The Tomb of Tih is the tomb of a priest who lived
in the days of the fifth dynasty, and is important from
the immense numbers of figures in relief and paintings
with which its walls are covered, and which illustrate
the life of Egypt at that remote period. The same
remarks which I have already made with reference to
the kind of general resemblance between that life and
the life of China, when speaking of the tombs of Beni
Hassan, and their mural paintings, apply to the life
depicted here. It would seem, as I have already said,
EGYPT.
55
to have been a simple, well-to-do, and happy sort of
life.
This excursion was perhaps the only one in which
we felt that we suffered by being the earliest travellers
of the season, for the inundation had only just subsided
so that we rode through fields of brown mud, instead of
seeing the palms (as Dean Stanley and other visitors to
Sakkarah who came later in the year did) springing out
of a carpet of the most exquisite green.
From Sakkarah we rode back to Bedrechyn, whence
a very short run brought us to the port of Cairo, and
our journey in Upper Egypt was a thing of the
past.
It was not without many regrets that we stepped on
shore, for one cannot live on the great river of Egypt
for the better part of a month, without getting to feel
fond of it, as if it were a living creature--a feeling
which the artist who sculptured the Nile in the Vatican
must have experienced, for he has succeeded in inspiring-
the same feeling into all who are worthy to look on that
noble statue.
Once more in Cairo, we had much to do in seeing
and cross-examining many persons, who kindly sub-
mitted to that ordeal, with a view, especially, of piecing
together the information we had obtained, and the ideas
at which we had arrived, about the present state of
things in Egypt; and from Cairo we made an excursion
to Suez-so interesting to me as the western gate of
India and to the great canal which is working such a
change in the intercourse between Europe and the
East.
To enter, however, upon these subjects would in-
ordinately prolong a lecture which has already extended
to a frightful length, and would require, so to speak, an
56
MİSCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
alteration of the mental focus, which would be the reverse
of agreeable.
Here then I will stop, thanking you for the kind
reception which you have given me-one more added to
the many kindnesses which I have received from you in
the last sixteen years.
MUST WE THEN
THEN
BELIEVE
CASSANDRA ?*
AN eminent man, long known as one of the best poli-
tical writers in England, and to whom many would
still be inclined to give that title-though personally I
should, characterising him in this year 1874, rather
emphasise the words best and writer, than the word
political-has lately placed before us his views, as to the
future of this country, in three remarkable papers, which
have, with a certain number of pièces justificatives, been
collected into a volume under the title of "Rocks Ahead;
or, The Warnings of Cassandra." There is much in the
book which is worthy of consideration, and I should be
very sorry to take up a controversial attitude towards its
author. At the same time I think the prospect that not
he, but the prophetess who speaks through him, holds
before his countrymen, is far too uniformly gray, and I
wish, feeling certain that many of you have either read
the papers as they originally appeared, or have seen large
extracts from them in the newspapers, to put in those
brighter lights which seem to me wanted, in order to
make their picture agree with my own anticipations.
Would, for your sake, I could imitate that charming
style, in which art is so thoroughly concealed by art.
*
* This address was delivered at the opening of the annual course of
lectures in the Philosophical Institution of Edinburgh, on the 30th
October, 1874, and was printed in the "Fortnightly Review." Mr. Greg
replied to it with his usual ability and scrupulous fairness, in the second
edition of "Rocks Ahead."
58
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
The three national dangers to which Cassandra
attaches most importance are :
1. The political supremacy of the lower classes;
2. The approaching industrial decline of England;
3. The divorce of the intelligence of the country
from its religion.
Of all these I shall have something to say in their
order, but I do not propose to dwell at any length upon
the first of them, because, in order to discuss it, we
should have to come close up to the edge of party politics,
which would certainly not be desirable on an occasion
like this, and because it is the part of the work in which
there is, as it seems to me, least to interest. What
Cassandra has to say, is little more than a restatement
of the views that have been maintained by able men, of
a Conservative turn of mind, all through history. I
must allow her to describe her own first Rock Ahead
in her own words. She says:
The Reform Bill of 1867 takes the command of the representa-
tion out of the hands of the propertied classes, and puts it into the
hands of the wage-receiving classes. It gives it over from the upper
and middle ranks of the community to the lower ranks. It transfers
electoral preponderance, that is, in fact, electoral supremacy, from
property to proletairism, from capital to labour. And it does this
not one whit the less undeniably and irretrievably, in that it does
it (thus far) only potentially and prospectively.
Now, there have always been people who thought
"that political power lies naturally with intellect and
property;" and so, no doubt, they ought to do, pro-
vided the intellect were faultless, and the property com-
plete; unhappily, however, the problem to be solved is
not so easy. You have to adjust the competing claims
of a great mass of property and intellect, in comparatively
few hands and heads, with those of a great mass of
MUST WE THEN BELIEVE CASSANDRA ?
59
property and intellect, in many million hands and
heads.
Politics is an art. It is not a science dealing with
the form of government which might be best in the
abstract. It deals with the best possible; often, that
is, with something by no means very good at all. When
the philosopher has done speculating, the statesman must
begin acting-taking account, no doubt, if he be a real
statesman, of everything the philsopher has said, but
making more allowance than any philosopher, who is not
actually working at the art of politics, can do, for the
materials with which he has to build. It would all be so
very easy and so very delightful if you could settle it by
the formula: "Political power lies naturally with intel-
lect and property;" but when did it do so in England?
and how can statesmen do better than from time to
time roughly to adjust political power, according to
the circumstances of the community in which they
live?
D
Nobody, that I know of, ever maintained that the
settlement of 1867-68 was in any way a perfect or ideal
settlement. I, for one, made a speech for the express
purpose of pointing out that we all had been led into
doing something different from what we meant to do.
Speaking on the 13th of May, in what Cassandra would
call the year of our English revolution, after pointing out
that an extended franchise was a political necessity, and
would do good in various important ways, and that
nevertheless, when the great cataclysm which had been
predicted was over, things would look very much as they
did then, I went on to say:
How many people are there in the House of Commons who
really ex animo desire to go beyond the six-pound rental borough
franchise of the hon. member for Leeds and of Lord Palmerston's Bill?
I am sure at this moment the majority of the House is conjugating to
60
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
7
itself, "I do not want, thou dost not want, he does not want, we do not
want, you do not want, they do not want," to do so.
And yet who does not see that the old six-pound limit is "gone,
frozen, dead for ever"?
The fact is, that when enormous political forces are
in motion, you cannot be very precise in determining
how, or how far, they will go. Enough if you are
satisfied that the general direction is right, and that the
channel, so to speak, along which they will move, is
wide enough to prevent any great overflow of force.
If Cassandra, and those who listened to her, had not
prevented the proposed settlement of 1866, it would
have been, as I venture to think, much better; not at all
because that settlement would have been, as it would no
doubt have been, rather less democratic, but because
that settlement would have excluded a considerable
number of persons who have no political beliefs at all,
and are consequently altogether influenced by the passing
feeling of the hour, which may have nothing to do with
politics properly so called. The presence of this class in
the electorate will no doubt cause the majorities in
favour of this or that party to fluctuate more than they
have done, especially in the English boroughs, as may be
seen by comparing the returns of 1868 and 1874; but
as for the fears that Cassandra expresses of a struggle
between the have-nots and the haves, they appear to me
to be quite visionary. She seems to forget that the
division into the upper, middle, and lower classes is
purely arbitrary, is merely a loose, though convenient,
way of lumping together an immense variety of social
strata, which are again laterally divided in innumerable
ways. No doubt if the electors below the old ten-pound
limit, whom she so much dreads, were unanimously to
combine to plunder their more fortunate countrymen
under forms of law, it would be very alarming; but
MUST WE THEN BELIEVE CASSANDRA?
61
there is not the ghost of a reason to suppose that they
will ever do anything of the kind. Curran's fleas, if
unanimous, might, we know, have pulled him out of
bed-but they didn't.
No doubt Cassandra is perfectly right in saying that
it would have been better if the new electors, admitted
by the settlement of 1867, had been more educated. Of
course it would. Nobody knew that better than these
very electors, and it was by their help that those of us
who had been working away at the subject for several
Parliaments got in the last Parliament various measures
passed, which, with all their imperfections, for the first
time created something like a national system of educa-
tion, from the Land's End to John o'Groats.
This is a strange oversight, and hardly less strange is
Cassandra's oversight about the Poor Laws.
Do not--she asks-the Poor Laws virtually give to the poor a
first mortgage on all the property of the rich? And how will it fare
with us when the masses, preponderating at the poll, selecting the
House of Commons, swaying the lawyers, dictating the laws, nomi-
nating our rulers, shall be in a position to determine how the Poor
Laws shall be administered?
One would really fancy, from this, that the Poor
Laws had been a modern democratic invention, which
had been the cause of much more mischief since our
first great democratic step in 1832. But is that correct?
Is it not as far as possible from being correct? Were
not things ten times worse in the good old times before
the New Poor Law?
Cassandra is alarmed at the idea of the average
elector interfering in the details of Indian and foreign
questions; but nothing is more improbable than that he
ever would desire to do so. Was even the electorate,
before 1832, or between 1832 and 1868, a body so con-
62
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
*
stituted that one could have willingly seen it take a very
active part in the details of such questions? Did it do
so? And is it at all likely that, on the Continent of
Europe at least, we shall ever have questions so calcu-
lated to move the average elector as many of those
which came up for settlement between 1847 and 1867?
It is wholly impossible that the average elector could
interfere in the details of either foreign or Indian ques-
tions, if he wished to do so. He could not even do so if
you introduced the "referendum"-a step which no
one, demagogue or other, has, so far as I know, proposed
to take in these islands.
On broad questions of foreign policy, and these are
the only ones with which he can possibly deal, my
opinion is, that the average elector will be usually right,
provided those whose business it is to keep him right do
their duty. Those public men, however, who have to
deal specially with the foreign affairs of the country,
even when they have a real interest in the subject, still
keep up rather too much the old reticent system-a
system which was very good and right in days when our
diplomatists were not obliged to reckon nearly so much.
with the Press, but which is of more doubtful wisdom
when the espousal of a particular cause, by two or three
leading newspapers, may give public opinion a bias,
which it is afterwards very difficult for those who really
know the whole truth to remove.
As for Indian questions, all who have tried to talk
about India in public know that they are one of the
least popular topics upon which anyone can address an
audience of his countrymen. Every few years some
speaker arises who thinks that he can make a good ora-
torical investment by talking India. There was Mr.
George Thompson, a very good speaker, and there have
been others; but it doesn't answer, and it won't answer,
MUST WE THEN BELIEVE CASSANDRA ?
63
except for very humble purposes, hardly to be dignified
by the name political. The difficulty, not to say the
impossibility, of interesting the people of one country,
however well and kindly disposed, about the affairs of
another, would be one of the strongest arguments which
a wise statesman would now urge, if the question, Shall
we, or shall we not, take possession of India? could come
up as a new question; and the tendency, as our own
representation becomes more real, will rather be to
diminish than to increase the desire to interfere in
matters which do not immediately affect the quite
obvious and palpable interests of the people of these
kingdoms.
I think that this parochialising of politics has its bad
side; but no one will deny that all forms of government
have their special dangers, and representative govern-
ments, founded upon a wide democratic basis, are not
exempt from the common lot.
On the other hand, those who have most experience
of large constituencies will, I think, bear me out in
saying that they have a good deal more instinct for
statesmanship than Cassandra, or perhaps Mr. Greg
himself, quite knows, provided statesmanship is put
before them in a suitable way. Sure I am that in Scot-
land, at least, every man who wants to succeed with a
popular audience should make the best and most states-
manlike speech that he can. I say nothing of England,
because I have no experience of large popular audiences
in that country. I know that a distinguished French-
man told a friend of mine that he found a great difference
between audiences on the two sides of the Tweed; but,
for all I can say to the contrary, this may have merely
been a remnant of the partiality of the "Ancient
League," although the speaker was no friend to the France
of the Lilies and the Crown.
64 MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
I should be sorry to make any exaggerated claims for
the change in our polity which was made by the settle-
ment of 1867, but really, after the result of the last
election, it is very strange to find that it should be
described as violently revolutionary. No doubt, Cas-
sandra would say that democracy "recule pour mieux
sauter;" but I, who cannot see that any of the measures
which were passed by the last administration, even when
it was borne along by the full tide of popularity, were at
all of a dangerous or revolutionary character, must be
permitted to look forward to its next leap with some-
thing more than equanimity. Even Cassandra herself
will admit that the vast improvements of the last
hundred years have synchronised, in a rather suspicious
way, with the advance of her dreaded foe.
The second Rock Ahead which the prophetess thinks
she perceives is the approaching industrial exhaustion, or
decline of Great Britain.
What she asks-are the qualities and advantages that have
given us our manufacturing supremacy; that have enabled us to pro-
duce what every country in the world wants, better and cheaper and
more abundantly than any other country? Mainly three:
1. Abundant coal and iron, both cheap and in proximity.
2. The indefatigable industry and workmanship - by which I
mean the blended skill and conscientiousness-of our artisans.
3. Our enormous command of capital.
Now in all these points we are losing our relative and in some
our positive supremacy.
Anyone who takes the trouble to look into the facts
will see that Cassandra takes the very gloomiest possible
view about the future of our coal supply; but on this
point the answer of Mr. Arthur Arnold, in the September
number of the "Contemporary," is so complete that I will
not further allude to it.
MUST WE THEN BELIEVE CASSANDRA ?
65
Surely, too, Mr. Greg almost sufficiently answers
Cassandra. He clearly sees that, as soon as coal begins
seriously to rise in price, two very different agencies will
come into play. New mines will be opened, on the one
hand, while appliances for diminishing the expense of
raising coal, and the waste of coal when raised, will be
devised on the other. Thus no cataclysmal change will
take place in our industry; there will be no ruinously
sudden collapse, affecting a population, "not as now of
thirty, but of sixty millions." No reasonable man doubts
that a time will come when our cheap coal will be
exhausted, when we shall, in all likelihood, cease to be
the great workshop of the world. All I contend for is,
that that time is so far off that it is idle to speculate at
present about it. Long ere it arrives the whole political
condition of the world may be so entirely altered, the
transference of population from one part of the globe to
another, where it is more wanted, may be so much a
matter of course, that the very word "emigration" may
have become obsolete, and that our descendants may smile
as much at the idea of any mother objecting to her
children going to America, as we now do when we hear
of a mother in Kent objecting to her children going into
the Midland counties. "Please God," said such a one to
a benevolent lady, recently, "no child of mine shall ever
go down into the Shires."
Then I want to know why it should be assumed
that the greatness of this country is to be for ever
dependent on her manufacturing industry, and on
the iron and coal that feed them. That is the present
form of our greatness; but we were great before our
manufactures, and we will, if we are true to ourselves,
be great after them. Coal and iron are but instru-
ments in the hands of that energy which is the true
source of our national strength. Coal and iron did not
F
66
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
defeat the Armada, did not conquer India, nor colonise
America.
As to the deterioration in the character of British
labour, I will cite Cassandra's own words.
She says:
""
By "character we mean efficiency and conscientiousness. Here
again the causes are in operation, but the effects are only beginning to
be obvious; and as there is much to screen or confuse them, it is our
habit to doubt or disbelieve them. English labour, beyond that of
every other nation, used to be dogged, untiring, thorough, and honest.
Its quality could be relied upon, and its willing, persevering energy
was unrivalled. English workmen were never very sober, and there-
fore by no means exactly to be called steady; but they were manage-
able by their employers, and exceptionally intelligent; they were not
given, like so many continental labourers, to holiday-making or
pleasure-seeking; when they did work, they worked with a will; they
neither shirked their task nor scamped it. If half we hear, and much
we see, be true, this can scarcely be said now, as a rule, of any class
of British labourers except navvies. In many departments of industry
we are assured, the chief aim of the operatives, and the distinct
purpose of their trade regulations, is to work as short hours as they
can, and to do as little in those hours as they can contrive in return
for the wages they receive. Probably the statement is exaggerated or
coloured, but no one can say that it is groundless.
The first thing that strikes one about this is, that it
is no new assertion. It has been repeated again and
again. Still, in spite of the assertion, and in spite of
such substratum of fact as there may be below the
assertion, the world does somehow go on preferring most
English to most not English goods; and what is more,
many kinds of English goods go on improving in perfec-
tion and finish, to such a degree as to excite the wrath
of certain very competent critics. Hear Mr. Ruskin, for
instance:
Reader, look round this English room of yours, about which you
have been proud so often, because the work of it was so good and
strong, and the ornaments of it so finished. Examine again all those
MUST WE THEN BELIEVE CASSANDRA ?
67
accurate mouldings and perfect polishings, and unerring adjustments
of the seasoned wood and tempered steel. Many a time you have
exulted over them, and thought how great England was, because her
slightest work was done so thoroughly. Alas! if read rightly, these
perfectnesses are signs of a slavery in our England a thousand times
more bitter and more degrading than that of the scourged African or
helot Greek.
Now Mr. Ruskin's views may or may not be correct,
but if his facts are correct—and we can all test them for
ourselves-it does not look as if many of our manufac-
turers failed in doggedness, untiringness, thoroughness,
or honesty. Much, probably, that is said against En-
glish labour generally, is founded upon hasty generalisa-
tions from the building trades in London and some other
places.
Cassandra next proceeds to deal, at some length,
with the subject of strikes, with the abuses of Trades
Unions, and with the tendency of some of the more un-
enlightened proceedings of these bodies to increase the
cost of production in this country :
These proceedings-she says-are several: none perhaps very
serious taken singly, but in their aggregate effect by no means con-
temptible. First come various absurd regulations to hinder workmen
from putting forth their full strength and skill, lest they should raise
the standard of average requirement, as against their less qualified
fellows of which the law prevalent among bricklayers of forbidding
unionists fully to use both hands in their task may be taken as an
extreme sample.
Next may be specified the analogous and widely extended dis-
couragement of piece-work, and the systematic endeavour to enforce a
uniform rate of wages without reference to the varying capacities of
different men and of the quality of their labour-a practice which
arose, no doubt, out of some confused notion of fair play or kindness
to the weaker brethren, but which a few moments' reflection will show
to be cruelly unjust to the more energetic, competent, ambitious, or
heavily-burdened workman, as well as singularly noxious in diminish-
ing the efficiency of labour, and thereby enhancing the cost of the
F 2
68
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
article to which that labour is applied. The rules, very general at one
time, and still extensively in operation, for limiting the number of
apprentices which each skilled workman was allowed to instruct in
his own trade, and the prohibition of anyone not regularly appren-
ticed from practising that trade, operate sensibly in the same direction,
and were introduced avowedly for preventing anything like free com-
petition and the effect it was feared it must produce in reducing
wages. All these restrictions, the number and vexatious character of
which only those who have studied the subject somewhat in detail
can fully estimate, being fetters upon the masters' freedom as to the
most profitable mode of carrying on his business, add to the necessary
cost of manufacture involved, discourage the capitalist, and place him
at a disadvantage in the struggle with less hampered rivals.
Now these rules are bad and foolish enough, but
after all they are merely the first thoughts of uneducated
men, who must go through the stage of thinking these
foolish thoughts, before they get to anything better.
.
How long is it since the most intelligent people in
Europe defended judicial torture, thought that the exac-
tion of interest for money was a wicked action, that the
State was bound to enforce compliance with the religion
which it patronised, and that a witch should not be
suffered to live? It is only a very few generations since
your statesmen and judges got beyond these follies,
which appeared to them mere primary truths—and are
we to hold up our hands and prophesy the industrial
decline of England, because mechanics have not learned
in a day to use their liberty wisely? Are you sure that
superstitions, as bad as the worst of these, are quite
dead amongst our better classes? Half of the mistakes
that are committed, even now, in politics, arise from
following the natural impulses of ignorance, to do the
obvious and therefore the presumed right thing. "Why
it is common sense!" says the Philistine, and gives his
idiotic vote as if the labours of a thousand thoughtful
men had not proved his common sense to be common
MÚST WE THEN BELIEVE CASSANDRA ? 69
nonsense. There is probably not one of the rules censured
so justly by Cassandra, which anyone, who considered
the subject for the first time from the workman's point
of view, would not consider to be righteous and wise.
Then as to strikes. Strikes are a great evil, no
doubt, but the stage of strikes must be gone through,
before we get to better industrial conditions. They are
the natural result of industrial freedom in its adolescence,
used as unwisely as adolescents who have been curbed
too tight are apt to use their freedom.
With reference to Cassandra's alarms about the re-
duction in the length of the working day, individuals
may hold their own opinions as to the expediency or
non-expediency of the Act of last session, as to the
propriety, that is, of the State intervening to settle the
question of the length of the working day; but there is
immensely more to be said for the shortening the hours
of labour than Mr. Greg admits, or than I have time
to say here.
The last of Cassandra's economic fears is, that our
peculiar advantage in the possession of an unusually large
amount of capital is gone.
She says:
The unrivalled amount of capital possessed by the British manu-
facturer was one of his special advantages in the industrial rivalry
with foreign nations. His command of capital is greater than ever,
but it is no longer his exclusively-for not only are other countries.
growing rich almost as rapidly as England-not only is the wealth of
Germany and Italy augmenting fast, not only is America in ordinary
years making as much money as we are, and France saving perhaps
more-but British capital is at the command of the American, the
French, the Italian, and the German manufacturer almost as freely,
and more than as profitably, as at that of the Englishman. In truth,
any country that wishes for capital, and can use it well, may have it
for the asking. Here, then, our peculiar advantage is gone, as in
other elements of cheap production we have shown that it is going.
That sounds all very dreadful, but are there not some
70 MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
tendencies which are more and more transferring capital
to England? Is not the London money-market more
the money-market of the world, than it was even five
years ago? Is it not obvious that wealthy persons abroad
are more and more tempted by the comparative immunity
from disturbance of this island, to transfer large amounts
of property to our shores? Is it not notorious that the
number of persons whose deaths singly affect the Budget
of the Chancellor of the Exchequer is steadily on the
increase ?
Let us look at the figures of the Clearing-house. In
the year ending on the 30th of April, 1868, these figures
stood in round numbers at three thousand two hundred
and fifty-seven millions. In the next year they had
increased by two hundred and seventy-seven millions.
In the year after that, they had increased by another one
hundred and eighty-six millions. In '70-71, they in-
creased by another two hundred and ninety-eight millions.
Then in '71-72 they went up by a great bound of thirteen
hundred and forty-one millions; and by the 30th of April,
1873—when that period of national disaster and humili-
ation which was coincident, as Cassandra's friends would
say, with the Gladstone administration, was beginning to
draw to a close-they passed six thousand millions. That
means that, between the 30th of April, 1868, and the
30th of April, 1873, they had increased by the moderate
and reasonable amount of two thousand seven hundred
and forty-six millions.
What is it that terrifies our prophetess? Surely she
is not misled by the fallacy that it is bad for England
that other nations should grow rich? If she is, she may
comfort herself by reflecting that the disparity is still
great. Even now, or rather somewhat more than a year
ago, the London Loan Fund, in banks which published
their accounts, was-I take the figures from Mr. Bagehot's
MUST WE THEN BELIEVE CASSANDRA ? 71
"Lombard Street "-one hundred and twenty millions,
as against thirteen millions in Paris, forty millions in
New York, and eight millions in Germany. Nor is there
any doubt, if we could get at the deposits of the banks
which do not publish their accounts, the enormous
disproportion would be made still more apparent.
I hope I have done no wrong to Cassandra in the
presentment of her prophecies as to the industrial decline
of England, which I have laid before you, and I hope,
also, that I have shown that she takes too gloomy a
view.
My own method of parrying such mischiefs as I admit
to require to be parried under this head, may be summed
up as follows:
1. Education.
2. Wise government.
3. Patience.
By education I do not mean merely, or chiefly, the
teaching of the children of the poorer classes to read,
write, and do arithmetic. Much more, I mean teaching
the children of the rich what it is most important they
should know as citizens. School-managers, who never
heard of Bastiat, and to whom political economy is the
dismal science par excellence, are just the men to turn out
scholars ripe for the acceptance of every form of political
and social misbelief. Once let your great schools give a
thoroughly manly training to your youth, making them
fit to do the duties of British gentlemen, in a time when
the position of gentlemen is being challenged as it never
has been before, a time instinct with change, which may
be admirably beneficial, but may also be extremely
dangerous, and you will find the trade of agitation
become a very bad one.
Looking back to the hopes which I cherished thirteen
years ago, and seeing how little has been done, how
72
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
beneath contempt is still the amount of really desirable
knowledge with which an average boy leaves nearly
all the great old public schools, although some of
the first men of the country have been instant in
urging change, both as members of the Public Schools
Executive Commission and as members of the various
governing bodies-when I hear of a great ecclesiastic
objecting to botany being taught to boys because
it is too easy, just as the same person, or one like-
minded, advocated the teaching of Greek, not for the
treasures which Greek contains, but simply because it is
difficult—when I see that all the efforts of persons like
Sir John Lubbock are met by a body of masters who,
with some most honourable exceptions, fight for worn-
out methods and subjects, with a determination which
would be admirable if it were not absurd-I seem to see
a far greater danger to the country in its race with rivals,
than any which comes from the unaided errors of the
artisan. There never was a time when those whom
fortune has placed in a good position in the world more
wanted personal merit to keep their position, or had
more need of the warning given in the line of the
poet:
O rois, soyez grands, car le peuple grandit.
By good government, I mean, above all, government
which does not set before itself incompatible ideals,
which does not, for example, insist on having, at one
and the same time, all the advantages of the system
of Cobden and all the advantages of the system of
Castlereagh—a government which has made up its mind
as to whether the real object of our policy is to be to
rule the British Islands, the British colonies, and India,
or whether its object is to make us what someone
called "man's firm defence from wrong"-in other
MUST WE THEN BELIEVE CASSANDRA?
73
A
words, to be the knight-errant of the universe.
government which has really made up its mind on these
matters will find a financial, naval, military, and foreign
policy ready to its hand. If it prefers the aims of
Castlereagh, it cannot well do better than to adopt the
policy of Castlereagh. That was consistent enough. If
it prefer the system of Cobden, it has only to build
on the lines of 1846-only to develope to its logical
consequence the policy of free trade.
To that end it must steadily lean towards substi-
tuting direct for indirect taxation, in so far as our vast
national indebtedness will permit, and, as it diminishes
indirect, must constantly lower the limit of exemption
from direct, taxation, so that all citizens above abject
poverty may contribute something. No doubt those
politicians are right who believe that a large national
expenditure, fed by indirect taxation, is more willingly
borne than one fed by direct taxation. But the con-
sistent development of the principles of free trade would
lead to a considerable diminution in the expense of
our army, when we had, in virtue of these prin-
ciples, gradually got rid of all national entanglements,
inconsistent with the policy on which we had elected
to act.
.
<
That policy requires a supreme navy, an army suf
ficiently large for India and the fortresses which we have
scattered about the world, and sufficiently large to make,
in connection with the navy, the idea of a descent upon
this country hopelessly absurd. But it does not involve
an army sufficiently large to be used on the European
continent.
It further requires a much greater attention to our
foreign policy, the adoption of a clear line of action, and
not the hopeless drifting that we have too often seen
substituted for a clear line of action, so that it may well
74
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
happen that a statesman is carried into the Foreign
Office by the cry of a spirited foreign policy, and that
when he has got there his whole thoughts should be
concentrated in dropping down the stream so as to avoid
running into anything, here just not grazing the bank,
and there fending off another boat. To make our foreign
policy all it should be, to make our foreign minister the
centre of the very best information from every part of
the world, would, no doubt, require an addition to our
diplomatic and consular estimates; but it would not
require the addition of the price of half an ironclad
a year, to make those services, if wisely handled at
head-quarters, as efficient for their purpose as, to use
the words of Lord Odo Russell, "the Prussian army
or the Society of Jesus!" The adoption of such a
system of government would tend more and more
every year to make this country the great emporium
of the universe, the reservoir of capital, and the best
place at once for the artisan and for the capitalist to
live in.
Cassandra is perfectly right in thinking that England
will not remain for an indefinite period the great work-
shop of the world; but the adoption of a wise policy,
now, will keep England its great workshop for a long
time to come, and will give us such a start over all our
rivals in the possession of capital and mercantile connec-
tion, as may keep us, when taken in connection with
certain advantages, which nothing but our own unwisdom
can take away, in the front rank of the world, long
after other nations have come to surpass us as centres
of manufacturing industry.
The third method of meeting such evils as I acknow-
ledge really to exist under Cassandra's second head, was,
I said, patience; by which I mean that, because there
are certain unpleasant phenomena in our present in-
MUST WE THEN BELIEVE CASSANDRA?
75
dustrial condition, we should not run away with the
idea that we are exceptionally afflicted. There is not a
country in Europe which either has not, or will not
have, the same difficulty from strikes and combinations,
except in cases where our painful experience shall have
put others in the way of profiting by what we have
gone through. In industrial as well as in political
organisation, it is our fate, and a proud fate, to lead the
way. Our descendants will, in all probability, grumble
as little at the industrial troubles through which this
generation of Englishmen is going, as we grumble at the
good blood which, two hundred years ago, flowed, in the
words of the poet,
So hot from Royalist and Puritan.
There is one very strange note in the paper which
I am examining.
Cassandra says:
Of course it is possible that competing nations may be as foolish
as ourselves, following our suicidal footsteps in the shape of strikes,
inflated wages, shorter hours, and exhausting conflicts between the
two great productive powers, capital and labour, and may thus retard
our comparative decline. But if their artisans are no wiser than ours,
their governments, so far, at least, are stronger.
Does she then seriously believe that any government,
from the Atlantic to the Ural, is at this moment stronger
than ours, in the sense of being better able to keep the
peace within its own borders, without compromising the
peace of the future? So far from believing this to be the
case, I do not think there is any country whose social
condition in the future does not give more cause for
uneasiness. Germany is admirable in many respects;
yet who that is acquainted with that country does not
see that she has still to settle with herself some very
awkward political questions, which we have settled long
76
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERÁRY.
ago, and which may complicate her social difficulties in a
very serious way?
The third portion of Mr. Greg's book is the one
which will perhaps be read with most general interest.
He says:
I allege that in England the highest intelligence of the nation is
not only not in harmony with the nation's creed, but is distinctly at
issue with it, does not accept it, largely, indeed, repudiates it in the
distinctest manner, or, for peace and prudence's sake, discountenances
it by silence, even where it does not demur to it in words, and that in
this disharmony and divorce lies a grave and undeniable peril for the
future. The fact is not new, but its dimensions are; the disharmony
is spreading to many classes, and is assuming a more pronounced
significance, no candid observer will deny it, and no wise patriot or
statesman will regard it as a matter to be ignored.
Now if all Mr. Greg means is, that the highest intel-
ligence of the country has of late been moving with
extreme rapidity, and that, its ideas about the highest
matters naturally keeping pace with its ideas about other
matters, it is further in advance of the mass of less active
minds than has been the case at most periods of history,
then I entirely agree with him, and think he has stated
his case with great moderation. There is no doubt a
movement in progress, which is destined to grow stronger,
and to produce results not only great but permanent.
I
do not believe that there is a single position which has
been won by modern science from the domain of blind
authority which will ever be won back again; while,
with regard to many of the raids which the great masters
of historical criticism have made into territory once con-
sidered sacred, the verdict of the next century will, I am
persuaded, be in the spirit of the words :
Nor blade of grass again was seen
Where Alaric and his hosts had been,
MUST WE THEN BELIEVE CASSANDRA ?
77
•
It is when we come to speculate upon the ultimate
result of the simplifying process which is going on that I
part company, not with Mr. Greg, but with Mr. Greg in
the particular mood in which he determined to come
before the world as Cassandra. I think he immensely
underrates the permanent and indestructible element in
Christendom. Why, when all has been said that any
man of science has yet propounded as a man of science
-as anything but a guesser into realms confessedly
unknown, how little has been done to shake the founda-
tions upon which the highest forms of religion in Western
Europe really rest!
You find, for instance, a person or persons endowed
with very keen faculties for enjoyment, who attain, after
just enough difficulty to make the attainment most
pleasurable, the realisation of their utmost wishes. They
remain for a time in the possession of what appears to
others, and to themselves, almost perfect happiness;
then, however, circumstances change, and they are over-
whelmed by calamity. From the prostration which was
the first result of this calamity they gradually rise, till at
length they attain, through what they would describe as
the life of faith, such perfect happiness that their previous
happiness seems in comparison as nothing. Now let any-
one demonstrate, as might no doubt in the case I am
thinking of, and in a thousand others, be sufficiently
easily demonstrated, that the view of history usually
connected with the particular set of religious ideas which
this person or these persons held, was hopelessly defec-
tive-that the astronomy with which that particular set
of religious ideas was long and authoritatively connected
was eminently absurd-that the cosmogony with which
such religious ideas were connected was no better-in
short, that nine-tenths of the opinions usually held by
people of that way of thinking were wildly preposterous,
•
78
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
and that nothing better could happen to these opinions
than that they should vanish on the wind's wings-
what, I should like to know, have those who compel
their vanishing, done to shake the intimate personal con-
viction of communion with the Unseen, upon which the
spiritual life of such persons is really founded? If
historical criticism, if physical science, after they have
chased away these accessory ideas on the wind's wings,
go a step farther and say: "Those things which you
believe to be so eternally true that they seem truer to
you than all else beside, are not true," then historical
criticism and physical science, which have hitherto been
entirely dans leur droit, become just as much unjusti-
fiable invaders as is the doctor of the Church when he
presumes to pronounce an opinion ex cathedra, which
historical criticism and science can show, as they have
done ten thousand times, to be simply false.
It appears to me that there are many ideas which are
now enunciated by the foremost teachers of the world
which will, when they get hold of the minds of men, be
fatal to certain forms in which the religious sentiment
presents itself in Western Europe-fatal, for example, in
all likelihood, to everything like political organisation
in the matters of the soul; but I know no idea which
rises above a mere conjecture, which can be fatal to the
religious sentiment itself, as seen in the highest forms of
Christian life and practice.
Many people who are very much alarmed at the
change in opinion which is going on around them, and
whose alarm is oddly enough reflected on the author of
the "Creed of Christendom," might be a good deal com-
forted if they would only ponder on the large admissions.
of their opponents. He was not exactly a persona grata
in orthodox circles who wrote last century, on the fly-
leaf of his copy of the "Système de la Nature," which is
MUST WE THEN BELIEVE CASSANDRA ?
79
still preserved in St. Petersburg, the words, "Si Dieu
n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer;" and he is not
exactly a persona grata in the orthodox circles of this
century, who penned the memorable sentence, "L'Eglise
a été dépassée, et s'est dépassée elle-même. Le Christ
n'a pas été dépassée."
And in the address which frightened the other day
half the clergy of an Irish town, do we not find the
following paragraph:
To yield this religious sentiment reasonable satisfaction is the
problem of problems at the present hour. And grotesque in relation
to scientific culture as many of the religions of the world have been
and are dangerous, nay destructive, to the dearest privileges of free-
men as some of them undoubtedly have been, and would, if they
could, be again-it will be wise to recognise them as the forms of a
force, mischievous if permitted to intrude on the region of knowledge,
over which it holds no command, but capable of being guided by
liberal thought to noble issues in the region of emotion, which is its
proper sphere. It is vain to oppose this force with a view to its
extirpation. What we should oppose, to the death if necessary, is
every attempt to found upon this elemental bias of man's nature a
system which should exercise despotic sway over his intellect.
These admissions, and such as these, coming from
men whose works are "full-welling fountain-heads of
change," should surely go for something-should surely
show that whatever is going to happen, however much
may have to be given up, a great deal still remains. As
long as deep religious feeling seems to be almost insepar-
able from the highest literary beauty, so long is there,
to my mind, a very powerful argument in favour of that
feeling, not only continuing to be strong, but even
growing stronger with the increase of education and
refinement.
I was looking, some months ago, through a long
correspondence, most of which consisted of letters from
persons who were quite unknown beyond the circle of
80
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
their own intimate friends, but amongst which there
were not a few letters from one of the most famous
men of his generation. His letters were by no means
inferior to his reputation, but they were distinctly
not the most remarkable in the collection, either in
matter or form. Surprised by this, I said to the person
who showed me the correspondence, But tell me,
in the name of wonder, how are these letters, and
these, and these, superior to those of this great orator
and famous author? The answer which I received came
in the shape of a quotation from, if I remember right,
Joubert. Anyhow, it ran as follows: "Plus l'âme est
près de Dieu, plus la pensée est près de l'âme, plus le
style est près de la pensée, plus tout cela est beau."
Well, I don't know how it strikes others, but it strikes
me that as long as that can be said, and can't be contra-
dicted, as long as the particular vein of feeling which is
peculiar to the highest forms of Christianity is not re-
motely approached by modes of thought really antago-
nistic to Christianity, so long nothing essential can be
lost. Observe, again, how entirely the mocking Mephis-
tophelian vein has died out in those who are most
strongly opposed to existing beliefs-how reverent is
the tone of the very men who are prayed for and
preached about in the Churches. To find a Capaneus or
Heaven-stormer, you must look away from the leaders
of the revolutionary movement to followers who do not
fully understand their own principles, or the serious
nature of the work they are doing.
Those sad and stately lines which Strauss wrote the
other day on his death-bed,* would have been called
* Dem ich dieses sage
Weiss ich klage nicht,
Der ich dieses klage
Weiss ich zage nicht.
MUST WE THEN BELIEVE CASSANDRA ?
81
deeply religious if they had come down from heathen an-
tiquity-if, for instance, they had been the production of
him--and as far as poetical merit goes, they might have
been:
Who dropped his plummet down the broad
Deep Universe, and said-No God!
Finding no bottom; who denied.
Divinely the Divine, and died
Chief poet on the Tiber side.
In the warfare of this world it is often wise to hold
for a time positions which are not really defensible. We
all quote, with approbation, the example of the old
Scottish warrior, who, ordered to hold an untenable
redoubt on the field of Steenkirk, went to his death with
the words, "The will of the Lord be done." In the
warfare, however, which "the Church militant" has to
wage, surely the true strategy would be never to hold,
for a moment, a position about which there can be any
serious doubt. To me, at least, it seems that the strength
of the place is so great, that it can well dispense with the
dubious and dangerous aid of so-called outworks. Those
who trust to outworks are apt to fall into strange absur-
dities. The following conversation took place, many
years ago, between a great Indian official and a Moham-
medan doctor of the law, who was defending his religion
by one of its outworks, the infallibility of the Koran:
*
"And how," said the Nawab, "have people in modern days made
all the discoveries you speak of in astronomy?"
Nun heisst's bald verglimmen
Wie ein Licht verglimmt
In die Luft verschwimmen
Wie ein Ton verschimmt.
Möge schwach wie immer,
Aber hell and rein,
Dieser letzte Schimmer
Dieser Ton nur sein.
* General Mackay.
G
82
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
Chiefly, Nawab Sahib," replied Colonel Sleeman, "by means of
the telescope, which is an instrument of modern invention.”
((
"And do you suppose, sir, that I would put the evidence of one
of your telescopes in opposition to that of the holy prophet? No, sir;
depend upon it there is much fallacy in a telescope-it is not to be
relied upon.
I have conversed with many excellent European gentle-
men; and their great fault seems to me to lie in the implicit faith they
put in these telescopes--they hold their evidence above that of the
prophets Moses, Abraham, and Elijah. It is dreadful to think what
mischief these telescopes may do."
Now astronomy is a very old science, and has attained
the respectability which attaches to age. Many persons
would smile at this story who would have been scandal-
ised if they had listened, let us say, to Professor Owen
the other day at the Orientalist Congress, while he calmly
put aside, as unworthy of discussion, various venerable
delusions in matters scientific, which many worthy people
are still in the habit of connecting with a religion which
can surely dispense with outworks, much better than that
which the mufti defended against Colonel Sleeman.
Cassandra, in her gloomy forecast, does not attach
sufficient importance to the extreme complexity of the
influences which are working in our generation. The
currents cross each other in all directions. Theology,
for example, is losing, and will continue to lose, its power
over many provinces of thought and knowledge, in which
it once held sway; but, on the other hand, religion is as
decidedly widening the area of its sway in the domain of
human conduct.
·
All the higher forms of religion in Western Europe
have been becoming more active since the French
Revolution. Without dwelling on events which have
occurred in Great Britain, just look at the change that
has come over the Church of France-so lax before 1789,
so irreproachable now, in point of morals, whatever may
have to be said of its intellectual characteristics. It is
MUST WE THEN BELIEVE CASSANDRA?
83
usual to talk of Paris as a sort of metropolis of revolt
against all the old influences, and I am sure many good
Germans, in 1870-71, thought they were the ministers
of Divine vengeance against a modern Babylon. Well,
you know what I thought about the Franco-German war;
but anything more absurd than this sweeping condem-
nation of the French capital can hardly be imagined.
Paris is an epitome of much that is best, and worst, in
modern society. Nowhere does one see in sharper con-
trast the conflicting tendencies that are disputing the alle-
giance of us and our contemporaries. Well did one say:
-
Elle est riche en toutes choses, et elle peut donner indistinctement
tout ce qu'on lui demande, depuis le mal dans son excès le plus
pervers, jusqu'au bien dans son excès le plus sublime, depuis les
extravagances les plus raffinées de la mode, jusqu'aux renoncements les
plus extrêmes de la charité, depuis le plaisir sous son aspect le plus
dangereux, jusqu'à la piété sous sa forme la plus parfaite. Elle encense
le vice et la vanité plus qu'on n'ose le faire ailleurs, et cependant elle
s'honore de pouvoir montrer des exemples de vertu, de dévouement, et
d'humilité presque uniques au monde.
But the great contention which goes on in Paris,
goes on everywhere, with a thousand local variations.
We are in the rush of the mid-stream, and it would be
rash indeed to speculate as to the exact point to which
we shall be carried.
I read the future, however, quite differently from
Cassandra, though perhaps not very differently from
Mr. Greg. I believe that the result of the contest of our
age, between authority and reason, will be good for all
of us, and that the mid-stream of change, in which we
are, will land us, on some far-off shore, much nearer
together—not divide us into two hostile camps. At
no previous period in the history of the world has
Christianity, as represented in the Gospels, or in the
lives and works of the best of its followers, exercised so
powerful an influence on public affairs, as in the last
& 2
84
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
thirty years; and I make this assertion without in the
least forgetting the endless wars and troubles of that
period. In legislation, in administration, in our way of
carrying on war, in our treatment of inferior races, in our
social relations, in our amusements, in our literature, in
everything, we are, though, Heaven knows, still far
enough from it, nearer nevertheless to the Christian
ideal than we ever have been before; and it is interest-
ing to observe that the results of the very highest states-
manship, and of the very highest forms of Christianity,
are often most curiously near each other. The settlement
of the Alabama controversy on the part of England was,
as has been well said, at once one of the best pieces of
statecraft and one of the most Christian acts recorded in
history.
I could quote, if there were time, views inspired
simply by strong religious feeling, and which formed
themselves, forty years ago, in the mind of a youth
brought up in the very focus and centre of the European
political and ecclesiastical reaction, which are identical
with those to which the most enlightened statesmen of
the Liberal party would now subscribe.
If Christianity is going to lose its power at once over
the highest intelligence of Western Europe and over the
masses, just as it seems to be making itself more readily
felt in public affairs than it ever was in the so-called
Ages of Faith, the course of this world is certainly the
maddest piece of business. I confess, however, I do not
believe one syllable of any such prophecy. The words
once spoken amongst the Syrian hills will never lose
their echo. The saying falsely attributed to Julian is
profoundly true, "O Galilean! thou hast conquered!"
One must not forget, however, that the victory of the
Galilean is the defeat of Antichrist; and the worst anti-
christs, of our days, are the bungling sophists who
MUST WE THEN BELIEVE CASSANDRA ? 85
denounce science and historical criticism, because they
do not square with the vile little systems which they,
and others like them, have built on these immortal
words-who yelp at our modern masters of those who
know our Darwins, Huxleys, and Tyndalls, as if these
were not doing in their own way the work of God in the
world, as much as even those who have, in our times,
most perfectly echoed those divine words. This I say,
believing that in no time have those divine words been
more clearly echoed than they have in our own-no, not
by the writers of the great hymns of the Latin Church,
nor the author of the Imitation.
Do not let me be misunderstood. I am not speaking
peace when there is no peace. As Professor Rothe, of
Heidelberg, once said to me, "It may well take two
generations to give the religion of Protestant Germany
its ultimate form," and Protestant Germany is, after all,
only one, although no doubt an enormously important,
province of Christendom. There is an immense deal of
fighting to do before the time comes for anything ap-
proaching to the reconciliation of Christendom. With
regard to the attempts at union of the Churches, about
which we hear, they seem to me, one and all, to be as
premature, and as unlikely to lead to any worthy results,
as the labours of the alchymist, and I say this not for-
getting that the illustrious name of Döllinger has of
late been associated with them. The dissolvent process
must, as it seems to me, go far further, and elements not
thought of now must be considered, before the process
of theoretical reconstruction can begin.
Looking even to Western Europe, it will surely take
a very long time before even the best of the various
forms of Christianity which we see around us become at
all disposed to unite. Each seems, now, at least, to be
thinking more of how much it can retain of its own
86
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
particular way of conceiving things, than of how much
it can afford to throw away. But beyond Western
Christendom there is that vast communion which extends,
as has been truly said, "from the ice-fields which grind
against the walls of the Solovetsky Monastery to the
burning jungles of Malabar." And beyond Eastern
Christianity are the great religions of the East, a further
knowledge of which will most unquestionably modify,
and modify considerably, the religious thought of the
best minds in Europe.
The time for reconstruction is far, far ahead, in a
happier age than ours. Our duty, as it seems to me,
is, while following each of us the best light he has,
"driving," as Marcus Aurelius would have said, "at the
practice, and minding life more than notion," to assist
in the destruction of what, after due study and conside-
ration, he is persuaded to be actively mischievous. This is
the first thing we have got to do, and the second is to
promote in every possible way the knowledge of what is
best, alike in Christendom and beyond Christendom, in
the spirit of the German maxim, “Traget Holz, und lass
Gott kochen."
Cassandra's very low opinion of the great mass of
her countrymen vitiates her argument on the religious
question, as much as it does on political and economic
questions. She seems to think that, if the sanctions
of religion were withdrawn, the great majority of her
poorer neighbours would think of nothing but devouring
her. Speaking of the doctrine of a future life, she says:
·
What will be the result, what the possible catastrophe, when this
doctrine is no longer accredited; when it is discarded as a delusion;
when it is resented as a convenient deception and instrument of op-
pression; when the poor man is convinced that there is no wealth of
gold and jewels awaiting him in the spiritual kingdom; that if he is
wretched here, he is wretched altogether; that what he lacks now will
never hereafter be made good to him; that the promises and hopes
MUST WE THEN BELIEVE CASSANDRA Í 87
dangled before him to keep him quiet have been mere moonshine, and
that in very truth the bank in which he had insured his fortune, in
which he had invested all his savings, to have a provision in which he
had toiled with indefatigable industry and endured with exemplary
patience, is a fraudulent insolvent; when, in fine, he wakes up with a
start to the bewildering conviction that if he is to rest, to be happy, to
enjoy his fair share of the sunshine and the warmth of life, he must do
it now, here, at once, without a day's delay? Will there not come upon
him that sort of feverish haste to be in luxury and at peace, to imme-
diatise all that earth can yield him, to sink the uncertain future in the
passing present, which has been depicted in such vivid colours as per-
vading and maddening the daily thought and talk of the Socialists and
Communists of the French metropolis? If his paradise is to be here
or nowhere, why should there be a moment lost in beginning to
construct it? and why, again, should any other man's wealth or
welfare stand in his way? If he is not to have the upper hand else-
where, why should he submit to be kept under now? Will there not
come upon him also, the ominous question-a question to which in
his ignorance and his passion he will have no answer ready-“ Why
should not I, whose time is so short, take what it will need so many
slow hard years to win?" And with all this will there not come
there did come in Paris-a fierce resentment at the flagrant inequalities
around him, the comparative (often positive) wretchedness in which he
has hitherto remained, and the fables which he has been told to pacify
him, till he will hate as well as envy those above him, and learn to
regard their spoliation as an act of righteous restitution?
To this I reply: I don't believe that the time will
ever come when either the highest intelligence, or the
masses of the people, will believe that religion consisted
in fables which were told to pacify them; but if I did, I
would re-read the famous passage in Obermann about
the Swiss mastiffs, and say to myself, Are, then, men so
infinitely inferior to their four-footed fellow-creatures?
Cassandra seems altogether to ignore various forces, of
which I will only mention one-wise law. I believe it
would be very difficult to overrate the influence of a
thoroughly wise law, put into such a form as should be
perfectly intelligible to the people. In the great country
88
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
for which I start to-morrow morning, I mean our Indian
Empire, I am assured that the operation of the codes in
modifying popular ideas of right and wrong is most
marked. We do not observe the same thing here, to
anything like the same extent, chiefly because, although
our laws are for the most part good in substance, they are,
in point of form and intelligibility, a disgrace to a civilised
community.
Mr. Greg does attach very considerable importance
to the habit of acquiescence in the existing state of things
though Cassandra thinks that that habit has been to some
extent weakened. Well, I for one think that it has been
rightly weakened, that our social system may in various
ways be improved and made better for the less fortunate
classes; but the laws that lie at the root of the laws that
affirm the sacredness of property, I believe to be just as
much part of the order of the universe, as the attraction of
gravitation; and that if some demagogue could succeed
by waving a wand in dividing all the property in the
country equally, upon Monday morning, we should, before
Saturday night, be far on our way to the old system of
unequal distribution.
I hold that every law which is unjust, as between
man and man, is fated to disappear; but, with the dis-
appearance of what is really unjust, many things which
look unjust at first sight, but are really profoundly
righteous, will only be confirmed. Mr. Greg, before he
again listens to Cassandra, should take, if I may slightly
vary a phrase of Sir Philip Sidney's, a great passport of
History. She is the grand consoler. She is ever saying
to those who are panic-stricken at the evils of the present,
or the near future :
Oh, passi graviora dabit Deus his quoque finem.
* Sce “Notes of an Indian Journey." London: Macmillan & Co.
1876.
MUST WE THEN BELIEVE CASSANDRA?
89
The mistake that political speculators make when
they calculate on the disappearance of the religious
emotions has not often, so far as I know, been illustrated
more forcibly than it was by Dean Merivale, who began
the Boyle Lectures some years ago by asking who would
have believed, when Julius Cæsar made the speech in
which he deprecated putting Catiline and his associates
to death-because death ended all-that the Roman
world would yet see the assembling of the Council of
Nice?
An impatience of the slow labour of accumulating
facts, very natural to one who speculates so well and
composes so gracefully, detracts not a little from Mr.
Greg's merits as a political writer. Given rather more
of what I would call la grande curiosité, and what he
would call curiosity without the adjective, plus a Liberal
constituency to keep him in accordance with the aspira-
tions of his countrymen, and he would have had few
equals. As it is, a telling answer might be made to his
book by anyone who would go back for the last two
hundred years in the history of Great Britain, and show
that at each period of twenty years a more gloomy view
than his might have been and generally was taken, by
many, of the near future. Yet, somehow, we have
managed to get along, and things are a little better than
they were in 1674.
Much comfort, too, may be got by looking a little
away from our own shores, by looking abroad in space as
well as in time. After my first perusal of my friend's
pages, I half thought I would try to throw on paper,
heads of a similar lament over each European country.
I satisfied myself, however, with sitting down to sketch
one for Russia, as the country least like Great Britain I
could think of. The patriotic Russian then, as it seems
to me, if of a pessimist turn, might maintain-I do not
90
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
*
say correctly, but without any more manifest departure
from right reason than is involved in many of Cassandra's
views:
1. That the huge army, which his Government thinks
it necessary to keep up, altogether overweights the
energies of the Empire, taking away from the most neces-
sary forms of labour an enormous amount of strength,
and that in a country which has little accumulated
capital and grievously needs the hard steady work of
several generations to bring her up even to the level of
her neighbour on the west.
2. That Russia's enormous territorial extension is a
source, not of strength, but of weakness; that Central
Asia is a fathomless gulf, in which millions of roubles will
every year disappear, without bringing the slightest real
advantage to the State; that Siberia will one of these
days throw off its allegiance to St. Petersburg and set
up for itself; that Poland was scotched, not crushed, in
1863-64, and will inevitably rise again, as soon as the
classes which Milutine and his friends vainly hoped to
bring over, by vast material benefits, to the side of the
Government, have had time to get just that amount of
education which will make them fit to comprehend why
their immediate superiors, the so-called small nobility,
were so hostile to the Russians in the two last rebellions.
3. That the dream of replacing the Cross upon
St. Sophia was leading a large portion of his countrymen
on an altogether wrong road; that it might have been
possible enough for Russia to have got hold of the
Eastern Peninsula, if, during the days of the Napoleonic
wars, she had been as civilised as she is to-day. That
under such circumstances she might well have appeared
a Heaven-sent deliverer to Greeks, Bulgarians, Rouma-
nians, and Servians alike; but that now each of these
races had had time to develope ambitions of its own,
MUST WE THEN BELIEVE CASSANDRA ? 91
which would make it anything but a docile instrument
in the hands of its northern co-religionist; that an
attempt to possess itself of Constantinople now, or in any
time coming, would, in all probability, fail, and would
certainly, if it succeeded, precipitate that dissolution of
the centralised Empire, which is one of the objects of not
the least active faction it contains.
4. That the foreign press, and more especially some
of the English papers, were much given to lamenting
over the danger which the British Empire in India
incurred from Russia's advance. Alas! alas! if they
could only look at the matter from the standpoint
of Moscow, instead of that of Calcutta, they would see
that, if a war were to take place between the two nations,
it would not be England that would have to tremble for
her Asiatic dominions.
That the real difficulty which the English had got to
face in India was not to govern, but to govern according
to the ideas that are accepted at home. If England
were absurd enough to wish to push her Asiatic conquests
farther, there was really nothing she could not do in the
way of aggression. The classes in India who most hated
her, would flock with enthusiasm to her standard. As
for us Russians, she could sweep us across the Jaxartes
in a summer campaign, and probably she could hardly
do us a better turn.
5. That the only chance of a prosperous issue to
Russia's foreign policy was the frank abandonment of
the whole circle of ideas which are summed up in the
so-called testament of Peter the Great-a paper which,
although unquestionably a forgery, sufficiently well
represents the aims and modes of action of persons who
have been long very influential in Russian affairs.
6. That the finances were getting into worse and
worse order, and that free trade, the one sovereign remedy
92
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
which ought to be applied, was simply impossible, as
long as so many persons of the first importance were
interested in various industrial undertakings around the
capital and elsewhere, which could only live in an
atmosphere of the strictest protection.
7. That the Russian nobility were not, and could never
be, made sufficiently strong to be a real political power,
and that this being so, the idea of copying in Russia the
political organisation of England was a mere dream.
8. That a vast and intensely democratic society,
held together by a common devotion to the Imperial
family, was a kind of polity which could not resist, for
an indefinite period, the influence of the revolutionary
ideas of the West, and that Russia was, thanks to its
want of education, and to the communistic form of its
village institutions, the predestined theatre for the trial,
on a large scale, of those anti-social schemes, which have
not been without their effect in the far more strongly
organised society of France.
9. That the social unit of the Russian system, the
Mir or community, was suitable enough to primeval life,
but quite unsuitable to existing conditions; and that in
Russia, as everywhere else where it has existed, it must
die down, before better things could grow up instead
of it.
10. That the Russian Church is so corrupt that there
is not the remotest chance that it can do anything to
stem the torrent of revolutionary ideas as soon as the
people have learnt to read; that, in the lower classes,
the religion it teaches is a mere superstition, and that,
in the upper, where it is a respectable sentiment, it has
never taken sufficient hold of the intelligent part of the
community to enable the Russian to point even to one
single book which can give to the Western reader any
idea as to the effect which Eastern Christianity produces
MUST WE THEN BELIEVE CASSANDRA ?
93
upon characters favourably disposed to its teachings.
That other nations had got their religious difficulties, but
what religious difficulty in Europe was as embarrassing
as the question of the Russian Dissidents? What other
monarch had got, like the Czar, nine millions of subjects
for most purposes beyond the pale of the law, and how
in the world were they to be put on an equality with
other citizens, as long as the Russian State and Church
were but different aspects of the same power?
I do not say, observe, that I should agree with my
patriotic Russian in all or perhaps in any of these
opinions, but there is not one of them which a Russian
of a rather pessimist turn of mind might not entertain,
and express, without extravagance.*
man.
Mr. Greg, in this book, is what Coleridge would have
called a third-thoughted, or rather a half third-thoughted,
His first thoughts are liberal; then come doubts,
hesitations, fears, whispered by his evil genius. At
length he half gets over these and hopes for better
things. That being so, Cassandra will not, like another
Asiatic seer, bless in word those whom she fain would
curse, but in act she will bless them; for Mr. Greg's own
suggestions of better hopes, here expressed in a note,
there merely indicated by some turn of expression in the
text, will, I am convinced, germinate in the minds of
many of his readers, and overpower the alarms which
Cassandra's warnings may have created. One who, like
Mr. Greg, was the personal friend of M. de Tocqueville,
can hardly have forgotten a saying of that distinguished
man, which I have quoted before, in concluding a speech
in Scotland, but which cannot be quoted too often: “I
will not believe in the darkness, because I do not see the
new day which is about to arise.'
""
* For further details on this subject, I may refer to two papers on
Russia, in the “Nineteenth Century" for 1877.
OPENING ADDRESS
OF THE PRESIDENT OF DEPARTMENT IV., "ECONOMY AND
TRADE," OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE PRO-
MOTION OF SOCIAL SCIENCE, AT THE NINETEENTH ANNUAL
CONGRESS, HELD AT BRIGHTON, 1875.
.
WHEN your general secretary, on behalf of the asso-
ciation, did me the honour to ask me some weeks ago to
preside here to-day, my first impulse was to decline,
because I felt it would not be in my power to prepare
such an address as I should have liked to have delivered
to so distinguished a company as that which I see before
me, without neglecting other work to which I had com-
mitted myself. Before, however, I sent an answer, the
thought occurred to me that there was one subject highly
appropriate to be brought before this section, on which
it was very desirable that someone should utter a word
of warning; that I might be able to do so as well as
another; and that anything I might say would go forth
to some degree recommended by its having been said to
you.
C
The subject to which I allude is the present condition
and immediate prospects of our commercial treaties.
When, in the year 1846, free exchange achieved so
great a triumph by the repeal of the Corn Laws, those who
had been most anxious for that measure were so con-
opening addrESS—“ECONOMY AND TRADE." 95
fident that the experiment would be greatly successful,
that they expected that other nations would rapidly
follow upon the same path. These sanguine expectations
were not justified by events. Europe saw, indeed, with
astonishment the great improvement in English trade, as
well as the happy political results which ensued from the
victory of Cobden and his allies; but false theory, evil
custom, and, above all, sinister interests, were sufficient
to prevent our example being followed to any considerable
extent.
It might be imagined by persons to whom the subject
was new, that our diplomatists had not done enough to
call the attention of other nations to the great success of
the English experiment, but there could not be a greater
mistake. The Foreign Office, under various chiefs, and
the commercial department of the Board of Trade always,
were instant and urgent, no one pressing the moral more
home than Lord Clarendon, who was so much liked and
respected on the Continent.
At length, after having waited very long and very
patiently, Mr. Cobden, M. Chevalier, and some other
friends of the good cause, determined to change their
tactics.
There was at that moment on the throne of France a
prince who had become a convert to free trade, and who
possessed, in the year 1859, almost absolute power. That
prince knew that he and his dynasty were not beloved
by the great majority of the men of high intellect in
France. He believed at that time that it was impossible
for him to conciliate the safety of his throne with any-
thing like a real parliamentary government. He felt,
accordingly, that the best chance for him, and his, was
to confer great material benefits upon his people; and
he knew that the likeliest way to do this was to give to
trade and industry that great development which could,
96
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
he was well aware, only be given by doing something in
the direction of freedom of exchange. It would be most
unfair, too, not to add that he had a genuine feeling for
the masses. You recollect, I daresay, Henry Heine's
phrase: "It is all in vain; the future belongs to our
enemies, the Communists, and Louis Napoleon is only
their John the Baptist."
Again, he had learnt from the story of his uncle,
and from his own early experience, that England was
a tremendously great and formidable power. Timor
Angliæ initium sapientiæ, as M. de Laveleye said the
other day, in speaking of him. But he also knew that,
in the years 1858-59, the pressure put upon his Govern-
ment to pick a quarrel with England had been a great
deal stronger than was pleasant, and there were moments
when he himself believed that England wanted to pick a
quarrel with him. Most of us remember how intensely
anti-French was the feeling of London society, during
the war which ended with the peace of Villafranca.
Well, a little before that event, he himself said to one
who was much with him, then, in Northern Italy, and
who repeated the statement to me, that "he expected
every day, when he got up in the morning, to hear that
the Government of Lord Derby had declared against
him."
I spent the winter of 1859-60 in Paris, and know, of
my own knowledge, that the feeling against England in
many circles was one of great irritation. Victor Cousin,
for example, said to me, "You English are thwarting
our policy in Italy-you are insulting us, but we insult
nobody.'
""
Napoleon, however, was well aware that all this
international discomfort did not arise from any real
divergence of national interests, and that the best way
to get rid of it would be to bring the two nations closer
OPENING ADDRESS-"ECONOMY AND TRADE.” 97
together through the bonds of personal and mutually
beneficent intercourse.
All these causes united to make him extremely dis-
posed to listen to the suggestions that reached him from
the side of Mr. Cobden and M. Chevalier, and you all
know that these good dispositions on his part, and the
suggestions on their part, bore fruit in the French
Commercial Treaty of 1860.
That treaty was severely criticised by many, from
many different points of view. Some criticised it from
the good old protectionist point of view. "The inva-
sion of this or that English product will injure our
English manufacturers," said the English protectionist.
"The invasion of this or that French product will injure
our French manufacturers," said the French protectionist.
Others criticised it from the purely political point of
view. "What you have done," said some English poli-
ticians who thought more of politics proper than of
commerce, "is no doubt excellent, but you buy gold too
dear; you strengthen a dynasty which is hostile to par-
liamentary institutions and is opposed by the best
intellect of France."
-
"What you do is desirable in itself," said some
French politicians, "but it is a sad mistake to have done
it in the way you have done it. No reform of this kind
will be durable in France, unless the protectionists are
fairly warred down in parliamentary strife. You are
building your house upon the sand of imperial will, not
on the rock of national will, and in doing so you are
putting a slight upon us, the representatives of free
political institutions in France, and England's truest
friends."
.
A third party criticised it from the point of view of
free trade gone mad. "The only way," said they, "to
spread the true faith of Adam Smith, is by example and
H
1.
98
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
precept. There have been a great many bad commercial
treaties in the world, therefore all commercial treaties
are bad. There have been commercial treaties which
have bound the contracting parties not to give advantages
to other nations. It follows, therefore, that commercial
treaties which must have the result of giving great
and immediate advantages to other nations are a delu-
sion and a snare. Accursed, therefore, be he who pro-
poses, concludes, or defends a commercial treaty! May
the doom of the rebuilder of Jericho be upon him!"
In spite, however, of all these objections, the French
Commercial Treaty of 1860 came into force, and began
to spread its influence far and wide. France knew,
when she concluded the treaty, that England, having
quite given up charging one duty on the same product if
it came from one nation, and a different duty if it came
from another nation, would, by the mere fact of con-
cluding a treaty with her to allow certain French goods
to come in without duty, be ipso facto and at once
allowing similar goods to come in without duty from
whatever nation they came; and England knew, when
she concluded the treaty, that France intended to give
the same advantages as she gave to England to all states
which were willing to treat with her on the basis of the
treaty she had just concluded with England.
The new good commercial treaty, accordingly, was an
absolute disclaimer and repudiation of all that desire for
exclusive advantages which was of the essence of the old
bad commercial treaty.
Previously, however, to the conclusion of the French
Commercial Treaty of 1860, England had a great many
treaties with other nations, by which those nations
bound themselves to give to England as good treatment
as they gave to the most favoured nations. When, then,
France had concluded with any of these nations a com-
OPENING ADDRESS--"ECONOMY AND TRADE.” 99
mercial treaty based on her English treaty, by which
she, France, became the most favoured nation, England,
one instant after, got into precisely as good a position as
France, with reference to that nation. As, then, France
had got rid for all other nations of nearly all English
duties whatever on their products, so France got rid for
England of a great part of the duties levied upon English
products in the ports of most European nations, and as
almost every nation had taken care to stipulate that it
should be in the position of the most favoured nation,
the benefit went on extending itself very rapidly.
Meanwhile some new commercial treaties were con-
cluded directly between England and other countries.
There was one concluded with Turkey on 29th April,
1861, which did much credit to the statesmen of that
country.
There was one concluded with Belgium on 23rd July,
1862, in which she made some important concessions as
to matters of detail.
There was one concluded with Italy on 6th August,
1863, by which, in addition to promising to put us in
the position of the most favoured nation, the Italian
Government engaged not to prohibit the importation
into Italy of any kind of British goods, and made cer-
tain other very desirable arrangements, about the way in
which import duties should be calculated.
There was a treaty with the Zollverein, securing to
the contracting parties the most favoured nation treat-
ment, and stipulating that neither of them should pro-
hibit the exportation of coal, or levy any duty on its
exportation. This treaty, by-the-way, was remarkable
as being the first in which England bound herself for her
colonies.
Austria, however, remained the great citadel of pro-
tection, and in consequence of the uncomfortable political
H 2
100 MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
relations which existed between her and France, the
initiative in negotiating with her was taken by England.
Accordingly, negotiations began, first informally, through
Mr. Somerset Beaumont and others; at length formally,
through Sir Louis Mallet and Mr. Morier; till on 16th
December, 1865, a treaty was concluded with her, and
on 30th December, 1869, a further convention was made,
which stipulated that all British produce and manufac-
tures, except cotton and woollen, with regard to which
special arrangements were agreed upon, should go into
Austria upon the same terms as the produce of the
Zollverein.
By this time a whole network of treaties had been
concluded between various members of the European
political states' system, all having the same tendency as
those to which I have alluded.
The year 1870, accordingly, found us in this posi-
tion: All the great trading nations of Europe-Eng-
land, France, the Zollverein, Austria, Italy, Holland, and
Belgium, were one great international body, by all whose
parts the principle of stipulating for exclusive advantages
for its own commerce seemed to have been abandoned,
and not one part of which could take off a duty without
every other part at once enjoying increased facilities for
its commerce; while, within this body, the operation of
the favoured nation clause was, as we have seen, such as
to make the arrival at almost unlimited freedom of
exchange merely a question of time.
Checked to some extent, no doubt, by the events of
that terrible year, the good influences which had been
set on foot by Mr. Cobden and Sir Louis Mallet worked
on and on, gathering strength with every month that
passed over our heads, till at last, in 1873, the following
results could be noted: Our trade with France had
risen, in round numbers, from twenty-six millions, at
OPENING ADDRESS—“ECONOMY AND TRADE.” 101
which it stood the year before our commercial treaty
with that country, namely, 1859, to seventy-three
millions. Our trade with Belgium had risen from eight
millions, at which it stood the year before our com-
mercial treaty with that country, namely, 1861, to
twenty-seven millions. Our trade with Italy had risen
from eight millions, at which it stood the year before
our commercial treaty with that country, namely, 1862,
to twelve millions.
Look now at 1865, the year preceding the general
establishment of the new network of commercial treaties.
In that year our trade with Germany was forty-four
millions, in 1873 it was fifty-six millions. Our trade
with Holland was twenty-seven millions, in 1873 it had
risen to thirty-seven millions. Our trade with Russia
was twenty-three millions, in 1873 it was thirty-two
millions. The total of our imports and exports, ex-
cluding those to and from British possessions, had risen
from two hundred and forty-five millions, in 1859, to
five hundred and thirty millions, in 1873. The value of
the produce of the United Kingdom sent to European
countries and to their dependencies had risen during
the same period from forty-five millions to one hundred
and thirteen millions. I do not think it would be
possible to point to any measure in English history which
so rapidly and so noiselessly produced such vast results,
as that which we debated in the session of 1860.
And let it not be forgotten that every one of these
increases of English trade implied a vast increase to the
trade of other countries, so that the impulse given to the
general prosperity of Europe is quite incalculable.
Remember, further, that this increase of European trade
implies a far greater amount of increased prosperity to
the working class than would have been created by a
similar increase to the amount of trade with distant
102. MISCELLANIES, POLÍTICAL AND LITERARY,
countries which it takes a long time to reach, such as
India or the Australian Colonies. That trade will be
most profitable to our manufacturing population which
most rapidly turns over capital, and is constantly calling
for new supplies of goods to be distributed.
I am aware, of course, that there is a certain
difference of opinion as to the exact amount of effect in
the production of all this prosperity, which is to be
assigned respectively to the commercial treaties and to
other influences, such as the extension of the railway
system; but it is sufficient for my argument that a very
large part of the effect is due to the commercial treaties,
and that is not now disputed by anyone for whom my
observations are, on this particular occasion, intended.
.
Such, then, being the results of the modern com-
mercial treaty system, is it necessary to do anything
more than simply congratulate each other upon these
results? I am sorry to say, gentlemen, that it is
necessary to do a great deal more.
These commercial treaties were each and all of them
great concessions to freedom of exchange; each and all
of them had the tendency to bring nearer that remote
but blessed day, when there will be no such thing as
customs duties from one end of the world to the other,
when we shall as soon think of making a merchant give
us some of his goods, or a traveller give us some of his
luggage, for the privilege of bringing them into our
country, for that is what it comes to, although we make
our exactions in coin and not in kind, as we do now
of pulling his teeth for the same privilege. They were,
accordingly, extremely distasteful to all the persons who
consider that customs duties are a highly desirable and
proper method of raising the revenue, while they were
the very abomination of desolation to all those sinister
interests which had been buoyed up by the old system
OPENING ADDRESS-"ECONOMY AND TRADE.” 103
of absolute protection to native industry. A man who
had made his fortune, and trusted largely to increase the
same, by selling indifferent iron to his countrymen in
France, would naturally look with little love upon the
persons who diminished his profits, and perhaps im-
perilled his fortune, by pouring in good iron and forcing
him out of the market.
.
There was a time when, if the Governments had been
thoroughly convinced, the irritation of these people
would have had little effect; the Governments would
have held on their way and allowed them to sink or
swim.
The last half-generation, however, has happily seen
an enormous development of parliamentary institutions
on the continent of Europe. There have been a great
many changes in our own country in the last half-genera-
tion, but the general aspect of affairs, to a superficial
observer, who happened to visit this part of the planet,
coming say from the moon, would be much the same.
But in almost every other country of Europe the changes
are palpable and enormous; and in almost every one of
these countries the sinister interests have, as was only
natural and right, worked to the utmost the new weapons
which circumstances have placed in their hands. There
is, accordingly, in almost every part of Europe, a very
strong movement to get these commercial treaties, when
the periods for which they were concluded come to an
end, set aside in whole or in part.
But, in addition to their open foes, they have a great
many secret foes, persons who hate them as the strongest
allies and instruments of their bitterest enemies; and,
gentlemen, it is a very true instinct which makes persons
who cling to this old idea that the natural state of man
is war, and who are perpetually repeating the maxim,
Si vis pacem para bellum, should abhor a huge machine
104 MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
!
which is perpetually working to the tune, Si vis pacem
para pacem.
Against these commercial treaties, and the way of
conceiving international relations with which they cohere,
are arrayed all these forces which used to be summed up
in France under the name of Chauvinism; but which
are, unhappily, by no means confined to France-flourish
indeed very largely in our own country-all those forces
which are combined in the pregnant and energetic phrase
which I daresay we have all of us often heard, “I hate
foreigners."
With these commercial treaties as natural allies stand
all the men who look, as I confess I do, to diplomacy as
the great engine for drawing the nations closer and closer
together. Against them are, or should be, arrayed, if
they knew their own interests, all those who look to big
battalions as the great means of advancing civilisation.
Some of you may have seen the reports on the pros-
pects of free trade, lately made to the Cobden Club, and
published last month, but as many of you have probably
not seen them, I make no apology for quoting some
portions of them. They will show you that we have
a great deal more to do than merely to congratulate
ourselves on the results of the new commercial treaty
system.
Mr. Max Wirth, a very distinguished statistician and
economist, after describing the recent commercial crisis
in Germany and Austria, writes as follows:
"With the destructive outbreak of the crisis which,
although it began at the Bourse, soon reached every
branch of industry in Austria as well as in Germany,
protectionism re-appeared and offered to heal the wounds
received by industry in the crisis. To effect this protec-
tionism proposed giving up the treaties of commerce, all
of which cease with the year 1876, and raising the duty
OPENING ADDRESS-"ECONOMY AND TRADE." 105
on imports. The wool manufacturers of Brünn were the
first to utter an opinion of this kind, because they found
themselves at a disadvantage, occasioned by the ad-
ditional treaty of 1869. Next came the owners of the
ironworks; and both branches of industry succeeded in
obtaining the attention of the Government and the
Reichsrath, so that their position was made the object of
an official enquête. In the spring of 1875 protectionism
succeeded in obtaining a triumph over free traders in the
Austrian Congress of Economists, but merely by a total
majority of voices, declaring itself altogether against
renewal.of the treaties of commerce, and for autonomy
in the tariff, which is in future to be raised. At the
same time the protectionist party gave signs of life in
different parts of Germany, especially in the Prussian
Landtag and in the Bavarian Reichsrath."
Mr. George von Bunsen writes from North Germany:
"In Germany, too, plaintive voices have made them-
selves heard in Parliament and in the press or among
manufacturers. When they speak much-and certainly
not too much of the astounding advance of French
manufacture, do they attribute it to its real cause, viz.
a fixed patriotic determination to work very hard, to
work very well, and to work for fair wages peaceably?
No, protection forsooth must have done it-the new
laws of 1871 and 1872 were the panacea-and nothing
but M. Thiers' reaction against those very principles,
which the Anglo-French Treaty of Richard Cobden has
formed into a leaven of the civilised world, could have
saved France. The same error of judgment induces the
same people to ascribe the present discouraging appear-
ance of trade in Germany to our return to those more
advanced economic rules which Prussia, to her honour
be it remembered, was the first to inaugurate so early
as 1818."
G
106 MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
Mr. Montgomery Stuart, in the course of an ex-
tremely interesting letter, dated Rome, 20th July,
observes: "One has been so long accustomed to regard
Italy as the classic land of free trade, that it is at
first somewhat difficult to realise the fact of any strong
protectionist movement in that country."
He then proceeds to explain that the only Italian
state in which free-trade doctrines were not only gene-
rally accepted in theory, but embodied in legislation,
under the old régime, was Tuscany. He then shows
how Mr. Cobden's Italian tour of 1847 strengthened the
hands of the advocates of the good cause, and how it was
immensely advanced by the splendid energy of Cavour.
"No wonder then," he observes, "if the successive
annexations to Sardinia of the other Italian states, and
the immediate extension to these states of the commercial
legislation sanctioned in the north, were regarded as the
definitive victory in Italy of free trade over protec-
tionism. Ancient historical traditions and recent political♦
experience combined-at all events appeared to combine
-in making a policy of commercial freedom a prominent
element in the national programme. How comes it then,
one is naturally tempted to inquire, that only fourteen
years after the death of Count Cavour, the possibility of
a protectionist reaction with any chance of success should
be so much as dreamt of? I believe that the explana-
tion must be sought in various and quite different
causes."
These he finds in the reaction after the death of
Cavour, in the ignorant protectionism which flourished
like all other evil things, in the old kingdom of Naples,
in the accident which brought into power a cabinet more
or less dependent upon Piedmontese protectionist manu-
facturers, in the annexation of the Venetian provinces,
which carried into the Italian Parliament some protec-
OPENING ADDRESS-"ECONOMY AND TRADE." 107
tionist theorists, and above all in the evil effect of the
octroi duties throughout the Peninsula-every commune
which is cursed with an octroi becoming, ipso facto, a
stronghold of protectionism.
"One might," he says, "fill a volume with the
calamitous results of the octroi on national production.
In the first place, there is created an immense dispro-
portion between the price of provisions in close and open
communes, and between the town and the country. The
causes creating this disproportion, whilst acting first and
immediately on home, do not the less act with crushing
effect on foreign trade. Take, for example, the product
in which, from its geographical position and its territorial
conformation, Italy seems, as it were, destined by
Providence to be one of the world's great exporters,
quite as much so as France, Germany, or Spain-I
mean, of course, wine. By the octroi system almost
every motive, so far as the home market is concerned, is
taken away from the landed proprietor, and much more
from the common peasant cultivator, to improve his
wines. The law gives to the municipal councils the
power of establishing a tariff with a minimum and a
maximum duty. The minimum duty is constantly
imposed for such articles as vegetables, which, most easily
supplied from the immediate neighbourhood, are furnished
by the local proprietors; whilst the maximum is just as
regularly imposed on the wines, which may enter into
competition with those grown by the same proprietors.
The distant wine-grower has, therefore, to encounter the
double obstacle of the cost of the carriage and the
maximum duty."
Signor Peruzzi, in a speech made before the Political
Economic Society in Paris, on the 6th of August last,
spoke with a good deal of apprehension about the pro-
bable fate of the treaties of commerce with Italy, while
108 MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
he at the same time promised that the banner of com-
mercial freedom should be held high by his friends and
himself. These warnings are quite sufficient to make us
feel that it is not a time for those who believe that the
commercial treaty network is of vast importance, in a
thousand ways, to the future of Europe, to be negligent,
or sinere res vadere ut vadunt.
As Mr. Max Wirth remarks: "Free traders should
by no means be inactive; they must not allow their fire
to extinguish, or even to flag, for they have found out,
from this last attack of protectionism, that protectionists
have certainly learned one thing from them and from
our immortal friend, Richard Cobden-energetic and
persevering defence of their own interests.'
"}
I believe, gentlemen, that if we are active in our
respective countries, we shall not only succeed in keeping
up the existing commercial treaties to a great extent, but
that the result of the discussion which we can force
on, all over Europe, will be to enable us to carry our
commercial-treaty policy still farther. I draw great
comfort even from the very letters which I have been
reading to you, for they show that although we have
many enemies, we have many allies, both from conviction
and from interest. From interest, I say, because the
astounding trade figures which I quoted to you as those
of 1873, could not have been arrived at without calling
into existence a great number of industries, which would
be most grievously injured by any serious retrogression
on the road upon which Europe has entered.
You will not have failed to observe that, when
M. Thiers exerted all his power to overthrow the edifice
which had been built up so bitterly against his will,
between 1860 and the calamitous war which his writings
did so much to bring about, his success was after all
extremely partial. He had to fight, not only all the
OPENING ADDRESS-"ECONOMY AND TRADE." 109
wiser portion of his countrymen, but a great number of
new interests which by no means enjoyed the idea of a
return, or anything like a return, to the status quo of
1859.
The same phenomena which we see in France may
be seen in other countries. Bremen asks for protection;
Remscheid protests against protection. The Austrian
Chambers of Commerce ask for protection; Hungary
says, “No, no! That won't quite suit me.
""
In fact, all over the continent of Europe, the two
parties are in presence, and the free traders are naturally
anxious that the English Government and individual
Englishmen should do all in their power to assist them.
Some months ago, a leading German free trader com-
municated with a member of the Cobden Club, and
proposed that there should be in the later autumn of
this year a conference of the friends of free exchange
held at Berlin, for the purpose of taking council as to
what should be done in order to prevent the overthrow
of the treaties, when the time for their revision arrives.
The overture was met very cordially by the person to
whom it was addressed, and by some others; but it has
since been ascertained by those gentlemen in Germany,
who conceived the idea, that it would be impossible to
make the necessary preparations before Easter, 1876.
The conference, I trust, will then take place, for I have
no doubt that it will do good; but a great many months
lie between us and Easter, 1876.* If the patient is to be
saved, we must not let the disease run its course,
unchecked, till that time. I should like to see those
who, whether from opinion or interest, are in favour of
keeping up or extending existing commercial treaties,
bring, in every country in Europe, as much pressure to
bear in favour of their views as they possibly can, and
* Other difficulties arose, and the conference did not take place.
110 MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
bring it without delay. In our own country, I should
like to see all the centres of industry endeavouring to
strengthen the hands of the Government in its negotia-
tions with foreign powers, by enabling it to say, "We do
not merely press our views upon you because we think
them theoretically correct, but because the whole of our
manufacturers and many others are up in arms, and the
retention, if not the extension, of the commercial treaty
network is looked upon by our commercial classes as the
most important affair which can, at present, occupy the
attention of English diplomatists.”
If, gentlemen, we succeed in keeping the status quo
of 1875—if, that is, we allow the mighty machine that
has been working since 1875 to go on unchecked-I think
we shall have done a great deal. It is a time of political
slack-water all over Europe, and nowhere more than in
our own country. Still, although this is so, I do not
despair of seeing, I will not say, progress made, in the
free exchange direction, but inquiries set on foot which
may lead to future progress in that direction. It was
therefore with much pleasure that I heard my friend
Mr. Cartwright give notice, shortly before the end of
the session, that he would move next year for a com-
mittee on the wine duties. It is, you know, alleged by
the Portuguese and Spaniards that the way in which we
levy our wine duties operates most cruelly to them.
They say, "England, with its cold damp climate, is our
natural market, and you English are also the people who
have got most articles to sell which we want.
would so alter the mode of levying your wine duties as
to enable us to send you more wine, we should be a great
deal richer and able to buy a great deal more from you.
The moment
you alter
your wine duties, which operate
so hardly against us, we will lower our duties upon a
great many of the English things which we want to buy
If you
OPENING ADDRESS-" ECONOMY AND TRADE." 111
from you, and you will gain, too, excellent new markets
in the Peninsula.
""
I know that there are some people who would tell us
that the proper way to meet those remonstrances would
be to say, "You foolish Portuguese and Spaniards, don't
you see that, whether our duties are, or are not, cruel
in their operation with respect to you, you are merely
making your position worse by laying heavy duties upon
your goods which you confessedly want to buy?" That
is a perfectly good answer, as far as it goes, but it is not
a practical answer. The best of the Portuguese and
Spaniards would rejoin: "We know that perfectly well;
we know that it would be better for every country to
take off all customs duties whatever, but our people
have got it into their heads that England, reversing the
old policy of the Methuen Treaty, under which she
treated France unjustly, by keeping her wines out of
the English market, in order to favour those of Portugal,
is now treating us unjustly by keeping our wines out of
her market, in order to favour those of France. They
have got, we say, this idea into their heads, and we
Peninsular free-traders may preach till we are hoarse
without getting it out of their heads. Besides, even if
our governments were able to take off the duties upon
all your goods, in the teeth of their parliaments, how-
ever well it might be for us, it would not do you any
great amount of good, because, if you won't take our
wine, we have really nothing to buy your goods with."
These representations, gentlemen, appear to me
worthy of very serious consideration, but in reply to
them the custom-house officials have, I well know, a
variety of arguments by which they think they can show
that we could only accede to the requests of the Penin-
sula Governments, at the price of great inconvenience to
them, the custom-house officials, and considerable loss to
.
ܝ
112 MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
*
the revenue. Well, this may be so, but it is highly desirable
that both parties should have an opportunity of submitting
their views to the judgment of a select committee, and I
believe I am right in thinking that the irritation in the
Peninsula would be very much diminished if there was a
full and fair inquiry* before an impartial tribunal.
If Mr. Cartwright is able to show that the Depart-
ment of the Board of Trade, and the great and powerful
sub-department of the Customs are at issue on this
question, as I think he will, the case for a Parliamentary
inquiry will be certainly strong.
But the Portuguese and Spanish are not the only
people who maintain that some of the English customs
duties operate very harshly with regard to them.
G
The landed gentry of North Germany are, as
Mr. von Bunsen tells us, and as is well known, essen-
tially free-traders, but they think that the way in which
the English spirit duties are raised operates very un-
favourably to their interests, and that, if concessions
were made to them in this particular, they would be
able to persuade their countrymen to make certain con-
cessions which would be highly favourable to the English
manufacturer. Mr. Faucher, a well-known economist
and free-trader, wrote a most elaborate paper upon this
subject, which will be found in a volume published by
the Cobden Club.
I am not going to express any opinion upon
Mr. Faucher's views, any more than I have done upon
those of the Portuguese and Spanish complaints, but I
think he has made out a case that calls for an inquiry
before an impartial tribunal.
If the Portuguese and Spanish, and if Mr. Faucher
and his friends, can show that the arguments on their
side of the case outweigh those which will be brought
*This is still refused.
OPENING ADDRESS—“ECONOMY AND TRADE." 113
against them, and if it by any chance becomes clear that
it will be largely for the interest of English commerce
that the changes which they suggest should be made,
good and well, we shall have an extension of the com-
mercial treaty system, which I for one shall be, in the
absence of overwhelming reasons of convenience to the
contrary, extremely glad to see; but the pros and cons
of these proposals are matters for future inquiry. The
success of the existing network of commercial treaties is,
however, no longer a matter for inquiry. It has been
proved by the experience of the last ten years, and while
I hereby call your attention to the Portuguese, Spanish,
and German allegations, I wish to urge each one of you,
who has at heart the cause of free exchange and the
binding closer together of the nations, to remember the
critical position of the treaties, and to work for their
support.*
::
* What has been gained, or, more properly speaking, not lost, since
this address was delivered, is due rather to the interests that have
sprung up amongst the ruled than to the wisdom of the rulers.
For a moment in the spring of 1877 the negotiations with France
promised well, but they soon languished and died in the storms of the
early summer.
Of late our ministers have been too much occupied with “high
politics" to have time for the furtherance of so prosaic a blessing as
commercial prosperity. Perhaps distress must bite a good deal sharper
than it has yet done before the noisy crowd which cheered them on has
once more learned that those who pursue a spirited, or, in other words,
a blustering foreign policy, do but gather the apples of the Dead Sea
shore.-Nov. 1878.
İ
·H
1847 AND 1876.
ADDRESS DELIVERED ON THE 4th OF MARCH, 1876, AT CLIFTON
COLLEGE, AND PARTLY PRINTED IN THE "CONTEMPORARY
REVIEW."
YOUR head-master did me the honour, some little time
ago, to ask me to address you on a political subject. I
had great pleasure in agreeing to do this, for I hold with
those who think that young Englishmen can hardly be
led too early to take an interest in politics, if we under-
stand the word politics in its higher and only true sense.
For Englishmen, such as you, not to care about politics,
implies one of two things: Either that they do not know
their position in the State and their duties to others, or
that they are supremely indifferent at least to the tem-
poral welfare of their countrymen. That is not the frame
of mind appropriate to an English public school, not the
frame of mind which was encouraged by the study of the
Greek and Latin writers, even when that study was
prosecuted, as it used to be when I was a boy, and is far
too often now, in a very narrow and exclusive way.
Much less is it a frame of mind compatible with a really
liberal system of education.
So then we shall talk of politics to-night-but of what
politics? Not the English politics of the day, for many
of
you have brought from your homes, or have formed
for yourselves, your own ideas as to at least the personal
part of current English politics. You like this public
1847 AND 1876.
115
character, and you dislike that. It would not accord-
ingly be possible for me, who, though I trust I am not
an unfair or violent party man, am yet, as everyone who
wishes to be of any sort of use in English public life
must be, a decided party man, to talk frankly of current
English politics without offending some of you; and I
should be very sorry to do anything of the kind.
mai
After thinking over the matter, then, I determined
to take for my subject the only department of politics
which had begun to interest me when I was as young as
the oldest of you now are—that is, just before I went up
to the University-and to try to put before you, of
course in the roughest kind of outline, the changes that
have taken place in Europe since that time.
The Europe in which you are beginning to take an
interest is a very different one from that on which we,
your predecessors, first opened our eyes in the latter half
of the year 1847.
England had then been at peace for a generation,
which might be divided into two pretty equal halves.
During the first, she had been chiefly under the dominion
of Conservative, during the second, of Liberal ideas.
The statesmen who had most affected her destinies,
during the fifteen years previous to 1847, had been
largely occupied in redeeming the mistakes of their im-
mediate predecessors, and in bringing the country to a
point which it would doubtless have reached long before,
if the follies of the friends, and the cowardice of the
enemies, of the French Revolution had not by their
action, reaction, and inter-action kept it for a long
time from pursuing the one road that can lead to any
good in politics, the road of cautious, but at the same
time constant, progress. At length, however, the long
bewildered land was fairly on the right track. Political
power was pretty justly distributed, although voices,
I 2
116
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
:
}
asking for a wider distribution of the right of voting,
here and there made themselves heard, and new classes
began to knock at the door of the Constitution. The
Corn Laws had been repealed, and the tariff much
simplified. Free trade, in fact, was rapidly getting
adopted, in theory, as the guide of all our commercial
arrangements, although much remained, as something
still remains, to be done, before the theory is made quite
to square with the practice. Our colonial empire was
beginning to take the outline which has been since so
rapidly filled up, and the same may be said of India,
although hardly one institution which then existed in
connection with the government of that country is any
more in being.
The England, however, of 1847 was a very small
and weak power, compared to that on which we now
look. How poor and small no one would believe, till he
has looked a little carefully into statistics.
The remarkable movement to which Archbishop
Whately gave the name of Newmania, and which created
for a time so formidable a diversion to the spread of really
liberal opinions, had spent much of its force. The finest
minds which were formed by it had found their natural
resting-place in the bosom of the Roman communion,
and all that was best in England was gradually being
drawn back into the main current of European liberal
thought. Those who went up to Oxford in 1847 saw,
I consider, just the turn of the tide, saw, in their three
years of residence, the Oxford of the "Lyra Apostolica
slowly giving way to the Oxford whose spirit is best
reflected by the poems of Clough and Matthew Arnold.
I hope that someone in your generation who can ap-
preciate all that was beautiful in that strange episode
of English life, which lasted through the fourteen years
previous to 1847, but who also sees that it was merely
,,
1847 AND 1876.
117
an episode, a kind of enchanted island, will one day tell
its story-sine irá et studio.
France, our nearest neighbour, was ruled by a
monarch whom it was the fashion of England to regard
as wisdom personified. True it is that, at the time of
which I speak, his conduct in the affair of the Spanish
marriages had rudely shaken the confidence which many
English politicians reposed in him, making them re-
member the Italian proverb, "More fox skins than asses'
skins find their way to the furrier." But the vast
majority of people in England, who cared about politics,
still believed that he had found the best way to apply to
France a system of constitutional or quasi-constitutional
government, in spite of many ominous signs of uneasiness
which from time to time appeared.
Italy was still, in the words of Metternich, a mere
geographical expression. Parcelled out amongst a
variety of petty sovereigns, she was politically powerless
beyond her own frontiers, while within them every
worthy aspiration had been, since the peace of 1815,
most studiously repressed in every part of the country,
except in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, and, latterly, in
the kingdom of Sardinia. Only just before the time of
which I am speaking a new Pope had shown Liberal
inclinations, and had manifested a disposition to put
himself at the head of the Catholic Liberal party, which
had found a voice in the eloquent, and in some respects.
enthusiastically Catholic, Gioberti.
The whole of the peninsula had been for many years
undermined by moral fires as fierce as those which come
to the surface in Campania and in Sicily, and far more
widely spread. Every few months the police was on the
track of some conspiracy, real or supposed, and from
time to time there was an outbreak, which was in-
variably repressed, and as invariably ended in crowding
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MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
the prisons with political prisoners, and in adding a few
more to the band of exiles who lived and plotted in
London or in Paris.
Austria was to all intents and purposes mistress from
Pontebba to Reggio. Venice and Lombardy were part
of her own possessions. Parma and Modena were
virtually the same; and she made no sort of scruple in
letting nominally independent princes, who coquetted
with Liberal opinions, understand that she was, and
meant to be, supreme.
In Austria itself, the policy of systematic do-nothing
which had been the life's work of the Emperor Francis,
still slept on, under the nominal guidance of his well-
meaning but incapable successor.
Metternich was by
this time a very old man, and although he was still,
under the name of Prince Mitternacht (or midnight),
the object of bitter hostility to the Liberal party, his
influence, always immensely exaggerated so far as the
internal affairs of the empire were concerned, had been
long on the decline. Other men, however, who were in
all ways inferior to him, really did the evil he was only
supposed to do. Every transaction of life was hampered
and hindered. No one could stir from his place of
residence without the permission of the police in some
shape or other. The press was subjected to the severest
censorship.
The books of travellers were closely
examined, and constantly seized if they were supposed
to bear in the slightest degree on any debated question
of religion or politics. Everywhere the mot d'ordre of the
Government was to prevent anything like movement of
mind, in any direction whatever. The men who nomi-
nally advised, and really directed, the emperor who
used to occupy himself in counting the omnibuses which
passed the window, while they discussed-would fain
have surrounded his empire with a Chinese wall, over
p
,
1847 AND 1876.
119
which no rumour from the world beyond it could ever
be allowed to come.
There was something imposing to the eyes of that
outer world in this vast and gloomy mass, the realm of
darkness and the giant Akinetos; but athwart the dark-
ness strange forces were moving. Towards the close of
the last century, Joseph II., an enlightened and able
prince, but not a wise statesman, had tried to introduce
into his dominions a variety of changes, many of which
were of a highly salutary kind. He, went, however, far
too fast, and stirred up almost in every province so
formidable an opposition, that he was obliged to undo
very much of his own work. Beneath the calm level of
the Austria of Francis and of Ferdinand, the agitation
which had been called forth by Joseph II. worked on,
unobserved by Europe. Those, however, who chanced
to have travelled in certain parts of the then little-
visited empire, knew perfectly well that a crisis would
ere long come. Here and there a warning voice was
raised, as for instance, by Paget, in his excellent and
never-sufficiently-appreciated book, "Hungary and Tran-
sylvania." It was at Carlsbad in Bohemia, in the
summer of 1847, in the interval between my matricu-
lating and going into residence at Balliol, that I first,
from hearing discussed around me the then condition of
Austria, began to take that strong interest in European
politics which has been one of the greatest pleasures of
my life. From Carlsbad I went down to have a look at
the capital of Hungary, and the Danube valley, returning
to England with the strongest possible impression that
any spark falling anywhere would light up a conflagra-
tion all through central Europe. I not only thought so,
but said so, speaking for the first time, where some of
you will I hope soon be speaking, in that most admirable
institution, the Union at Oxford, in February, 1848,
120 MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
upon a motion made by Mr. Morier, our present repre-
sentative at Lisbon, in favour of establishing diplomatic
relations with Rome.
.
The spark which lit up the conflagration came, how-
ever, not, as had seemed likely for some weeks previous,
from the south, but from the west; for, within a time to
be counted by hours from that at which I spoke, came
the news that the seventeen years' siege of the July
monarchy-to use the happy phrase of a French publicist
-had at length ended in its fall. Yet a few more
hours, and the King of France was a fugitive on our
shores, and the tremendous events of the great year of
revolutions were running their fateful course.
In Prussia, something like a parliamentary system.
had been introduced early in 1847; but it was not a
parliamentary system of the modern kind, such as the
people had been led to expect. It was a strange, old-
world resurrection, the offspring of the fantastic genius of
Frederick William IV., whose mind was deeply dyed
with that romanticism which made the round of Europe
in his early days, producing the Waverley Novels in
Scotland, Manzoni in Italy, Montalembert in France, and
the movement of 1833 in the Church of England. Up
to the date of the calling together of the assembly
known as the "United Diet," on the 3rd of February,
1847, Prussia had been a despotic monarchy; a fact
which you will do well to remember, when you hear
people comment unfavourably upon some of the political
phenomena which may be observed in that country at
this moment; but it was a despotic monarchy, managed
by an admirably-skilled, conscientious, and efficient body
of functionaries, who were largely influenced by modern
ideas, so that the saying which was frequently in the
mouths of persons in high place at Berlin, "Nothing
by the people, everything for the people," was a much
1847 AND 1876.
121
more accurate expression of the character of the govern-
ment than it would have been in most of the other
countries of which I have been speaking. Germany was
governed by a body known as the Diet, which sat at
Frankfort, and over which Austria and Prussia exercised
vast influence, the first being considered more powerful
than the second. They generally acted together, when
there was any question of repressing popular movements;
but they were extremely and increasingly jealous of each
other. In none of the minor States of the Fatherland
was there any real political activity, but in nearly all the
German-speaking countries, always excepting Austria,
popular education had spread very widely. Several of
the smaller courts were most creditably distinguished by
their patronage of literature and art, while almost every-
where there was a vigorous academical life. During the
thirty years previous to 1847, Oxford and Cambridge
acted as drags on the national coach; but it was quite
otherwise with Berlin, and Leipsic, and Heidelberg, and
the German universities generally. They were the fiery
coursers, which drew the national coach, while her states-
men were occupied in putting on the drag. And of the
two extremes, let me say in passing, that which was then
seen in Germany is far the best. Of course, it is desirable
that both professors and practical statesmen should be
perfectly wise, each hitting the golden mean, and being
anxious to go neither too fast nor too slow; but the state
of things in which the professor, the man of theory, is
anxious to make things perfect at once, while the poli-
tician has to say, "All in good time; but don't let us be
in such a tremendous hurry," is much more healthy than
its opposite.
-
-
Far off, beyond the Vistula and the little-known
provinces of East Prussia, loomed the vast empire of
the Czars. Hardly anyone in western Europe, out of
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MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
!
diplomatic circles, had any real knowledge about it.
Haxthausen's admirable book had indeed appeared, but
the information contained in it had scarcely begun to filter
down into the minds of even professional politicians.
Well-read men, like Dr. Arnold, represented Russia to
themselves as something like that great hive of nations
which overwhelmed of old the civilisation of Rome. She
was believed, and she believed herself to be, enormously
strong; and those who, like Mr. Cobden, saw that much
of her prestige was founded in illusion, were too few and
too loudly contradicted by appearances to produce much
effect upon the public.
.
The Emperor Nicholas, a man of excellent intentions
and many great qualities, had lived, ever since the con-
spiracy of 1825 which welcomed him to power in so
terrible a way, under the influence of two all-absorbing
prepossessions-first, that his position at home was ex-
tremly dangerous, that, to use his own words, he "sat
upon a volcano ;" and, secondly, that within certain
limits and for certain purposes, he was verily and indeed
the elect and anointed of heaven, commissioned to hold
erect the principles of order and of faith, in a world
which was becoming every day more unbelieving and
revolutionary. The fearful inheritance of absolute power,
which had come to him so contrary to his own wish, had
gradually changed his character, and made him in many
respects the tyrant which he was popularly, but quite
erroneously, supposed to be in all. The most authentic
descriptions of the state of society, even in Petersburg
and Moscow, during his last years, read like a bad dream.
An Argus-eyed police prevented even the most harmless
discussions; spies swarmed in every company. The
peasantry were serfs. A middle class did not exist;
and although there were many isolated nobles whose
lives had, no doubt, a very brilliant side, they were abso-
1847 AND 1876.
123
lutely without political power, and might at any moment,
if they showed the smallest desire to obtain any, be
hurled from their high estate into utter ruin. Communi-
cation with the West was put under every possible
restriction that passport formalities and prohibitive
duties could entail.
It was not only within his own dominions that the
Czar was a dread and sinister power. It is true enough
that the Holy Alliance, properly so called, never came to
anything-was, indeed, a popular bugbear. But the
three Great Powers of the East, holding firmly together,
were always ready to help each other against their own
subjects; and, at this time, the immense personal influence
and strong will of the Russian ruler, taken into connection
with his network of family ties in Germany, gave him a
preponderant voice alike in Berlin, in Vienna, and in
Frankfort. To every Liberal on the continent of Europe,
and to every English Liberal who occupied himself
about European politics, the Emperor Nicholas, in the
end of the year 1847, was "he that letteth," a strong
tower of defence for all that was most repugnant to
reason and common sense.
Of the Northern Powers, Denmark, Sweden, and
Norway, we heard little or nothing. The former was
about to fill the thoughts of English statesmen a good
deal more than was desirable; but the time had not yet
quite come, although beyond the Rhine the discussion
which was inaugurated by the famous pamphlet, "Who
inherits in Schleswig?" was already in full career.
Belgium, under the guidance of a wise king, was
quietly working out those reforms which enabled her to
go so tranquilly through the stormy period that was near
at hand, and the same may be said of her old enemy
but by that time very good neighbour, Holland.
Spain had passed some eight years, since the Con-
124 MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
vention of Vergara gave peace to her long-distracted
provinces, and had for awhile been much quieter than
Portugal, which was harassed by troubles arising from
causes of a local character.
Switzerland was in the middle of a civil war, which
happily terminated very quickly, without the effusion
of much blood, not, however, without giving another
warning to Europe.
The Eastern Peninsula had long attracted the anxious
attention of diplomatists and statesmen, but Turkey and
its affairs had not yet become an object of intense
popular interest in the West, as it was soon to do. The
Philhellenic enthusiasm, which had been called forth
twenty years before, had long since burnt itself to
ashes. People smiled to remember that there had been
a time when they saw in the struggles of the Greek war
of independence, full as they were on both sides of all
that was ignoble and horrible, the resurrection of a
people which was once more to gild the hills and isles.
of the Archipelago with all the glory of Athens. Otho
was far from popular, and a few years before had been
obliged to make great concessions to the movement
party; but in Greece, as elsewhere, the general aspect
of things was peaceful enough.
Such, in the broadest and briefest outline, was the
outward aspect of that Europe in which men of my
age first began to take an interest; but under its surface
there were, as I have already hinted, some tremendous
powers, which have had much to do with calling into
life the very different Europe about which you are
beginning to care; and I must now say a little more as
to these.
First, there was the desire for constitutional govern-
ment-the desire of the educated middle class for some
share in the management of the State under which it
1847 AND 1876.
125
1
lived, and to whose prosperity it mainly contributed.
This was originally an English, or, as it was called
by its opponents, an Anglomaniac movement, which,
having spread over the Continent through the writings
of Voltaire, and other French authors, during the
eighteenth century, was then wholly interrupted for a
time by the Revolution, but reappeared, after the great
peace, deeply dyed in many places by the colours of that
Revolution.
·
Secondly, there was the passion for equality which,
in so far as it is not the outcome of universally diffused
human instincts, was chiefly of French growth; but had
extended itself largely, especially amongst the artisans
of most European countries.
Thirdly, and closely related to the last-mentioned,
there were the dreams and aspirations which had found
a voice now in St. Simon, now in Robert Owen, now in
Fourier, now in Cabet-dreams and aspirations of men.
who saw that there was a great deal that was unreason-
able and unjust in the apparently hap-hazard arrange-
ments of society, and conceived that these hap-hazard
arrangements could be set aside by sudden acts of power,
so that the fruits of common weal, to which we look
forward as the result of generations of labour, might be
grasped all in a day.
Fourthly, there was the profound undermining of old
ecclesiastical ideas which, commencing in England with
Locke and his successors, had passed into Germany
about the middle of the eighteenth century, and had led,
there, to those gigantic philosophical and critical labours,
the results of which are becoming the general inheritance
of nearly all educated men under middle life—at least
in Protestant countries.
Fifthly, there was the widely extended desire on the
part of the rulers of the world to rule well, wisely, and
J
126 MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
generously, if only they knew how; the same tendency
which had shown itself in Peter Leopold of Tuscany, in
Joseph II. of Austria, nay, even at Naples, before the
French Revolution, and which had now revived with a
generation which had forgotten, or begun to forget, that
dreadful scare.
V
Sixthly, there was the passion for nationality—the
desire that those who "resemble should assemble," an
old and natural tendency which, having been long in-
operative as a political force, had been for some time.
growing in strength, finding mouthpieces in the most
diverse persons, and in the most diverse places-in
Niebuhr one day, in Mazzini another, and in the obscure
agitators of Agram or Debreczen on a third.
Now let us turn to the other side of the shield, and
look at the world in which you are soon to take a part.
England has become far more populous, far richer, far
more powerful. Many of her colonies which were just
beginning their life, thirty years ago, have grown into
great and powerful states, such, for instance, as Victoria.
Others which did not even exist, such as Queensland, are
preparing to run the race of prosperity side by side with
their elder sisters.
Great provinces in India, provinces which, like Oude,
are as large as European kingdoms, have been added to
our Eastern Empire; while over all of it our hold has
become stronger as well as more beneficent. At home
justice is better administered. There is less crime in
proportion to the population, education is more extended,
and great subjects are discussed with more toleration and
openness of mind.
Two or three vessels of our present navy would sink
all the vessels of our navy as it was in 1847, while a few
thousands of our present army, far more numerous, be it
observed, than that of thirty years ago, would hold their
own against whole legions of their, according to our
1847 AND 1876.
127
1
present notions, hardly armed predecessors. Our manu-
factures have not only very much increased in amount,
but the sense of beauty has been extensively developed
amongst our workmen. You will often hear it said that
money goes less far than it used to do in this country,
but that, except as to articles of which the supply is very
limited, such as the finest pictures and the rarest wines,
is to a great extent a delusion, arising partly from one or
two important items of housekeeping having become
dearer, such as meat and servants' wages, but chiefly
from the fact that we all live more expensively than
people did a generation ago. A thousand sovereigns
coming into any man's pocket, in the year 1876, will
enable him to buy, if he knows how to employ them
judiciously, many more of the pleasures and advantages
of life than they would have done in the year 1847.
Look round in every direction, and you will find that in
all ways England is a better and pleasanter place to live
in, for all classes, than it was in 1847. If the generation
to which I belong and the generation to which you
belong, do their duty and are wise, the historians of the
last five-and-twenty years of this century will have even
a more wonderful tale of prosperity to tell.
Next let us cross the Straits of Dover, and see what
will meet our eyes there. France, like England, is more
materially prosperous than she was in 1847, but on the
other hand there is no certain indication that she has
definitely passed out of her revolutionary period, and got
to a point where the path stretches clear before her. If
she would once for all forswear military ambition, once
for all make up her mind to play the part of Athens,
rather than of Rome, in Europe, if she would adopt a free-
trade policy, if she would take real securities for individual
liberty as against the State, it would make very little
matter to the great mass of her citizens whether she was
a monarchy or a republic; but unfortunately it looks
3
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MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
just at present as if she was far from prepared to do any
of these things. She has, without any necessity, made
all but universal the obligation of military service which
her own folly and wickedness, two generations ago, forced
upon Germany. She dreams of re-recovering from her
great neighbour the provinces which that neighbour lately
recovered from her, and which in another thirty years
will be nearly as German as Cologne. An enormous
mass of all that is best and most respectable in her
society is bound, by its allegiance to the most extreme
form of Ultramontanism, to be actively hostile to all
modern ideas. In various stata of the community, on
the other hand, the passion for equality has killed down
all the old beliefs and reverences which kept the fabric
together, while there has not been substituted for them
anything like that devotion to the State which Hegel did
so much to make a living creed beyond the Rhine. The
false gods of Napoleonism, and of the ideas of 1793, have
still countless worshippers, the one chiefly amongst the
peasantry, the other amongst the masses of the towns.
I hope you will not see such sensational days in that
in many respects attractive-nay, fascinating--country,
as those which riveted our attention in the year 1848,
but he would be indeed a bold man who would attempt
to say
whether you will or will not do so.*
Nowhere are the changes which a generation has
produced more conspicuous than in the Italian peninsula.
The kingdom of Sardinia is merged in the kingdom of
Italy. The Austrian has vanished from Lombardy and
Venice. Parma is gone; Modena is gone; Tuscany is
gone. The kingdom of the Two Sicilies is gone. The
temporal power of the Pope is gone. Railways extend,
in an almost unbroken line, from the top to the toe of
* At this moment, November, 1878, things look far more promising;
but the madness of the 16th of May might well have had a different
issue, and may not be the last-on the Right or on the Left.
1847 AND 1876.
129
the boot. The shops in Rome, round the Collegio
Romano, Propaganda, and the church of the Minerva,
buildings associated respectively with the Jesuits, the
Dominicans, and the Inquisition, are full of works on
scientific subjects. Newspapers, few of them it must be
admitted of any great merit, spread the intelligence of
the day, which used often, when I first travelled in Italy,
to be jealously kept back by the Governments. Nearly
all the monasteries are suppressed. The general of the
Jesuits has gone to live at Fiesole, and the Pope is
pleased to consider himself a prisoner in the eleven
thousand rooms of the Vatican.
Savoy and Nice have, on the other hand, been
lost, to recompense a great nation for having made
war for an idea; but their loss is of no political
importance.
If any artist wished to do for historical painting
what Turner did for landscape in his Ancient and
Modern Italy, he could hardly do better than put on
canvas two scenes which took place in the Capitol some
weeks ago, within a few hundred feet of each other, and
which I witnessed. The one was the distribution of
prizes to the successful candidates at the girls' schools
supported by the municipality of Rome, and the other
was the procession of the wonder-working image known
as the Bambino, in the church of Ara Celi.
The con-
trast between the intelligence of the countenances which
figured in the one, and the want of intelligence of the
countenances which figured in the other, was extra-
ordinarily interesting. As the great door of the church
opened to re-admit the priests who had gone out to show
the image to the people assembled on the gigantic flight
of stairs which leads to the Piazza below, the level rays
of the sun, which was sinking behind the Janiculan,
struck far up the central aisle, and my companion, who
ܐ܂
K
130
:
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
had been with me also at the other ceremony,
"You see light is penetrating even here."
The Italian army, it must be frankly admitted, did
not do very much towards achieving the independence
of Italy, which has come about rather by the assistance
of foreign nations, and through a skilful use of political
opportunities. Now, however, it is acting as an admir-
able school for the more backward parts of the popu-
lation, and transmitting even to the most remote villages
the sense of a great and common country. The repre-
sentatives of the people have shown much more good
sense and political tact than most persons expected.
The finances, which have been, and are, the greatest
difficulty, get gradually into better order, and Italy, if
she does not go forth in the search for new adventures,
which, I trust, she is very unlikely to do, has every
chance of a future which will compensate her for the
long miseries of the past.
said
Austria, which had more hand in these miseries than
any other State, has herself gone through changes almost
as remarkable as the fair land which stretches into the
Mediterranean, from her southern border; but while the
history of Italy in the last thirty years has been one of
uniform success, the history of Austria during the same
period has been one of uniform failure. When we began
to interest ourselves in politics, Austria was the first
power in Germany and the first power in Italy. Now
she has neither part nor lot in either one or the other.
Nevertheless, at this moment Austria is probably stronger
than she was then, and the motto “Viribus unitis,” which
the Emperor Francis Joseph took, when he ascended the
throne, is probably a more accurate description of the
state of his empire than it was during the earlier years
of his reign, when it might have seemed to a superficial
observer that the policy represented by those famous
1847 AND 1876.
131
words, the policy of governing so many widely differing
provinces as if they were an homogeneous kingdom like
France, was going to succeed. I say probably, because
there are many facts about Austria which ought to be
known before we can give a confident opinion, which are
not known to anyone, or hardly anyone, in the west of
Europe. This, however, I will venture to assert that
the difficulties before and around the empire, at present,
are difficulties arising from the force of circumstances
and the conditions of history. They are difficulties
which no wit of men now living could have prevented
or avoided. The arrangement made a few years ago,
by which the empire became a two-headed thing like its
own eagle, one head being Austria on this side of the
Leitha, and the other being the provinces of the Hungarian
Crown, is obviously a most difficult one to work-one
requiring tact, patience, and intelligence, not merely at
the centre of affairs in Vienna or in Pesth, but in the
capitals of most of the provinces-requiring, too, the aid
of much good fortune, if it is to be conducted to a
successful issue. All that I most freely admit, and I
admit, too, that the frontier questions, the relation of the
German provinces to Germany, of the Slave provinces
to the Slavic provinces of Turkey, and of the Roumanian
districts which belong to the Crown of Hungary to Rou-
mania, are full of infinite complications and possibilities
of mischief. The chief interest of the European drama
between this and the end of the century, at least to
those who like les émotions fortes, will be, as I have
said before,* not west but east of Vienna. Still I main-
tain that the dominions of the House of Hapsburg are
a much more desirable place to live in than they used to
be, and that the efforts that House has made since 1866,
to accommodate its Government to new exigencies, deserve
* Introduction to "Elgin Speeches." Edinburgh, 1871.
K 2
132
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MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
:
the greatest possible admiration and respect. Your
feelings to Austria and her rulers ought to be diametri-
cally the opposite of what ours very properly were, thirty
years ago.
To those who followed the wonderful Hungarian
drama from the time when, through Government influence,
Francis Deak was not elected for the county of Szalad in
1847, down to the present hour, that scene which some
of you probably saw described in the papers the other
day, when the Empress herself brought the wreath to
the room where he lay in state, was one of the most
touching in recent history.
The position of Prussia and of all Germany has
hardly less changed than that of Austria. The unity of
Germany, for which patriots were sighing, as men who
had no hope, in 1847, has now become to a great extent
an accomplished fact. That it has become so in the best
way, I am very far from asserting. Much that has been
done cannot be defended, and will pave the way, I fear, to
more trouble in the future; but although I am no
worshipper of success, and cannot pretend to share the
blind admiration which many of my German friends, who
thought as I did in 1865, feel for the statesman who was
chiefly instrumental in making the German Empire as
we now see it, I cannot but allow that the disappearance
of Hanover, Hesse, and the like, is an unmixed blessing,
and that Germany has been put in the way of incom-
parably greater prosperity than she has ever known. In
the natural order of things she must be drawing very
near to the end of a period of her history-a storm and
stress period, if ever there was one. God grant that the
new period which is coming may be as unalloyed a
blessing to Europe, and herself, as those who have the
best means of knowing what are likely to be its deter-
mining influences and tendencies confidently expect.
1847 AND 1876.
133
Do you at least, Englishmen just entering upon life,
grasp the idea, that while you wish no ill to any nation
-while you see that the European concert is sadly
imperfect if the voices of England, France, Italy, and
Germany are not all heard in it-the natural ally of this
country is the great State which has done and is doing
so much for intellectual freedom?
You will have plenty of reason to be, from time to
time, irritated with Germany; you will often be astounded
at the crassa ignorantia about this country, its tendencies
and methods of proceeding, exhibited by Germans who
ought to know better. Look, for illustrations of what
I mean, at such a book as Weber's " Contemporary
History;" but the sympathies of the two countries are
in the main at one, and they have absolutely no interests
which can by any possibility become conflicting.
For some years after 1847 the position of Russia
seemed to grow ever greater. In 1849 the Czar saved
the Austrian empire. In 1850 his influence imposed
upon Prussia the humiliation of Olmütz, when that rising
state seemed once more to sink back into contented
vassalage to the House of Hapsburg. The prosperity
of the Emperor Nicholas, and the overweening self-
confidence which it engendered, remind one of nothing
so much as a Greek tragedy, which some of you know
well. It was the story of the Edipus Tyrannus acted
over again, on a gigantic scale. Destiny, however, had
not in store for the mighty autocrat any peaceful grove
of Colonos. The Furies did not come to him in the
form of the good goddesses, when his heart broke in the
great agony of that terrible spring, and the proud head
which had attracted the eyes of his contemporaries more
than that of any other man, lay down to its long
sleep in the gloomy church which rises above the
citadel of Petersburg. Hardly were his eyes closed,
A
134
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MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
when the whole edifice of his policy crashed down. The
great fortress which had so long resisted the efforts of
four nations, and had by its resistance exhausted the
empire, incomparably more than would have been the
case if it had fallen immediately after the fight on the
Alma, was taken at last. A disastrous peace was patched
up, and Russia, ceasing for years to take an active part
in Europe, set to work to reform, as best she could, her
internal abuses, and to re-collect her strength. She had
the good fortune to find, in the son of the Emperor
Nicholas, a man very different from his father-a man
who saw what his country wanted, and who, not having
passed through any such fiery trial as that which befell
his predecessor in 1825, did not think that every change
meant the overthrow of all that he held most sacred.
The reforms which he has made one after another are of
the most gigantic kind; the abolition of serfdom, the
amendment of the courts of justice, the diminution, and
to a great extent the abolition, of the cruelties of the
old Russian criminal code, and the drawing across the
country of great trunk lines of railway, are only a few
of the vast benefits which will make his reign famous for
ages.
In forming a judgment of Russia, persons of your
age will have an advantage which persons of my age
have not. We grew up abhorring, and most justly
abhorring, Russia; and a great number of people of
my time of life have never yet found out that the young
bear, as Herzen called the new empire, is a different
kind of beast from the old one. Do not misunderstand
me; do not suppose that I put Russia on anything like
the same platform as the great nations of the West; but,
whereas in 1847 she was a huge middle-thing between
Asia and Europe, which affected to keep back progress
in countries far more advanced than herself, she is now
1847 AND 1876.
135
allowing herself, sometimes unwillingly, no doubt, to be
gradually drawn along the road of progress in Europe,
while in Asia she has been, up to this moment, a good
and not a bad influence.
You will hear a great deal, as time goes on, about
the advances of Russia in Asia, and the dangers that
may be expected to arise therefrom. It is very right
that English statesmen should keep their eye upon these
advances, and know exactly what is going on—it is,
indeed, their bounden duty so to do; but so long as
Russia does not meddle with territories which are under
our protection, we cannot interfere with her proceedings,
except by amicably pointing out the inconvenience that
may arise to both of us, from a too near approach in
Asia, before the two countries have sufficiently learned
to understand each other in Europe. There is quite as
much of cowardice as of wise precaution in the talk
which is kept up in some quarters upon this subject.
A conflict with Russia would be, of course, a great cala-
mity to us, but Russia has incomparably more to lose by
it than we have.
The situation of the Northern Powers has altered
in many ways since 1847, and always for the better.
Denmark has, indeed, lost a good deal of highly dis-
affected territory, but she is now a much more compact
and much more prosperous state. Her greatest claim on
the respectful consideration of Europe arises, not from
her past history, which has little to recommend it, but
from the extent to which she has recently developed the
higher forms of popular education, through the excellent
organisation of her great museums, and from the names
of Thorwaldsen, Andersen, and a few others, who hav
been real benefactors to the human race.
The two sister-kingdoms beyond the Sound-Norway
and Sweden-have been steadily growing wiser and
136 MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
happier through the last thirty years.
They have
become more closely united with each other, while vast
reforms have been made, alike in the constitutional life
and in the laws of Sweden. The wholly artificial
arrangement, by which the family of a soldier of for-
tune from the south of France was sent to rule under
the Arctic Circle, has turned out an unbroken and
triumphant success.
Leopold II. of Belgium has not been less fortunate
than the descendants of Bernadotte, or than his own
father, in fulfilling the difficult task which has fallen to
his lot. Belgium is still exposed to the same dangers to
which it was exposed in 1847, and to no more. Its two
dangers are the bitter hatred that burns in the breasts
of its Clericals and Liberals, and the ambition of France.
The first of these has been stimulated to new fierceness
by recent events, and the second, although it slumbers,
by no means sleeps. Whether you will see the little
kingdom pass safely through the next thirty years is a
secret of the future, which no one can divine at present.
The support of ourselves, and other Great Powers, make
it safe enough under existing circumstances; but one
could quite well conceive circumstances arising which
might make it the interest of a large portion of its inha-
bitants to be annexed to France-a state of affairs which
might complicate the situation extremely.
w
Holland has pursued, since 1847, a career of un-
broken prosperity, thanks partly to the good sense of its
people, partly to their firm attachment to the House of
Orange, partly to the bona fides which that House has
shown, and largely to the efforts of one very remarkable
man, now dead, but who was long the moulder of its
internal policy; I mean Mr. Thorbecke.
I returned the other day to its shores, after an
absence of some years, and it was quite delightful to
1847 AND 1876.
137
see in how many respects the country had advanced.
Everywhere I found great new works of public con-
venience and utility. Parliamentary government had
become much stronger and more assured. The chief
difficulties of the Colonial question, which had so long
perplexed politicians, had been got over, while the posi-
tion of the working-classes is so much amended, that
one of the leaders of the Radical party, having been
asked, in my presence, what changes the masses now
wished for, replied, "Well, the fact of the matter is,
they are doing so well that I can't honestly say they
wish for any." Over all this prosperity, the labours of
the great Dutch savants, the Cobets, Kuenens, and the
like, combine with the splendid Asiatic empire of Holland
to shed a ray of romance, which prevents its prosperity
from being dull or commonplace.
Switzerland has made great progress in a democratic
direction, in the last generation. She seems, to the
foreign observer, well-ordered, well-defended, and com-
fortable. The wonder is that, with all her good insti-
tutions, her liberty, education, and what not, the out-turn
from the whole country, if we except Geneva, which is
one-third French, and one-third cosmopolitan, should be
so very poor. If any of you, ten or twelve years hence,
wish to do a useful piece of political work, and have a
year to spare, go to Switzerland, and make a study, not
of peaks, passes, and glaciers, but of the human beings
you
find there. You will tell your countrymen a great
deal which they don't know, and you will learn a great
deal yourselves about the future of Europe, for in that
small area not a few experiments are being worked out,
which may be tried one day for weal or woe, on a larger
scale.
Portugal has had, since 1847, a fairly fortunate, if
not brilliant existence; but her great neighbour has not
138
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
been so lucky. For the first few years after 1847 she
had a troubled life, which came to a crisis in 1854. Then
things took a better turn, and she had a great material
revival. In 1868 a revolution occurred, which seemed
at first likely to lead to good results; but with the murder
of Prim a terribly agitated period set in, and up to this
moment it seems as if that was one of the very few
political murders that has had decisive results; not that
it has been of the very smallest advantage to those who
are suspected of having been at the bottom of it.
From that day, however, the course of things has
been so perplexed that I, for one, do not venture to give
you any hint as to where you should place your hopes.
The one comfort is, that frightful as are the calamities
that have fallen on some parts of the peninsula, others
prosper more than would seem to be possible, to us who
live in what I may call so highly organised a society. In
this respect Spain certainly derives an advantage from
the loose connection of her provinces, which, under
ordinary circumstances, is a great inconvenience to her.
Of all European countries, she is certainly the one in
which practice is in the most violent contrast with theory.
Let any competent person take up a book of Spanish
proverbs, and he will very soon come to the conclusion
that good sense and mother-wit have never found such
admirable expression. Let him go a step higher, and
look for wise maxims for the conduct of human life in
the most difficult and delicate circumstances; let him
look out for the kind of book which Oxenstierna,
when he dismissed his son with the memorable saying,
"Knowest thou not with how little wisdom the affairs of
the world are conducted?" might have given him to help
him to better that world, while taking the best possible
care of his own interests, and he will find it—strange to
say-amongst the works of a Spanish Jesuit. He has
1847 AND 1876.
139
!
been dead for more than two hundred years, but I defy a
conclave of the keenest men of the world, and the most
experienced statesmen, to produce anything better in the
year 1876.*
And yet, though the people think in many
respects so wisely, and though the country is full of good
elements, every act it performs, for long periods together,
seems more foolish than the one before.
The Eastern Peninsula has, during the past gene-
ration, been the scene of great events, and its condition
has become the subject of very deep interest to all the
nations of the West, and not least to our own. When
this period is looked at from a distance, it will be seen
to have been just one stage in the gradual emerging of
the Christian races, of that part of the world, from the
flood of Asiatic and Mohammedan invasion which over-
whelmed them in the fifteenth century. Wallachia and
Moldavia have at length attained the object of their
desires, and become united into one country under a
foreign prince, owing, indeed, allegiance to the Sultan, but
practically very little interfered with by the authorities
at Constantinople. Servia has got rid of the Turkish
garrisons, which, when I was first in that country, in
1851, and for many years afterwards, occupied Belgrade
and other strong places. The Bulgarian nationality, the
most numerous, and perhaps in some respect the best, of
the European races over which the waves of the Crescent
still flow, is becoming more conscious of itself, and be-
ginning to think that the day may come when it, too,
will have a voice in its own future. It has got rid of the
vassalage in which its national Church stood to the Greek
ecclesiastical authorities of the Fanar, and begins to let
its voice now and then be heard, faintly indeed, but so,
at least, as to remind Europe that it is not dumb. Greece
has not advanced any nearer to the fulfilment of the
.
* See the next paper.
140 MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARŸ.
C
grande idée, as it used to be called, which was to restore
the Byzantine Empire, and to replace, through Greek
agency, the cross on St. Sophia. It has done sadly little
even for its own prosperity, and although within the last
few years things have been mending, so far at least as
the public security is concerned, the modern Hellas must
be, up to this moment, pronounced to be a European
failure. I say a European failure, because though a great
deal that has gone wrong has been due to the folly of the
Hellenes themselves, a considerable part of the responsi-
bility for their want of success must weigh on the states-
men who started the vessel on her career, ill-found and
badly commanded.
Now the papers are full of the insurrection in the
north-western provinces of European Turkey, and some
of you are, I daresay, inclined to take sides, either with
the Turk or with the Christian. That the troubles will
end in a considerable weakening of the authority of the
Porte in these provinces there can be no doubt, and as
that is a natural process-part of the gradual rising of
the submerged Christian races, there is nothing to be said
against it; but do not be misled by the gushing nonsense
of the Anti-Turks, any more than by the too sanguine
dreams of the Philo-Turks. Truth lies between the two
extremes, and we, happily, in England have nothing to
do with the matter, except to help other and nearer
powers in diminishing the amount of human misery
which all insurrections of the kind, however necessary,
inevitably cause.
It is fortunate that this one has occurred at a
moment when it was urgently the interest of all the
Great Powers to keep the peace in the East.
When everyone is anxious to keep the peace there
is little danger of war, and I hope and believe that the
present crisis, which has already worked such wide
1847 AND 1876.
141
•
1
financial ruin, will not work widespread misery of
another kind.
And now I think I have, of course in an excessively
fragmentary way, noted most of the chief external dif
ferences between the Europe of my and the Europe of
your youth, but remember that there are far greater and
deeper differences which are not external. Whole new
sciences have grown up, while old ones have been so
completely revolutionised that they can hardly be called
the same. Prehistoric archæology, for example, which
has done so much to give us new thoughts about the
vast progress man has already made, and the height to
which he may yet attain, cannot be said to have existed
in 1847, while Mr. Darwin's "Origin of Species," which
not only formed a new point of departure in biology, but
has extended its influence into so many other fields of
research, belongs to a far later date.
The tone of society is infinitely more intelligent and
liberal. Many opinions which, thirty years ago, were
looked shyly on, have become so much a matter of
course that people forget what even they themselves
used to think about them. So fast are things changing
before our eyes that, when you in your turn can look
back over a generation, you will, I daresay, be able
to note even greater revolutions in men's way of looking
at their environment, though you will hardly see,
should think, purely political perturbations, in Europe,
on so large a scale as we have done.
And now I have tasked your attention long enough,
but before I sit down just let me mention that, if you
want a commentary upon much that I have been saying,
you cannot do better than read the summaries lately
reprinted by The Times, and that portion of the life of
Lord Palmerston which has lately been published by
Mr. Evelyn Ashley. That gentleman was very closely
142
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
:
·
connected with Lord Palmerston, and takes a rather
more favourable view of him than the generation to
which you belong is likely to do. Still it is an excel-
lent book, very sensible in its judgments, and full of
authentic documents from end to end.
It was unfortunate for the fame of Lord Palmerston
that he did not die immediately after the Crimean War,
and had so been spared the criticism which he will
undoubtedly receive from your generation for his con-
duct in 1864, when he so nearly involved England in
a contest which would have done much to neutralise
many of the benefits which Europe derived from the
overthrow of the policy of Nicholas.
But justice will require you to remember that it is
not fair to expect a statesman to be more than the man
of his century. Of the very greatest kind of man it has
been truly said, "If the century in which he lives is not
his, a great many others will be;" but the statesman
must be essentially the child of time and place. If he is
not limited by the exigencies of time and place, and
strictly limited, he may be a far greater thing than any
statesman, but a statesman he cannot be. In Lord
Palmerston's youth Germany and German were hardly
known to Englishmen, and no man to whom Germany
and German were a sealed book could have seen his way
clearly through the difficulties which surrounded poli-
ticians during the Dano-German contest, which will
hereafter be remembered as a turning-point in the
history of English foreign policy. Would that I were
able to say that a younger generation of statesmen than
that to which Lord Palmerston belonged, has that full
understanding of, and sympathy with Germany, which
are essential to a right understanding of the Europe in
which we are living.
Do you, such of you as may devote yourselves to
1847 AND 1876.
143
politics, take care that no narrowness of this kind can
be brought against you. Be English first of all, and
last of all; but be European-not to say cosmopolitan-
into the bargain. Above all things get betimes such
a grasp of the great literatures of the modern world, as
may enable you, when you come to deal with the
politics of the modern world, to find your bearings,
where others grope as pitiably as the generation to
which I belong saw many English politicians do, in
1864, in 1866, and in 1870.
BALTHASAR GRACIAN.
FROM THE "FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW" OF APRIL, 1877.
AMONGST the papers of Schopenhauer there was dis-
covered by Dr. Julius Frauenstädt a manuscript quite
ready for the printer. On examining it, he found that it
contained three hundred maxims by Balthasar Gracian,
translated by Schopenhauer himself from the Spanish,
and accompanied by a short notice of that author and
his work. From this notice it is evident that Schopen-
hauer attached great importance to the original, and
prided himself upon having been the only person who
ever made a readable translation of it. It is, he says,
absolutely unique, and no book on exactly the same
subject was ever written before, "nor could anyone but
a Spaniard (ein Individuum aus der feinsten aller
Nationen) have attempted it. It teaches the art which
all would fain practise, and is therefore a book for
everyone; but it is especially fitted to be the manual of
those who live in the great world, and peculiarly of
young people who wish to prosper in that world. To
them it gives at once and beforehand that teaching
which they could otherwise only obtain through long
experience. To read it once through is obviously not
enough; it is a book made for constant use as occasion
serves-in short, to be a companion for life."
Schopenhauer's translation was published in 1862,
·
BALTHASAR GRACIAN.
145
3
་
and a copy of it was given to me soon afterwards; but
it is only within the last few weeks that I have succeeded,
through the kindness of a friend at Madrid, in getting
the Spanish original, and in comparing it with the
translation, which I find to be absolutely faithful in
every case to the spirit, and in all but a very few quite
insignificant instances to the letter, of the original. It
is, indeed, a most finished piece of work, and one can
quite understand why its author, unwilling to be con-
founded with the tribe of ordinary translators, kept it by
him for long years.
I do not think that anyone who takes the pains to
become acquainted with the "Oraculo Manual," either in
Schopenhauer's translation or in Spanish, will think that
the words of commendation which I have quoted above
are at all too strong. It would be easy to find, especially
in the works of the great French maxim writers, higher
truths, and truths more brilliantly expressed ;* but,
taking the book as a guide, especially for those who
intend to enter public life, I have never chanced to meet
with anything which seemed to me even distantly to
approach it.
Balthasar Gracian was a Jesuit, who was born in
* Nay, there are certain merits in quite subordinate French writers
of that class to which Gracian has little claim. I open, for example,
almost at random the "Pensées Grises," by M. D'Yzarn Freissinet, and
""
I find at once, 66 Il ne faut pas être trop incrédule: il y a des faits vrais
quoiqu'ils soient dans l'histoire. "On se conduit comme étant certain
de la mort des autres et doutant un peu de la sienne." "Une coquette,
cet être élégamment féroce, torture des gens d'esprit quelquefois vengés
par un imbécile."
Les diamants sur une tête laide sont comme un
phare sur un écueil: ils avertissent." "Ceux dont la seule occupation
est de tuer le temps doivent être des bourreaux bien malheureux."
"Un titre dont les événements de notre époque ont dissous la valeur
est celui d'homme d'Etat. A présent, un homme d'Etat n'est qu'un
ministre dans un Etat."
"C
Vauvenargues a dit vrai: Les grandes pensées viennent du cœur,
mais c'est l'esprit qui va les y chercher."
L
146
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
1584, at Calatayud, in Aragon. Calatayud, in spite of
its Moorish name, which means the Castle of Ayub, or
Job, is the modern representative of Roman Bilbilis; so
that Gracian was a townsman, or nearly a townsman, of
Martial, for the modern town is about two miles from
the ruins of the ancient, which are at a place called
Bambola.
He published his works, which are numerous, under
the name of his brother Lorenzo, and died in 1658, at
Tarragona, where he was rector of a school.
The "Oraculo Manual" was thrown into its present
form by Don Vincencio Juan de Lastanosa. An English
version of it seems to have appeared in 1694, but I have
never been able to pick up either that, or the French
translations or paraphrases by Amelot de la Houssaye
and Courbeville.
Ticknor, in his "History of Spanish Literature,"
criticises at some length one of Gracian's books, "El
Criticon," and just alludes to the "Oraculo Manual;" but
it is clear that he had no very intimate acquaintance
with the latter, and that Schopenhauer's strong language
would have startled him not a little.
Gracian seems to have been the first important writer
who introduced into prose the affected style which is
identified in poetry with the name of Gongora, and is
known in Spanish literature as "Cultismo." I have
no doubt that a certain grudge against him, on this
account, made Ticknor pass him by with too little
notice.
The "Nouvelle Biographie Générale," speaking of
Gracian's works, observes, "Les observations exactes
qu'ils renferment, leur style élégant, n'ont pu compenser
l'obscurité de quelques idées trop métaphysiques et la
prolixité des réflexions morales.
""
Bouterwek seems to have given some little attention
BALTHASAR GRACIAN.
147
to the "Oraculo Manual," and his opinion is as
follows:
This has been more read than any other of the author's works.
It is intended to be a collection of maxims of general utility, but it
exhibits good and bad precepts, sound judgments and refined sophisms,
all confounded together. In this work Gracian has not forgotten to
inculcate his practical principles of Jesuitism,* to be all things to all
men ('hacerse a todos'), nor to recommend his favourite maxim, ‘to
be common in nothing' ('en nada vulgar'), which, in order to be
valid, would require a totally different interpretation from that which
he has given it.
The reader will judge for himself as to how far these
criticisms are well founded; but it is clear, that from
one cause or another, a writer who was once widely
known has become practically forgotten. The last
Spanish edition was published, as far as I can discover,
in the year 1773, but I venture to think that Balthasar
Gracian is decidedly not one of those people of whom we
can say with Omar Khayyám :
And those who husbanded the golden grain,
And those who flung it to the winds like rain,
Alike to no such aureate earth are turn'd.
As, buried once, men want dug up again.
His manner is to begin with two or three pithy
words, "Saberse dexar gañando con la fortuna," "Obrar
con buenos instrumentos," and the like, explaining each
phrase by a short Tacitean paragraph, in which the
greatest possible number of ideas are packed into the
smallest possible number of words.
* He might have added-of St. Paul, and of reasonable people
everywhere.
L 2
148
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
I translate in full a few maxims as specimens.
38. Leave of the game with fortune while you are in luck.—That
is what all the best players do. A fine retreat is worth just as much
as a gallant attack. Let a man bring his deeds, when there are a
great many and enough of them, into safety. Felicity which lasts
very long was ever suspicious. That which is interrupted is safer,
and in that it has a certain sour sweetness, is even pleasanter to the
taste. The more happiness heaps itself upon happiness, the more
danger is there that some part of it will slip out of its place and the
whole pile crash down. The intensity of the favour of fortune is
often balanced by the shortness of its duration, for Fortune gets tired
of carrying anyone very long upon her shoulders.
1
81. Renew your brilliance.—It is the privilege of the Phoenix.
Excellence is wont to grow old, and with it fame. The staleness of
custom diminishes admiration, and a novelty which does not pass
mediocrity often eclipses the greatest eminence grown old. Let a
man then work to be born again in valour, in genius, in fortune, in
all things. Let him connect himself with novelties of a gallant and
startling kind, dawning and redawning, like the sun. He should alter,
too, the theatre of his brilliance, that, if here the want of it excite
longing, there the novelty of it may excite applause.
101. One half of the world laughs at the other, and fools are they
all.-Everything is good or everything is bad, as the suffrages of the
world will have it. What one man follows another man persecutes.
He is an intolerable blockhead who wishes to order everything
according to his own ideas. Perfection does not depend upon what
pleases a single person. As many tastes as heads, and as different.
There is no fault which has not someone enamoured of it, nor must
we lose courage if what we do does not please some, for there are sure
to be others who will valuè it; and yet we should not be made vain
by their applause, for there are equally sure to be again others who
will wholly disapprove. The real measure of true satisfaction is the
applause of famous men, and men who have a right to speak about
the matter in hand. One does not live dependent on one vote, or on
one fashion, or on one century.
133. Better be mad with everybody else than prudent alone.—So
say politicians. For if all are mad one is not behind anybody else,
and if the prudent man is alone he will pass for mad, so important it
is to follow the current. Sometimes the greatest wisdom lies in
ignorance, or the affectation of it. We have got to live with others,
and the ignorant are in the majority. To live alone one must be
\
BALTHASAR GRACIAN.
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very like a god or quite like a beast; yet I would modify the
aphorism, and say, better be prudent with the majority than mad by
oneself. There are some people who seek for originality in chimeras
and crotchets.
138. Have the art to let it alone, and the more so the wilder as
are the waves of public or private life. In human intercourse there
are whirlwinds and storms of passion, and before them it is wise to
retire into a secure haven. Remedies often make illnesses worse; let
us then leave in such cases free course to physical and moral influences.
The physician requires as much knowledge not to prescribe as to pre-
scribe, and sometimes the highest art consists in not applying remedies.
The way to still storms in great multitudes is to hold one's hand
and let them go down of themselves. A timely giving way for the
present assures victory later. A fountain gets turbid by a little
movement, and does not become clear by our trying to make it
so, but by our leaving it to itself. The best remedy against
discord and confusion is to let them run their course, for so they
quiet down.
278. Contradict not the contradictor.— One must observe whether
the contradiction comes from craft or from vulgarity. It is not
always conceit, but sometimes artifice. One should in the first case
be careful not to get into difficulties, and in the other not to be ruined.
Care is never better expended than in dealing with spies, and against
the picklocks of the mind there is no better defence than to leave
inside in the lock the key of caution.
196. Know the star of your fortune.-There is no one so infirm
as not to have one, and if anyone is unfortunate it is because he
knows it not. Some stand high in the favour of princes and of the
powerful, without knowing why or wherefore, except just that good
luck has facilitated their acquiring favour, helped, and only helped a
little, by taking trouble. Others acquire the goodwill of the wise.
Sometimes a man is more acceptable in one nation than in another,
and better seen in this city than in that. Just in the same way he
has more fortune in this office or profession than in others, and all
this although his merits in these respective positions are equal, nay,
absolutely identical. Fortune shuffles the cards as and when luck
wishes. Let every man know his own luck as well as his own
peculiar talent, for on this it depends whether he loses or wins. Let
him know how to follow his fortune and to help it, by no means
exchanging or missing it, for that would be to miss the north, though
its neighbour calls us to it like a speaking-trumpet (.e. to miss the
north though the pole-star points to it).
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MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
:
276. Understand how to renew your spirit by the help of Nature
and of Art.—They say that every seven years the disposition alters.
Well, then, see that it does so by improving and making more noble
the taste. Reason makes its appearance after the first seven years, so
then let a new perfection be added with every lustrum. Man should
observe this natural change, and help it on, and hope also for improve-
ment in others. It comes from this, that many have changed their
behaviour with their profession or their office. Sometimes no one
perceives it till it appears in the highest degree. At twenty a man
will be a peacock; at thirty, a lion; at forty, a camel; at fifty, a
snake; at sixty, a dog; at seventy, an ape; and at eighty—
nothing.
111. Have friends.—It is the second existence. Every friend is
good and wise for his friend, and among them all gets well managed.
Every man will be worth just so much as other people please, and in
order that they may please, one has to gain their mouths by their
hearts. There is no enchantment more powerful than to do a good
turn, and the best way to gain friendships is to do friendly things.
The most and best that we have depends upon others; we must live
either amongst friends or amongst enemies. Try every day to acquire
one, not exactly to be a near friend, yet to be a well-wisher. Some
will later, after they have gone through a period of probation, remain
behind as confidential friends.
99. Reality and appearance.--Things pass not for what they are,
but for that which they appear. Few are they who see into the
inside of things. Many are they who hold wholly to appearances.
It is not enough to be right, if that right have an appearance of
falsity and ill.
20. Be a man of your century.-Extraordinary men are dependent
upon their time. Not all have found the century of which they were
worthy, and many have found it indeed, but have not been able to
profit by it. Some were worthy of a better century, for it is not
always that every good thing triumphs. Things have their periods,
and even the highest qualities are subject to fashion. The wise man
has, nevertheless, this advantage, that he is immortal. If this is not
his century, at least a great many others will be.
The above will give an idea of Gracian's method,
and I now proceed to run through his maxims, trans-
lating none of the others, in their entirety, except the last,
BALTHASAR GRACIAN.
151
but giving, I trust, enough of them to make some few
people desire to possess the whole.
2. Character and intellect.-The two axes of the brilliance of
our accomplishments. To possess one without the other is only to
have half fortune. Understanding is not enough. There must be
geniality.
Imitate
3. Leave people in uncertainty about your purposes.
the heavenly powers in keeping men full of speculation and unrest.
6. Let a man reach his perfection.-We are not born finished.
With every day that passes we should perfect ourselves in ourselves
and in our calling, till we reach the point of our completed being,
when all our accomplishments and best qualities are at their
highest.
7. Take care not to attain victories over your superior.-All con-
quest is detested, and to conquer your master is either a folly or a
calamity. All superiority is abominated: how much more superiority
over superiority!
9. Avoid the faults of your nation.—Water shares in the good or
bad qualities of the veins through which it passes, and a man in those
of the clime in which he is born.
There are many family faults
and faults of position, faults of office and faults of age. If they all
meet in one person, and are not opposed by attention, they make an
intolerable monster.
10. Fortune and fame.—The one is as enduring as the other is
inconstant-the first for life, the second for the after-time; the one
against envy, the other against forgetfulness. Fortune is wished for,
and sometimes helped. Fame is won by diligent search. . . . Fame
was, and is, the sister of the giants.
•
11. Live with those from whom you can learn. Let friendly inter-
course be a school of knowledge, and conversation a teaching that may
fashion the mind.-Make teachers of your friends, and let the profit
of learning and the pleasure of conversation interpenetrate one another.
There be personages high in reputation for their discretion,
who are not only themselves, by their example and their intercourse,
oracles of all nobleness, but even the people about them form a very
academy of good and noble discretion in every kind.
14. The thing, and the way the thing is done.-Substance is not
enough, circumstance is important too. A bad manner spoils every.
thing, even justice and reason; a good one, on the contrary, supplies
everything; gilds No, sweetens truth, and reddens the very cheek of
W
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MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
age. The how is a mighty matter in affairs, and a good manner wins
the affections like a lucky gamester.
15. Keep ministering spirits.—That is a privilege of the great ones
of the earth which far transcends the barbarous taste of Tigranes, who
had a fancy for having captive kings as his servants.
If,
however, you cannot have sages in your service, have them for your
friends.
•
18. Application and ability (Aplicacion y Minerva).-There is no
attaining eminence without both, and when they unite there is the
greatest eminence. With application a mediocrity goes farther than a
superiority without it. Reputation is bought at the price of toil.
What costs little is little worth. Even for the highest posts some
have only wanted application. It is but rarely that they have failed
from sheer lack of ability. To desire to be rather moderately suc-
cessful in a great, than very successful in a humble employment, has
the excuse of generosity of mind; but to be content with being
moderately successful in the humblest employment, when one might
be brilliant in the greatest, hath it not. Nature and art, then, are both
wanted, and application sets on them the seal.
26. Find every man's thumbscrew. . . All are idolaters-some
of honour, some of interest, some of pleasure. Have the knack of
knowing what their idols are, so as to affect each through his idol.
28. Be common in nothing, above all not in taste.—Oh, what a great
wise man he was who was wretched when what he said pleased the
multitude!
29. Be an upright man.—Such a one stands always on the side
of reason, with so much fixity of purpose that neither the passion of
the masses nor the violence of tyrants forces him ever to cross the line
of reason. Yet who is this Phoenix of rectitude, for uprightness has
few adepts? Many praise it, but not for their own house.
30. Have nothing to do with occupations which stand in ill repute,
and still less with crotchets which bring with them rather dishonour
than credit. There are all sorts of fanciful sects from which the man
of prudence keeps himself aloof. There are some exotic tastes which
always take up with everything which the wise repudiate.
31. . .
Never open the door to an evil, however small, for other
and greater ones will creep in after it from their ambush.
M
32. Have the reputation of being gracious.
The only
advantage of power is to be able to do more good than other people.
34. A man should know in what he shines most-his best accom-
plishment, so that he may cultivate that and improve his other
qualities. Everyone would have been eminent in something if he
I
BALTHASAR GRACIAN.
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}
had known his vantage-ground. Each should observe his master
attribute, and throw his energy in that direction. In some, judgment
is the strong point; in others, valour. The majority do violence to
their natural turn, and so in nothing become superior.
43. Think with the few, and speak with the many.
46. Overcome your antipathies.
48. Thoroughness and depth.-Only in so far as one has these can
one play a part with honour. What is within must always be as big,
again as that which is without.
55. Be able to wait.-
First be master of yourself if you
would be master of others. Only through the spaces of time do we
come to the centre of opportunity. . . He spake a great word who
said, Time and I against any two.
56. Have presence of mind, the child of a happy promptitude of
spirit. There are natures of antiperistasis, who work best in an
emergency. They are a kind of monster which can do everything
successfully if they do it off-hand, and nothing successfully if they
take time to consider of it. What does not strike them at first, they
never find at all. In their heads there is no court of appeal.
58. Know how to suit yourself to your company.-
There
should be no unnecessary expenditure either of knowledge or of power.
The clever falconer does not allow more birds to fly than the sport
requires.
59. Think of ending well.-When one enters into the house of
*This word is used both in the original and in Schopenhauer's
translation. It seems to have tried in vain to become a settler in
England. Johnson thus defines it: "Antiperistasis: The opposition
of a contrary quality, by which the quality it opposes becomes heightened
or intended; or the action by which a body attacked by another collects
itself and becomes stronger by such opposition, or an intention of the
activity of one quality caused by the opposition of another. Thus quick-
lime is set on fire by the effusion of cold water; so water becomes warmer
in winter than in summer; and thunder and lightning are excited in the
middle region of the air, which is continually cold, and all by Anti-
peristasis." This is an exploded principle in the Peripatetic philosophy.
(C
Th' antiperistasis of age
More inflamed his am'rous rage."-CowLEY.
"The riotous prodigal detests covetousness; yet let him find the
springs grow dry which feed his luxury, covetousness shall be called in;
and so by a strange antiperistasis prodigality shall beget rapine.".
Decay of Piety.
154 MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
fortune by the gate of pleasure, one leaves it by that of sorrow, and
vice versa. . . The important thing is not the vulgar applause at
the outset—that comes to all-but the general feeling at the exit; but
few are those who are wished back, and seldom does fortune conduct a
parting guest as far as the threshold.
62. Work with good instruments.-Some are anxious that the
keenness and subtlety of their wits should be conspicuous through the
meanness of their instruments-a perilous satisfaction which deserves
a punishment from Fate. . . . Fame always holds to the first per-
sonage. She never says "he had good or he had bad assistants ;" but
"he was a good or he was a bad artificer."
63. It is an excellence to be the first of the sort, and a double
excellence to be eminent in so being.-
Those who are first
in any line are the eldest sons of fame, and go off with the entailed
estates.
64.
Some people waste their ears on the sweetness of
Flattery, others on the bitterness of Scandal, and there are people
who cannot live without a daily annoyance, as Mithridates could not
live without poison.
70. Understand the art of refusing.
The No of some
people is more esteemed than the Yes of others, for a gilded No
satisfies more than a dry Yes. Let courtesy fill up the vacuum
left by the want of favour, and let good words supply the want of
works.
No and Yes are short to say,. but they ask much
•
thinking.
74. Do not be unsociable.-In the most populous places live the
true wild beasts.
75. Choose a heroic ideal, but rather to emulate than to imitate.
76. Do not always be jesting.-. Many people win them-
selves a reputation for being witty fellows, at the cost of their credit
for being sensible. Jest may have its little hour, but let all the rest
of time belong to seriousness.
77. Know how to adapt yourself to all men.—Be a discreet Proteus,
learned with the learned, a saint with a saint.
79. Be of genial disposition.-If you are so with moderation, it is
an accomplishment, not a defect. A grain of gaiety seasons all.
80. Attention in informing yourself.—We live chiefly by infor-
mation. It is but little that we can see for ourselves. We live on
the faith of others, and while the sense of hearing is the back door of
truth, it is the front entrance of lies.
82. Drain nothing to the dregs, neither good nor evil.
83. Allow yourself some venial fault.-
Let Homer sleep
BALTHASAR GRACIAN.
155
now and then, and affect a want of care either in intellect or in
valour, but never in prudence, in order that you may lull malevolence,
and so prevent it bursting with its own poison. That will be
like throwing your cloak to the bull of Envy, so as to save your
immortality.
84. . . . To the wise man his enemies are more useful than his
friends to the foolish one.
90. The art to live long is to live well.-Two things soon make an
end of life, folly and dissoluteness.
93. Be a universal man.-He who unites all perfection counts for
many. He makes life very happy, by communicating the enjoyment
of his gifts to those who live with him. Variety with perfection is
the delight of life. .. It is a great art to know how to assimilate
to yourself all that is good.
100. A man without illusions. A wise Christian, a philosophical
denizen of Courts.-Be these things, but do not appear to be them,
let alone affecting to be them.
102. Have a stomach able to digest great mouthfuls of fortune.
104. .. Have felt the pulse of various offices. It is a toil-
some business to rule men, and especially madmen or boobies. It is
necessary to have a double portion of wits, when one is with those
who have none.
105. Don't be a bore.
of speaking is tiresome.
business.
110. Wait not till you are a sinking sun.—It is a maxim of the
prudent to leave affairs before affairs leave them. . . . Let the beauty
wisely break her glass in time, that she may not do so with impatience
when she sees herself undeceived.
•
The man of one occupation and one way
Brevity is fascinating, and better suited for
What is well said is soon said.
112. Win affection and regard.-..
Some trust so much to
their worth that they despise winning people's good-will, but the man
of experience knows that the road of merit without favour is a very
long one.
117. Never speak of yourself.—Either you will praise yourself,
which is vanity, or blame yourself, which is poverty of spirit.
115. Accustom yourself to the faults in the dispositions of those
with whom you live, as you do to ugly faces.
120. Live practically, and accommodate yourself to the times.-
The prudent man should live as he can, if he cannot live as he
He should deem of more importance what fate has conceded
to him than what it has denied.
would.
121. Do not make a business of what is no business.——
Many
い
​156 MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
1
A
things which were really of some importance have become of none,
because they were left alone; and other things, which were of no
importance, have become grave because people have occupied them-
selves about them. At the beginning everything can be easily
quieted down, but afterwards not. It is frequently the remedy that
causes the disease, and not the worst rule of living is to let it
alone.
123. Be without affectation.
Do not, however, out of fear
of affectation, fall into it by affecting to be unaffected.
125. Do not be a green book (i.e. a register of other men's sins).—
It is a symptom of having tarnished your own fame to be much
occupied with the bad fame of others.
130. Act, and let your own acts be seen.
A good exterior is
the best recommendation of the perfection within.
141. Do not listen to yourself.—
It is a weakness of the
great to speak with a ground tone of "I say something worth hearing,"
to the torture of their hearers.
•
142. Never out of obstinacy take the wrong side, because your
opponent has got before you and taken the right one.
143. Do not, in trying to escape from the trite, become paradoxical.
146. Look into the inside of things.-They are usually very
different from what they seem.-
Lies always come first in
everything, dragging blockheads after them by the chain of their
continued vulgarity. Truth comes in the last, and very late, limping
along on the arm of Time.
148. Have the art of conversation, in which the perfected man
shows himself. It is the commonest thing in life, and yet there is no
human exercise that requires more attention.
151. Think by anticipation to-day for to-morrow, and even for
many days.
The pillow is a silent sibyl, and it is better to
sleep on things before they are begun than to lie awake about them
afterwards.
•
153. Avoid entering there where there is a great gap to be filled.
154. Do not believe, and do not love, lightly.
155. Understand the art of getting discreetly into a passion.
To master a passion you must always have the bridle in the hand of
attention. If you do, you will be the first person who was ever
prudent on horseback, not to say the last.
deliberate choice.
Some are good to be
156. Let your friends be the friends of your
158. Know how to use your friends.
near, and some to be far. Many are useless for conversation, excellent
as correspondents.
BALTHASAR GRACIAN.
157
161. Know your pet faults.
Even the most perfect man
does not escape them, and lives with them either as a wife or as a
mistress.
159. Suffer fools.-
priceless, which is the happiness of the world.
167. Know how to take your own part.
there is no better companion than a bold heart.
surrender to evil fortune, for then it becomes intolerable. . . . The
prudent man comes victoriously out of everything, and triumphs over
even the stars.
•
Out of patience comes forth peace the
•
165. Be an honourable opponent.
Be able to boast that,
if gallantry and generosity were lost out of the world, men might look
for and find them in your breast.
51. Know how to choose well.-It is the most important thing in
life. It needs good taste and a most accurate judgment, for neither
study nor natural intelligence is enough. Without choice there is no
perfection. There are many of fruitful and subtle spirit, and
keen judgment, and sharp intelligence, and learning and circum-
spection, who nevertheless, when they come to choose, go to wreck
and ruin—they always choose the worst course, as if they tried to
be wrong.
170. Keep always something behind in store.
one's knowledge there should be a force in reserve.
172. Do not get into a contest with one who has nothing to
lose.
173. Do not be like glass for fragility in your intercourse with
others, and still less in your friendship.— Some people have a
disposition more sensitive than the eye itself, and cannot be touched
either in jest or earnest. . . . The disposition of the lover (amante)
is half that of the diamond (diamante) in its power of duration and
resistance.
•
In great dangers
One must not
J
178. Believe your heart, especially when it has been proved.
179. Reticence is the seal of capacity.-A breast without a secret
is an open letter.
.. Even in
182. A grain of boldness in everything is an important requisite of
prudence.—We should moderate our conceptions of others so as not to
think so highly of them as to fear them. The imagination should
never overmaster the heart. .. No one overpasses the narrow limits
of humanity. All have their imperfections, some in the intellect,
some in the disposition.
183. Do not hold your opinions all too firmly.-Every blockhead
is thoroughly persuaded that he is in the right, and everyone who is
158
:
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
all too firmly persuaded is a blockhead, and the more erroneous is his
judgment the greater is the tenacity with which he holds it.
184. Do not be devoted to ceremonies and etiquette.—
robe of folly is woven of such things.
Things
185. Never stake your credit on one single cast.
depend upon all sorts of chances. That is why the felicity of success
is so rare.
186. Know faults when you see them, however high they may stand
in public estimation.-Rectitude should not mistake vice, even when
it clothes itself in brocade-nay, it will sometimes even wear a crown
of gold, and not be able the more for that to hide its evil.
Vices may well be highly placed, but that will not make them high
and splendid.
The
190. Find some consolation in everything.-Even useless people
may find it in the fact of their being immortal. There is no trouble
without its comfort. The stupid have the advantage of being
fortunate, and the ugly woman is proverbially so. The best means to
live long is to be worth little. It is the cracked vessel which
never gets broken.
To the unfortunate man it seems that
both good luck and death (la suerte e la muerte) conspire to forget
him.
•
191. Do not be carried away by excessive courtesy, for it is a kind
of deceit.—There are some people who, in order to bewitch, do not
need the herbs of Thessaly, for they enchant and turn the head of the
stupid by the mere grace with which they take off their caps.
The
192. A man of great peace, a man of long life.—
peaceful-minded do not only live, they reign. Hear, see, but be
silent. The day that passes without dispute brings peaceful sleep in
the night.
194. Have reasonable views about yourself and your affairs,
especially at the commencement of life.
195. Understand how to value.-There is no one who cannot be
the teacher of another in something. . . . To understand how to
pluck the fruits of everyone is a useful science.
198. Know how to transplant yourself.— Their native land
is everywhere stepmotherly towards extraordinary talents. . . . The
statue on the altar is never properly reverenced by him who has
known it as a trunk in the garden.
200. Have something left to wish for, so as not to be unhappy from
very happiness.
If there is nothing to desire, there is every-
thing to fear.
201. They are all fools who seem to be so, and half of those who
•
BALTHASAR GRACIAN.
159
do not.-
Yet the greatest fool is he who thinks that he is not
one, and that everybody else is.
202. Words and deeds make a perfected man.
Words are
the shadows of deeds, the first feminine, the second masculine, in
their nature.
mag
•
203. Know the great men of your century.—There are not many of
them. There is one Phoenix in a whole world. You have a great
captain, a consummate orator, a sage, in a century; a really illustrious
king in many centuries. Many have taken the title of "the
Great" from Cæsar and Alexander, but in vain, for, without deeds,
words are nothing but a little air. There have been but few Senecas,
and fame has told but of one Apelles.
204. The easy should be undertaken as if it were difficult, and the
difficult as if it were easy; in the one case in order that Confidence
should not be put off her guard, in the other that she may not become
faint of heart.
205. Know how to play the card of contempt.
It is a firm
maxim of the wise never to defend themselves with the pen, for such
a defence leaves a mark, and tends more to the glorification of the
opponent than to the punishment of his boldness. . . . Presump-
tuous persons dream of making themselves eternal by setting fire to the
wonders of the world and of the centuries.
206. Know that there are vile and vulgar natures everywhere, even
in Corinth.
All folly is vulgarity, and the vulgar is composed
of fools.
210. Know how to play the card of truth.-It is a dangerous
thing, yet the honest man cannot omit to speak it, but in saying it art
is wanted.
213. Understand the art of contradiction.—
An affected
doubt is the most subtle picklock which curiosity can employ to find
out what it wants to know.
214. Do not turn one piece of stupidity into two.-It is very
common in remedying one to commit four others.
218. . . . There are people who out of everything make a little
war—the very brigands of social intercourse. The only way to
manage with monsters of this kind is to flee from them, even to the
Antipodes, for the barbarism of the people there is better than their
wild-beastishness.
223. Neither from affectation nor carelessness be all too individual
and eccentric.
224. Understand how not to take things against the grain, however
they come.
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MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
227. Do not be the slave of first impressions.-There are people who
marry the very first account they hear, so that all the accounts that
follow come to them only as concubines.
229. Know how to divide your life prudently: not as chance would
have it, but with foresight and choice.
The first day's journey
of a noble life should be passed in conversing with the dead. We live
to know and to know ourselves, and books faithfully used make us
men. The second day's journey should be passed with the living, in
seeing and noting all that is good in the world. Everything is not
found in one country. The Father of all has divided His gifts, and
sometimes has most richly dowered a land which is ugly. On the
third day's journey a man should belong wholly to himself. The last
felicity is to philosophise.
232. Have just a touch of the trader about you.-Life should not
be all contemplation; there should be action as well. . . . Let the
prudent man accordingly take care to have something of the trader,
just enough not to be cheated, and so to become a laughing-stock.
235. Know how to ask. There are some people in dealing with
whom nothing is so difficult, and some in dealing with whom nothing
is so easy.
237. Never share the secrets of your superiors.—You may think that
you are going to share pears with them, but you will only share
pebbles. Many have perished because they were confidants. Such
people are like spoons made of bread, and run the same risk after-
wards that these do. It is no favour in a prince to communicate to
you a secret; he does so to relieve the fulness of his heart. Many
have broken the mirror because it has made them aware of their ugli-
ness. We do not like to see a person who has had an opportunity to
see through us, and he is not seen with pleasure who has seen evil in
him that sees him.
238. We should know what quality we want.
239. Do not be intensely acute and subtle.—It is more important
to be prudent. . Better is a good solid head, which does not
invent and imagine more than just what the matter in hand amounts to.
241. Bear raillery; but do not practise it.—
The very
gravest matters have constantly arisen out of a jest.
242. Push advantages... Let the prudent man strike down
his quarry, and not be satisfied merely with flushing it.
243.
Unite in yourself the dove and the serpent, not as a
monster, but as a prodigy.
248. Do not let the last person who speaks to you always carry you
with him.-There are people ever dependent on the last report, whose
•
•
•
1
BALTHASAR GRACIAN.
161
folly goes beyond all bounds. Their thinking and willing is of wax ;
the last person who approaches them fixes his seal on them and
obliterates all his predecessors.
250. . . .
Not all praise of a thing is speaking well of it, for some
praise likewise the bad in order that they may not praise the good.
For him for whom nothing is bad, nothing will be good either.
251. Procure and use human remedies as if there were no divine
ones, and divine remedies as if there were no human ones.
252. Do not belong wholly to yourself nor wholly to other people.–
He who holds a public office must be a public slave.
254. Do not despise an evil because it is small; they never come
alone, but are linked together just like happiness. Fortune and
misfortune usually go thither where there is already the most of
either.
255. Know how to do good to people a little at a time and often.
257. Never let matters come to a breach with anyone, for our repu-
tation always comes injured out of anything of the kind. Everyone
is of importance as an enemy, though not as a friend. Few can do
good to us, and almost all can do harm. The eagle himself does not
nestle securely in the very bosom of Jove, the day on which he has
quarrelled with a beetle.
258. Look out for some one who may assist you in bearing mis-
fortune.
It is for that reason that the sagacious physician, if
he has failed in the cure, does not fail in looking out for some one
who, under the name of a consultation, may help him to carry out
the coffin.
262. Be able to forget; it is more a piece of good fortune than an
art.-We remember best the things adapted to be forgotten.
Often the only remedy for our ills consists in forgetting them; and we
forget the remedy. It is well, however, to fashion ourselves to so
convenient a habit, for it is enough to give happiness or hell.
264. Have no days of carelessness.-Destiny loves to play tricks,
and will pile chance on chance to take us unawares.
266. Do not become bad out of pure goodness.—He is so who never
gets angry.
269. Know how to make use of your novelty; for so long as any-
one is new he is prized. Observe, however, that this glory of
novelty is of short duration. After four days people will lose their
respect for it.
•
•
•
273. Comprehend the dispositions of those with whom you have to
deal.
Know how to decipher a countenance and to spell out
the soul from the features. Recognise in him who always laughs a
M
162
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
fool, and in him who never laughs a knave (conozca al que siempre rie
por falto, y al que nunca por falso).
281. Know how to obtain the favour of men of understanding.-
The lukewarm Yes of a remarkable man is more to be esteemed than
all the applause of the multitude. The judicious Antigonus.
reduced the theatre of his fame to Zeno alone, and Plato called
Aristotle his whole school.
t
292. Use absence to make yourself more respected or valued.
Even the Phoenix avails itself of its retirement to be admired, and of
the desire which its absence creates to be highly prized.
297. Always act as if you were full in view.—He is a man of
insight who sees that he is seen, or that he will be seen.
286.
Some people are born more fortunate than others.
Such are able to do good, while others can only receive it.
sole real convenience of power is to be able to do more good.
The
288. . . . The wise man knows that the very pole-star of
prudence consists in conforming to the occasion.
298. Three things make a prodigy and are the highest gift of
Heaven's liberality.-A fruitful intellect, a profound judgment, a
pleasant and elevated taste. . . . At twenty years of age the will
rules; at thirty the intellect; at forty the judgment.
There are
intelligences which ray out light like the eyes of the lynx, and
always are clearest where there is the greatest darkness.
300. In one word be a saint.-So is all said at once. Virtue is
the common bond of all perfections, and the centre of all felicities.
She makes a man discreet, circumspect, sagacious, prudent, sage,
brave, reflective, honest, happy, accommodating, truthful, and a
universal hero. Three SSS render a man happy, Sanctity, Soundness
of body, and Sageness. Virtue is the sun of the microcosm or lesser
world, and has for hemisphere a good conscience. She is so beautiful
that she finds favour with God and man. Nothing is lovable but
virtue, and nothing detestable but vice. Virtue alone is serious, and
all else is but jest. One should measure capacity and greatness
according to virtue, and noť according to the circumstances of fortune.
Virtue alone is sufficient to herself; she makes men lovable in life,
and memorable in death.
•
•
M
From the above, the reader may form a perfectly just
idea of the teaching of Gracian.
Mr. Buckle, who devotes to him two lines, observes
that he was once considered a great writer; and it is
!
BALTHASAR GRACIAN.
163
just possible that in spite of his extraordinarily com-
pressed style, more avaricious of words than any I know,
some may think, that they who considered him to be a
great writer, were not quite wrong.
Those who look into his book for themselves will
find here and there a maxim which will remind them of
the age in which he lived, as the subject of Philip II.,
Philip III., and Philip IV., but such exceptional cases
are rare, and most people will rise from the perusal
of the work understanding much better how Spain
became great, than how she fell. It ought to be
remembered, too, that, as I have already said, the
maxims were not collected into one whole by Gracian
himself, but by his friend, Lastanosa, to whom also is to
be attributed the proud, though perhaps not too proud,
title.
.
It would possibly be rather difficult to disprove the
thesis that the Spanish nation has produced the best
maxims of practical wisdom, the best proverbs, the best
epitaph, and the best motto in the world.
If I had to sustain it, I would point with reference
to the first head to the "Oraculo Manual." For the
second, anyone who knows Ford's Handbook would
hardly require me to produce a proof. In support of
the third I would quote the epitaph of Columbus:
A Castilla y a Leon
Mundo nuevo dió Colon
while, in support of the fourth, I would adduce the
cognisance which was given to Sebastian de Elcano,
who brought back to the ports of Spain Magellan's
Expedition, viz. the globe with the motto, "Primus
circumdedisti me." Unless, indeed, I chose that of
St. Francis Borgia, who took the same cognisance with
the words, "Todo es poco."
M 2
A PLEA FOR A RATIONAL EDUCATION.
FROM THE "FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW" OF AUGUST, 1877.
WE have endless talk, in Parliament and out of it,
about the machinery of education, higher, secondary,
and primary. We have a certain amount of talk about
the subjects in which the children of the less wealthy
classes should be instructed; but far too little attention
is paid to the question, not less important assuredly
than any which we do debate-"What sort of education
should be given to those who can have all the chances—
to those who, in the nature of things, must be the most
influential portion of the community in the next gene-
ration?" We provided some improved machinery by
the Public Schools Act a decade ago; we shall provide
some improved machinery under the Universities Act of
this session; but that is not enough. Our machinery is,
indeed, only too apt to become overstrong for us-to
impose its will instead of being subject to ours.
I need not dwell on the defects of our present
system. We feel them every day. Mr. Matthew Arnold
sums them up by dividing us all into Barbarians and
Philistines; while other writers, and our own con-
sciences, make remarks which are not much more
complimentary.
Would it, then, be quite impossible, without re-
opening the weary discussion about machinery, to make
A PLEA FOR A RATIONAL EDUCATION. 165
some suggestions for the improvement of our present
system-suggestions addressed to that class so much
despised by the authorities of our great schools, but
which, nevertheless, has, as has been observed, a right
to exist—the parents, that is, of the boys who fill those
schools?
.
And to save time, and the endless qualifications that
would be necessary, I will address myself only to those
parents who intend that the general, as distinguished
from the professional, education of their children should
continue to the age of twenty-one or twenty-two at
least, thereby excluding from consideration the case of
all those youths whose callings require an exceptionally
early commencement, or a particularly long period of
special education. What I have to say is not primarily
addressed, for example, to those who mean their sons to
go into the army or navy, to become civil engineers, or
artists, or physicians. I think that the course, which I
propose, would be very suitable for many boys who are
intended to begin their technical or professional studies
at eighteen, provided always that the reading of Greek and
Latin authors in the original, and the History of Philo-
sophy, were omitted; but I can anticipate objections,
and do not wish to complicate my task by combating
them. On the other hand, it is addressed to those who
mean their sons to be politicians, or diplomatists, or
country gentlemen, or members of the higher walks of
the Civil Service and the Bar, or bankers or merchants
in a large way of business, or men of letters of the
highest kind.
If in expressing views which may be startling to
many, I may seem to be rather curt and dogmatic, I
would plead the necessity of compression, if one is to
put into a single article conclusions on so large a subject;
and I beg to refer those who would wish to see the
D
166
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
positions I shall take up, defended more at length, to
a speech in the House of Commons in Hansard for May,
1864; to another at University College in 1865; to a
Rectorial Address at Aberdeen in 1867; to an address in
the University Court there on the Bursary Competition,
in 1868; to another Rectorial Address in 1870; to a
speech at St. Mary's Hospital in 1875; to a speech in the
House of Commons on the University of Cambridge Bill,
and an Address at the Liverpool Institute in 1876. The
conclusions at which I have arrived may be right or
may be wrong, but they are certainly not promulgated
prematurely, for I had arrived at them before 1861,
when I was so fortunate as to induce the Palmerston
Government to appoint the Public Schools Commission.
.
What, then, is the object of all general education?
To enable people, I presume, to make the most of their
lives, or, in other words: 1, to improve their own
faculties to the uttermost; 2, to do as much good as
possible to other people; 3, to enjoy as much as they
can, due regard being had to the first two objects.
A good general education must, accordingly, com-
prise physical, moral, and intellectual training.* I will
The more many-sided the more original," said one of the wisest
of men.
We ought to imitate the diamond-cutter, in turning to the
polishing material one surface after another, until the stone has
attained the utmost degree of beauty of which it is capable—until, in
fact, it has become a perfectly-cut brilliant.
Educators have in general got no farther in their art than Louis
de Berghem had in his. Louis de Berghem was a lapidary of Bruges,
who first in Europe attained to cutting the diamond at all, and worked
for Charles the Bold. The best he could do was to cut the "table
diamond," which does no justice to the stone, and is, I think, never
seen in modern European jewellery. Later came others, who invented
the “rose,” which has the surface cut into twenty-four sides or facets,
while the base remains flat. The ordinary educator has never got so
far, or nearly so far, as this. Still less has he attained to the art of
cutting the "brilliant," which has thirty-two sides or facets above, and
twenty-four below, the broadest part, and which alone does justice to the
(C
A PLEA FOR A RATIONAL EDUCATION.
167
'
say nothing about the first, because space is of con-
sequence; because it is already well, if not too wisely,
attended to; and because, by calling the attention of
any of those who do not already know it to Mr. Archibald
Maclaren's work on Physical Education, I am likely to
do much more good than I could by any observations of
my own. Neither will I dwell upon the second, partly
because the general moral tone of the better English
.
Ma
most exquisite of stones, reflecting the light in all directions, beautiful
itself, and making beautiful. There are many stones very fit for the
purposes of life, and some very fit for ornament, which are not diamonds.
Primary education deals with the first; secondary education with these
and some of the second. None who are not precious or semi-precious
stones should be submitted to the higher education at all; but then in
the human race there are, I maintain, a great many more precious and
semi-precious stones than is usually supposed. The saying that "le
talent court les rues" may seem a hard one out of great cities; but in the
dullest country neighbourhood it is not natural ability that is wanting.
Even the diamond as it comes from the gravel is an ugly octahedron
enough.
The analogy between the operations of the lapidary and of the
educator might be carried a good deal farther. It would be easy, for
example, to show, that just as the former had succeeded in cutting
stones most exquisitely so that they should bear and transmit some
particular impression, long ages before he understood to cut stones in
the way to show their own beauties to most advantage, so the educator
had again and again succeeded to admiration in getting some particular
impress cut on the mind.
From Lycurgus and his Spartans to Loyola or Lainez and the Great
Order, the art of educational gem-engraving has flourished and produced
results constantly wonderful and often enchanting. Not unfrequently
far better results may have been produced by engraving this or that
stone as a gem, than could be produced by another treatment, but it is
not a method applicable to the finest stones. The diamond has hardly
ever submitted to it, and it becomes rarer and rarer in the ascend ng
scale of the harder and more precious stones. Sometimes in the process
of cutting, the stone will be found not a precious stone at all, or a very
badly-flawed one. Who does not remember the case of Philip Stanhope,
to whom Chesterfield's Letters were addressed? But then accidents
are inevitable in any system, and Philip Stanhope-submitted to the
usual school and college routine of his day-would have been far
inferior even to what he turned out.-Higher and Secondary Education.
An Address delivered in the Liverpool Institute, November 8th, 1876.
168
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
schools is, on the whole, exceedingly good; and partly
because it is so easy, in discussing matters of this kind,
to cross the border-land of religion, and to get into
regions where differences of opinion are rarely removed
by argument. I will keep myself wholly to intellectual
training, the intellectual training, as I have said above,
of those who can have all the chances. If, in doing so,
I seem to have more in view the wants of those who are
to make politics their principal pursuit, it is only
natural" out of the fulness of the heart the mouth
speaketh." But, after all, Englishmen who can have
all the chances sadly neglect their opportunities if
they are not at least potential politicians; and I shall
not say a word about the special or professional
trainings through which the politician or diplomatist
ought to pass.
During the first seven years of life the development
of the physical frame and the formation of character
should engross nearly the whole of our attention. If a
child, at seven years old, can read English, has picked up
French from his bonne, and has a lively, not wholly
uninformed, interest in the objects about him, he has
got as much in the way of intellectual training as should
be asked. The last of these requirements is the one
which is most neglected, while great mistakes are some-
times made by attempting to teach the rudiments of
other things, for which the mind, at this stage of its
development, is very unfit. Thanks to the progress of
education among the humbler classes, it will soon be far
less difficult than it has hitherto been, to find persons to
put about children who have some little acquaintance
with the common objects encountered in a country walk.
In spite of the unintelligent policy of the Privy Council
Office, against which Sir John Lubbock has led so many
attacks, which discourages natural science, and brings
A PLEA FOR A RATIONAL EDUCATION.
169
1
G
into undue prominence the study of all others least
suitable for children--the study of grammar—the ex-
cellent example of Professor Henslow, in teaching the
elements of botany to his school children, must be, one
would think, being followed in many places; and even
if it is not, a demand on the part of the upper classes for
nursery governesses and nurses who know a little about
the plants of the wayside, and such everyday matters,
would soon produce the very slight amount of know-
ledge required. There is nothing which awakes so soon
in children as a curiosity with regard to the objects by
which they are surrounded. That curiosity has been
hitherto usually suppressed by the prejudices or igno-
rance of those in charge of them. The usual attitude
towards a child curious about natural history has too
often been that of the French governess, who, on being
asked by her pupil what the Pyrenees were, replied,
،،
Ma petite, quand vous serez plus agée vous saurez tout
cela. En attendant, priez le bon Dieu."
The years from seven to fourteen are of immense
importance. During these the power of reading English
acquired in the first period of life should have developed
into a power of reading aloud well, and a fair acquaint-
ance with so much of English literature as is at once
supremely good and suitable to that early age. The
power of prattling a little French with a nice accent
should have expanded into a thorough mastery of the
language for the everyday purposes of life, together
with an acquaintance with that portion of French lite-
rature which corresponds with the portion of English
literature which I have indicated above. The capacity
of reading with ease an ordinary German book should
also have been acquired. Of course, to effect these
last two objects easily, it would be necessary that
some time should be spent on the Continent; but
170
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
that is, even for other reasons, at present a sine quá
non, since I hold that it is impossible in the present
state of our schools to obtain what can be fairly called
a good education without pursuing it partly out of
England. Those well-to-do parents who will not take
the amount of trouble which is no doubt necessary if
they mean to educate their children to some extent
abroad, had better give up the idea of educating them
well at all, and, sending them to some approved pre-
paratory school, let them go through the usual mill, with
the usual notable success, well described by the Public
Schools Commission which reported in 1864, in the
following passage-one that can hardly be quoted too
often, since in it, oh fathers and mothers of England,
you have, as in a glass, the reflection of what those of
your sons who went up to the university, without the
intention of taking honours there, were a few years
ago, and a pretty fair representation of what they are
now:
·
If a youth, after four or five years spent at school, quits it at
nineteen, unable to construe an easy bit of Latin or Greek without the
help of a dictionary, or to write Latin grammatically, almost ignorant
of geography and of the history of his own country, unacquainted with
any modern language but his own, and hardly competent to write
English correctly, to do a simple sum, or stumble through an easy
proposition of Euclid, a total stranger to the laws which govern the
physical world, and to its structure, with an eye and hand unpractised
in drawing, and without knowing a note of music, with an uncultivated
mind and no taste for reading or observation, his intellectual educa-
tion must certainly be accounted a failure, though there may be no
fault to find with his principles, character, or manners. We by no
means intend to represent this as a type of the ordinary product of
English public-school education; but, speaking both from the evidence
we have received and from opportunities of observation open to all,
we must say that it is a type much more common than it ought to be,
making ample allowance for the difficulties that have to be contended
with, and that the proportion of failures is therefore unduly large.
?
A PLEA FOR A RATIONAL EDUCATION.
171
Put down this description on one side of the account,
and the total of your school bills on the other, and see
how you like the result.
You console yourselves, perhaps, with the reflection
that your sons are at least gentlemen, and that that is
something. Of course it is. Gentlemen they went into
the mill, and gentlemen they have come out. The
splendid foundations of medieval piety or benevolence,
and the stream of gold which you have poured into the
pockets of masters, tutors, and other officials, have so far
worked together for good that they have neither injured
the physical health nor the moral character of the young
persons in whom you are interested-always excepting
the failures, and failures there will be in all systems.
Well, that is a fine result, doubtless, but it will not
enable your sons to keep their place in society in these
pushing democratic days. When will the lesson, into
learning which one revolution after another has startled
the great ones of the earth, be taken to heart by you
also, that, namely, you must make your children worthy
of the position into which they are born? Take, choosing
them by lot, a certain number of the members of the
European royal and semi-royal families under five-and-
twenty, and an equal number of men, educated at our
public schools, of the same age, also chosen by lot,
submit them to an examination on the subjects which
men and women of the world care to know, and just see
what a miserable figure will be made by the representa-
tives of our much be-praised education.
Your children have sometimes a better idea of what
it all comes to than you have. Some years ago a boy
was reproached by his master for not being able to
answer a simple question. Why," said his tutor, “your
younger brother knows that.” "Oh yes, sir," was
the reply, "but then he has been at Eton a much shorter
..
172
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
time than I have.
will find he knows
When he has been here as long, you
as little as I do."
But to return.
While the victims of parental lazi-
ness are at their preparatory school, at work on the
Public School Latin Primer, under this or that orthodox
practitioner, the children of people who will condescend
to take a little more trouble will be learning the things
which I have already mentioned; will have acquired the
power of writing a legible hand, an acquaintance with
the commonest rules of arithmetic, and, above all, a
much larger knowledge of geography than is now usually
possessed by fully-grown and so-called well-educated
men. Meanwhile, the elementary notions about trees
and plants, or other familiar objects, picked up from the
nurse or the nursery governess, will have grown into a
real elementary knowledge of some branch of natural
history. I do not very much care to which of these
attention is given, but probably botany is the one which
it is most convenient to teach in most places. A boy
who, at fourteen, was pretty well acquainted with
Mr. Oliver's little manual, and knew well the plants of
his immediate neighbourhood, would possess all the
botanical acquirements which I should think it necessary
for him to have; and if, from circumstances, physiology,
or, indeed, any study which trains the observing faculties,
was more convenient than botany, I have nothing to
say against it.
The only other purely scientific study
in which I should wish a boy to make some progress,
before fourteen, is physics; and, as to that, I should be
quite satisfied if he had mastered Professor Balfour
Stewart's Primer, a small shilling book, which is a
perfect model of what an elementary book ought
to be.
It must be understood, however, that I include
under geography a great deal more than a mere list of
A PLEA FOR A RATIONAL EDUCATION. 173
names and places. A training in geography would be
miserably incomplete which did not give equal promi-
nence to the physical and political sides of the science;
and a teacher of geography would be indeed useless who
had not conveyed to his pupil's mind, by the time he
was fourteen, a great many accurate and well-assorted
ideas about geology and history, nay, even about
astronomy. Those who want to see the lines on which
I would work, at the outset, should look at the two
manuals by Mr. Grove and Professor Geikie, in Messrs.
Macmillan's series.
During this period, too, the foundations of some
little acquaintance with music and drawing* should be
laid. The acquaintance with these arts need be very
moderate, for the object is not to make children either
artists or musicians, but to enable them to take more
pleasure than they otherwise would in art and music;
and, in the case of drawing, to assist in sharpening
their powers of observation.
I cannot make it too clear that, while I would
utterly banish from education, before fourteen, the
studies which are generally, but often quite falsely,
relied upon to give accuracy, I attach to accuracy the
greatest possible importance, and would make it an iron
*To those who feel inclined to doubt the expediency of giving
instruction during at least part of the school course, in drawing or
music, I would, without dwelling on the more obvious arguments in
favour of these studies, recommend the perusal of some of the evidence
given by that eminent scholar, Dr. Kennedy, of Shrewsbury, with
regard to the bearing which they have upon classical scholarship.
Nothing is more curious, indeed, than the little effect which our present
classical training has in disposing the minds of those who go through
it, to the study of ancient art. Turn the six best Cambridge men and
the six best Oxford men of their year loose in the Vatican, and you will
find them hardly, if at all, more capable of understanding and appre-
ciating what they see, than any tolerably educated person.-Speech upon
the Report of the Public Schools Commission in the House of Commons,
May 6th, 1864.
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MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
rule never, on any account or consideration, to pass over
anything until it was thoroughly mastered. To pretend
that studies other than the ordinary ones cannot be
mastered as thoroughly as ever was the Greek grammar
by some wretched boy who had to learn it by heart in
Latin, is to talk sheer nonsense. A superficial smatter-
ing of knowledge is one thing, a real though only general
and elementary knowledge is another. The first is
useless, the second is often of the greatest importance.
We have, then, a child at fourteen possessed of the
following moderate, but highly useful, acquirements:
1. He can read aloud clearly and agreeably.
2. He can write a large distinct round hand.
3. He knows the ordinary rules of arithmetic, espe-
cially compound addition-a by no means universal
accomplishment.
4. He can speak and write French with ease and
correctness, and has some slight acquaintance with
French literature.
5. He can translate ad aperturam libri from an
ordinary French or German book.
6. He has a thoroughly good elementary knowledge
of geography, under which are comprehended some
notions of astronomy, enough to excite his curiosity; a
knowledge of the very broadest facts of geology and of
history, enough to make him understand, in a clear but
perfectly general way, how the larger features of the
world he lives in, physical and political, came to be like
what they are.
7. He has been trained from earliest infancy to use
his powers of observation on plants or animals, or rocks
or other natural objects; and has gathered a general
acquaintance with what is most supremely good in that
portion of the more important English classics which is
suitable to his time of life.
A PLEA FOR A RATIONAL EDUCATION. 175
8. He has some rudimentary acquaintance with
drawing and music.
Now, there is not one of these acquirements which is
not of vast moment to every educated man; and the
whole is a sine quâ non as a foundation for the other
subjects with which an accomplished man of the world
should be acquainted. Thus much, I think, should be
part of the mental assets of anyone who goes into any of
the higher callings of life, always excepting the navy,
for which the special training must nowadays begin so
early. After fourteen, however, things are very diffe-
rent; and it is at that age that boys should diverge into
what are commonly called the classical and modern
sides. We are, it will be remembered, considering only
the case of those who can have all the chances; that is,
I repeat, those who have at once the leisure and the
ability to go through a thoroughly good general educa-
tion, till they are one or two and twenty. I shall
confine myself accordingly to boys who are to go to
what is known as the classical side.
No one, with whom I can attempt to argue in the
limited space at my disposal, will deny that it is most
desirable, at this particular stage of our civilisation, that
young men who can afford to prolong their general
education at least to one-and-twenty, and who have
literary aptitudes, should obtain, before they go out into
the world, such a hold of the Latin and Greek languages
as may enable them throughout life to read Latin and
Greck books with ease, if it happens to be convenient or
agreeable for them to occupy themselves in that way.
Very few, however, do that now; partly because the
standard of "scholarship" kept up at English schools
and colleges is so high, that those who were good
"scholars" in their day are the first to lay their classical
books aside, since they know that it is quite impossible,
176 MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
for men who have other work to do, to keep, so to
speak, abreast of themselves, as they were when they
went in for the "Ireland," or found their names in the
first class of the Classical Tripos, and partly because the
ideal of "classical" attainment which is set up by tutors
and schoolmasters is one which has little attraction for a
great many boys, who are quite as well calculated to derive
pleasure from the ancient classics as their neighbours.
How, then, are we to remedy this state of things?
By drawing, I reply, a broad distinction between the
classical studies of those who aspire to be classical
scholars in the true sense, and of those who aspire only
to be well-educated men of the world.
By classical scholars in the true sense, I mean
persons who devote themselves either to increasing the
knowledge of the Greek and Roman world possessed by
the learned, or persons who desire to make that know-
ledge more accessible to the unlearned. For both these
orders of scholars I have the profoundest respect. But
it is not with reference to them, or their wants, that I
am at present writing. I am thinking solely of men
who make no pretensions to help on the knowledge of
classical literature, but who desire to have that insight
into classical ideas which is an indispensable element in
the highest education, though it forms but a very small
part of that education. How, then, are they to be
taught Latin and Greek? In the first place, they should
not give any attention to either language before they are
fourteen, save and except that, in learning any modern
language whatever, they should always be taught to
trace back to its Latin or Greek root every single word
which has a Latin or Greek root. At fourteen they
would have, by that means, acquired a very respectable
stock of words, both in Greek and Latin, and might
begin the study of either language.
A PLEA FOR A RATIONAL EDUCATION.
177
}
The first step should be to master the very broadest
outlines of the grammar. The most intelligent method
of teaching a language that I have seen, is that which is
called the Robertsonian, a modification of the Hamiltonian
method. It is set forth in certain very cheap and humble
little books called "Latin without a Master," "French
without a Master," and so forth. There may be, how-
ever, for all I know to the contrary, many better, as
it is conceivable that there may be things less to be
respected than the Public School Latin Primer, and
the common sense of those who devised it as "milk for
babes."
When the very first notions of the grammar have
been acquired, and a capacity for translating the easiest
sentences has been attained, the study of the recognised
classical course should be commenced. Now, what should
that course be? The existing one is obviously quite
unadapted to the shortness of human life. It includes a
great deal too much, although it excludes some things
which should not be omitted. It is founded, too, on the
heresy that there is some sacramental efficacy in the
study of the "Classics," and that, after a certain number
of years spent therein, ingenuous youth is to come forth
peculiarly well fitted for the battle of life. That is a
delusion. Classical literature is a portion of general
literature. Its study brings to the mind many ideas
different from those which are brought by the study of
the other great literatures; but there is nothing magical
or mystic about it. That which differentiates it most
from the other great literatures is, that it is but slightly
affected by those Christian influences which have coloured
so deeply all modern thought-a peculiarity which makes
the fact that its most ardent defenders, as the great
subject of English education, should be the Anglican
priesthood, as amusing as it is convenient.
N
:
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
If a boy is obliged to end his education at eighteen,
he had much better sacrifice a knowledge of Greek and
Latin classical literature in the original, rather than
sacrifice a knowledge of French and German literature.
in the original. But I am writing for those who need
sacrifice nothing. What, then, should the classical course
be for them? Even for them it must be far shorter than
the present one; but, on the other hand, they must
become more familiar with the languages, because the
study of the classics in youth is not to be in their case
an opus operatum, which is to produce certain disciplining
and ennobling effects, but simply a means of living on
pleasant terms with Latin and Greek authors to the end
of their days-a means, in short, of enlarging their
pleasures.
178
First, then, all the farrago of grammatical exercises
and composition, in prose or verse, must be entirely
thrown overboard, at least as regards Latin. Next, so
far from the learner being shut up with grammar and
dictionary, every conceivable help must be given. The
best translations, the best illustrations from classical art,
must always be at hand; while Greek, whenever circum-
stances permit, must be taught as what it is--a living
language-and by a scholar who has been partly trained
at Athens. Here, then, is the course which I would,
with the utmost diffidence, suggest as a minimum. I
am quite aware that I am leaving out a great deal that
ought to be read, and that certainly will be read, in
after years, by everyone who takes kindly to the study
of classical literature; that is, by all except the failures;
by all except those who should never have been advanced
to the dignity of a classical training at all.
We will take Greek first. The groundwork of the
whole course should be some good short history and
geography of Greece. I know none which exactly fulfils
!
A PLEA FOR A RATIONAL EDUCATION.
179
ร
all requirements, but if I had to put anyone through
such a course, I would take a good Atlas, Dawson
Turner's "Heads of an Analysis," with a short school
history, and supplement them by selected passages from
Grote and Curtius.
In the original I would read-
The first and last books of the Iliad.
The sixth book of the Odyssey.
Wright's Golden Treasury of Ancient Greek Poetry.
Thackeray's "Anthologia," if there existed an edition
in print that would not try the eyes.
The second book of Herodotus.
The Prometheus and the Persæ, or
The Agamemnon.
The Edipus Coloneus.
The Medea, or
The Bacchæ.
The Birds or Frogs of Aristophanes.
The first, second, and seventh books of Thucydides.
The first book of the Anabasis.
The Phædo of Plato.
The fourth book of Aristotle's Ethics.
The second book of Aristotle's Politics.
Demosthenes' De Coronâ.
The first book of Polybius.
One or more lives from Plutarch.
Extracts from Lucian.
The Manual of Epictetus.
The latter part of the Book of Isaiah, that known as
the later Isaiah, in the Septuagint.
Parts of the Apocrypha.
The Gospel of St. John.
A small volume of selections from the Fathers, and
A short book of Extracts taken from Greek literature
at different times right down to the present year.
N 2
180
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
In translations I would read at least-
The remainder of the Iliad and Odyssey in Worsley
and Conington.
The whole of the rest of Herodotus.
The whole of the rest of Thucydides, and
Marcus Aurelius.
The course should be completed by "Müller's History
of Greek Literature," read for the purpose of making it
clear to the learner that he had obtained nothing more.
than a view from the mountain-top, of a country in
which it was hoped that, in after years, he would make
many excursions.
To this list there are, of course, a number of quite
obvious objections. It will be asked, for example, why
so little Homer should be read? The answer is simply
that there is not time for more without neglecting other
things; and boys who have any turn for poetry will
be quite sufficiently taken hold of by Homer if they
read him in the best available translation. I have
known women who had only read Pope's translation
who had a far greater feeling for the Iliad than many
men who could have passed an excellent examination in
the original. Then it should be observed that both in
Mr. Wright's and Mr. Thackeray's collections there are a
large number of extremely well-selected extracts from
the Homeric poems. I make no doubt that anyone
who goes through the amount of Homeric reading I
propose will have a very fair knowledge of the great
poet, and every inducement to learn to know him better
in after life.
Then, as to the omission of a great many names of
poets whom everyone would expect to find, such as
Theocritus, it must be remembered that all of them
* To which might be added Mr. Geldart's admirable little book on
the modern Greek language, printed at the Clarendon Press.
A PLEA FOR A RATIONAL EDUCATION.
181
are represented in the two collections to which I have
called attention.
Next, as to Æschylus, many would prefer the Trilogy
to the plays I have suggested. That is a mere matter
of taste, about which it is vain to argue; and the same
may be said of the choice which I have made amongst
the works of Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes.
I think that both Herodotus and Thucydides should be
read through in the best available translation, and that
an examination should be passed in each, such an
examination being directed to bring out a general
acquaintance with the broader facts and larger features
of each writer, rather than to the minutiae on which so
much time used, in former days, to be wasted at Oxford.
I have selected the Phædo of Plato as probably that
one of his dialogues which has most world-wide fame.
Many will exclaim at my including only one book of
the Ethics and one of the Politics of Aristotle. If either
work were to be read through as part of the regular
course, I should suggest the second, which I humbly
venture to think the more valuable of the two. But
the mastering of these books belongs to a totally separate
study-a study of great importance and dignity—the
study of the history of philosophy; but not a study
which should, except in its merest outlines, be attempted
to be made any part of general education. The worship
that used to be paid to Aristotle at Oxford thirty years
ago was simply childish; but it was childish not so
much because it was excessive, as because it was ill-
directed. I suppose it would be hardly possible to
overrate the greatness of Aristotle. If anyone were to
assert that no more powerful human intellect ever
appeared in the world, it would, perhaps, not be very
easy to dispute the proposition; but the very greatness
of Aristotle makes it unnecessary to read much of him
182
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
as part of a general education. So much that he said
has become a portion of our ordinary mental furniture,
that it is unnecessary to spend time over him. Before
we come to read him he has been absorbed at every
pore; and Aristotle, if now living, would be, I am sure,
the very first to deprecate the use of his works as any
considerable part of the ordinary training of youth.
I have included a book of Polybius, an author who,
I think, is too much neglected; and one or two lives
from Plutarch, who, overrated once, is now, perhaps,
unjustly depreciated. Marcus Aurelius may well be
read mostly in Mr. Long's admirable translation; and
the ancient world has left little, indeed, that is more.
valuable. M. Martha's book, "Les Moralistes sous
l'Empire Romain," in the hands of an intelligent teacher,
would be illustrated by passages from various writers at
whom no one now looks, amongst whom I must be
allowed to ask a few hours for Dion Chrysostom, a too
much forgotten, though doubtless only secondary,
personage. Then I think that there are good reasons
for not wholly overlooking the Greek of the Septuagint
and of the Apocrypha. Very well-educated persons may
go through their whole lives, nowadays, without finding
out what magnificent things there are in Ecclesiasticus
and the Wisdom of the Son of Sirach.
Without a volume of short selections from the Fathers,
and another small volume connecting the Greek of Byzan-
tium with the Greek that is written by the best modern
Greek authors now, it will be difficult to impress suffi-
ciently deeply and early on the mind the fact, important
from a political as well as a literary point of view, that
Greek is not, and has never been, a dead language.
chang
Latin should be begun precisely in the same way as
Greek, by the easiest possible grammar, and the learner,
who would be provided already with a very large stock
A PLEA FOR A RATIONAL EDUCATION.
183
of words, should begin here, too, to translate on his very
first day. Much time would be gained by leaving on one
side various books which are of little or no importance,
such as Cornelius Nepos. The minimum course might
then be-
A good short history, say Duruy's, illustrated by
copious extracts from Arnold, Mommsen, Merivale, and
Gibbon, read with good maps.
One play of Terence and one of Plautus.
The part of Cæsar's Commentaries which relates to
Britain.
Virgil's first, fourth, and tenth Eclogues.
The Georgics.
The second, fourth, and sixth Æneid.
About forty odes of Horace, carefully leaving un-
touched all except the very best.
Two or three of the Satires and Epistles, including
the Ars Poetica.
Thackeray's Anthologia Latina.
The third, fourth, and tenth Satires of Juvenal.
The twenty-first book of Livy.
A book of Cicero's Letters.
Two or three of his Orations.
A book of Pliny's Letters.
The best parts of Lucan.
Agricola and Germania of Tacitus.
Illustrations of M. Martha's book as above.
The Story of Psyche in Apuleius.
A selection containing the most striking passages in
the writings of the Latin Fathers; and
Another selection from the best modern Latin, prose
or verse, Erasmus, Owen, &c.
The whole should be accompanied by the very best
account of Latin literature that may be procurable. The
fullest I know, that of Teuffel, is far too dryly written for
184
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
1
the purpose; but if the necessity for reading a good
history of Roman literature, as a part of education,
were duly recognised, we should soon have the necessary
treatiseif, indeed, it does not already exist. There is
room, too, for a much fuller book of extracts from Latin
poetry than Mr. Thackeray's very excellent one; and it
should extend so far down as to include the most famous
hymns of the Western Church.
Nothing would be easier than to show that this list,
like the corresponding Greek one, is sadly imperfect; but
for that matter so is the usual list. It leaves out, as I
have said, a great deal that should be included, though
it includes a great deal that might well be omitted.
Again I must reiterate the obvious but constantly
forgotten remarks that "life is short," and that Latin
literature and Greek literature are merely portions of
general literature. No man can now be considered a
thoroughly well-educated human creature who has not,
in addition to a fair knowledge of Latin and Greek
literature, a fair knowledge of several other literatures,
which are even more important; and if by twenty-one
or twenty-two general education is to be finished, and the
mind is to have been brought in contact with most of the
supremely and quintessentially good things that men have
said in all time, it is absolutely necessary to throw over
something which, however valuable in itself, is not so
valuable as something else for which room must be found.
It must always be kept in mind that, if it is not
intended that a man is to find pleasure during his whole
life in the reading of English, French, German, Italian,
Greek, and Latin literature, he had better leave wholly
alone that one of them which he does not mean to
pursue. Because I only suggest the reading of the
Agricola and Germania, I do not mean to say that I do
not think every page that Tacitus has left deserves to be
À PLEA FOR A RATIONAL EDUCATION.
185
>
read and re-read, and I should speak in almost as un-
qualified a way about Juvenal. Because I propose to
read only the second, fourth, and sixth books of the
Eneid, as part of the regular course, I do not mean to
say that, sooner or later, the whole should not be read,
and read, by preference, amongst the scenes in which the
poem is chiefly laid.
Where there is not present a very
strong love of literature for its own sake, it is idle to
encourage anyone to read Latin or Greek at all. In such
cases a fair acquaintance with English and French litera-
ture is all that you can reasonably expect. But by four-
teen—the age at which I propose that the study of the
ancient classics should begin-the mind is quite suffi-
ciently developed to enable a teacher who knows his busi-
ness to say whether a real taste for literature is present or
not. If it is not, there is no good in losing time, over the
ancient classics, which had much better be given to other
things. The truth is, that from the accident of there
having been little or nothing else to read in the sixteenth
century, from which period our present school arrange-
ments chiefly date, schoolmasters have come to identify
Greek and Latin literature with literature itself, and they
have turned into the daily bread of our youth what is
only fit for dessert. There are numbers of persons who
could derive a real literary culture from certain forms of
poetry and from good novels, but to whom the higher
literary productions of the human mind must always
remain inaccessible. It may be right, nay necessary, to
make them approach these, if only to prove that they
have no taste for them; but this should be done in their
own language or in French, the only other indispensable
language.
In connection with this subject, I cannot too much
insist on the importance of the use of really good trans-
lations. Seldom, indeed, is it that you find one so good,
Ma
GA
186
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
even of a prose work, that it can be recommended in its
entirety; but there are many which, in the hands of a
good tutor, may be turned to excellent account; and so
may such books as the capital, though, of course,
unequal, series of "Ancient Classics for English Readers,"
published by Messrs. Blackwood. I may be asked if I
would absolutely banish from education the practice of
Latin composition. I reply, From education, no; from
general education, yes.* I should as soon think of pro-
* Let us look at it as a matter of common sense. How much Latin
prose have these boys or young men read when, at fifteen, sixteen, or
seventeen, they come up to compete for our Bursaries ? A book or
two of Cæsar—a book or two of Livy-not much more. Now, is it
humanly possible for anyone who has read so little as this to write good
Latin prose? Will not the best exercise of the cleverest student, who
has gone through merely such a training as this, be simply a cento of
phrases from Cæsar or Livy? And is any composition worthy of the
name unless it rises far beyond this, and is the product of a mind
working freely, with the command of a large store of reading in the
best authors of the language in which it is wished to compose? If we
wanted to teach English, without the aid of conversation, to a young
Russian, should we make him read exclusively some half-dozen chapters
of Hume and a book of Robertson, and then drill him in translating
small paragraphs of Russian into English, bringing in as many of the
phrases of one or other of these writers as possible? Should we not
rather encourage him to read a greater variety of authors, taking care
that he understood thoroughly the grammar and construction as he went
along, and leaving composition alone until he had made some real
progress in the language? A wise teacher would do this with a language
which is in itself useful as a medium of communication. How much
more then with a language which is now absolutely useless as a medium
of communication ? If Latin were still useful as a medium of com-
munication, I should be strongly in favour of boys learning first to
speak it and then to write it. That was what they did in the days of
the Renaissance. That is what our forefathers did, when they too were,
even in this far-off corner, drawn into the stream of the literary revival
which heralded and followed the awakening of the human mind at the
Reformation. Our forefathers were quite right. It is we who are
wrong, in keeping up one practice which they introduced, long after
vital portions of their educational system have been laid aside, and
long after the state of things, with a view to which they made their
arrangements, has passed utterly away. Erasmus and our own Buchanan
would, if they were alive now, be the leaders of educational change.
{
A PLEA FOR A RATIONAL EDUCATION.
187
scribing fencing as of proscribing Latin composition.
They are both mighty pretty pastimes, and very much
upon a level. Far from discouraging either, I should
encourage both by considerable prizes, and be as sorry to
think that the day would ever come when no man could
turn out a copy of verses which might have been worthy
of a corner in the Anthologia Oxoniensis, as that the
day would come when no man could draw a fine rapier
more. But in order that we may have a few good
Look at our practice again in another light. Can it be defended as
laying a good foundation in what is technically called "Scholarship ?"
Do these boys, who write Latin prose good enough to entitle them to
win our Bursaries, at sixteen or seventeen, write first-rate Latin prose
at one or two and twenty ? Of all the numerous young men and middle-
aged men who, educated within the last twenty years in the University
of Aberdeen, are now distinguishing themselves in all parts of the
world, and in all sorts of callings, are there ten-are there five-are
there two-is there one who has distinguished, or is distinguishing
himself as a brilliant composer? Of the boys who are put through the
classical mill in, say, the thirty leading Schools of England, a vast
proportion get uncommonly little good from it, but a percentage
become fair scholars-that is to say, when they leave school, between
eighteen and nineteen, they have read pretty widely both in Greek
and Latin, and they can write very fair Latin prose, very fair Latin
Elegiacs, Hexameters, Alcaics, as well as Greek Iambics; and some-
times, though more rarely, very fair Greek prose. Of those who can
do this at eighteen or nineteen, a good many turn to other pursuits
when they go up to the University, but a few keep up the practice of
composition in all its forms, and these men become the crack composers
of England. I should be the last man in the world to disparage their
performances. To say nothing of the very best verse compositions, I
am free to admit that to hear, say, for example, some of the finest
passages of Ruskin turned into Ciceronian Latin, worthy of the original,
is a very high intellectual pleasure, and in a rich country, where many
persons have abundance of leisure, it is of course desirable that the fine
art of Latin composition should be cultivated by those who have a
genius for it, like other fine arts. We, however, do not even aim at
producing this kind of man. We aim at producing men who will do
honestly and well some of the hard intellectual work of the world. We
aim at this, and we succeed in our aim, because our aim is consonant
with the genius of the inhabitants of this north-eastern district. Ask
our Professor of Mathematics, and he will tell you that the average of
mathematical and scientific ability in this part of the country is quite
188 MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
"
fencers, we do not make almost everyone throw away
years of life in the practice of fencing, and it is just as
little reasonable to make almost everyone throw them
away in the practice of Latin composition, with the
result of turning out a few Jebbs or Coningtons.
Greek composition stands on a different footing. To
write Greek verse is, of course, useless; but if we could
import scholars, trained at Athens, who could teach old
unusually high. Ask our Professor of Logic, and he will tell you the
same about the logical and speculative faculties of the people of this
district. Do I then mean that we should neglect the teaching of
Classics ? Far indeed from that, but I think that the kind of classical
knowledge which we ought to encourage should be of that robust and
manly sort, which alone nowadays obtains for the classical scholar
recognition and importance. There is plenty of such work to be done.
We still, for example, want in our language good translations of far the
greater number of even the commoner classical authors. To translate
the Politics of Aristotle supremely well--there would be a worthy object
for a modern English scholar. To make Tacitus an English classic-
there would be another object, the execution of which would hand down
a man's name to posterity more effectually than any work of original
genius that did not rise to the very first rank. How much, again, has
still to be done for Classical History, nay, even for Classical Geography.
Is there, for instance, a single really good book of Classical Travels in
Italy? One of the best tourist books on Italy was written by an Elgin
man, Mr. Forsyth, whose excellent brother died only a few years ago,
surrounded by the love and respect of his fellow-citizens. What is to
prevent us, if we give a really robust and manly direction to the studies
of the district, producing some modern Cluverius, who will take away
by a book, as good, say, as those of Leake about Greece, this great
European reproach? Then, as to Ancient Philosophy, is there not
something still to be done in that field, and is not the best classical
book which has issued from Aberdeen the Phaedo of Professor Geddes ?
If that is an accident, it seems to me, when taken in connection with
the ability shown by so many youths in Professor Bain's classes, a very
significant accident.
As it is, we fall between two stools. We encourage boys to begin
Latin as if we intended to make them, when they were three-and-twenty,
able to compete successfully with the men who wrote in the "Arundines
Cami,” or in the“ Anthologia Oxoniensis." And then, long before they
have arrived at any proficiency worth speaking about, we call them off to
other and, as I think, worthier studies.—Address with regard to the Bursary
Competition, delivered in the University of Aberdeen, October 9th, 1868.
A PLEA FOR A RATIONAL EDUCATION.
189
Greek as a living language, it is quite possible that some
time given to the writing of Greek prose might not be
ill bestowed, especially by those who could arrange to
spend a few months in Greece before their general
education came to an end. And that at least three
months spent in studying Latin history and literature
in Italy, and a like time spent in studying Greek
history and literature in Greece, will become a regular
In this matter of composition the Commissioners make concessions,
but they do not make sufficient concessions. I confess that I am on
this one point thoroughly revolutionary. I feel that every hour which I
myself ever took from reading good Latin and Greek, and gave to
writing bad Latin and Greek, was an hour lost, and I defy anyone
to prove that such hours are ever employed to advantage, except by
perhaps three or four boys out of a hundred, who happen to have the
peculiar knack of writing what is called brilliant composition; and
when you have attained to this pinnacle, when you can write Greek
verses like Mr. Riddell in the Anthologia Oxoniensis, or Latin verses
like Professor Conington or Professor Goldwin Smith, in the same
volume, have you done anything better than gain an accomplishment
entitled to rank amongst intellectual acquirements, pretty much as
fencing does amongst physical acquirements? No amount of sophistry
can prove that there is any one important gift of the human intellect
which is at all more brought out by Latin and Greek composition than
by composition in other languages. In discussing the question, there
is an everlasting application of the argument post hoc ergo propter hoc.
We are told, for example, that such and such a person wrote good Latin
verses before he made good speeches or wrote good leading articles, and
then it is quietly assumed that he had the power to do the one only
because he had done the other. I will not raise the question whether
it is in the nature of things possible for a modern to write really well in
Greek or Latin at all, although I fully believe that the least successful
contemporary imitators of Cicero would have smiled at our Ciceronian
Latin, and the weakest poet who ever failed at Athens would have found
little to admire even in the "Greek Verses of Shrewsbury School."
The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Calcutta told the young
Bengalees the other day :
"Depend upon it, no man ever wrote well by striving too hard to
write well. English can only be well written by following the golden
rule which Englishmen follow, or ought to follow, and that rule
is never to try deliberately to write it well."-Speech upon the
Report of the Public Schools Commission in the House of Commons,
May 6th, 1864.
:
+
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
part of our curriculum for those who want to have all
the chances, I make no doubt. I do not speak of to-day
or to-morrow, but of the end of the century, when
many practical difficulties-the typhoid fevers, which
are temporarily adding a new danger to the great cities
of Italy, the brigandage of Greece, and many other
inconveniences-have become things of the past.
190
Some of my readers have, perhaps, not seen Professor
Blackie's very useful little book of Greek Dialogues on
Modern Subjects, which I venture to recommend to
their attention. I apprehend that a cultivated Athenian
would perfectly understand an Englishman speaking
Xenophontic Greek if only he pronounced it in the
modern way, which is not difficult to learn; and the
tendency of political events, if Russia does not get to
Constantinople, will be, I think, to strengthen, not
weaken, the artificial but very powerful movement
towards bringing back the language to something very
like the ancient.*
be
It is necessary to point out that, however childish a
pursuit "scholarship" may be, in the sense of the imitation
of the Latin and Greek authors, however absurd it may
to encourage in boys who are intended to be busy men
of the modern, not professional students of the ancient,
world, any intense application to the niceties of Greek
* I cannot understand, now that the position of Greek in education
is threatened, why the heads of the great schools have not the wit to
see that they would immensely strengthen the position of Greek in
education if they could say to parents-You are much in favour of
modern languages. Well, now, by teaching Greek I not only give your
son a key to some of the finest literature that has ever been composed,
but I increase his efficiency as a practical man-a man of the world.
The Greeks of the Kingdom have certainly made a mess of their
political affairs, but they have succeeded in purifying their language,
and there can be no doubt that that language has a very considerable
future in the Eastern Mediterranean. Already politicians begin to
speculate upon changes in the Balkan peninsula which will one way or
!
A PLEA FOR A RATIONAL EDUCATION.
191
and Latin grammar, it is difficult to attach too much
importance to perfectly accurate translation into English.
Whatever is read for educational
educational purposes, in any
language, should be read with the utmost care, aud
no difficulty should be slurred over. If this caution
be neglected, we shall sacrifice the one good thing in
the old training-the accuracy to which it accustomed
those with whom it succeeded. One of its many faults
was that it did not succeed, but failed, with nine out of
ten; and that it trained those with whom it succeeded
chiefly to be accurate in nonsense, to the destruction
of the time and energy which should have been be-
stowed upon studies at once more educative and more
instructive.
I must protest in the most emphatic way against
my being called an enemy of classical education. I
maintain that the classical education which I would give
would be of an infinitely higher and better kind than
the present, while it would occupy far less time. I
think that we should exhaust every device of ingenuity
to make this and all other studies as easy, and even
as pleasant, as possible. I utterly abhor that "doctrine
and position," that difficulty is a good in itself. It
is quite impossible to learn anything well, without
encountering much and serious difficulty; but while
other greatly increase the importance of the Greeks. You won't have
the grande idée realised—that is a dream; but the Greeks stand to win
a good deal, whatever happens. This very day you might speak and
write the Greek of, say, Dion Chrysostom, and be perfectly well under-
stood at Athens, if only you pronounced it as the Greeks do; aud by
the time your son is in middle life a thorough acquaintance with Greek
will be a real advantage, for the class of persons who are sufficiently
educated to speak the language purely is rapidly increasing, as
it is sure to do in a country-the only one, I believe, in Europe-
where school-boys like learning their lessons.--An Address delivered
in the Liverpool Institute, November 8th, 1876: Higher and Secondary
Education.
192
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
he who shirks difficulty where it must be faced is a
coward, he who goes out of his way to seek difficulty
is a fool.
Before passing from this portion of the subject I
wish to observe that there is no reason why persons.
who cannot carry on their education to one or two and
twenty should be shut out from the influences of ancient
classical literature and art. A far more real acquaint-
ance with the ancient world than is now possessed by
ninety out of a hundred who go through the usual
classical mill, could be obtained by translations read,
under the guidance of a good teacher, in a course which
need not extend over more than two years—say from
sixteen to eighteen-and could be fitted in very well
with technical or professional studies. Further, I would
add that if it is good for highly-educated men to come
under the influences of the ancient world, it is good for
women who wish to carry on their education till one
or two and twenty, and to become highly educated, to
do the same. There is no reason why the classics
should be more educative or instructive to one sex than
to the other.*
* But, for that matter, it seems to me that the education which is
good for boys is, with few exceptions, up to seventeen or eighteen,
equally good for girls. It is only after that age that you should begin
to make great differences. Some educational reformers are, I think,
quite wrong in their treatment of this subject; but they are wrong
chiefly because they a great deal overrate the goodness of the education
given to boys and young men in this country. A well-brought-up girl
of eighteen, in an English home, is generally, I should say, better
educated than her brother who has been to one of our great schools and
is just going up to Oxford. I am not speaking, of course, of the boys
who take scholarships or other high distinctions at school or on entering
college, but of the average clergyman's or country gentleman's son
who goes up as a commoner and will eventually take a pass degree. To
put a girl through his curriculum, with its poor jejune Latin learning
and even jejuner Greek and Mathematics, instead of what she now
learns, would be a sad mistake; but when Latin and Greek have been
put in their proper place, not as beggarly elements but as studies to be
A PLEA FOR A RATIONAL EDUCATION.
193
I return, however, to the main line of my paper. Even
the longer classical course I suggest will afford room for
the introduction of various other subjects which are now
entirely excluded. I take it for granted that a very
slight amount of attention will enable a boy to keep up
and gradually extend the acquirements which I have
supposed him to possess at fourteen. The only one
which would call for daily attention would be geography,
in the sense in which I have explained it. What, then,
are the new studies, in addition to Greek and Latin,
for which time must be found before the usual age
of going up to the university? They are, I should
say-
1. Mathematics.
2. Chemistry.
pursued as a kind of reward for success in more obviously necessary
studies, then it will seem just as natural for girls to work at them as
for boys. When general education is done and the boy enters upon
those studies which are to form a sort of bridge between general
education and professional or special studies, then is the time to begin
to make a great difference in the training of the sexes. If it is desirable,
for example, that men should have read whatever the Romans said that
was quintessentially good and beautiful, it appears to me just as
desirable that women should have read it too. But supposing a young
man is going to the Bar, he will, after his general education in Latin is
done, and before he begins to study English Law, read, if he is to be
well-founded in English Law, more fully in Roman History than he has
done before, and superadd to that some knowledge of Roman law. Now,
into that training I should think it absurd that his sister should follow
him. If, as ought to be the case, she carried on her education, usually
of course at home, as long as her brother did his at the university, she
could spend her time far more usefully in studies which would prepare
her to be what she is meant by Nature to be—not the rival of the other
sex, but the great consoler, ornament, and purifier of Society.
course, in a girl's education you should do all you can to cultivate the
taste for what is best in art and most beautiful in nature, but you should
do the same in the case of boys. It would only be after the purely
general part of education was over that you ought to give more
prominence to æsthetic cultivation in the woman than in the man.—An
Address delivered in the Liverpool Institute, November 8th, 1876: Higher
and Secondary Education.
Of
ت.
O
194
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
3. Italian.
4. Book-keeping.
5. English Essay-writing.
As to the study of mathematics, the part it should
bear in general education seems to me very small indeed.
It is of the utmost importance to the community to
encourage mathematical acquirement, and those who
have the charge of boys should be always on the out-
look to discover and foster any promise of great mathe-
matical ability. But for the general purposes of life the
study of mathematics is the most barren of all studies.
No statement can be less true than that it trains the
reasoning powers for the common pursuits of men.
Nothing can be less like the problems of life than the
problems of mathematics, and the aptitudes required for
the two kinds of problems are wholly distinct. An
acquaintance with the very rudiments of mathematics,
a little geometry, and a little algebra, are all that should
be required as a part of general education. Any intel-
ligent teacher would see fast enough, by the time his
pupil had got through the first four books of Euclid,
or arrived at quadratic equations, whether he had any
mathematical turn whatsoever, and, if so, whether it
was a sufficiently marked one to make it worth while to
sacrifice any other part of general education to it.
I would pursue much the same course with regard to
chemistry, though chemistry has over mathematics this
advantage, that while it, too, is a good training for the
mind, it cannot be pursued without the acquisition of
a great deal of very useful knowledge. Still, once more
I repeat, "life is short," and the amount of chemistry
contained in a small book, such as that of Sir Ughtred
Kay-Shuttleworth, used under the guidance of a sensible
teacher in a good laboratory, would be quite enough to
give a sufficient amount of knowledge, and to betray to
-
A PLEA FOR A RATIONAL EDUCATION.
195
an observant eye any remarkable aptitude which it might
be prudent to develope.
The only other modern language, besides those al-
ready specified, which should, I think, form part of
general education, is Italian,* and it is a matter of
indifference whether that is acquired during the years
* It seems to me that the Commissioners have exercised a very wise
discretion in postponing the claims of Italian to those of German. True
it is that in favour of the first may be urged its affinity to Latin and to
French, rendering it, as they do, singularly easy to teach in conjunction
with these two languages. Then it is undoubtedly, in the Mediterranean
and the East, extremely useful; nor must it be forgotten that the
growing political importance of Italy, and the great awakening which
is taking place there, will make it increasingly desirable to be acquainted
with the language which is spoken by a great and powerful people.
The atmosphere, so to speak, which we breathe in the writings of Goethe
is the same as that in which we all live. It is essentially modern
When we turn, however, to the Divina Commedia, we breathe another
atmosphere. The world of Dante was a world almost as different from
ours as the world of Sophocles. It is perhaps a hasty generalisation
from Milton, but one cannot help thinking that the early and deep study
of Italian literature is calculated to bring out in a very singular
degree some of the finest characteristics of the English mind. The
arguments, however, in favour of German are irresistible. It is at least
as useful as Italian, not only from the number of people who speak it,
but from the number of languages to which it is the key. The two
reasons, however, which seem to me conclusive in its favour are the
following. In the first place, the difficulty of really mastering it is so
great and so serious that the most bigoted adherent of the present
system cannot afford, if, that is to say, he has himself acquired it, to
treat it as an inadequate substitute for part of that Greek and Latin
training, the difficulty of which is, to the minds of such people, its
peculiar charm; and secondly, because the literature of Germany is to
such an extent a reservoir of knowledge and of ideas, that with the
exception of the exact sciences, there is no one subject of human research
upon which anyone can thoroughly inform himself without being driven
to German sources. Take the very subject of classics. I do not ask,
Are there not many German books which are indispensable ?—But are
there any books of much importance in use in our schools or universities
which are not either wholly German or taken to a great extent from
German sources? So it is with history, so with philosophy. Open any
book on the theological controversies now raging in this country, and,
strange to say, neither on the orthodox nor heterodox side is there almost
a single authority cited which is not either German or wearing the
o 2
196 MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
which immediately precede a university course or during
the years spent at the university. The power of speak-
ing Italian well is one possessed by very few Englishmen,
and, although it is a most charming accomplishment,
I should even less think of considering it as a part of
general education, than I should facility in German;
but not to be able to read both languages, with perfect
ease, is to expose oneself to great, and, as the number
of books in each increases, ever-multiplying incon-
veniences. Italian could, I need hardly say, be learned
pari passu with Latin, with the greatest advantage.
Some people may be surprised to see anyone give a
prominent place in general education to so special a
subject as book-keeping, and, of course, I do not desire
that ordinary people should have the technical skill
of a book-keeper, but a sufficient knowledge of that
humble art, to make accounts easily intelligible, would
be vastly convenient to every man of the world, and it is
for men of the world that I am writing, men who have
to be shareholders, trustees, executors, to examine farm
books and estate accounts.
Many who will smile at my last recommendation,
will have much more favour for my next, viz. that
English composition, which up to sixteen or thereabouts
should be chiefly cultivated by perpetual transfation from
dead or foreign languages, and by writing concisely reports
of things seen, should, after that age, be carried farther,
by the practice of frequently writing English essays.
uniform of one or the other widely divided schools of German opinion.
A suggestion is made by Professor Müller respecting the assistance
which might be derived in teaching both Latin and French from com-
parative philology, and he mentions a grammar, that of M. Egger, the
well-known Professor in Paris, which is founded upon this principle. I
am glad to see that the Commissioners think that the suggestion may
be turned to practical use.-Speech upon the Report of the Public Schools
Commission, in the House of Commons, May 6th, 1864.
A PLEA FOR A RATIONAL EDUCATION.
197
It is surely unnecessary to argue at any length in
favour of devoting some little trouble, between fourteen
and eighteen, to understanding the ordinary laws of
health, together with as much of the very elements of
physiology as is necessary for their comprehension. No
one arrives at middle life without knowing many cases
amongst his contemporaries where a little knowledge of
this subject would have prevented errors in matters of
exercise, food, and a variety of other things which have
produced quite disastrous results.
The possession of all the requirements that I have
specified should be tested by an examination, which
should take place at the age at which boys now go to the
university, and which might be held either at school or
college. In saying this, I do not wish to imply that no
one should enter the university who could not pass a fair
examination in the subjects I have enumerated. The course
which I am describing is susceptible of infinite modification,
where peculiar aptitudes or circumstances have to be con-
sidered. If, for instance, I found that a boy who could
have all the chances had great mathematical and no literary
ability, I would omit Latin and Greek from his educa-
tion altogether, and only require so much knowledge of
German and Italian as would be necessary to enable him
to read books on his own subject. The university, while
welcoming to her those youths who only wish for a first-
rate general education, should also welcome every kind
of specialist. If, for example, a young man who could
* It is to the last degree disgraceful that at such a university as
Oxford any branch of human knowledge which is recognised by the
other great universities of the world should not be taught, excepting
always branches of learning which have merely a local importance, or
which there is some good reason for not teaching-as for instance, from
there being a place in the immediate neighbourhood where they are
specially well taught. Why should Oxford strike her flag to Berlin or
Heidelberg, or any other university on the face of the earth ? Are
198 MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
do nothing more than read his own language, and to
whom French, German, Italian, Latin, and Greek were
inscrutable mysteries, had a real genius for entomology,
I should think it was pedantry gone mad to bar his
entrance to Professor Westwood's Lectures by a matri-
culation examination. If a man desired to study nothing
at Oxford but Tamil and Telugu, to Oxford he should go.
with my blessing, provided only he could satisfy the
authorities that he could attend, with profit, prelections
on those interesting tongues.
I am merely suggesting an everyday course for every-
day people. If a man is fortunate enough to have sons
with a great and real turn for anything-a sufficient turn
to make them, in that particular walk, useful to their
generation-I would be the last person to ask him to
stand in the way of a natural bent. So few of us, how-
ever, have the luck to be fathers of heaven-born artists,
they richer than she ? Are they more dignified than she? Have they
to minister to a nation which has more world-wide interests than ours ?
A noble lord recently used as an illustration of useless Professorships
-Professorships of Chinese and Slavonic. Sir, it seems to me difficult
to speak with sufficient shame of a nation which has our position in
Asia not having had, till the other day, a Professorship of Chinese in the
wealthiest of its universities. Did the noble lord forget that China is
inhabited by some three hundred and sixty millions of men? that she
has the oldest and most extraordinary civilisation in the world; that we
have commercial relations with her of great importance; and that a
change that might at any time come about in the policy of that country
might increase these relations quite enormously. Is there anyone who
has given attention to the subject who will deny that it is possible
that within the next fifty years the Chinese race may be playing a part
of first-rate importance in the world? So much for the direct import-
ance of Chinese; but is that all? Just listen to what one of the leading
philologists in Oxford says on this very subject:
"The importance of Chinese," says Mr. Sayce, "to the science of
language need not be pointed out, nor the mass of literature described
which its study has called forth; and yet those only who have devoted
their attention to the science of language can have any idea of the loss
occasioned to it at Oxford by the absence there of a Chair of Chinese.
How much would not the Oxford students of language have given for
A PLEA FOR A RATIONAL EDUCATION.
199
or poets, or musicians, or engineers, or geologists, or
astronomers, or anything else, that what I have to say
must have an application to the case of many.
During the years spent at the university in England
or abroad, and, better than either, in England and abroad,
the acquirements already possessed should be kept up,
and some new ones added. The leading study should
still be the knowledge of the ball on which we live, alike
in its physical and political aspects. The acquaintance
with the modern languages of which I have spoken should
become ever more and more the knowledge of the flower
of their literature. The acquaintance with Greek and
Latin should become ever more and more a transfusion
into the mind of classical ideas. Of new studies, the
chief should be, first, an elementary knowledge of English
law, and of the outlines at once of our Constitution and
of our administrative system, imperial and local.
an opportunity of questioning and listening to a Professor of Chinese,
whom it has been left to the far-sightedness of some Liverpool merchants
to call to the university."
And Slavonic. I only wish that we had had for many years back
Professorships of more than one of the Slavonic languages. Perhaps if
we had had them, the present difficulties in the East would not be so
perplexing as they are. I entreat anyone to whom such a remark may
appear strange to turn to the collected works of one of the most brilliant
and gifted of English scholars, the late Lord Strangford, a most devoted
son of Oxford, and read the masterly, the admirable paper entitled
""
Chaos," which deals with this very subject. People, who talk as the
noble lord talked, have surely not the faintest idea, either of the vast-
ness of the field over which human knowledge extends, or of what
other nations are doing in cultivating that field. Some time ago,
Professor Max Müller was asked what Chairs should be founded in
Oxford in connection with his own subject. To this question he replied,
inter alia, as follows:
"If it were wished to establish at Oxford a real School of Comparative
Philology, the following Professorships would be necessary :-1. A Pro-
fessorship of the Teutonic languages; 2. A Professorship of the Celtic
languages; 3. A Professorship of the Neo-Latin languages; 4. A Pro-
fessorship of the Semitic languages, independent of the Professorship
of Hebrew and Old Testament Exegesis; 5. A Professorship of Persian,
200 MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
I know of no book that gives exactly the kind of
information of which I am thinking; but supposing any
one were to take Stephen's Blackstone and Dr. Gneist's
formidable volumes, along with May's Constitutional
History, and boil them down into a work not larger
than the last mentioned, he would produce the kind of
text-book I should suggest. Then the broadest, and only
the broadest, principles of political economy should be
studied in one of the approved manuals; Stephen's
Digest of the Law of Evidence, some of Bentham, in the
form of Dumont, with a few selected "Leading Cases,"
and a good deal of Wheaton's International Law should
be added; and, lastly, the pupil should go through a
long course of lectures intended to give him a good
general idea of the history of speculation, from the
including Zend; 6. A Professorship of the language and antiquities of
Egypt; 7. A Professorship of Chinese, coupled, if possible, with Tartaric
and Mongolic."
[Laughter.] Hon. members laugh, and very naturally; but we are
dealing with University affairs, and we must introduce words and
subjects very unfamiliar to our usual debates. Mr. Max Müller goes on
to observe :
"Such a Staff, though it may seem large, exists in almost every
university in France, Germany, and even Rússia, the Professor being
expected not only to teach and prepare pupils for examination, but to
inspire them with a love of special subjects, to carry on the work handed
down by former generations, and to increase as much as possible the
inherited capital of knowledge by means of original research."
Now, I beg the House to consider this statement. It sounds strange
to us, but if other great nations act thus, can it be so very unreasonable?
Mr. Max Müller proceeds to say:
Considering the peculiar duties which England has undertaken to
fulfil in India, a Professorship of the Neo-Sanscritic languages (Bengali,
Hindustani, Mahratti, &c.), and of the Dravidian languages (Tamil,
Telugu, Canarese, &c.), would likewise seem to be required in the first
university of the English Empire."
The non-existence at Oxford of any adequate representation of the
various branches of knowledge which are specially Indian, is surely
one of the very strangest phenomena observable in Europe. There
died the other day a great Persian scholar who had made his fame in a
land not his own. If an English student wanted to attend the lectures
(C
A PLEA FOR A RATIONAL EDUCATION.
201
earliest days down to Comte, Schopenhauer, Hartmann,
and Mill. I need hardly say that the more the
various opinions could be represented as so many
well-painted slides in a magic-lantern, and the less
subjective the lecturer was, the better he would do his
work.
The only other study I would suggest is that of
public speaking, for which there are now great facilities
at most universities. The Union was decidedly the most
valuable institution at Oxford, in my day, for I belong,
alas to the old barbarous time before the First Com-
mission, when there was no Modern History School, no
University Museum, no Taylor Scholarships for Modern
Languages.
If the course I am proposing were substituted for the
of M. Jules Mohl, whither had he to go-to an English university ?
No-to the Collége de France. Yet, what interests has France in
Persia, or Persian, at all comparable to ours? The noble lord the Under
Secretary for India will correct me if I am wrong when I say that the
decay of Persian learning amongst Indian officers is a serious practical
inconvenience-an inconvenience which has attracted the attention of
Government and to which it is not easy to apply a remedy. Quite
recently several of the Indian languages have become recognised at
Oxford; but I remember when there was not even a teacher of Hin-
dustani; and, to this hour, if anyone wants to have a notion of what is
doing in current Indian literature, he must turn again to the Collége
de France and read the annual statement of one of its Professors,
M. Garcin de Tassy. Let anyone who cares for the good name of
Oxford look at what the Orientalists have done since the days of Sir
William Jones, and then count up what share Oxford has had in that
splendid page of human history. It is getting late, but it is not yet too
late for her still to take her part. Can the present generation of her
children really wish that her historians in the end of next century shall
not have a very different tale to tell from what could be told of her now?
What should we think of any other nation which had such an appanage
as India and did not recognise it in its greatest national university ?
Do the Dutch at Leyden ignore their Eastern possessions? Very far
from it. The mere fact that Haileybury was created far away from
either Oxford or Cambridge, speaks volumes as to the melancholy state
in which they were in those days.-Speech on the Second Reading of the
University of Cambridge Bill in the House of Commons, July 6th, 187c.
wy
202
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARỲ.
ordinary one, we might, in thinking over the future of a
son at one or two and twenty, calculate-
1. That he had a general acquaintance with the laws
of health.
2. That he could read aloud clearly and agreeably.
3. That he could put a few sentences together in
public without undue nervousness.
4. That he could write a large, clear, round hand.
5. That he knew the ordinary rules of arithmetic.
6. That he knew enough of book-keeping to under-
stand accounts submitted to him.
7. That he could speak and write French with ease
and correctness.
8. That he could translate ad aperturam libri from
French, German, Italian, Greek, and Latin, and had some
insight into what is best in their literatures. Further,
that he knew the derivation of every word whose deri-
vation is undisputed, that he came across in each of these
languages, and was acquainted with the broadest results of
the labours of the comparative philologist and comparative
grammarian.
-
9. That he had a very wide knowledge of geography,
understood in the largest sense of the term, together with
all the bigger and more obvious facts of history, by which
I do not for a moment mean to imply that he should have
given any very great attention to history. History is one
of the noblest of studies, and a man who has the requisite
means and inclination cannot do better than devote him-
self to it, after his general education is finished; but I am
speaking now only of general education. Perhaps I could
best express my meaning by saying that I think an
Englishman of the class for whom I am writing should
know, at one or two and twenty, all the leading facts about
every important country, which a man who now passes
for well-educated, but has given no special attention to
A PLEA FOR A RATIONAL EDUCATION.
203
history or geography, knows about his own country. The
amount of knowledge which would put an Englishman
on a level with a fairly well-informed Italian, or Brazilian,
or Russian, or Greek, or Dutch gentleman, in the matter
of the history and geography of their own countries, is
not, I conceive, by any means colossal. Still, it would
be enough to promote a vast deal of good feeling, and to
prevent much folly being talked and done. I most fully
believe, for example, that if we knew the commonest
facts, geographical and historical, about our own colonies,
we should hear far less than we do of colonial dis-
content and heart-burnings, which usually have their
origin, when they have their origin on our side at all, in
the sancta simplicitas of our admirable intentions, and
absolute Nescience at once of their past and of their
present. Let it, then, be distinctly understood that,
when I maintained that knowledge of the ball on which
we find ourselves is the most important branch of know-
ledge for those who govern directly so large a portion of
its surface, and influence indirectly what is done in nearly
all the rest, I do not wish to exchange the duodecimo
Porsons, whom we now turn out of our universities, for
duodecimo Humboldts. Of the two articles I should
vastly prefer the second, but it is not what I want.
Ga
If a boy knew thoroughly well at fourteen two such
books as Mrs. Somerville's "Physical Geography," and
CC
La Terre à vol d'Oiseau," by Reclus, and then went on
adding to the knowledge therein contained by reading,
under good guidance, say as much as would fill three
octavo volumes a year, he would, by one or two and
twenty, have the kind of knowledge of geography in its
highest sense which should form the most important part
of every English gentleman's education. Geography of
this kind is inseparable from history, and is the best
vehicle for conveying it to the mind, since facts sink
204 MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
much deeper if they come to us as an explanation_of
what now exists, than they do if they are read without
any relation to the present; and not even the narrowest
pedant would be able to speak of history thus acquired
as "cram."
But to continue.
10. We might, if the course I suggest were followed,
fully calculate that our son had been trained, from earliest
infancy, to use his powers of observation on plants or
animals, or rocks, or other natural objects.
11. That he knew as much mathematics, physics,
and chemistry as are required to pass the matriculation
of the London University, which many boys now pass
at sixteen.
12. That he could write a fair English essay.
13. That he had a good general acquaintance with
the more important English classics.
14. That he had some knowledge of the broad prin-
ciples of the laws under which he lives, and of the way
in which the imperial and local administration of his
country is carried on.
15. That he had some notions, correct as far as they
went, about what the greatest men have thought with
reference to the leading controversies, religious, poli-
tical, and philosophical, which have divided the world,
considered purely objectively.
16. That he knew the rudiments of political economy
and of international law.
It will be seen that I omit many things which are in
high favour now in various circles-much fiddling over
arithmetic, all mathematics except the very elements, a
great deal of grammar in various tongues, all Latin and
nearly all Greek composition, much moral science, a great
deal of controversial theology, endless learning by heart
of prose and verse for the purpose of "improving our
A PLEA FOR A RATIONAL EDUCATION.
205
composition,"* logic-I leave them all out without a
pang, as not forming any portion of general education,
except the last, which I leave out because life is short,
and because I think that the careful study of such books
as Bentham's Principles of Legislation, of a Civil Code,
and of a Criminal Code in Dumont's edition, Stephen's
Digest of the Law of Evidence, a selection from Smith's
Leading Cases, as suggested by Mr. Morley at Birming-
ham, and other books which would have to be studied in
order to pass well under heads 14, 15, and 16, would
serve the same purpose as a good treatise on logic.
Just consider the difference between a young man
who had gone through this training, and, I do not say
the failures, but the successes of the present system.
Yet the course I propose requires a considerably smaller
amount of work, and leaves more time for amusement,
than the usual one, while it could be so arranged as to
make "cramming" in its bad sense quite impossible. It
should be remembered that the efforts of your best tutors
are now used to turn away the best men from the more
valuable studies to mere classics and mathematics. "How
is ?" said, lately, a friend of mine to one of the most
influential, and deservedly influential, guides of youth in
England. "Ah, poor fellow," was the reply, "he has gone
in for modern history. You know his health broke
down!" As if modern history were not a far nobler,
and manlier study than the charming, but comparatively
trifling, pursuits of the "scholar," with his pretty copies
of Iambics, and all the rest of it, or the still more barren
pursuits of the Speculatist who weaves and unweaves the
web of Metaphysics.
An examination should be held, I think, in all the
* I am in favour of a moderate amount of learning by heart, but
nothing should be learnt by heart which is not supremely good. To
oblige a boy to repeat a Greek play straight off is an absurd folly.
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MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
subjects I have enumerated, in the last year of the uni-
versity course; and the successful candidates might be
classed, as they now are at Oxford, in five great
divisions. There should be no attempt to arrange them
within each of the five classes in their exact order of
merit; and a good place in the examination should
carry with it much consideration, but no pecuniary
reward. It is absurd to pay people for allowing you to
give them a good general education. Pecuniary rewards
should be almost entirely reserved for those who intend
to devote themselves to the service of the university,
and to those who take up studies which will not
encourage themselves. Devotion to the service of the
university and special attainments should, however, be
rewarded with no grudging hand. The less suitable a
study is for the purposes of general education, the more
proper it is for encouragement by prizes, scholarships,
and money grants.
It would not be easy to pitch upon two studies less
suitable for general education than the abstruser parts of
mathematics, and Chinese, but I should say that a rich
university which did not encourage these two studies by
liberal payments grossly neglected its duty. To examine
a man for his degree in Athenæus would be a piece
of absurd pedantry; to give a prize of fifty guineas for a
good examination in Athenæus would be a meritorious.
proceeding. In no way, perhaps, could the University
of Oxford so well encourage the study of the ancient
classics as by offering handsome rewards for really good
translations into English, like Mr. Jowett's Plato, for
good editions of Latin or Greek authors, like Mr. By-
water's Heraclitus, for essays on classical subjects, which
either add to the knowledge of scholars, like Müller's
Eumenides, or make classical ideas accessible to the many,
like Mr. Symonds's delightful book on the Greek Poets.
A PLEA FOR A RATIONAL EDUCATION.
207
Educational endowments may be used with great
propriety to help struggling merit up to the university
-to put the son of the poorest man, provided he has
great ability and application, in the position of the
son of the man of moderate fortune; but it would be
an abuse of endowments to carry him on for three or
four years more, while you give him an education
which, however admirable, presupposes the possession
of considerable private means to use it to advantage.
By all means let the son of the poorest man obtain
easy access to the university, but if he has not a special
turn for some of the branches which it is worth the
while of the public to foster by money payments,
because they are not so obviously useful as to foster
themselves, he had much better devote himself as soon
as possible to professional and money-making studies, to
which the application of any large amount of endowment
would be highly improper.
We ought never to lose sight, in arranging our
educational institutions, either of the man who aspires
only to the highest general cultivation of his age, or
of the man who desires to be a specialist-to carry
knowledge farther. Both are to be encouraged to the
utmost: the first by providing him with the very best
teaching, by enabling him to test his measure of success,
and by sending him forth with the stamp of public
recognition; the other by ample pecuniary rewards,
given as much as possible, but by no means always, in
return for definite work done.
Those who say that universities are to be mere places
of education-upper schools, in fact--and those who
say that they are to be mere machines for research, and
retreats for learned leisure, are equally wrong.
A great
university like Oxford should aim at being at once
the best place of education, the greatest machine for
208
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
research, and the most delicious retreat for learned
leisure in the whole world. Her advantages in the
struggle for the Primato in all these ways are absolutely
overwhelming. If she is not all that, before the century
is done, it is only because she wills to be false to herself.
But we must keep wide apart these two questions:
"What should the university be ready to teach ?" and
"What should the ordinary English gentleman learn
during that period of his general education which closes
with the university?"
I have still to reply to two opposite kinds of
objection.
It will be remarked by some that my list is pretty
long, and that it would be impossible to attain by one
or two and twenty any great skill in the arts, or wide
knowledge of most of the subjects, included in it. I
am quite aware of this, but I ask for nothing of the
kind. I ask for a wide knowledge of only one subject
-Geography in the sense of Earth Knowledge and
History. A very moderate amount of knowledge of the
others, thoroughly accurate so far as it goes, is all I
dream of; and it must be recollected that I would allow
no subject to be commenced as a part of general educa-
tion, the study of which might not with great advantage
be continued through the whole of life. Some subjects
would, of course, be pursued in after life by one, some
by another; but the kind of general education which
approves itself to my mind would at least oblige those
who passed through it to have looked at all the great
divisions of human knowledge, and to have satisfied
themselves whether they had or had not a turn for
them.
•
The line which bounds general education is, after
all, only an imaginary one. General education should
only end with life; but men who are to be busy with
A PLEA FOR A RATIONAL EDUCATION.
209
1
the world's work, and to give a due place to the second
of the objects of life which I set out by enumerating,
will, after one or two and twenty, begin to find the
time they can give, in the course of the day, to general
education, much shorter than it used to be. Still, so
great are the facilities which our modern life affords,
that those who are now just beginning their general
education, with the prospect of having all the chances,
may well hope, if they live out their years, and retain
their energies, not only to know all the most important
facts which man has found out about himself and the
universe of which he forms part, but to have seen, heard,
and read, before they die, all that is best and most
beautiful in that portion of the universe which serves as
man's habitation. In order to do this they must from
the very first be carefully prevented wasting their time
on second or third rate things. The real use of teachers,
properly so called, after the very first youth has been
passed, would be chiefly to keep us within the limits of
the really valuable and excellent. Not the least desirable
professor in any university would be he who would tell
us faithfully and wisely what famous books we had
better leave on the bookshelves, what famous places we
need not visit, what famous theories are cinders, ashes,
dust. I am not aware, however, that the appointment
of so useful a person falls within even the very extensive
powers which are to be acquired by the University
Commissioners under the Act of this year. We must be
content to make many mistakes; but if there once arises
amongst men and women of the world a real demand for
the help necessary to such an educational course for their
children as I have sketched, there will be found persons
to supply the want.
And is it possible that such a demand should not
arise? Into what company of people, who know the
P
210
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
world, does one enter without hearing lamentations
over the miserable results of our present schools?
their wonderful powers of boobyising the inferior,
their scant success in making much of the superior
boy?
Another set of critics will take exception to my pro-
posals upon quite different grounds. They will ask that
many more and severer studies should be made a part of
general education, and they will point with admiration
to Mr. Mill's address at St. Andrews. I decline the
contest with a giant. I have no doubt that the methods
proposed by him are excellent for the purpose of making
men of science, and great thinkers. My object, however,
is far more humble. I am writing in the interest of those
who wish to learn from the seminal minds of the
age, not
to rival them. I am thinking not of the education -
suitable for a hundred or two of picked intelligences, but
for many thousand very good sort of young men with
fair brains and fair powers of application, but by no
means Admirable Crichtons. I appeal for support not
to the great philosophers and educationists of the day,
but to cultivated men and women, persons of ordinary
common sense, who know something of the world of
affairs, something of the world of books, and something
of society. I ask them whether the kind of youth I
propose to turn out at one or two and twenty would
not have had a pleasanter boyhood than the successful
products of the existing system-would not be more
likely to be useful to his fellow-creatures, and to develope
his own faculties to the utmost?
Many of us who were not, alas ! so old then as we are
now, fondly imagined, when the Palmerston Government
appointed the Commission to inquire into the nine great
schools, in 1861, that when we ourselves had children
fit to go to those schools, they would be able to obtain a
A PLEA FOR A RATIONAL EDUCATION.
211
really good education there." Now, however, in 1877,
although doubtless many improvements have been made, it
* Make these schools in every respect what they should be, and
improve your universities proportionably, and the demand to enter
such a school as Eton will become so great, that you will be able to
dictate what conditions you please. You will be able, for instance, to
say, that you do not care to receive anyone who does not come to be
prepared for the university, and you will be able to decline modifying
what you have deliberately determined to be the best system of training
for the mind, in deference to the requirements of this or that compe-
titive examination. Make Eton what it ought to be, and it will be a
school not only for England, but, within twenty years, for the upper
classes of the whole of Europe.
Such are the principal points which are brought out in the Com-
missioners' general Report; but before I pass to notice some of the
more important suggestions which they make with regard to the several
schools which have come under their review, I may be allowed to quote the
passage in which they sum up their general impressions of the system:
It is not easy to estimate the degree in which the English people
are indebted to these schools for the qualities on which they pique
themselves most-for their capacity to govern others and control them-
selves, their aptitude for combining freedom with order, their public
spirit, their vigour and manliness of character, their strong but not
slavish respect for public opinion, their love for healthy sports and
exercise. These schools have been the chief nurseries of our statesmen;
in them, and in schools modelled after them, men of all the various
classes that make up English society, destined for every profession and
career, have been brought up on a footing of social equality, and have
contracted the most enduring friendships, and some of the ruling habits
of their lives; and they have had, perhaps, the largest share in moulding
the character of an English gentleman. The system, like other systems,
has its blots and imperfections; there have been times when it was at
once too lax and too severe-severe in punishments, but lax in superin-
tendence and prevention; it has permitted, if not encouraged, some
roughness, tyranny, and licence, but these defects have not seriously
marred its wholesome operation, and it appears to have gradually
purged itself from them in a remarkable degree. Its growth, no doubt,
is largely due to those very qualities in our national character which it
has itself contributed to form; but justice bids us add that it is due
likewise to the wise munificence which founded the institutions under
whose shelter it has been enabled to take root, and to the good sense,
temper, and ability of the men by whom, during successive generations,
they have been governed."
This is true, but there is another and a sadder side to the picture.
Go back fifty years, and read Sydney Smith's articles in the early
numbers of the "Edinburgh." What are the most important recom-
P 2
212
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
would be mere flattery to say that anything which deserves
to be called a good education, for the ordinary purposes
mendations of this Report but an echo of his words to which so few
listened? But his doctrines were not new doctrines. You will find
them in Locke's treatise on Education. You will find them farther back
still in Milton's noble paper. Nay, some of them you will find even in
the writings of Ascham. If our fathers had only listened to those great
men, what a waste of power would have been saved, and how much
further advanced in all true civilisation this England of ours would
have been.
The Commissioners say that the people of Shrewsbury should turn
their attention rather to creating a good proprietary school in the town,
than to making the present school fulfil the purpose of an institution
for giving what is loosely called middle-class education. The demand,
however, for that kind of education throughout the country is becoming
so loud that I think we must determine ere long to break up and re-
model our utterly inefficient network of endowed schools. In the year
1861, when I first proposed a Commission to inquire into the higher
school education to the then Home Secretary, I contemplated a Com-
mission which should inquire at once into the public schools and the
grammar schools. Sir George Lewis wisely, however, thought that
that was too large a scheme. I trust, however, that the Government
will not lose sight of the truth that thirty good schools for the middle
classes dotted over the face of England would be an enormous boon to
them, and would do five times more to advance education than all the
second and third rate grammar schools put together. We have not on
this side of the Channel committed the folly which Burke so well ex-
posed in the case of our neighbours, when they swept away the splendid
foundations of medieval munificence; but we certainly in many cases
by gross neglect do our best to make them as useless as possible.
-
And now, sir, I have but one word more. Throughout I have wished to
address myself to those who think that the Commissioners have gone too
far, rather than to those who think that they have not gone far enough;
and yet I know that there will be many who will feel this, and who will
say that the Report would be less favourable if it had been drawn up
by less friendly hands; for let it not be forgotten, the Lion has been
for once painted by himself. To those, however, I would say, that all
times in England belong more or less to the men of half measures, and
of compromises; but this time, perhaps, even more than most other
times. Perhaps, however, in educational matters, and not in them
alone, we are approaching the end of an epoch. A more logical and
consequent generation will, I trust, carry reform farther, when we have
crumbled into dust. Sir, I beg to move the Resolution which stands in
my name.-Speech upon the Report of the Public Schools Commission in
the House of Commons, May 6th, 1864.
A PLEA FOR A RATIONAL EDUCATION.
213
of a man of the world, is to be obtained at any one of
them. The schools throw the blame on the universities,
and the universities on the schools; I throw the blame
on no one-I merely register an unpleasant state of
facts. I do not even say that a good education may not
be obtained at our great schools for some purposes or
other. I only venture to affirm that, for any purposes
with which I am acquainted, the education is a very
miserable one; and that I see its bad effects in the world
of English politics at every turn. Let those who are
satisfied with it by all means retain their happy content-
ment; but many people whom I meet are not satisfied,
and perhaps some of the foregoing remarks may be of
aid or comfort to a few of them.
Train the Admirable Crichtons as you please, they
cannot be spoiled irretrievably. Sooner or later they will
fight their way to the front; but the sensible cleverish
boys, who might have made valuable men, are turned
into Barbarians or Philistines by the dozen, and that at
a cost to their parents, between seven and twenty-one,
of from two thousand five hundred to four thousand
pounds.
EMILIO CASTELAR.
FROM THE "FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW" OF JUNE AND JULY, 1878.
As there is some reason to hope that this remarkable
man will visit England in the course of the present year,
and as few Englishmen have any very clear notions
about him, it may perhaps not be amiss to put together
a sketch of his life and writings.
Most people are aware that he is the most prominent
of Spanish republicans, that he is a great orator, and was
for a short time invested with dictatorial powers; but
not many have realised that he is extremely unlike most
of the distinguished republicans about whom they have
heard-so unlike as almost to mark the end of an old
and the commencement of a new era.
No one can read many pages of his writings without
finding out that he is a democrat of the democrats, the
mortal enemy of kings and aristocracies and priests. In
the world of which he dreams, and for the advent of
which he steadily labours, there will be none of these
things. He has ever before him the vision of a time-
When the Monarch and the Anarch alike shall pass away,
And the morn shall break and man awake, in the light of a fairer day.
But towards this consummation he will only work,
at least in this his maturer phase, by peaceful methods.
EMILIO CASTELAR.
215
Whatever may have been the case earlier in his life, he
is now convinced that spasmodic efforts, street-fighting,
barricades, and scaffolds do not help on but retard the
transformation to which, as he holds, all things are
tending in this old Europe of ours.
"No cause loses so much," he says in one of his latest
books, "by violence and excesses, as the party which
represents Liberty and Right. A stain of blood is not
visible upon the purple of kings; but it is only too
visible on the immaculate banner of William Tell and
of Washington."
This way of thinking he has succeeded to a great
extent, it would seem, in making that of his party. And
one hears, while moving about in Spain, the echoes of
his moderate counsels coming back from many quarters.
"It is you whom we should imitate in your political
methods," said to me a prominent partisan of Señor
Castelar's at Valencia last autumn; "you English
understand the art of political progress.
We English must not, however, make to ourselves
any illusions.
Señor Castelar will wait long and
patiently; he will rely only upon the written and
spoken word; but "Delenda est Carthago" is his
message to all that is not republican.
It is his very moderation that makes him most
formidable to all those who think that kings and
aristocracies and priests will be essential to human well-
being through all the future. The coarse and raging
iconoclast, who flies in the face of history and denounces
the most cherished recollections of a nation-
""
Scares off his clients and bawls down his cause;
but it is more difficult to deal with one who allows, to
the fullest extent, all that reasonable persons can claim
216
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
for kings and aristocracies and priests in the past, who
meets panegyrics upon them by saying "That is all
true enough, but'
The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfils himself in many ways.
It is a good deal easier, for those who wish to stand
on the old paths, to answer the regulation democrat of
the Continent, who believes that the world was created,
for all practical purposes, in 1789, that Christianity in
general, and the Catholic Church in particular, were mere
devices of the powerful to gull the weak, than to find
arguments equally available against an orator who inter-
sperses his most powerful denunciations of the connection
between Church and State with such passages as the
following, which occurs in a grand speech delivered
in the Cortes of 1876, in favour of perfect religious
freedom:
I, gentlemen, although I belong to the party of philosophy, of
democracy, of liberty, have been a pilgrim amongst the valleys of
Umbria at the monastery of Assisi; I have seemed to hear, amongst
the sculptures in the transept of the Cathedral of Toledo, the Te
Deum sung for the victory of Navas de Tolosa. I have beheld,
seated in the gardens of Sallust, on the stones of the ruins, in the
shade of the cypresses, the sun go down like a consecrated wafer
behind the Basilica of St. Peter. I have descended into the Cata-
combs, and have touched, in the darkness, the stones graven with
religious symbols by the hands of the martyrs; and if I am not
capable of sharing, I am at least capable of understanding and
admiring your faith.
But while Señor Castelar is distinguished from the old-
fashioned democrat by his perfect fairness to the past, he
is distinguished from most if not from all the statesmen
of Europe who have already attained positions of supreme
eminence in their respective countries not only by his
EMILIO CASTELAR.
217
youth but by having grown up under the influences of
the new time. M. Dufaure, Mr. Gladstone, Lord Beacons-
field, Prince Bismarck, Prince Gortchakoff, and indeed
every European statesman who has been at the very
head of affairs, were reared in a world totally different
from that in which we now live. The influences which
moulded them were very various, but they were alike in
this-they were not those which have most shaped the
thoughts of the men who are now in middle life. I shall
have to return to this feature in Señor Castelar before I
have done, but for the present it is enough just to notice
it, and I will now proceed to give a brief account of his
history and to call attention to his principal works.
Emilio Castelar was born at Cadiz on the 8th of Sep-
tember, 1832. His father was a mercantile man and a
strong Liberal, who had officiated as commandant of the
National Militia and as Secretary to the Revolutionary
Junta of Cadiz at the time of the entry of the Duke of
Angoulême. He died, however, when his son was not
quite seven years old, and his widow having soon after
transferred her residence from Andalusia to Murcia, it is
that somewhat backward province that has a right to
claim the honour of having educated the most brilliant
of living Spaniards.
He was brought up at Elda, a village not very far
from the famous Elche-Elche of the Palms—and his
latest works still bear traces of his affection for the
Murcian landscape, which it may be observed in passing
is as unlike that which Lewis has sung in his "Spanish
Exile" as sun and rock can make it.
From Elda young Castelar passed to Alicante to con-
tinue his studies in that provincial capital. Here he
remained till he was sixteen, a studious boy with little
inclination for the ordinary amusements of youth, fond
of the classics, passionately attached to history, and
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MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
giving early proof of imagination and literary power. In
October, 1848, he went to Madrid, where he spent six
years, attracting great attention by his splendid abilities,
and beginning to try his wings in newspapers and reviews.
His biographers mention as amongst his more successful
performances certain articles which appeared in the Eco
Universitario, a novel called "Ernesto," &c. &c.
His political début was made in 1854.
That year,
famous in Europe for the invasion of the Crimea, is
famous in what someone called that portion of Africa
which begins with the Pyrenees for one of its numerous
revolutions. In the month of June, the Court having
become, as it periodically did during the reign of Queen
Isabella, wicked over much, a military insurrection broke
As the present writer has said elsewhere:
out.
The last months of 1853 and the first of 1854 passed uneasily.
Every day the scandals of the Court and of the Ministry became more
flagrant, and the measures of repression more severe. General after
general was sent out of Madrid, and the persecutions of the Govern-
ment fell, be it observed, not on the Progresistas, who were keeping
quite aloof from public affairs, but upon all the sections of the
Moderado party, except the immediate followers of Sartorius. Accu-
sations of the grossest pecuniary corruption against many persons in
high places were bruited about and almost universally believed. The
crisis came in June, 1854. "Will you not come with us? cried
General Dulce to the Minister of War, as he rode in the gray of the
morning out of Madrid, to try, as was supposed, a new cavalry saddle.
"I should like nothing better," answered General Blaser, "but I am
too busy." In a few hours it was known that Dulce had been joined
by O'Donnell, and that the long-expected revolt had broken out. An
indecisive action took place between the Queen's troops and the
revolted generals at Vicalvaro, whence the name Vicalvarist, which is
now very generally given to the followers of O'Donnell; and that
commander issued a proclamation at Manzanares, explaining that the
pronunciamento was made in favour of constitutional government and
of morality. Up to this point the rising, it cannot be too distinctly
understood, was a Moderado rising, and Narvaez himself, as after-
wards appeared, was deeply implicated in the conspiracy. But on the
""
EMILIO CASTELAR.
219
17th of July the whole aspect of affairs changed. An, émeute took
place in Madrid, and the revolt of O'Donnell was swallowed up in a
revolution. After a very agitated period things began to settle down.
The Moderado régime of eleven years was fairly at an end, and the
Queen, with the Counts of Lucena and Luchana, O'Donnell and
Espartero, was awaiting the meeting of a constituent Cortes.*
/
In the midst of this period of suspense, on the 22nd
of September, a great electoral meeting was announced to
be held in the Teatro del Oriente at Madrid, and to this
Señor Castelar went, apparently by a kind of accident.
After many orators had spoken, and when already the
audience was getting tired, he rose to address it. An
eyewitness has described the electric effect which he
produced. X The assemblage was dispersing, annoyed at
being addressed by a new speaker at so late an hour.
Before, however, he had uttered many sentences, a few
began to hesitate and to call "Hush!"-then gradually
the mass became agitated and moved by enthusiasm, till
at last it burst into a perfect frenzy of applause. In an
hour the hardly known young democrat had become a
celebrity. Hundreds of thousands of copies of his
speech were printed, and the Liberal papers fought for
his co-operation.
Soon after this he further increased his reputation by
several speeches made in defence of various newspapers
which had been prosecuted for political articles. In one
of these he, with rare prescience as well as admirable
oratorical power, defended the idea of a free and united
Italy, which was then only beginning to dawn upon
the minds of men, as he with justifiable pride told an
Italian audience at a great dinner given to him in
Rome, in a speech which has been republished in his
"Recuerdos de Italia," of which I shall have to speak
farther on.
Studies in European Politics." Edinburgh: 1866.
220
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
About this same time, too, he read a discourse
for his doctoral degree upon Lucan, who, himself an
Andalusian, and of a genius not wholly alien, on one
side, to that of his critic or panegyrist, formed an
admirable subject for such a performance.
Señor Castelar's first book, however, of any con-
siderable size, was the republication of a series of
lectures delivered at the Madrid Ateneo, on "Civilisation
during the First Five Centuries of Christianity." Of
course no one would expect to find in the lectures of a
professor who was still in the earlier twenties a work of
original research or of balanced judgment, and this in
truth is neither; but it is written with a great deal of
knowledge and a rare amount of vigour and eloquence.
It is difficult to lay it down, even for one who does not
agree with the views set forth-as indeed for that matter
no one well could, seeing that the views which are set
forth in the earlier lectures are by no means those which
inspire the later ones. When Señor Castelar began his
course at the Ateneo he was not far from the standpoint
of Ozanam-was in fact a Liberal Catholic; when he
came to the end he was climbing the hurdles and already
halfway out of the orthodox fold.
The first four volumes and part of the fifth are
occupied by the reprinted lectures, but the second and
larger half of the last is formed of articles and letters in
reply to or in defence of the leading thoughts of the
book, the first of which is that Christianity represents
the religious ideas of modern democracy, the second that
the Church should have nothing to do with the civil
power.
The keynote of the whole is struck by a sentence in
the last lecture of all:
I am convinced that without religious liberty there can only be
·
EMILIO CASTELAR.
221
fanatics and hypocrites, without the liberty of teaching there can only
be obscure oracles or immovable sophists, without political liberty
there can only be tyrants and slaves, without economical liberty there
can only be those who use others for their own purposes and those
who are so used.
These are admirable opinions, but the merit of the
work lies not in its learning, in which I doubt not that
a competent critic would pick many holes, not in a
maturity of thought to which it has no pretensions, but
in the rushing splendour of its rhetoric. I will quote
only two passages, which are very much like all the rest
in their merits and defects, the one as an example of
Señor Castelar's youthful eloquence when he has his
Pegasus well in hand; the other as a specimen of it
when the animal has fairly taken the bit in its teeth and
run away with its rider.
Here is the first:
As a wave passes over another wave, as a new leaf comes forth
upon the naked branch, as new stars shine forth in the immensity of
the heavens, so do new generations awake to life and change the scene
of the world, and raise altars to the ideas for which their fathers raised
scaffolds, and convert the victims of yesterday into priests, and open
the fancy to the breath of new illusions, the sentiment to the love of
new hopes, the spirit to the faith in new ideas; and each age says to
the previous age, Get thee gone for that thou preventest me seeing the
sun of truth. Get thee gone, said Christianity to Paganism, and
Paganism disappeared. Get thee gone, said the barbarians to Rome,
and Rome fell. Get you gone, said the feudal chivalry armed with
their lances to the last shadows of empire on the broken walls of
Rome, and they went, with Theodoric, and Justinian, and Charles the
Great. Get thee gone, said the kings to feudalism, and the castles
were blown up with gunpowder. Get thee gone, philosophy kept
saying, from the days of Abelard to the days of Descartes, and faith
returned to heaven. Get thee gone, said the Renaissance to the
Middle Age, and over the penitent virgins of Giotto and Fra Angelico
rose the virgins of Raphael, with the smile of Greece upon their lips.
Get thee gone, said the jurisconsults from the royal law courts to
222 MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
{
the political power of the Pope, and that power fell into ruin. Get
thee gone, said the middle class to absolute monarchy, and the
absolute kings passed away on the wings of the revolutionary
hurricane.
And here is the second:
From each of the centuries through which humanity has lived
there rises an everlasting hymn, which like the echoes of the organ
beneath the vaults of a Gothic cathedral inspires a strong religious
sentiment. Bless with me, gentlemen, bless with me all the ages.
Just as in the great laboratory of nature our body is formed out of all
the substances of the earth, so in the great laboratory of history our
intellect is formed out of all the ideas of the centuries. Bless them,
then, with me, gentlemen; bless all the centuries; bless the pre-
historic ages, for they were your cradle; bless the tribes, for they
were your mothers; bless theocracy, in that it made secure the first
religious sentiment in the human heart; bless the heroic peoples and
the labouring peoples, in that the first made you lords of society, and
the second lords of nature; bless the philosophers, in that they opened
your reason to the infinite, and made you hear in your spirit the voice
of conscience; bless the conquerors, in that they with their swords
blotted out frontiers and united races; bless the first century, because
it was the century in which human unity cemented by war, and
divine unity cemented by revelation, gave each other an immortal
embrace in the bosom of your spirit; bless the second century, because
it turned all ideas into that law which still guards the paradise of
your hearth.
!
And so all the centuries get blessed one after another in
this modern Song of the Three Children, which may well
raise a smile on the countenance of the reader who
studies it calmly, but which was received with the
"frenetic applause" which usually greets Señor Castelar
when his genius, overmastering both him and his
audience, hurries them off into space on a whirlwind
of startling thoughts and gorgeous words.
To tell the reader who has accompanied me through
these extracts that he is making acquaintance with one
of the most diffuse of writers, is to tell him that the sun
EMILIO CASTELAR.
223
shines at noon. Señor Castelar's diffuseness will, how-
ever, seldom weary those who make acquaintance with
him in Spanish. As soon would they be likely to weary
of a southern spring and its divine abundance. It
would be impossible to imagine a stronger contrast than
that which is presented by his style and that of another
Spaniard of whom I said something a few months ago in
the pages of this "Review." While Balthasar Gracian, who
as a stylist is Castelar's bête noire, tortures himself to
put, as Joubert would have said, a paragraph into a
sentence, and a sentence into a phrase, and a phrase into
a word, Castelar places no more constraint upon his
writing than the nightingale does upon her song. His
books are one long cascade of images and ideas, repeat-
ing themselves doubtless not unfrequently like the stars
and flowers of his great countryman Calderon, but
usually with a certain difference, which prevents our
having a feeling of satiety. Not but that he slips every
now and then into strange faults of taste, as when he
describes his pen as "the condensation of the electricity
of his soul upon a point of steel;" but he knows how to
put his readers upon such good terms with him that
they only laugh and like him the better for such eccen-
tricities. I would by no means, however, advise anyone
to try the experiment of reading any great amount of
him in English.
To return, however, to the "Lectures." The whole
tendency of the book is democratic, but it is not
primarily political at all. Señor Castelar's first purely
political work was, so far as I am aware, his "Formula
del Progreso."
This little treatise is a sort of manual of democratic
principles divided into some twenty chapters, in which
Señor Castelar reviews the opinions and history of the
Old Absolutists, of their successors, the Neo-Catholics,
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MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
whose ideas are entirely different from and far less
liberal than those of the fraction of French politicians
who have been sometimes known by that name, of the
Moderado or Conservative, the Union Liberal (shall we
say Conservative Liberal, or Liberal Conservative ?) and
of the Progresista parties.
After describing the great achievements of this last
political connection, he shows how, in his opinion, it
became in 1837 false to its original convictions, and
made the formation of a democratic party a necessity.
He then states with his usual clearness, and illustrates
with his usual skill, the ideas of that new party.
Arrived at the end of his survey and exposition,
Señor Castelar sums up his conclusions in a sort of
epilogue, which contains the following table of the ideas
which he defends in the "Formula del Progreso":
1. Right as the basis of the sovereignty of the people. 2. Equality
of political rights for all citizens. 3. Liberty of the press. 4. Liberty
of association for all the ends of human activity. 5. Universal
suffrage. 6. The jury. 7. Inviolability of the domestic hearth and
of the person.
8. Administrative decentralisation. 9. Independence
within their defined spheres of the municipality and the province.
10. Irremovability of public officers. 11. The “impôt unique."
12. Abolition of monopolies and of all indirect taxes. 13. Liberty of
commerce. 14. Liberty of credit. 15. Equal consideration and
respect for all manifestations of the human spirit. 16. Elevation of
all classes and of all citizens to public life. 17. Abolition of the punish-
ment of death. 18. Abolition of the conscription, making the service
of arms a true profession for the soldier, as for the officer. 19. Aboli-
tion of all exceptional privileges and jurisdictions. 20. The conse-
cration, in a word, of human responsibility with all its rights and all
its faculties.
Against the great majority of these principles, as
explained by Señor Castelar, few sincere and strong
Liberals in this country would have much to advance.
As to the fifth, they would probably ask whether a
EMILIO CASTELAR.
225
country so ignorant as Spain is really fit for universal
suffrage?
The eleventh they would regard as a "pious wish ;"
and while entirely agreeing with the latter part of the
twelfth, they would be content to approach its realisation
by very gradual steps.
Señor Castelar must, one would think, have been led
by the horrors of Alcoy and Cartagena to reconsider the
seventeenth; while with regard to the eighteenth it is to
be feared, from some of his later utterances, that he is a
convert to a system far more hateful even than the
conscription-the system of universal military service.
While, however, there are many details in the book
to which exception might be taken, it was, at the time
when it was written, as well as in 1870, when it was
republished, calculated to do much good. It is free
from any vestige of hostility to property, of social envy,
or, indeed, of any of those evil passions which are so
often associated with democracy, and it is most emphatic
in its denunciation of one of the worst heresies which
foreign Liberals have inherited from an unhappy past-
a desire to exalt the State at the expense of the just
rights of the individual.
When he wrote it, Señor Castelar was a fervent
though an extremely liberal Catholic.
He has seen
reason to alter his views now, but his change of religious
opinion has left his political ideas just where they were.
On the whole, we think that every fair-minded Liberal
will admit the " Formula del Progreso" to be the work of
an able and virtuous if somewhat enthusiastic mind.
Its faults are only those of five-and-twenty.
The publication of the "Formula del Progreso " led to
a violent controversy in the Madrid press, all sections of
opinion joining in the fray. Conspicuous amongst the
combatants on the anti-democratic side were Carlos
}
226
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
Rubio and Campoamor, a poet whose name is, we
suspect, hardly more known in London than it is in
Bokhara, but who deserves better treatment at our
hands. The first of these, a personal friend of Castelar's,
attacked, from the Progresista point of view, chiefly the
fundamental doctrines of the book; while the second,
from the Moderado point of view, appears to have made
a personal attack upon its author. Señor Castelar re-
plied to both; in a calm philosophical tone to Rubio,
and somewhat more sharply to Campoamor, whom he
treats as a typical doctrinaire, using that phrase, of
course, not as it is often used by ignorant persons in
England, as a term of abuse for any politician who rises
above mere clap-trap and empiricism, but as the desig-
nation of a particular school of thinkers, the school
which, in the words of Señor Castelar, "had Guizot for
its pontiff, Cousin for its priest, Villemain for its oracle
in the University, and Louis Philippe for its god."
.
These controversial writings, with some pieces by
other combatants on the same side of the question, are
bound up in a volume called the "Defensa de la Formula
del Progreso," and to them are added a democratic
catechism explaining, expanding, illustrating, and en-
forcing the ideas briefly set forth in the table which I
have given above. The democratic catechism is probably
the only thing in this volume which would have any
interest for those who are not very well acquainted with
the recent history of Spain.
By this time Señor Castelar was already one of the
most important journalists in Madrid, and some of the
articles belonging to this period of his career have been
collected in a volume called "Historia, Religion, Arte y
Politica," on which, however, I must not linger.
Meantime the late Mr. Buckle was busily engaged in
his study, reading or writing I know not how many
EMILIO CASTELAR.
227
·
hours a day, and coming to those wonderful conclusions
about the state of Spain which he later gave to man-
kind, representing that country as "sleeping on un-
troubled, unheeding, impassive-receiving no impressions
from the rest of the world, and making no impressions
upon it a huge and torpid mass, the sole representative
now remaining of the feelings and knowledge of the
Middle Ages."
G
Spain, however, was going her own way, and that
way was not the one of which Mr. Buckle was dreaming
in his study. Spain was manifesting a fresh and vigorous
life in more than one direction. She had in these years.
a campaign in Morocco, which was a foolish business
enough, but she had also a great outburst of material
prosperity and no small amount of intellectual life, as
anyone who read her newspapers would soon have found
out. It seemed to more than one foreign observer, in
the first half of the sixties, that if the Court would only
show a little common sense, the Queen might arrive at
the end of her reign without a catastrophe. The strong
hand of O'Donnell held the helm in a firm grasp, and he
was supported by a party which looked none the less
powerful because Señor Castelar and his friends thundered
against its want of definite principles.
It was not, however, written that the Court should
be wise. Things went from bad to worse, and those
Englishmen who watched the affairs of Spain began to
see that the vessel would soon be upon the rocks.
Señor Castelar was all this time occupied in doing
his best to send it thither; and from his point of view
quite rightly, for he held that with the Bourbons, or any
other royal race, Spain could come to no good. Their
disappearance was to him a condition precedent of all
good government and real national well-being. His
means of acting upon public opinion were twofold: first,
Q 2
228
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
.
indirectly, as professor of History in the University of
Madrid; and, secondly, as Director of the Democracia.
At length, in an evil hour, some imprudent adviser
suggested to Isabella II. the unhappy idea of helping
the public treasury by handing over to the nation, to be
disposed of by public auction, the domains of the Crown,
reserving to herself twenty-five per cent. out of the
proceeds. These domains, however, unfortunately, ac-
cording to the view of the Liberal party, were already
the property of the nation, so that the proposal of the
Queen appeared to it not a "noble sacrifice," but an
attempt to take the fourth part of the value of certain
national property out of the national pocket. A perfect
tempest arose, and over all that tempest, louder than
any, was heard the voice of Señor Castelar. An article
by him in the Democracia gave so much offence to the
Government of Narvaez, who was then in power, that it
suspended the writer from his professorial rights and
duties, and dismissed the high-minded rector who had
refused to proceed academically against him, thereby
occasioning an émeute amongst the students, which was
put down by force.
The articles written by Señor Castelar during these
years have been collected in three volumes called
Cuestiones Politicas y Sociales," the last in the first
volume being the one which cost him, for a time, his
position in the university.
It became ever more and more clear that only
violence could put an end to a state of armed peace
between the people and their rulers, and at last, in
January, 1866, Prim raised the banner of insurrection at
Aranjuez. His attempt, however, was premature, and
he had to escape for his life. Meanwhile Señor Castelar
was continuing the struggle in the press, and the record
of his share in it will be found in the second volume of
(C
EMILIO CASTELAR.
229
the work to which I have just called attention, while the
third sets forth his aspirations and those of the party of
which he was the ablest mouthpiece.
In the month of June, 1866, there occurred a rising
of a portion of the artillery in Madrid, which was sup-
ported by a popular insurrection. This affair attracted
very little attention in England, probably because we were
ourselves at the time in the midst of one of our innocent
little political crises. None the less was it very bloody
and desperate, and nothing was more natural than that
the Government which had been threatened by it should
let fall a heavy hand upon all concerned. Señor
Castelar, who was one of them, was extremely fortunate
in being allowed to escape to the frontier, aided by some
of the victorious party. He made Paris the head-
quarters of his exile, and was able, thanks to the
astonishing fertility of his pen, to make a good liveli-
hood, and to assist not a little some of his less lucky
companions.
Among the works which he composed at this time
were a long series of "Semblanzas," the only one of
which I have read is a far from successful portrait of
Byron.
Song
Another work was "Un Año en Paris," consisting of a
series of notes and articles which appeared originally in
American periodicals. This is not one of its author's
books which we should like anyone to read who did not
know many of his other writings; but nevertheless it
throws a good deal of light upon his character, and is a
most curious description of the "Capital of Pleasure,” as
it looked to a grave and high-minded Spaniard in the
last days of the Second Empire, when Liberty, to use
his own words, "seemed to have disappeared for ever,
and Democracy to be falsified into Cesarism."
Another production of this time was the first volume
230
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
of his "Recuerdos de Italia," which it is impossible to pass
by with a single sentence, for this is the one of Señor
Castelar's works which will probably be the most
popular in this country when it comes to be known. It
consists of a series of sketches put together in no par-
ticular order, and the result of more than one visit to the
peninsula. The book is characterised throughout by the
richest and most abounding eloquence, an eloquence
somewhat too Corinthian for a severe taste, but very
admirable in its own kind.
The first paper records its author's arrival in Rome
while the temporal power was still in existence, and
while almost every conceivable administrative error was
flourishing under its shade. Speaking of the pontifical
army, Señor Castelar observes that those nations who,
if one might have drawn an inference from their history,
should have given the most soldiers, really gave the
fewest.
Spain committed suicide to save Catholicism. The bones of her
sons have, since the sixteenth century, whitened every field of battle
on which it was necessary to defend that religion. We gave for it all
the life-blood of our veins, all the vital breath of our spirit. Well,
then, there are only eight-and-thirty Spanish soldiers in the pontifical
army ! On the other hand Holland, which with its House of Orange
saved the Reformation and initiated liberty of thought in the modern
world, has sent a great number of volunteers. This is a proof that
while religious freedom has maintained the faith of Catholics in
Protestant countries, intolerance has extinguished their faith in the
countries where it appeared most alive and most exaltée.
From St. Peter's we pass to the Colosseum, the great
ruin which has inspired so many eloquent pages, but not
many, I think, more eloquent than this:
In the brightness of the moon as it rose, in the echoes of the bells
which sounded amid the uncertain shadows, it seemed to me that I saw
the souls of departed generations rising from the dust, and coming in
EMILIO CASTELAR.
231
a flight silent as the flight of the bats, to review and visit the sites
consecrated by their memories and beloved even in the regions of the
tomb. I longed to detain the dead, and to tell them-ah, to tell them!
-that which passes in our world. "If ye are the souls of tribunes, of
senators, of Cæsars, know that the centuries have wasted away even
the steps of the altars, which were the heirs of your altars by force
of kissing them. All the gods which ye believed immortal are dead,
and the ideas which animated them whirl round in the abyss of history
like dry leaves, loosened in the course of the continuous development
of the human mind. Now the Nereids no longer float softly in the
sea-foam, now the nymphs of marble whiteness sigh no more in the
whispering groves. The god Pan has let fall the pipe which filled the
woods with melody. To the drunkenness of the Bacchante has suc-
ceeded maceration, penitence, and a horror of nature. A son of the
Jews, of the slaves, of that race who with the whip in their faces
and the chain on their feet raised the masses of the Colosseum, has
slain and buried the gods who inspired Horace and Virgil, who sus-
tained Scipio on the plains of Carthage and Marius on the Campi
Putridi, who engendered art and led victory captive. In vain Tacitus
looked with contempt on the obscure youth, the poor carpenter of
Judæa; in vain Apuleius ridiculed him in his apologues and fables.
Not even the immortal laugh of Lucian could avail anything against
the breath that was breathed from those lips, against the ideas which
were exhaled from that conscience. The gods are dead, and Rome has
fallen dead on their corses. The Colosseum is a mass of ruins, where
the Romans adore the gallows of their former slaves. In the Capitol
are celebrated the ceremonies of the Nazarenes. They whom ye
believed to be disturbers of the public peace have their altars and
sacrifices where the gods of Camillus and Cato had theirs. Barbarous
races from the north stifled the oracles, interrupted the sacred cere-
monies, giving up, as it were a prey, the human conscience to the
crowds of cenobites who rose from the sewers and the catacombs.
And when the new belief had taken possession of all souls, when it
had placed its altars in the place of the old altars, as if the mind of
man were condemned perpetually to weave and unweave the same web
of ideas, new combatants, new tribunes, new apostles, new martyrs
arose to destroy the faith which their predecessors begat. And the
conscience passes through new phases, the heart through new sorrows,
this blood-stained world through fresh agonies of grief.
A paper on the Catacombs is followed by one on the
Sistine Chapel, which has never, so far as I know, been
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MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
better described.
quintessence :
The following passage contains its
Read all the treatises that have been written on the Sublime, and
you will find it very hard to grasp the conception. It is difficult to
explain a thrill which is felt twice or thrice in a lifetime; an idea of
which there are only some half-a-dozen examples in history. But lift
your eyes to the vault of the Sistine! there is the Sublime-there is
the disproportion between our weak being and the infinite forces of an
idea which oppresses and reduces us to nothing under its incommen-
surable grandeur. That is the Sublime-a pleasure in a pain.
The next paper is on the Campo Santo of Pisa, which
is succeeded by two on Venice, from the second of
which I quote the following:
The beliefs which five centuries of faith and of martyrdom had
raised have fallen in three centuries of analysis. The ancient day of
the soul is set, and we are not sure that a new day will rise. The bell
which now tolls the Ave Maria, the organ which still accompanies the
chant of the monks, the image which is still venerated by the sailors
of the Adriatic, are on their way to be like the Greek hymns, like the
bas-reliefs of the Parthenon-objects of artistic but not objects of
religious worship. Here, too, one catches arising from the waters an
elegiac lament to be compared only with the lament of the ancient
Sirens when they heard that the world was called to a new faith.
This passage forms the introduction to a conversation
held, or supposed to have been held, with a young monk
of the Armenian monastery of St. Lazzaro, which thus
concludes:
Do not be like the Jew who shuts himself up in the prayers of his
Bible and believes that since that early day the human race has not
been able to add one religious truth to the Jewish idea.
Christianity, more human, and more divine at the same time, has
added the Gospel. Why should we not add to the Gospel, the
Renaissance, Philosophy, the Revolution, which have raised to the
sphere of social life those three Christian words-Liberty, Equality
Fraternity?
EMILIO CASTELAR.
233
The next paper is on the Pope-"El Dios del
Vaticano." Consummately wise and just, as well as
nobly eloquent, it gives all due credit to the Popes for
what they did, in long bygone days, for Italy and the
world; nor does it fail to do justice to the many good
qualities and good intentions of Pius IX., while it shows
how the Papacy has been gradually sinking ever since
the thirteenth century, which began as an age of faith
and ended as an age of heresy.
The following paragraph is characteristic:
Every sect shuts itself up in itself, and does more than ignore the
history of its opponents. It calumniates them, dishonours them, speaks
ill of them, believing that it thereby realises a good, and an eternal
good. Imagine what the history of Christianity would be like if
recounted by a Jew. Imagine what the history of modern Judaism
would be like if recounted by a ferocious Inquisitor. The Catholic
hardly understands the development of the Protestant peoples. The
Protestant calls the Pope Anti-Christ. Read an orthodox Greek, and
he will demonstrate to you that Byzantinism, which we consider to be
the very extreme of moral degradation, would have saved the world by
its metaphysics if it had not fallen into the power of the lawyers, that
is to say, of the Roman canonists.
The following likewise seems to deserve citation:
All the harmonies of the Middle Age arise from this enmity
between the Papacy and the Empire. Without the first, Europe would
have been but a camp; without the second, she would have been but
a monastery. Their mutual opposition saves human culture in its
entirety.
And the spirit overflows in Europe, and the East rises like a
magical enchantment to set bounds to it, and the monks preach and
the populations agitate themselves, feeling new life awake in their
breast, and the roads fill with crusaders, and the multitudes know not
whence they came nor whither they go, yet they know that some
mystery envelopes and sustains them, and they believe every city to be
Jerusalem and every monument to be the Holy Sepulchre, and every
wild plain to be the Desert, until a great portion of the ancient
234
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
ignorance vanishes away, and a great portion of modern equality
comes, thanks to a common struggle and common sufferings, which
reveal the identity and unity of nature in each man and in all men,
who go forth slaves of theocracy, of feudalism, and return prepared
to enter as free men into the municipalities. They pass from Europe
as believers, and come back from the Desert with the doubt of Job in
their souls, disposed to enter upon another phase of civilisation.
The Pope has believed that by agitating Europe he would save the
faith, but by doing so he has awoke reason in Europe.
Farther on we have the following striking words on
the utter failure of the Popes, in spite of their long
political supremacy, and their careful shutting out of
modern influences from the States of the Church, to
revive the Middle Age in Rome.
Ah, Pontiffs! the gods whom you tried to annihilate have raised
themselves, if not to the heaven of religion, at least to another most
beautiful heaven, the heaven of art; while the spirit of the Middle
Age which you strive to resuscitate sinks every day deeper into the
past. All that you curse is born again; all that you would fain
vivify is dying. Does that say nothing to the infallible Pope, to the
god of the Vatican?
But it is not I who will sin by exclusiveness and intolerance.
The eighteenth century in its work of destruction might, looking at
life on one of its aspects only, believe in the necessity of destroying
all the Middle Age. The nineteenth century in its labour of recon-
struction, of reconciliation, cannot say that ten centuries, a thousand
years, have been useless to human progress, and have left nothing
planted deep in our civilisation and culture. That spiritual tendency,
that idealist tendency of the Middle Age, must revive in ours, with-
out its exclusive character, reconciling itself with nature and with
science.
J
The last three chapters of Vol. I. are on the Ghetto
and on Naples. I will only quote one or two lines
which occur in the first of these.
We must have an end of all persecution of ideas. I condemn the
Government of Rome when it oppresses the Jews,
ment of Prussia when it proscribes the Jesuits.
and the Govern-
I affirm that to
EMILIO CASTELAR.
235
persecute ideas is like persecuting light, air, electricity, or the magnetic
fluid, because ideas escape from all persecution, and raise themselves
above all power.
The second volume, which was published some years
later, but is too nearly allied to the first to be separated
from it, begins with an interesting preface followed by
two papers of only secondary merit, on the Engadine
and the principality of Monaco, which are brought, of
course, into strong contrast. The first of them contains,
at page 11, a passage which may be commended to the
attention of some of our German friends who, new even
to the theory, and still more to the practice, of political
liberty, have carried into their Culturkampf not a little
of that intolerance which they so justly condemn, and
which, appropriate enough to those whom they persecute,
does scant credit to the liberal principles which they
think they have adopted, but do not yet quite understand.
In the Lower Engadine all the villages are Protestant with the
exception of the jurisdiction of Tarasp; but the old intolerance has
given way and religious liberty has taken root. In the midst of a
population whose religious practices are confined almost exclusively to
the reading of the Bible and to attending on Sunday the services of
the Church, the Capuchin friars pass with their vestments of serge and
their rosary at their girdle, murmuring prayers which in other times
the Protestants would have forcibly smothered as intolerable super-
stitions, and everyone now looks on with calm curiosity and salutes
them with religious respect.
See how democratic institutions by their marvellous flexibility, by
their tendency to renovation and progress, by their harmony with
human reason, serve to the development of the modern spirit and the
completion of pacific reforms.
Next comes a better paper on "Florence the Beautiful,”
and another upon "Mantua and Virgil," whom Señor
Castelar thoroughly appreciates and understands, alike
on his ancient and his modern side.
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MÍSCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
Of delicate nature, of nervous temperament, of tender heart, of ex-
quisite sensibility, Virgil would have been in the Middle Ages a monk
consecrated to the mystical adoration of God in the cloister, and in
antiquity he was a poet consecrated to the fervent adoration of nature.
He has from the ancients their perfection of form, their austere
sobriety, their perfectly pure taste, their verses cut as if in marble of
Paros, the art of materialising ideas so as to place them before the
eyes in relief, and to etherealise matter so as to convert it into spirit.
By these qualities, common to all the ancient culture, he is Greek
like Sophocles or Plato. But there is in him a certain profound
melancholy, a certain strange sadness-the home sickness of the
infinite, the aspiration to another ideal-which herald as it were the
coming of the divine and absolute spirit.
We next reach a paper on St. Francis, considered as
the reviver of the Christian ideal, the beginner of that
reaction against feudalism and force from which is
descended the democratic movement of our own days.
This is the longest and most important piece in the
two volumes, and should please almost equally the sons
of the crusaders and the sons of Voltaire-such of them,
at least, as have the historical instinct, or, in other
words, such of them as can contemplate ideas and
characters not merely in relation to their own opinions,
but in relation to the times to which they belonged.
The passages in which the highest praise is given to
the Franciscan artists, while Overbeck and his reac-
tionary friends are put in their proper place, the descrip-
tion of Assisi, the account of the growth of the Franciscan
legend, and of the inimitable Fioretti, are all excellent and
in the highest degree worth reading, even by those who
are familiar with all that Hase has said about St. Francis
from the liberal Protestant, and Renan from the inde-
pendent, point of view. Space will, however, only allow
me to translate one of many paragraphs to which I would
fain call attention. After a beautiful description of Elda
as it looked on the 2nd of August, when the people
EMILIO CASTELAR.
237
thronged to the dismantled Franciscan monastery to
celebrate the great Franciscan festival of St. Mary of the
Angels, after recalling his early beliefs, and explaining
how they had faded away under the light of knowledge
and of maturity, Señor Castelar makes, in singularly
clear language, his profession of faith, which might be
defined in Mr. Arnold's words as "morality touched
with emotion," but containing few of the dogmatic and
none of the mythological elements which were connected
with the religion of his youth.
After many pages, not inferior in beauty to what
follows, we come to this passage:
Mysteries of History! In the age of St. Francis, in the thirteenth
century, there were two men whose reason touched the uttermost con-
fines of science, whose words contained the profoundest abysses of
thought—Titans supporting on their shoulders the weight of eternity.
One of them was called St. Buonaventura, and the other was called
St. Thomas-the Plato and the Aristotle of the Middle Age. Both
had penetrated the innermost recesses of the human spirit, and sur-
veyed in matchless flight the inaccessible heights of the infinite..
yet neither the one nor the other succeeded in establishing a high
æsthetic faith, which should be felt alike by the peasant and by the
painter; neither succeeded in moving the world to the creation of an
austere society, which should bear in its bosom the germs of a
universal revolution; neither succeeded in raising up not only con-
fessors, poets, martyrs, architects, painters, and sculptors, but multi-
tudes of both sexes ready to live combating and to die sacrificing
themselves for a mysterious ideal: no, this miraculous work was for
a poor distraught youth, stoned by the children in the streets, and
laughed at by all prudent, comfortable people-for the illuminé
St. Francis. And why? As reasonable were it to ask why the
Redeemer was not that man of morality whose simple words stirred
up the human conscience, and who died by poison, discussing with his
disciples till the first beams of the morning, and the first shades of
his agony, the existence of God and the immortality of the soul;
why he was not the immortal author of the Banquet or of the Phædo,
he who had seen all things in their Ideas and all Ideas in the Eternal,
who had spoken of the infinite and of its light in words which might
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MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
have thrown the angels into ecstasy. As reasonable were it to ask why
he was the obscure Jew, the Nazarene, disowned upon earth, who
spoke to a nation the most despised of all nations, in the least known
of languages, professing an idea evaporated by the ashes of Palestine,
which had to breathe forth a new spirit in aromas of religious incense,
and to root out and destroy nothing less than ancient Rome. Ah!
the world is illuminated by the intelligence, but it is subdued by the
will ;
it is the idea which enlightens, but it is the heart which con-
quers it.
Those who know how to think do much, but those who
know how to die do more. Reason is light, but love is the fire in
which the worlds are forged.
The above is well worth the study of those who
desire to understand the secret of the influence which
Señor Castelar has exercised in Spanish politics, for it is
in no small degree to the possession of some of the qua-
lities of St. Francis that he has owed and owes his great
and indeed unique position. But it is also well worth
the study of some who care nothing at all for Spain in
particular or Europe in general, of some whose attention
is fixed on the ebb and flow of our home politics.
If anyone were to ask me what was the principal
change that the reform measures of 1867 and 1868
made in Great Britain, I should reply that we are now
governed by a far more excitable public than heretofore.
I do not think we shall ever see in our times a statesman
of the type of Sir Robert Peel wielding anything like the
same power. He who would now occupy a similar place
must have the skill to touch the hearts and imaginations
of the masses, and all who cannot do that, however right
they may be, must be content to see themselves out-
stripped in influence by persons who may lead far less
wisely-nay, who may, in perfect honesty and good
faith, get the country into very serious dangers. It is
not a particularly cheering prospect-fits of excited
Liberalism alternating with fits of stupid Conservatism
for a whole generation. But we must look facts in the
EMILIO CASTELAR.
239
،،
face. We must be prepared not only for an undue share
of influence falling into the hands of honest enthusiasts,
but for less honest persons using the excitability of the
people for their own advantage. The years from this to
the end of the century will, we fear, be a good time in
England for demagogues of ability in either political
camp. What all sensible men have to wish for is the
rise of a race of liberal statesmen, who, while they have
wide knowledge and cool heads, have yet that deep
sympathy and that power of imagination which can keep
the electorate steady to their side. Never was there a
time when the highest oratorical qualities were so much
wanted, not within but without the walls of Parliament ;
never was there a time when a wise adviser would more
decidedly say to a young aspirant to public life,
"Be
sure to take a great passport of poetry.'
""
The paper on St. Francis has as its next neighbour
one on Sorrento and Tasso," full of graceful description
and of criticism at once subtle and judicious, to which
succeeds a still better one on the strange contrasts in the
Rome of to-day, where the black and red parties stand
facing each other with all shades of political colour
between them.
I wish I had room to cite a long passage which
contains the views expressed to Señor Castelar by an
Italian politician on the relations of the Church and the
State. They will be found at pages 300-303. The
spirit of them may be gathered from these two sen-
tences: "Italy will not throw herself at the feet of the
Pope, because that would be suicide; she will not
oppress the Pope, because that would be madness. We
will not go to Canossa with hair shirt and with sack-
cloth, but we will not enter as plunderers into the sphere
of religious jurisdiction like the philosopher-kings of the
last century.'
·
""
G
240
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
We next come on a speech which was delivered at a
great banquet given at Rome in honour of Señor
Castelar, under the management of Mancini, Depretis,
Crispi, and others, from which I will extract one para-
graph, not because it is the most eloquent, but because
it seems to me deserving of the greatest consideration on
the part of those who, admitting Señor Castelar's great-
ness as an orator, do not do full justice to his merits as a
statesman. He who, with his own past behind him, and
with an audience assembled under the auspices of those
whose names I have just mentioned, before him, spoke
as follows, has it in him, I venture to think, to be one
of the greatest statesmen of our time.
The dream of fifteen centuries is realised. You have done what
the ancient Cæsars could not do, nor the Ostrogothic and Lombard
Kings. What Frederick of Swabia and his illustrious descendants
could not effect by their death struggle with the Guelphs and the
Angevins, that which neither Dante nor Petrarch saw in spite
of their invoking the Emperor of Germany to make the sword of
the Holy Empire the axis round which Italy revolved, that which
Julius II. could not effect with his cannon, nor Leo X. with his arts,
that which Savonarola could not make a reality by giving himself to
God, nor Machiavelli by giving himself to the devil, has been done
by you. You have made Italy one, you have made Italy free, you
have made Italy independent. All this you, who are without doubt
the most favoured of the generations, have attained by having re-
united to the efforts of previous generations and to their martyrdoms
the vital idea par excellence, the powerful idea par excellence, the idea
of liberty. But it is not enough to have succeeded.
It is necessary
at all costs to keep what you have got. A large experience teaches
us how much easier it is to found than to consolidate public liberties.
For the first, one great but common and rudimentary virtue is suffi-
cient—the virtue of courage. For the second are required wisdom
and prudence. Everything may be left in part to the hazards of the
unforeseen, everything except the fate of nations.
Adventures in the case of peoples end almost always as the
adventures do in the immortal work of our Cervantes-by great
catastrophes. That only should be torn up by the root which cannot
EMILIO CASTELAR.
*241
be reformed, and before you ask a reform through the laws it is
necessary to formulate it with clearness, to diffuse it with perseverance,
to propagate it by electoral meetings, to take care that from these
electoral meetings it shall come up as a mysterious sap into parlia-
ments, and from parliaments into governments. If a principle, how-
ever progressive it may appear, can compromise all that you have
acquired, do not propose it and do not set it forth. Content your-
selves with preparing it for the future. You who are by nature
inclined to synthesis, do not fall into the error of errors-the error of
looking only to liberty, and caring nothing for authority; the error of
looking only to progress, and caring nothing for stability; the error
of looking only to the right of the individual, and having no care for
the force of the community; the error of looking only at the future,
when every movement has in it the past, the future, and the present.
The ideal should be formulated, sustained, diffused every day
with unequalled constancy, because it is the promise of the renovations
necessary in human societies. But in order to give it a fair trial
never forget that every idea contains a logical series of ideas, and that
every great work grows with the same slowness with which grow
those natural objects which last the longest.
The radical parties, the advanced parties of all Europe, must
learn to unite courage with moderation, the scientific sense with the
historical sense, a noble impatience for progress with that political
tact, that measure of reality, that knowledge of the people without
which you sow good and reap evil. Do not satisfy yourselves with
having founded Italy, preserve her; and let it never be said that to
correct a defect in your statue, perhaps a necessary one, you have
dashed it into a thousand pieces." I shall never be weary of treating of
this subject, for I believe that the greatest evil of modern democracies
is impatience, and the one rock on which they may run is the work
of the demagogue. Revolutionary periods, the periods of violence,
are closing all over Europe.
The next paper is on the island of Capri. In it I
would call especial attention to the passage upon the
Odyssey as the epic of Mediterranean, and the Lusiad as
the epic of Oceanic navigation-a passage which will
make the reader look anxiously for the book which Señor
Castelar has more than half promised upon Portugal. I
long to read him on Prince Henry the navigator, a grand
R
.242
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
and touching figure, who has not yet found the "vates
sacer" whom he so richly deserved.
""
The last piece is on St. Mark's, and of it I will only
say that a reader may lay down the "Stones of Venice
and take up the "Recuerdos de Italia" without subjecting
Señor Castelar, considered as a writer of prose, to an
unfair test.
During his years of exile one might have thought
that Señor Castelar would have had enough to do in the
composition of these works, and in the long and interest-
ing journeys which he made in various parts of Europe.
Not at all. He likewise found ample time to conspire;
and when the revolution of September, 1868, broke out
at Cadiz under the direction of Admiral Topete, the
gifted chief of the Spanish democracy had done not
a little to impress a republican character upon that
movement.
When he returned to Spain he was received every-
where, from the frontier to Madrid, with the most
enthusiastic welcome, and declared when he reached the
capital, to a delighted multitude some ten thousand
strong, that the time had come to have no more compro-
mises with anybody or anything, so far as democracy
and the republic were concerned. Unhappily and erro-
neously, as I hope he would be the first to admit now,
it was to the Federal and not to the Unitary Republic
that he lent the support of his splendid genius and
boundless popularity. "Never," says the author of a
little sketch of his life, which has been extensively
circulated in Spain, "was any man obeyed with so much
enthusiasm or confidence as was Señor Castelar at this
period." He was the idol of the democracy, pacific and
warlike, conservative and revolutionary, transigent and
intransigent, federal and unitary. Madrid, Barcelona,
Valencia, Saragossa, Seville, Cadiz, and an immense
·
EMILIO CASTELAR.
243
number of other towns and cities vied with each other
in trying to obtain his services as their representative
in the "Constituent Cortes," but it was to Saragossa the
heroic that this honour was accorded.
His speeches in that assembly have been collected,
and very noble specimens of oratory they are, but I must
defer to a subsequent paper what I have to say as well of
them as of many of his other works, and of the part he
has played in the latest history of Spain.
Il.
In my last article I brought down the history of the
great Spanish republican to the meeting of the Cortes
which assembled to settle the constitution, after the
Revolution of 1868. Many widely differing sections had
combined to effect that revolution, but it was the result
of uneasiness and dislike of the existing state of things,
not of a fully-formed opinion as to what sort of govern-
ment would be best for Spain. Señor Castelar entered the
Chamber with the inestimable advantage of thoroughly
knowing what he wanted. In all popular assemblies a
man of ability who does that, has heavy odds in his
favour. Popular assemblies, at all times, and especially
in times of excitement, delight in clear-cut definite solu-
tions, and these were supplied in no stinted measure by
the brilliant member for Saragossa. His speeches in this
Cortes have been collected in three volumes, from which
I proceed to give some extracts illustrative of his views
and of his way of putting them.
From the first, which was delivered on the 22nd of
February against the nomination of Serrano to be head
of the State, I take the following passage, which was led
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R 2
214
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
up to by a fine eulogium on the Spanish army, more
intelligible in Madrid than it would be in London:
But, gentlemen, although I have as strong a feeling for the
army as I have just expressed, I do not want us to live under
military predominance. Societies cannot exist in these days without
an army, as the planetary system cannot exist without mechanical
forces, but societies in which there is an army must place the sun-
that is to say, reason and right-above force and above their soldiers.
To ask whether ideas should give commands to weapons, or weapons
give commands to ideas, is like asking whether in the human body
the arm should give commands to the head or the head to the arm.
Societies which are ruled by soldiers make me think of Bertrand de
Born, who in the depth of Dante's hell carried his head in his hand,
instead of having it upon his shoulders.
My next extract is from a speech in favour of the
abolition of the Conscription, delivered on the 23rd March,
1869:
The Constituent Cortes should note one thing they should
note that we men of the pen or of the spoken word attach much
importance to the right of public meeting, to the right of association,
to the right of the liberty of the press, because we use these rights,
but the peasantry understand nothing of the revolution but the
material advantages which it brings them. The people of the fields
is eternally like the great type of our immortal novelist-the people
is like Sancho Panza. The people seeks the ideal, follows it every-
where, but follows it seeking at the same time for its island of
Barataria. Well, then, the island of Barataria which the people
seeks in the revolution of September is the abolition of the Con-
scription, and the abolition of the taxes on articles of consumption,
and if you keep up the Conscription and keep up the taxes on articles of
consumption, you will have drowned in the abyss of reaction the poor
island Barataria of the poor people, and that people will ask you,
For what have I sacrificed myself?
S
*
Another speech of this period, which had an extra-
ordinary success in Spain, was one delivered on 12th
April, 1869, in reply to Señor Manterola, a great eccle-
EMILIO CASTELAR.
245
siastic who had made an attack on modern ideas as to re-
ligious liberty. It is a very remarkable piece of debating,
but contains few passages that can be detached from the
context, for purposes of quotation. Here, however, are
one or two:
There is, gentlemen, a great tendency on the part of the Neo-
Catholic school to convert religion into what the ancients called it.
The ancients said, that the only use of religion was to inspire fear in
the people. In the words of the Roman patrician, “Religio, id est,
metus." I may reply to those who thus speak of religion, in the
words of the Bible: "The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his
master's crib, but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.
That is to say, that the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his crib,
but the Neo-Catholics do not know their God.
""
Again:
Señor Manterola says, The philosophy of Hegel is dead in
Germany. To that I reply, If the philosophy of Hegel is dead in
Germany, do you know where it has gone to take refuge? It has
gone to take refuge in Italy-at Florence with Ferrari, in Naples with
Vera. And does Señor Manterola know why this has happened?
Because Italy, which has seen her Pope oppose himself so entirely to
her unity and independence, separates herself every day more and
more from the Church, and throws herself more and more into the
arms of science and of reason.
The brilliant reply of April 12th is followed by an
amusing little speech in which poor Señor Manterola is
extinguished-and no wonder, seeing that with the
hardihood so common amongst priests of all creeds, he
had actually denied that the massacre of St. Bartholomew
was commemorated by a picture in the Vatican. How
well I remember passing under that picture with a most
devout Catholic, who, pointing it out to me, remarked,
"I think they might have afforded a coat of whitewash
246
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARÝ.
for that!" Perhaps Señor Manterola would also deny
that the Pope struck a medal in honour of the "slaughter
of the Huguenots?"
Another speech on the same subject, the importance
of which in Spain, where intolerance has such deep roots,
it is quite impossible to exaggerate, was delivered on
May 5th, in the course of which, apologising for some
strong things that had been said by his friends, Señor
Castelar remarked:
Thought bursts forth, as burning and irrepressible as lava. Do
not demand of any new thought that it should be just to the thought
that preceded it. Christianity was not just to Paganism. In those
gods, the eternal models of the plastic art, the first heroes of
Christianity saw nothing but the repulsive grin of the devil. The
Renaissance was not just to the Middle Age. In those Gothic
Cathedrals, which are so sublime an expression of religious thought,
men as great as Michael Angelo and Bramante and Herrera saw
nothing but the ignominious barbarism of art and of men.
And farther on :
The last men of the old world lived a pitiful life and died
sublime deaths. Tacitus and Suetonius could not explain this
singular phenomenon. The life of Otho was that of a prostitute;
his death was that of a hero. Why did they live so disgraceful a
life? Because they lived united to the gods of the State, which
repelled their conscience and deluded their beliefs. And why did
they die so sublime a death? Because when they died, they pillowed
their head on the God of Plato, on the God of the conscience. That
is what we ask of you, ministers of the Gospel, that you should let
us live and die in the God of our conscience.
*
In a speech of May 20th, 1869, in favour of the
republican form of Government, Señor Castelar thus
replied to some persons who had reflected on the poetical
character of his views:
My friend Señor Ulloa compared me to Lamartine; and, Señor
EMILIO CASTELAR.
247
M
Silvela that comparison not being enough-remembered Victor
Hugo, and compared me to the two. I am bound to say that this
is by no means an eulogium, for it is impossible to compare, as a
poet, with Lamartine and Victor Hugo-a man who never made a
verse; and if Señor Silvela or Señor Ulloa meant to imply that as a
politician I resembled Lamartine, I must be permitted to observe
that if I believed it, I would take my return and retire from the
Chamber, for I know no one as a politician more unhappy than
Lamartine, though I am very far indeed from wishing to detract from
his great glory as an historian and poet.
Farther on Señor Castelar says:
Do you wish for the United States of Europe? I wish for
them, because I wish, that while nationalities should continue, those
economical differences which separate one people from another people
should disappear.
In the same speech there are, apropos of a book by
Sir George Lewis, some remarks on the history of royalty
in England, which are not without their interest, and to
which a perusal of the "Crown and the Cabinet" might
enable their author to make some additions.
Farther on we have the following:
Have you not observed that great men are disappearing? Can
you call this age of steam, this age of the telegraph, the age of great
men? Could you call this age by the name of a great man as you
have called other ages, the age of Augustus-the age of Voltaire?
No, there are not great men. Do not, however, think this an evil.
On the contrary, it is a great good. There are no great men, because
the human race has grown much. And, gentlemen, when a great
man directs society by his own individual will, study history and
you will see that one half of his life is always glorious and the other
half luckless. The glorious half of his life is the life of his youth;
the luckless half of his life is that of his old age.
Later, denouncing the candidature of the Duc de
Montpensier, he exclaims:
Oh shades of the heroes of Catalonia, who sustained against
248 · MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
the Bourbons an unexampled war-oh! heroes of Saragossa, that
Numancia immolated by the Bourbons, heroes of Trafalgar who were
drowned in the boiling waters, thanks to the wantonness of Maria
Luisa . . . . Solis, Zurbano-wherever your bones may be, where-
ever your souls may be; come here in the form of remorse, save the
Revolution from this great perjury, save my country from this great
dishonour !
Near the end is this passage
"If you
Besides, you see what the newspapers of Portugal say:
have the courage to proclaim the Republic, all the land will be yours;
from Rosas, where the Greeks disembarked, to Palos, where Columbus
embarked; from the mouth of the Guadalquiver, which reflects the
oriental Seville, to the mouth of the Tagus, which reflects the un-
equalled Lisbon; one sky, one flag, one native country, one people
a people which will be able to raise itself with liberty and by justice,
as in the sixteenth century it raised itself by conquest and by
authority to be the head of all the peoples of the world.
In a short speech, belonging to the same group as
this, Señor Castelar quotes a remark which he attributes
to Count Beust, and which is not without insight:
Just as the four great 'rivers, the Adige, the Ticino, the Rhone,
and the Rhine, have their sources in Switzerland, from thence
have to come the ideas which are to transform France, Italy, and
Germany.
Any politician who, having the requisite qualities
and the necessary leisure, would act upon this hint—
would go and study Switzerland on its political side, and
then write a book about it-would learn a great deal
himself, and teach other politicians much that would be
vastly useful to them during the next thirty years.
In a reply to Señor Sagasta in the month of June
Señor Castelar observes:
And now rises the question of Don Fernando of Portugal. That
EMILIO CASTELAR.
249
"}
reminds me of the story of the celebrated preacher who began his
sermon by saying: "Cursed be the Father, cursed be the Son, and
cursed be the Holy Ghost." Naturally enough when his hearers
heard all these maledictions, they were alarmed; but presently hẹ
added in a lower voice, "Cursed be the Father, cursed be the Son,
and cursed be the Holy Ghost--that is what the lost spirits say.'
Señor Sagasta (and I would invoke here the testimony of many
honourable members in the majority, since the reference is to private
conversations and to nothing else) ought to know, that Don Fernando,
whom he speaks of as "my king," was placed by me in the genealogy
of the Ferdinands of Spain after this fashion. I said Ferdinand I.
was called the Great, Ferdinand II. the Lion, Ferdinand III. the
Saint, Ferdinand IV. the Cited,* Ferdinand V. the Catholic, Ferdi-
nand VI. the Pacific, Ferdinand VII. the Desired, and now we are
going to have Ferdinand VIII. the Impossible.
And farther on :
Señor Sagasta said, "Señor Castelar is no doubt a republican,
but a Platonic one-what has Señor Castelar risked?" What has
he risked? He had a professor's chair, and he lost it; he had a
family circle, and he was obliged to abandon it; he had a home, and
it fell about his ears; he had a country, and he found himself without
I am a Platonic republican, am I? What! was not my name
amongst those terrible sentences of death born of rancours which I
forget and pardon?
one.
17
+9
In a speech made in June, against the regency of
Serrano, occurs the following:
I, gentlemen, believe that in the circumstances in which we
stand, amidst the dangers which we run, we want for regent a great
statesman, and I deny that military men can be great statesmen.
Then, after pointing out how unfavourable is the
training of the soldier to the development of those
* " Cited," that is, to appear at the Judgment-seat of God, because
he is said to have died within thirty days of having been summoned to
do so by two brothers who were unjustly put to death. The story is
told in “Mariana," vol. v. p. 294. .
250
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
qualities which are required by a statesman, and above
all by a parliamentary statesman, he adds:
So, gentlemen, if you will run over the list of all great states-
men you will hardly find a military man. Cavour was not a military
man, Turgot was not, Alberoni was not, nor Richelieu, nor Cardinal
Ximenes. In ancient history I know of only one military man who
was a real statesman-Cæsar; and in modern history likewise, only
one-Frederic of Prussia.
And farther on :
Every prince, every regent, hears in his ear that voice which the
grandest of psychological poets caused to sound in the ear of a great
ambitious one, “Macbeth, thou shalt be king." The shade of a throne
engenders dreams of ambition, as the shade of the upas-tree engenders
the sleep of death.
Speaking of the Iberian Union in the same speech,
he says:
For the space of eleven centuries of modern history Portugal
lived in close union with us; a longer time than Arragon, Navarre,
Catalonia, and Valencia. Viriathus is the representative of her as of
our independence. Even although we lived separated under different
governments, Nature willed that we should labour in the same work.
When the Portuguese discovered the East, we discovered the extreme
West, and the earth was rounded by the hands of Portugal and
Spain.
T
In a speech of 25th June of the same year is this
passage:
Ask the sailor which he prefers, the risk of being drowned in a
tempest or the calm of a tropic sea. He prefers the tempest, the
wind, the dash of the waves. The dash of the waves-movement,
noise, tempest, that—that is liberty!
Does not the Home Minister know that clubs moralise, clubs
educate, clubs lift the conscience of the people to the ideal? This
phrase, that citizens should go to work rather than go to the club,
reminds me of an old absolutist proverb, a proverb of a society of
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nuns and courtiers, "Shoemaker, to thy shoes." No, shoemaker! after
thou hast made thy shoes, go to work for thy country, to work for
liberty, to educate thy sons to be great citizens.
And again:
The problem of modern times is to know what are the limits of
the State, and on this subject there are only two books, unique
in Europe the book on the Limits of the State by William von
Humboldt, and Mill's book on Liberty.
In a speech in October, 1869, occurs this passage:
I am accused of mean and narrow Patriotism: truly an unjust
accusation. I am one of the most cosmopolitan deputies in this
Chamber. I would wish for my country the art of Italy, the thought
and the science of Germany, the genius and the universal spirit of
France, the liberty and labour of England, the democracy and re-
public of America. Is that not being cosmopolitan enough for you?
In a speech of December 11th, 1869, on general
policy, occurs the following:
I, gentlemen, know, in the relations of citizens to each other,
all kinds of laws-political law, canon law, administrative law-but
what I do not know is the law of war. Is it the old one?—Ah !
then, it is the law of the Twelve Tables, the adversum hostem æterna
auctoritas esto; the law under which the kings of Asia cut the
throats of their prisoners; the law under which the Feudal Lords of
the Middle Age made slaves of the vanquished; the law of force,
that is to say, the direct negation of the force of law.
And again:
The argument of the Government reminds me of something
which happened in Russia, in the beginning of the reign of Nicholas.
Some Russians of rank conspired for the purpose of introducing into
their country our democratic constitution of 1812. Their conspiracy
was discovered, and they were sent summarily to the gallows. Among
them was a poet. The morning on which they were to be executed,
it was, as usual in St. Petersburg, raining, or if you prefer it, snowing.
The executioner seized the poet, fastened the rope round his neck,
I
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and pushed him off into space. The rope broke; the poet fell on
his knees, and as he rose, wiping them very quietly, he exclaimed
'Poor Russia, where they don't even know how to hang a man!"
And so I say, "Poor Spain, where they don't even know how to
defend a dictatorship!"
And further:
Some day misfortune will come, and on the road by which we
are travelling we richly deserve to encounter it. Then you will
invoke the national militia, then you won't find it, and I trust in God
you will then hear the cry which came to the first fratricide, "Cain,
where is thy brother?"
Speaking of the proposed candidature of the Duke of
Genoa for the throne, Señor Castelar said:
Your artificial king is as different from the natural kings, as was
the Homunculus of Wagner from the great creations forged in the
Furnace of the Universe.
And again:
The Monarchy of the Bourbons in France had tradition on its
side. Where are the traditions of the Duke of Genoa ? The
monarchy of Napoleon had the prestige of glory; where are the
glories of the Duke of Genoa? Where is his Marengo, his crossing
of the Alps, his fabulous return from Africa, his name transfigured
upon Tabor, and written by the rays of the Desert sun on the summit
of the Pyramids of Egypt? Where are, in his case, even the sort of
traditions which the Orleans Monarchy had? I know not his Palais-
Royal, I have not seen Camille Desmoulins nor Danton among his
friends, nor Valmy among his battles.
In the last paragraph of this great speech occur
these words:
Gentlemen, we have believed long enough that the sword is the
only social lightning conductor. The sword, like all metals, instead
of repelling attracts the thunderbolt. Place on the highest point of
- society that lightning conductor which is possessed by Switzerland,
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Belgium, England, and the United States-the lightning conductor of
the civil power and of legality.
In a speech delivered on the 24th January, 1870, in
favour of the perpetual exclusion of the Bourbons from
the throne of Spain, Señor Castelar points out how little
individual will has to do with the making of revolutions;
how entirely they depend upon causes too complicated
and too remote to be controlled by human initiative.
Later, he adds, "New ideas, gentlemen, are the lightning,
and revolutions are the thunder."
From the same speech I take the following:
The family of the Bourbons, from the end of the sixteenth to
the end of the eighteenth century, was an essentially revolutionary
family. It contributed, more than any other of the reigning families,
to the secularisation of Europe.
Five great facts secularised Europe. The Edict of Nantes,
which introduced religious toleration amongst a Catholic people, was
the work of a Bourbon-of Henry IV. The Peace of Westphalia,
which made toleration a part of international law and concluded the
religious war, was chiefly the work of two ministers of the House of
Bourbon-Richelieu and Mazarin. For the Encyclopædia, which
armed with great ideas the hosts of Liberty, we are indebted to the
tolerance of the Bourbons; and not less was the expulsion of the
Jesuits, which disorganised the armies of authority, due to the
initiative of a Bourbon; while the advent of Democracy, through
the emancipation of the United States, must be attributed to the
generous assistance of Louis XVI.
But as soon as the Bourbons came to see that this Revolution
was attacking their authority, they became converted into eternal im-
placable enemies of the Revolution. That enmity has not diminished.
Since the end of last century it has burst forth with increased
violence. Some time ago, a most eloquent orator (the illustrious
Marquis of Valdegamas)* said from that side of the Chamber: "The
destiny of the Bourbons is to foster revolution, and to die by the
revolution which they have fostered." And then turning to the
strong power which then existed-for those were the days of General
Narvaez-he exclaimed, “Ministers of Isabella the Second! Free
* The great anti-Liberal orator, Donoso Cortes.
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your Queen, and my Queen, from the anathema which weighs upon
her race." But they could not do it. They did not free her from
that anathema; for there is no sword that can cut the current of
the ages, there is no force which can withstand the decrees of
Providence.
On the same occasion, speaking of the Iberian Union,
he says:
Do you know what is the real force which opposes the union of
Spain and Portugal? It is Vasco de Gama; it is Albuquerque; it is
the poem of Camoens. Do you know why we Spaniards so much
love our country, in spite of the difference of our provinces and our
natural tendency to federalism? Because we are all so proud of our
writers, we are all so proud of our painters, we are all so proud of our
battles, we are all so proud of those sailors who sowed mighty deeds
from the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of Lepanto, of those warriors
who passed from Arragon to the gates of Asia and discovered
America; because we are all so proud of that splendid epic, the
Spanish nation, which-not finding room in the Old World, where
there had been room for the mighty deeds of Rome and Alexander—
had to extend the limits of the earth itself, in order that the earth
might be capable of containing its greatness.
Another remarkable speech was delivered on the last
day of the same month, upon the ecclesiastical budget,
and against the connection of Church and State. I would
fain quote from it a grand passage on the all-pervading
power of the Church in the Middle Age as contrasted
with the present state of things-or another upon
Luther's Hymn and the Miserere of Palestrina—but
space says, No.
In a speech of the 12th of March, 1870, occurs the
following passage about Prim:
All the world says that he is neither realising the reforms which
democracy requires, nor the stability which authority requires; all
the world says that he knows not how to create either order or
}
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liberty. Let him listen, and he will hear this. If he does not hear
it, if no word escapes from the people, let him tremble. It is in the
words of Tacitus-" Magni metus et magnæ iræ silentium.”
After events falsified in a very sad way the hinted
prophecy of the following words spoken soon afterwards:
General Prim should not be offended; he would not be the
first great man who had not a sepulchre in his native land. His
Excellency should remember the saying of that great Roman captain
who cried, "Ingrata patria, non possidebis ossa mea." Besides, when
there is not here any clearness in politics, any fixed idea in the
government, no one is secure of a sepulchre in his native land.
In a speech of the 23rd March there is another passage
well worth turning to, upon the greater number of manly
pursuits possessed by modern as compared with ancient
societies; pursuits, many of them, quite as manly as
war, which was naturally enough held in honour in a
country which thought labour servile, and there is much
truth in the following:
I have a most sad conviction-the conviction that the human
word is of avail everywhere except where it is most necessary, most
indispensable. The human word is of avail everywhere except in a
deliberative assembly. Here the human word is of no avail, absolutely
of none. The first orator in the world might come here; he would
convince everyone, he would persuade no one.
&
Very striking, too, is a passage upon the influence
of religion in a speech of the 2nd April, which thus
concludes:
But these sentiments, these ideas, are individual. They may
come from the inspiration of the priest, from the inspiration of the
mother, from the inspiration of the conscience; never, never from the
laws of the State. Ah! the State poisoned Socrates, the State
crucified Jesus, the State tormented St. Paul, the State burnt
Servetus.
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MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
In a speech of the 11th May there is a long and very
fine passage on the blessings that have been brought to
the world by small civic communities, and especially by
those which lived under federal relations; while in the
month of June, 1870, Señor Castelar made a speech of
considerable importance on the abolition of slavery, and
the third volume is concluded by a group of speeches
against the candidature of Prince Amadeo of Savoy, the
chief of which was delivered on the 3rd of November.
८८
In that speech Señor Castelar combated with all his
might, as he did on every other possible occasion, the
return to monarchical government.
Dis aliter visum,”
as we all know, and the prize (?) of the Spanish Crown,
after having served to set the world in flames, at length
rested on the brow of an Italian prince.
It is all so recent that I may take it for granted that
my readers know as much of the circumstances of King
Amadeo's brief and troublous reign as is necessary to
enable them to follow me through Señor Castelar's next
important book, a volume of speeches which extend
through that unhappy period of Spanish history.
The first speech in this volume is dated 20th April,
1871, the last having been delivered early in 1873. The
following passage is the end of the second of two speeches
in which Señor Castelar defended the right of the Carlists
from the Absolutist, and of his own friends from the
Republican, point of view, to discuss respectfully but
unreservedly the dynasty of Savoy :
It is said that it is perilous to discuss the dynasty. That is an
Absolutist principle. In the nineteenth century all the indiscutable
dies. The Absolutists think that discussion weakens; we think that
it fortifies and saves. That which really destroys every political
situation is the repression of ideas—for ideas, when repressed, explode
like powder.
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The following is from a speech of the month of June,
1871, in reply to the Royal message:
Peoples are like swarms of bees, every nationality contributing
to make the honey of the general life. The ideas which we here
put forth, the reforms which we here mature, change the human
conscience.
Farther on he observed, speaking of the throne of
Amadeo :
It is a duty which I owe to my country and my conscience to
say that on your work, in spite of its having come from far lands
over so many miles of sea and railway transit, all the world can read
these words: "Glass with care--glass with care-glass with care."
And again :
The question of Rome can only be resolved by a radical separa-
tion between Church and State; but Church and State can only
separate from each other under a social and political form wider than
the monarchy.
Further:
The great and real kings-those who sleep, be it in the granite
of the Pyramids, be it in the granite of the Escorial, old as the soil
of the nations on which they lived and reverenced like their gods
who confound their genealogy and that of their ancestors with those
of legendary heroes and demi-gods-the kings who inspired so much
poetry from the Iliad to the Romancero, who set to work the pencil
of Rubens and the pencil of Velasquez, who forged the sword of
Bayard and the sword of Gonzalo of Cordova,* eternal symbols of
all that a monarchy should signify upon earth, indiscutable authority
and uninterrupted tradition, immovable stability, one sole religion—
could never understand that those should call themselves kings and
* The great Captain on whose tomb in St. Geronimo, at Granada,
the traveller still reads the stately epitaph :-" Gonzali Fernandez de
Cordova, qui propriâ virtute magni ducis nomen proprium sibi fecit,
ossa perpetuæ tandem luci restituenda huic interea loculo credita sunt,
gloriâ minime consepultâ."
S
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MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
think themselves kings who were not born of faith, abnegation,
loyalty, but of doubt, criticism, free inquiry of the national
sovereignty and of democracy.
C
The following passage in the same speech refers to
the murder of Prim:
That which I most condemn in this deed is that which ex-
tenuates its guilt in many confused consciences-the fact that it had
a political character: I think that such political crimes are to be
reprobated; first, because my conscience reprobates them; next,
because they violate the laws of morality and justice; but still more,
because while their perpetrators imagine that they are destroying an
idea, by destroying the person who represents it-they give life to
that idea, as did that eternal model of all political criminals, as did
Brutus when he slew Cæsar and rooted Cæsarism. For Cæsarism
was saved by horror at that crime, saved to ruin Rome and leave in
the veins of our race a spirit of idolatry for the dictatorship of genius
ennobled by martyrdom, which we are still paying for by sad moral
weakness-by great and recent calamities.
Another most important group of speeches was de-
livered by Señor Castelar in the late autumn of 1871 on
the "International." Señor Castelar is, as I have already
implied, no friend, but a deadly enemy to the principles
of that foolish and, mischievous society. But he defends
its right to bring forward its views and to discuss them
peaceably. I have only room for one or two quotations.
After all, your efforts, gentlemen, will be of no avail. You are
attacking something that cannot die, something which exists in all
times, and is reproduced in all societies. Utopia is a phantasm which
may deceive, but it is eternal. The world is agreed that art is false-
hood, that the stage is a fiction, that the figures on a picture are lines
and colours, yet assuredly the world will never abandon art. Utopia,
like hope, is eternal, inextinguishable, ever greater with the greatness
of misfortune. As the terrestrial sphere turns between its two poles,
so do the social spheres turn between two Utopias-between the
Utopia of the past, and the Utopia of the future. Direct your eye to
all times, pass it over all peoples, and tell me where there does not
EMILIO CASTELAR.
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spring up some Utopia, where there is not some heavenly vision of an
extraordinary and almost divine felicity. The Messianic idea is the
eternal product of captivity.
In a speech of October 20th, 1871, belonging to the
same group, occurs the following:
By the death-bed of Charles V. two principles were in conflict;
two principles as to which he had sometimes tried to make them live
in peace, sometimes to make the one prevail against the other. And
one of those who were helping him to a good death said, "Sire, your
works." And the Protestant, the same who was later condemned, the
Archbishop of Toledo, said, "Sire, the grace of God."
Two morals, two ideas, two principles were combating at the
foot of the bed of that man who had passed his life combating for
one or other of them. If in those last moments of life, at the death-
bed of an emperor, two moral principles did battle with each other,
how can you expect that on this point we should think alike, we here
in the midst of a deliberative assembly, which like all deliberative
assemblies lives and has its being in contradiction and discussioǹ, in
antithesis and struggle?
In a speech of the 8th June, 1872, I find these
remarks, which deserve to be much pondered over in a
country like Spain, in which it has actually happened
before now that the Home Minister contrived to prevent
one single opponent being elected, and in which it has
also happened that the all-powerful Minister of one
Parliament did not even find a seat in the next :
To corrupt the electoral system is to corrupt, completely and
absolutely, all institutions. I do not explain to myself the decadence
of the Roman Empire as the great writers who have treated that
subject are in the habit of doing. I explain it by two modest lines
in the forty-first chapter of the Life of Cæsar by Suetonius. There we
come upon official candidatures. The dictator writes to the electoral
colleges: Commendo vobis illum et illum ut vestro suffragio suam
dignitatem teneant." I think he would be the very best statesman
in Spain who would determine to lose an election, and such a states-
man might be found amongst my friends. I don't think I shall
((
8 2
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MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
offend their modesty by saying so. But it is with that statesman
as it was with the shirt of the happy man in the Indian apologue. ·
He then tells that well-known story and adds:
The happy man, oh fatality! had no shirt, and so we who, if
we were in power, would be capable of making up our minds to lose
an election, do not happen to be in power.
Farther on we have the following striking sketch of
the unjust sufferings of the Progresista party under the
Regency of Queen Christina, and during the reign of her
daughter:
Your bards celebrated that glance under whose influence the old
soil of Castile grew young again, your legionaries twined crowns of
laurel for the brows of that most beautiful woman who seemed the
statue of their redeemed country, your martyrs died renewing the
glories of the war of independence with the name of that woman on
their lips; and the reward of such great sacrifices, of so much effort,
of so much heroism, was that all your principles and all your counsels
were forgotten, and that you were utterly excluded from power.
And what do you say of Queen Isabella? The great Quintana
was her master, the high-minded Arguelles was her guardian, Espartero
her regent, Zurbano and Linage her warriors, the Countess of Mina,
the widow of so much renown and glory, her nurse. Progresista
blood was the very sap of that throne, and in return that throne was
a scaffold for the Progresistas.
The same volume which contains the very remarkable
set of speeches to some passages of which I have called
attention, contains the reply of the Cortes to the message
by which, on the 11th February, 1873, King Amadeo
announced his resignation. This answer, drawn by
Señor Castelar, is a grave and firm piece of writing,
worthy of a great occasion, but not more worthy of it
than the admirable document to which it is a reply.
The disappearance of the monarch was followed by a
miserable period disgraceful to Spain and her public men
EMILIO CASTELAR.
261
of all parties, whose incapacity, self-seeking, and folly
were the wonder of the world through 1873 and 1874.
It is impossible to exonerate Señor Castelar of blame.
If he did not see his way to make a reasonable republic
secure, he should not have moved Olympus and Acheron
to make a reasonable monarchy impossible. When,
however, he once succeeded in getting his republic, he
did all he could to make it reasonable. It was, however,
the old story of the magician and his devil. Radicals
(the Conservatives of that marvellous epoch) on the one
hand, and Intransigentes, that is irreconcilable Anarchists,
on the other, made, in spite of its victory in April, the
life of the first Republican Ministry, in which Castelar
had the portfolio of Foreign Affairs, extremely bitter.
He did not, however, keep his position long. In the
beginning of June the Constituent Cortes assembled to
the cry of "Long live the Federal Republic," and a
furious contest immediately broke out between the quasi-
Conservative Republicans, who wanted to settle the Con-
stitution, and the Intransigentes who wanted they knew
not what. In vain Señor Castelar drew a Constitution
against time; it is said, in twenty-four hours. In vain
he used all his eloquence to defend it. The demons of
discord were already let loose in the Cortes, and in July
burst forth the horrible war of the Cantonalists in
Murcia. Things went from bad to worse. Figueras,
Pi y Margall, and Salmeron held the broken reins of
power each for a brief interval, and at length, in
September, 1873, the Cortes conferred the dictatorship
on Señor Castelar.
It was a painful thing for a man who had strongly
opposed the punishment of death to arrive at the summit
of power at a moment when the fearful disorders, which
had disgraced so many of the larger towns, made severe
repression necessary, and when the army was going to
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MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
pieces for want of discipline; but Señor Castelar rose to
the occasion and resolutely did his duty.
Charge me with inconsistency, if you please," he cried, "I will
hot defend myself. Have I the right to prefer my reputation to the
safety of my country? Let my name perish, let posterity pronounce
its anathema against me; let my contemporaries send me into exile.
Little care I. I have lived long enough; but let not the republic
perish by my weakness, and above all, let no one say that Spain has
perished in our hands."
((
He confined himself, however, to that amount of
severity which was absolutely necessary in the opinion
of every sane and honest man of all parties. History
tells, as Cherbuliez has well said in his excellent book
"L'Espagne Politique," of no more Liberal dictatorship.
That dictatorship continued from September, 1873, to
the 2nd of January, 1874. Rarely has a ruler had to
deal with a more disastrous series of events. The
Carlist insurrection in the North, the insurrection of the
Intransigentes at Carthagena and elsewhere, want of
discipline in the army, want of money in the treasury, a
fierce civil war raging in Cuba, were some but by no
means all the difficulties with which he had to contend.
To assert that his contention was successful would be too
much, but in the midst of such circumstances it is enough
for a government to say, like Siéyès after the Terror,
J'ai vécu." The Cortes met on the 2nd of January.
Señor Castelar announced his resignation of his position
as chief of the State into the hands of the representative
of the nation, laid before them a detailed account of his
acts, and asked for a vote of confidence in the Ministry.
After a furious debate his proposal was supported by a
majority, and instantly an insurrection broke out in
Madrid, in the interest of the extreme party. This
insurrection was met by a coup d'état, not struck by
66
EMILIO CASTELAR.
263
Señor Castelar, but by the Captain-General of the New
Castile, who early on the morning of the 3rd repeated
the Cromwellian precedent in a rougher manner, and
sent the deputies about their business. With the state
of things which was created by this coup d'état, Señor
Castelar declined to have anything to do, and left Spain,
to travel in France, Germany, and Italy, defining his
position very clearly in these words:
From the work of the demagogue, I am separated by my con-
science; from the situation created on the 3rd of January, I am
separated by my conscience and my honour.
A worse man might have been a more successful
politician, for he would not have trusted the control of
large bodies of armed men to the hands of those whom
he knew to be the enemies alike of himself and of the
Republican form of government. But the situation was
not difficult; it was impossible.
It is to the period of comparative leisure which was
inaugurated by his withdrawal from Spain, that we owe
the "Cuestion de Oriente," a book on which I should be
more inclined to dwell if the subject had not become
a weariness to so many readers, and if travel in the
Balkan peninsula, or other means of studying it not open
to most men, had given Señor Castelar any special claim
to be heard upon it, at least by us "jaded English.
Nor again can I do more than mention "La Redencion
del Esclavo," a prose drama. I have only read snatches
of it, and if I had, my readers would hardly thank me
for dwelling much on it, when I tell them that it is in
four volumes, and that the Almighty, the Angels, Adam,
Eve, Brama, Siva, Jupiter, Antony, Cleopatra, Spartacus,
Hermes, Asoka, Nala, Damayanti, Saul, Samuel, and
Jephthah, are only a very few of the interlocutors.
"El Ocaso de la Libertad," published only last year, is
""
261 MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
another work of an imaginative character. "Inspired
by the majestic spectacle of the Bay of Baia and its
ruins," it was, in the words of its author, "commenced in
Paris, and concluded among the combats of the Tribune,"
its object being to bring out into bold relief, and to
engrave on the mind of its readers, the sad consequences
which flow from the abandonment of liberty. The scene
is laid in and around the Bay of Naples, at Capri and
elsewhere. It closes with the death of Tiberius, and the
moral may sufficiently be gathered from its last words:
"Such, alas! are the events which occur when the sun
of liberty has set." The book is, in short, a pamphlet
against Cæsarism, thrown into the form of a short
historical romance.
I pass over, likewise, three novels with which my
acquaintance is too slight to entitle me to say much
about them-"La Hermana de la Caridad," "La Historia
de un Corazon," and " Riccardo," a list which, although it
includes all the novels of M. Castelar which I possess,
by no means exhausts the list of those which he has
written. During this period was composed the second
volume of the "Recuerdos de Italia," of which I gave some
account in my last paper. Another work of this "interval
of business" was the "Historia del Movimento Republicano
en Europa," which extends to nine volumes, or say five
thousand pages. Its author would be the first to admit,
and indeed does explicitly admit, that its form is as
bad as can be. It appeared originally in an American
periodical, and before it was published as a book it ought
to have been submitted to most rigorous revision. Per-
haps four volumes, or even more, would have disappeared
in the process, and it would still have remained one of
the most gigantic of pamphlets. It is now, I should
think, quite the most gigantic, but it is an extremely
brilliant pamphlet. I know few books which I would
EMILIO CASTELAR.
265
more willingly put into the hands of a young man who
meant to devote himself to politics, and who wanted, at
one or two and twenty, to get a sort of general view over
that great inundation of opinion under which, here faster,
there slower, the old landmarks of Europe are one by one
disappearing. He must not look in it for full or careful
information, but he will have brought before him a vast
number of facts and ideas which are not put together in
any other book with which I am acquainted, and which
should be presented to the mind of everyone who aspires
to see his way in the times upon which we are entering.
I will now proceed rapidly to analyse it, wasting no
time in dwelling upon faults, the less so as it owes its
appearance as a book rather to the publisher than the
author, but trying to enable the reader to judge for him-
self whether, after making allowance for an abundance of
shortcomings, it is a book useful for him to read, and
culling from it such passages as appear to throw further
light upon the opinions, tendencies, and character of one
of the most eminent of our contemporaries, and one who,
be it remembered, writes in a language which is the
mother-tongue of the greatest number of civilised men
who do not speak English.
Señor Castelar begins his work by saluting America
as the continent of the Republic, finding of course much
good to say of the United States, and managing to say
not a little good of their South American neighbours and
even of Peru! If he had recommended a little common
honesty to the rulers of that State, and of some others,
it would not perhaps have been amiss. Thence he turns
to Europe and notices the various forces which worked
towards the Republic in the eighteenth century, especially
in France. In order to show how strong the current was,
in spite of the new channel opened for it by the wars of
the Empire, he takes three men of genius, the one born
mak
266 MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
a Legitimist, the other a Bonapartist, the third a Breton
Catholic-Lamartine, Victor Hugo, Lamennais, and
shows how they all were gradually whirled into the
Republican stream. He next sketches the ideas of Comte,
with the two schools of Comtists which hold the views of
Littré and Lafitte respectively, and then at considerable
length discusses the Socialist delusions which he considers
to have been and to be the most dangerous, indeed the
only dangerous, enemies of the Republic, acting as they
do against it in two ways, first by alarming the upper,
secondly by deluding the lower classes, and leading them
to expect from governments what governments neither
can nor ought to give. An admirable tract against
Socialism might be extracted from the fifth and sixth
chapters. Nowhere have I seen more eloquently set
forth the truth that it is to society as a whole, not to the
State, that we should look for the curing of most of the
evils which affect society; nowhere have I seen the all-
vivifying power of Liberty better defended. Would that
such a tract could be circulated in Germany for the benefit
of the ruled, while the speech on the "International'
already noticed was circulated for the benefit of the
rulers!
-
""
That country next attracts Señor Castelar's atten-
tion, and after a chapter which contains some just
observations on the general character of the Teutonic
race, we are led slowly through the principal philo-
sophical schools of Germany, more especially those of
Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel-the influence of
each in gradually decomposing, and that sometimes even
when they wished to recompose, the old religious and
political ideas, being carefully noted. Then one chapter
is given to the pessimist views of Schopenhauer, con-
sidered as the reaction against the philosophy of Hegel;
whom, in spite of his accommodations and concessions
--
EMILIO CASTELAR.
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to the political influences which dominated in his day
at Berlin, Señor Castelar defends as essentially the
philosopher of progress.
The second volume commences with a chapter upon
Krause, the author of the "Ideal of Humanity," a
thinker whose views, imported into the University of
Madrid by Sanz del Rio, have exercised no inconsiderable
influence on Spain.
"What living faith in justice !" exclaims Señor Castelar.
"What
great love for humanity! What hope in the accomplishment of our
destinies on the face of this planet! What virtue given to the idea
of universal federation!”
Señor Castelar now, with some distrust in his guides
a distrust not wholly ill-founded-sets forth on a
journey into Slavonic territory, and chiefly into Russia,
tracing the influence upon that country of the ideas of
Schelling and of Hegel, explaining the illusions of the
Slavophiles, telling the sad story of Puschkin, of Pestal,
and many more, with Herzen's "Memoirs," and "History
of the Development of Revolutionary Ideas in Russia,
for his principal sources of information. The portrait of
that remarkable man is sketched from the life, and,
as many of his English friends will think, correctly
sketched.
""
"Alexander Herzen," says Señor Castelar, "had proposed to
himself the task of moving the Russian world by the most extreme
ideas of the Western world, and of moving the Western world by the
most ingenious paradoxes about Russia. He was distinguished as a
writer by the variety of his tones, the neatness of his diction, his
happy contrasts, the wonderful flexibility of his language, his aptitude
for placing in close juxtaposition the grotesque and the sublime, with-
out causing a painful discord, because he knew the delicate shades of
ideas, and the various gradations of style. The Englishman, the
American, the Swiss, living ever in contact with the reality of politics,
know their difficulties, and do not propose to destroy what they
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MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
dislike by legends and dreams, but by practical and positive reforms.
The captive peoples fill their dungeons with legends. Herzen showed
the qualities of his race; he, too, rocked himself in illusions and
dreams; he was a poet, a student of nature, a philosopher, but,
although he sacrificed everything for politics, nothing of a politician
in the true sense of the term."
In strong contrast with this most gifted, most in-
teresting, and most unpractical person, rises the startling
and herculean figure of Bakounin, a picture of Danton
hung by one of Rousseau-of Bakounin, whose hopeful
plans of relieving the distresses of Europe are thus
summed up:
1. The destruction of the State. 2. Substitution for the State of
associations of workmen. 3. Social liquidation. 4. Collective, that
is common, property in the soil. 5. Appropriation to the common use
of all the instruments of work. 6. Atheism in religion, materialism
in philosophy.
Need I say that Señor Castelar, although speaking
highly of his good intentions, is as strongly opposed to
the projects of this mad barbarian as to the tyranný of
Nicholas itself?
After a long excursion in the empire of the Czar,
Señor Castelar returns, in his twenty-eighth chapter, to
Western Europe, and explains the great political im-
portance of the religious movement in Germany, tracing
it from the Reformation downwards.
"Perhaps," he says, "they did not know it themselves, but by
starting these religious problems, by interpreting the Bible, by opposing
to each other the commentary of the Church and the commentary of
reason, by inquiring whether the book of Job is of Hebrew or Arabic
origin, whether the book of Judith was anterior to Christianity, by
all these questions which have so remote a connection with the
problems of our times, the German theologians were storing up tor-
rents of revolutionary electricity, which were to lighten, thunder,
and fall upon the head of a generation which, while it abandoned
EMILIO CASTELAR.
269
the old altars at the foot of which it had been born and nurtured,
was abandoning with equal force and violence, without understanding
quite clearly what it was doing, the old kings and their worm-eaten
thrones."
I wish I had room to quote some noble pages, in
which are brought into strong contrast the thirteenth
century, as the essentially Catholic age, and the period
of the Renaissance and the Reformation, when man
seemed to burst his bonds and enter upon a new world.
But this is impossible. I must hurry on to the eighteenth
century to find room for the following, with which we
may or may not agree, but the power of which it would
be difficult to deny :
The man who really founded liberty of thought in Germany was
Frederic the Great. In the history of his race there is no character
more attractive, for there is none more human. His idea was not the
narrow idea of Arminius, nor the national passion of Luther, it was
the idea and the passion of humanity. Those who enter on history,
with all its tortuosities and rough places, as if they were entering on
the serene and tranquil region of philosophy, are accustomed to throw
in his teeth that he wrote a burning book against Machiavelli, and
nevertheless practised Machiavellic arts; that he sang the benefits of
peace like Virgil, and sowed war like Cæsar; that he cursed conquest
like the Abbé St. Pierre, and was a conqueror like Cyrus and
Alexander. Those, however, who examine men and the works of
men, measuring the difficulties which they encounter, the obstacles
which they overcome, the evils to which they put an end, and the
progressive measures which they bring about, can never admire enough
the crowned philosopher who alone in the world, persecuted by all
the powerful, assailed by Russians, Tartars, Croats, Hungarians,
Frenchmen, abandoned by his friends and allies, with his little army
composed of the most incongruous elements, with no more force than
its vigorous discipline and no impulse other than the great soul of its
general—a soul which was impelled by another idea greater than itself
-created a power in the centre of Germany which was destined to be
in respect of liberty of thought what the Oranges and England were
in respect of political liberty. The instrument of which he made use
—absolute monarchy-was a bad instrument; there is no doubt about
270 MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
that. The stains which disfigure his reign were great ones; it is enough
to mention the partition of Poland. His conscience did not often
elevate itself to the absolute idea of justice. His lips darted forth
epigrams which cost wars, his scepticism degenerated into sarcasm and
frivolity; but with all these defects, and greater, if you please, there
was no personality of his times in which burst forth with so much
force and so much brilliancy the immortal spirit of his century, the
humanitarian century par excellence. If he had no other glories, it
would be enough that having received by inheritance a dominion of
only two thousand square leagues and three millions of inhabitants,
he broke down from that redoubt the terrible Holy Empire, the
representative of tradition, the Goliath of absolutism, the terror of all
the nations, the enemy of William Tell, the executioner of John
Huss, the assassin of Padilla, the poisoner of the Latin races, the
monstrous power of Austria, which, had it triumphed, would have
burned to the very marrow of our bones, reduced our conscience to
ashes, and made of all Europe that which with its direful authority
and its dread policy it made of our fertile Spain, a desolate desert.
Of great memory as becomes a statesman, of scant imagination
like the century in which he lived, of ideas clear rather than pro-
found, of irony fine and delicate, a brain rather than a heart, a
character served and sometimes commanded by a great intelligence.
Haughty with the proud, simple with the humble, passionately,
deliriously attached to genius and science, ever an admirer of merit,
mediocre in his verses, incorrect in his prose, ordinary and common-
place in his philosophy, but in recounting his deeds worthy to be com-
pared with Cæsar, not only for the sobriety of the narrative, but for
its simplicity and natural modesty; cheerful as a hero of antiquity, a
most moral administrator, a distinguished jurist; painfully anxious
that justice should reach the lowest social classes; tolerant of the
judgments of his people, whom he permitted to say everything, on the
understanding that he was to be permitted to do everything; firm in
adversity, serene in peril, reflective in his plans, tenacious in his
purposes; over all these qualities there rises that large-heartedness
with which he opened the frontiers of his kingdom, the gates of his
palace, the arms of his friendship to all those who had any thought,
to all those who had any belief, to all those who worked for any idea.
The thirtieth and thirty-first chapters are given to
Reimarus, Lessing, and the orthodox apologists. The
last of the two contains a long passage on the Hebrew
prophets considered as the enemies of monarchy, which
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271
I recommend to anyone who wishes to preach a repub-
lican sermon such as has rarely been preached.
The thirty-second chapter takes up the other co-
operators in the Republican education of the world-
Defoe, Rousseau, Basedow, Pestalozzi, and then a series
of chapters treat of the reaction-of the school of Paulus
and the rationalists; then of the rational supernaturalists,
of De Wette labouring to harmonise these two schools,
of Schleiermacher working for the evangelical union, of
Frederic William III., and much else, familiar enough to
those who know the history of German thought.
The thirty-ninth chapter, in some eighty pages,
traces the story and criticises the works of Strauss,
attaching naturally more importance to the earlier ones
than to "The Old Faith and the New," the constructive
part of which finds no favour with Señor Castelar, who
is also much scandalised by its author's delight at the
imperialist turn which politics have taken in Germany.
From Strauss he passes on to review, in the earlier part
of the third volume, the various schools which arose
after the death of Hegel. A disciple of the great master,
delivering a funeral oration at his grave, made, as
Dr. Kahnis many years ago remarked, a very true
prophecy: "No after-conqueror," he said, "will ascend
the vacant throne of Alexander." And so it was, the
Hegelians divided the inheritance of their master into at
least as many kingdoms as the Macedonian generals.
We are taken rapidly through these; one chapter, the
thirty-first, being given to an old man, Dr. Arnold Ruge,
who has lived for many years peaceably in Brighton-
few, I daresay, of his neighbours realising that he had
taken so important and so honourable a part in the
forward movement of his age. The forty-fourth chapter
is rather unluckily named "The Republican Darwinists;'
the three persons specially alluded to being Karl Vogt,
"}
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MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
Virchow, and Büchner. Vogt and Virchow were im-
portant names in politics when Darwin was chiefly
known by his delightful voyage round the world; and
Büchner, a far less authoritative name, belongs even
scientifically to a very different school, the school of the
materialists, to which Señor Castelar is in as violent
opposition as he is to the Socialists. This part of the
work ends with an appeal to the Germans to bring their
philosophical ideas, which have done so much to overturn
the old order of things, more distinctly into practical
life, and then Señor Castelar passes once more into
France.
He begins by a bird's-eye view of the Republican
schools of that country. The reader is introduced to
Vacherot, to Pierre Leroux, Michelet, Tocqueville,
Laboulaye, to the Federal group of Chaudey, Barni, &c.,
to the Jacobin group of Peyrat, Delescluze, &c., to
Barbes, Charras, and many more. In the pages devoted
to Ledru-Rollin there occurs a very interesting account
of a conversation which Señor Castelar had with him in
1868, and in which he recounted, from his own point of
view, his share in the revolution of twenty years before.
The thought of the many mischiefs that have been
brought on the cause of the Republic by the madness of
demagogues, next leads Señor Castelar to sketch Blanqui
as the type of all that is worst in demagogism, and then
he passes on to a long discussion of the Republic and its
prospects as they were under the Presidency of M. Thiers.
Next comes a very clear review of the Conservative and
Radical Republicans of France, as represented by the
works of the younger Duvergier de Hauranne and
M. Naquet respectively, as to which Señor Castelar
decides that to the views of M. Naquet belongs and
ought to belong the Future, while to the views of
M. Duvergier de Hauranne belongs and ought to belong
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273
the Present. The keynote of the whole of this immense
forty-sixth chapter is "no heat, no haste; work for the
Republic unceasingly, but do not expect to arrive even
at the Conservative Republic-a Republic, that is,
tempered by monarchical traditions, by leaps of any kind,
least of all, by Leaps in the Dark." To say that there
are many digressions, is only to say that Señor Castelar
is the writer. In one of these occurs a passage in which,
speaking of the genius of Southern Spain, he curiously
describes his own.
The genius which is evaporated by the soil of Andalucia, by the
banks of the Guadalquiver, by the Sierras of Cordova-exuberant,
hyperbolical, audacious, most powerful, Asiatic, burning like our earth
and like our sky, like the blood that courses through our veins, like
the passions in our breasts.
All honour to the man whom reflection and ex-
perience have taught so to school such a disposition as to
make him the most eloquent advocate of the policy,
"Ohne Hast, doch ohne Rast." With chapter forty-
seven begins a long narrative of the fall of the Second
Empire, which, as we have already seen, Señor Castelar's
banishment from Spain enabled him to watch very
closely. It abounds in striking passages; as, for in-
stance, one in which he compares Europe in 1867 to a
Roman amphitheatre just when the gladiatorial combats
were about to begin.*
An excellent description of the oratory of M. Thiers,
a summing up of the principles scattered over Europe by
the French Revolution, a portrait of Garibaldi, and much,
much else call for quotation here; but this probably is
the part of the book in which, had the writer revised it,
he would have used the pruning-knife, if not the axe,
most freely, and I shall accordingly pass over a large
* Vol. iii. p. 286.
T
274
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
part of the third and of the fourth volumes, taking up the
thread again in the autumn of 1868.
What was it prevented war breaking out then?
Señor Castelar replies, as many others have done, the
Spanish Revolution; and then he proceeds to detail, at
a length perhaps not too great for a Spanish, but some-
what alarming to a foreign reader, the circumstances
which led to the fall of Queen Isabella. Scattered, how-
ever, through eight hundred and thirty pages, in which he
treats this theme, are not a few very notable passages,
bright and telling sketches of character, just comparisons
evincing a careful study alike of the present and past,
memorable sayings worthy to be treasured by all
politicians. Take the following description of Gonzalez
Bravo :
ww
He had all the qualities of the ancient demagogue-courage,
audacity, eloquence, volubility of character, even greater volubility of
ideas, no scruple in agitating like the Tribunes when he was in
opposition, and none in oppressing like the Cæsars when he was in
power; incredible facility in changing his flag, ingenious sophistry in
sustaining all principles, temerity in political combats, extreme faith
in his destiny.. Who could better represent the system of adven-
tures to which the Court gave itself up? He, who had been the
flatterer of the people, knew well how peoples are bowed down. He,
who had been Tribune, knew how tribunes are enervated. He, always
a conspirator, knew how conspiracies are frustrated. Catiline put on
the robe of a friar.
And this, about the marriage of the Princess of the
Asturias with her cousin the Count of Girgenti, one of
the Neapolitan Bourbons. "The dead embraced the
dead in the common grave of their history." And the
following on the newspaper-writing of the Liberal party
during the campaign against the Court, in which we
need hardly say its critic was pars magna:
Unite the austere convictions of Armand Carrel with the pictu-
1
EMILIO CASTELAR.
275
resque sentimental language of Camille Desmoulins, all tinted with
that Oriental lustre which is given to ideas by the richest and most
hyperbolic of modern languages, and you will understand what it was
-nervous, imaginative, spontaneous, most eloquent.
Or, again, this from an article addressed to Queen
Christina, on her return to Spain in the winter of
1864:
Ah, madam! this is the way that History advances! The men
who were yesterday great hopes, are to-morrow hardly recollections;
the world goes on devouring, in its feverish activity, idols, crowns,
dynasties. When your Majesty returned to France, did you
find there that dynasty of Louis Philippe which used to give laws to
the south of Europe? When you went to Italy, did you find there
your own dynasty? We feel, madam, that we were born under the
malediction of those who dried the tears of our mothers, and opened
a home in their own country to our fathers. But there is no help for
it. Every revolution is born under the curse of the revolution which
preceded it.
Or these few lines from the masterly sketch of
Olozaga :
Do not look in him for those sublime ideas of Donoso Cortes
which lost themselves in the depths of the infinite. Do not look for
that lyrical fervour of Lopez which gave rhythm to prose and con-
verted speeches into odes. Do not look for that rich literary erudition
of Alcala Galiano which made his spoken style as correct as if it were
written, and evoked in the modern tribune the language of Granada
and of Cervantes. Look, and you will find the deep intensity, the
delicate irony that ever hits its aim, the Attic wit, the sober phrase,
the incomparable simplicity, and the supreme eloquence of an oration
of Demosthenes.
Or this on the death of Alcala Galiano, who was
concerned in the melancholy encounter between the
Government and the students on the 10th of April, 1865,
to which I alluded in my last paper:
His already weak health became so much worse, that he died of a
stroke of apoplexy at a meeting of the Cabinet, and in dying carried
T 2
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MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
with him perhaps the easiest, most sonorous, and chastest eloquence.
which ever was heard in the Parliaments of Spain. His last phrase
was a terrible accusation against the dynasty. "Compulsus feci," he
said, and expired.
And again:
If the world gives itself up to Domitian, history gives itself up
to Tacitus.
Or this, about the speech of a Catholic orator, who
thought, as the storm beat against his illusions, that the
world was going to ruin :
For him all was dying, all coming to an end. As we heard him,
we looked up to the atmosphere, and it was so clear; we looked to
the sky, and it was so charming; we looked to the sun, and it was so
bright; we looked around us, and we saw young men who felt the
pleasure of living; we looked before us, and saw beautiful women
who were or were to be mothers; and we could only compassionate
Señor Aparici, who thought that he heard the trumpet of Judgment,
the voice of Antichrist, the utter destruction of the planet, when the
only thing that was going to be destroyed was some poor little idol or
other, some censorship, or the like.
And again :
The ultimate causes of revolutions are ideas. Christianity was
at of the first revolution of modern society, Philosophy was that of
the last; but the immediate causes are economical evils and errors.
Or this, from an article written by Señor Castelar in
March, 1868:
We repeat that celebrated dictum of a Spanish guerrillero:
"General, I want to be one of the killed.”
And the following with regard to the opinions of the
Liberal party :
It is impossible to live outside of our ideas; they are the atmo-
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277
sphere of the age, and he who renounces them has the fate of lungs
which renounce the air-he is suffocated.
Or this account of Rios Rosas :
He loved the tempest as eagles do, the combat as warriors do,
difficulties as all the great workers of the world. do; and there was
the same force and ardour in his character as in his burning words.
Or this:
Kept far for three long ages from the modern spirit, we lay as if
in the vacuum of an air-pump. Our great traders were the Jews, and
we expelled them in the fifteenth century. Our great thinkers were
the philosophers, the theologians, who felt the necessity of reform in
the national spirit, and we burnt them in the sixteenth century. Our
great cultivators were the Moriscoes, and we expelled them in the
seventeenth century.
Again:
The army begins our revolutions, and the revolutions take the
course which the people wishes.
Or this:
The Queen had agreed to make some concessions to the Liberal
party, but with the usual Spanish indolence she put them off, with-
out considering that in our country the summer is the time which
is propitious alike for the tempests of the material and of the political
world.
I have selected these extracts as being characteristic,
and as not requiring explanations, which others that
might be cited with equal propriety would require.
The event of the year 1868 which came next in
importance to the Spanish Revolution was the deter-
mination to call together a council at the Vatican; and
to this event Señor Castelar devotes a long and interest-
ing chapter, which, however, does not contain much that
278
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
is new.
The following passage sets forth the existing
phase of his own religious views :
The simple religion of the future, the religion whose dogmas are
summed up in the two fundamental ones of the existence of God and
the immortality of the soul, completed by the purest morality, which
breathes forth a disinterested love of goodness for its own sake.
All the criticisms of this great orator about oratory
are important, and not least this:
I have never been able to explain to my own satisfaction the
decay of religious oratory in this age, which has engendered political
oratory; when the voices of Chatham, of Mirabeau, and of Vergniaud
are hardly silent. Theological ideas are eloquent of themselves. It
was very easy for Bossuet to touch the inmost fibres of the human
heart with the simple phrase "Madame is dead," and it was very
difficult for Pitt to move anyone by a figure in the budget. If
religious eloquence had been possible in our times, it is inconceivable
that it would not have been embraced by two orators so great as
Lamartine and Donoso. The first would have been sweet and tender,
like St. John when he wrote his gospel, and the other thundering and
sublime like Ezekiel or Isaiah, intoning their dirges. Since these two
souls did not embrace a religious career, it is manifest that the age
was not favourable to religious vocations.
This passage occurs in an account of Père Hyacinthe,
of whom, considered merely as an orator, Señor Castelar
speaks very highly.
From Italy he returns to France, and follows from
1868 onwards, through the latter part of the sixth and
seventh volumes, the gradual decline of the French
Empire. The story of the Baudin trial and the first
appearance of Gambetta is told with great spirit, and
there is an endless series of portraits sketched with a
bold and generally a successful hand. Everywhere
Señor Castelar's intense love of democracy, and bitter
hatred of demagogism, socialism, and violence, comes
out very clearly. In contrasting the views of the
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279
younger generation of Frenchmen with those of their
fathers, whose fears of the Red Spectre did so much to
make straight the paths for the coup d'état, he says:
To the eyes of the new generation, Utopias appear as comets do
to the eyes of Science; they are not bodies whose movements can be
fixed with the same exactitude with which the movements of the
other heavenly bodies can be fixed, but neither are they disturbing
and anarchical bodies in the planetary system. Their coming in con-
tact with our earth would produce no more effect than the collision of
a fly with a train.
This, too, is happy:
The new generation abhorred that empire which the Catilines from
above erected against the Catilines from below.
1
And this:
The amelioration of the condition of the poorer classes should be
the result of all the forces of society, and not exclusively of political
formulas. For the solving of the social problem, we must take account
not only of liberty, justice, form of government, but also of economical
and even cosmological laws which do not easily subordinate them-
selves to political combinations. No one is opposed to the
social amelioration of the disinherited classes; but that to which
common sense and political sense are jointly opposed is that, under
pretext of ameliorating their condition, men should attack property,
which is the root of individual liberties, and promulgate communistic
ideas, which are at bottom reactionary ideas.
•
•
•
Chapter eighty-six, called a "Leap in the Dark," and
showing that the reckless phrase of a reckless politician
has crossed the Channel, though, happily for the English
aristocracy, Señor Castelar forgets the name of the man
who spoke it, treats of the volte-face of the Imperial
Government towards Liberalism, and closes with this fine
image:
When the evolution had been made, a new horizon opened for the
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MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
Empire-an horizon like the sky of those summer nights in which
there is not one single cloud, but in which gleam all around and in
every direction the silent lightnings of the tempest.
Speaking in chapter eighty-seven of an absurdity of
Rochefort's at an electoral meeting, Señor Castelar
says:
The streets!—a deputy has nothing to do with the streets.
His
commission is legal, his business is with discussion, with ideas; his
arms are speech and vote, his barricade the tribune.
Treating again of the illusions of the extreme party
in 1848, he censures those Republicans "who, drawing
their lessons from the miserable traditions of a revolution
in delirium, believed that the Republic was a tempest, a
whirlwind in which all passions were boiling, when the
Republic ought to be a secure harbour in which the
essential principles of modern society have cast anchor,
authority, and liberty, things necessary in all places and
in all times-more than necessary, indispensable for a
true democracy."
One who can write like this may well laugh at
M. Ledru-Rollin for having learnt so little in England as
to suppose that when we want to change any of our
institutions we shall require to proceed by revolutionary
methods.
In the seventh volume Señor Castelar tells the story
of the Ollivier ministry, and of the events which led to
the great ruin of 1870; but his political principles pre-
vent his doing justice to the gifted though erring
minister whose weakness had so much to do with that
catastrophe.
The eighth volume is chiefly devoted to the war, and
I take from it a few more extracts. Here is a scene from
the first days of September:
The Imperialist deputies were raging against those who had placed
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the seals of the State on the doors of the Corps Législatif. Nothing
was wanting but the final mot. Thiers had been keeping it by him
for twenty years. It is the moral of all this great tragedy, a moral
distilled and reduced to its quintessence. Hear it! hear it! Not the
first tragic poet of the world, not Eschylus, not Shakespeare, not
Calderon, would ever have found a more fitting last word for the
Empire. History disgusts us with novels, for there is no novel so
dramatic, so logical, so interesting as history. "What are you com-
plaining of?" asked Thiers: "is it because they have sealed up the
building of the national representation? It was worse to seal up the
national representatives; and to this day I have not forgotten the
mark which the 2nd of December put upon us. I am an old
prisoner of Mazas." Thus ended the assemblies of the Empire.
There is a Providence.
And a little later:
The European revolution, the European democracy, has gained at
Sedan a battle with the powder of divine right. The arms forged by
the kings are the docile instruments of the peoples. The King of
Prussia has brought on the west the invasion of his Uhlans, and now
the west will bring to the King of Prussia the invasion of its ideas.
Monarch of Divine Right, thou hast destroyed with thy cannon the
Pope and the Cæsar, the two columns of thy throne! Thou art
undone in the midst of thy victory!
I said some time ago to a friend of Señor Castelar's:
"He would be much the better of a long visit to
Germany; he has much to learn there."
"Ah!" was the reply, "he is too Latin for that.
Latin he is, no doubt, but he is also just and open-
minded beyond perhaps any politician of his time. To
speak of the King of Prussia or Emperor of Germany as
a monarch by divine right, is natural enough for anyone
who remembers the coronation at Königsberg, but much
has happened since.
Again, just before the storming of the Porta Pia:
""
One more ruin of privilege. That Pontificate which has divorced
democracy from religion, which has divorced liberty and equality
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MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
from the gospel, which has been the supporter of all tyrannies, the
enemy of all rights, which has made its own apotheosis by declaring
itself to be a god, infallible and impeccable amidst a progressive and
human society, that Pontificate is disappearing like a shadow, because
amidst so many struggles and so many martyrdoms the hour of
emancipation for the conscience has sounded. "Te Deum Laudamus,
Te Deum Libertatis !”
Here is Napoleon III. at Wilhelmshöhe:
(6
Sometimes he goes into the neighbouring villages, stops the
children as they come from the schools, asks them about their games
and their studies. He ought to say to them, looking at them fixedly
with those eyes of a bird of prey: Grow, grow in peace, there will
come no other Napoleon to mow down the generations in their flower
upon the fields of battle. Look abroad upon the cornfields and the
vineyards, you are Labour and Life, I am the last shadow of Cæsarism
and War."
The latter part of the eight and the whole of the
ninth volume contain a detailed and most brilliant
account of the hideous Commune, the greatest calamity,
as M. Castelar thinks, which has occurred in modern
times to the cause of the Republic. It is full of admirable
pages. Not the least admirable are those which sketch
the chief actors-the stoical Jacobin, Delescluzes, who,
abhorring Socialism and Federalism, enthusiastic for a
strong State and an authoritative Republic, found himself
in the hard necessity of choosing whether he would hold
with the chiefs of the Republican party, whom he de-
tested, or the rank and file which he despised; Tridon
the Hébertist, who dreamed that the Republic of 1871
had the same enemies to fight as that of 1792, that the
powder of the Bastille was still in the air, the shade of
the feudal castle still over the land, and the cinders of
the fires of the Inquisition still in the middle of the
squares; Grousset, the dilettante in revolution; Rigault
and Ferré the Terrorists, to whom murder was sacramental,
and so many more.
:
EMILIO CASTELAR.
283
!
Amongst the most interesting of these sketches is
that of Félix Pyat, the author of several works which
M. Castelar greatly admires, such as his play " Diogenes;"
but yet often showing himself as a writer of the Deca-
dence, with extravagant images, absurd parallels, impro-
bable hyperboles, far-fetched antitheses, who in his
political character is thus described:
Not a tribune, not a statesman, but a dramaturge who cares above
all things for his phrases of effect, for his scenes of anxiety, for his
arguments of interest, for the knots which he skilfully ties, for the
sudden and unexpected untwining of those knots, as if the whole
world were an eternal theatre.
How strange is the difference of human fates! If this
obscure revolutionist had had the good fortune to have
been born to the north of the Straits of Dover, precisely
the same qualities might have brought him into the
position of the honoured chief of a proud aristocracy, the
defender of an apostolic church, the pillar of an ancient
throne.
The time has not yet come to write the real history
of the Commune, and those who are best acquainted with
it would have much to object to in Señor Castelar's narra-
tive. It is, however, extremely interesting, and so full
of quotable passages that I must pass a self-denying
ordinance against lingering upon it, since there are still
one or two works of Señor Castelar's on which I must say
just a word.
All the world knows that the events of January, 1874,
in consequence of which Señor Castelar retired from Spain,
were the beginning of the end, and that a military pro-
nunciamento led, in the end of that year and the first few
days of the next, to the restoration of the Bourbons in
the person of King Alfonso, the son of Isabella II.
The following passage from a book called "Cartas
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MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
sobre Politica Europea," which consists of two volumes of
letters contributed during a series of years to South
American periodicals, but collected in 1876, is interesting,
as showing that Señor Castelar, in spite of the fate of his
beloved Republic, bates nothing of heart and hope.
To-day, with the same faith as in my first days, I sustain and
defend the alliance of liberty with democracy, and of liberty and
democracy with order, because if in that way social renovation is
more slow and gradual, it is also more enduring and more secure, for
there is nothing more terrible than the reactions which are brought
about by the excesses of peoples, and the abuse of justice and right.
Another volume, published as late as last year at
Barcelona, contains speeches made by Señor Castelar in
the Cortes of 1876 and of the earlier part of 1877, many
of them of the very highest merit, and showing that his
being supported by, if I remember right, only one* other
Republican in the Chamber, does not in the slightest
degree disconcert him, while the admirable, high-minded,
and kindly attitude which he preserved towards the
Monarchists when he was in power, has attained for him
a sympathy and respect such as is rarely accorded in any
country to political adversaries. I will quote only two
passages where I might quote a score two passages
which, like many others that I have cited, may well be
read, marked, and inwardly digested in countries which
are far away from Spain.
I know no demonstration so evident of the inefficiency of political
Powers in the religious question as that last journey of Julian's to the
foot of Parnassus, to the margin of the Castalian fount, to the edge
of the wood where the Pythoness spoke her oracles, when on passing
through the inter-columnium where Apollo used to touch his lyre and
Greece drank her inspirations, the Emperor found the columns without
*This was a mistake. There are three-an eminent banker and
two Grandees of Spain.
EMILIO CASTELAR.
285
+
ex-votos, the altar without victims, the shrine without offerings, the
tripod without fire, the sacred vases without the ancient hydromel, in
spite of his having restored Paganism in the schools, in the laws, in
the empire-vain restoration, I repeat, for it avails not to open the
bosom of the State to a belief, if that belief takes not hold where
all beliefs root themselves profoundly, in the immortal bosom of our
spirit.
And near the end :
The blind woman in the Gospel seeking Christ in His sepulchre of
stone reminds me of these reactionary schools. Yes, they seek Christ
where He is not, in the sepulchre of the Middle Age, in the walls of
the feudal castles, in the fetters of the slave, when Christ has risen in
liberty, risen in equality, risen wherever a truth is enunciated or a
work of justice done.
The hour has happily not yet arrived to take a final
estimate of Señor Castelar; he has, we may hope, many
years of activity before him.* In England, indeed, he
would be, politically speaking, an infant, although in
Spain, which many suppose to be a dead and torpid
country, he has risen without any advantages of birth
or fortune to have been already some years ago, for a
time, the first citizen. It is peculiarly difficult to fore-
cast the future of so fair and open-minded a man. If
Señor Castelar changes an opinion, we may be sure he
will say so, and a larger intercourse with the world
outside Spain would probably lead him to change
some opinions although no principles. I have already
said that he has much to learn about Germany, and
although he knows more of England, he has much to
learn about her also; so much that it is most heartily to
be desired that he should carry into effect a project which
* In the last few months this indefatigable worker has published a
new novel, and when I saw him, on the 30th September, was on the
point of completing a politico-religious book.
•
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MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
he is understood to have cherished, and should pass
some time in this country amongst English public men.
The truth is that no European politician who aspires to
be really a statesman can afford nowadays not to know
pretty intimately France, Germany, England, and we
may add Italy. If he does not take the trouble to do
this, he is quite sure to nourish prejudices from which a
wider survey of men and things would have saved him.
For certain purposes of course such a wide survey is
undesirable. For the obtaining of immediate applause,
and the kind of success that comes of it, a politician
perhaps does well to keep his mind a blank about other
countries, because then he is always free, when their
affairs come up for discussion in his own, to adopt the
particular view that seems most popular with his party,
and shriek it forth at the top of his voice. That, how-
ever, is not at all in Señor Castelar's line, and he will be
well content to sacrifice some illusions which he cherishes
about England, and which are useful enough for rhetorical
purposes at home, if he is convinced they are not founded
on fact.
The reader who has followed me through this and
the preceding article, will have seen that he is not being
introduced to a speaker and writer who has not a reason-
able share of faults. He will have observed amongst
other things that I have not been able to point to a
single work, putting isolated speeches and essays out of
the question, which seems to me quite as good as Señor
Castelar could make it if he gave himself more time; but
I have been singularly unfortunate in my selections if I
have not left on his mind the impression that he has
been making acquaintance with one of the most
gifted, purest-minded, and interesting of contemporary
politicians.
Someone said in the newspapers, the other day, that
EMILIO CASTELAR.
287
he was rather the Spanish Sheridan than the Spanish
Gladstone. He seems to me quite unlike any public'
man we have ever had, both in his merits and defects.
But if a man who has drunk of the modern spirit, as no
English statesman of first-rate importance has done,
were to rise amongst us with the oratorical genius of
Señor Castelar, and that acquaintance with affairs which
almost everyone gets in the House of Commons, he
would, in ten years, be the most powerful man in
England.
SPEECH ON THE POLITICAL SITUATION,
DELIVERED AT PETERHEAD, 6TH SEPTEMBER, 1878.*
GENTLEMEN,-It will be in the recollection of some
of you that, when I was here last October, a wish
was expressed, at a meeting of the Town Council, that
I should make my address to
address to the constituency
this year at and through Peterhead. I was further
asked not to speak, as I did at this place in 1876,
upon one single subject, which, however important,
would in all likelihood be specially interesting to one
section of you only, but upon general politics, which
interest, or ought to interest all-since he who says that
he does not care for general politics, merely says, in
other words, that he does not care for the welfare of
mankind, at least in this sublunary scene. I need not
say that in all matters of arrangement and procedure my
one desire is to do what may, from time to time, appear
most respectful, agreeable, and convenient to all parts of
* For further remarks on many of the subjects alluded to in this
speech I would refer to chapter ii. of "A Political Survey," Edin-
burgh, 1868; to an article in the "Fortnightly" for 1875, on “England
and Russia in the East;" to the "Pulse of Europe" and "Eastern
Affairs at the Close of the Session," in the "Contemporary
Contemporary Review"
for 1876; to the pamphlet called "The Eastern Question," published by
Edmonston and Douglas in November of that year; to two articles
on Russia and a paper entitled the "Five Nights' Debate," in the
Nineteenth Century " for 1877; to two papers on the " Situation," and
on the debate on Lord Hartington's motion, in the same "Review" for
1878; and to "Hansard " for 1869, 1873, 1878, &c. &c.
THE POLITICAL SITUATION.
289
the district which I represent; and as I thought there
was a great deal of force in some of the observations that
were made by the electors who interested themselves in
this subject, and was persuaded that my friends in the
Returning Burgh would take the same view, I had no
difficulty in immediately promising to do what they
desired. Here, then, I am at the earliest possible
moment, after the close of a long, arduous, and to
persons of my way of thinking, most painful session,
fully prepared to redeem my promise to the best of my
ability.
Well, then, now that we have met, what are we to
talk about? About that, I presume, which is occupying
the minds of all intelligent people in the country, about
the position in which we find ourselves, and the grave
prospects that are opening before us. For more than
two years and a half, one subject has dwarfed all other
subjects of political concern. All men have been asking
whether what was passing in the East would force us
into war, or would in some other way seriously affect our
national interests. I wish it were possible even now to
give a satisfactory answer to these questions.
When the troubles, which led to the recent tre-
mendous convulsion, first began in a remote corner of
the Ottoman Empire, there were many who did not
heed them at all; there were some who were rather
pleased than otherwise, thinking it was nothing more
than one of those local disturbances, periodical in the
Balkan Peninsula, where, in the words of the great poet,
once our neighbour :
Freedom still at moments rallies,
And pays in blood oppression's ills.
Some few of us, however, who had been led by one cause
or another to give rather special attention to the affairs
U
290
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
of those countries, felt extremely uneasy. We knew how
mined they were by intrigue, and how covered the
surface was with inflammable materials. We sympathised
accordingly, and sympathised most heartily, with the
Government, and with all those who were anxious, at
almost any price, to prevent the strife continuing which
had broken out in Bosnia and the adjoining province.
"Things are not ripe," we said, "or anything like ripe,
for a definite settlement in European Turkey. It is
perfectly clear that the Mohammedan power cannot very
long support itself there. It is perfectly clear that the
Christian must increase and the Turk decrease; but for
the sake of both the Christian and the Turk, do not let
us have their differences come at present to the bloody
arbitrament of war. Let us hold to the policy of 1856, as
most wisely interpreted—that is, the policy of preserving
the Sick Man's rich inheritance for his natural heirs, when
they are ready to enter upon it, preventing, so far as we
can, intrigues from without, and discouraging undue
haste." We preserved that attitude all through the
earlier months of the struggle. We wished to deal with
the evils, which we saw, by sedatives, and to avoid what
are or were called in medicine "heroic measures." These
views were held, I think, by most persons who had
studied the East, till well into the summer of 1876, and
under their influence the leaders of the Liberal party
approved the adhesion of the Government to the scheme
of reform for Turkey which was embodied in the docu-
ment called after the leading statesman of Austro-
Hungary, the Andrassy note; while, for the same
reason, they approved of the Government's not having
given in its adhesion to the Berlin Memorandum, a
document of a loose and inaccurate kind, which might
have committed the country to a great deal more than
it bargained for. In the summer of 1876, however, and
Glad
THE POLITICAL SITUATION.
291
towards the last days of the Session, detailed accounts
began to come to London of the horrible series of trans-
actions which we then called the Bulgarian Atrocities,
because they were atrocities perpetrated on Bulgarians.
When we speak of the Bulgarian Atrocities now, we
mean the corresponding series of atrocities perpetrated
by Bulgarians-one set of half-savages in those regions
being just as bad as the other. The atrocities, however,
of the summer of 1876 were perpetrated by Turks upon
Bulgarians.
And there burst forth all over Great
Britain, and more especially in the large English towns,
a perfect storm of rage and horror at what had occurred.
From all sides came the cry: "Have nothing more to do
with the Turk. Give up the policy you have hitherto
pursued. Let Russia, or anybody else who likes and can,
improve him off the face of creation; but let us have an end
of him and his government, as far as Europe is concerned."
Those of us of whom I have been previously speaking
said:
"All that has happened is extremely hideous, but
it surely does not take you by surprise. It is surely
only what we all knew must happen if once the war-
fiend were let loose in the Eastern Peninsula. But
think what you are doing. If you have deliberately
come to the conclusion that the statesmen of 1856 were
quite wrong in what they did, good and well-change
their policy, alter your line of march; instead of moving
south, move east, west, north, in any direction you
please, but do not change your policy, do not alter your
line of march, from a mere sudden gust of passion. Do
it deliberately, and after due consideration." These
were the views which we put forward, but we might as
well have gone down and preached to the waves when a
north-east gale is blowing into your bay.
nothing for our pains but abuse, and were held to be
the most hard-hearted and unsympathetic of mankind.
We got
41
U 2
292
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
People even wrote elaborate essays to prove that the fact
of our having studied Eastern affairs was a positive dis-
qualification for coming to any sound conclusion about
them, because it led us to attach too much importance
to certain fine and not very important details, and to
neglect the main considerations, which were all ready to
our hand.
We bore the chiding of friends and the abuse of
enemies as well as we could, while the storm raged and
swelled, till at last an incident happened which greatly
changed the aspect of affairs. A statesman of supreme
importance, a statesman who had long been the leader
of the Liberal party, and who would have been leading
it still, if he had not refused any longer to do so, and
resigned his sceptre to a younger hand, suddenly declared
in favour of the movement, and put himself at the head
of it; while, at the same time, it became evident that
the Government had itself abandoned any idea of active
support of Turkey, convinced, at least for the moment,
that the nation would have none of it.
It is the function of an Opposition rather to criticise
the policy of those in power than to originate a policy of
their own; and in adopting that course, and in making
no definite proposal about Eastern affairs in September,
1876, the official Leader of the Opposition in the Commons,
Lord Hartington, acted strictly in accordance with con-
stitutional usage. The fact, however, that the Opposition
had, as an Opposition, no regular and well-defined policy,
left its individual members free to put forward, in
speeches and writings, each their own view, and, as we
know, many were put forward. Those with whom I had
most sympathy were especially anxious to re-establish
the Concert of Europe, broken, and probably rightly
though unfortunately broken, by the rejection of the
Berlin Memorandum. They thought that England in
THE POLITICAL SITUATION.
293
an isolated position could do little; but that England,
if she originated and backed with all her might a pro-
posal which should be fair to all concerned, could do
everything. As to what the precise proposal should be,
there was much difference of opinion.
*
My own view was this. I said "If the old English
policy is no longer approved by the great majority of
the English people, if we are to have a quite new de-
parture, if Europe is to intervene against the Porte, and
remove the Sultan's authority from the greater part of
European Turkey, let us make such a settlement as may
endure for a reasonable time. Do not let us have this
hideous nightmare of an Eastern Question hanging over
Europe for another thirty years, troubling commercial
operations throughout the whole world, keeping men
whose fortunes are at all connected with trade-and who
are the men in this commercial country whose fortunes
are not more or less connected with trade ?-in a per-
petual fever. If you once go beyond the Andrassy
reforms, at least let what you do be decisive !" And I
proposed a definite settlement, for which I fought long
and hard. Perhaps my suggestion was right, perhaps it
was wrong. That need not for the present be discussed
but at least it kept in view the points essential to any
real settlement. It safe-guarded the rights of the popu-
lations of the Balkan Peninsula, both Christian and
Mussulman; put the custody of the Straits in good
hands, friendly both to Russia and to Western Europe.
It protected the just interests of England and other
European powers in the Levant, and it gave full satis-
faction to all the legitimate demands of Russia.
;
The Government, however, did not see their way to
adopting any of the ideas which were suggested to them,
or to finding any of their own. They preferred to leave
things to take their course, and take their course they
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MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
did with a vengeance. I will not recall the events of
the year 1877. They are fresh in the recollection of you
all. During their evolution, the official Leaders of Oppo-
sition, and we who obey them in Parliament, in no way
trammelled those upon whom rested the tremendous
responsibility of guiding the policy of the country.
Some of our friends would have liked us to have been
less forbearing; but I think our Leaders were right in
being extremely cautious. The duties of the Leaders of
an Opposition, when there is any possibility of the
country being involved in war, are exceedingly difficult
and delicate. On the one hand, they must oppose any-
thing which seems likely unnecessarily to involve the
country in war; and in the next place, they must take
care not to put themselves in an anti-national position.
Leaders of Opposition in England have not always trod
with perfect firmness the delicate line which separates
those opposite errors; but I am bound to say that I
think Lord Hartington did neither too much nor too
little in the way of criticism and protest. At length,
however, the whole series of transactions came to an end
in the Treaty of Berlin, plus the Anglo-Turkish Con-
vention; and as it had been the duty of the Opposition,
while negotiations were still pending, to inquire and
criticise, but not to fall into anything that could be fairly
called factious hostility, so it became their duty to bring
up every man they could to the division of the 3rd
August, to speak out unreservedly, to tell the country
what they thought of the arrangements come to, and to
warn it of the dangers ahead. This they have done in
Parliament, are doing in their respective localities, and
will, I hope, continue to do through the recess, for the
so-called settlement is a bad settlement, and a dangerous
settlement, if indeed it is reasonable to speak of it as a
settlement at all.
THE POLITICAL SITUATION.
295
Now, why is it a bad settlement? To answer that
question I must look very briefly at its separate parts.
And, first, let us turn to Europe. Gentlemen, I will not
trouble you by showing the unsatisfactoriness of the
Berlin Treaty in detail. I have done that in the House
of Commons and elsewhere. I will just ask a few
questions, to which all of you who read the newspapers
can give ready answers. Dare we call that a settlement
which satisfies hardly one of those who are most con-
cerned? Is more than one power satisfied with what has
been done? Take, first, the small ones. Is Roumania
satisfied? Roumania has lost one of the portions of her
territory which she most cherished, and has received in
return other territory which may or may not be good for
her, but which she certainly never desired to have.
Take, then, Servia. Is she satisfied with the poor little
extension she has got? Why, gentlemen, I have in my
possession a letter from one of her leading public men,
written to me just before the war of 1876, in which he
tells me that, if the resistance of the Porte to the Servian
arms did not impose upon them heavy sacrifices, they
would be satisfied (save the mark !) with the annexation
of Bosnia. Take, then, Montenegro. Well, we all heard
in the debate the views of the leading advocate of
Montenegrin claims in this country. He is certainly
very far from being satisfied with what has been accorded
to his protégés. Well, then, Greece. Everyone knows
that Greece is dissatisfied. Now for the bigger people.
Is Austria satisfied? Doubtless a considerable party in
Austria is satisfied-the party, that is, which lit up the
whole conflagration at the time of the emperor's visit
to Dalmatia. They are satisfied; but the coolest and
shrewdest heads in the empire are very far from being
satisfied. They see before them the prospect of diffi-
culties which may well derange the delicate balance of
296
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
forces by which the empire exists. And Turkey-how
is it with Turkey? Turkey, say the Government and
its friends, has been saved. A country as big as Ireland,
which was taken from it by the provisions of San
Stefano, has been restored to it. To that, however, we
reply that such an assertion is mere juggling with phrases.
Turkey is simply partitioned. The year 1878 will be to
her what 1772 was to Poland. I wonder which years will
take the place of 1793 and 1795, the dates of the second
and third partitions of the last-named country? Well,
then, Russia—is Russia satisfied with the settlement in
Europe? On the contrary, she is utterly disgusted.
She considers that she has been jockeyed out of the fair
reward which she should have reaped for expending
hundreds of thousands of lives and millions of money.
I will not say anything about France or Italy. Read
the extracts from their journals in ours, and you will see
what they are feeling.
""
The only Power which is satisfied is Germany. And
why is Germany satisfied? Because Germany, of which
I said in the debate of the 8th April, to the surprise of
some who had not been following her proceedings as
closely as I had, that we might take as our motto on
going into the Congress, " Sine Germania nulla salus;
that is, "Unless Germany helps you out of the scrape
diplomatically, you will have to fight yourselves out of
it," and which Lord Beaconsfield now calls, very truly,
the great peacemaker, has throughout all this business
really had one feeling predominant above all others :
"For goodness' sake, whatever happens in the East, do
not let us have a great European war ; settle it any way
you like rather than bring upon us and the world that
hideous calamity." But Germany would, I trust, equally
have supported England if at an earlier stage of the
affair she had come forward with a bold and statesman-
.
THE POLITICAL SITUATION.
297
like plan for settling the question of Turkey in Europe.
That the opportunity for doing this, which occurred in
the autumn of 1876, was missed, is a circumstance
which our sons and perhaps our grandsons will deplore ;
for it well may be that never again may the extraordinary
combination of fortunate accidents which then existed
come together in the world. If "the great peacemaker "
supported an arrangement which at the last moment
prevented the general peace being broken, how much
rather would he have supported an arrangement which
would have prevented that disturbance of commercial
and other relations which comes from the apprehension
of approaching war, and which would have had, in
addition, the enormous advantage of enabling Europe to
forget, as an object of uneasiness and alarm, that fateful
city to which Constantine seems to have transferred no
small portion of the magical power which gives to the
other and older Rome such an influence over human
destiny.
I come now to the Asiatic part of the business, which
touches us more immediately, if not more nearly. Well,
you are aware that by the Anglo-Turkish Convention we
guarantee the Sultan's Asiatic dominions, he engaging
to make reforms, and we obtaining something that is,
and yet is not, sovereignty over Cyprus. Now, there
are two ideas about this arrangement. A common idea
on the Continent, and an idea held by many in this
country, is that the Convention was, so far as we are
concerned, merely a dodge, to use a slang phrase, for
getting possession of an island in the Levant; that no
real reforms will be made by the Sultan; that things
will go on in the old way; and that we shall leave
Turkey in Asia to go to ruin as Turkey in Europe has,
to so great an extent, already done. That,
an interpretation which I utterly reject.
however, is
I do not
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MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
believe that a Cabinet composed of English gentlemen,
whatever may have been the temptations to which they
were exposed, would, merely to throw a sop to the
noisiest and worst section of their supporters, have
mixed themselves up with a transaction like that. I
believe, and will continue to believe until I see direct
and absolute proof to the contrary, that the declarations
of ministers are to be taken as some indication of their
policy. If that is so, the situation becomes intelligible,
and not dishonourable; but is also seen to be extremely
grave.
And first as to Cyprus. You hear and will hear a
great deal about its unhealthiness and other disad-
vantages. Do not, however, attach much importance to
all that. It will be found, I fancy, to be, in respect of
health and convenience, not worse than other places in
the same latitude-very much like other Mediterranean
islands that have been long thinly peopled. I daresay
there are plenty of places in it to which you might apply
the Sardinian proverb about a feverish district, "He that
goes to Oristano stays there;" but there are, doubtless,
numbers of healthy enough stations for troops. If we
had obtained it by purchase or excambion, I should not
see any particular objection to our having it, always
provided we had not given too much for the acquisition.
The serious matter is the obligation which we undertake
to defend the Sultan by arms, and to see his subjects.
well treated. Now, it is clear that Cyprus was a very
trifling consideration for undertaking any obligation at
all. There are many private persons in this country
who could have paid down the whole sum at which the
Sultan's rights over Cyprus are understood to have
been valued a year ago, without being much the worse
for it. There are proprietors in this very county who
could do so. Cyprus, then, was only part of the con-
THE POLITICAL SITUATION.
299
sideration for which we undertook our obligation. What
was the other part?
We are told it was the strengthening of our hold
over India. Well, that is a great and important object.
In India we have got, as has been truly said, a wolf by
the ears; we must hold it whether we like it or not, and
perhaps in the fulness of time excellent and glorious
results may come out of our holding it; but whether
they do or whether they don't, hold it we must, and
whatever increases our power to do so is good; but how
does the guaranteeing of the Sultan's Asiatic dominions
against Russia conduce to that object? Because, say
the friends of the Government policy, Russia is an
aggressive power, ever pressing towards the south. Be
it so, I reply: "If you are sufficiently strong to say to
Russia, in the words of the Prime Minister, 'thus far
shalt thou go, and no farther' in Turkish Asia, and
Russia still desires to move south, anyone who looks at
the map must see that she will either have to move
south through Persia or through Afghanistan. Now,
will not both of these moves south be much more incon-
venient for you than her moving south in Turkish Asia ?"
I cannot see why her moving south in Turkish Asia is a
matter of paramount importance to you. Observe I say
of paramount importance. Of course I had rather that
that country and Persia, and Afghanistan were occu-
pied by Powers sufficiently strong to hold their own
against Russia without your assistance, and that she was
forced to extend herself to the east of Central Asia, and
not to the south at all; but that not being so, I had
rather her chief pressure were towards the south-west,
and not towards the south-east and India. Now, how-
ever, the measure of your success on the Armenian
frontier will be just the amount of pressure brought
to bear against you in Persia and in Afghanistan,
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MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
so that you gain nothing but a loss. Already, you
see, that the moment there was a question of your
going to war with Russia in Turkey, she began to move
troops towards the Oxus, and sent an embassy to Cabul.
Why did she do that? Why, because it was the natural
counter-move to your sending for the Indian troops.
We can't have it both ways. We can't have the advan-
tage of India being a great separate empire, using its
troops to protect itself, and using them to help us in
Europe. If we draw her into the European State system
we must take the disadvantages with the advantages of
the agreement.
Observe, I am not expressing any opinion, for the
moment, about the expediency or inexpediency of bring-
ing the Indian troops to Malta. There is a great deal
to be said about that on both sides, and I think Lord
Hartington was entirely right in taking the vote on the
constitutional part of the question, where our case was,
as it seems to me, overwhelming. The idea of bringing
Indian troops to the West, under certain circumstances,
has been a most familiar idea to my mind for more than
five-and-twenty years; ever since the late Sir James
Outram used to talk to me about the wisdom, in case of
a war with France, which many people expected in 1852,
of anticipating her by landing a force at Cosseir, and
occupying Egypt; and we had Indian troops in Egypt
in the days of Napoleon; but there are a great many
difficult questions connected with the employment of
Indian troops far from India, which I cannot go into
All I want at present is to point out to you, as I
did a moment ago, that we must take the disadvantages
with the advantages of such a proceeding.
now.
The most sensible people who have treated of the
relations of Russia and England in Western Asia have
always pooh-poohed the idea of a Russian invasion of
THE POLITICAL SITUATION.
301
;
İndia, but they have at the same time said: "It is
perfectly possible that Russia may try, by moving a
knight or a castle in Central Asia, to give you check on
the Bosphorus. But if the noisy rejoicing which we
hear in some quarters has any foundation, we have tried
to give her check on the Bosphorus. Small blame if in
return she feels inclined to move a castle or a knight in
Central Asia. Whether she can do so with much effect
is another question; but the whole policy of the Govern-
ment is based on the assumption that she can do so
with very serious effect indeed.
I am extremely unlikely to underrate the importance
of India. There are few men in the country less dis-
posed to do so; but I confess I view with some fear and
jealousy the unwise prominence that has of late been
given to that dependency. We can't think too much
about India, but we can dream much too much about
India, and the present Government, to most of whom,
when they came into office, India was an absolutely new
subject, have not been thinking but dreaming about it.
Hence, amongst other things, such sensational strokes of
policy as the Delhi assemblage, and the injudicious
advance to Quettah against the opinion of Lord Lawrence
and all the most cool-headed men who knew our
Western frontier. Ministers have been dreaming too
much of visionary dangers in India to have had time to
bethink them of the real dangers they were bringing on
Great Britain. If India is to be made the first, and
Great Britain only the second consideration of British
Ministers, British constituencies may begin to ask rather
angry questions about the exact value of India to them.
It is a proud moment for an inhabitant of these far
Atlantic Islands, when seated among the ruins of
Toghluckabad, or some other of the round dozen of great
cities which have stood at one time or another on the
-
302
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
plain of Delhi, he thinks that the descendants of the
millions who once looked to that spot as the centre of
their universe, now look to his own native land, to those
distant cities,
Where the rulers of India dwell
Whose orders flash from the far land who girdle earth with a spell;
but it is not pleasant to have to reverse the process, and
to feel here that the real interests of our British cities are
thrown out of gear by the purely imaginary exigencies
of Delhi. It is these dreams about India that have led
us away from the right policy of regulating, namely, in
concert with Europe, but in a friendly spirit towards
Russia, the extent of her influence in the Eastern
Peninsula, and have made us attempt to regulate her
influence in Asia, not along with living Europe, but
along with dying Turkey, and not in a friendly but in a
hostile spirit. Govern India always better and better,
perfect your lines of frontier and other communications,
keep your naval superiority, watch and continually
improve the Egyptian land and sea transit; let Russia
know quietly that any interference with Afghanistan
means war with us; but that we take no thought of
what she is doing in Central Asia, except merely to note
it, and we may laugh at the bare idea of danger from
Russia.
Our wise policy when we once saw that our people
would no longer support the Turkish Government was
to take the initiative in proposing to Europe the plan
that, while it safeguarded all European interests, should
be most soothing to the susceptibilities of Russia. Why
should we go out of our way to get into an unnecessary
feud with a Power which, though not nearly so strong
as ourselves, is sufficiently strong to give us a great deal
of trouble? I have always maintained that our true
THE POLITICAL SITUATION.
303
.
policy with reference to Russia in Asia was first one of
masterly, because well-informed inactivity, and then
when the fulness of time had come, a co-operative policy
That was, I am convinced, the true policy. I do not say
that it is so now. It is amusing to find a class of people,
who have been vehemently hostile to Russia hitherto,
now taking up the position of peacemakers, and saying,
"Let bygones be bygones." It is, I fear, too late to hold
that language. That was the proper language to have
held at the commencement of these transactions. Russia
will take good care not to let bygones be bygones; rather
she will bide her time, reflecting with Cromwell at the
battle of Dunbar, that the Lord has delivered her enemies
into her hand, for to transfer the scene of our struggle
with Russia from Afghanistan to Armenia is just to
repeat the blunder of that day. I do not for a moment
deny that Russian diplomatists are very tricky; that
Ignatieff, for instance, in all the recent affairs was as
false as possible. I do not deny that there is a great
deal in Russian Governmental ways that is hateful. The
best Russians know that just as well as anyone else; but
I do maintain that a great deal of our dislike of Russia
and Russia's dislike of us arises from pure ignorance.
"When men see a strange object, which they know
nothing of, they go and hate it," says a wise Arab
proverb. I have been preaching this doctrine about
the Muscovite in books and speeches for the last
fourteen years. Time will show whether I was right
or wrong.
Let me sum up in a sentence the consideration we
have got on account of the duties we have undertaken.
That consideration is, in a word, the right to put Cyprus.
to rights till the inhabitants think that they would like
us to go about our business; the right to be much more
heartily hated by Russia than we were before; and the
::
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MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
right to fight our self-made enemy not where we are
strong in India or Afghanistan, but where he is strong,
in Armenia. These are our rights. Now, what are our
duties? To see that the Turk governs decently, and to
satisfy in this respect, the severest criticism, not only
from our own people, but from the subject populations
and from all our ill-wishers in all the world. Is that an
easy or a pleasant task? Have we found it easy and
pleasant to govern India, where we had everything com-
paratively in our own hands, where we had no hostile.
ambassadors at Constantinople intriguing against us,
no corrupt official class helping them-and when all
the hardest work was got through by a company of
merchants who could do a thousand things-in the
days when a letter took at least four months to come.
from the scene of their operations-which a civilised
government could not and dare not do now?
No, it comes to this-Either, as I have elsewhere
said, the Convention is altogether an imposture, or almost
an impossibility; and in order to take part in what is
either one or the other, you have signed a bill for a war
at a long date, and that a war which can be forced on
you at the bidding of a Power, which one of the most
distinguished of your public men described two years
ago-too strongly, in my judgment, but yet with the
approval of many of his countrymen-as "the great anti-
human specimen of humanity!" Is that wise? Is it
even endurable?
Gentlemen, it is all very well. Fireworks are pretty
things, even bad fireworks like those which the Govern-
ment has given us; but, please, remember that they must
be paid for. Every single farthing that has been spent
and will be spent is just so much deduction from the
comfort of your lives and the provision you can make
for your children. Lord Beaconsfield puts into the
THE POLITICAL SITUATION.
305
mouth of one of his favourite characters, the character
whom he selected to put forward the idea, which he has
lived to carry into effect, of making the Queen, Empress
of India, the following words: "What should I be
without my debts?" he would sometimes exclaim ;
"dear companions of my life that never desert me! All
my knowledge of human nature is owing to them! it is
in managing my affairs that I have sounded the depths
of the human heart, recognised all the combinations of
human character, developed my own powers, and
mastered the resources of others. What expedient in
negotiation is unknown to me? What degree of en-
durance have I not calculated? What play of the coun-
tenance have I not observed? Yes, among my creditors,
I have disciplined that diplomatic ability that shall some
day confound and control Cabinets." It is, gentlemen,
to that sort of thing that we are now given up--to the
happy-go-lucky finance and diplomacy of Bohemia !
How long will a nation, that respects itself, allow its
affairs to be managed by such hands in such a
spirit?
I come now to the question, "How was the thing
done?" and I find the manner as unsatisfactory as the
matter. If there is one doctrine of the Constitution more
to be respected than another, it is this-that in this
country great decisions are not only to be taken for the
people, but by the people, acting through their repre-
sentatives in Parliament. I do not mean for a moment
to deny that the power of making treaties is vested in
the Crown, as the head of the Executive; but I most
emphatically deny that it is in accordance with Consti-
tutional usage so to exercise that power as to spring a
mine upon the people-to surprise them into a totally
new course of policy. Now, it is a plain matter of common
sense that the recent Convention, if it is not a mere
X
;;
306
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
imposture, embarks us on a totally new course of policy.
It turns us, an essentially naval Power, into a Power with
a long, weak, land frontier, conterminous with a great
military State, and that the State which the authors
of the Convention suppose to be more hostile to us
than any other in the world. If that is not to embark
us on a totally new course of policy, I do not know
what is.
Under any circumstances, it would be very alarming to
see a step of this importance taken without the cognisance
of Parliament; but it was not only taken without the
cognisance of Parliament-Parliament was deliberately
hoodwinked, and by whom was it hoodwinked? By a
minister who, if he really has any political convictions at
all, which may be disputable, believes that the Revolution
of 1688, which confirmed our liberties, was a mistake and
a misfortune. Am I
Am I wrong in that statement? Listen
to his own words. He is speaking of the bed-chamber
affair which occurred at the beginning of this reign. "In
the great heat of Parliamentary faction which had pre-
vailed since 1831, the royal prerogative, which, unfor-
tunately for the rights and liberties and social welfare of
the people, had, since 1688, been more or less oppressed,
had waned fainter and fainter. A youthful princess on
the throne, whose appearance touched the imagination,
and to whom her people were generally inclined to ascribe
something of that decision of character which becomes
those born to command, offered a favourable opportunity
to restore the exercise of that regal authority, the usur-
pation of whose functions has entailed on the people of
England so much suffering and so much degradation. The
reaction of public opinion, disgusted with years of Parlia-
mentary tumult and the incoherence of party legislation,
the balanced state in the kingdom of political parties
themselves, the personal character of the Sovereign-
Conta
THE POLITICAL SITUATION.
307
these were all causes which intimated that a movement
in favour of prerogative was at hand. The Leader of the
Tory party should have vindicated his natural position.
But we forget-Sir Robert Peel is not the Leader of the
Tory party." Observe that phrase. Sir Robert Peel led
the Conservatives. Mr. Disraeli aspired even then, per-
haps, to re-invent and lead the Tories. But were these
perhaps only the views of the Prime Minister a generation
ago? Has he changed them as he has changed other
things? Why, only the other day the leading organ of
his party, the "Quarterly Review," published an article
obviously inspired, which enunciated the same doctrines
with a frank insolence that makes the reader's hair stand
on end.
This generation had never seen till 1874 even the
Conservatives in power. There have been Conservatives
in place since Peel broke with the Protectionists; but
they have never once since been in power till 1874, and
there is all the difference between the two that there is
between a fire on the hearth and a fire in your bed-
curtains. The one is at times highly useful for the
purposes of life; the other is a nuisance which you must
abate if it is not to abate you. In 1866 the Liberals
could not pass a Reform Bill against Conservative oppo-
sition; so they allowed the Conservatives to come in,
and then made them pass one at the price of keeping in
place. Then the Conservatives were, like a fire on the
hearth in cold weather, good and useful. In 1874 they
came in in spite of the Liberals, and then they were like
a fire in your bed-curtains.
-
But note that we have not merely Conservatives to
deal with. Lord Beaconsfield has repeatedly proclaimed
himself not a Conservative but a Tory, which is a much
worse thing-a thing we thought for all practical pur-
poses dead and buried. The extract I read to you.
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MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
a few moments ago, as illustrating the doctrine on
which Ministers have lately been acting, was rank
Toryism.
was.
This is much, but it is not all. You know that
Mr. Theodore Martin is engaged in publishing, volume
by volume, a very interesting life of the late Prince
Consort, and you have heard that a good deal of con-
troversy arose about the third volume. It is impossible
to regard the publication of that volume, at the particular
time it was published, as the mere act of the distinguished
man of letters, who is nominally responsible for it. The
publication was an act of State, and as such the act of the
Ministers of the Crown. And a most unfortunate act it
It was unfortunate, because, if there had not been
present, throughout the compilation of the volume, a
desire to support a particular group of political theories,
a somewhat different impression with regard to what the
views and influence of the late Prince Consort were,
would have gone forth to the public.
forth to the public. It was still more
unfortunate in that it wholly misled the nation as to
what the views and influence of the late Prince Consort
would have been, if his valuable life had been preserved,
and he had stood beside the throne in the anxious time
through which we have been passing. We are accus-
tomed to think of him as young, but, had he lived into
our days, he would have been, although still far from an
old man, nevertheless quite the oldest statesman in
Europe, by which I mean the man who had been longest
behind the scenes of the political stage. Dufaure,
Bismarck, Gladstone, even Gortchakoff never saw behind
the scenes at all, till long after the late Prince Consort
was as familiar, as anyone in his august position could be,
with the secret springs of European politics. Had he
lived, he would have been a depositary of knowledge,
which our hand-to-mouth Ministers sorely wanted, and
(a)
THE POLITICAL SITUATION.
309
would have done much, I doubt not, to help them
towards a statesmanlike solution of the problem over
which they have so deplorably blundered. But it is not
to the third but to the second volume of the book, and
to the astounding constitutional theories therein un-
veiled, that I would call the anxious attention of all
persons in this part of the country who know or care
about politics, and I would also invite their attention to
the article in the last number of the "Edinburgh Review"
upon this subject, as well as to the able pamphlet called
"The Crown and the Cabinet."
It would be difficult to exaggerate the practical
importance of the discussion.
It is the glory of our
Constitution that it has had the power of accommodating
itself to the change of times, and has grown ever more
and more favourable to the liberty of the subject, while
it kept intact all the graceful phraseology and habits of
the olden day. In a remarkable poem called "Crowned
and Discrowned," worthy to be quoted in this place,
whose chief connection with the great stream of history
was, I suppose, through the landing of the Chevalier de
St. George in our bay, a living writer has described
Charles Edward looking on at the coronation of
George III., and has made him say:
I must see your May-game ritual; see you give the Crown and Globe;
I must see your German masquing in my sire's Dalmatic robe;
For ye keep our sacred symbols, Edward's Staff and Edward's Crown;
Ye that build a throne for strangers, hurled your native monarchs down.
We, however, who look at the matter with other eyes,
can see that in this is the greatest merit of our Constitu-
tion. It reverences the past whenever the past is good,
or even harmless, but infuses a new spirit into the
ancient forms. The greatest living orator of the Latin
and
310
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
races told his countrymen: "Do not let us deceive our-
selves with the puerile pride that we have good laws.
What is essential is that these laws should be carried
into effect. That is why, to the Latin Constitutions
correctly written, commented on by great orators, built
on metaphysical principles, with architectural propor-
tions and Greek façades, the common sense of humanity
prefers the Saxon Constitutions, a monstrous and Gothic
work of the Middle Age, written in barbarous Latin,
hidden away in corners of the Archives, sometimes
without any known text, but whose rights are a living
reality, and extend their beneficent shade by land and
by sea, wherever waves the glorious flag of Old England."
Castelar hit the right mark when he said our Constitu-
tion was good, because the rights we enjoy under it are
a living reality; but how can you keep the rights which
are granted by a Constitution, which nowhere exists in
writing, a living reality except by constant watchfulness?
Relax that watchfulness, and your Constitution will soon
cease to be a good one-soon cease to accommodate
itself to the constant changes of society-soon become
a strait waistcoat, instead of a coat of mail.
(A)
-
In judging of this subject, there is another set of cir-
cumstances which should be kept in view. You know that,
during the last five-and-twenty years, competitive ex-
amination has been introduced for almost every branch of
the public service. I have always been a warm friend
of competitive examination, believing that, if properly
managed, it is the least bad method that has ever been
devised for filling up all those offices which are not too
insignificant to make it worth while to guard them from
favouritism, or so important that public opinion can be
brought to bear, with great and immediate force, in case
of a bad appointment. But the very best systems have
their disadvantages; and one of the results of improving
THE POLITICAL SITUATION.
311
so much as you have done, of late, the quality of the
persons employed in the more influential offices of the
State is, that you have greatly increased the power of
the bureaucracy.
There would be no harm in that, but only unmixed
good, if the quality of your members of Parliament
had been correspondingly improved during the same
period. But that is scarcely so.
I suppose there
is no doubt that every successive House of Com-
mons has fewer men in it who go into Parliament
with the purpose of making statesmanship the study of
their lives, just as they might make medicine, or theology,
or law. The inevitable result will be, as it is impossible
in the long run for the less intelligent to control the
more intelligent, that the bureaucracy will become more
and more independent of the constituencies. For the
only hold you have over it is through your members,
and if your members become, as they are becoming
increasingly, the spokesmen of limited interests, or rich
elderly men with very little general knowledge of the
difficult and complicated science of politics, you will
become less and less influential, except on those rare
occasions when some sensational subject excites a
momentary interest in the country, an interest which
will often be quite disproportioned to its real importance.
The moral of these considerations seems to me two-
fold—first, that the electors should look with great
jealousy upon the revival of dormant claims on the part
of the Crown, and the servants of the Crown, to take
action without consulting Parliament; and, secondly,
that they should remember, when they return men who
are merely well-to-do and locally useful, or are but the
representatives of some particular view or crotchet, instead
of being men who have already been trained, or may be
trained, into having that wide knowledge and balanced
g
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MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
judgment, which are the first requisites of statesmanship,
that they are simply weakening themselves, tying up, so
to speak, their own right arms, which should, through
their representatives, press with a firm and steady grasp
upon the helm of the State.
These thoughts had been passing through my mind
the other day when I chanced to re-read Mr. Burke's
famous speech to the electors of Bristol, made, as it
chances, exactly ninety-eight years ago this 6th of
September, and the finest speech I suppose ever de-
livered in this country to any body of electors. In it I
came upon the following passage, which is, I think,
worth recalling to you: "When the popular member is
narrowed in his ideas, and rendered timid in his pro-
ceedings, the service of the Crown will be the sole
nursery of statesmen. Among the frolics of the Court,
it may at length take that of attending to its business.
Then the monopoly of mental power will be added to
the power of all other kinds it possesses. On the side of
the people there will be nothing but impotence; for
ignorance is impotence, narrowness of mind is impotence,
timidity is itself impotence, and makes all other qualities
that go along with it impotent and useless." These are
weighty words, and much to be kept in mind at this
moment, especially by the party to which most of us
belong. The late Government, wisely or unwisely,
settled all the great questions which the country had
been educated into wishing for, by a long succession of
illustrious men who have gone to their rest. There
remain many important questions which are ripening,
but it wants great tact and caution on the part of your
and my leaders to determine which should be pressed
first, and how they should be pressed. Some of you
have your own ideas on that subject, and I have mine.
By all means let us do our best to urge our own views
THE POLITICAL SITUATION.
313
upon our leaders in a reasonable and friendly way; but
while our foes are so strong let us avoid like a pestilence
breaking off from the onward march of the party, and
raising minor differences into test questions.
A general election cannot fail to come before very
long, perhaps in July, 1879, perhaps in the same month
of 1880-anyhow, within two years from this time.
That election will be one of the greatest importance, for
the question put to the country will be, "Do you want
to be managed by the Liberal party and on Liberal
principles, or do you want to be managed by the party
now in power on its principles, or no principles? The
Liberal party gave you, under successive leaders, nearly
all the measures on which your prosperity has been
founded. The party now in power, whether we are to
call it Conservative or Tory, has given you a great deal
of excitement, pleasurable or otherwise, a long paralysis
of trade and increased taxation, together with ill-defined
liabilities abroad, and menaced liberties at home. To
which of them will you commit your destinies for
another period of five or six years? When the hour for
the struggle strikes, electors will have but one thing to
consider. Where can they find the man who can most
efficiently, by vote and voice in and out of Parliament,
support whichever of these parties seems to them, the
electors, most deserving of support. But some may say,
Oh no, our votes will not be determined by these large
considerations. We will be glad to have a man who is
of our political colour, but we will vote for no one who
does not pledge himself to this or that particular measure.
Believe me, gentlemen, that the people who take that
line, whether they incline to Liberalism, or to Conser-
vatism, or to Toryism, will simply throw away their
votes. The forces which are in presence, the interests
which are at stake, are far too serious. All mere isms,
.
Y
314
MISCELLANIES, POLITICAL AND LITERARY.
.
however respectable, will be pushed aside by the force of
events. The ensuing election will be a fierce struggle
between the progressive and retrograde elements of our
society, embodied in the names of particular men.
When the proper time arrives, I shall again present my-
self as a candidate for the suffrages of a constituency.
which has looked so indulgently, through the long
period of one-and-twenty years, upon my very humble
but very sincere endeavours to serve it. The principles
upon which I have acted in the past will be those upon
which I shall act in the future, and if those principles
are not very familiar to all of you, it is assuredly no
fault of mine; for I think there is no man in Scotland
who has tried more carefully to keep his constituents
acquainted with what he thought upon all great public
matters, by submitting his thoughts to them at these
autumn gatherings. By all my convictions, and by all
the habits of a life, I belong to that section of my party
which desires to carry into effect, as quickly as may be,
all those ideas of government which are generally
accepted by the Liberals of this and the other most
progressive countries of Europe; but in doing so, I
desire to be guided by considerations of time, place,
or opportunity-never to loiter through fainthearted-
ness or sloth; but, on the other hand, never to commit
my friends to courses which may provoke reaction
and illustrate the maxim, "The more haste, the less
speed."
In the meantime, however, the first task of all good
Liberals is to get the government of the country back
into the hands of men who are in sympathy with the
sober, reasonable portion of the community, and who
look for their reward to its approval, not to the applause
of the London Music Halls. What we must have ere
long, if the recent follies are not to end in disaster, if
THE POLITICAL SITUATION.
315
the millions that have been, or are in process of being
fooled away, are not to grow into sixty times six millions,
is a steady cool-headed Government, precisely the kind
of Government which has, since 1832, commanded the
support of the vast majority of Scotch electors.
3
THE END.
CHARLES DIckens and EVANS, CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS.
::
い
​2
BEDFORD STREET, STRAND, LONDON, W.C.
October 1878.
MACMILLAN & Co.'s CATALOGUE of Works
in the Departments of History, Biography,
Travels, Critical and Literary Essays,
Politics, Political and Social Economy,
Law, etc.; and Works connected with Lan-
guage.
·
:)
HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, TRAVELS, &c.
Albemarle.-FIFTY YEARS OF MY LIFE. By GEORGE
THOMAS, Earl of Albemarle. With Steel Portrait of the first Earl
of Albemarle, engraved by JEENS. Third and Cheaper Edition.
Crown 8vo.
7s. 6d.
"The book is one of the most amusing of its class. . . These remi-
niscences have the charm and flavour of personal experience, and they
bring us into direct contact with the persons they describe."-EDINBurgh
REVIEW.
Anderson. -MANDALAY TO MOMIEN; a Narrative of the
Two Expeditions to Western China, of 1868 and 1875, under
Colonel E. B. Sladen and Colonel Horace Browne. By Dr.
ANDERSON, F. R. S. E., Medical and Scientific Officer to the Ex-
peditions. With numerous Maps and Illustrations. 8vo. 21S.
A handsome, well-timed, entertaining, and instructive volume.".
ACADEMY.
"A pleasant, useful, carefully-written, and important work.”.
ATHENÆUM.
Ma
Appleton.-Works by T. G. APPLETON :—
A NILE JOURNAL. Illustrated by EUGENE BENSON. Crown
8vo. 6s.
SYRIAN SUNSHINE. Crown 8vo. 6s.
A
Arnold.—ESSAYS IN CRITICISM. By MATTHEW ARNOld.
New Edition, Revised and Enlarged. Crown 8vo. 9s.
Atkinson.-AN ART TOUR TO NORTHERN CAPITALS
OF EUROPE, including Descriptions of the Towns, the Museums,
and other Art Treasures of Copenhagen, Christiania, Stockholm,
3000.10.78.
:
2
MACMILLAN'S CATALOGUE OF WORKS IN
Abo, Helsingfors, Wiborg, St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Kief.
By J. BEAVINGTON ATKINSON. 8vo. 125.
(C
Although the main purbose of the book is strictly kept in view, and we
never forget for long that we are travelling with a student and connoisseur,
Mr. Atkinson gives variety to his narrative by glimpses of scenery and
brief allusions to history and manners which are always welcome when
they occur, and are never wordy or overdone. We have seldom met with
a book in which what is principal and what is accessory have been kept in
better proportion to each other."-Saturday Review.
Awdry.-THE STORY OF A FELLOW SOLDIER. BY
FRANCES AWDRY. With Six Illustrations. Second Edition.
Extra fcap. 8vo. 3s. 6d.
"This is a life of that brave, single-minded, and untiring Christian
Soldier, Bishop Patteson, written for the young. It is simply and
pleasantly written, and presents a lively picture of the labours, hardships,
troubles, and pleasures of earnest Missionary work among the Polynesian
Islands.”—Standard.
Baker (Sir Samuel W.)-Works by Sir Samuel Baker,
Pacha, M.A., F.R.G.S. :-
ISMAILIA: A Narrative of the Expedition to Central Africa for
the Suppression of the Slave Trade, organised by Ismail, Khedive
of Egypt. With Portraits, Maps, and fifty full-page Illustrations
by ZWECKER and DURAND. New and Cheaper Edition. Crown
8vo. 6s.
"C
A book which will be read with very great interest."-TIMES. "Well
written and full of remarkable adventures."-PALL MALL GAZETTE.
"Adds another thrilling chapter to the history of African adventure.”
DAILY NEWS. "Reads more like a romance....
….incomparably more
entertaining than books of African travel usually are.”—MORNING POST.
THE ALBERT N'YANZA Great Basin of the Nile, and Explora-
tion of the Nile Sources. Fifth Edition. Maps and Illustrations.
Crown 8vo. 6s.
"Charmingly written," says the SPECTATOR, "full, as might be
expected, of incident, and free from that wearisome reiteration of useless
facts which is the drawback to almost all books of African travel."
THE NILE TRIBUTARIES OF ABYSSINIA, and the Sword
Hunters of the Hamran Arabs. With Maps and Illustrations.
Sixth Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s.
HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, TRAVELS, ETC. 3
The TIMES says: "It adds much to our information respecting Egyptian
Abyssinia and the different races that spread over it. It contains, more-
over, some notable instances of English daring and enterprising skill ;
it abounds in animated tales of exploits dear to the heart of the British
sportsman ; and it will attract even the least studious reader, as the author
tells a story well, and can describe nature with uncommon power.
""
Bancroft.-THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES
OF AMERICA, FROM THE DISCOVERY OF THE CON-
TINENT. By GEORGE BANCROFT. New and thoroughly Re-
vised Edition. Six Vols. Crown 8vo. 54s.
Barker (Lady).—Works by LADY BARKER :—
A YEAR'S HOUSEKEEPING IN SOUTH AFRICA. With
Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 9s.
"We have to thank Lady Barker for a very amusing book, over which
we have spent many a delightful hour, and of which we will not take
leave without alluding to the ineffably droll illustrations which add so very
much to the enjoyment of her clear and sparkling descriptions.”—MORNING
POST.
Beesly.-STORIES FROM THE HISTORY OF ROME. By
Mrs. BEESLY. Extra fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d.
Blackburne.-BIOGRAPHY OF THE RIGHT HON.
FRANCIS BLACKBURNE, Late Lord Chancellor of Ireland.
Chiefly in connexion with his Public and Political Career. By his
Son, ÉDWARD BLACKBURNE, Q.C. With Portrait Engraved by
JEENS. 8vo. 125.
8vo. 21S.
Blanford (W. T.)-GEOLOGY AND ZOOLOGY OF
ABYSSINIA. By W. T. BLANFORD.
Brimley.—ESSAYS BY THE LATE GEORGE BRIMLEY,
M.A. Edited by the Rev. W. G. CLARK, M. A. With Portrait.
Cheaper Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d.
Brontë.—CHARLOTTE BRONTË. A Monograph. By T.
Second Edition. Crown
WEMYSS REID. With Illustrations.
8vo. 6s.
Mr. Reid's little volume, which is based largely on letters, hitherto
unpublished, from Charlotte Brontë to her school-fellow and life-long
friend, Miss Ellen Nussey, is meant to be a companion, and not a rival,
to Mrs. Gaskell's well-known " Life." To speak of the advantage of
making biography autobiographical by the liberal use of correspondence has
A 2
4
MACMILLAN'S CATALOGUE OF WORKS IN
she was by nature. (as Mr. Reid puts it) "a happy and high-spirited girl,
and that even to the very last she had the faculty of overcoming her
sorrows by means of that steadfast courage which was her most precious,
possession, and to which she was indebted for her successive victories over,
trials and disappointments of no ordinary character.”
The book is illustrated by a Portrait of the Rev. Patrick Brontë, several
Views of Haworth and its neighbourhood, and a facsimile of one of the
most characteristic of Charlotte's letters.
1
Brooke. THE RAJA OF SARAWAK: an Account of Sir
James Brooke, K. C. B., LL.D.. Given chiefly through Letters
or Journals. By GERTRUDE L. JACOB. With Portrait and
Maps. Two Vols. 8vo. 255.
"They who read Miss Jacob's book—and all should read it: all who
are under the delusion that in our time there is no scope for heroism, and
no place for romantic adventure, ond no place for enterprise and ambition
-will see how incident is crowded upon incident, and struggle upon
struggle, till in the very abundance of materials that come to her hana
the authoress can scarcely stop to give sufficient distinctness to her
wonderful narrative.”—ACADEMY.
M
→
Brooke.-RECOLLECTIONS OF THE IRISH CHURCH.
By RICHARD S. BROOKE, D.D., late Rector of Wyton, Hunts.
Crown 8vo. 4s. 6d.
Bryce. Works by JAMES BRYCE, D.C.L., Regius Professor of
Civil Law, Oxford :-
T
Sixth Edition, Revised and
"It exactly supplies a want: it affords a key to much which men
read of in their books as isolated facts, but of which they have hitherto
had no connected exposition set before them."-SATURDAY REVIEW.
THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE.
Enlarged. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d.
TRANSCAUCASIA AND ARARAT: being Notes of a Vacation
Tour in the Autumn of 1876. With an Illustration and Map.
Third Edition. Crown 8vo. 95.
"Mr. Bryce has written a lively and at the same time an instructive
description of the tour he made last year in and about the Caucasus. When
so well-informed a jurist travels into regions seldom visited, and even
walks up a mountain so rarely scaled as Ararat, he is justified in think-
ing that the impressions he brings home are worthy of being communicatea
to the world at large, especially when a terrible war is casting a lurid glow
over the countries he has lately surveyed."-ATHẸNÆUM.
Burgoyne.
POLITICAL AND MILITARY EPISODES
DURING THE FIRST HALF OF THE REIGN OF
GEORGE III. Derived from the Life and Correspondence of
·
·
HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, TRAVELS, ETC.
5
the Right Hon. J. Burgoyne, Lieut.-General in his Majesty's
Army, and M. P. for Preston. By E. B. DE FONBLANQUE. With
Portrait, Heliotype Plate, and Maps. 8vo. 165.
Burke.-EDMUND BURKE, a Historical Study.
MORLEY, B.A., Oxon. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d.
By. JOHN
"The style is terse and incisive, and ‹brilliant, with epigram: [and
point. Its sustained power of reasoning, its wide sweep of observation
and reflection, its elevated ethical and social tone, stamp it as a work of
high excellence."-SATURDAY ›REVIEW.
Burrows.-WORTHIES OF ALL SOULS: Four Centuries of
English History. Illustrated from the College Archives. By
MONTAGU BURROWS, Chichele Professor of Modern History at
Oxford, Fellow of All Souls. 8vo. 145.
“A most amusing as well as a most instructive book.—GUARDIAN.
Campbell.-LOG-LETTERS FROM THE "CHALLENGER.”
With Map. Fifth and cheaper
By LORD GEORGE CAMPBell.
Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s.
“A delightful book, which ave heartily commend to the general reader."
-SATURDAY REVIEW.
"We do not hesitate to say that anything so fresh, so picturesque, so
generally delightful, as these log-letters has not appeared among books of
travel for a long time."-EXAMINER.
"A more lively and amusing record of travel we have not had the
fortune to read for some time. The whole book is pervaded by a spirit of
life, animation, and fun."—Standard.
Campbell.-MY CIRCULAR NOTES: Extracts from Journals;
Letters sent Home; Geological and other Notes, written while
Travelling Westwards round the World, from July 6th, 1874, to
July 6th, 1875. By J. F. CAMPBELL, Author of "Frost and
Fire.' 2 vols. Crown 8vo. 255.
>>
"We have read numbers of books of travel, but we can call to mind
few that have given us more genuine pleasure than this. A more agree-
able style of narrative than his it is hardly possible to conceive.
We seem
to be accompanying him in his trip round the world, so life-like is his
description of the countries he visited."-LAND And Water.
Campbell.--TURKS AND GREEKS. Notes of a recent Ex-
cursion. By the Hon. DUDLEY CAMPBELL, M.A. With Coloured
Map. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
Carstares.-WILLIAM CARSTARES: a Character and Career
of the Revolutionary Epoch (1649-1715). By ROBERT STORY,
Minister of Rosneath. 8vo. 125.
6. MACMILLAN'S CATALOGUE OF WORKS IN
Chatterton: A BIOGRAPHICAL STUDY.
By DANIEL
WILSON, LL.D., Professor of History and English Literature in
University College, Toronto. Crown 8vo. 6s. 6d.
The EXAMINER thinks this "the most complete and the purest bio-
graphy of the poet which has yet appeared."
#
Chatterton: A STORY OF THE YEAR 1770. By Professor
MASSON, LL.D. Crown 8vo. 5s.
Combe.-THE LIFE OF GEORGE COMBE, Author of “The
Constitution of Man." By CHARLES GIBBON. With Three
Portraits engraved by JEENS. Two Vols. 8vo. 325.
"A graphic and interesting account of the long life and indefatigable
labours of a very remarkable man."-SCOTSMAN.
Cooper.-ATHENÆ CANTABRIGIENSES.
By CHARLES
HENRY COOPER, F.S.A., and THOMPSON COOPER, F.S.A.
Vol. I. 8vo., 1500-85, 18s.; Vol. II., 1586-1609, 18s.
Correggio. ANTONIO ALLEGRI DA CORREGGIO. From
the German of Dr. JULIUS MEYER, Director of the Royal Gallery,
Berlin. Edited, with an Introduction, by Mrs. HEATON. Con-
taining Twenty Woodbury-type Illustrations. Royal 8vo. Cloth
elegant. 31s. 6d.
"The best and most readable biography of the master at present to be
found in the English language."-ACADEMY. "By its pictures alone
the book forms a worthy tribute to the painter's genius."-PAll Mall
GAZETTE.
}
Cox (G. V.)-RECOLLECTIONS OF OXFORD. By G.
V. Cox, M.A., New College, late Esquire Bedel and Coroner
in the University of Oxford. Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s.
“An amusing farrago of anecdote, and will pleasantly recall in many
a country parsonage the memory of youthful days."-TIMES.
"Daily News."-THE DAILY NEWS' CORRESPOND-
ENCE of the War between Germany and France, 1870-1. Edited
with Notes and Comments. New Edition. Complete in One
Volume. With Maps and Plans. Crown 8vo. 6s.
THE DAILY NEWS' CORRESPONDENCE of the War between
Russia and Turkey, to the fall of Kars. Including the letters of
Mr. Archibald Forbes, Mr. J. E. McGahan, and other Special
Correspondents in Europe and Asia. Second Edition, enlarged.
Crown 8vo. IOS. 6d.
FROM THE FALL OF KARS TO THE CONCLUSION OF
PEACE. Crown 8vo.
IOS. 6d.
HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, TRAVELS, ETC.
Davidson.-THE LIFE OF A SCOTTISH PROBATIONER;
being a Memoir of Thomas Davidson, with his Poems and
Letters. By JAMES BROWN, Minister of St. James's Street
Church, Paisley. Second Edition, revised and enlarged, with
Portrait. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d.
7
Deas:-THE RIVER CLYDE. An Historical Description of the
Rise and Progress of the Harbour of Glasgow, and of the Im-
provement of the River from Glasgow to Port Glasgow. By J.
DEAS, M. Inst. C.E. 8vo. IOS. 6d.
Denison.-A HISTORY OF CAVALRY FROM THE EAR-
LIEST TIMES. With Lessons for the Future. By Lieut.-Col.
GEORGE DENISON, Commanding the Governor-General's Body
Guard, Canada, Author of "Modern Cavalry." With Maps and
Plans. 8vo. 18s.
Dilke.—GREATER BRITAIN. A Record of Travel in English-
speaking Countries during 1866-7._ (America,_Australia,_India.)
By Sir CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE, M.P. Sixth Edition.
Crown 8vo. 6s.
66
“Many of the subjects discussed in these pages," says the DAILY News,
are of the widest interest, and such as no man who cares for the future
of his race and of the world can afford to treat with indifference."
Doyle.—HISTORY OF AMERICA. By J. A. Doyle. With
Maps. 18mo. 4s. 6d.
"Mr. Doyle's style is clear and simple, his facts are accurately stated,
and his book is meritoriously free from prejudice on questions where
partisanship runs high amongst us."-SATURDAY REVIEW.
Drummond of Hawthornden: THE STORY OF HIS
LIFE AND WRITINGS. BY PROFESSOR MASSON. With Por-
trait and Vignette engraved by C. H. JEENS. Crown 8vo. 10s. 6d.
"Around his hero, Professor Masson groups national and individual
episodes and sketches of character, which are of the greatest interest, and
which add to the value of a biographical work which we warmly recom-
mend to the lovers of thoroughly healthy books."—Notes and QUERIES.
Duff.-NOTES OF AN INDIAN JOURNEY. By M. E. GRant-
DUFF, M. P., late Under Secretary of State for India. With Map.
8vo. IOS. 6d.
"These noves are full of pleasant remarks and illustrations, borrowed
from every kind of source."-SATURDAY Review.
Eadie.-LIFE OF JOHN EADIE, D.D., LL.D. By JAMES
BROWN, D.D., Author of "The Life of a Scottish Probationer."
With Portrait. Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d.
"An ably written and characteristic biography."-TIMES.
8
•
MACMILLAN'S CATALOGUE OF WORKS IN
Elliott.-LIFE OF HENRY VENN ELLIOTT, of -Brighton.
By JOSIAH BATEMAN, M.A., Author of "Life of Daniel Wilson,
Bishop of Calcutta," &c. With Portrait, engraved by JEENS.
Extra fcap. 8vo. Third and Cheaper Edition, with Appendix. 6s.
Elze.-ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE.
By Dr. KARL Elze.
Translated with the Author's sanction by L. DORA-SCHMITZ.
8vo. I25.
A more desirable contribution to criticism has not recently been made."
-ATHENÆUM.
•
A
J
•
English Men of Letters. Edited by JOHN MORLEY.
Series of Short Books to tell people what is best worth knowing
as to the Life, Character, and Works of some of the great
English Writers. In crown 8vo. Price 2s. 6d. each.
I. DR. JOHNSON.. BY LEslie Stephen.
I
"The new series opens well with Mr. Leslie Stephen's sketch of Dr.
Johnson. It could hardly have been done better; and it will convey to
the readers for whom it is intended a juster estimate of Johnson than
either of the two essays of Lord Macaulay."-Pall Mall GAZETTE.
II. SIR WALTER SCOTT. By R. H. HUTTON.
"The tone of the volume is excellent throughout."—ATHENÆUM.
"We could not wish for a more suggestive, introduction to Scott and
his poems and novels.”—EXAMINER.
1
III. GIBBON. By J. C. MORISON.
"As a clear, thoughtful, and attractive record of the life and works of
the greatest among the world's historians, it deserves the highest praise."-
EXAMINER.
SHELLEY. By J. A. SYMonds.
HUME. By Professor HUXLEY.
GOLDSMITH. By WILLIAM BLACK.
Others in preparation.
[In the press.
[In the press.
[In the press.
Eton College, History of. By H. C. MAXWELL LYTE,
M.A. With numerous Illustrations by Professor DELAMOTTE,
Coloured Plates, and a Steel Portrait of the Founder, engraved
by C. H. JEENS. New and cheaper Issue, with Corrections.
Medium 8vo. Cloth elegant. 21s.
"Hitherto no account of the College, with all its associations, has
appeared which can compare either in completeness or in interest with
this. It is indeed a book worthy of the ancient renown of King
Henry's College."-DAILY NEWS.
"We are at length presented with a work on England's greatest public
school, worthy of the subject of which it treats. A really valuable and
authentic history of Eton College."—GUARDIAN.
•
HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, TRAVELS, ETC.
European History, Narrated in a Series of Historical
Selections from the best Authorities. Edited and arranged by
E. M. SEWELL and C. M. YONGE. First Series, crown 8vo. 6s. ;
Second Series, 1088-1228, crown 8vo. 6s. Third Edition.
"We know of scarcely anything," says the GUARDIAN, of: this volume,
which is so likely to raise to a higher level the average standard of
English education."
費
​\
Faraday.
MICHAEL FARADAY. By J. H. GLADStone,
..
Ph.D., F.R.S. Second Edition, with Portrait engraved by JEENS
from a photograph by J. WATKINS. Crown 8vo. 4s. 6d.
PORTRAIT. Artist's Proof. 5
CONTENTS:-I. The Story of his Life. II...Study of his Character.
III. Fruits of his Experience. IV. His Method of Writing. V. The
-Value of his Discoveries.—Supplementary Portraits. Appendices. :—List
of Honorary Fellowships, etc.
M
1
9
-Forbes.-LIFE AND LETTERS OF JAMES DAVID
FORBES, F.R.S., late Principal of the United College in the
University of St. Andrews. By J. C. SHAIRP, LL.D., Principal
of the United College in the University of St. Andrews; P. G.
TAIT, M.A., Professor of Natural Philosophy in the University
of Edinburgh; and A. ADAMS-REILLY, F.R.G.S. 8vo. with
Portraits, Map, and Illustrations, 16s.
"Not only a biography that all should read, but a scientific treatise,
without which the shelves of no physicist's library can be deemed com-
plete."-STANDARD.
Freeman.-Works by EDWARD A. FREEMAN, D. C. L., LL.D. :—
HISTORICAL ESSAYS. Third Edition. 8vo. IOS. 6d.
CONTENTS :-I. "The Mythical and Romantic Elements in Early
English History;" II. "The Continuity of English History;" III.
"The Relations between the Crowns of 'England and Scotland;" IV.
"St. Thomas of Canterbury and his Biograbhers;" V. "The Reign of
Edward the Third:" VI. "The Holy Roman Empire;" VII. "The
Franks and the Gauls;" VIII. "The Early Sieges of Paris;" IX.
"Frederick the First, King of Italy;" X. "The Emperor Frederick the
Second:" XI. "Charles the Bold;" XII. “Presidential Government.”
A SECOND SERIES OF HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 8vo.
10s. 6d.
>>
The principal Essays are:-"Ancient Greece and Medieval Italy:"
"Mr. Gladstone's Homer and the Homeric Ages: The Historians
of Athens "The Athenian Democracy: "Alexander the Great:
"Greece during the Macedonian Period:" "Mommsen's History of Rome:"
"Lucius Cornelius Sulla :" "The Flavian Cæsars.'
"
>>
""
"}
COMPARATIVE POLITICS.-Lectures at the Royal Institution.
To which is added the "Unity of History," the Rede Lecture at
Cambridge, 1872. 8vo. 14s.
10 MACMILLAN'S CATALOGUE OF WORKS IN
Freeman-continued.
THE HISTORY AND CONQUESTS OF THE SARACENS.
Six Lectures. Third Edition, with New Preface. Crown 8vo.
3s. 6d.
"Mr. Freeman opportunely reprints his erudite and valuable lec-
tures."-DAILY TELEGRAPH.
*
66
HISTORICAL
AND
ARCHITECTURAL
chiefly Italian. With Illustrations by the Author.
IOS. 6d.
Mr. Freeman may here be said to give us a series of notes on the
spot' in illustration of the intimate relations of History and Architecture,
ând this is done in so masterly a manner there is so much freshness, so
much knowledge so admirably condensed, that we are almost tempted to
say that we prefer these sketches to his more elaborate studies."—NONCON-
FORMIST..
SKETCHES:
Crown 8vo.
-
HISTORY OF FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, from the Foun-
dation of the Achaian League to the Disruption of the United
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OLD ENGLISH HISTORY. With Five Coloured Maps. Fourth
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"The book indeed is full of instruction and interest to students of all
ages, and he must be a well-informed man indeed who will not rise
from its perusal with clearer and more accurate ideas of a too much
neglected portion of English history.”—SPECTATOR.
HISTORY OF THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF WELLS,
as illustrating the History of the Cathedral Churches of the Olá
Foundation. Crown 8vo.
Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
"The history assumes in Mr. Freeman's hands a significance, and, we
may add, a practical value as suggestive of what a cathedral ought to be,
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THE GROWTH OF THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION
FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES. Crown 8vo. 55. Third
Edition, revised.
GENERAL SKETCH OF EUROPEAN HISTORY. Being
Vol. I. of a Historical Course for Schools edited by E. A.
FREEMAN. New Edition, enlarged with Maps, Chronological
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ing. The scheme is an excellent one, and this instalment has been
accepted in a way that promises much for the volumes that are yet
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THE OTTOMAN POWER IN EUROPE: its Nature, its Growth,
and its Decline. With Three Coloured Maps. Crown 8vo.
7s. 6d.
HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, TRAVELS, ETC. II
Galileo.-THE PRIVATE LIFE OF GALILEO. Compiled
principally from his Correspondence and that of his eldest
daughter, Sister Maria Celeste, Nun in the Franciscan Convent of
S. Matthew in Arcetri. With Portrait.
With Portrait. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d.
Geddes.-THE PROBLEM OF THE HOMERIC POEMS.
By W. D. GEDDES, LL.D., Professor of Greek in the University
of Aberdeen.
8vo. 14S.
Gladstone-Works by the Right Hon. W. E. GLADSTONE,
M.P. :-
JUVENTUS MUNDI. The Gods and Men of the Heroic Age.
Crown 8vo. cloth. With Map.
With Map. 10s. 6d. Second Edition.
"Seldom," says the ATHENAUM, "out of the great poems themselves,
have these Divinities looked so majestic and respectable. To read these
brilliant details is like standing on the Olympian threshold and gazing at
the ineffable brightness within.”
HOMERIC SYNCHRONISM.
An inquiry into the Time and
Place of Homer. Crown 8vo. 65.
'It is impossible not to admire the immense range of thought and
inquiry which the author has displayed."—-BRITISH QUARTERLY
REVIEW.
Goethe and Mendelssohn (1821-1831). Translated from the
German of Dr. KARL MENDELSSOHN, Son of the Composer, by
M. E. VON GLEHN. From the Private Diaries and Home
Letters of Mendelssohn, with Poems and Letters of Goethe never
before printed. Also with two New and Original Portraits, Fac-
similes, and Appendix of Twenty Letters hitherto unpublished.
Crown 8vo. 55. Second Edition, enlarged.
(6
Every page is full of interest, not merely to the musi
cian, but to the general reader. The book is a very charming one, on
a topic of deep and lasting interest."-STAndard.
Goldsmid.-TELEGRAPH AND TRAVEL.
A Narrative of
the Formation and Development of Telegraphic Communication
between England and India, under the orders of Her Majesty's
Government, with incidental Notices of the Countries traversed by
the Lines. By Colonel Sir FREDERIC GOLDSMID, C. B., K. C.S.I.,
late Director of the Government Indo-European Telegraph. With
numerous Illustrations and Maps. 8vo. 21s.
"The merit of the work is a total absence of exaggeration, which does
not, however, preclude a vividness and vigour of style not always character-
istic of similar narratives."-STANDARD.
Gordon.-LAST LETTERS FROM EGYPT, to which are added
With a
Letters from the Cape. By LADY DUFF Gordon.
Memoir by her Daughter, Mrs. Ross, and Portrait engraved by
JEENS. Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 9s.
1
12 MACMILLAN'S CATALOGUE OF WORKS IN
"The intending tourist who wishes to acquaint himself with the country
he is about to visit, stands embarrassed amidst the riches presented for his
choice, and in the end probably rests contented with the sober usefulness of
Murray. He will not, however, if he is well. advised, grudge a place in
his portmanteau to this book."-TIMES.
',
Gray.-CHINA. A History of the Laws, Manners; and Customs
of the People. By the VENERABLE JOHN HENRY GRAY. LL.D.,
Archdeacon of Hong Kong, formerly H. B. M. Consular Chaplain
at Canton. Edited by W. Gow Gregor. With 150 Full-page Illüstra-
tions, being Facsimiles of Drawings by a Chinese Artist. 2 Vols.
Demy 8vo. 325.
"Its pages contain the most truthful and vivid picture of Chinese life
which has ever been published.”—ATHENÆUM.
"The only elaborate and valuable book we have had for many years
treating generally of the people of the Celestial Empire."—ACADEMY,
Green.-Works by JOHN RICHARD GREEN :—
HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. Vol. I.-Early
England-Foreign Kings-The Charter-The Parliament. With
8 Coloured Maps. 8vo. 16s. Vol. II.-The Monarchy,
1461-1540; the Restoration, 1540-1603. 8vo. 16s.
•
[To be completed in 5-Vols.
“Mr. Green has done a work which probably no one but himself could
have done. He has read and assimilated the results of all the labours of
students during the last half century in the field of English history, and
has given them a fresh meaning by his own independent study. He has
fused together by the force of sympathetic imagination all that he has so
collected, and has given us a vivid and forcible sketch of the march of
English history. His book, both in its aims and its accomplishments,
rises far beyond any of a similar kind, and it will give the colouring to the
popular view to English history for some time to come."-EXAMINER.
1
A SHORT HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE, With
Coloured Maps, Genealogical Tables, and Chronological Annals.
Crown 8vo. 8s. 6d. Fifty-fifth Thousand.
•
"To say that Mr. Green's book is better than those which have pre-
ceded it, would be to convey a very inadequate impression of its merits. It
stands alone as the one general history of the country, for the sake of
which all others, if young and old are wise, will be speedily and surely set
aside."
at 1
STRAY STUDIES FROM ENGLAND AND ITALY. Crown
8vo. Ss. 6d. Containing: Lambeth and the Archbishops-The
Florence of Dante-Venice and Rome-Early History of Oxford
-The District Visitor-Capri-Hotels in the Clouds-Sketches
in Sunshine, &c.
"One and all of the papers are eminently readable."—ATHENÆum.
HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, TRAVELS, ETC. . 13
4
Hamerton.-Works by P. G. HAMERTON :—
THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. With a Portrait of Leonardo da
Vinci, etched by LEOPOLD FLAMENG. Second Edition. Crown
IOS. 6d. 8vo.
"We have read the whole book with great pleasure, and we can re-
commend it strongly to all who can appreciate grave reflections on a very
important subject, excellently illustrated from the resources of a mind
stored with much reading and much keen observation of real life.".
SATURDAY REVIEW.
THOUGHTS ABOUT ART. New Edition, revised, with an
Introduction. Crown 8vo. 8s. 6d.
"A manual of sound and thorough criticism on_art.”—STANDARD.
"The book is full of thought, and worthy of attentive consideration."
DAILY NEWS.
Hill.—WHAT WE SAW IN AUSTRALIA.
By ROSAMOND
and FLORENCE HILL, Crown 8vo. 10s. 6d.
“May be recommended as an interesting and truthful picture of the
condition of those lands which are so distant and yet so much like home."
-SATURDAY REVIEW.
Hodgson.—MEMOIR OF REV. FRANCIS HODGSON,
B.D., Scholar, Poet, and Divine. By his Son, the Rev. JAMES
T. HODGSON, M.A. With Portrait engraved by JEENS. Crown
8vo.
[Immediately.
Hole.-A GENEALOGICAL STEMMA OF THE KINGS
OF ENGLAND AND FRANCE. By the Rev. C., HOLE,
M.A., Trinity College, Cambridge. On Sheet, Is.
A BRIEF BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY. Compiled and
Arranged by the Rev. CHARLES HOLE, M.A. Second Edition.
18mo.
4s. 6d.
Hooker and Ball.-MAROCCO: Journal of a Tour in. By
Sir JOSEPH D. HOOKER, K. C.S.I., C.B., P.R.S., &c., and JOHN
BALL, F.R.S. With Illustrations and Map. 8vo. [Ímmediately.
Hozier (H. M.)-Works by CAPTAIN HENRY M. HOZIER,
late Assistant Military Secretary to Lord Napier of Magdala :—
THE SEVEN WEEKS' WAR; Its Antecedents and Incidents.
New and Cheaper Edition. With New Preface, Maps, and Plans.
Crown 8vo.
65.
“All that Mr. Hozier saw of the great events of the war-and he saw
a large share of them-he describes in clear and vivid language.”-
SATURDAY REVIEW.
g
14 MACMILLAN'S CATALOGUE OF WORKS IN
Hozier (H. M.)—continued.
THE INVASIONS OF ENGLAND: a History of the Past, with
Lessons for the Future. Two Vols. 8vo. 28s.
The PALL MALL GAZETTE says :-" As to all invasions executed, or
deliberately projected but not carried out, from the landing of Julius
Cæsar to the raising of the Boulogne camp, Captain Hozier furnishes
copious and most interesting particulars.”
Hübner.-A RAMBLE ROUND THE WORLD IN 1871. By
M. LE BARON HÜBNER, formerly Ambassador and Minister.
Translated by LADY HERBERT. New and Cheaper Edition.
With numerous Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 6s.
“It is difficult to do ample justice to this pleasant narrative of travel
it does not contain a single dull paragraph.”—Morning Post.
Hughes. Works by THOMAS HUGHES, Q.C., Author of "Tom
Brown's School Days.
""
M
MEMOIR OF A BROTHER. With Portrait of GEORGE HUGHES,
after WATTS. Engraved by JEENS. Crown 8vo. 5s. Sixth
Edition.
"The boy who can read this book without deriving from it some addi-
tional impulse towards honourable, manly, and independent conduct, has
no good stuff in him."-DAILY NEWS.
ALFRED THE GREAT. New Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s.
Hunt. HISTORY OF ITALY. By the Rev. W. HUNT, M.A.
Being the Fourth Volume of the Historical Course for Schools.
Edited by Edward A. FREEMAN, D.C.L. I 18mo. 35.
"Mr. Hunt gives us a most compact but very readable little book, con-
taining in small compass a very complete outline of a complicated and
perplexing subject. It is a book which may be safely recommended to
others besides schoolboys."-JOHN BULL.
Irving.—THE ANNALS OF OUR TIME.
A Diurnal of Events,
Social and Political, Home and Foreign, from the Accession of
Queen Victoria to the Peace of Versailles. By JOSEPH IRVING.
Fourth Edition. 8vo. half-bound. 16s.
ANNALS OF OUR TIME. Supplement. From Feb. 28, 1871,
to March 19, 1874. 8vo.
4s. 6d.
"We have before us a trusty and ready guide to the events of the
past thirty years, available equally for the statesman, the politician, the
public writer, and the general reader."-TIMES.
1
James. Works by HENRY JAMES, Jun. FRENCH POETS AND
Crown 8vo. 8s. 6d.
NOVELISTS. Crown 8vo.
CONTENTS :—Alfred de Musset; Theophile Gautier;. Baudelaire ;
Honoré de Balzac ; George Sand; The Two Amperès; Turgenieff, &c.
THE EUROPEANS. A Novel. Two Vols. Crown 8vo.
215.
>
15
HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, TRAVELS, ETC.
Johnson's Lives of the
of the Poets.-The Six Chief
Lives-Milton, Dryden, Swift, Addison, Pope, Gray. With
Macaulay's "Life of Johnson." Edited, with Preface, by
MATTHEW Arnold. Crown 8vo. 6s.
Killen.-ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY OF IRELAND, from
the Earliest Date to the Present Time. By W. D. KILLEN, D.D.,
President of Assembly's College, Belfast, and Professor of Eccle-
siastical History. Two Vols. 8vo. 25s.
•
"Those who have the leisure will do well to read these two volumes.
They are full of interest, and are the result of great research. We
have no hesitation in recommending the work to all who wish to improve
their acquaintance with Irish history.”—SPECTATOR.
Kingsley (Charles).—Works by the Rev. CHarles Kingsley,
M.A., Rector of Eversley and Canon of Westminster. (For
other Works by the same Author, see THEOLOGICAL and BELLES
LETTRES Catalogues.)
ON THE ANCIEN RÉGIME as it existed on the Continent before
the FRENCH REVOLUTION. Three Lectures delivered at the
Royal Institution. Crown 8vo. 6s.
AT LAST : A CHRISTMAS in the WEST INDIES. With nearly
Fifty Illustrations. Fifth Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s.
Mr. Kingsley's dream of forty years was at last fulfilled, when he
started on a Christmas expedition to the West Indies, for the purpose of
becoming personally acquainted with the scenes which he has so vividly
described in <<
Westward Ho!" These two volumes are the journal of his
voyage. Records of natural history, sketches of tropical landscape, chapters
on education, views of society, all find their place.
"We can only say
that Mr. Kingsley's account of a 'Christmas in the West Indies "is in
every way worthy to be classed among his happiest productions.
STANDARD.
K
THE ROMAN AND THE TEUTON. A Series of Lectures
delivered before the University of Cambridge. New and Cheaper
Edition, with Preface by Professor MAX MULLER. Crown 8vo. "6s.
PLAYS AND PURITANS, and other Historical Essays. With
Portrait of Sir WALTER RALEIGH. Second Edition. Crown 8vo.
5s.
In addition to the Essay mentioned in the title, this volume contains
other two-one on "Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time," and one on
Froude's "History of England."
Kingsley (Henry).-TALES OF OLD
Re-
TRAVEL.
narrated by HENRY KINGSLEY, F.R.G.S. With Eight Illus-
trations by HUARD. Fifth Edition. Crown 8vo. 5s.
"We know no better book for those who want knowledge or seek to
refresh it.
As for the 'sensational,' most novels are tame compared with
these narratives."-ATHENÆUM.
16 MACMILLAN'S CATALOGUE OF WORKS IN
Lang.-CYPRUS: Its History, its Present Resources and Future
Prospects. By R. HAMILTON LANG, late H.M. Consul for the
Island of Cyprus. With Two Illustrations and Four Maps. 8vo. 14s.
Laocoon.-Translated from the Text of Lessing, with Preface and
Notes by the Right Hon. SIR ROBERT J. PHILLIMORE, D.C.L.
With Photographs. 8vo. 125.
Leonardo da Vinci and his Works.-Consisting of a
Life of Leonardo Da Vinci, by MRS. CHARLES W. HEATON,
Author of "Albrecht Dürer of Nürnberg," &c., an Essay on his
Scientific and Literary Works by CHARLES CHRISTOPHER
BLACK, M.A., and an account of his more important Paintings
and Drawings. Illustrated with Permanent Photographs. Royal
8vo. cloth, extra gilt. 31s. 6d.
"A beautiful volume, both without and within. Messrs. Macmillan
are conspicuous among publishers for the choice binding and printing of
their books, and this is got up in their best style.
No English
publication that we know of has so thoroughly and attractively collected
together all that is known of Leonardo."-TIMES.
Liechtenstein.-HOLLAND HOUSE. By Princess MARIE
་
LIECHTENSTEIN. With Five Steel Engravings by C. H. JEENS,
after Paintings by WATTS and other celebrated Artists, and
numerous Illustrations drawn by Professor P. H. DELAMOTTE, and
engraved on Wood by J. D. COOPER, W. PALMER, and JEWITT &
Co. Third and Cheaper Edition. Medium 8vo. cloth elegant.
16s.
Also, an Edition containing, in addition to the above, about 40
Illustrations by the Woodbury-type process, and India Proofs of
the Steel Engravings. Two vols. medium 4to. half morocco
élegant. 41. 45.
"When every strictly just exception shall have been taken, she may be
conscientiously congratulated by the most scrupulous critic on the produc-
tion of a useful, agreeable, beautifully-illustrated, and attractive book."
TIMES. "It would take up more room than we can spare to enumerate
all the interesting suggestions and notes which are to be found in these
volumes.
The woodcuts are admirable, and some of the autographs
are very interesting."-PALL MALL GAZETTE.
·
Lloyd.—THE AGE OF PERICLES. A History of the Arts and
Politics of Greece from the Persian to the Peloponnesian War.
By W. WAIKISS LLOYD. Two Vols. 8vo. 21S
•
"No such account of Greek art of the best period has yet been brought
together in an English work. Mr. Lloyd has produced a book of
unusual excellence and interest."-PALL MALL GAZETTE.
Macarthur.-HISTORY OF SCOTLAND, By MARGARET
MACARTHUR. Being the Third Volume of the Historical Course
for Schools, Edited by EDWARD A. FREEMAN, D. C. L. Second
Edition. 18mo. 25.
1
HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, TRAVELS, ETC.
17
"It is an excellent summary, unimpeachable as to facts, and putting
them in the clearest and most impartial light attainable.”—GUARDIAN.
No previous History of Scotland of the same bulk is anything like so
trustworthy, or deserves to be so extensively used as a text-book."-GLOBE.
(6
Macmillan (Rev. Hugh).—For other Works by same Author,
see THEOLOGICAL and SCIENTIFIC Catalogues.
HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS; or, Rambles and Incidents in
search of Alpine Plants. Second Edition, revised and enlarged.
Globe 8vo. cloth. 6s.
"Botanical knowledge is blended with a love of nature, a pious en-
thusiasm, and a rich felicity of diction not to be met with in any works
of kindred character, if we except those of Hugh Miller."-TELEGRAPH.
"Mr. Macmillan's glowing pictures of Scandinavian scenery."
SATURDAY REVIEW.
Macready.—MACREADY'S REMINISCENCES AND SE-
LECTIONS FROM HIS DIARIES AND LETTERS. Edited
by Sir F. POLLOCK, Bart., one of his Executors. With Four
Portraits engraved by JEENS. New and Cheaper Edition. Crown
8vo. 7s. 6d.
•
“As a careful and for the most part just estimate of the stage during
a very brilliant period, the attraction of these volumes can scarcely be
surpassed.
Readers who have no special interest in theatrical
matters, but enjoy miscellaneous gossip, will be allured from page to page,
attracted by familiar names and by observations upon popular actors and
authors.". SPECTATOR.
·
Mahaffy.—Works by the Rev. J. P. MAHAFFY, M.A., Fellow of
Trinity College, Dublin :—
SOCIAL LIFE IN GREECE FROM HOMER TO MENAN-
DER. Third Edition, revised and enlarged, with a new chapter
on Greek Art. Crown 8vo. gs.
“It should be in the hands of all who desire thoroughly to understand
and to enjoy Greek literature, and to get an intelligent idea of the old Greek
life, political, social, and religious."—GUARDIAN.
RAMBLES AND STUDIES IN GREECE.
With Illustrations.
Crown Svo. 10s. 6d. New and enlarged Edition, with Map and
Illustrations
"A singularly instructive and agreeable volume."—ATHENÆUM,
"Maori."-SPORT AND WORK ON THE NEPAUL FRON-
TIER; or, Twelve Years' Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo
Planter. By "MAORI." With Map and Illustrations. 8vo.
[Immediately.
Margary.—THE JOURNEY OF AUGUSTUS RAYMOND
MARGARY FROM SHANGHAE TO BHAMO AND BACK
TO MANWYNE. From his Journals and Letters, with a brief
B
18 MACMILLAN'S CATALOGUE OF WORKS IN
Biographical Preface, a concluding chapter by Sir RUTHERFORD
ALCOCK, K.C.B., and a Steel Portrait engraved by JEENS, and
Map. 8vo. IOS. 6d.
"There is a manliness, a cheerful spirit, an inherent vigour which
was never overcome by sickness or debility, a tact which conquered the
prejudices of a strange and suspicious population, a quiet self-reliance,
always combined with deep religious feeling, unalloyed by either priggish-
ness, cant, or superstition, that ought to commend this volume to readers
sitting quietly at home who feel any pride in the high estimation accorded
to men of their race at Yarkand or at Khiva, in the heart of Africa, or
on the shores of Lake Seri-kul.”—Saturday Review.
Martin.-THE HISTORY OF LLOYD'S, AND OF MARINE
INSURANCE IN GREAT BRITAIN. With an Appendix,
containing Statistics relating to Marine Insurance. By FREDERICK
MARTIN, Author of "The Statesman's Year Book.
8vo. 14S.
"We have in the editor of the Statesman's Year Book' an in-
dustrious and conscientious guide, and we can certify that in his ' History
of Lloyd's' he has produced a work of more than passing interest.”
TIMES.
Martineau.-BIOGRAPHICAL
By HARRIET Martineau.
SKETCHES, 1852-1875.
With Additional Sketches, and Auto-
biographical Sketch. Fifth Edition. Crown 8vo. 65.
"Miss
Tartineau's large literary powers and her fine intellectual
training make these little sketches more instructive, and constitute them
more genuinely works of art, than many more ambitious and diffuse
biographies. "- FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW.
Masson (David).-For other Works by same Author, see PHILO-
SOPHICAL and BELLES LEttres Catalogues.
CHATTERTON: A Story of the Year 1770. By DAVID MASSON,
LL.D., Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature in the Uni-
versity of Edinburgh. Crown 8vo. 5s.
"One of this popular writer's best essays on the English poets.”—
STANDARD.
THE THREE DEVILS: Luther's, Goethe's, and Milton's; and
other Essays. Crown 8vo. 55.
WORDSWORTH, SHELLEY, AND KEATS; and other
Essays. Crown 8vo. 55.
Maurice.-THE FRIENDSHIP OF BOOKS; AND OTHER
LECTURES. By the REV. F. D. MAUrice. Edited with Pre-
face, by THOMAS HUGHES, Q.C. Crown 8vo.
IOS. 6d.
"The high, pure, sympathetic, and truly charitable nature of Mr.
Maurice is delightfully visible throughout these lectures, which are ex-
cellently adapted to spread a love of literature amongst the people."—
DAILY NEWS.
HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, TRAVELS, ETC.
Mayor (J. E. B.)-WORKS edited by JOHN E. B. MAYOR,
M.A., Kennedy Professor of Latin at Cambridge :—
CAMBRIDGE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. Part II.
Autobiography of Matthew Robinson. Fcap. 8vo.
Fcap. 8vo. 5s. 6d.
LIFE OF BISHOP BEDELL. By his SON. Fcap. 8vo. 3s. 6d.
Melbourne.-MEMOIRS OF THE RT. HON. WILLIAM,
SECOND VISCOUNT MELBOURNE. By W. M. Torrens,
M.P. With Portrait after Sir. T. Lawrence. Second Edition.
2 Vols. 8vo. 32s.
"As might be expected, he has produced a book which will command
and reward attention. It contains a great deal of valuable matter and
a great deal of animated, elegant writing."—QUARTERLY REVIEW.
Mendelssohn.-LETTERS AND RECOLLECTIONS. By
Translated by M. E. VON GLEHN. With
FERDINAND HILLER.
Portrait from a Drawing by KARL MÜLLER, never before pub-
lished. Second Edition. Crown 8vo.
7s. 6d.
19
"This is a very interesting addition to our knowledge of the great
German composer. It reveals him to us under a new light, as the warm-
hearted comrade, the musician whose soul was in his work, and the home-
loving, domestic man."-STandard.
Merewether.-BY SEA AND BY LAND. Being a Trip
through Egypt, India, Ceylon, Australia, New Zealand, and
America-all Round the World. By HENRY ALWORTH MERE-
WETHER, one of Her Majesty's Counsel. Crown 8vo. 8s. 6d.
-
Michael Angelo Buonarotti; Sculptor, Painter, Architect.
The Story of his Life and Labours. By C. C. BLACK, M.A.
Illustrated by 20 Permanent Photographs Royal 8vo. cloth
elegant, 31s. 6d.
"The story of Michael Angelo's life remains interesting whatever be the
manner of telling it, and supported as it is by this beautiful series of photo-
graphs, the volume must take rank among the most splendid of Christmas
books, fitted to serve and to outlive the season."-PALL MALL GAZETTE.
Michelet.-A SUMMARY OF MODERN HISTORY. Trans-
lated from the French of M. MICHELET, and continued to the
present time by M. C. M. SIMPSON. Globe 8vo.
4s. 6d.
"We are glad to see one of the ablest and most useful summaries of
European history put into the hands of English readers. The transla-
tion is excellent."-STANDARD.
B 2
·
Milton.-LIFE OF JOHN MILTON. Narrated in connection
with the Political, Ecclesiastical, and Literary History of his Time.
By DAVID MASSON, M.A., LL.D., Professor of Rhetoric and
English Literature in the University of Edinburgh. With Portraits.
Vol. I. 18s. Vol. II., 1638-1643. 8vo. 16s. Vol. III.
1643-1649. 8vo. 18s. Vols. IV. and V. 1649-1660. 325.
20 MACMILLAN'S CATALOGUE OF WORKS IN
This work is not only a Biography, but also a continuous Political, Eccle-
siastical, and Literary History of England through Milton's whole time.
Mitford (A. B.)-TALES OF OLD JAPAN. By A. B.
MITFORD, Second Secretary to the British Legation in Japan.
With upwards of 30 Illustrations, drawn and cut on Wood by
Japanese Artists. New and Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s.
"These very original volumes will always be interesting as memorials
of a most exceptional society, while regarded simply as tales, they are
sparkling, sensational. and dramatic, and the originality of their idea
and the quaintness of their language give them a most captivating
piquancy. The illustrations are extremely interesting, and for the
curious in such matters have a special and particular value.”—PALL
MALL GAZETTE.
Monteiro.-ANGOLA AND THE RIVER CONGO.
By
JOACHIM MONTEIRO. With numerous Illustrations from Sketches
taken on the spot, and a Map. Two Vols. crown 8vo. 21s.
"Gives the first detailed account of a part of tropical Africa which is
little knownto Englishmen.
The remarks on the geography aud
zoology of the country and the manners and customs of the various races
inhabiting it, are extremely curious and interesting."-SATURDAY RE-
VIEW. "Full of valuable information and much picturesque description.”
PALL MALL Gazette.
•
Morison.—THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SAINT BERNARD,
Abbot of Clairvaux. By JAMES COTTER MORISON, M.A. New
Edition. Crown 8vo. 65.
The PALL MALL Gazette calls this" A delightful and instructive
volume, and one of the best products of the modern historic spirit.”
GAZETTE
¿
- Murray.-ROUND ABOUT FRANCE. By E. C. GRENVILLE
7s. 6d.
MURRAY. Crown 8vo.
It is
•
"These short essays are a perfect mine of information as to the present
condition and future prospects of political parties in France.
at once extremely interesting and exceptionally instructive on a subject on
which few English people are well informed."-Scotsman.
•
Napoleon.-THE HISTORY OF NAPOLEON I.
By P.
LANFREY. A Translation with the sanction of the Author. Vols.
I. II. and III. 8vo. price 12s. each.
The PALL MALL GAZETTE says it is "one of the most striking
pieces of historical composition of which France has to boast," and the
SATURDAY REVIEW calls it "an excellent translation of a work on every
ground deserving to be translated. It is unquestionably and immeasurably
the best that has been produced. It is in fact the only work to which we
can turn for an accurate and trustworthy narrative of that extraordinary
The book is the best and indeed the only trustworthy history
of Napoleon which has been written.”
career.
HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, TRAVELS, ETC. 21
Nash.
OREGON; There and Back in 1877.
By WALLIS NASH.
With Map and Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d.
•
"This unpretentious little volume is a bright and very clever record of
a journey which the author made to Oregon which will tell any one
who reads it a very great deal worth knowing about Oregon. Allo-
gether, he has written an interesting and amusing book."-Spectator.
Nichol.-TABLES OF EUROPEAN LITERATURE AND
HISTORY, A. D. 200-1876. By J. NICHOL, LL.D.,
Professor of English Language and Literature, Glasgow. 4to.
6s. 6d.
•
TABLES OF ANCIENT LITERATURE AND HISTORY,
B. C. 1500-A. D. 200. By the same Author. 4to. 4s. 6d.
With
Oliphant (Mrs.).—THE MAKERS_OF_FLORENCE : Dante
Giotto, Savonarola, and their City. By Mrs. OLIPHANT.
numerous Illustrations from drawings by Professor DELAMOTTE,
and portrait of Savonarola, engraved by JEENS. Second Edition.
Medium 8vo. Cloth extra. 2IS.
"Mrs. Oliphant has made a beautiful addition to the mass of literature
already piled round the records of the Tuscan capital."-TIMES.
"We are grateful to Mrs. Oliphant for her eloquent and beautiful
sketches of Dante, Fra Angelico, and Savonarola. They are picturesque,
full of life, and rich in detail, and they are charmingly illustrated by the
art of the engraver."-SPECtator.
Oliphant.—THE DUKE AND THE SCHOLAR; and othe
Essays. By T. L. KINGTON OLIPHANT. 8vo. 7s. 6d.
"This volume contains one of the most beautiful biographical essays we
have seen since Macaulay's days."-STANDARD.
Otte.-SCANDINAVIAN HISTORY. By E. C. OTTE. With
Maps. Extra fcap. 8vo. 65.
"We have peculiar pleasure in recommending this intelligent résume
of Northern history as a book essential to every Englishman who interests
himself in Scandinavia."- SPECTATOR.
Owens College Essays and Addresses.-By PRO-
FESSORS AND LECTURERS OF OWENS COLLEGE, MANCHESTER.
Published in Commemoration of the Opening of the New College
Buildings, October 7th, 1873. 8vo. 14s.
Palgrave (R. F. D.)—THE HOUSE OF COMMONS;
Illustrations of its History and Practice. By REGINALD F. D.
PALGRAVE, Clerk Assistant of the House of Commons. New
and Revised Edition. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.
22 MACMILLAN'S CATALOGUE OF WORKS IN
Palgrave (Sir F.)-HISTORY OF NORMANDY AND
OF ENGLAND. By Sir FRANCIS PALGRAVE, Deputy Keeper
of Her Majesty's Public Records. Completing the History to the
Death of William Rufus. Vols. I.-IV. 21s. each.
Palgrave (W. G.)—A NARRATIVE OF A YEAR'S
JOURNEY THROUGH CENTRAL AND EASTERN
ARABIA, 1862-3. By WILLIAM GIFFORD PALGRAVE, late of
the Eighth Regiment Bombay N. I. Sixth Edition. With Maps,
Plans, and Portrait of Author, engraved on steel by Jeens. Crown
8vo. 6s.
"He has not only written one of the best books on the Arabs and one
of the best books on Arabia, but he has done so in a manner that must
command the respect no less than the admiration of his fellow-country-
men."-FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW.
By W. Gifford
ESSAYS ON EASTERN QUESTIONS.
PALGRAVE. 8vo. IOS. 6d.
"These essays are full of anecdote and interest. The book is decidedly
a valuable addition to the stock of literature on which men must
base their opinion of the difficult social and political problems sug-
gested by the designs of Russia, the capacity of Mahometans for
sovereignty, and the good government and retention of India."-
SATURDAY REVIEW.
8vo. 9s.
DUTCH GUIANA. With Maps and Plans. 8vo.
"His pages are nearly exhaustive as far as facts and statistics go,
while they are lightened by graphic social sketches as well as sparkling
descriptions of scenery."-SATurday Review.
Patteson.-LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN COLERIDGE
PATTESON, D.D., Missionary Bishop of the Melanesian Islands.
By CHARLOTTE M. YONGE, Author of "The Heir of Redclyffe."
With Portraits after RICHMOND and from Photograph, engraved by
JEENS. With Map. Fifth Edition. Two Vols. Crown 8vo. 125.
،،
'Miss Yonge's work is in one respect a model biography. It is made
up almost entirely of Patteson's own letters. Aware that he had left his
home once and for all, his correspondence took the form of a diary, and
as we read on we come to know the man, and to love him almost as if we
had seen him."—ATHENÆUM. "Such a life, with its grand lessons of
unselfishness, is a blessing and an honour to the age in which it is lived;
the biography cannot be studied without pleasure and profit, and indeed
we should think little of the man who did not rise from the study of it
better and wiser. Neither the Church nor the nation which produces
such sons need ever despair of its future.”—SATURDAY REVIEW.
Pauli.-PICTURES OF OLD ENGLAND. By Dr. REINHOLD
PAULI. Translated, with the approval of the Author, by E. C.
OTTÉ. Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s.
¿
HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, TRAVELS, ETC.
Payne.- A HISTORY OF EUROPEAN COLONIES.
E. J. PAYNE, M.A. With Maps. 18mo. 4s. 6d.
23
By
The TIMES says :-" We have seldom met with a historian capable of
forming a more comprehensive, far-seeing, and unprejudiced estimate of
events and peoples, and we can commend this little work as one certain to
prove of the highest interest to all thoughtful readers."
Persia.-EASTERN PERSIA. An Account of the Journeys of
the Persian Boundary Commission, 1870-1-2.—Vol. I. The Geo-
graphy, with Narratives by Majors ST. JOHN, LovETT, and EUAN
SMITH, and an Introduction by Major-General Sir FREDERIC
GOLDSMID, C.B., K. C.S.I., British Commissioner and Arbitrator.
With Maps and Illustrations.—Vol. II. The Zoology and Geology.
By W. T. BLANFORD, A.R.S.M., F.R.S. With Coloured Illus-
trations. Two Vols. 8vo. 425.
"The volumes largely increase our store of information about
countries with which Englishmen ought to be familiar.
They throw into the shade all that hitherto has appeared in our tongue
respecting the local features of Persia, its scenery, its resources, even its
social condition. They contain also abundant evidence of English
endurance, daring, and spirit." --TIMES.
Prichard.—THE ADMINISTRATION OF INDIA. From
1859 to 1868. The First Ten Years of Administration under the
Crown. By I. T. PRICHARD, Barrister-at-Law. Two Vols.
Demy 8vo. With Map. 2IS.
Raphael.-RAPHAEL OF URBINO AND HIS FATHER
GIOVANNI SANTI. By J. D. PASSAVANT, formerly Director
of the Museum at Frankfort. With Twenty Permanent Photo-
graphs. Royal 8vo. Handsomely bound. 31s. 6d.
The SATURDAY REVIEW says of them, "We have seen not´a few
elegant specimens of Mr. Woodbury's new process, but we have seen
none that equal these."
Reynolds.—SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS AS A PORTRAIT
PAINTER. AN ESSAY. By J. CHURTON COLLINS, B.A.
Balliol College, Oxford. Illustrated by a Series of Portraits of
distinguished Beauties of the Court of George III.; reproduced
in Autotype from Proof Impressions of the celebrated Engravings,
by VALENTINE GREEN, THOMAS WATSON, F. R. SMITH, E.
FISHER, and others. Folio half-morocco. £5 5s.
Rogers (James E. Thorold).—HISTORICAL GLEAN-
INGS: A Series of Sketches. Montague, Walpole, Adam Smith,
Cobbett. By Prof. ROGERS. Crown 8vo. 4s. 6d. Second Series.
Wiklif, Laud, Wilkes, and Horne Tooke. Crown 8vo. 6s.
→
24 MACMILLAN'S CATALOGUE OF WORKS IN
Routledge.-CHAPTERS IN THE HISTORY OF POPULAR
PROGRESS IN ENGLAND, chiefly in Relation to the Freedom
of the Press and Trial by Jury, 1660-1820. With application to
later years. By J. ROUTLEDGE. 8vo. 16s.
"The volume abounds in facts and information, almost always useful
and often curious."-TIMES.
Rumford.-COUNT RUMFORD'S COMPLETE WORKS,
with Memoir, and Notices of his Daughter. By GEORGE ELLIS.
Five Vols. 8vo. 47. 14s. 6d.
Seeley (Professor).
By
· LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
J. R. SEELEY, M. A. Professor of Modern History in the
University of Cambridge. 8vo. IOS, 6d.
CONTENTS :—Roman Imperialism: 1. The Great_Roman_Revolu-
tion; 2. The Proximate Cause of the Fall of the Roman Empire;
The Later Empire. Milton's Political Opinions Milton's Poetry
-Elementary Principles in Art-Liberal Education in Universities
- English in Schools — The Church as a Teacher of Morality -The
Teaching of Politics: an Inaugural Lecture delivered at Cambridge.
Shelburne.-LIFE OF WILLIAM, EARL OF SHELBURNE,
M
AFTERWARDS FIRST MARQUIS OF LANSDÓWNE.
With Extracts from his Papers and Correspondence. By Lord
EDMOND FITZMAURICE. In Three Vols. Svo. Vol. I. 1737—
1766, 12s.; Vol. II. 1766—1776, 12s.; Vol. III. 1776–1805.
16s.
C
(
"Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice has succeeded in placing before us a
wealth of new matter, which, while casting valuable and much-needed
light on several obscure passages in the political history of a hundred
years ago, has enabled us for the first time to form a clear and consistent
idea of his ancestor."-SPECTATOR.
Sime.-HISTORY OF GERMANY.
By JAMES SIME, M.A.
18mo. 3s. Being Vol. V. of the Historical Course for Schools,
Edited by EDWARD A. FREEMAN, D. C.L.
"This is a remarkably clear and impressive History of Germany. Its
great events are wisely kept as central figures, and the smaller events are
carefully kept not only subordinate and subservient, but most skilfully
woven into the texture of the historical tapestry presented to the eye."
STANDARD.
Squier.—PERU: INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL AND EX-
PLORATION IN THE LAND OF THE INCAS. By E. G.
SQUIER, M.A., F.S.A., late U.S. Commissioner to Peru. With
300 Illustrations. Second Edition. 8vo. 2IS.
The TIMES says:-" No more solid and trustworthy contribution had
been made to an accurate knowledge of what are among the most wonderful
ruins in the world.
The work is really what its title implies.
•
HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, TRAVELS, ETC.
While of the greatest importance as a contribution to Peruvian archæology,
it is also a thoroughly entertaining and instructive narrative of travel.
Not the least important feature must be considered the numerous
well executed illustrations."
Strangford.-EGYPTIAN SHRINES AND SYRIAN SEPUL-
CHRES, including a Visit to Palmyra. By EMILY A. BEAUFORT
(Viscountess Strangford), Author of "The Eastern Shores of
the Adriatic." New Edition. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d.
·
25
Tait.-AN ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH HISTORY, based upon
Green's "Short History of the English People." By C. W. A.
TAIT, M.A., Assistant Master, Clifton College. Crown 8vo.
3s. 6d.
Thomas. THE LIFE OF JOHN THOMAS, Surgeon of the
"Earl of Oxford" East Indiaman, and First Baptist Missionary to
Bengal. By C. B. LEWIS, Baptist Missionary. 8vo. 1os. 6d.
Thompson.-HISTORY OF ENGLAND. BY EDITH THOMP-
SON. Being Vol. II. of the Historical Course for Schools, Edited
by EDWARD A. FREEMAN, D.C.L. New Edition, revised and
enlarged, with Maps. 18mo. 2s. 6d.
***
"Freedom from prejudice, simplicity of style, and accuracy of state-
ment, are the characteristics of this volume. It is a trustworthy text-book,
and likely to be generally serviceable in schools."—Pall Mall Gazette.
"In its great accuracy and correctness of detail it stands far ahead of the
general run of school manuals. Its arrangement, too, is clear, and its
style simple and straightforward."-SATURDAY REVIEW.
Todhunter.—THE CONFLICT OF STUDIES ; AND
OTHER ESSAYS ON SUBJECTS CONNECTED WITH
EDUCATION. By ISAAC TODHUNTER, M.A., F.R.S., late
Fellow and Principal Mathematical Lecturer of St. John's College,
Cambridge. 8vo. IOS. 6d.
CONTENTS :—1. The Conflict of Studies. II. Competitive Exa-
minations. III. Private Study of Mathematics. IV. Academical
Reform. V. Elementary Geometry. VI. The Mathematical Tripos.
Trench (Archbishop).—For other Works by the same Author,
see THEOLOGICAL and BELLES LETTRES CATALOGUES, and
page 30 of this Catalogue.
GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS IN GERMANY, and other Lectures
on the Thirty Years' War. Second Edition, revised and enlarged.
Fcap. 8vo. 45."
PLUTARCH, HIS LIFE, HIS LIVES, AND HIS MORALS.
Five Lectures. Second Edition, enlarged. Fcap. 8vo. 3s. 6d.
LECTURES ON MEDIEVAL CHURCH HISTORY. Being
the substance of Lectures delivered in Queen's College, London.
8vo. I25.
1
26 MACMILLAN'S CATALOGUE OF WORKS IN
Trench (Maria).—THE LIFE OF ST. TERESA. BY MARIA
TRENCH. With Portrait engraved by JEENS. Crown 8vo. cloth
extra. 8s. 6d.
"A book of rare interest.”—JOHN BULL.
Trench (Mrs. R.)-REMAINS OF THE LATE MRS.
RICHARD TRENCH. Being Selections from her Journals,
Letters, and other Papers. Edited by ARCHBISHOP TRENCH.
New and Cheaper Issue, with Portrait. 8vo. 6s.
Trollope.—A HISTORY OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF
FLORENCE FROM THE EARLIEST INDEPENDENCE
OF THE COMMUNE TO THE FALL OF THE REPUBLIC
IN 1831. By T. ADOLPHUS TROLLOPE. 4 Vols. 8vo. Half
morocco. 2IS.
Uppingham by the Sea.-A NARRATIVE OF THE
YEAR AT BORTH. By J. H. S. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
Wallace.-THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO: the Land of the
Orang Utan and the Bird of Paradise. By ALFRED RUSSEL
WALLACE. A Narrative of Travel with Studies of Man and
Nature. With Maps and numerous Illustrations. Fifth Edition.
Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d.
"The result is a vivid picture of tropical life, which may be read with
unflagging interest, and a sufficient account of his scientific conclusions to
stimulate our appetite without wearying us by detail. In short, we may
safely say that we have never read a more agreeable book of its kind."-
SATURDAY REVIEW.
Ward.—A HISTORY OF ENGLISH DRAMATIC LITERA-
TURE TO THE DEATH OF QUEEN ANNE. By A. W.
WARD, M.A., Professor of History and English Literature in
Owens College, Manchester. Two Vols.
8vo. 32s.
As full of interest as of information. To students of aramatic
literature invaluable, and may be equally recommended to readers for
mere pastime."-PALL MALL GAZETTE.
-Ward (J.)—EXPERIENCES OF A DIPLOMATIST. Being
recollections of Germany founded on Diaries kept during the years
1840-1870. By JOHN WARD, C.B., late H.M. Minister-
Resident to the Hanse Towns. 8vo.
IOS. 6d.
Wedgwood.-JOHN WESLEY AND THE EVANGELICAL
REACTION of the Eighteenth Century. By JULIA WEDGWOOD.
Crown 8vo. 8s. 6d.
“In style and intellectual power, in breadth of view and clearness of
insight, Miss Wedgwood's book far surpasses all rivals."—ATHENÆUM.
HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, TRAVELS, ETC. 27
Whewell.-WILLIAM WHEWELL, D.D., late Master of
Trinity College, Cambridge. An Account of his Writings, with
Selections from his Literary and Scientific Correspondence.
I. TODHUNTER, M.A., F.R.S. Two Vols. 8vo. 25s.
By
White.-THE NATURAL HISTORY AND ANTIQUITIES
OF SELBORNE. By GILBERT WHITE. Edited, with Memoir
GILBert White.
and Notes, by FRANK BUCKLAND, A Chapter on Antiquities by
LORD SELBORNE, Map, &c., and numerous Illustrations by
P. H. DELAMOTTE. Royal 8vo. Cloth, extra gilt. Cheaper
Issue. 2IS.
Also a Large Paper Edition, containing, in addition to the above,
upwards of Thirty Woodburytype Illustrations from Drawings by
Prof. DELAMOTTE. Two Vols. 4to. Half morocco, elegant. 41. 45.
‘Mr. Delamotte's charming illustrations are a worthy decoration of so
aainty a book. They bring Selborne before us, and really help us to
understand why White's love for his native place never grew cold.".
66
TIMES.
Wilson.—A
A MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON, M. D.,
F.R.S.E., Regius Professor of Technology in the University of
Edinburgh. By his SISTER. New Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s.
"An exquisite and touching portrait of a rare and beautiful spirit.”–
GUARDIAN.
Wilson (Daniel, LL.D.)—Works by DANIEL WILSON,
LL.D., Professor of History and English Literature in University
College, Toronto :-
PREHISTORIC ANNALS OF SCOTLAND. New Edition,
with numerous Illustrations. Two Vols. demy 8vo. 365.
"One of the most interesting, learned, and elegant works we have
seen for a long time."-WESTMINSTER REVIEW.
PREHISTORIC MAN: Researches into the Origin of Civilization
in the Old and New World. New Edition, revised and enlarged
throughout, with numerous Illustrations and two Coloured Plates.
Two Vols. 8vo. 36s.
"A valuable work pleasantly written and well worthy of attention
both by students and general readers."-ACADEMY.
CHATTERTON: A Biographical Study. By DANIEL WILSON,
LL.D., Professor of History and English Literature in University
College, Toronto. Crown 8vo. 6s. 6d.
Wyatt (Sir M. Digby).—FINE ART: a Sketch of its
History, Theory, Practice, and application to Industry. A Course
of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge. By
Sir M. DIGBY WYATT, M. A. Slade Professor of Fine Art.
Cheaper Issue. 8vo.
8vo. 5s.
MACMILLAN'S CATALOGUE OF
"The
"An excellent handbook for the student of art.”--GRAPHIC.
book abounds in valuable matter, and will therefore be read with
pleasure and profit by lovers of art."-DAILY NEWS.
28
Yonge (Charlotte M.)-Works by CHARLOTTE M. YONGE,
Author of "The Heir of Redclyffe," &c. &c. :
A PARALLEL HISTORY OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND:
consisting of Outlines and Dates. Oblong 4to. 3s. 6d.
CAMEOS FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. From Rollo to Edward
II. Extra fcap. 8vo. Third Edition. 5s.
A SECOND SERIES, THE WARS IN FRANCE. Extra fcap.
8vo. Third Edition. 5s.
A THIRD SERIES, THE WARS OF THE ROSES. Extra
fcap. 8vo. 5s.
“Instead of dry details," says the NONCONFORMIST, "we have living
pictures, faithful, vivid, and striking."
Young (Julian Charles, M.A.)-A MEMOIR OF
CHARLES MAYNE YOUNG, Tragedian, with Extracts
from his Son's Journal. By JULIAN CHARLES YOUNG, M. A.
Rector of Ilmington. With Portraits and Sketches. New and
Cheaper Edition, Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d.
"In this budget of anecdotes, fables, and gossip, old and new, relative to
Scott, Moore, Chalmers, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Croker, Mathews, the
third and fourth Georges, Bowles, Beckford, Lockhart, Wellington, Peel,
Louis Napoleon, D'Orsay, Dickens, Thackeray, Louis Blanc, Gibson,
Constable, and Stanfield, etc. etc., the reader must be hard indeed to please
who cannot find entertainment."-PALL MALL GAZETTE.
WORKS IN POLITICS, ETC,
29
POLITICS, POLITICAL AND SOCIAL
ECONOMY, LAW, AND KINDRED
SUBJECTS.
Anglo Saxon Law.-ESSAYS IN. Contents: Law Courts
-Land and Family Laws and Legal Procedure generally. With
Select cases.
Medium 8yo. 18s.
Ball.-THE STUDENT'S GUIDE TO THE BAR. By
WALTER W. BALL, M. A., of the Inner Temple, Barrister-at-
Law. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.
"The student will here find a clear statement of the several steps by
which the degree of barrister is obtained, and also useful advice about
the advantages of a prolonged course of reading in Chambers.””.
ACADEMY.
G
Bernard.-FOUR LECTURES ON SUBJECTS CONNECTED
WITH DIPLOMACY. BY MONTAGUE BERNARD, M.A.,
Chichele Professor of International Law and Diplomacy, Oxford.
8vo. 9s.
"Singularly interesting lectures, so able, clear, and attractive."-SPEC-
TATOR.
Bright (John, M.P.)-SPEECHES ON QUESTIONS OF
PUBLIC POLICY. By the Right Hon. JOHN BRIGHT, M.P.
Edited by Professor THOROLD ROGERS. Author's Popular Edition.
Globe 8vo. 35. 6d.
"Mr. Bright's speeches will always deserve to be studied, as an
apprenticeship to popular and parliamentary oratory; they will form
materials for the history of our time, and many brilliant passages,
perhaps some entire speeches, will really become a part of the living litera-
ture of England."-DAILY NEWS.
LIBRARY EDITION. Two Vols. 8vo. With Portrait. 25s.
Bucknill.-HABITUAL DRUNKENNESS AND INSANE
DRUNKARDS. By J. C. BuUCKNILL, M.D., F.R.S., late
Lord Chancellor's Visitor of Lunatics. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.
Cairnes. Works by J. E. CAIRNES, M. A., Emeritus Professor of
Political Economy in University College, London.
ESSAYS IN POLITICAL ECONOMY, THEORETICAL
and APPLIED. By J. E. CAIRNES, M.A., Professor of Political
Economy in University College, London. 8vo. 10s. 6d.
"The production of one of the ablest of living economists.”—ATHE-
NÆUM.
30
MACMILLAN'S CATALOGUE OF
Cairnes.-continued.
POLITICAL ESSAYS. 8vo. IOS. 6d.
The SATURDAY REVIEW says:-"We recently expressed our high
admiration of the former volume; and the present one is no less remark-
able for the qualities of clear statement, sound logic, and candid treat-
ment of opponents which were conspicuous in its predecessor. . We
may safely say that none of Mr. Mill's many disciples is a worthier repre-
sentative of the best qualities of their master than Professor Cairnes."
SOME LEADING PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY
NEWLY EXPOUNDED. 8vo. 145.
CONTENTS :-Part I. Value. Part II. Labour and Capital. Part
III. International Trade.
"A work which is perhaps the most valuable contribution to the science
made since the publication, a quarter of a century since, of Mr. Mill's
'Principles of Political Economy.""-DAILY NEWS.
THE CHARACTER AND LOGICAL METHOD OF POLI-
TICAL ECONOMY. New Edition, enlarged. 8vo. 7s. 6d.
"These lectures are admirably fitted to correct the slipshod generaliza-
tions which pass current as the science of Political Economy.”—TIMES.
Clarke.-EARLY ROMAN LAW. THE REGAL PERIOD.
By E. C. CLARKE, M. A., of Lincoln's Inn, Barrister-at-Law,
Lecturer in Law and Regius Professor of Civil Law at Cam-
bridge. Crown 8vo. 5s.
("
'Mr. Clarke has brought together a great mass of valuable matter in
an accessible form."-SATURDAY REVIEW.
Cobden (Richard).-SPEECHES ON QUESTIONS OF
PUBLIC POLICY. BY RICHARD COBDEN. Edited by the
Right Hon. John Bright, M.P., and J. E. Thorold Rogers.
Popular Edition. 8vo.
Fawcett.-Works by HENRY FAWCETT, M.A., M. P., Fellow of
Trinity Hall, and Professor of Political Economy in the University
of Cambridge :-
3s. 6d.
THE ECONOMIC POSITION OF THE BRITISH
LABOURER. Extra fcap. 8vo. 5s.
MANUAL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. Fifth Edition, with
New Chapters on the Depreciation of Silver, etc. Crown 8vo.
125.
The DAILY NEWS says: "It forms one of the best introductions to the
principles of the science, and to its practical applications in the problems
of modern, and especially of English, government and society."
PAUPERISM: ITS CAUSES AND REMEDIES. Crown 8vo.
5s. 6d.
The ATHENÆUM calls the work "a repertory of interesting and well
digested information."
WORKS IN POLITICS, ETC.
31
Fawcett.-continued.
SPEECHES ON SOME CURRENT POLITICAL QUES-
TIONS. 8vo.
IOS. 6d.
(C
They will help to educate, not perhaps, parties, but the educators of
parties."-DAILY NEWS.
ESSAYS ON POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SUBJECTS. By
PROFESSOR FAWCETT, M.P., and MILLICENT GARRETT
FAWCETT. 8vo. IOS. 6d.
""
They will all repay the perusal of the thinking reader."-DAILY
NEWS.
FREE TRADE AND PROTECTION: an Inquiry into the
Causes which have retarded the general adoption of Free Trade
since its introduction into England. 8vo. 75. 6d.
"No greater service can be rendered to the cause of Free Trade than a
clear explanation of the principles on which Free Trade rests. Pro-
fessor Fawcett has done this in the volume before us with all his habitual
clearness of thought and expression."-ECONOMIST.
Fawcett (Mrs.)—Works by MILLICENT Garrett Fawcett.
POLITICAL ECONOMY FOR BEGINNERS. WITH QUES-
TIONS. New Edition. 18mo. 2s. 6d.
The DAILY NEWS calls it "clear, compact, and comprehensive;" and
the SPECTATOR says, "Mrs. Fawcett's treatise is perfectly suited to its
purpose."
TALES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY.
Crown 8vo. 35.
"The idea is a good one, and it is quite wonderful what a mass of
economic teaching the author manages to compress into a small space... The
true doctrines of International Trade, Currency, and the ratio between
Production and Population, are set before us and illustrated in a masterly
manner."-ATHENÆUM.
Freeman (E. A.), M.A., D.C.L.-COMPARATIVE
POLITICS. Lectures at the Royal Institution, to which is
added "The Unity of History," being the Rede Lecture delivered
at Cambridge in 1872. 8vo. 145.
"We find in Mr. Freeman's new volume the same sound, careful,
comprehensive qualities which have long ago raised him to so high a place
amongst historical writers. For historical discipline, then, as well as
historical information, Mr. Freeman's book is full of value."-PALL
MALL GAZETTE.
Goschen.-REPORTS AND SPEECHES ON LOCAL TAXA-
TION. BY GEORGE J. GOSCHEN, M. P. Royal 8vo. 55.
"The volume contains a vast mass of information of the highest value.”
-ATHENEUM.
32
MACMILLAN'S CATALOGUE OF
Guide to the Unprotected, in Every Day Matters Re-
lating to Property and Income. By a BANKER'S DAUGHTER.
Fourth Edition, Revised. Extra fcap. 8vo.
3s. 6d.
"Many an unprotected female will bless the head which planned and
the hand which compiled this admirable little manual. This book
was very much wanted, and it could not have been better done.".
MORNING STAR.
}
•
Hamilton.-MONEY AND VALUE: an Inquiry into the
Means and Ends of Economic Production, with an Appendix
on the Depreciation of Silver and Indian Currency. By ROWLAND
HAMILTON. 8vo. I25.
"The subject is here dealt with in a luminous style, and by presenting
it from a new point of view in connection with the nature and functions
of money, a genuine service has been rendered to commercial science.".
BRITISH QUARTERLY REVIEW.
Harwood.DISESTABLISHMENT: a Defence of the Principle
of a National Church. By GEORGE HARWOOD, M. A. 8vo. 12s.
Hill.-Works by OCTAVIA HILL :-
HOMES OF THE LONDON POOR. Extra fcap. 8vo. 3s. 6d.
"She is clear, practical, and definite.”—GLOBE.
OUR COMMON LAND; and other Short Essays. Extra fcap.
8vo. 3s. 6d.
CONTENTS:-Our Common Land. District Visiting. A More
Excellent Way of Charity. A Word on Good Citizenship. Open Spaces.
Effectual Charity. The Future of our Commons.
Historicus.-LETTERS ON SOME QUESTIONS OF
INTERNATIONAL LAW. Reprinted from the Times, with
considerable Additions. 8vo. 7s. 6d. Also, ADDITIONAL
LETTERS. 8vo.
2s. 6d.
Holland. THE TREATY RELATIONS OF RUSSIA AND
TURKEY FROM 1774 TO 1853. A Lecture delivered at Oxford,
April 1877. By T. E. HOLLAND, D.C.L., Professor of Inter-
national Law and Diplomacy, Oxford. Crown 8vo. 25.
Hughes (Thos.)—THE OLD CHURCH: WHAT SHALL
WE DO WITH IT? BY THOMAS HUGHES, Q.C. Crown
8vo. 6s.
Jevons.-Works by W. STANLEY JEVONS, M.A., Professor of
Political Economy in University College, London. (For other
Works by the same Author, see EDUCATIONAL and PHILO-
SOPHICAL CATALOGUES.)
(
WORKS IN POLITICS, ETC.
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THE COAL QUESTION: An Inquiry Concerning the Progress
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Paterson.-THE LIBERTY OF THE SUBJECT AND THE
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Mayor.-A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL CLUE TO LATIN LITE-
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HISTORICAL OUTLINES OF ENGLISH ACCIDENCE,
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Peile (John, M.A.)—AN INTRODUCTION TO GREEK
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Roby (H. J.)-A GRAMMAR OF THE LATIN LANGUAGE, -
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ETRUSCAN RESEARCHES.
With Woodcuts. 8vo. 14s.
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WORDS AND PLACES; or, Etymological Illustrations of
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SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. Eighth Edition,
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Whitney.-A COMPENDIOUS GERMAN GRAMMAR. By
W. D. WHITNEY, Professor of Sanskrit and Instructor in Modern
Languages in Yale College. Crown 8vo. 65.
..
After careful examination we are inclined to pronounce it the best
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Cheaper Edition. Two Vols. Crown 8vo.
125.
R. CLAY SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS, LONDON.
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